Newcastle Herald letters to the editor: Hotel victim of 'double standard' on rules

Last week we were named by the NSW Health Department as having a confirmed case at our hotel. This was not the case and they were not aware of when he contracted it. After seeing it on the website I tried to contact NSW Health and could not get through for 25 minutes so I called 000 then they put me through to a representative who told me we did not need to close and after confirming with the AHA, that this was right. I didn't get officially contacted until 11.45am on Thursday. Since then, business has been terrible and I have had to stand down a number of staff which isn't pleasant.

What can't be confirmed is whether the person was infected here, but eventually he did get it off his brother and in fact they were both confirmed positive. What is of disbelief to me is:

1. What is a junior team doing playing in a football game in Sydney?

2. Why you can go into Bunnings, Westfield Shopping Centre (incidentally the infected boy was from St Pius and most kids from his school go to Westfield after school) Woolworths or Coles without any register and local football and rugby league games being able to come and go without checks.

I have had police check that we are doing the right thing. I can almost guarantee that you can go into any shopping centre as you please without any record of your visit. A massive double standard.

My hotel and the others named would be the best venues to go to now. Each venue has been deep cleaned and everyone must be seated and social distancing adhered to. This is what the AHA and Clubs NSW have put into place to make our venues extremely safe. We have a duty of care for our customers and staff alike, something that is not as well practiced at supermarkets and other shopping outlets.

What is even more disturbing is the level of panic through the community which I witnessed first hand at my doctors that afternoon when I was asked if I visited the hotels mentioned and my friends had the same at their workplaces. Yet another knife in the back. None of my management or staff have COVID-19 nor has any of my regulars so rather than panic, if you do have symptoms get a check. There have been no more cases in Newcastle, let's keep it that way and wash your hands regularly.

Julie Robinson (Letters, 11/8) says the Black Lives Matter movement is a 'gentle prick'. I don't see anything gentle about violent unrest, looting, burning and destroying property, and even Anti-Semitism, which has become a feature of protests overseas.

There's little about "respect, equality, freedom and justice" in all this, and I think it's hypocritical to rightly condemn the Ku Klux Klan, but not call out the violent aims and methods of some BLM protestors. The latest BLM rallying cry "abolish the police" is a call for anarchy. Some BLM supporters, including Ms Robinson (Letters, 12/6), claim civil liberties denied to the rest of us, that their right to protest trumps the right of governments to regulate public health in a time of pandemic.

If the BLM movement was more 'gentle', it might achieve more. Mahatma Gandhi used a strategy of non-violence to liberate nearly 400 million people from the British Empire, and inspired Martin Luther King to his conviction that "nonviolent resistance was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their quest for social justice."

"Water pollution on agenda" (Herald, 10/8) reported that the Hunter Community Environment Centre, an activist group, had claimed heavy metals escaping from NSW power station ash dams included arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel, lead, selenium and zinc.

Well that's nice but their chemistry is wrong. Of their 10 listed "heavy metals" only cadmium and lead are heavy metals and arsenic, boron and selenium are not really metals at all being classed as metalloids.

The others listed are considered essential for our health. That's bad enough but what they didn't list was the concentration of each listed element found in the water tested. Laboratory analysis can detect very low levels of contaminants, much lower than any level dangerous to health. The Environment Centre should take note of an old toxicology saying "it's the dose that makes the poison".

I'm on board with Tim Crakanthorp's comments ("MP calls for ageing bus fleet to go electric", Herald, 7/8)

Since the first COVID lock down in March, the number of clunky old buses polluting our CBD has increased massively with empty buses driving around our streets, filling in time with no passengers and creating an environmental and economic disaster. The buses are commonly referred to as 'ghost buses' for good reason - rarely there is a passenger in sight.

It makes sense to utilise the (very expensive) tram by taking the buses out of the equation. Passengers can tram it to the interchange and then catch a bus to outlying destinations.

Maybe quieter, smaller electric buses could be used as support systems?

MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

Often there are up to six buses at Custom House idling for no reason and no customers boarding, when the tram station is 50 metres away.

Get with the times and utilise the new tram system. Stop using the under-utilised bus service to justify Keolis Downer ripping off the taxpayer to fund their ageing fleet.

Let's start being a smart city and save the environment. There is no sense running two transport systems at loss.

Steve Saul's letter of 11/8 is correct in regard to the risk assessments carried out for the Orica plant expansion. The regulations state that the worst case has to be taken into account when assessing risks to the community however in fact I understand the Orica risk assessment for explosion only assumed 20 tonnes of ammonium nitrate would explode rather than the worst case of 12,000 tonnes.

They do this because this shows little effect outside the Orica perimeter so no effect on communities hence they can get their plant approved where in fact an explosion of 12,000 tonnes would create devastation right across Newcastle. To find details of their calculations is impossible as they won't release this due to the threat from terrorism. Unbelievably the NSW Planning Department lets them get away with this invalid risk assessment.

In regard to Dean Harris's letter of 11/8, you would have to tell 100,000 Newcastle residents surrounding Newcastle Port to pull their heads in for living there in Orica's blast area. A blast of 12,000 tonnes of AN is very likely to break windows and injure people in Belmont so you might have to pull your head in as well.

YES it's their domain, yes we swim in it. But come on people, when is a shark's life or any other marine creatures' life more important than a humans? If you take down the nets there will be a fatal attack here. Just have a look at all the attacks up the north coast since they removed the nets. Wake up do-gooders. Blood will be on your hands if nets are removed.

SUE Marshall (Short Takes, 10/8), how can you compare the trip for the Junior Jets to play in Sydney to the Ruby Princess and the Victoria? I think you are being a little hysterical there. Was it the trip to Sydney which caused the local infection? The club would have made all sorts of risk assessments prior to the trip to ensure the players' safety.

PRIVATE ownership is a major flaw in aged care. Too much money is being thrown towards management and not essential training and recruitment.

WELL said Dr. Nick Moncrieff (Letters 11/8) I couldn't agree with you more. Please Premier, take a stand. Stop "recommending" and just make a decision now, not in a couple of weeks when it will be too late. My family, friends and I are trying to do the right thing, isolating, social distancing, washing hands etc so it would be appreciated Gladys if you would too - for all our sakes.

SO 'Pommy' is a racist term to some? Since when have the English been their own race? Just like Aussies and Yanks, Poms come in all human colours and religions. The only 'racist' aspect about the terms Pommy, Aussie and Yank is if you believe that it is only through the 'superiority' of being white that you can claim membership of those groups. And no one thinks like that anymore, do they?

I WAS disappointed to see that the disused Hamilton Bowling Club building has been demolished. The Hamilton/Islington area has many homeless people, the building, which possessed showers, toilets, a commercial kitchen, as well as large common areas would have made an ideal shelter for these disadvantaged people in that area. Maybe in these difficult times we just don't think of others.

MY wife, who suffers early onset dementia, and I enjoy regular walks through Gregson Park when she is not in lockdown in her nearby care home. The historic and ornate trees within the park bring her great joy so on our last visit it was disappointing to see a thankless person had graffitied some of her beloved trees.

PM Scott Morrison is a master in the art of prevarication.