Letters To The Editor

True grit

Bob Wilson, a true stalwart of the Alstonville community, stood down as President of the Alstonville & District Citizens & Ratepayers Assn. recently after a two-year stint in the job.

Bob took the position when no one else wanted to and despite health problems has again made the Association a strong instrument whereby the local community can voice its opinion and be a vital watchdog on what takes place in local Government circles.

This was one of many essential community roles Bob has taken on in recent years and as well as continuing on in this Assn as a Committee member, he can be found also heavily involved in the local RSL Sub Branch, By-Pass Committee, Agricultural Society, Safety House Program and Orchid Society to name some.

It is inspirational to see such an effort from a man who seeks no recognition and shies away from accolades as he continues on at much personal cost in time and money despite snide criticism from some notables who have hidden agendas, vested interest and will not have a go themselves.

As our community volunteers shrink in number and the self-gratification 'too busy making money' or 'not my problem' society blossoms, the likes of Bob Wilson are treasures in an ever increasing rat race that is losing that community feeling.

We all should take the time to thank Bob and people of his ilk for all they do to keep our part of the world still a decent place to live in. They are true unsung heroes in the main.

Geoff Harris
Tuckombil

A successful Mission

Thank you for the useable glasses. I have collected and sent them to the Christian Blind Mission. If you have any more, then please leave them at Terry White Chemist. If you would still like to help the Blind Mission then a donation would be appreciated.

Their aim is to help those broken in body and trapped in need, as well as those with eye problems. Their postal address is PO Box 348, Box Hill, Victoria, 3128.

Thank you for thinking of others.

Lois Keep
Goonellabah

Co-operation needed

Dune Carers today applauded Ballina Council's decision to begin redevelopment of the Angels Beach car park located opposite Beachfront Parade. We have been waiting far too long for this vitally needed amenity to be upgraded, they said.

The old car park was a petty crime zone specialising in car break-ins. Residents and Neighbourhood Watch demands for a redevelopment have previously fallen on deaf ears.

The area has degraded into the worst environmental eyesore on an otherwise spectacular beach. No weed control or revegetation has been possible for years, not knowing what the future car park's location or extent would be.

Happily, that is about to change. Angels Beach Dune Care volunteers will partner with Council to identify and relocate native vegetation prior to construction works.

And we will help revegetate the area with appropriate species. We hope to some day see it reaching the same high environmental standards as the rest of the beach.

Dune Carers nevertheless regret the failure of this and previous councils to listen sympathetically to the traditional owners of Angels Beach.

We solemnly assure Bundjalung people that we will honour our pledge to strenuously oppose any further cycleway development unless and until full Indigenous consent is given.

We warmly welcome general manager John Christopherson's generous attempts to establish consultation protocols between Council and Indigenous custodians. We wish him every success and hope to soon see a level of mutual respect and cooperation that has been sadly missing for decades past.

Lee Andresen
Angels Beach Dune Care & Reafforestation Group Inc.

Consultation frustration

An open letter to Mr John Irving, project manager of Oral Health.

I have received a letter from the manager of Lismore Water, Mr Anu Atukorala, stating that you are responsible for the community consultation on fluoride.

Might I enquire how this is to be handled? I have yet to see any attempt by you or anyone else to contact residents of Lismore seeking our opinion on the subject. Some 12 or 14 years ago we rejected this and I can't see any change in that result. It puzzles me how anyone in your position could be elected to carry out this assignment, which should require the completely unbiased attitude of the person elected.

From your letter in ###The Echo it appears you have already made up your mind and until I see evidence of some out in the open community contact I don't believe you are the man for the job.

As you should be aware most of the young people don't drink much water. Soft drinks and cordials etc are the in thing as are all the junk food. This also manifests itself in the obesity problem that the young are having.

I believe if we went back to an earlier era when the government of the day had a dental program and if you must have fluoride the dentist can treat the teeth at the annual check up.

You quoted a few areas that you say have fluoride in their water and in those areas they still have a dental problem as you well know.

You did not mention any of the areas that have discontinued the use of fluoride and they are many.

Please do the right thing and take a vote in our area.

RJ and J Lemon
Lismore

Obvious conclusions

I've concluded that jurisprudence and propriety are legally a contradiction to each other. One is a moral obligation at a community level, the other globalisation. You could say, I've grown to love my community and as anyone who knows me will attest, I express this love for humanity with the words, I hate banks.

