comment, letters, editor, newcastle, herald

I AM proud to be one of those people depicted in Peter Lewis' cartoon ('Lewis' View', Newcastle Herald, 14/9). Proud that my family can still work a productive farm in the valley and provide food for a country that is rapidly losing agricultural land. Proud to have saved the environment. Proud that the lovely Williams River flows free and maintains its health and biodiversity. Proud to say the riverine life has a habitat which is not over resourced. Proud that the seafood industry of the Hunter is protected by having a healthy estuary system. So yes, I am proud I saved the environment. Proud to be part of the voice for the environment. Yes, the Williams River is struggling, as most river systems in Australia are, however the fact that the ecosystem of this river is still healthy reflects the advantages of having a free flowing river. Over-extraction from the Murray/Darling River system have left dried up rivers and millions of dead fish. With over 80 per cent of the Hunter Valley water supply already pulled from the Williams River system the NSW government is wise in not revisiting Tillegra Dam. Now is the time for Hunter Water to take up the community's cry for more recycling and a more diversified water supply system. In the 2014 Lower Hunter Water Plan the community asked for more water efficiency methods, recycling, rainwater, stormwater capture, and conservation education. During the current review of the plan this is again what the community wants. It's time Hunter Water listened. Time to claw back ratepayer funds sent to NSW government treasury and fund local infrastructure to reuse what we waste. With 60 per cent in our current water supply, restrictions already started and no clear sign of rain in the near future, now is the time to capture what is going down the drain. IT did not take the federal Coalition government long to fall into their bad old ways. They did not win the election, Labor lost the election. Now they are going to regurgitate all the old boogies that lost them government before. The people thought they would do something about power prices, but they find this too hard. Instead they have decided to put the boot into people on benefits. As for drug testing they do not understand the subject or the need to help these people. Jacqui Lambie is right, try finding a rehab or someone to help. Try some drug and alcohol workplace testing at Parliament House, I think half the politicians would not pass either test. Then they have decided to bash the unions at a time when we need industrial peace to grow our economy. Still they need a diversion because they don't have a plan to fix the things that matter. So they bring up the same old tired things. No plan to fix the power crisis, no plan for water security, no plans for national infrastructure, no vision for Australia, they just talk the talk and do nothing. Well sorry, the electorate are not that stupid. IT was sad to see that while sufficient public outrage could be mustered around the deportation of a Tamil family, the Queensland government's casual extinction of native title over ancestral land of the Wangan and Jagalingou people went almost unnoticed. It is perhaps possible Peter Dutton's actions were a deliberate process to draw the fire of public anger. If so it has been remarkably successful and indicates he is more wily than he appears as he has diverted public attention away from issues like climate change, where the government is vulnerable. It has also blunted opposition to government and opposition policies of growth based on high immigration, ones that are difficult to sell to a population alarmed at its impact. Mr Dutton's actions have produced a defacto approval for these growth policies that would otherwise have been rejected. Since there have been, as I understand it, 80,000 illegal arrivals by plane during this government's term, it would seem that Mr Dutton has plenty of opportunities to create distractions. READING Rosemarie Milsom's article regarding the depth of creative talent in Newcastle has prompted me to write this ('Time to be bold about city's creative identity', Herald, 7/9). I recently attended the magnificent production of Beauty and the Beast at the Civic Theatre. This presentation was of such quality that I believe it was definitely equal to any such show to be seen in a Sydney theatre. During the interval I picked up a beautifully-published booklet advertising the program of performances at the Civic for 2019. I flipped through it, admiring the stunning coloured photos accompanying the information about the dates and the shows. When I looked for August 14th to 24th, to see how Beauty and the Beast had been promoted, the program was blank. It went from The Twits on August 2 to Possum Magic on August 27. Thinking there'd been some mistake, I enquired, and a fellow patron explained to me, "Oh no, it's not a mistake: Newcastle council publishes the promotional booklet for each season, and they don't include any of the local performances". I can hardly believe that our council would have such little regard for local endeavour. Perhaps they just have no idea of the scale and quality of theatre production in our own city. THE opinion article by Clare Eves 'Not the place to cut corner' (Herald, 12/9) and Tom Ballantyne's piece on regional health illustrate the same problem, the care of the sick and aged in our community. The problems outlined are reinforced by another story - that the largest private aged care provider in the country with over 6500 patients has been found to be not providing proper care. And the Coalition government awarded this same provider a contract of over $3.9 billion to care for ex-servicemen. It says a lot about their interest in our servicemen's care. The federal and state Coalition governments are boasting that they have managed to produce budget surpluses but we all know from our own budgets it is easy to have money left at the end of the week, just don't spend. This appears to be the federal government's policy as the health system is starved of funds and the aged are made to wait on a list of 129,000 to get an Aged Care Package so we can save the budget money by living at home. This cruel action is taken even though 16,000 fellow oldies will die while waiting on the list. With the great increase in number of retirees coming with the baby boomers, our health system is heading for collapse. Already over-85-year-old men have the highest rate of suicide, but this does not appear to move the government. Is it any wonder politicians are so far down in our opinions? UNLESS money is to be made, our government turns a cold shoulder to people and townships in trouble, such as the sands of Stockton beach. They were quite happy to sell sand from Port Kembla beaches to make money for export to Hawaii, but to save this iconic beach and its residents, it's a no show. Why is it not possible to pump the sands north of Stockton, the dunes, to the foreshore and carry out a study as to where to build a break wall to reduce any further erosion? It's obvious once you live on the eastern side of Stockton bridge the government doesn't care. Ask the poor buggers in Williamtown. Come on politicians, how about some help, please, and I don't even live there. MICK Miller of Salamander Bay (Short Takes, 12/9): I just viewed a clip showing an electric Tesla drag racing a V8 Supercar and the Tesla flew over the finish line first almost too easily. The only whining looked to be coming from the Supercheap-sponsored driver that had no answers. We'll bring the red to the Bay, Mick. THERE seems to be much concern about Chinese influence on Australian politics. What about US influence or Israeli? It would be good if there were more Canadian influence, our politics might then be far more polite. A SIMILAR letter to Allan Searant (Letters, 14/9), my daughter sent me a letter on August 27 from Sydney; today is September 14 and that letter is still not here. My car insurance took almost two weeks. What is going on at Australia Post? THE first to feel the bite of water restrictions should be those people who successfully opposed the building of the Tillegra Dam. LEWIS could have easily captioned his contribution "when the river ran dry they returned to the scene of the crime" (with apologies to Hunters & Collectors) (Lewis' View, Newcastle Herald, 14/9). PETER Lewis' cartoon (Lewis' View, Herald, 14/9) has got it all wrong. With Burrendong Dam (six times Sydney Harbour) at 4.5 per cent capacity and Keepit Dam at 1 per cent, dams obviously won't save us. It's over extraction of rivers that cause water shortages. No sense in making more holes in the ground that'll finish up empty in the next drought. Plan long term; conserve, reuse and recycle. I WOULD love to know what the light rail to nowhere is costing the taxpayer. It runs up and down Hunter Street from 5am to 1am every 15 minutes in off peak hours, every 7.5 minutes during peak hours. Couldn't it be cut back to every 30 minutes off peak? Late at night there might be one person on board, unless it's a Friday or Saturday night where it's used as a way to do a pub crawl.

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