Letters To The Editor

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Do the sums

Would Mr Ian Causley care to tell us why the Howard Government has spent $21 million of public monies on a Coalition election campaign entitled "Strengthening Medicare"?

My copy of "An Important Message from the Prime Minister" will tomorrow be forwarded to Mr Causley's office in Lismore, with a message asking why this huge sum wasn't spent on the health system.

Cloud
Horseshoe Creek
via Kyogle

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A worthy crusade

Congratulations to Theresa Culleton for her magnificent effort in gathering 10,000 signatures on a petition for a 24-hour fire station in Lismore. Unfortunately is would seem that our community pleas are falling on deaf ears.

I met with the NSW Fire Brigades Commissioner Greg Mullins and Assistant Commissioner Bob Dobson in Sydney on April 30 to suggest that Lismore's 2200 elevated timber houses in the basin and in North and South Lismore put our residents at increased risk of death or property loss. Surprisingly the Commissioner suggested that elevated homes may result in less damage and that there was no evidence that timber homes burn more. When I questioned the apparent logic of this claim, the Commissioner said he would contact the CSIRO and interstate colleagues to check on research on this matter.

I also asked that the undated and inaccurate Hazard Categorisation Map of Lismore be updated to reflect risks such as new nursing homes.

Commissioner Mullins was interested and appreciative of the data I presented but said that the commitment to Lismore could not be kept and that other cities had greater needs.

I am also concerned that our plea for 24hr staffing is regarded as a union-driven plot to drive a wedge between the permanent and the retained firefighters. It would be unfortunate if the response times of our committed retained staff are used in this manner and I would stress that they do their very best at all times and that they are greatly appreciated and highly valued by our community.

The Commissioner has informed me that he should have some information on risks and hazards by the end of July and that he hopes to visit Lismore in the near future.

We all felt great anguish over the terrible fire and the resulting deaths of a woman and her three children in Mattraville recently. Such an incident causes unimaginable distress, not only to the family concerned and the local community, but also to the firefighters involved in trying to save those lives.

A 24-hour fire station will not stop all fire tragedies but it must help. I applaud Theresa Culleton's crusade after her neighbour died in a house fire three years ago and urge everyone to support her and our firefighters, to get our much-needed and promised 24 hour fire station.

Jenny Dowell
Goonellabah

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Lantern magic

Just a short note to thank Lismore for a great night on Saturday, the night belonged to all of you!

There was such great support from so many, and I hope to have a full thank you to everyone published next week. I need to check in with all the team so no one gets missed. And a full thank you to cast and community will be on the website www.lismorelanternparade.com.au.

Nearly everyone had a fabulous time, however, feedback tells me there were some fairly big audience issues, which we will try and address in the future. Most were due to lack of funds/people power - such as hiring security and a big screen that actually works. I am so sorry for all of you who were unable to see and left disappointed. We went to an enormous amount of trouble to get a screen, but last minute technical problems and safety issues resulted in no big screen. We did our best.

It was a truly magical night, crowd estimates for the parade range around 12,000 plus, and in Riverside Park 7-8,000. Not bad Lismore!!

I think we have something great and can be very proud of a community which can put on a show like we did on Saturday.

Once again thank you to everyone involved and see you next year!

Jyllie Jackson
(parade coordinator)

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Mining your own business

Whilst the well researched renewable energy industries of solar and wind power are starved of funding, the mining industry gets feather bedding for a featherbrained pollution minimisation scheme which can't be realistically brought on line for 20 to 30 years.

Howard's energy policy was not about the green vote it was about shoring up the political donations of the major mining companies as he goes into advertising mode for the "big hood wink".

If Howard could only harness his own hot air and the consequent blood pressure increase of the independent scientific community, then our energy concerns would be completely allayed.

Sadly, however, Australian will go on burning fossil fuels at an unprecedented level in the face of International condemnation and local disbelief.

Laurie Axtens
North Lismore

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Dilly dally

Why does the Prime Miniature lack the spine, guts or balls to sack Senator Robert Dill for wilfully and grossly misleading Federal Parliament for over 12 months re Iraq?

John X Berlin
Maclean

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The coal face

How much evil is the current government going to inflict on our world before we wake up and boot them out? Forget their unprovoked attacks of Afghanistan and Iraq, their murder of innocent civilians and destruction of infrastructure, of all the crimes against humanity that little Johnny and his pack of vandals have committed the sabotage of our renewable energy industries ranks as No 1. Since they gained office they have systematically slashed funding from renewable energy and climate research. While the MRET is a good idea, the pathetic addition of 9500 GWh over 10 years (significantly less than 2% of our rapidly growing gluttony for power, with electricity consumption up by 30% in the last decade) will have next to no impact on our status as the worst greenhouse polluter in the world.