I've also concluded that cannabis is less harmful to myself and the broader community than alcohol and most probably the majority of the hundreds of thousands of new substances introduced with patents pending into the human environment since the end of World War II.

I've concluded that modern medicine is most threatened by improved hygiene and nutrition. We don't need fluoride in the water. DoCS will pull the bad parents into line quite easily once society is cashless. Not only that, do we need more unemployed dentists?

To conclude, with the wave of angry suicide bombers maybe coming to blow me up, I'm scared. I need a joint. Will the police please leave me and my community alone and go back to protecting us. Remove this stupid law. Give back what propriety took away.

Marcus Davies
North Lismore

It's a game

What should we make of The Latham Diaries? I haven't finished reading them so I may yet change my mind, but so far I'd have to say that the media hysteria is distracting attention from some important underlying messages.

The diary entries themselves are the sort of personal writings which are probably best kept personal, and as such I'm not convinced that his decision to publish such raw expressions is appropriate.

However, the main underlying message in this book is its reminder to the reader of the nature of politics. It is tough, personal, bitter and poisonous. Political culture in all parties is dominated by personal promotion, and consequently, the personal destruction of rivals. Anyone entering politics in the hope of pursuing constructive policy outcomes without wishing to promote oneself is in for a nasty shock.

The reality of the 'game' is that the vast majority of its players are power-seekers. If you don't seek power you will be used and manipulated by those who do, and you will find yourself power-less to achieve any of your desired policy or philosophical objectives. Gaining power becomes essential if you wish to achieve results at any level from local organisations to broad public policy. In this way the political process either gobbles up and spits out committed activists, or it transforms them into selfish, power-hungry operators. Quite simply, if you hope to achieve anything for the greater good you must first relentlessly pursue power for yourself. Take it easy or let your guard down for a moment and your rivals will pounce; get ahead and they'll try to cut you down, sometimes through jealousy if nothing else.

I've witnessed this permeating political culture first hand. In the party I joined, putting oneself ahead of the greater good was obviously and comprehensively detrimental, but that didn't stop people doing it. It was a rather embarrassing experience, as I failed to realise what was happening until it was too late for me to do anything about it.

I could never make it in conventional 'machine' politics as my attachment to principles is too strong. To make it you have to be willing to completely abandon your principles and let nothing stand in your way. It's a rotten system, but realising how it works makes you gain a little more respect for those who are 'playing the game'.

Nick Casmirri
Wollongbar

No difference

I am writing in relation to the recent decision by the NSW Court of appeal to slash the sentences of Bilal Skaff and associates.

I am utterly disgusted by this decision. To regard the rapes committed by this gang as not in the worst category is appalling! Just what is the worst-case category? Maybe some local judges and lawyers can tell us.

Rape is rape. What it's about is power. However it happens it is a devastating, life-changing event. It shatters your sense of trust, affects your ability to have healthy relationships, confidence etc.

The Skaff gang planned these rapes down to the last detail. The State Government must appeal this disgusting decision.

When are these laws makers going to treat victims of sexual abuse fairly?

These women survivors of the Skaff gang attacks are incredibly brave young women to have gone through all this trauma and they have gotten sh*t thrown in their faces by those judges in the Court of Appeal who are in favour of these sick criminals!

What is it going to take for judges and lawyers to listen to victims? Their own children being sexually assaulted? (Which I sincerely hope doesn't happen).

These men have committed a heinous set of crimes, which must be suitably punished.

It's time for the law makers to take into account the lifelong mental anguish that survivors have to deal with and take it into account when sentencing rapists.

Helen Coyle
South Lismore

China syndrome

On an almost nightly basis, our leaders come on TV to tell us that the reason why oil prices have gone through the roof is the law of supply and demand. If that is interfered with in any way, civilisation, as we know it, will collapse.

The same law does not seem to apply to China. The Australian Government, not content with giving away our raw materials, is now negotiating with China to allow China to buy up the mines. The "Big End of Town" never cease to warn us that if we don't give it away for nothing they will "go elsewhere", but they won't tell us where "elsewhere" is.

The Citizens Electoral Council send out maps showing lines going out from Beijing to Europe, branching off to India, and down through Indonesia, to Darwin, and down to Adelaide. This is their proposed utopia, China as the industrial heartland of the world.

The young women from the CEC who used to phone me were obviously on some brainwashed high, telling me that Confucianism was an advanced form of Christianity, and that China was the hope of the world. Confucianism believes in re-incarnation and Ancestor-worship. It is as irreconcilable with Christianity as ritual cannibalism.

