Newcastle Herald Letters to the Editor: Tuesday, April 10, 2018

David Littleproud, stop protecting the farmers. They would have a pretty good idea what happens when you cram 63,000 sheep tightly together on a container ship and force them to travel for three weeks on the open seas in boiling temperatures. I understand many of the sheep actually gave birth on board and many babies were trampled to death. Thousands of sheep literally boiled to death in the searing heat. I believe there was only one vet on board and he was handpicked and paid by exporters.

Even if farmers can not work out the logistics for themselves – they are certainly aware of the barbaric treatment that awaits the sheep, should they manage to arrive at their overseas destination. Live export is morally and ethically criminal. It should be shut down immediately. The exporters should be charged with manslaughter.

I’VE had some wonderful days at the beach with my husband over the last five months. Hawks Nest and Fingal Bay have provided many beautiful days with good and basic amenities to add to the enjoyment and comfort of the day.

Today we went to Nobbys beach for the first time in years. One outside shower with four outlets to cater for the entire beach population and no change rooms. Very disappointing, Newcastle City Council have severely let the city down in this so called revamp, no desire to come back.

Hawks Nest and Fingal Bay I love you, a much nicer place to visit with showers and a change room. Thank you to all the life saving volunteers who make our beach adventures so much safer. You are wonderful people.

AS the founder of a Newcastle-based company which has been addressing the issues of abandoned shopping trolleys for over 20 years, I have a bone or two to pick with Paul Scott (‘It’s time to get off your trolley’, Newcastle Herald, 8/4).

In the 24 years since we started the Trolley Tracker service for retailers we have taken reports for 2.65 million abandoned trolleys all over Australia.

First, be assured that if there was a silver bullet to the problem of abandoned trolleys, retailers would use it. Coin locks, used to take coin deposits for use of trolleys, have their limitations. They work in some locations for some retailers, but not in others. Perimeter locks, as those described at Bondi and Chatswood, are far from foolproof, are extremely expensive and are another cost to be passed on at the checkout.

Paul Scott, like many people, fails to acknowledge the reason a small percentage of trolleys are left in Newcastle streets is they are abandoned by citizens of the city.

The logical action, therefore, is to address the issue at its source. The unwritten deal is that retailers provide a trolley for a customer to use to transport their purchase. The customer’s part of the deal – their personal responsibility – is to either return it to the store or to a trolley bay. If everyone did that then the problem would soon disappear, and costs at the checkout would be reduced.

For Mr Scott, big retailers are an easy target, but if we want Newcastle to be “the jewel city of the Asia Pacific” surely the simplest, cheapest first step is for every Novocastrian to take the trolley back when you have finished with it.

As a nation we did a great job over decades to make littering socially unacceptable, through programs like “Do the right thing!”. How about a new campaign focused on trolleys? Return, Report and Reduce. Return the trolley. Report abandoned trolleys you see in our streets to help the collectors find them, and thus reduce the chance of trolleys going feral, and the cost for retailers.

LAST week’s $30 million small business skills boost announcement is nothing more than a re-announcement of an initiative that was announced in the government’s Small Business Strategy back in June 2017. 

The Deputy Premier and NSW Small Business Minister John Barilaro acknowledged that digital awareness, financial literacy and access to capital were the most commonly raised issues around the state, so why has it taken the Deputy Premier 10 months to implement this program? Wrong priorities?

I FEAR Vic Levi (‘Cricket ball tampering's not always what it seams’, Herald, 7/4) has missed the point completely in relation to the penalties handed to Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft for ball tampering. Mr Levi bemoans the fact that players from other countries received lesser penalties than the Australians for similar acts of cheating. However, if I recall, the ICC handed down quite modest penalties.

Cricket Australia imposed the more severe penalties, and rightly so. The penalties very clearly reflect the severity of the cheating as felt by Australians within the game here. What other countries believe their standards to be are not necessarily equivalent to what we believe and the standards of behaviour we expect of our players. These three went way beyond anything that Australians believe to be fair, and in doing so breached our values. It is for other countries to judge their own. Cricket Australia has quite rightly used the Australian standards to pass judgement.

PAST history information regarding Newcastle’s early scout movement would be gladly appreciated. Steve Fernie's inquiry regarding the name and location of Newcastle’s first scout movement would be interesting to many (Short Takes, 9/4). Unfortunately family records only show it happened in Newcastle around 1909, a year before the Broadmeadow picture palace started showing movies. The family association with Baden-Powell may have gone back further still, when the third son born in 1900 he was christened Thomas Baden-Powell, as was in those days to take on a family, or friends Christian name. Living at Broadmeadow at that time, there is a possibility the scout hall was in the same vicinity, maybe even the picture show? Further information would be greatly appreciated for our family tree and the present day scout movement.