Letters To The Editor

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Work gone

I note with disapproval the demise of 'Work-for-the-Dole'.

Along with the loss of such provisions as the old Community Youth Support Scheme it represents a further commitment to falling in behind what's bad about the US.

They ignore their underprivileged; we try to as well. They bury their heads over global warming; we do the same. They say Osama is mates with Saddam; we concur. They say there's a connection between the terrible Spanish bombing and war in Iraq; we say (no, wait a minute; we say there's no connection; they say there is.... Stuff it, like ol' mate George I'm finding it's too hard to even get a coherent communiqué together any more).

Stuart Wales
Lismore

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Thanks driver

I am writing this letter, which I hope you will publish, to thank the volunteers of the Uniting Care Casino Transport Team for their help, when not having a car of my own. I had to travel to Lismore for medical treatment numerous times in the past few weeks.

These people use their own vehicles and, for a charge of $12 - Casino to Lismore, which would hardly cover the petrol cost let alone wear and tear on their car - they wait for you, in my case up to three hours, and then drive you home.

They also, at varying cost, take patients as far as Ballina, Gold Coast, Southport and Brisbane.

This wonderful group of people receive no government assistance whatsoever, so if any of your readers feel that they would like to help a worthy organisation that fills a real need in their own area by donating their time or money contact Shirley on 6662 8289. Any donations given are tax deductible.

Walter Teale
Casino

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Bonus pack

My principles inform me that, although a number of the new councillors will bring a breath of ozone friendly air into the stale winds of the chamber, business will go on as usual. It is even possible that the old six-pack might have been replaced by a new 'pack of seven', as a 20% extra free promotional offer!

That said, the make up of the new council appears to have strengthened the pillars at either end of the political spectrum at the expense of the middle ground. This may well lead to some colourful sessions. It is to be hoped that the central figures in this new council will step in and stop any ear biting or gouging in the clinches.

Maybe its time LINC TV got the telecast rights and set up the cameras?

Personally, I hope peace will prevail and that the reactionaries and progressives will play nicely together and that they won't play the individual but will stick to the issue.

And the issue is working together for a sustainable future.

Laurie Axtens
Lismore

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Only sport

John Howard has described the Ian Thorpe fiasco as a "tragedy". Time for a reality check, Johnny - it's only sport, mate.

Tragedy is his government's treatment of asylum seekers, Aboriginal people, the homeless, the unemployed, the less well-off in our society, higher education in Australia, the health system, sugar farmers, the erosion of national infrastructure, the war in Iraq (the list goes on...) - but, most importantly, the fact that lies have been perpetrated by his government to the Australian people.

Mr Howard - get out of the limelight of these sporting achievers and get back to work - or get out.

Andrew Nicholson
Lismore

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Why keep 'em?

Australia has had very few asylum seekers in the last two years.

The Australian Government border protection policy is working. So why are people being detained in detention centres? Over 250 people including children are being detained in Nauru by the Australian government.

This 'Pacific solution' is sending detainees mad. A psychiatrist employed to look after the mental health of detainees resigned after six months. He resigned in protest because people were going mad after three months and there was nothing he could do to help them. These people have no control over their future. They could be sent back to their own country of Iraq or Afghanistan, they could stay in detention. The Australian government could accept these people. These are the people who survived Tampa. The policy of detaining people is sending them mad.

The NZ government has already accepted nine. Why can't we at least release the remaining detainees?

Christine Russell
Dunoon

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Prudes return

As an artist living and working in the Northern Rivers I have always valued the support that The Echo gives our local arts. It was with some shock then that I opened The Echo last week and found that my artwork, advertising my show Hell is a Cabaret, had been defaced. The genitals of my characters 'Mule Girl' and 'Midget Cowboy' had been cut off. These are characters who have been previously printed in The Byron Echo, The Sydney Morning Herald and yes, The Northern Rivers Echo. All with no complaint.

