Issue 728

Letters to the Editor

Time to Look at Plateau's Big Picture

The recent upheaval at Alstonville has caused much discussion on urban development in the Ballina Shire and many interesting things have come out of it all.

That wonderful old gentleman Foreman Crawford, in his diaries, told us of the removal of all the cedar trees and the Big Scrub.

We now have people saying 'My family has been here for three generations' and continually referring to prime agricultural land.

In acknowledging that their families are responsible for the raping of the Big Scrub, is it not now reasonable to ask, 'How many acres of cedar trees has your family planted to replace those that were removed?' and 'How has your family used the prime agricultural land and what will your grandchildren receive?'

Surely the local families wouldn't boast of the lantana, camphor laurel and assorted weeds as their gifts to their grandchildren.

While some were jumping up and down yelling 'Stop the 3rd Village', others had acted and a 1,000-lot 3rd village was already released.

It has been alleged, and I have no reason to doubt it, that there are landowners who opposed Council's planning; for the purpose of lodging development proposals in the future and making big money as they cut up their holdings. They want villages alright, but where they want them, not the people.

It is time to stand back and look at the Big Picture.

As the land now available is occupied and more and more land is released for development (villages), isn't it wise to plan where the development will be?

There seems to be more in all this than what meets the eye.

We rushed into the resisting of the post office and we now have seven empty shops surrounding it. It is not my concern but are the rents too high? Did the people gain with the change to the Post Office?

Bob English
Rous

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No Volunteer Ethic

May I express to Councillors Roberts, Gates, King, Irwin and Baxter my appreciation for the stance they took on the issue of fee increases for the elected representatives of the Lismore City Council.

Their efforts in resisting the increases, though unsuccessful, would have no doubt been appreciated by the ratepayers of the Lismore Local Government area.

For those who pressed for the acceptance of the new fee structure, it is acknowledged that their move was made in accordance with the recommendation of the Local government Association, an organisation in which I now have little confidence.

Having previously spent 38 years as a Lismore Alderman, I am well aware of the demands made on all those elected to Council. Consequently I support those so chosen receiving reasonable reimbursement plus a travel allowance for fulfilling their Civic duties.

As Councillor Roberts reportedly pointed out, such reimbursement should not be seen as payment for attending Council meetings but rather as a stipend for the substantial time spent in working for the community.

On that point then, let us not forget that every day we owe a great debt of gratitude to the volunteers of Emergency Services, Community Organisations, Service Clubs and those various individuals who give their time, efforts and consequently money for the benefit of their fellow citizens.

For their efforts they neither receive or expect return, yet they are there when they are needed. Without them we would, in some cases, be lost.

It might be prudent for some of our civic representatives to reflect on this fact, and measure their contribution to the community accordingly.

Habib Paul Habib
Lismore

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More Baths Debate

The saga of the Memorial Baths redevelopment continues and once again our Mayor has demonstrated that he won't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

If there is an 'agreed design' then our Mayor needs to let Council know what it is and explain why, if that is the case, at least half of the Councillors and the Council project team oversighting the design of the development don't seem to know exactly what it is. In fact we are soon to have a workshop to decide on what is required.

Perhaps also he needs to advise the Council of what guarantees were given to the RSL members when they made their decision. There has been no Council decision that says either that purchase of the RSL land would be constrained in any way, or that there will be a staged development. As we don't have an agreed design we do not have a firm costing or a costing of what a staged development might entail, as staging is always more expensive!

Our Mayor said I have consistently pushed for an indoor heated pool.

Yes I have, but only because all the people who are likely to use aquatic facilities in this town have told Council repeatedly that that's what they want and need to make an aquatic facility that works for them - and for Council financially. All the research Australia-wide shows that people want to swim year round, and that can only happen when we have heated, generally indoor, pools. Many aquatic centres with indoor pools have sides that open in summer and do not require cooling. Considering the hole in the ozone level and its capacity to cause skin cancer and melanomas, should a responsible Council support an outdoor, uncovered pool?

Perhaps our Mayor was talking about the joint venture project with the University when he suggested a cost of $10 million, because that was certainly the value of the proposed facility.

However, as he well knows, the value of the project included the land to be dedicated at no cost from the University to the Council, together with already established leisure facilities. Whilst we are paying the RSL $230,000 for a third of one of their bowling greens, the University was prepared to hand over title of a much larger and more valuable piece of land to the community of Lismore at no cost.

Lismore Council's capital contribution had a cap set at $4 million - a bit less than some of the estimates for redevelopment of the Memorial Baths site. And one of the most important points, which our Mayor seems determined to ignore, is that the University were to be joint partners. This meant that they were prepared to put in $4 million of their own money in capital costs and they would have been 50/50 partners in the ongoing operational costs.

The end result would have been an integrated leisure and aquatic centre with the capacity to pay for itself long term - hardly a financial disaster as the Mayor claims. That option has been rejected by this Council.

Finally, his comment that removing the Baths would mean forsaking the sacrifices made by our veterans of World Wars I and II is difficult to understand.

In a recent visit to Amiens and other Western Front towns it was the memorials and graveyards that were significant. They are solemn, they remind us of the huge waste of life in wars, and of the courage of those who fought for their countries.

I'm sure that without the baths our Memorial would still remind us of the sacrifices made in past wars by our service men and women.

Cr Ros Irwin
Lismore

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No Business

I am a relatively new resident to this area, but I have found from experience that very many businesspeople have a telephone answering service.

However, most do not play back the messages left on it. Then, apart from inconveniencing other people, why have it?

For many years there was a road sign on one of the approaches to Lismore - 'Lismore means business'.

It appears to have been taken down.

