Issue 808

Letters To The Editor

Council Offers Too Little Too Late

I would like to add my bit to the debate about the appropriate number of councillors for Lismore. As readers probably know by now, at its last meeting Lismore Council decided to seek voter approval to reduce the number of councillors from 12 to 11.

If that decision survives a rescission motion to be put at its next meeting on March 12, then voters will be asked in September next year to reduce the number of Councillors by one from the date of the subsequent election in 2007!

That's right. If voters approve, there will be a reduction in numbers by just one and it will be five and a half years before it takes effect. Talk about decisions being too little, too late.

There are some very good reasons why it should take effect at the election next year and why the number should reduced to nine.

Almost 10 years ago there were big changes to the Local Government Act that substantially reduced the responsibilities of councillors. We are no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of Council. Instead we now meet once a month to decide policy and to allocate resources, much in the same way that decisions are made by a board of directors of a private company. The Council General Manager then carries out these decisions. Yet despite these changes there has been no reduction in Councillor numbers.

The cost to ratepayers of supporting a Councillor is at least $20,000 a year. If numbers are reduced by three, then the saving amount to $60,000 a year. In the first term alone the savings would be almost $250,000. This is not peanuts when virtually all our funds are tied to existing programmes. So how could these savings be used?

At the last Council meeting I suggested the proposed Goonellabah sports and leisure centre. Goonellabah desperately needs facilities for its young people now - not in several years time. Council has collected almost $1 million from developers in Goonellabah to build the centre but has so far been unable to come up with a contribution of its own.

Unless we move to build it within a reasonable time frame this money will have to be repaid to the developers.

The $60,000 saved each year could be used to repay a loan that would at least see Stage One of the centre get the go-ahead - perhaps as early as next year. This has to be a better use of our money.

Yet only three Councillors (Crs Irwin, Roberts and myself) supported this idea with even those Councillors purporting to hold the interests of Goonellabah dear to their hearts, opposing it. Self-interest held sway over the interests of the community.

The only real argument against reducing councillor numbers is that of representation. The theory appears to be that the more councillors there are, the more likely it is that the Council's will reflect the composition of the broader community and hence representation will be improved. Unfortunately this does not happen now, even with 12 councillors.

The current Council is more like a club of old and middle-aged men (including me). We have no one under the age of 45, only two women and no one representing either indigenous or other cultures.

In any case, this is not the way Council is supposed to work. Every Councillor elected is there to represent the entire community - not just his or her particular social group. The solution to seeing that we have effective representation is to ensure that Council consults widely about what it proposes to do. This does not happen at the moment.

The only way to ensure good representation is for electors to vote in quality candidates who are prepared to consult. Take up Councillor Irwin's invitation and attend a Council meeting to judge for yourself.

Cr David Tomlinson
The Channon

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Lake Views

There are people who like to watch Jacanas raise their young and people who love to speed along behind smoke and spray. That's fine.

The planned destruction of Lismore Lake as a bird sanctuary would be for every bird and nature lover as hurting as the sinking of every speed boat and the blasting of every jet-ski would be for every water-motor-sport-recreationalist.

Maybe the current Mayor of Lismore doesn't realise that. We nature lovers demand that the Lake will remain, or even improve, as a refuge for endangered species and all the other magnificent birds for us to enjoy.

The water sports fans have the river with several boat ramps already for their disposal. Let's not forget - we not only love birds - we also love to vote for a sensible Lismore City Council, who takes into account the needs of all citizens. And the preservation of native fauna and flora, of a healthy environment is a need of everybody, if they know it or not.

Roland Schicht Sunshine
Lismore

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Disease Awareness

'Who will be touched by Motor Neurone Disease (MND)?' is the theme of MND Awareness Week, 17-23 March 2002. MND touches everyone. How?

About six people live with MND in every 100,000 population. MND damages the nerve cells that control the voluntary muscles, including the legs, arms, speech and swallowing. With no nerves to activate them, muscles waste away and paralysis follows, but the mind remains normal.

No cure is available and survival time is about three years. In Australia, one person a day dies from MND, more than the number who die from AIDS.

While devastating to the person diagnosed with MND, it also has a terrible impact on family and friends. They see their loved one lose all movement while the brain is alert. Doctors, nurses and allied health workers also grapple with the consequences of MND.

Between Grafton and the Tweed more than two dozen families have watched someone suffer MND recently. A Northern Rivers Support Group of the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) was formed in 1998 to give mutual support to sufferers and their families. Enquiries: Barbara 6662 2537 or Noelene 6624 4684.

If you don't have a personal aquaintance who has been touched by MND then you will know Ron Edgeworth, husband of Judith Durham (The Seekers), David Niven (actor), Percy Cerutty (athletics coach), who all died of the disease.

You can help fight MND by buying a blue cornflower from Southern Cross Credit Unions. You and your workmates can wear blue on Cornflower Blue Day, Friday 22 March, and send donations c/- Southern Cross Credit Union or direct to MNDA, Concord Repat. General Hospital, Concord Road, Concord 2139.

Thank you for your support.

Noelene Kidd
Goonellabah

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Do-Gooder Rubbish

This letter is to the weak-kneed civil libertarians; the claque of handsomely superannuated former politicians; the increasingly irrelevant clerics and church leaders; the pontificating academics; the phalanx of overpaid lawyers (who should get a real job); the unwashed feral scum (who should be looking for work); and to the other dithering misty-eyed, misery bleating do-gooders who oppose the governments immigration policies.

