Letters to the editor and short takes Saturday December 5 2020

From a personal point of view, increasing property prices for a seller is a good thing yet from an overall government view this is the wrong direction for affordable housing to become a reality.

The state government, with its huge slug of a so-called stamp duty on the purchase of the house and on the loan agreement, is very much interested in increasing prices and turnover of sales as more flows into Treasury. It is clear that affordable housing is just a throwaway election slogan until real action is taken to prevent the high increases in house prices.

Firstly, the stamp duty was to make a document official so all the checks were done so as to establish the document was legally capable of being transferred into a different owner's name. The cost of this must be less than $20 in today's prices and the rest is a tax. Since the government sold the Land Titles Office they have no right to this charge at all but the owners of the Land Titles Office should alone have that right to charge an actual stamp duty.

The rate of approvals for new housing, the failure to actively decentralise work hubs, the failure to supply reliable high speed transport to decentralised communities, the failure to support Australian manufacturers by government, and the close connection to developers that this and previous governments have are some of the causes behind the increasingly unaffordability of housing. Low interest rates are used to encourage investment in housing, and as long as they remain low most who buy now will have little problems. Should they rise, though, that's the problem area. The extremely low deposits also will cause huge headaches if the interest rates rise and the only winner will be the government, lawyers, and real estate agents. Higher prices is a bitter pill for most in the community

I READ with interest the letter from Major Harmer from The Salvation Army regarding Christmas (Letters, 2/12) and I would like to add to their story.

I grew up in Maryville and living over our back fence was a family who belonged to the Salvation Army church at Tighes Hill. Their daughter, Helen, was the same age as me having been born a day after me in 1946. I attended a Tighes Hill school reunion earlier this year and Helen and I recognised each other immediately even after 60 years. We renewed our friendship and I was surprised to learn that her father was still alive and had passed his 100^th birthday.

I only ever knew him as Mr Bannister and he respectfully addressed my mother as Mrs Lindus. It was the 1950s and my mum was rearing four children alone so our family had no dad and no car.

There were many times our family needed help and many times Mr Bannister came to our assistance. The Salvos have always been there, in floods, droughts and bushfires and given hope to families when they needed it most and although I am not a religious person I have seen over my lifetime the work of the Sallies.

Mr Bannister helped many people through "the Salvos" and he held down a full time job at Rylands (a subsidiary of BHP) and every year the company held a huge Christmas party and us kids were included. It was the highlight of our year. We were given ice cream, lollies, ginger beer and a gift and we felt like part of a big family.

This week a part of my childhood died. Mr Bannister passed away aged 102. Now I know his full name. Vale Robert Douglas Bannister, 21 October 1918-30 November 2020. He was a trusted friend to many including my family. His kindness will be remembered forever.

Thank God for the Salvos.

I BELIEVE it is absolute recklessness by Hunter Water to even consider building a new dam on Limeburners Creek which would become an integrated part of the Grahamstown Scheme which presently provides about 62 per cent of the Lower Hunter's annual water requirements.

Instead of having water quality issues, namely toxic blue-green algae, in one dam ('Algae amber alert for Grahamstown Dam', Herald 2/12) we would have two affected dams, as they would both be sourced from exactly the same deteriorating waterway at Seaham Weir on the Williams River.

When the drought broke in January, for the first six months of the year, Hunter Water was only able to pump 76 per cent of its available water allocation from Seaham Weir due to water quality issues (blue-green algae and hornwort) in the Williams River.

The Williams River catchment contributes 90 to 94 per cent of Hunter Water's supply. Building more dams supplied by this same catchment is a huge risk to the region's water security.

When discussing an expansion of the Grahamstown Scheme in 2010, Hunter water wrote "No source diversity (uses existing catchment) - offers limited protection against water quality vulnerabilities. ('All eggs in one basket')"

Wake up, Hunter Water. We need a climate independent and sustainable water supply system, not dams which rely on an uncertain climate future, where droughts are predicted to be more severe and longer, fewer east coast lows, less streamflow and higher evaporation rates which will all result in potentially more severe water quality issues in the already struggling Williams River.

AS I listened to Jeremy Bath on 2NC this morning (3/12) I was slightly pleased to hear that the race had been rescheduled to March 2022 with a lead in beginning on 1 February ('Supercars seals early 2022 Newcastle return', Herald 3/12).

However, as I listened to him promoting the so-called benefits I looked at the photo in the Newcastle Herald showing an empty beach presumably in December and the crowds only one deep along the track. Then to read the quote attributed to Nuatali Nelmes of "the shots of Supercars racing in the foreground while coal ships sail in the background are images that are embedded into the minds of tens of millions of motor racing fans around the world".

Fossil fuel squandering cars racing around with a backdrop of fossil fuel carrying ships.

How this aligns with the so-called Smart City Vision this council is supposed to be supporting seems ironic at best in my opinion. I believe the whole event is even more questionable when many see the demise of internal combustion engine vehicles in the not too distant future.

THE Midnight Oil song Stand in Line has become the anthem for the Bay. Everywhere you go there are lines of people waiting to get into places. Saturday night is bizarre. On the way home from work on Saturday every club and pub I passed had hundreds of people waiting to get in at Shoal Bay; one line extended around the corner all the way to the top of the hill. Christmas holiday season is going to be a good old fashioned battle but great entertainment for us locals. Bring your blood pressure pills if you're silly enough to come here for holidays.

HAVE you wondered from your childhood why the teachers said you have to do the maths in brackets first? Why? They do get different answers, but who said one way is correct and not the other? More to the point who decided?

KEITH Parsons (Short Takes, 2/12) asked "why is the cathedral described as a business"? Well maybe it is since Christ Church Cathedral is under the administration of the Newcastle Anglican Church Corporation.

JULIE Robinson (Short Takes, 3/12), if African-Americans have felt unsafe and threatened under Donald Trump's presidency, why did more people of colour support Trump in 2020 than in 2016? Forbes reports that Trump won 26 per cent of the non-white vote in 2020, the second-best Republican showing recorded by exit polls since 1976, behind George W Bush's 28 per cent in 2004. These facts don't fit your racist Trump narrative.

JULIE Robinson (Short Takes, 3/12) says that African-Americans have felt unsafe with Trump as President, and turned out in huge numbers to vote for Biden. But the proportions of African-American voters for Joe Biden in 2020 dropped from the proportions who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Males went from 82% to 80%, and females went from 94% to 91%. These are small shifts, and certainly the vast majority still voted for the Democrat candidate as usual. But Trump improved his support among that voter group after his four years.

GIVEN the term didn't appear until the 1940s, Greg Hunt, I wouldn't have found "woke" in an 1828 edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary (Short Takes, 3/12). Anyway, I find it best to use only up to date reference sources. A seminal classic in climate science though it undoubtedly is, perhaps you should trade in your copy of Hippocrates' "On Airs, Waters and Places" (400 BCE) and do the same.