One can only wonder why, with $12.4billion put aside to purchase the Lockheed Martin F35 Lightning 11 , our government is still “nit picking” about expenditure on social service provisions, health and education.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
By simply cancelling the contract for a few of the 58 “dud” F35s the Abbott government have on order, the health and welfare “bogey” continually talked up by the LNP could be resolved.
At a unit cost in 2014 dollars of $769million for each plane, simple arithmetic indicates the savings from cancelling the contract for a few F35s would go a long way towards funding Australia’s health and education needs.
No doubt this suggestion will have our armchair warriors rising to the defence of the F35 purchase; possibly pointing out that since April 2014 the price of the aircraft has fallen. A circumstance possibly due to world aviation experts declaring the F35 Lightning 11 to be probably the worst product ever to come off a US assembly line since the 1958 Ford Edsel!
Barry Swan, Balgownie
SBS’s Struggle Street documented the many unfulfilled needs among some members of Mount Druitt’s community, highlighting the devastating impact of alcohol and other drug abuse, in particular ice, as referred to in the May 16 edition of the Illawarra Mercury.
What also struck me was the urgent need for dental care and treatment whenever the main characters spoke, not just to utter expletives. If the remaining teeth in each of their heads were extracted, the total might be enough to make a full set of dentures for just one of them.
With so many competing priorities, these folk have little or no chance of affording dental treatment: a must to help promote proper eating habits and general good health as well as improving their appearance.
Mike Morphett, Thirroul
In these times of horrible things going on it is so refreshing that people are willing to help perfect strangers.
I had a nasty fall on Saturday outside the War Memorial in MacCabe Park and I want to say a huge thank you to Wendy, Naomi, a council worker and a lovely staff member from the Illawarra Leagues Club for their wonderful caring and generosity.
J Lester, Koonawarra
After funding and construction was stopped at the $31billion US nuclear waste dump in Nevada, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane takes us down this same road.
With a $27million program for our treated waste to be returned to Lucas Heights, the minister now has to go through the motions of finding a state and a willing community to accept this waste.
Meanwhile, Lucas Heights will go on storing this waste temporarily, just as 104 nuclear power plants do in the US, awaiting safe nuclear repositories that will never come!
Brian Johnson, Gymea
Seems to me that we vote for representatives, but we really never know who they are and what they have come from. Here’s a challenge to our local federal and state members. How about providing a detailed CV and allowing the Mercury to publish it. Leave out the opening personal details, but give us the qualifications.
Chris Maher, Figtree
