OPINION: Is this a smoke screen? Opinion Property/Sports/Opinion - popup ad by News Of The Area - Modern Media - August 17, 2023 DEAR News Of The Area, IS this referendum simply a ‘smoke screen’ hiding a future disaster? I have said there are greater issues to be solved – home loan interest rates, electricity (up to 300 percent in ten years), future land tax, increases in rates, problems in education and hospitals, materials shortage in building homes, homelessness, food price rises, fuels prices rising (our oil capped), child poverty, youth crime, drugs, greed, failure in policing. All people are suffering and in difficult situations. Our society is being deconstructed to introduce a ‘Third House of Parliament’ to veto the two elected Houses. Blessings, Rev Graham WHELAN OAM, Coffs Harbour.