Animal welfare should always be respected and animal cruelty is never acceptable. Likewise, animal activists should be allowed to express their view but must do so in a respectful and legal manner.

Almost everything we eat is grown or produced by a farmer, and Labor will remain focused on working with them to improve their sustainable profitability in the face of drought and other climatic events.

The overwhelming majority of our farmers and others in the food supply chain do the right thing and most of us still want to eat our steak and other animal-based products. We should not be demonised for it.

People should be able to make their own choices about what they eat as long as their food of choice is produced in an ethical way. Likewise, we should respect those who choose not to eat meat.

The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison governments have undermined public confidence in some sectors by their regulatory failures in the live export sector and the abolition of Labor's independent Inspector General for Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports.

The best way to ensure the red meat and other animal based foods have a strong future is to build public confidence that our food is produced in a manner we all expect.

Our red meat sector is very important to our economy. The best way to keep it that way is to eat its product and ensure it meets reasonable standards and community expectations on the animal welfare front.

Government has an important role to play in maintaining community support for red meat and other animal based foods.

It just takes some leadership and a strategic plan for the sector. A Shorten Labor government will deliver both.

Joel Fitzgibbon, ALP ag spokesman

Election close upon us: so many millions of dollars thrown to the winds.

So much waste of our finances, desperately needed toward building and supporting much needed water storage and other infrastructure. So much posturing with suddenly available squillions of dollars.

Why was this promised now available funding, not provided toward these newly found desperately needed infrastructural improvements while these governments were in power? How strange.

For the LNP to skite that they have guided us into "surplus" is a play on words.

This is only a budgetary surplus, leaving we Aussies with billions still owed to worldly financial institutions. Bogus claims, purely intended to secure a majority vote.

We are not fooled as voters.

Bob Fowke, Regency Downs

World Asthma Day is on 7 May, to raise awareness and promote treatment for patients with this condition. The theme is STOP - a call to action to evaluate symptoms, test response to therapy, observe and assess, and to adjust treatment.

Asthma affects more than two million Australians and does not follow the rules of logic. While the condition is more common in families with allergies or asthma, not everyone with asthma has allergies.

Adults of any age can develop it. Some people have asthma during childhood, but later may 'grow out' of it.

Triggers for asthma like indoor and outdoor pollution (including moulds, gases, chemicals, particles and cigarette smoke) can increase the chances of developing it.

Athletes have also been found to develop asthma after very intensive training over several years, especially while breathing air that is polluted, cold or dry.

Your community pharmacist is the medicines expert and can advise you on the best ways to manage your asthma

George Tambassis, National President of the Pharmacy Guild