To add insult to ignorance they want to throw half a billion dollars of our money to the beleaguered coal industry in an attempt to hide our sins of consumption underground, (little wonder we are called the mushroom society). At a time of record profits for the largely overseas owned coal companies, we are going to throw a huge wad of cash at an entirely unproven technology, which will be used primarily to extract more gas and oil out of rapidly depleting fields. The cost of extracting the three tons of CO2 produced for every ton of coal burnt, liquefying it (which is extremely difficult), transporting it to our oil fields and pumping it underground will make coal fired electricity more expensive than solar; currently the most expensive form of renewable energy.

Electricity produced from the hot dry rocks of the Cooper Basin (in South Australia) is predicted to be cost competitive with coal, with enough energy underground to provide all of our electricity needs three times over. Wind power is getting close to the cost of coal fired electricity, while run of river hydro is also an attractive option for the few areas which continue to receive rainfall as our continent heats up and dries out. If the externalities are counted then renewables are already far more cost effective than coal fired power.

Why are we willing to risk the extinction of our species along with all the others we are pushing into oblivion for a couple of cents a kWh? It is up to everyone to act for the future. Turn on to green power and abandon the infernal combustion engine, if you want to be remembered by your grandchildren, rather than be cursed by the few remnants of humanity who survive the coming catastrophe.

Simon Cripps Clark
Gundurimba

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The laws of nature

How ironic that in an age where 'natural is best', and where we reject even tinkering with soy beans (ie genetically modified soy beans) there are those who accept without a doubt or ethic in sight, reproductive tampering on a grand scale.

And so to birds and bees and family trees. Some family trees are starting to look a bit wonky!

In our present society which is governed by the pleasure "principle", whole future branches are being 'terminated' while other precious buds are being grafted on to naturally sterile 'unions'. Genealogists must be turning pale.

It does matter how we get here, and it does matter that we have a natural mother type and a natural father type. That is the law of nature which is the law of God and no amount of secular legislation will ever change it!

As for the recent ABC/Playschool kerfuffle - vote with your remote!

Mary B Mason
Lismore Heights

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Returning serve

Although I have very strong convictions on many issues, "just the facts" (Echo, June 3) was to a large extent an exercise aimed at elevating the standard of the current debate.

I start with the best. Mr Koo, you Sir, are a gentleman. After my cheap shot, your response was informative, balanced and most importantly, devoid of sarcasm. We agree to disagree.

"The Trotskyist from Tilba", so described by T Murdoch. Leon Trotsky: "The very incarnation of a bourgeois caricature of a revolutionary... all temperament." So described by a British secret agent R B Lockhart. Mr Lang true to form, a rabid diatribe, straight for the jugular.

The "thesis from afar" was based on personal experience, the experience of my immediate family and the experience of the long suffering Czech people. To do a hatchet job on a body of written work one has to actually read it. This is imperative if that critique is to form the cornerstone of ones own argument. If I may draw a simple analogy: a blind man doing a movie review. Read my lips; research and a balanced argument. Without these key ingredients the resulting effort will inevitably be a clueless waffle. A far more sinister implication is the creation of an intolerant dogmatic approach to complex issues.

"We are not waging a war against individuals," a Checklist commander told his men. "We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class". Dogmatic intolerance has no borders. It afflicts the broad political spectrum from the extreme left to the extreme right. Religion is often it's driving force.

Sitting on a fence does not imply a lack of commitment, it simply gives one the option on which side to get off.

Although this smacks of opportunity, with the hindsight of history, it simply means that one must retain the ability to admit that a mistake has been made.

E Bartos
Lismore Heights

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Indulging in irony

Dear Robin Osborne; just as it's possible to misjudge Nimbin by what you might see on Cullen Street so is it possible to misjudge the Rajneesh. Even the same ironies apply; clean up Nimbin and the tourists will stay away, just as they would say, from Kings bloody Cross. Similarly, for what it's worth, the Rajneesh brought cash into Oregon.

What to say? That Rajneesh de-briefings were better world's practice than those practiced in an Allied POW prison? Nah, that'd be over indulgence in irony. True faith is possible... (aside) "Will somebody turn the Randy Newman CD up again please, the news is on."

