We have lost so many that used to be the backbone of our industrial ability to thrive on our own two feet.

Instead they either went offshore or closed down altogether and we now import products we used to manufacture ourselves and everyone had full time employment.

Today just about everything comes from China. The seams and buttons on clothing come undone or fall off and the colours run in the first wash like these products were when we made them here.

Our dairy and meat industries are under constant threat by the vegan brigade hell bent on destroying these industries also.

Coal our long time source of power is also being threatened with extinction even though it makes sense to continue to use it until such times as we are in the position to move on to other means of replacing it.

Yet we have these super gluing clowns believing their road protests are somehow going to magically solve the issue.

Progress is always necessary but to be expecting to bring a nation to a complete sudden halt without power is stupidity.

Just a thought to ponder on.

"We will pass this way but once, anything we can say or do to help anyone, let us not defer it, but do it right now for we shall not pass this way again."

Progress tempered with commonsense is the way forward otherwise we are just toying with foolhardiness like locking up the forests that incinerated millions of our fauna just to appease the green vision, what a terrible error this was.

Nuclear energy is worth considering.

The large eight Australian Universities that are publicly expressing concern their income may be impacted by the travel ban on Chinese students highlights how the Australian University sector has a number of fundamental issues.

The commonly discussed topic is the high dependency on Chinese students. But there are deeper issues which need public discussion.

One of these issues is why, in the modern-day of high-quality telecommunications, are our Australian institutions so reliant on bricks and mortar infrastructure for teaching?

Why are students still required to live in the overpriced, cramped conditions of Sydney or Melbourne to study in an outdated education system?

For too long rural students have complained they need to move away from places like the Riverina to study at a leading Australian institutions.

The coronavirus issue has highlighted it is not just rural students who have been disadvantaged, it is our international students as well.

Surely it is time the large eight Australian institutions embrace the digital world we live.

More rural, regional and international students should have the option to study at home.

Even Harvard University allows us to study most of a degree in Australia, requiring only a one-semester stay on campus.

Let us know, email us at letters@areanews.com.au, drop a letter to the editor in to our Banna Avenue office, or use the form below...