Letters

Sun Herald

Sunday February 10, 2008

Costello should just cut and run

RATHER than lounging like a vengeful schoolboy, cowardly leaking and undermining the Opposition Leader until he thinks the time is right for a challenge, Peter Costello should just cut and run now ("Costello's very public job hunt peters out", The Sun-Herald, February 3).

It's obvious Costello did not read the polls at the last election that said emphatically he was about as popular as AIDS and that people did not like or, above all, trust him.

On top of that, it is obvious Costello has no ticker, otherwise he would have had the guts to challenge John Howard when he should have and not flagged his intention to resign and join the commercial sector like a sulky kid, rather than fight it out.

Throw in the fact that he was an architect of WorkChoices and his smug, arrogant, dismissive manner, and you have someone who is basically unelectable.

We don't need you, mate. Some greedy merchant bank's gain is our loss, I'm sure. Bon voyage.

TONY CARROLL

Wyoming

Houses are too big

IT IS daunting to think 300,000 Australians could lose their homes due to the rising interest rates and unaffordable credit (The Sun-Herald, February 3). Forty years ago it was much easier when homes were smaller, with one bathroom, three bedrooms, no double garages and a small TV in the lounge room.

If the homes today were as small as they used to be, perhaps the mortgages would be smaller and a lesser burden on home buyers. On the other hand, perhaps nobody would buy them because there is such a demand for the double garage, extra bathrooms and home cinemas.

ROBYN LEWIS

Raglan

Much further to fall

THE simple but unpalatable fact is that house prices in Australia are too high when compared with incomes. No amount of "creative" financial planning can get around it, unless real mortgage rates are exceptionally low.

Consider that, on US figures, the median sale price for an existing single family home was $US217,800 last year and about $US221,500 in 2006 (which was the highest median ever in that country).

That means half the US sales nationwide over the past two years have been for less than $US220,000. The median income in $US is higher than ours is in $A.

Many US financial commentators are warning that an unsustainable real-estate price bubble has just peaked there and are afraid that prices will fall significantly in the next year or so.

Maybe we should be more worried - our prices have a lot further to fall.

ALEX HEWAT

Torrens, ACT

School zones wrong

THE 40 kmh zones near schools are totally unrealistic, particularly on roads where there is good vision. We all know that, but few politicians have the guts to say so.

The police also know that and can always get their quotas very easily by simply hanging around schools. Safety is not the issue. Why not make it 10 kmh and save even more lives?

Also, many of us feel we are doing the right thing by using public transport instead of using our cars but resent having to buy an expensive E-tag reader for our once- or twice-a-year drive on a toll road.

DAVID WYKMAN

Balmain

Inane babbling

AS A member of our US high school's marching band, I found Colin Scotts's 10-point "Too good to miss" (The Sun-Herald, February 3) mildly amusing. As a media-savvy gridiron football fan, I found his blathering on TV when the much-touted super ads should have appeared annoying.

In my 35 years as an Australian resident and now citizen, I have come to love cricket in all its forms and have affection for the Manly Sea Eagles and Sydney Swans.

I do not begrudge those who follow and adore rugby union and would never try to ruin their enjoyment of the game by babbling inanely during the breaks in play. Why did Scotts do just that during the most enthralling Super Bowl?

J. ALICE HOFLER

Dee Why

Stick with tap water

"WHAT'S wrong with a drink from the tap?" (Sunday Life, The Sun-Herald, February 3) identified four important misconceptions about bottled water. It's no different from tap water; it's 1000 times dearer; the manufacturing process is water-inefficient, using more tap water to produce the bottled water; and the process is not environmentally clean, emitting 60,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.

Healthy living does not require hurting the family budget or harming the planet, so stay with the natural proven product - tap water.

DON FRASER

Vaucluse

Not a good idea

AS A society we have failed the Hussains (The Sun-Herald, February 3). The family of five are forced to live in cramped conditions because we failed to instil in Mr Hussain the knowledge that it is a really bad idea when you are 58 and "disabled and ill from an accident" to father three children in the next six years.

We also failed to alert Mrs Hussain to the fact that it is a really bad idea, when you are 33 and married to a man who cannot work, to bear three children in the next six years. I feel sorry for the children as it is not their fault the family is in this predicament.

However, it is not the fault of the taxpayers either, who will eventually be forced to provide them with public housing while battling to fund their own mortgages.

How do we convince people not to have children unless they can afford them? How do we convince people that society does not owe them a house if they do? Unfortunately I have no solution to the problem.

KAYE EAGLE

Cherrybrook

They don't add up

I HAVE no axe to grind with the two letter writers (Your View, The Sun-Herald, February 3) about the relative values of public and private education, but I must point out the danger of generalisations in making their claims.

Even when you have schools' vital statistics (whatever they may be) the issue remains unresolved - in the same way as trying to grade teachers.

I'm sure there are extremely good schools - and not so good, unfortunately - in both systems and, as usual, comparisons are odious. But, in the end, it must be left to parents themselves to decide.

JOHN MOIR

Mollymook

Double standards

SO THE trade in dead racehorses for dinner is "a gruesome trade in horseflesh" (The Sun-Herald, February 3). Does this mean we can now, at last, consider the industry involved in selling dead cows, sheep, and kangaroos "a gruesome trade in animal flesh"?

Should we expect a rash of vegetarianism to break out among those who, until you exposed this trade, thought that meat grew under cellophane in supermarket freezers? The double standards of meat eaters never fails to amaze me.

TAFF THOMAS

Cook, ACT

Horses no different

I REALLY don't understand why eating horses is seen to be cruel and inhumane when we eat a whole lot of other equally intelligent domestic animals. If the horse is going to be put down anyway, it doesn't make any difference to it if it is later eaten. Around the world there are all sorts of incredible animal species facing extinction due to destruction of habitats. If only animal welfare activists directed their energy to stopping this much greater tragedy.

JAKKI TRENBATH

Dulwich Hill

Nothing to be proud of

I WAS offended by Miranda Devine's article "Our proud cricketers ..." (The Sun-Herald, February 3). Andrew Symonds's appalling "we don't want to be friendly to our opponents" and his total lack of sportsmanship in not leaving the field after clearly being out were outrageous.

Devine appears to condone sledging, bullying, arrogance, ignorance and very bad manners.

TONY SIMONS

Henley

© 2008 Sun Herald

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