Your Views: Letters to the Editor on Adelaide Festival
This week, InDaily readers respond to new faces joining the Adelaide Festival board and a controversial bill to restrict late-term abortions.
Responding to Car boss, award-winning author join festival board
The three new people to join the Adelaide Festival board are far different from those who caused the demise of the Adelaide Writers’ Week and an earthquake within the Festival board. They were not given their gong because of philanthropic donation and have actual experience in arts festivals. – David Anderson
Responding to The reason why I leave shoes that aren’t mine by the front porch
I fully support the position that the writer has made. Women are definitely fobbed off when reporting concerns to any authority, especially when they seem outlandish.
It would have taken mere minutes to determine the veracity of her concerns, and it would have been resolved. Instead, resources are directed towards higher priority concerns than someone’s imagined threat to her safety. What are the police and other relevant agencies for if not to protect the interests of their clients? After all, those same clients effectively employ them.
One note, however: this could be anyone – not only a single woman, but anyone, and they would have been under the same threat. Just because there may be a male in the residence does not mean it is any less dangerous. – Robert Sibson
Responding to Game joins pro-life party as abortion debate fast-tracked
The one thing that is consistently ignored and left unmentioned in this insufferable debate for and against free abortion is the right of the child to be born wanted.
I was fortunate and blessed to have three children, whom my spouse and I wanted and loved very much. My daughter was not so fortunate, as she was dependent on warfarin, the one and only time she became pregnant.
Warfarin will either kill the foetus or give the child deformities. She was forced to make a decision she did not want to make. She had to choose abortion. As it turned out, the warfarin had killed the foetus, so the abortion procedure became a medical necessity for her.
The fact is, there can be literally thousands of reasons why a woman is faced with this decision. It is never up to the rest of us to judge whatever cause may have left her facing such a momentous decision.
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In the cases where a child could have come out of the pregnancy, it is the child’s absolute right to be born wanted. It is blatantly irrelevant why the potential child is unwanted. As I said, there are literally thousands of reasons why a woman chooses not to go on with a pregnancy, including medical reasons that pose a threat to life for mother and/or foetus, such as ectopic pregnancies and foetal deformities. The decision will only ever be a choice between the woman and her doctor. No, not even the male involved has a right to interfere.
The only two things to consider are the potential child and the woman who became pregnant. The rest of us have no right to rule over them with moral judgements that are not ours to make. – Benti Hulbert
Responding to Call made on controversial SA abortion bill
What a sad day for society. The fact that an unborn human has no rights at all simply because of its location is barbaric! No one has the right to take the life of another. A child in the womb is completely reliant on the mother to protect it and nurture it, but it is a separate being from the mother. Why do people think that a baby located inside the womb is any less human and less valuable than a baby located outside of the womb? – Danni Bailey
I agree with the Greens. This should not be a political decision ever. It should be a matter of a female’s choice. It is her body and her decision. – Heather Smith
Responding to How your MP voted on the abortion bill
If nothing else, at least this issue has brought all the religious nutters out of the closet. – Larry Moore
Responding to ‘Fear developing in a vacuum’: AI data centre concerns hit SA town
The proposal to build an AI factory at Tailem Bend seems, at first glance at least, a sound proposal. Twenty-first-century digital technologies will play a critical role in all aspects of our lives. It is precisely for this reason that communities need to be actively involved in their development.
Globally, there is a growing disquiet that we are unwittingly fostering the development of techno-feudalism that is creating a digital economy where access, visibility, and opportunity are controlled by powerful tech platforms that collect rents from everyone operating within them.
The EU has chosen to take a much more active regulatory role because digital markets affect competition, privacy, security, consumer rights, and democratic governance.
As the EU tightens rules around platforms, AI, data access, cloud assurance and cybersecurity, Australian actors will increasingly operate in a world where trusted digital governance is a condition of market participation. Australia should respond with a strategy built on three principles: interoperability, proportionality and capability.
