There is a general perception that converting state forests to national park ensures the protection of biodiversity.

However, for some, the apparent koala extinction in former areas of Tantawangalo State Forest provides more proof this perception is incorrect.

Over the past few years the NSW government has been working toward translocating koalas from Victoria.  

Extensive koala surveys have been undertaken in the Strzelecki Ranges, seemingly based on the notion that translocated koalas will survive at Tantawangalo, even though the endemic koalas didn't.

The “activist movement” generally supports this proposal and proposes extending the translocation program into forests in the Eurobodalla shire, where koalas are also assumed to be extinct.

Currently, the only certainty is that the last area of suitable koala will eventually become unsuitable.  

I assume this is why the NSW government went for flora reserves, because it guarantees koala extinction so the areas can readily be  converted back to production forests.

The Prime Minister has floated the idea of giving more taxing rights to the states and reducing the money provided under the current grants system. 

The present arrangements have led to different rules, regulations and charges in many areas. 

For example in my own profession the prescription writing requirements are different from state to state and it is only in recent years that a nationwide registration was set up. I am sure in many other areas state specific arrangements apply.

In a nation with a population of around 24million this is a nonsense and the continual playing off, one against the other, by premiers "getting the best deal" for their own states, is not only ridiculous but counterproductive.

We stopped being six colonies 115 years ago and became a nation, but we still act as if that had not happened. We need fewer governments and the sooner we get rid of state governments the better. 

Ray Hunt (BDN, 1/4) wonders why conservative politicians are opposed to the Safe Schools program, aimed at helping prevent bullying of homosexual children, among others.

Well I can give him one reason. It’s because they’re Christians who unthinkingly and selectively follows God’s bizarre dictates in the Bible.

For example, Leviticus tells them that God says homosexuality is “detestable” and that the offenders should be “put to death”.

We know we can rely on Leviticus as a source of absolute truth on matters of morality because it also tells us not to wear clothing woven of two kinds of material, that you should kill your children if they curse you, that a priest’s daughter who becomes a prostitute must be burned at the stake, and that your slaves are to come from the countries around you.

And God obviously wasn’t mucking around, because if you don’t keep these murderous commands he will “bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life” and, if your obstinence persists, he will make you “eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters”.

So much for the supposedly infinitely loving and merciful God.

Maybe we need a Safe Society program to re-educate social bullies who subscribe to the bizarre bronze-age beliefs of the Bible.