DEAR News Of The Area,

ACCORDING to the Collins Dictionary, the expression to “put your money where your mouth is” means that you want a person to spend money to improve a bad situation, instead of just talking about improving it.

In that context you could say that Federal Government spending, as outlined in the recent Budget, is a reflection of the Coalition’s priorities.

My back of the envelope calculations of the recent, one off cost of living expenses and cuts to the fuel tax for six months outlined in the recent Federal Budget comes to $8.7 billion.

The entire Emergency Response Fund is $4 billion in total, and provides an annual allocation of $150 million for communities who have experienced natural disasters.

The current budget for the National Recovery and Resilience Agency is $206.8 million

The Federal Government provides financial support to the fossil fuel sector, every year, in the form of a subsidy.

In 2020-21 it was $9.1 billion whilst in 2021-22 it will cost $10.5 billion.

We in northern NSW and South East Queensland have experienced two extreme, widespread flooding events in a month.

On top of widespread Bushfires in 2019 and earlier floods in 2021.

And in my part of the world in Sawtell and Toormina, there was widespread damage to houses and bushland from a wild hailstorm in October 2021.

Let us be clear. These are not natural disasters, they are unnatural disasters due to climate change.

I’m tired of being praised for our ‘resilience’ and of the depth of ‘community spirit’ which are just words used in the absence of any real substantive action on climate change.

Stop talking about it and do something about it, in fact do many things about it.

Start by developing and implementing policies and funding to substantially cut our carbon emissions by 2030.

Stop blocking the clean energy transition.

And hurry up while you’re at it because I hear there is an election coming very soon.

Regards,
Juliet THOMAS,
Sawtell.