Colin Campbell
Lismore

Mad Catter

Until I read Leigh Soward's letter (Echo, July 12) regarding the idea of bonsaing a Kid, I'd thought the article on How to Bonsai a Kitten was the funniest thing I'd read for years, I e-mailed it to all my cat-loving friends.

I thought it was even funnier than the Mayor Gates' apologies regarding the continuing saga of The Memorial Baths, the RSL and Lismore City Council.

I am a cat lover, have three small grandchildren and have seen the view from the Bistro at the RSL.

It's always a pleasure to read The Echo and keep up with the latest ideas and innovations.

Jennie Kelly
The Channon

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Help, Not Hate

This letter is in response to Al Andrews' letter (Echo, July 5), which was just pure racist filth.

It was written by someone who obviously suffers from a chronic case of 'Sod you lot, I'm alright!' syndrome. Andrews comes across as a very immature and profoundly ignorant person. Your views on the plight of refugees is sickening. Your family is probably quite shocked and embarrassed by the garbage you spewed forth. Inflammatory remarks like yours though are, luckily enough, in the minority.

You're every lucky not to have been born in Iraq or Afghanistan, or maybe as a Muslim in Sebrenica, or maybe a Kurd in Turkey. If your friends and family have been tortured, raped and slaughtered by murderous regimes I bet you'd be knocking on someone's door and begging for safety and shelter, hoping like hell you're not told to go back and face more starvation, terror and abuse.

The drivel you wrote about sinking boat loads of refugees was quite disgusting and alarming, if not just plain stupid. Next time you write about the refugee situation, do some research before writing such nonsense as you did.

I met refugees while I was in Vienna. They all had tales of atrocities, escape and fear. Don't talk about 100ft fences. Talk about bridges, these people need help not hate.

While you're ranting and raving and getting hysterical about fleets of boats arriving on 'your doorstep' to wreck your bit of paradise, just stop for a moment and think about the way you're able to be here.

Tuck into a bit of humanity Al Andrews. It tastes great and makes you feel great too, plus it will rub off on your children. Read the words to John Lennon's 'Imagine', it says quite a lot.

Frosty Grego
Evans Head

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Green Power

The tendency to hand over power can result in sitting back and expecting someone else to solve many shared-responsibility problems, as a lazy alternative to collective or individual action.

Yet if any issue is owned by a wide diversity of stakeholders, the likelihood of reaching a lasting solution is higher. In the case of the environment, we are all stakeholders, except for those who live inside their private biosphere dome.

Green Power is the name for renewable energy schemes running across Australia, where signing up ensures that all or part of a household's energy usage is supplied by a mixture of biomass, hydroelectric, solar and wind. Accreditation criteria ensure that none of this power comes from burning native forest 'waste'.

Power consumers now have the freedom to share ownership of global warming by paying a small extra amount on their power bills, which for most people is negligible in comparison with overall personal expenditure.

While will take the view that greenhouse emissions are entirely a matter for power companies, it is economically unfeasible for all these companies to buy their power from renewable sources without the backing of Green Power subscribers. Again, we are back in the territory of projecting personal responsibility onto surrogate authority figures.

In the future, the price of solar panels will probably fall far enough, through advances in technology and economies of scale, for solar to compete economically with the environment disaster of coal-generated power. This is being helped along by the New York State, which has recently passed legislation where credits are paid to developers to cover buildings with solar panels.

In the meantime, maybe we should refuse to be entertained by TV coverage of shared-responsibility problems unless we have already taken steps to personally address them.

Martin Oliver
Lismore

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Federal Bypass

The need for the Alstonville Bypass was recognised and it was okay for federal funding back in 1975. Then the new Fraser-Howard government axed it. The need is now desperate, as the traffic volumes on the Bruxner Highway through Alstonville have multiplied many times in the intervening 26 years.

The political situation has now changed, and Alstonville is now in a marginal Federal seat. The sitting member, Larry Anthony, is conscious of the importance of the bypass, both to Alstonville residents and Bruxner Highway users and is using his Ministerial clout to lobby for the project to get Federal funds. But a non-core promise of funds is no longer sufficient to satisfy the voters, who see funds splashed right, left and centre if they look like helping the present government get re-elected.

Unless the bypass has solid Federal funding and bulldozers and serious construction are under way on the ground before the next federal election then the bypass could be - and should be - the factor which costs the government - and Larry Anthony - the seat at the election later this year.

Excuses, delays and non-core promises are no longer enough. Only an actual solid start will suffice.

Nat B Wheatley
Alstonville

Anonymous Letter

I have recently through the post, anonymously, a personally addressed envelope, carrying stuck to the outside a pro Alstonville Bypass message and an anti-Australian Labor Party sentiment.

Like any anti-Australian Labor Party material, it was empty!!

Don Hains
East Ballina

Norm Cochrane
Ruthven

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Radio Daze

Of all the radio stations received in this area, there is not a single one that caters for the majority of potential listeners.

They all seem to have the notion that they must cater for taste from adolescent to the other extreme, all in one 24 hour period.

The former already have their own taste of music with JJJ and the Classics have their own station.

The rest of us are dished out with such a mixed bag, that the only way to get anything near what is wanted, is to sit and surf the dial all day long, which is an option for very few listeners.

Unless there is a particular programme one wishes to hear, the main idea of tuning in to radio, is to hear pleasant music.

If there was a Radio Station in the area that played such music, at least during daylight hours, I am sure it would scoop the top ratings.

It could be played in the many waiting rooms, offices and shopping centres, as well as the majority of homes, without the fear of having ones ears blasted with Rap or four letter words.

Norm Cochrane
Ruthven

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