For most Australians we dealt with this issue at the ballot box last November. The parties advocating changing our immigration policies (ie the Greens and the Democrats) received approximately 12 per cent of the vote. According to the latest Newspoll support for the Howard Government has actually increased since the election and even most ethnic groups support the governments policies.

Australia has opened its arms to citizens from more than 200 countries and since 1949 we have accepted more than 10 million people - the fourth largest migrant intake in the world.

Most asylum seekers who arrive with identity documents are processed within four weeks and 80 per cent of those without documents within 18 weeks. Long term detainees (of which there are approximately 1,000) are mostly those who have had their claim for asylum rejected and are just refusing to go or they are exhausting an extensive appeals process - ie the Refugee Review Tribunal, the Federal Court, the Full Bench of The Federal Court, the High Court and then direct Ministerial Appeal.

This process can last up to three years, we pay all their court fees and in only five per cent of cases is the original decision overturned.

Give detainees to us plead the chattering classes. What an excellent idea! That way they can just disappear into the community like the Villawood escapees (who were due to be deported) did last year.

In Great Britain there are no detention centres (though they have just started to build them) and they have more than 150,000 illegal immigrants unaccounted for. European Union countries have upwards of 500,000 illegal immigrants flooding in annually.

It is not racist to say we want an orderly immigration policy where we choose who comes to this country. Our quota of refugees should come from those playing by the United Nations rules for refugees not these whinging gatecrashers and aggressive troublemakers. Self-mutilation, hunger strikes, riots, these queue jumpers show themselves as the worst possible people we would want as immigrants.

It is time the chattering classes explain their own position before joining the denunciation campaign. Outpourings of compassion are noble but what workable and credible alternative do you propose? With Canada, the US, UK and the rest of Europe making entry harder how would a more relaxed policy not lead to an exponential increase in immigrants with some 23.5 million refugees in this world. What method of deterrence do you propose for those entering illegally (if not detention)? How many should we accept and where do we draw the line when that capacity is reached? What criteria do we use to select refugees (apart from cash payments to people smugglers), and where is all the money coming from?

Maybe the government could impose a boatpeople levy (similar to the Medicare levy) on the pension/income of all these noisy do-gooders so they can either put up or shut up.

How about it guys? We can't hear you, the silence is deafening.

David Estreich
Lismore

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Fools Gold

If that ice skating race was a horse it would have been declared a 'No race'. That is what should have been the case in the Salt Lake City farce - Gold or no Gold for Australia.

C Campbell
East Lismore

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Too Many Liabilities

For almost as long as I can remember I was always taught to respect the law.

In recent times, however, I have become somewhat disillusioned with the way in which the law, and those engaged in the legal profession, appear to be falling into disrepute. The cause of this disillusionment is the almost overnight burgeoning of litigation involving claims for compensation for personal injuries sustained at community organised social and cultural events.

A few years ago the term public liability might well have referred to an inefficient government run department or facility. In our modern society the term public liability has the potential to send cold shivers down the backs of individuals and officials of almost any government or private organisation or instrumentality.

The intention behind the principle of compensation for injury sustained because of another party's negligence is an honourable and a just one. This principle must never be compromised.The dilemma that regrettably has arisen in our modern society is that public liability laws appear to be doing something to our society that is destructive.

The tone of the advertising surrounding those legal practitioners for whom compensation litigation has become a financial bonanza is aggressive. It undermines whatever moral authority the legal profession may have possessed and is fostering an image of lawyers as unscrupulous and profit driven.

These aggressive practices need to be curbed and in time must be seen as unethical and unacceptable for those who are supposedly the upholders of justice. There are many parties for whom from this rise in public liability litigation offers substantial financial rewards but this self interest needs to be surrendered.

These laws do not create a better or even a more just society. They need to be rewritten and perhaps the first step that has to be taken for this to happen is for each individual to think more seriously about who benefits most when self interest is served.

David Brown
Alstonville

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Council Concerns

I would like to congratulate the editor on his editorial (Echo, Feb 14), with his comments with regard to councillors duties to the residents and ratepayers. I hope you sent a copy to all councillors, I'm sure some of them could learn from your comments.

Then I read Cr Ros Irwin remarks (Echo, Feb 21). The part that really interested me was her comment with regards to the Local Government Act of 1993, which states that councillors are to 'represent the interests of the residents and ratepayers', and get this, 'provide leadership and guidance' and 'facilitate communication between the community and the council'.

I like the last bit, at the present we have a Mayor and some of his fellow councillors who refuse to consult the public on anything, but now he is taking over the duties of our General Manager by ordering council staff to work on what he feels should happen at the Lismore Lake, his action in this is unbelievable even the most junior councillor knows the limit of his responsibilities.

I can't leave our previous mayor Cr Ros Irwin out of this. While she was mayor she really pushed for 'the joint-venture with the university', She even declined to speak at a public meeting with regard to this venture and I believe the public showed their feelings at the next council election when by popular vote she was voted out as mayor.

Now might be the time for a referendum keeping in mind what the Local Government Act 1993 sets out, we could ask residents and ratepayers, how many councillors we really need. If it was decided that only 9 was required, whilst it might cost $50,000 for the referendum after next year council election we could save $240,000.

Another thing we could put in is electing a mayor by popular vote is the way to go or no. Finally maybe we could ask the public if they want to spend over $6 million on the pool complex, or would this be asking too much; 'communication between the community and the council'.

R Mackey
Goonellabah

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