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 60s, as many as 20 million people starved to death. The great industrial upsurge in China is built on slave labour. What is our Government doing, and what is the Foreign Investment review board doing?

Eddie Burns
Nimbin

Design debate

In response to Mark Anderson's passionate letter "Broad Church" (Echo Sept 22). Mark, you really ought to do some study of your own before chipping into the debate about "Intelligent Design" - into the nature of science, and the nature of education in Australia.

Firstly Mark, students are given the opportunity to hear the creationists' view, it is called Religious Education.

In truth, what the ID movement is attempting to do is to attack their declared enemy, humanism, at its perceived weakest points. This is part of a fundamentalist Christian wedge strategy against the social and scientific progress of the past 300 years, which they label "materialism" and find deeply offensive - essentially because it cast doubt upon their own readings of the "truth" of scripture. "Intelligent Design" is in fact about political and social agendas, not science.

Revealed scripture is not something that stands up to scientific scrutiny - and is therefore rightly dismissed by scientists.

This is the real reason for the scientific community's objection to "Intelligent Design" - it is simply not science. Science begins from observation, makes hypotheses, and then tests them with experiments. Only after a long process cycling through these stages can a hypothesis graduate to become a theory.

However Mark, despite your claims, there is substantial evidence in the literature to verify the theory of evolution. No practising biologist, taxonomist, ecologist or molecular biologist doubts that Darwin was essentially correct. The evidence is for natural selection is everywhere.

"Intelligent Design" on the other hand, begins from an assumption, that of an intelligent designer, and seeks evidence for this assumption in nature in order to prove that assumption. This is a priori reasoning, and it is not scientific. And that is why it should not be taught as such.

Alex Clarke
Lismore

Hit and myth

Response to Mark Anderson (Echo, Sept 22).

According to most Christian leaders Intelligent Design is the Christian God, who created in six literal days, about 6000 years ago, the earth and everything in and on it. Intelligent design created a woman from a man's rib. Then we have a snake, a donkey, and a burning bush speaking human language. Then the entire world was flooded, to drown evildoers along with the innocent. Two of each animal species including birds, rode on one boat called an ark for 10 months. The Nile River turned to blood. A stick turned into a snake. Intelligent design wants you to believe witches, wizards, and sorcerers really exist. That food rained from the sky for 40 years. People were cured by the sight of a brass serpent and the sun stood still to help Joshua win a battle, and it went backwards for King Hezekiah. Three men survived unaided in a fiery furnace and a detached hand floated in the air and wrote on a wall. Intelligent design means all mental illness in the world is caused by demons, and a "devil" with wings exists who brings about evil. Then Intelligent Design created a fiery lake of eternal torment that awaits unbelievers under the earth, and in heaven there is life-after-death for Christians only. These myths violate natural law, contradict science, and fail to correspond with reality. For those who can't see that, then they can't separate truth from fantasy.

For those who believes these fairyland stories today, then they have a problem with their reasoning and logic.

Jim Lee
Alstonville

Say one thing...

While Brendon Nelson has recently been providing moral lessons to Australians about the WWI story of "Simpson and his donkey," he is also undermining long held standards provided to University students. His Voluntary Unionism legislation effectively takes away the rights of students to allocate their spending on services and facilities they clearly want, and which, also result in economic and social benefits to the larger community, particularly in the regions like Lismore.

Further insults to our intelligence were dealt out by Howard when he recently addressing his Liberal colleagues. He spoke of seven "core beliefs" of the average Australian. In brief, he said Australians believe they are a successful nation. They don't have much to be ashamed of. We are well regarded in the world. Australians down on luck should be given a fair go, but not expect continuous support. The family institution was central, but alternative views should not be persecuted. People should be very tolerant, but believe in unity when facing a common threat. Society should be classless and personal worth determined by character and hard work, not religion, race or social background. Australians have their own values. Polls clearly show they don't trust politicians. Why is obvious, for the lies and failures are many. Eg. invasion of Iraq; reconciliation; human rights abuses in detention centres; denials on global warming and pathetic environmental policies; Howard's support for the super rich to be rewarded with more tax concessions; the new Industrial Relations reforms, etc. It is obvious that Australia today is not "relaxed and comfortable." It is not egalitarian, and is not on a path to peace and sustainability.

As the late Donald Horne said in his book "The Lucky Country", Australia did not try hard enough to find a new way forward. In the book's last chapter he said "Australia is a lucky country run by second rate people who share in its luck." Forty years later, it seems little has changed.

John Jessup
Lismore