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Your views: on city council meetings, land tax and the River Murray

Today, readers comment on city council moves to cut back on meetings and costly councillor dinners, the State Government’s land tax changes, and the state of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Jul 22, 2019, updated Jul 23, 2019
Readers weren't impressed with a Town Hall plan to reduce the number of meetings.

Readers weren't impressed with a Town Hall plan to reduce the number of meetings.

Commenting on the story: City council considers cutting meetings, dinners

Ro dick around with fewer meetings heads the city council down the path of discord instead of public discourse. Yet another bad idea. There is no value cutting meetings and shutting the door on the media and public. Cutting meetings can’t clothe the council in transparency crucial for elected local governance. – Elbert Brooks

I suggest that the Adelaide City Council, parliament and anybody else who is given “free” dinners at taxpayer or ratepayer expense should have a budget that is the same given to people in nursing homes for their meals. That would be around $15/day at the high end of what is granted to feed these human beings. Many are fed on a budget of more like $7/day.

If the councillors, the MPs and the civil servants are not happy with that, we will have learned the useful lesson that what we are doing to people in nursing homes is a criminal act by our society against the elderly. – Cathy Chua

Bring back the pie cart, directly outside the Town Hall, or send someone out for fish and chips.Mike Lesiw

Comment on the story: “We’re wasting our time in this state”: Liberal heartland turns on Lucas

There’s nothing fair about taxing a property at a higher rate simply because the owner also owns another property. At the end of the day, this impost will be passed on to the tenants one way or the other.

It’s another unfair and non-competitive cost of doing business in this state. – Chris Brougham

Commenting on the story: Murray Darling Basin Drought worst on record

Climate change is real and is ravaging the Murray Darling Basin. Climatically, this contrasts with the start of the year when there were devastating floods in northern Queensland that caused widespread damage – costed at about $2 billion – which included the drowning of thousands of livestock.

There is a pattern occurring here where climatic extremes are becoming more frequent. This is not part of a natural pattern but the result of human-induced climate change – a phrase our Prime Minister is most reluctant to use. Recently the leader of the Catholic faith, Pope Francis, and interstate, the Wagga City Council, both declared climate emergencies. The evidence presented by climate scientists and by the extreme climate events now occurring is overwhelming. The jury is in and the verdict is that we are now in the grip of a climate-changing world.

It is all too clear rural and regional communities are being devastated by these extreme climate events. Farmers are suffering a massive loss of production hence income, the effects of which ripple through entire regional communities. The northern Queensland flood prompted the Federal Government to provide grants to stricken farmers of up to $400,000 each to help them recover. It is an indicator of what the future holds and as the effects of climate change become more pronounced, it raises the question as to whether there will be enough taxpayers’ funds to assist with all these extreme climate events.

The Federal Government has no other option but to adopt climate change mitigation strategies which means reducing the quantity of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, being released into the atmosphere. The logic of not engaging in mitigation because other polluting countries such as China are not reducing their emissions belongs in the schoolyard. Climate scientists have indicated that large areas of China will become uninhabitable later this century on current trends due to global warming. As the Chinese are a pragmatic bunch of people, they will be eventually forced to act.

Now is the time for our Federal Government to implement climate change mitigation strategies. Failure to do so will see this Federal Government condemned by history but only after it has condemned all citizens of this country to the effects of global warming. – Mark Jones

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