Interoperability means aligning with international standards where possible so Australian firms can compete abroad. Proportionality means focusing sovereignty measures on areas of genuine strategic sensitivity rather than pursuing indiscriminate localisation. Capability means investing in domestic technical capacity, secure public-sector digital infrastructure and regulatory expertise.
In that context, it is important that critical decisions like building A.I. factories should not be imposed on communities but should be a product of joint decision-making. Government should not hide behind ‘commercial in confidence’ but rather should ensure the decision-making process is both inclusive and transparent. Failure to do so will simply mean that we will be sleepwalking into servitude. – Dr John Töns
Responding to Australia should boost permanent visas, not cut
An excellent article. Particularly well written and highlighting the issues of a broken immigration system, which creates much uncertainty, especially among international students. – Peter Koulizos
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Responding to Council bid to dump fossil fuel sponsor from major event
Credit to the Adelaide Hills Council for questioning Santos’ sponsorship of the Tour Down Under. During this year’s event, riders were battling temperatures above 40 degrees, and Willunga Hill had to be cut from stage four because of heat and bushfire risk. Even the soccer World Cup has now scheduled hydration breaks to help players cope with rising heat and humidity.
In short, climate change – driven by burning fossil fuels like coal and gas – is making sport harder. Santos’ gas operations contribute to that heat. Should athletes be billboards for industries that harm human health and make their sporting jobs tougher? – Anna Markey
I don’t think banning a company from sponsorship will do anything at all to change our climate. – Elizabeth Keam
Responding to ‘Sex on wheels’: New car gallery for Barossa
Leave the palm trees alone. They are magnificent. – Fran Grigg
Responding to Embattled election boss makes call on future
Moving the local government election to April 2027 is ludicrous. It will mean that the outgoing council will develop the first half of the business plan and budget, and then it will stop for at least a month’s break for the election. The brand-new elected members (who may know very little about council services, functions and funding arrangements) will come in to finish it. – Lachlan Miller
Responding to Show goes on: Arts fest hauls in millions, despite furore
And no destruction of natural habitat to achieve such a successful event! – Suzanne Laslett
Responding to ‘A lot riding’ on Pauline Hanson’s press club foray
Her speech today was one of pure hate and division. The “statistics” she plucked from all over the place were nonsensical and needed to be very carefully analysed by the so-called journalists at the event – she gave a free plug for Sky News as the mediator from Sky News gave her plenty of “get out of jail” free moments.
She behaved appallingly towards Sarah Martin from The Guardian because Sarah had the guts and tenacity to challenge her about her daughter’s jobs; she was appalling to Anna Henderson from SBS, who is so far ahead of the other journalists (except for Laura Tingle) and, of course, asks decent and probing questions.
If we are going to be real in this country, then Pauline Hanson needs to be scrutinised as harshly as the Murdoch media scrutinise (if you could call it that) the current government.
She has no compassion; there is little, if any understanding of economics – it is all so simple, and sorry to say, but we do not live in the 1950s.
Where are our journalists? Are you becoming just like America, where you are too afraid to call out appalling behaviour?
Well, I am not. That was a train wreck and an appalling attack on migrants – Muslims in particular – transgender people, and obviously, Pauline and her masters are very scared of the Labor government. However, with Gina there to pay off the media outlets and with Murdoch once again destroying factual and accurate reporting, she is getting a free ride. – Anne Pook
Responding to Thousands of signatures: Greyhound racing ban bid hits parliament
Well done. It is animal cruelty. Yes, some love their dogs and look after them, but there are many more who treat them terribly. While we are on the subject, live exports should be next in line to ban – that disgusting cruelty makes me bloody sick to the stomach; those poor animals. Animal justice seems to be last on the list – when is it going to stop? – Sue Daly
Only 11,000 signatures? So, there are a few million who did not sign it. What is that? About two per cent want it banned. Find some other industry to ruin. – Rick Boehm
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