Newcastle Herald Letters to the Editor and Short Takes for Tuesday, December 13, 2022

It seems that the government now has to pay compensation to the providers for capping the price of coal and gas.

The taxpayers of this country are the ones paying the bills, not the government.

They use our money. So they say we will save on our bills, but at what cost? It looks like we are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Surely to fund the compensation there will be cuts made somewhere. I am guessing that the only winners will be energy providers and not the consumers. This is just a political stunt.

HAVING lived in Armidale in the 1950s and 60s we became familiar with two-to-three hours of blackouts each week.

I stupidly thought that blackouts would not come for another 10 years, and I would be long dead.

Then they said they are closing Liddell power station next April, when it supplies at least 10 per cent of NSW power. To keep electricity prices down, the federal government will cap the price of coal with money from our taxes, so we will pay anyway.

Truly they (whoever "they" are) must be on some serious medication to come up with that solution.

THE federal opposition condemns Labor's plan to lower energy prices; increasing supply is the only way to lower costs, they say. Yes, a great idea, and the greedy gas companies will have extra supply to export and increase their profits even further.

Currently they export 90 per cent of their product at huge profits.

The whole idea of Labor's plan is to help ordinary Australians pay their energy bills, not increase profits for energy companies whose products should be owned by the Australian people anyway.

WHO is making seemingly ridiculous decisions at Lake Macquarie City Council?

On Sunday night I drove past the area in Speers Point Park where the Christmas carols were to be performed. No roadside parking, either side of the road, from the roundabout right around to Pippy's Hotel.

Nearly every day there is parking on this strip, including RBT testing on occasions, yet, on Sunday, it was all barricaded. People walking large distances in order to participate. Why?

Further, we have a new children's play area at Fishing Point in the park between Alkrington Avenue and Carlisle Row. Public toilets and a lot of landscaping, and featured in the press as a marvellous addition to the area. However, there is absolutely no cover offered, either over the play area nor anywhere else in the park. Seemingly, LMCC is not worried about skin cancers and dehydration. Another play area in the Stilling Street park at Rathmines also lacks a cover. And further, the Newcastle Herald reports that LMCC has deferred yet again a decision on the $28 million upgrade of its swimming pools: "councillors will return to the issue after a workshop". Les Lazarus, who initially opened a private pool at The Junction, then later at Toronto which has been upgraded by LMCC, started babies floating in his pools before they reached 12 months of age. Surely he would turn in his grave if he knew of the disdain exhibited by LMCC in its lack of urgency with upgrading 'learn to swim' facilities.

WHETHER one believes Shapelle Corby was innocent or guilty, she was still sentenced to 20 years for smuggling cannabis. For smuggling heroin, two members of the Bali 9 were sentenced to death, and the ones left in Indonesia are unlikely to ever get out alive. And while I'm not disputing the fact that heroin tears apart families, destroys lives and ends lives, I still wonder why their sentences were harsher than that of the Bali bombmaker Umar Patek, who has now been released from prison ('Bombmaker's early release is 'shocking'', Herald, 9/12).

Patek was very largely responsible for 204 deaths, which is more than some dictators. But after only 12 years in jail, he is now free to walk the streets after playing a big part what can only be described as the mass murder of hundreds of people. I think that his release is more than just shocking, and is downright disgraceful.

IT was pleasing to see Sharon Cooper's letter regarding the erratic behaviour of some of our cyclists. Unfortunately this group thinks our shared pathways were put there for their exclusive use and pedestrians are pests.

We can now throw in with the bikes, motorised skateboards, scooters e-bikes (how many of these are legal?). Apparently there are no rules for this group - they make them up as they go. Past the yacht club the speed limit is 10km/h and along Honeysuckle Drive it's 30km/h. These are regularly ignored. The police turn a blind eye to all this. Maybe they don't know how to catch them. With summer and holidays coming, it should all end up in an interesting tangle.

I PRESUME some scribes to Herald letters have the luxury of time and experience on their 'side of life', as I do. I find Peter O'Neill's letter ('Embracing the evolution from town to city', Letters, 10/12) somewhat out of touch with the true image of Newcastle.

I am old now and have lived in various towns and a city on the eastern side of NSW. My childhood at Bulga, working in Newcastle and living at Raymond Terrace where I had my family.

My husband's work took us to Wollongong followed by Sydney (Eastwood) then retiring to the Central Coast. I lived in Terrigal about 15 years ago then came to Newcastle. My dentist on the Central Coast asked me where I came from.

By now I had learnt that very few people knew where Singleton was, let alone Bulga, so I said Newcastle. He replied "Newcastle is very provincial". Because I had been away from Newcastle for almost 30 years I replied with a blithe 'yes'.

Mr Google describes provincial as: "being of or concerning the regions outside the capital city (Sydney) of a country especially when regarded as unsophisticated or narrow minded".

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything? I was quite shocked to realise how appropriate the term 'provincial' was after returning to Newcastle. I have genuinely struggled to feel comfortable when in the company of many locals. I have a few family members living in Newcastle who fit the Newy mould. Peter encourages us to grow up and seems to think bricks and mortar is the criteria for promoting this once beautiful area.

Heaven forbid don't allow Newcastle on the international stage for at least a couple of decades until the present offenders of this behaviour have gone elsewhere.

HARRY and Meghan, I beg you to please go away and embrace the "privacy" you have pleaded for since 2020. I surely can't be the only one tired of such hypocrisy.

IT'S a selfish existence for those who do not care at all about how climate change will affect their grandkids. Imagine being told you could do something right now to save them from the worst, but refused to simply because it would disrupt your cruisy lifestyle a little - self-indulgence at its ugliest.

IT is a pity for all concerned that Goninan is not still building rolling stock for the NSW Railways there.

WELL said, John Taylor (Letters, 6/11). Elon Musk has now exposed the disgraceful interference by the Democrats, the FBI, mainstream media and big tech in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story in order to make sure Trump didn't win in 2020. I'm now waiting for our resident leftists, so eager to ruthlessly attack Trump's morals, to discuss the morals of the Biden family. I won't hold my breath however, because to them there's only one side to any story and any balance is dismissed as "false equivalence". Deplorable, I'd say.

THERE seem to be many people citing mental health issues as a reason for not being responsible for not turning up to work or committing a crime. These same people should view patients in the Acacia ward at James Fletcher and come up with something honest and original.

ONE argument against The Voice is that there are already enough Indigenous members elected to parliament to look after the interests of all Indigenous Australians. The problem there is that they are politicians first and foremost and politicians join parties that reflect their ideology. Often, ideology overrides the needs of society. Jacinta Price, who would not have been elected without the aid of a lot of white voters, is a prime example. The Voice needs distance from politicians.

SO much for all the public good will to recycle to improve our environment. Doesn't it seem ironic that several recycling centres have gone up in toxic smoke, the Chinese businesses who put their hands up to take all this stored recycling have become defunct, or China is not putting their hands up to take our recycled matter? As we produce so much matter why can't Australia put this rubbish to good use, by building our own foundries/factories to put this rubbish to help our environment and economy?