GAMBLING  
Dear editor,

Australians are being flooded with gambling advertising, and it is time to stop pretending this is harmless entertainment.

Betting ads should be much more tightly limited in both quantity and timing because they do not just inform people — they encourage more gambling, normalise harmful behaviour, and make it harder for children and vulnerable people to keep a healthy distance from betting.

If the government is serious about online harms to young people, then it cannot keep treating gambling advertising as a side issue. The constant promotion of betting normalises gambling, reaches children and teenagers, and undermines the very harm-reduction message the government says it supports.

There is also a serious fairness problem with gambling promotions themselves. A gambling offer must be clear, honest, and immediately understandable, and any major limit or exclusion should be shown as prominently as the headline offer.

Too often, ads promise a “100% bonus” or similar deal while the fine print quietly strips away most of the value.

The same applies to betting rules when circumstances change. Punters should have a real right to withdraw or cancel if the product changes materially after the bet is placed.

That should include scratchings, substitutions, or severe weather that changes the conditions so much that the original bet is no longer the same decision.

Ordinary consumer law would never accept such one-sided treatment in other industries.

If governments are serious about consumer protection, then the answer is clear - less gambling advertising, clearer conditions, and a fair right to cancel or withdraw when circumstances change.

Colin Caudell,
Coolum Beach.
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POP CULTURE  
Dear editor,

Just asking if those “celebrities”, influencers, pollies, businesses, columnists and others who spew out hateful, malicious, malevolent, deceptive words to undermine their country and community say more about themselves than the people/communities they attack?

Margaret Wilkie,
Peregian Beach.
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WORLD HISTORY 
Dear editor,

Most mornings, the news does its best to convince us the world is wobbling like a card table at the weekend markets. It’s easy to feel as if civilisation is one bad headline away from coming unstuck.

But when we step back and look at the long sweep of history, a different picture emerges.

If we examine the last five centuries of the world’s “Great Powers” — the big egos with big armies — and ask how often they were actually at war with each other, the early centuries look like a soap opera with cannons.

The 1600s and 1700s were essentially one long neighbourhood dispute where everyone brought artillery instead of a cake.

Then the 20th century arrives and delivers the two biggest, bloodiest spikes of all. The First and Second World Wars stand out like red cliffs, but then something extraordinary happens.

After 1945, large-scale armed conflict between major powers dropped. And keeps dropping. Not to zero — humans are still humans — but to a level that would have sounded like pure fantasy to anyone living in 1750.

For the first time in half a millennium, the great powers mostly stopped blowing each other up.

That is the quiet miracle hidden in the data. Not that the world is perfect — far from it — but that the long arc of history has bent, slowly and stubbornly, toward restraint. Toward cooperation. Toward the idea that maybe we can sort things out without flattening each other’s cities.

It’s easy to forget this when the headlines are loud, and the world feels unsettled. But step back — way back — and you see a different story. A story of learning. Of progress. Of a species that, despite its tantrums, is slowly growing up.

Sometimes the most hopeful truths aren’t shouted from podiums but revealed quietly when we examine the historical facts. They remind us that peace — like wisdom — often arrives slowly, awkwardly, and after a few false starts. But it arrives.

We don’t need to be fooled into replacing it with a continuing verbal war in our society or within some families’ personal relationships.

Garry Reynolds,
Peregian Springs.
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HOUSING TAXES  
Dear editor,

It is absolutely soul-destroying watching representatives from the right in Australia and their response to the removal of tax perks, which are to be an attempt to even out the housing situation in Australia.

Despite the fact that first home buyers are now actually able to compete at auctions – something that speaks to “aspiration” more than an investor with multiple properties- according to the Liberals, the sky is about to fall in!

It makes you wonder just what constituent the Liberal party actually represents. Wealth going upward continually is not a definition of prosperity that anyone with a shred of sense believes in. The framing of these changes as an attack on aspiration is pure skullduggery.

Dylan White,
Coolum Beach.
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REALITY TV & RADIO DRAMA 
Dear editor,

Reality television and radio broadcasts are constructed and staged to create tension and drama. This attracts wide audience appeal, keen on  observing the dramatic interaction of disenchanted and disaffected players.

Two current dramas are popular with those who seem to have a dearth of entertainment in their lives. Radio jocks Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O’s bitter feud has audiences intrigued with the childish disagreements and banter, as well as the ludicrous money they were once paid as a team!

The payout Kyle demanded, thinking he was worth more, not content with the $12million offer, is yet to materialise. Jackie O’s settlement is still in the pipeline.

Then Channel 7’s ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ has many young hopefuls hooked on the drama played in real time, where groups of chosen ladies compete for one farmer, in front of a wide weekly viewing audience. The usual normal interactions between the ladies become a nasty competition like a cat fight, which the show’s producers hope will entertain and keep the momentum going.

With five eligible young male farmers, there is no shortage of emotions and disappointments which young audiences identify with. These interactions set up for the show are false representations of how the real world works. Too many choices for one farmer creates dissent and disappointment. Favouritism wins, and many lose.

What sort of role models do these shows present for young people trying to manoeuvre the pitfalls and decisions which lead to choosing suitable life partners? Someone always has to lose. The ratings thrive on disappointed wannabees who also ran! It’s unrealistic and cruel. Then, when in real life, relationships fail, many cannot face the reality, not having learnt to accept life is no fairy tale.

E. Rowe,
Marcoola.
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THANKS 
Dear editor,

To the person who hung my “Freiburg 2020” bag over the railing near St Andrews, thank you. I spotted it this afternoon, as I drove by.

A little worse for wear but great to get “old faithful” back.

Steve Ryan,
Peregian Springs.
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