Sue McLeod, Myocum
Stephen McIllhatton was right (Echo Sept 25). Like our current Federal government (debt crisis! Medevac!) we shouldn’t be so alarmist.
I mean, ‘how good is Australia…?’ Just take the last decade: erratic weather patterns, intense rain events, homes inundated with floods, HUGE stock losses in northern Qld after nine days of continuous deluge, category five cyclones in northern Australia, violent storms and gales down south, significant beach erosions and coral bleaching events along the eastern coast and in WA.
Then there’s the one-in-100 year drought that ‘ain’t over yet’: farmers desperate for help, rural suicides, severely diminished stock numbers, water theft by irrigators, exorbitant cost of feed, huge dust storms reaching the cities, road kill to die for on western roads, record spring and summer temperatures, large regional towns running out of water, our major inland river system drying up, the rise of Farmers for Climate Action.
Then there’s wildfires intensified by drought, strong winds and high temperatures; ember storms, bushfire plans, emergency warnings (too late to leave, seek shelter), properties threatened or destroyed (who will be next this summer?), unprecedented rainforest burns, decimated wildlife habitats and larger aircraft needed to dowse the flames. Nah, you’re right, Stephen. These melodramatic kids have got it all wrong! There’s no dire threats to their future. (I bet you would just love to move from Skennars Head to out West!) The Federal government’s calmer response has been, after all, so decisive, so effective, so reassuring! (Exit, whistling ‘Give me a home among the gum trees…’)
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
