Issue 726

Letters to the Editor

Financial Disaster Looms for Council

Over the past two years Lismore Council has decided to purchase land from the RSL at a cost of $235,000 and proceed with redevelopment of the Memorial Baths without an agreed design or firm costing prior to making these decisions. This was against the advice of our professional staff, who have always been concerned about the financial implications of these decisions. Whilst we have had strong concerns about redevelopment of an existing, physically constrained, flood-prone site without the support of a joint venture partner, we have vehemently opposed the decision-making process itself.

Making such a decision without proper financial estimates is risky in the extreme.

As an example, consider the redevelopment of Crozier Oval. Back in 1994 the Council of the day made a well-intentioned, but flawed decision to purchase the Sir Lesley Wilson stand in Brisbane, which was about to be demolished. Against the advice of our staff we purchased it and transported it to Lismore at a cost of $116,000.

Cr Baxter said at that time, "Watch my lips, this will not cost the Council one cent once it gets here," as the sports clubs in Lismore would construct the grandstands at no cost to Council.

Part of that stand went to Crozier Oval, so let's look at Crozier Oval seven years down the track. Although a great deal of money has been spent on it, it has been closed to sporting associations for several years and has been an eyesore because sufficient money was not available to complete it. This year the Council decided to spend another $411,000 on it, and that will bring Council's construction and development costs on this one field, that will never operate profitably, to $966,000.

In fact Crozier Oval has been funded over the past years to the detriment of other sporting fields which also need attention. Would the sporting clubs, and those people who criticised Councillors opposed to this development as anti-sport, have felt the same way if they had known what the real costs would be?

It seems as though we are unable to learn from the past, as we are heading down a very uncertain and risky path yet again with the Memorial Baths redevelopment. And just as other sporting clubs were affected by the huge allocation of funds to Crozier Oval, Council has also put on hold the much-needed leisure centre in Goonellabah and development of Kadina Park. Without a joint venture partner the Baths will eat up Council's money for community facilities for years.

On top of the financial uncertainty, it appears that the RSL Club is having a strong say through our Mayor on how we can develop the land we are to purchase from them.

If you care about your financial obligations in the future we ask you to make your feelings known to Councillors Gates, King, Suffolk, Hampton, Chant and Baxter. They are the self-described 6-pack, who vote in a block mostly without debate on this and many other issues that come before your Council.

It will be too late in another seven years to complain about the costs or the poor design of the Memorial Baths and those Councillors who are responsible for what may well be a financial disaster for Lismore will be long gone from Council.

Crs Ros Irwin, Diana Roberts & David Tomlinson

Lismore, Nimbin, The Channon

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Good 3rd village

Ballina Council is to be congratulated for its committed approach to future planning on the Alstonville Plateau. Not only has it followed the wishes of the community who in the early 1970s and 1980s emphasised that development on the Plateau should be in the style of villages but has confirmed this approach with numerous community consultations.

The community's wishes became Tintenbar Shire Council's urban planning policy in 1975 and Ballina Shire Council adopted this policy at amalgamation. This policy was again recommended by the community at the Commission of Inquiry in 1985; it became part of the Ballina Shire LEP in 1987 and part of Ballina's Urban Release Strategy in 1990, 1995 and 2000. It was also incorporated into the NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning's Northern Region Coasts Urban Planning Study.

In July 1996, Council commissioned Bell Planning to seek the community's views on planning policy and the feasibility of a third village. As the majority of residents again supported the idea of future planned growth the Council set up a Third Village Committee. They in turn engaged the planning firm Geolink to identify possible sites for a Third Village.

One of the key components of Geolink's brief from Council was to involve the community. This was not to be a tokenistic approach but one that involved all residents of the Plateau. Since April 2000 Geolink has produced newsletters, established a website, established a community reference group (which was open to all members of the community), held public meetings, produced community questionnaires asking for comments, displayed maps and information at the Alstonville Plaza and provided staff to answer questions. What more could a community asked for?

