Letters To The Editor

Bravo Herbie

We would like to give our sincere congratulations and thanks to the organisers, entertainers and participants who made the fourth Lismore herb festival so spontaneously enjoyable. We realise how much work made this happen.

My husband and I spent a little time on the Saturday at the riverside park, and were so impressed that we returned on Sunday, and stayed all day.

We got so much pleasure in seeing so many young people enjoying skate boarding, hip hop dancing, gladiator games and much more, targeting youth as a major part of our community.

We particularly enjoyed the choirs who gave their all, and their message of love and peace enchanted the people.

Actually, that is what the herb festival is all about - caring about each other, and enjoying where you live.

Bring on next year!

June Crawford,
Koonorigan

Seen Shirley?

I wonder if any of your readers can help me in my search.

In the 1950's, while living in London, I corresponded with a Shirley Sinclair, of RR4 (?) Casino. Like many other penfriends of school days, we lost touch.

I shall be in your area briefly in November and would welcome the chance to say hello to Shirley, if at all possible.

I believe she was a nurse and may have married into a medical family.

Any information would be appreciated. (PS Shirley knew me as Mavis Collins).

Mrs M A Cresswell
Victoria

Cunning plan

The Iranian Oil Minister recently stated that oil prices will tip $3 a litre within three years. (That's over $160 to fill a tank in a Corolla).

I must compliment John Howard and Bush for having the foresight in bringing together quite a brilliant political strategy in helping them win the next election by going to war. With oil prices increasing, watch all the tree huggers flock to their ranks. "The environmentally friendly party", clean air, comfortable climates, fewer cars on the roads, lower insurance premiums etc.

Even health will benefit as some of the fatties won't be able to afford their chocolates and they will have to learn to walk again. The poor people will develop a greater sense of community as they try to get to know their neighbours again when they try to bludge a lift into town.

I think Howard is a masterful tactician as conservative politics will become more green as oil prices hit the roof. Mark Latham and Peter Garrett eat your hearts out.

Trevour Evans
East Ballina

Eat petrol

While listening to ABC Radio National on Sunday, I heard that farmers are worrying about the rising cost of petrol. I was shocked to hear that 50% of fuel prices is due to the production costs.

I stopped using motor vehicles 2-3 years ago, basically because I found them to be more destructive then terrorists, but also because of the social dislocations they definitely cause and the environmental degradation that forms in the wake of the internal combustion engines indiscriminate use.

It is a strange and beautiful planet that I now live on - a simple community and my life seems sustainable only if I am without a car. Not so much your worlds and my worlds, it is inconvenienced by the dust, the glare, the fumes, the smells, the noise, the slowly poisoned deaths. And my complaints.

And you, who can't hear my valid complaint, so call me a whiner. You weak people who couldn't walk 20 kilometres without forming stress in your disfunctioning bodies, equally harm my environment.

I am informed that if I buy Australian produce, I have no choice but to contribute half of the selling price for farmers (the people who actually feed us) to the petrochemical companies. Those deceitfully conceited multinational companies (people who cause untold destruction for their 'valid' reason of profit for shareholders) would have me raving for far too long. Basically, I feel like I need to stop eating food that these enslaved farmers grow so that I won't contribute further to the environmental damage. Maybe then I could stop my ravings.

Keith Stone
North Lismore

More to Greens

Anne Paterson, in her "More to Dems" letter (Echo, Aug 19), was either being disingenuous or has fallen foul of a couple of popular misconceptions. One is that the Greens are a one-issue party (ie. the environment). The other is that they don't care about loggers' jobs.

Many commentators do loggers a great disservice by appearing to assume this is the only job they're capable of. I give them far more credit. And let's hope I'm right, for in 1999-2000, while wood-chipping of public native forests in Tasmania went up 48%, Forestry Tasmania cut jobs by 5 per cent! (www.doctorsforforests.com has links to relevant official reports)

This job loss has nothing to do with environmentalists protecting our 'Old Growth' heritage and the environment. It has everything to do with cost-cutting measures by the forestry industry!

Protecting the environment can lead to an increase in employment.

Currently there's a struggle to save the Styx valley in Tasmania. This beautiful area is being progressively degraded by Old Growth logging and replacement by softwood plantations. A report published in 2001 suggested that by preserving the native forests up to 500 new jobs in environmentally-based tourism could be generated.

Not only can the Greens be trusted to protect the environment whilst promoting employment in sustainable industries, their policies are based on sound principles rather than a wet-finger-in-the-wind.

Rather than a slanging match between Democrats and Greens, we need to encourage disenchanted voters to think outside the 'Two Party' square and send a clear message that we're sick of the policy clones.

