E-bikes are becoming a bigger problem in Newcastle

I too, came across those two youngsters on the electric-powered bike mentioned the other day ("E-bikes near beaches require quick thinkers", Letters, 23/1). They were charging towards congestion on Joy Cummings Promenade. A couple of people yelled, "slow down!", but the girls replied with, "We weren't even doing 20 kilometres an hour".

That's supposed to be the governed maximum speed of the machines, not the constant velocity.

Then one morning this week, a young woman riding the wrong way in the one-way Hunter Street Mall, and on the footpath, told me I should thank her for stopping before colliding with me. Not likely. Earlier I was at Newcastle beach and squeezing around a large group, when an older man rode up the ramp, causing me to jump out of the way.

There are rules about how you operate a vehicle in a public place. Maybe getting the police back into law enforcement would teach those rules through the hip-pocket nerve?

Surely ratepayers are entitled to a detailed explanation of the series of extraordinary budget blow-outs in council projects ('Let's control our major project costs before we dream big', Opinion 22/1).

The latest, our new gallery, has its costs increasing from the quoted $35 million in July 2021 to current estimate of $54 million. Then, add to that, confusing mixed messages about the inclusion, or exclusion, of fit-out costs in that latest figure. If these fit-out costs face a spectacular rise similar to that of the fit-out of council's rented Stewart Avenue building, which went from $7 million to $18 million, with no explanation, then ratepayers will feel it in our hip-pockets.

The lord mayor's statement ("Council yet to draw a line under art gallery project costs", Newcastle Herald 24/1), that previous councils had done little for the city, "and you'd barely get some roads resurfaced and some footpaths", not only threw her earlier Labor colleagues under the metaphorical bus, but seems highly ironic to me given the current deplorable state of our city's infrastructure with crumbling asphalt, blocked drains, and rubber pedestrian crossings. It's hard to take these claims seriously when previous councils would spell out all their projects line by line, affording clear accountability of both sound planning and expenditure.

With our sad history of budgetary blow-outs including the ocean baths, the move to the west end, the skate park, and now the gallery, one imagines that firms tendering for council contracts must rub their hands together in anticipation of "contingencies". Certainly the best maintained roads in our town are those forming the Supercars track, and of course council fought hard to keep those costs secret.

Such is the council's lack of transparency that without the Herald's investigative reporters, I fear we would likely be totally unaware of these blow-outs.

Finally, with no mention of our state MP on the plaque unveiled on Tuesday, are we seeing an attempt to write Tim Crakanthorp out of our city's history?

THE Coalition and Sky News can throw all the tantrums they like about the proposed changes to the stage-three tax cuts.

These changes are designed to help those people who really need it to help with the cost-of-living crisis. You do not have to be real smart to figure out that people earning $200,000 + yearly are far better off than those earning $60,000 - $80,000 yearly.

So stop trying to make political mileage out of this and show some common sense and admit these changes are the correct way to move forward and help those most in need.

I WOULD suggest to Darryl Tuckwell ("Not airing Trump Iowa speech a win", Letters, 23/1) that democracy in the US is dead. When the government of the day uses the court system in an attempt to stop someone being elected, democracy is dead, regardless of how deplorable that person might be.

Unless, of course, you live under some level of dictatorship such as Russia, North Korea, or any other country where opposition leaders end up in jail or worse.

The use of the court system by the Democrat Party in the US to stop Donald Trump, regardless of the character of the man, is a real worry as opposed to letting the people decide via an election who they want as their leader. Let the people decide. That is true democracy at work, and I believe anything else is anti-democratic.

HUNTER Water's proposed Belmont desalination plant ("Price hike in pipeline", Newcastle Herald 24/1), as depicted, appears to be in a position that might make it vulnerable to a tsunami or serious cyclone. I hope that the possibility of these events occurring was taken into account and appropriate modelling done to ensure that this very expensive asset would not get damaged if built in that location and either of those events occurred.

MUCH has been said about Australia Day, why it shouldn't be called that and why the date should be moved. Sometimes we hear the reasons why. My view was expressed by Bob Hawke in 1988; Australia Day should be a day where we reflect on the achievements of the past, the mistakes of the past and the crimes of the past. I think that like it or not, this is our history, the good, the bad and the ugly. We may do well to ponder why in the past we got it right and why we got it wrong. When we take responsibility for our past, we learn, become wiser and can move forward.

CAN someone explain to me what can be achieved by changing the date of Australia Day? Some will celebrate while others will not. Changing the date will achieve nothing.

THE previous government denied the leasing arrangements for Port Botany, Port Kembla and the Port of Newcastle until they were exposed by the Newcastle Herald on July 29 2016. However, the Minns Labor government informed the Federal Court on September 12 2023 that Parliament authorised the previous government's actions under the "Ports Assets (Authorised Transactions) Act 2012". Could Parliament have intended to authorise leasing arrangements that the then government denied in answers provided to Labor's more than 100 Parliamentary questions between October 17 2013 and July 28 2016?

Desalination plant must be built to endure

HUNTER Water's proposed Belmont desalination plant ("Price hike in pipeline", Newcastle Herald 24/1), as depicted, appears to be in a position that might make it vulnerable to a tsunami or serious cyclone. I hope that the possibility of these events occurring was taken into account and appropriate modelling done to ensure that this very expensive asset would not get damaged if built in that location and either of those events occurred.

MUCH has been said about Australia Day, why it shouldn't be called that and why the date should be moved. Sometimes we hear the reasons why. My view was expressed by Bob Hawke in 1988; Australia Day should be a day where we reflect on the achievements of the past, the mistakes of the past and the crimes of the past. I think that like it or not, this is our history, the good, the bad and the ugly. We may do well to ponder why in the past we got it right and why we got it wrong. When we take responsibility for our past, we learn, become wiser and can move forward.

CAN someone explain to me what can be achieved by changing the date of Australia Day? Some will celebrate while others will not. Changing the date will achieve nothing.

THE previous government denied the leasing arrangements for Port Botany, Port Kembla and the Port of Newcastle until they were exposed by the Newcastle Herald on July 29 2016. However, the Minns Labor government informed the Federal Court on September 12 2023 that Parliament authorised the previous government's actions under the "Ports Assets (Authorised Transactions) Act 2012". Could Parliament have intended to authorise leasing arrangements that the then government denied in answers provided to Labor's more than 100 Parliamentary questions between October 17 2013 and July 28 2016?