Retail tragedy
With the emphasis firmly fixed on 'our poor farmers' doing it tough with drought,fires and all sorts of pestilence orchestrated by the almighty, I feel that a section of our community has been, to put it kindly, overlooked, or more accurately ignored, and that is the retail workers that have been thrown on to the scrap heap on the whim of their collective employers.
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In the first fortnight of 2020, 161 stores across Australia closed their doors. Add this to the 9300 stores that closed during 2019 and we are talking serious numbers of people unemployed.
What is the future for these people?
No truck loads of food to help them get by, no government handouts, apart from the miserly New Start allowance.
No pledges from local members to stand up for their plight in parliament, none of that.
What these people have to look forward to is struggling on Newstart and being lambasted after a few months of unsuccessful job searching with others in the same predicament as being "dole bludgers" who have only themselves to blame as they have "chosen" the life they are living.
A lot of these people will be of middle age and finding new skills at that time of life is not easy, take it from one who knows only too well, and they need every bit of support from Government and the community as our needy farmers.
William McILwain, Minyip
Worsening water crisis
In the 1930s the Bradfield scheme was presented. I wonder if it is time to revisit this idea?
Cliff Fraser, Skipton
Pork barrelling and rorts
As we have seen, pork barrelling and rorts are still rife and integrity along with ethical standards is low. This means the safer the seat you live in the less you get whereas with a marginal seat you have a better chance. This is unfortunately the reality and a lot of communities suffer as a result.
Barry Shea, Horsham
Persecution of Christians
"Open Doors" is a highly regarded Christian organisation and every year it publishes a list known as the "World Watch List" which contains the top fifty countries in the world where Christians are persecuted simply for being Christian.
This year's list with the statistics for 2019 has just been released. For the 19th successive year North Korea is top of the list, and if any Christians are discovered they (and possibly the members of their family) are deported to slave labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot.
Of the 50 countries 34 are Islamic republics, in many of which Christians may be imprisoned and even sentenced to death for their faith.
Altogether some 2,983 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons which is an average of 8 every day, and many more were imprisoned or rejected by their family.
For us in Australia we should always be thankful for the freedoms which we enjoy, and that we can espouse any religion without fear of persecution or punishment.
