Cathy McGowan has been on this issue since at least October 2015 and probable earlier.  Senator Hume's brochure gave no recognition of having “worked alongside Cathy McGowan” on this project which is the very reason I was annoyed.

McGowan as an independent works with both side of politics to gain the best outcome for her electorate and acknowledges the help and support she receives. It's a pity that she doesn't receive the same courtesy from Coalition senators. Well done Cathy.

With the Nationals vote now an ever-diminishing fraction of the Green vote, Nationals candidate Marty Corboy is doing very little to help his party bounce back. His piece ‘We would be foolish to leave coal behind’ (The Border Mail, June 30) contains so many errors that can’t go uncorrected.

First up is his suggestion that coal as a fuel is “clean as a whistle”. If that’s the case then where are all the clean coal-fired power stations? All we seem to have is the dirty ones. Secondly he argues that we should have some more coal-fired power stations being built in Australia. We could, except nobody is prepared to sink money into such a dodgy investment, preferring instead to invest in clean renewable energy.

He suggests that the phrase “build a coal power station in Victoria” is met with “hysteria”. No it isn’t, it’s just that nobody wants to do it because it’s a sure fire money loser.

Marty then expresses concerns that businesses on the Border “are dealing with unnecessary burdens with inadequate supply and costs that have increased 100 per cent in some cases over the last three years.” That happens to coincide with when the government that he aspires to be part of threw out the carbon tax and created an uncertain investment climate that stifled the clean energy market.

If Marty wants to supply more energy to Australia and at the same time give us a chance of meeting our international treaty commitments he would do better to recognise that the age of coal is almost over. 

It’s nearly four years since Syria’s President Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, or so they say. A ‘punitive strike’ by the US was only narrowly averted then, by an agreement to destroy all of Syria’s chemical weapon stocks.

A few months later renowned US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an article revealing that Turkish-backed ‘rebels’ were actually responsible for the attack, and that this was known to US intelligence. Hersh could not get his article published in the US, and “Whose Sarin?” was effectively suppressed. To its great credit, and as an example of its strong editorial independence, The Border Mail published my letter describing Hersh’s revelations – a letter which I believe was their only mention in all Australian media.

Well now it’s happened again, only worse. Seymour Hersh has revealed that US intelligence agencies were fully aware the Syrian government had not used chemical weapons ‘again’ this April, and tried to stop Trump’s ill-considered cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase. But so toxic is this truth – and the conclusion that Syria never used chemical weapons, even against terrorists – that Hersh could only get his article published in Germany’s Welt am Sonntag.

Astonishingly there has been no mention of Hersh’s damning revelations across Western media, and no discussion of their implications – till now – I hope.