Stuart Wales
Lismore

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Show me the money

The Art in the Heart project highlights the Australian approach to the Arts. Each year governments both State and Federal spend billions of dollars of public money on the Arts and yet artists on average are amongst the lowest earners in our society. How come? Why spend millions on another concrete mausoleum to house the finished product; when the people who actually make the stuff go largely unrewarded? Why spend more on those who manage and administrate art, than on those who create it? Isn't this the wrong way around?

During one of the most celebrated creative periods in the history of the West, the Italian Renaissance; there was no arts bureaucracy! There were no museums or state run galleries and neither were there any art councils. None of the bureaucratic frameworks we now have in place existed then because artists were directly commissioned or patronised by the powers that be. This is why some parts of the world have a legacy of great art as opposed to a legacy of uninspired buildings to store it in. What a radical idea, give the cash directly to those who make the stuff!

But of course if you did that, there could be no Art in the Heart project. Why encourage the creation of new and original art, when you can have a tourist industry instead? I hear you Ros about the legacy we leave to future generations. I believe the most fulfilling legacy we can leave our children is a culture with actual depth and substance to it; rather than one that merely turns a profit for a select minority. I believe that by spending more on the arts industry than we do on individual artists; we are effectively placing fiscal priorities ahead of creative human values!

Spending on people might not give you a shiny new gallery; but it may provide us with a more vibrant, independent, living culture. It may establish Lismore as a place where something truly different happens! The independent artists of this region deserve more than a back room at a fancy new gallery. What they need most is direct, practical assistance. Not more good advice, not another grant we can apply for; not another crowd-drawing dead artist; but the same sort of stuff that helps the Arts Industry to around - Moolah Spendulah!

R J Poole
Lismore

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Enough is enough

Nobody likes to see anyone abused, but the description of Domestic Violence has gone too far and is based on a concoction called the Duluth Wheel, invented by a few radical feminists in the 1970's in Duluth, USA, and its contents incorporated into our Universities and Bureaucracies since then. The "Domestic Violence Industry" now creates thousands of jobs in demonising all males, who are now not allowed to defend any of their rights as a father, husband or partner, even access to their children if it is against the woman's wishes. Many children are taken from their families by the state. Are we repeating the years of the "stolen generation"? A low percentage of Apprehended Violence Orders involves actual physical violence and yet society is made to believe that we have a plague of violent men in our midst.

Dads should now invent their "own wheel" and demand the God given right of equal access to their own children and the right to defend them from immoral or unsafe situations that some women put their kids into. Research would show this is the main reason for anger in our men, but their plight is not reported and ignored. How many times have you heard the father's story when a child is harmed while in custody of the mother? It is almost as though fathers do not exist, except in domestic violence situations.

Physical violence is wrong and it is great that women have their freedom, but don't forget there are some shocking females out there who have been brainwashed for a whole generation into thinking that all creation revolves around them and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.

Many men are attacked by women, but this is not reported unless it results in murder. Everyone has the right to live without violence, but please let us retain some common sense as to what violence really is and not get carried away by the Delusional Duluth wheel from America.

Bev Pattenden
(Grandparents in Distress)
Address supplied

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Full-time firemen

The current campaign for full-time firemen will cost the Lismore City Council a fortune to have them sit around Lismore Fire Station all night.

There has not been a serious night fire in this town for several years so I think the cost is unwarranted and a great burden on ratepayers.

There have been several disastrous fires recently in Sydney and yet they have about 100 fire stations in that city with full-time staff. A similar fire occurred in Melbourne recently with the loss of several lives and that city also has many fire stations with full-time staff.

To say the current Lismore campaign is not union related is a joke - every time Ms Culleton and fireman Hulbert are pictured on TV or in the media they are wearing union T-shirts and it is constantly stated that fireman Hulbert is the union spokesman.

The campaign must be union related otherwise fireman Hulbert's constant criticism of his employers and workmates would result in his dismissal. Private enterprise would not stand for this constant criticism.

Several weeks ago there was a serious house fire in South Lismore in the early afternoon. Staff were on duty at Lismore Fire Station and yet 80% of the property was destroyed - not 20% as stated by fireman Hulbert in the media. This statement shows his lack of credibility in assessing fire station needs.

A fire in a Goonellabah home last week resulted in a small loss of property and yet Goonellabah Fire Station does not have full-time firemen, only volunteers.

The public must be aware that the loss of life in house fires is a reality but people also lose their lives in traffic accidents and we do not have Police on every intersection in town.

One wonders why Ms Culleton waited over three years to start her campaign when house fires involving death and destruction have been occurring in NSW throughout this period.

Name and address supplied

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