Letters to the editor | Central Western Daily letters to September 9, 2023

We are a pragmatic movement, not really into empty gestures or performative virtue signalling. I don't think in our 140-year history in Australia that we have ever been called "elites".

But we do support the Voice.

We support the Voice, simply, because we believe it will make a difference.

For 140 years, the Salvos have rolled up their sleeves and helped where we can. We started small by assisting discharged prisoners at the prison gates in Melbourne and now we provide over 2000 services across every state and territory in Australia. We support people experiencing homelessness, family and domestic violence, financial hardship, unemployment, substance use disorders, social isolation and loneliness, and help them recover from natural disasters.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are over-represented in almost every service we deliver - and that's why we support a Voice.

There is no escaping the fact that what we are doing right now, as a nation, is not working.

The Salvos will always do what we can on the ground, but the issues we see are deeper; they are structural and systemic. We believe the only way to practically address the hardship experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is to change how the government makes and carries out policy. We believe the best way to do that is to actually listen to the people affected - to give them a voice.

Not everyone agrees with us on this and that's okay. We just ask that people respectfully consider, before they decide on October 14: "Will the Voice make a difference for people who really need help?"

We think the answer is a resounding yes.

It might be because of my advancing years, but I continue to have difficulty trying to understand:

- why a minority of residents leave their wheelie bins out with lids unable to be closed, and then wonder why those bins aren't collected;

- why so many people complain about Orange City Council, and forget the overall good work that they do in our city. Council is certainly not perfect, but I know they're working on it;

- why a small minority continue to to leave rubbish and shopping trolleys scattered in parts of Orange;

- why more people aren't making an effort to clearly understand the VOICE referendum to be held on October 14. There's a wealth of information readily available.

I'm sure that most readers have their own list of "difficult to understand".

Today's headlines tell us that one third of NSW school students are failing basic maths.

This can be fixed but it's long term. Here are my suggestions:

(1) Educate parents with the skills to engage their young children in numeracy activities, much the same as reading to their children.

(2) Get rid of fads like student-led learning. Maths learning needs to be teacher-led and basic maths skills explicitly taught.

(3) Make it mandatory that by the end of year 5, all students will know their times tables.

Yes ... rote learning!

Literacy and numeracy are the most fundamentally empowering skills. We've been compromising these for decades.

If I was unsure of the use-by-date on my yoghurt Peter Dutton's "if you don't know, say no" would be helpful.

But it's not at all helpful in guiding my vote in our upcoming referendum.

In other parts of my life, if I don't know, I Google reputable experts, I read, I ask people I respect for advice. I try to understand.

If I always just said no, my life would be very limited indeed.

And such limits are putting lives at stake in the upcoming Voice referendum.

The stakes are high, a point not lost on Indigenous Australians.

That's why polling consistently indicates that 80 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians say 'yes' to The Voice.

It provides an opportunity for them to be heard on matters that impact them.

If you're not sure that voting yes will improve the lives of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders neighbours, go to The Voice website - https://voice.gov.au/ and get in the know.

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