I have since been informed that The Echo now has a no nudity policy with all artwork. Is this true? If so I am very surprised. My nude characters were inspired in part by Michelangelo's 'Damned in Hell' on the Sistine Chapel alter wall. I thought this battle had been won in The Renaissance after The Dark Ages by the likes of Michelangelo against Savonarola (who, by the way, burnt thousands of artworks and books, including several Botticelli's, with his Bonfires of the Vanities). If this battle was not won by Michelangelo then perhaps with Manet's 'Luncheon on the Grass' or even our very own home-grown Norman Lindsay with his 'Venus Crucified'.

Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens and Rodin all depicted the nude figure, and that's just the Rs. I'd be up all night 'till the broad daylight if I went from A to Z. Even the Queen has nudes in her art collection.

I understand that The Echo has a broad readership, but really, maybe it's just time some folks just got over it and stopped being disgusted by nudity.

This is the naughties, where bands with names like Machine Gun Fellatio have songs with names like 'Pussy Town' played on commercial radio.

Defacing an artist's work is like steppin' on Elvis' blue suede shoes. It's just not cricket.

Please explain.

Jimmy Willing
South Lismore

• Editor's note: That the nude is a popular figure in art is undisputed. But there is a big difference between the artwork and its publication in the mass media. While the Queen owns nudes and can show them to whomever she chooses, what we're talking about is whether Her Majesty's likely to publish them in The Times. I doubt it.

  The Echo has a large and diverse readership and what may seem fine for some will undoubtedly offend others. We must decide what might be "offensive to contemporary community standards", taking into account our audience in the context of national obscenity laws. While I'm sure Michelangelo would be chuffed to discover he's inspired you, I can't recall any of the figures in the Sistine Chapel being the proud owner of an appendage hanging down below their knees in the style of your artwork. And being an art history buff, you'd no doubt be aware that the Council of Trent, just before the artist's death, decided to "amend" Michelangelo's Last Judgement fresco by adding draped cloth around the offending parts.

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Departing thanks

The election is over, and Ballina Shire Council is about to embark on the next term. Over the last four and a half years, Council has engaged in more community consultation than at any other time in its history, undergone significant structural and philosophic change, yet decreased its current debt service ratio to an all-time low of 3.56% (13.91% in 1994!) - these are major achievements!

I thank my friend, Cr David Wright, for encouraging me to be part of the roller-coaster ride that is a term on Council, and my Council colleagues who supported moving forward, to go beyond the 'rates, roads and rubbish' mandate.

My thanks go to so many professional, helpful staff on Council, for their guidance.

The frustrations have been eclipsed by achievements. Council commitment to a Home and Community Care Centre in Ballina, saving Crawford House for community use, leasing space to Ballina-Byron Family Support Service, protecting the amenity of Wardell, Newrybar and Lennox communities through strategic planning, actively supporting landcare and community groups, community markets, a comprehensive Urban Water Strategy, and the upgrade of Ballina CBD are some achievements I'm especially happy about.

I am so fortunate to have wonderful friends who helped me all day last Saturday, at Rous, Wardell, Alstonville and Wollongbar.

My heartfelt thanks to stalwart locals - the Bypass Action Group crew, Zelda, Marguerite, John, Lorraine, Rose, Dave, Sylvia, friends from Quota, 'Quota husband' friends, and my wonderful Ted: thank you all for your cheerful support.

I feel sad that my best was not enough, but thankful for the amazing knowledge and insights afforded me over the last four and half years.

Marilyn Perkins
Wollongbar

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Aunty fibs

When is the ABC going to stop telling the general public lies saying that "everybody" watches the ABC, which is not true at all and they would know it's not true.

Norm Reg Turner-Davidson
Goonellabah

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Wrong preference

You couldn't have got it more wrong in your article on your front page (Echo, Mar 25) entitled "Why below the line matters". You asserted, at great length, that groups/candidates would allocate the direction of a voter's preferences, if a voter just voted 1 above the line for Council or 1 for a single mayoral candidate. That is completely untrue in the council elections held on Saturday. All that will happen if a voter just votes 1, with no preferences indicated, is their vote will not follow ANY preference, but will 'exhaust' with the group/candidate it was for. In the same breath that you totally mislead the voter you paint all groups/candidates with the same brush of selfish, unprincipled dealings.

I am horrified that you published this very under-researched piece (all you had to do is ask the Lismore SEO Returning Officer, Richard Kowalczyk) two days before the poll, thus successfully seriously misinforming voters throughout the Northern Rivers with no chance for correction before the election.

