Relationships at risk
THREE separate inquiries in recent years, by the Federal senate and the NSW and Victorian governments, have condemned the failure of the law to protect the relationship of donor conceived children with their biological father/mother.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
These inquiries were demanded by these children wanting to find their biological family and to know their full biological identity.
They are a generation who have had their relationship with their family broken.
They have been denied their birthright to their biological identity.
Why would the Federal government pass a same sex marriage law that would, in a similar way, break the deep biological relationship between a child and his/her biological mother/father, brothers, sisters, grandparents?
If same sex marriage were legislated will the Federal government eventually have to apologise for breaking the relationship between yet another generation of children and their biological mother/father and family?
DR IAN DENNESS,
Indigo Valley
Sugar drinks not to blame
I REFER to “Extra levy on sugar drinks” (The Border Mail, July 14), which reports that UK doctors have called for a 20 per cent levy to be imposed on sugary drinks to tackle the obesity epidemic.
As the CEO of the association representing the beverages industry in this country, I believe it is important to point out that combating obesity is more complicated than curbing the consumption of one product.
When we look at sugary drinks consumption in Australia, three out of four of the top-selling soft drinks in Australia are diet and low kJ, and the amount of sugar consumed through soft drinks has already dropped in recent years in Australia – however obesity continues to rise.
A tax on one food or drink should not be promoted as the solution to poor dietary habits, when evidence from other countries show that this type of tax does not deliver long term societal changes.
In fact, the majority of countries who have introduced a sugar tax have subsequently repealed the levy.
GEOFF PARKER,
CEO, Australian Beverages Council
Nationals, Where Are You?
MICK McGlone in his opinion piece on the Nationals (The Border Mail, July 21) ends with the question "Tim Fischer, where are you now that we need you?"
One really has to question the role of the Nationals as the great "defenders of the bush".
Tim Fischer's defence of CSG and the Shenhua Watermark coal mine on ABC's Q&A shows that when it comes to major decisions the Nationals silently follow the senior Coalition partner's directives.
This is shown in the way Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce was not even consulted about the decision in his own electorate.
Former Nationals leaders John Anderson and Mark Vaile have retired from Parliament to nice positions on the boards of mining companies such as Whitehaven (responsible for the Werris Creek mine).
Present Nationals leader Warren Truss seems to have disappeared "on leave" during the controversy.
The silence from the Nationals is almost as deafening as their response when Tony Abbott announced that his government would not support Shepparton SPC, or Indonesia's recent massive cuts to imports of Australian beef.
When was the last time the Nationals actually stood up to the senior Coalition partner?
As my old dirt farming grandfather once noted that the Country Party (Nationals) were "of the squattocracy and for the squattocracy".