Both the Alstonville and District Citizens and Ratepayers Association and the Wollongbar Progress Association support the community-based approach taken by Council. They also support planned growth in villages on the Plateau as opposed to unplanned urban sprawl or ad hoc residential development on agricultural land. They acknowledge that without the foresight of residents and Council, nearly 30 years ago, the current community would not have the village amenities, buffer zones and rural/urban mix that they enjoy today.

Jane Gardiner
President Alstonville &
District Ratepayers &
Citizens Assoc.

Merrilyn Pevez, President Wollongbar Progress Assoc.

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Howes on 3rd village

What is really going on with the Alstonville Plateau Third Village investigations? Why are we still spending enormous amounts of ratepayers money on consultants on a "do and charge" basis, when community opinion seems to be firmly against building another village on prime farmland which can feed the nation?

Is thecCouncil getting worried that the Third Village may not now get a guernsey, and the councillor members aren't there to get it approved?

Why did a Ballina Shire councillor announce during an open Council Meeting on June 28 that he would now be participating in all future Third Village decision making, as his property was not within an identified Third Village site area, yet he had abstained from all previous decision making?

Why am I thrown out the back by the Mayor every time a Third Village matter comes to the vote, as my own property is 20km away? What is really going on? Why didn't the Mayor throw the other councillor out the back, as the dotted line of one of the site areas still traverses the northern boundary of his property? And why stop a village in mid-farmland when you have just spent $600,000 on a new road only a few hundred metres further on?

The June 28 report to Council, "Investigations Concerning the Third Village on the Alstonville Plateau" states: "Shortly after the conclusion of the exhibition period, Council will receive a further detailed report from its consultant, at which time Council will be asked to determine if it wishes to press ahead with more detailed investigation of the identified candidate sites".

Why was I sent a fax by the consultants after I requested details of the submission forms prepared by them, yet it only contained a page headed "Reject 3rd Village Project!" and another headed "Do we really need or want a Third Village on the Alstonville Plateau?" Why didn't the consultants send me their own material, which is what I requested, and what you, the ratepayers and residents of our Shire are paying for? Have the consultants already assessed the magnitude of public opinion?

Only time will tell what's on the future agenda, but wouldn't it be nice to bring back Gypsy Rose Lee and take a peep into her crystal ball?

Cr Margaret Howes

Lennox Head

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Alstonville plateau

The recent Ballina Council/Geolink Community Newsletter and the Public Display at the Plaza regarding investigations for a third village on the Alstonville plateau concern me greatly. It is obvious that the council has already decided that a 3rd village will proceed no matter what the Plateau community says!

As one of the 169 people who completed an earlier survey I am angered at how easily the survey has been dismissed as being of minor significance. The newsletter stated that oral submissions were in "stark contrast" to the majority "no" view reflected in the questionnaires. Why - as this is statistically unusual? How many oral responses were received and how were these recorded? Were they formal oral responses or casual comments passed? How large has the 3rd village support been? Who are the people who support the concept?

I would suggest rather than the 3rd village idea has been historically largely a push from landowners with vested interests, real estate agents and developers. Has the impetus for a 3rd village really ever had wide community support? All previous consultations have asked people whether they want a 3rd village or further expansion for existing villages. This puts people in a difficult position and they are forced to say that they want a 3rd village! It seems to me that the whole consultative process is all about not whether the Plateau should have another large village, but "Where do you want it?" or more precisely, "Where do you not want it but have to have it?" I am greatly disturbed that the submission forms currently available at the Plaza only ask people to indicate which of the candidate sites they would prefer. I was not aware that a public decision had been announced stating that a 3rd Village has been widely asked for and agreed upon! I would urge people to respond by writing across the form that they don't want a 3rd village at all!

Why does the Plateau have to cater for supposed population pressure anyway? Is it not possible for Council and planners to say that the Plateau and it's special qualities would be jeopardised by any more major population expansion and set a population cap? Existing housing developments on the Plateau are far from fully taken up and affordable houses in Wollongbar and Alstonville abound. Obviously there is too much money to be made.

