It has been long accepted that to address Stockton beach's ongoing erosion, sand must be sourced from elsewhere. While offshore dredging like that shown to be effective in nourishing the Gold Coast's beaches has been the favoured option of Stockton's community, there is currently no apparent pathway for the NSW government to approve this.

It would seem to the casual observer that the state government has had their head in the sand and may need a little encouragement to make a decision on this issue.

It's great to see the City of Newcastle taking a proactive approach to this problem, and I hope that other councils will join them in calling for clarification.

It would certainly prove to be of great benefit for not only Stockton beach, but for beaches like Blacksmiths, Collaroy and many other beaches up and down the NSW coast. I hope for the sake of beach-lovers everywhere that commonsense will prevail.

RECENTLY, John Morris (Letters, 17/6) and Sandra Iceton (Short Takes, 24/6) praised the care their loved ones received in aged care. These facilities may be doing the right thing but I believe many are not, as the aged care royal commission has discovered.

Aged care facilities are very sleek with their advertising. If you read their brochures or websites, they seem marvellous places to live. Sadly, many people find out exactly what they are like when they take up residence. Rarely do they complain for fear they will be thrown out onto the street or punished in some way.

Staff can seem caring when you are there, but what are all the meals like? What is the care like in the evening when there is only one staff member on duty? What is showering and dressing like for a resident? Gratitude for a room can mean they don't speak up when dignity and respect are lacking.

My mother-in-law was at a facility and never had a bus outing. She was very nervous asking for fresh pull-up pants as staff became angry and annoyed. She was not given proper mouth and teeth care. She was also subject to verbal abuse.

It is what goes on when visitors are not present that is concerning. Be sceptical of their advertising.

THE media has been running articles damning the recent police execution of search warrants on the ABC and a journalist and crowing "freedom of the press". In my opinion to call the execution the search warrants a "raid" is a bit strong.

The execution of the search warrants appears to have been a passive walk into the premises.

Doors were not smashed in, nor were police storming through the doors.

The police were there because they had an allegation of a breach of the law.

I believe to not investigate the allegation because it involved the media would be neglect of their obligations to either substantiate the allegation or dismiss it due to lack of evidence.

If the allegation is substantiated, then it may yet go without prosecution if the Department of Public Prosecution deem it outside the public interest in view of the notion of freedom of the press.

Finally, I think the public would be horrified if their privacy or the secrets of government were able to be freely breached by journalists or any other unauthorised person on a search for a good story.

RICHARD Warwick (Letters, 24/6) berated the book by Professor Ian Plimer. Mr Warwick quoted Professor Ian Enting's critique that noted many errors, misquotes, graphs and charts without proper attribution.

Professor Enting is a climate/carbon dioxide modeller and has worked for the CSIRO in atmospheric research.

The suggestion was that he was better qualified than Professor Plimer, the geologist, to comment on climate change.

Maybe. But in my opinion it's important to keep in mind that the geological record shows hundreds of millions of years where the rise and fall in global temperature doesn't correlate at all with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Obviously something other than carbon dioxide drives climate change. Who best to tell us that story? A geologist, I would suggest. Food for thought?

I ENJOY and follow rugby union and rugby league, but I find it a bit rich reading that Knights CEO Phil Gardner thinks that it inappropriate for Wallabies coach Michael Cheika to approach Kalyn Ponga about any interest in playing rugby in the future (Herald 15/6).

I believe Wests is well known for approaching young players in the local competition, in my opinion for the club's benefit and to the detriment of the overall league. With the Australian under 20s rugby side doing so well, watch for league scouts offering dollars to these players to swap codes. At present we have State of Origin players who were coerced from rugby to league, including Ponga.

To my knowledge, Ponga was still contracted to the Cowboys when first approached by the Knights.

WE are hearing loudly and clearly that the Coalition government have a mandate to take their tax package through parliament unhindered.

I was aware there was an election on and that the Coalition had a tax package, but it was not a primary issue of the campaign. The biggest thing I heard the most was the "strong economy", and how only a Coalition government could keep the economy strong and growing. That seems a distant memory now, and it seems that it is not strong at all and is not growing. There's no point in saying the election is just over and to give them time. They have been there for two full terms. The other big campaign issue they used was Labor's policy on franking credits and negative gearing, and in fact as a volunteer on polling booths it was these two points I noticed drew negative comments against Labor from voters.

I didn't hear any saying they were voting Liberal or anything else, just that they were not voting Labor. Try as I might, I can't see a mandate for anything in that result. The vote was against Labor, not for the Coalition.