At the coming election this country needs its voters to become 'lie detectors', who will no longer readily swallow political 'spin' but make some effort to discover the truth for themselves.

Let's never have another 'children overboard' election win achieved through fear based on lies. We all deserve better than that.

Cloud
Horseshoe Creek via Kyogle

Sun sufferers

We fought for the shade and many of us were burnt by the sun but it was worth suffering the heat to see so many people at the riverbank on the weekend.

Hundreds of adults and children were on their feet cheering and clapping while young women and men strut their stuff at the skate park in Lismore. I have only seen hip hop and break dance on video clips, so to see it performed with such enthusiasm by family friends and the kids next door was special.

There were girls in denim and bandanas, fairies with wings, wild hair and striped socks, dreadlocks and plaits and lots of red and caps. Where do they learn all the cool moves? We want to see more. How about regular festivals for young people? They obviously have a lot to show and a lively culture to celebrate.

Before Council bulldozed the riverbank to make a flood levee, I attended more than five festivals a year on this site and it was a shady park. Council staff claimed the park had no cultural or social significance. Maybe when the trees are finally planted and providing shade we can use the site as we once did and it will be good to see more youth action on the riverbank.

Vanessa Ekins
Lismore

Wasted aid

Once again we are indebted to ABC TV for their must-see Foreign Correspondent program. Last Tuesday night we were treated to visions of PNG's completely ragtag, corrupt and hopelessly inept police force which L'il Johnnie and Lord Downer of Baghdad want to prop up at a cost to the Aussie taxpayer of $1 billion over five years. Why?

This money should be spent improving policing in Australia and raising the inspection rate of overseas containers entering the country from the current ludicrous just 3 per cent actually examined. No wonder Australia is still awash with guns and drugs - they come in by the container load and stolen luxury cars leave in the empty containers bound for Asian and Middle Eastern ports. Outgoing containers are rarely, if ever, opened for inspection.

But back to PNG. On Tuesday night's program, Lord Alexander attended a police graduation ceremony in Port Moresby and was supposed to take the salute.

Naturally the music from the Brass Band was the highly appropriate Colonel Bogey March which every soldier knows rhymes with "Bullshite, that's all the band could play", or words to that effect. All the PNG Pooh Bahs were seated rigidly in uniform or ill fitting suits as befits such a ceremony. The guest of honour made a fool of himself again. Reclining slovenly on what appeared to be a squatters chair, Lord Alexander was a picture of flatulent pomposity. Looking as if he had just consumed an entire suckling pig, the great gut almost obscured the meagre attempt of his acknowledging the many salutes from the uniforms in his direction.

We really do get the pollies we so richly deserve.

John X Berlin
Maclean

Maintaining rage

Hey, would anyone happen to know exactly when it was that misogyny became sexy?

How such a thing even made its way into reality, makes my head all twirly inside! Where's all the chivalry these days? They say its dead now, well I wouldn't go that far but it isn't exactly alive and kicking!

Jerks come in all kinds of wrapping, so it can be hard to tell them apart from the decent guys, but the thing with these jerks is that they are incapable of true romance, they just learn to fake it in order to get under the sheets. Sure they might commit to a woman and appear to be 'in love', but make no mistake - it's all about the bedroom! Oh how vomit-inducing it all is!

Now I realise that a few sexist wankers will probably read this and get offended and cranky, well if I can offend at least one of them, I've done my job!

Grant Armitage
Lismore

All equal

I refer to the letters, "Old Fox" and "Takes the Cake" (Echo, Aug 19). I also refer to my learned fellow Councillor's offer to put the Deputy Mayor and myself straight over the fox's place on earth. I am surprised that Cr Rich believes that a fox's place is in zoos, museums or fur coats, and not as a free animal able to go about his daily rounds like the rest of us.

When I was a little girl, my Mum, God bless her, used to load us kids up in the pony and trap and off we'd go to Sunday school. Dad was always "too busy" as he didn't have much of an affinity for horses - a bit like Cr Rich and foxes.

It was always an adventure, as we fought for who would hold the reins and who would hold the long driving whip, and we competed fiercely with our tongues clicking against our teeth for who could make the loudest noise to hurry up Tombo, Star or Silver, our little post war ponies. Star always got us there in a bit of a hurry much to Mum's anxiety, as he was a retired show jumper and had a fancy for jumping five bar gates with the trap on the back.

At Sunday school we sang that lovely little children's hymn, All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all. I remember those days well in balmy England in my early childhood.

When I got a bit older, I was taught the Ten Commandments and 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

I never forgot those days. They gave me a standard to conduct my life by.

