I find it very difficult to understand the rationale behind the unexpected interest rate rise handed down by the RBA last week given the impact the previous increases have had on middle-class Australian households.
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Monetary policy has had a checkered past in controlling inflation, the complexity of our economy makes it difficult to use an outdated tool to alter all the complex variables needed to balance economic growth, inflation, international influences and unemployment.
I agree interest rates had been low for too long, creating imbalances within the housing sector and driving up the cost of accommodation in this country.
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Increasing interest rates is all about timing - the outcome can take many months to take effect; staged too close and economic growth, employment and the health of the building sector can be seriously impacted.
So far this year economic indicators seemed to be showing the previous interest rate rises were slowly taking effect, unemployment has declined to 3.5 per cent without a blowout in wages, economic growth has slowed to 2.7 per cent from 5 per cent-plus and inflation has begun to ease from 7.8 to 6.9 per cent.
Given this positive outcome and the likelihood that this trend is continuing it makes no sense at all to increase the rates at this stage. So, why?
Was the increase politically motivated or aimed at giving the banking sector another billion-dollar windfall at the expense of hardworking Australians, or was it just a careless mistake from a board that is no longer in touch?
Rob Graham, Terang
The future is now
Last Tuesday I went to an information night in Port Fairy on the preparation to locate gas reserves off Port Fairy to the Otways to start drilling, to secure future gas supplies for Victoria.
I must commend Mat on his academia presentation, where one can easily get lost in the safety net of bureaucracy feel-good environment illusions. You walk away feeling it is a done deal, the gas industry lobbyists have the government firmly in their pocket and the public must wear it.
Then you wonder about how much gas escapes through faulty equipment in the industry and what export gas does to the climate equation. Why are farmers' livestock blamed for the release of carbon when we make money out of carbon called plants? Also if plants didn't take up methane from animals to grow their cell walls, would they burn?
So how come farmers have to do the heavy lifting on carbon and methane release, when nature intended to recycle these gases only from animals?
The farming industry needs better lobbyists, like the petrochemical industry.
By rewarding and growing regenerative farming practices that is only 8 per cent of the farming community, Australia can offset our carbon exports and become a teacher of this technology.
At present, with monoculture farming practices we only have 60 years of cropping in the soils of earth, according to UN figures. Look at the Hopkins in flood, that's our topsoil.
Robert Rowley, Illowa
It's all any parent would want
I don't want flowers, candles, or jewellery on Mother's Day.
I just want my children to have opportunities for a happy life.
But there's one big thing getting in the way: climate change.
Among the housework and mothering, like many parents I'm doing everything I can to protect and care for the environment.
But those in power need to step up and support us.
My Mother's Day wishlist doesn't include pampering, but it does include the things that will safeguard our climate: a ban on new fossil fuel projects and an end to native forest logging. I'd also like our country to have effective environmental laws that actually protect endangered plants and animals.
Not much to ask for really, it's all any parent wants - just a safe future for their children and the opportunity for them to enjoy the wonders of this remarkable planet.
Amy Hiller, Kew
Lives depend on it
In this month's state budget, the Andrews Labor Government must reverse its savage cuts to road maintenance and road safety projects. Safe roads save lives - a fact regional Victorians know all too well.
Yet it's a lesson the government refuses to learn, even with Victoria having its deadliest start to a year in more than a decade with 113 tragic deaths on our roads so far.
Labor is making it worse with its plans to raid further funding from the Transport Accident Commission (TAC), slashing its road safety projects to prop up a broken budget.
After constant cuts to the road maintenance budget, rural and regional Victorians can see the state of our roads is abysmal. Bad roads are dangerous roads and the list of dangerous roads is virtually endless under Daniel Andrews.
And let's not forget only $165 million was allocated to repairing roads affected in the October floods, despite the Victorian Transport Association estimating $1 billion was needed. Or that the crisis in our roads has been building since Labor's first cut to the road maintenance budget way back in 2015 when they first came to government.
We know the best road safety package is adequate road maintenance funding. That's what the Andrews Labor Government must finally deliver in its coming state budget.
Danny O'Brien, Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety
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