Margot Henry

Tuckombil

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3rd Village Outrage

Alstonville residents are currently being encouraged to make submissions on what area they wish to have as a 3rd Village site for 5,000 people on the Alstonville Plateau. Ballina Shire Council has placed an elaborate display in The Plaza shopping centre at Alstonville with a selection of five sites to choose from.

It appears the decision has been made that there is going to be a 3rd Village and all Council has to do now is sit back and have the areas argue amongst themselves to be or not to be 3rd Village.

Ballina Shire Council and it's councillors are the ones who have the fight on their hands. The huge amount of ratepayers money wasted so far on this project is totally unacceptable and unwarranted. This project should never have one this far.

In what democracy can a Council organised submission be found to defeat the 3rd Village concept only to be overturned by Councillors saying that they have had overwhelming Verbal support for the project. In what Court would this verbal heresay information stand up? Here was the opportunity to state the overwhelming Verbal non-support of the people I have spoken to.

Now, there are more submission forms to be completed that do not need signing to identify people and to be placed in an unlocked submission box and counted without scrutineers. This is a ludicrous situation to seal the fate of this plateau and open to any sort of abuse. What will happen this time if the majority again want no 3rd Village?

Alstonville residents and especially those in the rural sector need to access all the facts in this project which is now being pushed through in the very near future and will affect the lifestyle of everyone on the plateau no matter where you live. An extra 5,000 people cramming the inadequate roads, school access, carparks, electricity supply as well as the ecological damage will touch us all.

If this is a level playing field, let this be a distinct issue at the next bye-elections where we will openly see what all the residents want. At the same time we can decide the fate of the Councillors who have caused an anger I have not seen in this town before.

This matter is not set in concrete but people must act now. You and your neighbours need to write personally before 17th July to the General Manager at the Ballina Shire Council stating a definite no to a 3rd Village anywhere on the Plateau.

Geoff Harris

Alstonville

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Dog Day

Do you like walking in doggy doo?

While walking with a friend at the Gold Coast, I was constantly reminded of my dog. If my dog had needed to do a poo while out walking her I would not have left it on the street for children to walk on, nor dogs to roll in.

This suburb in question lies between Southport and Nerang. I think they know who they are.

Are there no fines up there? Or do people not even care about their environment?

It was like walking down a Parisian sidewalk. Dodging doggy doo all the dirty way back home. Every step was taken with caution so to avoid the landmines. The dogs rightfully had to go. Pity the people walking them took no responsibility for cleaning it up.

Lets keep our parks and sidewalk's clear of all these reminders of a dirty downtrodden city where people only care about themselves not the environment.

Disappointed Goonellabah Dog Owner.

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Ad Nauseum

Shhhh! Listen! There are stirrings in the political forest! Those normally dormant little creatures, our elected representatives, feeling the first warmth of an approaching election on their sensitive self-interest antennas, are slowly emerging from their triennial hibernation.

A few weeks back, I was surprised to receive a nice friendly letter from a Mr Ian Causley, telling me all about the latest Commonwealth Budget and all the good things in it for senior Australians, and the all-powerful role of the National Party in all this. His letter was doubly surprising, because Ian hadn't written to me before, and certainly not about the previous budget - you know, the one when the GST was introduced, so that senior Australians would have to pay 10 per cent more when they go shopping. But it was nice to hear from him, and. whatÇs more I gather from talking to friends in the region that heÇs written also to a whole lot of other people. What a nice man he must be!

One thing bothers me though. There was an enclosure with his letter, and this, I regret to say, was an obvious piece of party political propaganda, highlighting 'the Nationals in Government' and all the good things the Nationals said to be doing. In keeping with the overtly political nature of this enclosure, there is the required statement that it has been 'authorised' by Ian. Yet - and hereÇs the rub - it came to me bearing the Arms of the Commonwealth!

The Commonwealth Arms is a heraldic device used to authenticate official documents of the Commonwealth.

