Newcastle Herald letters to the editor, Wednesday, May 20, 2020: 400 reasons the NRL shouldn't be returning

The reason I come to this conclusion is there are too many ifs and buts.

Take into account the numbers to proceed with a full round: Thirty-four players, one coach, one assistant coach, one physio, two strappers, one referee, two lines people, two ball boys, one accredited standby official, two doctors, multiple cameramen (some in close vicinity of the playing field) and many others that I have not mentioned. Total involved: 40-plus.

Multiply this by eight games and you get total participants of close to 400. Multiply this by the number of rounds. Taking into account the already known disregard of the edicts set by the NRL by some high profile players, in all honesty how can the NRL have enough faith in those participants to be possibly true to the edict? Who, what and where could they possibly and unknowingly break the medical directive to social distancing? How would they know if their immediate family or house mates have been not observing the distancing?

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It should be mandatory that all participants produce to their team doctor the evidence of inoculation or any waiver sought with a medical reason for not being inoculated. Faith or ethnicity is not enough, many players in the teams have not sought a waiver on these grounds. I also wait with bated breath for the first player preferring not to play in a game where someone has no valid reason for non inoculation?

Pat Garnet (Letters, 14/5) states I have not comprehended her actual message (Letters, 8/5). I do understand your angst concerning rule changes to COVID-19 to suit the starting of the rugby league. The decision to change the initial set of rules was chiefly made because of pressure applied to weak state leaders by the media barons.

Your perception that players, members and supporters are arrogant, selfish people (your own words, Pat) is far from the truth.

Followers of both rugby league and rugby union, and in fact all sporting codes, come from a great cross-section of the community and vary from unskilled workers to solicitors, police, business leaders and the clergy.

I eagerly await the start of play on May 28.

Bring it on!

Professor Gary Martin "Reality bytes for office's techno-dinosaurs", (Opinion 11/5), gave us the IT advice for remaining relevant in today's workplace. The good professor is a "workplace culture expert", whatever that is?

You should do everything online including reading books, newspapers, pay bills, not printing documents etc, though he did have his opinion printed in this paper.

You have to be "active" on social media and heaven forbid that you rely on making phone calls, faxes and emails to communicate. He encourages us to be able to walk fast while texting.

Beware of people "wearing a single-function watch with hands" - why, would that enable them to tell the time in a fraction of a second, I guess?

Questioning his techno-savvy advice may well have him class me as a techno-dinosaur. But I have further arguments as to why he would be wrong. All he has to do is give the fax number and I will fax a handwritten copy to him.

History is littered with turning points. I witnessed my first turning point just after I left high school in the 1980s. The end of the Cold War changed the world before my eyes and brought in the optimistic 1990s.

The second turning point was the 9/11 attacks on New York City. The world changed direction again and darkness descended upon the world. Hollywood reflected this dark era with equally dark movies and TV shows. The US changed with an increasingly militaristic view of the world.

Now the coronavirus is upon us and the world will never be the same again.

The premiers of Queensland and NSW need to realise that they live in separate states, not two separate countries.

It's not the State of Origin. Stop running the states like they are not part of Australia. There is so much confusion because of their power plays.

You get sick with contracting COVID-19, not lose common sense, so lead us to the road of recovery not isolate us on the roundabout of uncertainty and confusion.

The way forward is not one step forward, two steps backwards. Cooperation, clarity and communication with the federal government to come up with a commonsense way forward, eliminating individual state restrictions, will give the Australian public a realistic and achievable goal. Work with the public, not against them, and do the job that what you were elected to do.

The ACCC wrongly claims that the NSW Government's decision in 2012 not to develop a container terminal at the Port of Newcastle placed the government outside the operation of the Competition Act when Port Botany and Port Kembla were leased to NSW Ports Pty Ltd in 2013.

But in December 2018, the ACCC alleged that NSW Ports acted illegally by agreeing to the government's terms for developing a container terminal at the Port of Newcastle.

The ACCC's court action against NSW Ports disproves its claim that the government acted outside the operation of the CCA: the government's terms for developing a container terminal in 2013 are not the terms for not developing a container terminal in 2012.

Last month, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet told Parliament that the terms for developing a container terminal were publicly disclosed in July, 2012. No, they were not. They were exposed by the Newcastle Herald in July, 2016. The public and Parliament were misinformed by Mr Perrottet. The public record should be corrected.

It's a well known architectural principle that design can influence people's behaviour. This was very evident when, after two-and-a-half months housebound, I visited the farmers market at Broadmeadow.

Stalls were spaced far apart and social distancing crosses were everywhere directing people where to line up and stand. It was so easy for everyone to follow, proving to be a wonderfully safe and pleasant way to shop and support our local producers.

Well done to the organisers and stall holders. No more crowding around a stall, being pushed past or being bumped by trolleys or prams. Can this become the new normal?

I SUPPORT Dr Everingham. Supercars are a disaster for East End residents. Get rid of them.

WHY does Christine Everingham get to break the rules on word limit? Is it because she is from the East End Residents Group and she is putting down the Newcastle 500 yet again?

OK all you East Enders you all have to get your heads together and think of something to have a whinge about. I have faith in you.

HAVE no fear John (Letters, 19/5) the V8 Supercars will be back in Newcastle next year and beyond. And I'd like to thank you as a rate payer in Newcastle for your contribution to help fund this great event.

SO as a cost cutting measure "they" want to halve the number of referees, those people who make sure the players follow the rules. Evidence suggests it might be more prudent, and lest costly, to halve, or even quarter, the number of players.

YOU are partially correct about the NRL only needing one referee, Stan Keifer, but there will be two referees doing the Storm games. You are forgetting ref Cameron Smith will be captain/coach/referee.

IF you can be fined $1000 for not keeping socially distanced; how can footballers play, tackle, wrestle and form scrums and be exempt? I don't understand.

WHAT is the world coming to when a 40-year-old woman wins a court case to have the NDIS pay $10,000 a year for her sex services?

THE $12 million going to be spent on a skate park in Stockton should go to a rock wall like they use on the break wall going out to the lighthouse, before more land goes into the ocean. Think positive first.

IN the last few decades while Australia has treated the concept of fast rail as political reflux, China has built a state of the art national system. They would most likely help us to build one also, through the Belt and Road initiative, but the Yanks have told us we can't do that. National sovereignty, eh what?

GREG Lowe (Letters, 15/5) laments to offerings on most television networks during lockdown. Greg, I've discovered YouTube. Now, there's a treasure trove of delightful viewing. All the offerings are old, but what fun! Some wouldn't pass the politically correct rules of today, but are so funny I feel a trifle guilty for enjoying them. I laugh so much at the British comedies of past decades, that I feel my neighbours must fear for my sanity. Give it a try.