Congratulations on your election to Indi, following on from Cathy McGowan, but don't tell me that yours and Cathy's election wins were about anything other than leveraging the seat for the purpose of getting money for the electorate. And you have been very successful at it.

Every funding decision made in this country by the federal government or state government is about elections and winning them. We even have advertising signs outside every project being funded, proclaiming the munificence of the incumbent government in spending our money, a fact that we are sure to remember when the next election comes around.

Any money you like that Senator McKenzie's only mistake was that the offer of membership of the gun club was such an insignificant matter and of such little monetary value, that it would not even have crossed her mind when overseeing the sports grants.

Albury itself suffers from the peculiar fate of being a safe Liberal electorate, where we have less than our "due" being spent by federal and state governments, because there is nothing in it electorally for either major party.

So please spare us the shock and horror phrases, and continue the good work in getting cash for your electorate, especially leading up to the next election.

George Krooglik's (Theories are 'alarmist', The Border Mail letters, February 15) and my differing opinions regarding the Great Barrier Reef etc are typical of the debates about man-made climate change.

I was simply relying on our government's scientific report which downgraded the reef's health outlook from "poor" to "very poor" in August 2019.

With increasing ocean temperature and acidity from the extra CO2 we are putting into the air, marine zoologists do not hold much hope for the reef to survive more than a few decades without major emissions reductions. What are we to do when faced with complex and variable information about man-made climate change?

The only safe option is to take a risk-based approach. One day coal, oil and gas will run out. If we make the transition to renewables now and the science is wrong, it just means that we have made the inevitable transition to clean energy early. The fossil fuels will still be safely underground for future use.

If, on the other hand, we assume all the climate scientists are wrong and we do nothing - but the science turns out to be correct - then we continue down a path of catastrophic warming.

As to Mr Krooglik's assertion that smoke is not pollution, I suggest fact-checking with medical professionals, or even reliable websites.

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