In this day and age, when governments spend vast amounts of public funds to fund TV advertisements in praise of themselves in the lead-up to an election, I suppose we are becoming inured to a lapse in moral standards in such matters. But can't the Commonwealth Arms at least be preserved for its proper uses?

Peter Bowler

Ballina

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Tick Concerns

The Bulletin article (June 26), has come at a time when the livelihood and health of cattlemen and women of the Tick quarantine area in Northern NSW is again in jeopardy.

Sadly this new threat makes a mockery of the lives which have in the past been seen to be put at risk in order to stop the southern movement of the Cattle Tick (Boophilus microplus). Furthermore it comes at a time when the acaricides currently in use against the tick are the safest and most regulated since dipping began.

The "tickies" in your stories were all men who were proud of the job they did to keep the tick from invading NSW cattle population. They did a job which they believed to be worthwhile and necessary, a job which was supported by successive governments who understood that without constant vigilance the tick could travel South and West, depending on climatic conditions, and therefore could put at risk the total beef industry of the state.

Not only did these governments support and fund the Tick Eradication Program but they put in place Rules and Regulations whereby if ticks were found on a property it was immediately quarantined and cattle were dipped regularly until the property was declared "clean". In some quarters the need for the dipping of cattle and spraying of horses travelling out of the area was considered a burden, but on the whole producers were willing to wear the problem and shoulder these time consuming jobs in order to keep the tick at bay.

Enter some bureaucrats determined to change the system by aligning it more closely with the system in Queensland. A system which has allowed the tick to spread widely from Queensland into NSW. This is the reason vigilance has always been important in the control of ticks, which have been found in numbers as far south as Wingham. Currently it is believed the cattle tick has been found in significant numbers in clean country close to Tenterfield.

With producers already carrying a heavy burden of work time in mustering and dipping or, where dips no longer exist, using "Pour-on" chemicals to maintain a clean herd, they are told they must now shoulder the financial burden of paying for the acaricide (tickicide). The final result is that the reason given is that if the government continues to supply it will be discriminated against than in the TQA where they are required by regulation to keep their animals tick-free and suffer draconian consequences if by accident they overlook a cattle tick when sending these cattle to market or if a tick is found on the cattle on their property.

Some producers through no fault of their own but because of the difficult terrain or ticks coming from an adjoining property have found themselves having to treat the cattle every three weeks for years because they cannot get a tick free herd or because their neighbours cattle are not tick free.

Discrimination there may be, but it is the beef producers of the Far North Coast Tick Quarantine Area who are being discriminated against.

Euleen Calver

Kyogle

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While the Irony's Hot

Jain Baker (Echo, June 21) has got it right. Australia's Aboriginals have never had it so good! After 80,000 plus years of just hanging around in intertribal and ecological peace and harmony, (obviously, or they'd never have survived that long) all it took was a few decades, a century at most, for their true nature to emerge under our civilising influence. A few generations of murder, microbes and morality- gunpowder and Jesus, and do they thank us? No! The ungrateful wretches respond with wife and child abuse, alcoholism and a huge crime rate - demanding to live in obese diabetic filth and squalor as they hurl abuse at our honest upstanding, compassionate police force.

It's no coincidence that Inuit/Eskimos in Canada, Indians in Central America and the tribes in the Amazon all seem to react the same way to having their land, language and the more decorative (light skinned) of their children stolen.

Many of them were actually foolish enough to resist the inevitable improvement to their lazy sinful idolatrous lives- so kindly provided by loving missionary brothers and gentle graziers. Spears against muskets and microbes. Why didn't they accept the inevitable?

Further evidence of lack of intelligence, no doubt.

Simple exposure to our civilising, Christianising influence is all it takes for their innately unevolved characters to be displayed. Australian pastoralists, Guatamalan banana growers, Brazilian gold-miners all bring the benefits of Western civilisation to their dark barbaric lives, and their heathen nature stands revealed. A bit of harmless serial rape, a few innocent massacres, the occasional accidental genocide, their language and religion forbidden, and they just fall apart, pathetic really, lucky for them we're there with antibiotics and alcohol to repair the worst of their pain and injuries, self-inflicted of course.

