If there was any need of further evidence to support Australia's former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane’s claim that “race politics is back”, then Fraser Anning’s hateful maiden speech in the Senate was it.
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It was appalling to hear Anning call for the return of the White Australia Policy and use the phrase ‘the final solution to the immigration problem...” I had hoped our MPs were better than that. But how have we reached this point?
Our government has been rabid with dog-whistling and race-baiting to win votes. The vile commentary about ‘African gangs running riot in Melbourne’, fueled by Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton is becoming the norm in our discussions about race in Australia.
Enough is enough. It is our moral responsibility to stand up to racism in the interests of equity. We need to take care of the minorities in our country who are targeted for no reason other than the colour of their skin or religious beliefs. Our lives are made stronger by the contributions of these people and the greatest threat to our Australia is not a multicultural society but rather those who seek to undermine and divide us. Fraser Anning is not fit to serve in our parliament. He must apologise or resign.
Damian Gill, East Albury
Many ways to store it
Graeme Scott (‘Gas, coal generated power’, The Border Mail letters, August 13) is aware that energy can be stored in batteries, but he is clearly not aware that energy can be stored in other ways. For instance, a Concentrated Solar Power plant heats molten salts during the day and produces electricity at night. The world’s largest plant of this type is to be built at Port Augusta.
Pumped hydro, where water is pumped up hill when energy is available and released through turbines to generate electricity when required, is another method. ANU is currently investigating pumped hydro sites to provide all the electricity storage that Australia would need for 100 per cent renewables. Note that the same water is pumped up and released many times.
Hydrogen is another means of storing and transporting energy. There is a $400 million project under way in the Latrobe Valley to produce hydrogen from water, using brown coal as the energy source. The hydrogen from the Latrobe Valley will be converted to ammonia and shipped to Japan using standard gas tankers. In Japan it will be re-converted to hydrogen as a source of energy. Instead of using coal as the energy source, renewable energy could be used instead for electrolysis of water, whenever the sun shines or the wind blows.
The cost of utility scale solar is already below the cost of coal-fired electricity and it is still dropping. Even with the additional costs of pumped hydro or hydrogen production it will still be competitive with coal, so why not?
Bruce Key, Wodonga
Get up and go
The united opposition of Australia’s politicians to Fraser Anning’s maiden speech seems to be cause for great celebration. But I wonder why it was that those sitting in the Senate listening to the diatribe didn’t do the honourable thing and just walk out. That would have sent a far more powerful and immediate message to Australians that they understand, we deserve better.