So here I will ask Cr Rich and Boyd Marshall how they would like a dose of 1080 "Foxoff" bait for their next meal, as human beings are as much of a pest as foxes. They knock down all the forests, pollute the groundwater with their sewage, take all the fish from the ocean, contaminate the atmosphere with their motor vehicles, destroy the ozone layer and it doesn't stop there. Yes, the human race is the greatest feral pest on earth. So Cr Rich, are you ready for the museum or the zoo, as I don't think you'd make much of a fur coat!

If we are going to eliminate any species of pest, at least lets do it humanely and without suffering, and certainly not with 1080 poisoned baits.

Cr M Howes
Ballina

The paper road

I am appalled at the hefty increase of the enclosure permit tax. The Department of Lands office told me that this tax is to increase at a further 300% in the next three years. This tax for a "paper road" on my property was $50 and has now been increased to $350!

These "paper roads" - drawn around the turn of last century - are littered throughout the region that I live.

It is beyond me why a road would cross a gully and then directly dissect my home in two - an original homestead, one of the earliest in my area, built in the 1910s.

At the time of the purchase I was concerned about a road and contacted the Department of Land and Water Conservation in Grafton in 2000. I was told that it was a gazetted road and not dedicated, it was a 1920s roadway - "it's only a paper road".

I was told that these roads appeared throughout country areas and that they were not anything to worry about. I contacted Lismore and Kyogle Councils and was told much the same thing. The National Bank of Australia, who approved the loan, and the solicitors, obviously did not think it was a problem.

Well, it's 2004 and look what's happened! I received a letter from the Lands Department for a tax that I had never heard of for a road that does not exist. This road will never exist.

The tax or "rent" is $350. I am self-employed and my income fluctuates between $20 and $40,000. I do not receive any government assistance and do not benefit from any federal government tax ploys to gain votes. Maybe for people in the city $350 is not much, but to me and to people who live in the country, it's a lot. Council rates are over $850, we remove and pay for our own rubbish disposal, and we do struggle to pay bills.

I'm surprised that a Labor Government could do this to people in the country who have not only had to contend with the devastation of the drought but also another hefty and unfair tax burden. My life has been put in turmoil over something on a piece of paper, drawn 80 or 100 years ago.

The Minister for Lands, Tony Kelly, stated it was to recoup administration costs and was not revenue increasing. Well, if sending a letter can cost an individual $350 maybe the financial geniuses at Price Waterhouse Coopers could recommend abolishing these obsolete paper roads - then the State Government could relieve itself of the hefty burden of this tax's administrative costs.

Why did all the government bodies I contacted make light of it?

The government is forcing people to either pay an ever-increasing rent, or fence it off, or purchase it at increasing market rates (no doubt unaffected) - or I am forced to leave. If I put the property on the market it will be at a greatly reduced price and will take years to sell. I would not want to place the burden on another person or trick them into buying it by making light of it. I'm an ethical person and maybe that's a rare thing these days.

This is a revenue gaining exercise of the worst kind - one that I can't afford and one that I can't live with. I am now too conscious of its threatening potential.

Robert Wirth
Barkers Vale

Born to rule?

Whilst listening to the ABC news bulletin out of Sydney on Friday, August 20, I heard the newsreader say the following: "Junior Minister in Howard Government involved in scuffle". He then played a tape in which I heard the Member for Richmond say "My family has been in this area for 100 years and I have every right to attend a press conference of my Parliamentary colleagues". (Shades of the 'Born to Rule' syndrome?)

The tape went on to say a Latham Labor Government would give $15 million per annum for 10 years to the Pacific Highway funding to allow the State Government to divert money to re-open the Casino to Murwillumbah rail line.

Later I was watching Prime news and was horrified to see and hear the Member for Richmond giving a press interview saying in a childish and petulant voice, "What do they want us to do? Take over the police and the hospitals?" Fortunately the item finished there.

Is this the person we want to represent us in Canberra? I think not!

Margaret Hains
Ballina

RSL future

As a financial member of the Lismore RSL Club I think it is disgraceful that members have been kept completely in the dark as to the financial situation at the club since the National Australia Bank brought in the receivers earlier this year.

Members have not received a financial report for 2003-2004, usually distributed prior to the AGM in April, and have not been told what happened to the monies raised at the auction night, nor the $1000 life memberships that were on offer.

On phoning the general manager on August 25, I was told there were insufficient funds to pay for a mail-out to members.

I suggest that the receivers ponder the following:

Members may be inclined not to renew their 2005 memberships next January, therefore creating a situation whereby the club is not worthy of a takeover offer.

I'm not aware of the recent Twin Towns RSL offer, but surely the National Australia Bank would be better off accepting a takeover offer rather than paying high-priced receivers from Port Macquarie to run the club for months on end.

I know most members wish the NAB would make a decision soon.

Jim Hawkins
Lismore RSL Badge No. 99