But seriously, as far as I can see the only thing Australia's Aboriginals did wrong was to get themselves invaded and colonised in the wrong century! If they'd picked the mid-20th - well! Just imagine a boatload of Kalashnikov assault rifles, a few million rounds of ammunition, a hundred kilos of Semtex, a car-bomb at Flinders street Station, a couple of suicide-bombers in lunchtime Martin Place, a few Jumbo-jets hijacked to Alice Springs airport and we'd be begging for a treaty, pleading for reconciliation.

Maybe it's just as well they're not as civilised as our European and Middle-Eastern ancestors and paragons of humanity.

Robert Edgar

Lismore

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Uppity Peasants

Residents of the former Richmond River Shire continue to be unhappy with the Minister for Closing Councils and Acute Deafness, Harry Woods, and Richmond Valley Council, their new amalgamation feudal lords. In spite of arrogant, patronising predictions that the 'peasants' would get used to Harry's forced marriage, and accept their fate, the local 'rabble' is just as angry now as it was before, if not angrier. And it's not about to 'roll over'.

There are many reasons for continuing resident irritability including Council's ongoing forcing of its will on local people without regard to what they think and, importantly, feel. But basically, it's shades of amalgamation all over again. Do as you're told and like it! We know what's best for you. We are your 'leaders'. The beatings will continue until you bend to our will!

As history shows, unfairness, and unjust imposition of policies, and bullyboy practices from the top, even if they're backed by the law, inevitably lead to resentment and rebellious behaviour. That's the human condition.

Of course, Council and Harry, continue to hide behind the law arguing they followed it to the letter in amalgamation and other processes. (Well, this is not completely true as the Ombudsman found with Richmond River's 'secret' amalgamation meeting in 1998. Council violated the law. There are other examples).

But it doesn't matter what the law says. The point is that Harry and his mates in Council, like our current breed of medieval, policy-making economists, lawyers, and politicians, show little insight into human behaviour and no signs of change. And until they do, us uppity peasants, on their destructive anhedonic economic treadmill, will be unpredictable and bloody difficult to get along with.

Dr Richard Gates

Evans Head

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Welfare Woes

Jenni Oliver (Echo, June 21) is jumping to erroneous conclusions regarding my understanding of people being dispossessed of their land.

My Irish ancestors from Tipperary, Ireland, were removed from their land by the English about 700 years ago. However I do not hate the English.

I accept that this was in accordance with the system that prevailed at the time. In fact I consider that they did my ancestors a favour as my ancestors who arrived in Australia in 1820 prospered beyond their wildest dreams.

It is not news to me that some people in church institutions and foster homes took advantage of the children by sexually and physically abusing them.

It is a fact of life that this will happen and I doubt that anyone growing up has not at some time been subjected to some form of abuse.

I consider it is offensive and rude of you to accuse me of walking around blinfolded, picking out bits and pieces of history to suit my own narrow perspective. Read my letter to Toni Begley (Echo, June 21) to see how narrow-minded and blindfolded my knowledge is of Aboriginal and general history.

I want you to be specific and tell the readers what deeds Australians committed in the past to warrant an apology to Aborigines, except by religious leaders. They are the real culprits who created the problem.

If you have read the works of Henry Reynolds, then dismiss them as strong on myths but short on facts. This historian relied on the letters and papers of the Rev Lancelot Threlkeld who ran a mission at Lake Macquarie in the early 19th century. Threlkald reported tales of barbaric acts by colonists against the natives, including a war of extermination.

Whenever these reports surfaced, the NSW Supreme Court Judge Sir William Burton wrote to Threlkeld requesting him to provide the source of the information. Threlkeld's replies were full of evasions and masking the truth. And this is the man upon whom Reynolds relied on in publishing his histories.

Research by Keith Windshuttle demonstrates that the allegations by the missionaries were suspect, and they took any rumour about violence no matter how vague or unreliable without checking its accuracy (a lot like the Bringing Them Home report by Sir Ronald Wilson and Pat Dodson).

