Newcastle Herald Letters to the Editor: Wednesday, January 2, 2019

This skate bowl is apparently going to be so full of sand that no one can use it, while at the same time causing so much erosion that there will be no sand left on the beach at all. Objectors say the new edge of the walkway will be hit with waves of such tremendous force that it will surely shatter, while also noting that the current edge of the walkway is hit by waves during high seas.

Waves hitting the walkway during big storms will apparently affect the surf, so those large crowds who surf during an east coast low will have to find other cyclone-impacted waters to surf in.

There is apparently so much sand on Newcastle beach you couldn’t possibly dig foundations deep enough, while also having so little sand that any change risks the complete erosion of the beach.

“Sea walls are bad” these experts mutter to themselves as they walk along the concrete path from South Newcastle beach to the Bogey Hole.

A Sydney engineering professor recently cited his professional knowledge to call the project “unsightly” and claimed it would impact the “amenity” of the area. I would be pleased if he could reply with the engineering equation for amenity and sightliness. I assume it is the distance from your beachside apartment minus your age minus whether you enjoy the activity yourself, or U=NI-M-BY.

Perhaps the greatest contradiction is the idea that Newcastle beach is so popular you couldn’t remove a single centimetre of sand without moving a sunbaker out of the way, while also being so unused that any activity will impact the ‘quiet amenity’ of the beach.

I look forward to council finishing Bathers Way so that families from all suburbs can enjoy our beaches.

HAVING our first train trip to Richmond on Christmas Eve my wife and I were very impressed with the way we were treated. Firstly our new neighbour drove us to Broadmeadow station after loading our heavy case into her car and unloading it at the station. A station employee lifted the case onto the train where we met a friendly Taree lady who had been visiting her daughter at Tanilba, she took us under her wing and helped us stow our luggage and change trains at Strathfield and, as she had longer to wait for her connection, she helped us onto our train to Richmond. Our return home on Boxing Day was equally pleasant with our neighbour lifting our luggage up six steps onto our front porch. My wife and I are both 91.

REGARDING Mr Hassall’s letter: is Queensland better than NSW when it comes to future planning for its state (Letters, 29/12)? Do they have better experts than we do? After travelling in a Richard Branson train in the UK many years ago (provision for luggage etc) I thought he might have been consulted, or his advisers, on NSW’s future railway requirements but obviously not.

Mr Hassall sites the Gold Coast railway system as being superior to that of Newcastle. Would that we had one connecting to the hospitals, university and Williamtown airport?

One only has to remember Bjelke-Petersen’s prosperous reign in the ’70/80s in Queensland when BHP and others made the Port of Gladstone ready for the LPG industry, it being second to Newcastle for its export of coal. It too had space for a container terminal, but that has not happened.

Their passenger trains were always superior to the old non air-conditioned ones still in use in NSW. More ports up the east coast would have generated more towns and work for the influx of immigrants now turning our major cities into places our older citizens are vacating to move further up the coast in retirement. From the sale of its assets, money is being ploughed into a new sports stadium in Sydney – are any of the sports users contributing to it?

A public lottery had to pay for the Opera House, will the stadium be as world famous and an icon for visitors to view? Both Victoria and Queensland also have less taxes imposed on them than NSW so perhaps the “boom” time is over.

Gone is the joke about Queensland – “on landing there, be prepared to go back 20 years in time”. The joke is now on us.

CONCERNING euthanasia, Allan Earl (Short Takes, 31/12) wants “the same humanity that we give to our pets, for ourselves”, and doesn’t believe that the views of a religious minority should be allowed to influence the conversation. Not very democratic Allan! How would you propose to prevent a religious minority from influencing the conversation? Religious people might argue that human life is ‘sacred’ in a way that the lives of animals aren’t. You may disagree, but you have no right to prevent them from being part of the conversation. 

Anyhow, don’t we treat human life differently? We don’t kill and eat humans for instance. Why? We don’t even speak of putting people down like animals. We say ‘mercy killing’ or, to hide the reality, ‘mercy dying’. Do you think other minorities should be prevented from influencing various public debates, or only religious ones?

THE Catholic view on euthanasia goes a long way back, same as their views on birth control, where in Medieval times all emphasis was on increasing one’s population, thus out-breeding their rivals, being the moors or as we know today, the Muslims.

The power of the Church once ruled most armies, and unfortunately still does today, with some religious groups, but the Catholic Church became less involved with defensive issues and kept the recruitment active by encouraging large families and not allowing mercy killing as a means of keeping control within their faith.

Fortunately most Catholics these days have a mind of their own by taking birth control and agreeing with mercy killing, or euthanasia, and l suppose still attend church out of habit.

Maybe it's time the roles were reversed and the Church started listening to their followers because as times have changed so must the Church, especially if they hope to regain some respect, lost by not listening, and expecting obedience without question. And yes, these pamphlets of outdated beliefs may not be at Peter Dolan’s church, but most definitely at the Catholic Church at Armadale on the 17/12/18 (sorry l didn't keep a copy).