On gun club ownership

Barry Welch writes: Re. “Crikey Worm: Aussie gun lobby’s accidental windfall” (Wednesday)

With potential owners paying a couple of hundred dollars a year to the Sporting Shooters Association the amount of money in the war chest is now in the tens of millions. The SSA is now able to become Australia’s version of the NRA, buying politicians and political influence. The laws need to be changed so that any money paid to justify owning a gun goes to the state and is held in a fund used to eliminate illegal weapons from our society.

On Caltex

Jock Webb writes: Re. “Caltex responds to Glenn Dyer” (Tuesday)

My experience of Caltex is they have their hand in every pocket but their own. Obviously the franchise movement was an attempt to dodge being the wage payer and the worker’s comp payer etc. You certainly didn’t do it for the worker. The trouble is that the Fair Work Ombudsman is a toothless paper tiger. What is needed is unions and the old department of Labour and Industry who smacked miscreant employers over the head and made them pay the right wage.

Had you and your ilk in the Business Council and the Mineral Council not essentially bribed the government into union smashing with your donations, this wage theft could not arise. When a few employers get put in the clink for what is both fraud and stealing we may see improvement.