Northern Daily Leader letters to the editor

I know that prevention is the best medicine and I also know that doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is to quote Mark Twain "insane''. My pills potions and kidney machines are enormously expensive and prolong life but will never change the underlying structural and social problems that affect the health of Aboriginal people.

The Uluru statement, developed by those affected has given us a different path. I am appalled to hear that Aboriginal children have more chance of going to goal than university.

The voice despite the fear campaigns is just an advisory body. If this referendum fails, I will feel diminished as an Australian but it will make little material difference to me. If it succeeds it has the potential to make a significant difference to an extremely disadvantaged group. The world did not implode when Australians voted yes for gay equality and will not implode if we allow a mechanism for Aboriginal Australians to advise on matters that affect them.

Please try to walk in the shoes of those aboriginal Australians who gave us the Uluru statement, vote for a change in direction, vote Yes.

Dr Steve May, Tamworth

So what's after the Voice. Will this thing continue to develop into a fair thing for all Australians or will it just develop into something beneficial for some Australians. I don't want to look at Indigenous people as Indigenous people, and the same for other races in this country. I want to look at these people, first and foremost as Australians nothing more, nothing less, and that's what we all should be pushing for.

Once you start making amendments for certain races, being good or bad, that always puts people at loggerheads with each other. I love our Indigenous people but the past is the past and we must all look towards the future as one people, Australians.

Phillip Jones, Moonbi

As I recently spoke a eulogy for my mother and read her story of her childhood at her funeral, I was struck by how lucky she was, despite living in a timber slab hut with dirt floors and hessian bag ceilings where rats would run, with the six children in one bed throwing shoes at the hessian to frighten them away. No modern conveniences, but fresh air, enough to eat, and a future to look forward to. My children live every day knowing that our governments are not doing enough to allow them a decent future. House prices impossibly out of reach, bushfires and floods increasing, the natural environment being destroyed. No wonder suicide is the leading cause of death for our young people.

Climate heating and its effects are escalating. We are seriously running out of time to maintain a viable world. The latest Intergenerational Report shows our government to be well aware of the impacts of climate change. Yet our politicians continue to fund fossil fuel companies and sell fossil fuels to other countries as if we are not impacted by the consequences from the other side of the same world. Our children will be the ones who suffer most. How will our children survive? What quality of life will they have? Surely our government has a legal and moral obligation to urgently address the issue of climate change.

Jesse Rowan, Malua Bay

Regional Australia is being asked to make the greatest contribution towards Australia's decarbonisation (getting off fossil fuels).

It's vital that proper consultation is undertaken with local communities, so the economic benefits are shared fairly, and modifications of local landscapes and natural environments are minimised.

But there's another aspect to fair sharing. According to the International Energy Agency, the top 10 per cent of emitters are responsible for almost half of global energy-related CO2 emissions. And given that the carbon footprints of capital city dwellers, especially affluent ones, are typically greater than those in the regions, an environmental tax based on high household emissions should be considered.

In his response to the recent Intergenerational Report, Dr Ken Henry, who led federal Treasury for a decade, said that taxing consumption and carbon emissions could even permit lower personal income tax.

A tax on household emissions would encourage those who live in capital city McMansions and drive "Toorak tractors" (large 4WDs), to electrify their households, install rooftop solar with a battery, and switch to EVs. Australia's emissions would fall, rather than rise as they are now. Big emitters would no longer get off scot free.

Money raised from the tax could also be used to support carbon sequestration and biodiversity restoration projects in regional areas managed by landcare groups and local governments. It could also help low-income households to make their homes more energy efficient. It's time we evened up the balance.

Ray Peck, Hawthorn

If I was unsure of the Use By date on my yoghurt Peter Dutton's "if you don't know, say no" would be helpful. But it's not at all helpful in guiding my vote in our upcoming referendum.

In other parts of my life, if I don't know, I Google reputable experts, I read, I ask people I respect for advice. I try to understand. If I always just said no, my life would be very limited indeed.

And it's limits on lives that are at stake in the upcoming Voice referendum.

The stakes are high, a point not lost on Indigenous Australians. That's why polling consistently indicates that 80 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians say 'yes' to The Voice. It provides an opportunity for them to be heard on matters that impact them.

If you're not sure that voting yes will improve the lives of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders neighbours, go to The Voice website - https://voice.gov.au/ and get in the know.

Karen Campbell, Geelong

As El Nino continues to gather strength in the Pacific scientists warn that the south will almost certainly take its turn in the coming summer to also receive shocking record breaking heat as experienced in the north, that has caused so much grief of recent times.

Unless the burning of fossil fuels to create energy js severely reduced, with considerable haste, climate related disasters, resulting from fast increasing world temperatures, can now be expected in all summers across the world.

Brian Measday, Kingswood, South Australia