You would ask yourself 'Why would they do this?' The answer is quite simple. They wanted to show that only they had compassion for Aborigines and to justify the need for their own institutions to handle the situation. These are the people who instituted the separation of white and black, and formulated the policy that the salvation of the Aboriginal people lay in a closed religious society.

Jenny Oliver mentions that the problems of Aborigines arise from their being dispossessed of their land, but research has shown that this is not the case.

I guess you are aware that since the NT Land Rights Act in 1976, 50 per cent of the Northern Territory has become Aboriginal land, or in the process thereof and yet this has done nothing to improve Aboriginal social, economic and health problems. It has done nothing to decrease assaults against women and petrol and glue sniffing, to help Aboriginals make a living on the land, either in traditional or modern terms, and it has not stopped Aboriginals from leaving the land. It would seem most leave and prefer to live on welfare. The 1996 Census revealed that of the 386,000 Aboriginal people, 73 per cent preferred to live in the major urban areas.

Royalties paid as rent to Aboriginal communities are supposed to be to improve their standard of living and housing but I understand it is spent on alcohol and vehicles.

I'm afraid that until Aboriginal people get away from the welfare mentality, as Noel Pearson advocated, nothing will change and all the "Sorrys" in the world will not alter this fact.

The tragedy of the previous policies advocated by the white intellectual elites is that Aborigines want to live like the rest of us and be assimilated into the Australian way of life.

It is apparent that the policy of separatism has not worked and any talk of a treaty and a separate Aboriginal state is plainly out of the question.

We are an undivided nation and there is absolutely no way that such a divisive issue will be entertained, except by a few intellectuals. But I agree that something has to be done to improve the way of life of the Aboriginal people and it will come from someone like Noel Pearson, not ATSIC.

Jim Baker

Evans Head

* Edited for length - Ed

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Cruel to be Kind

I believe it's way past time we took a long ward look at what we should do regarding these people who decide to sail out here in these leaky old boats and enter our country "illegally" and for us to do absolutely nothing about it. Apparently they are told to turn around and go back by our "patrol boats", but they thumb their noses and keep coming.

Perhaps they should thank their lucky stars (if they have one, but then, do I?) we don't sink them! If this keeps up we may have to and remember the chances are other countries, not as stupid as ours would do just that!

These damn bleeding-heart, do-gooders should take off the blinkers and dark glasses and start to wake up to the fact if we allow this situation to continue we won't have a lucky country to offer anyone. After all who out there in the right mind thinks our barrel of money is bottomless? Answer: too damn many apparently! The bad news no, it's not! If we don't wake up soon this will be a third world country not much better than this "boat" left for a supposed better life.

For those out there who blindly support the illegal persons spare a thought for those poor buggers who are going through the legal and proper procedures in their place of origin to come here because they are most likely just as desperate for a better life.

At least the detention centres do offer some checks on who these arrogant (desperate they may be) persons are who ruin these places and give us the finger when we try to find out who they are. Child Molesters, bombers, crims whatever! I ask you, how the hell do we know if we just let them in, Come one come all, and why do you imagine they always have plenty of women and children. Three guesses, or one will do.

Lets cease being suckers now! Maybe a 100-foot fence right around and patrolled 24 hours. Yes it would cost a bob or two but it would sure fix unemployment. Bring back National Service to do the job. If you think this sounds expensive it may pale into insignificance alongside the outcomes of our present way of handling these people.

If we do not, or just are not able to take a harder line, we will all be losers.

Although some will say the contrary, no-one has more sympathy than I for the less unfortunate than us, but that does not mean you just ignore other countries rules and regulations and come anyway, does it?

If we keep up this hairy fairy, bleeding-heart attitude we may be looking for that leaky old boat. And before you judge me too hastily am I really that bad a person for wanting to keep our country safe for my kids so that they don't end up refugees!

Think about it!

We already have enough problems without this, don't we?

Al Andrews

Lismore

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