You have a lot to answer for with this blunder and, oh yes, maybe if you'd read my letter you published the previous week (18/3), in which I had spelled the process out to you and your readers, you may not even have had to call the Returning Officer. You certainly wouldn't have possibly committed an electoral offence by misrepresenting the system.

Julia Melland
Goonellabah

• See apology, Shaggy.

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Congrats to all

Just a few comments on Lismore's Council election. First, I'd like to congratulate all the candidates for election. It takes courage to put yourself forward for public scrutiny, and I trust that all learnt from the process and also had some fun along the way. I know the six candidates who stood with me and David Tomlinson certainly did.

Second, the system that has been imposed on us, whereby those standing above the line had to have at least six candidates on their tickets and led to having 60 candidates, confused and angered many voters, and that was very clear both in the attitude of many at the polling booths and in the high number of informal votes.

To those informed voters who came with their lists, and to those who were polite in either accepting or rejecting the leaflets handed out at the booths, I would just say thank you.

I look forward to the day when we might have postal voting in NSW, as occurs in Tasmania and Western Australia, where voters receive information about the candidates and make their choice in the privacy of their homes rather than having to run the gauntlet outside the booths.

Cr Ros Irwin
Lismore

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Red card

Rather than take issue with any of the bilious offerings of G Wallace, my gripe is with the editor. If you're going to go through his drivel and take out this bit or that, why don't you just write it yourself?

Methinks rather than "courageous and democratic", this editor is cynically and opportunistically manipulating the content to create conflict or whatever it is that editors think begets interest. Come on, grow up, we don't need or want to have to wade through this repetitive nonsense ad nauseum.

"G. Wallace, get thee to the bin sir".

Bob Hodgkins
Midginbil

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Paying bills

I am grateful that I can pay so many of my bills at the local Post Office. It's easy, convenient, and I always get a smile and a pleasant greeting.

But for my water rates I have to travel to the Council Chambers. Why? Because I don't use enough water! A bill over $20 I can pay at the PO, but for one under $20 I must make an extra journey.

Ironic, really. Save water, "do the right thing", care for resources and the environment - and you are forced to add more exhaust fumes to the atmosphere! Come on, Council, be fair. If a bill is less than $20, then don't send it. Add it to the next one, and avoid punishing those who are really trying.

Rosie Gibbons
Lismore Heights

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Thanks Fine Ladies

Since the beginning of our Bayly Special Education Project, initiated by Mrs Yvonne Tester of Lismore, we have been able to assist 30 disadvantaged Fijian children who would have remained uneducated.

It is only through the charity of "The Fine Ladies of Lismore" that these children are not left to fall through the cracks in our society.

It gives us enormous pleasure to see smiles on faces of those, who are now attending school in the knowledge that they will not be sent home, as a result of un-paid school fees.

Our gratitude towards them abounds and we are truly grateful for their support and can only hope that it remains forthcoming, as it is such a great success.

Forever Grateful
Mrs Sarojni Michael
Lautoka, Fiji

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You sue potato

It's all about propriety. The GM thing. You can't patent the potato. Which, is a shame if you don't believe humanity should evolve as one. We're just lucky the elites are trying to convince us we have to change it to save us from overpopulation, starvation, even death.

So science alters a potato. Some company very similar to, if not Monsanto, patents the alteration. Only the alteration and not the overwhelming majority of pre-existing natural genes are considered intellectual property.

If, as some surmise, the new species take control, we may be lucky enough to reach the point in time where the entire food chain is contaminated by GMs and if we're not paying some company very similar to, if not Monsanto, a commission on every morsel of food consumed on planet earth. Then thefts would be occurring. The theft of intellectual property.

So as you begin to believe there are too many people on the planet. Think again. It's about 5-6 billion now. They suggest at nine billion the planet can no longer sustain it's human numbers. What if we banned cars and ripped up all the roads, immediately replacing these ecological wastelands with crops?

Anyway what would I know. Now my environmental conscience is apparent, the academically astute will realise I smoke dope and say that I must be crazy.

Marcus Davis
Lismore

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