WITH the council elections on Saturday, residents of the City of Newcastle are contemplating the future of our city. We might also consider the future of Wal Young House.
This substantial brick and tile structure on a prominent corner (Parry and National Park streets) of National Park was vacated by sports administrators a few years ago.
My understanding is it's on council-controlled land and someone, I presume with council authority or some similar type of permission, has professionally boarded up the windows and doors.
Someone has also used an extension ladder to remove tiles from three of the roof's perimeters, but there are removed tiles still sitting on the roof and in the gutters, allowing rainwater to damage the internal fabric.
I fear that if this building is left to dilapidate much longer it may one day deprive us of a potential Newcastle West neighbourhood centre, cafe, or even a pop-up cinema.
Shame, Newcastle, shame.
Carl Boyd, Cooks Hill
My trolley's not your problem
REGARDING the recent letter ("Tighten belt, don't blame profits", Letters 9/9): Jan Phillip Treviillian obviously misunderstood my point.
I was not advocating that supermarkets forgo their profits, just that they reduce them so that they can put more back into the community. I find it difficult to believe that they are only making 2 to 3 cents out of each item: if this were the case, how could they make such large profits?
Secondly, we hear every day or so about farmers (often multi-generational) destroying their products and going out of business because of the low prices paid to them for their produce. Often it's below the price of production.
They deserve a fair price for their produce.
Thirdly, you have no idea what I put into my shopping trolley, so don't presume. Not that it is any of your business, but my trolley contains meat and vegetables, dairy and mostly unprocessed foods.
Don't lump me into the same class as other people you do not know.
For your information, I have shares in both the major supermarkets, but would willingly accept a lower dividend if it meant that they were doing the right thing.
Ruth Burrell, Merewether
Staff stand-off memory returns
IN former senator John Tierney's letter ("Overstaffing a challenge", Letters, 24/8), he posed the question, "What do the huge number of Newcastle council employees actually do?".
It stimulated a memory of an altercation I had with one of them a while back.
I had noticed that a council vehicle had been parked in a commercial storage facility every weekday for almost a month.
I was photographing the vehicle to ask the council what was going on when a woman in uniform emerged from a storage space and asked me what I was doing.
When I told her, she said that was none of my business. I explained that, as a ratepayer, I owned a share of the vehicle and had every right to know what it was being used for.
To avoid any escalation of the situation, I retreated into my storage unit.
A short time later, I heard the vehicle start and hastily leave the building, and I haven't seen it since.
Ray Dinneen, Newcastle
Homes can't be impossible dream
Housing is a strong contender as a human right, especially in a so-called first-world country such as Australia.
Ahead of the local government elections in NSW this weekend, there have been statements about affordable housing, yet we need to ask if this statement is likely to produce housing for the most vulnerable who live without housing.
Sadly the answer is no, not at all.
I am standing to raise the real and present concern that is getting worse every day; the homeless people in and around Newcastle.
There are many things that must be done, and those things are at all levels of government.
The financial institutions have a role to play, as does the legal profession.
There is some heavy lifting to be done, but to fail to arrest this problem will mean that the idea that our current young people will one day own their own home will become an impossible dream for them.
Having said that, there is a lot we can do, and it may mean some of us will need to make some sacrifices, for some it will be significant, but we must rise to the challenge.
What will we do?
Milton Caine, independent Newcastle lord mayoral candidate
September 11 is a date filled with meaning
Today marks the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York that killed almost 3000 innocent civilians and threw our world into a turmoil, from which it has never recovered. Lest we forget.
John Flett, Fishing Point
Commonsense game has appeal
I agree with Colin Rowlatt ("Greatest cause of division", Letters, 30/8), along with religion, race has been the greatest cause of human division. You criticise Peter Dutton for, in your opinion, playing the race game, but isn't this the same game that PM Albanese played by trying, and failing dismally, to institute the divisive Voice? A tad hypocritical I'd say. In my opinion, Dutton is playing a commonsense game.
Greg Hunt, Newcastle West
Williamtown already on radar
Peter Ronne ("Who's in firing line", Letters, 26/8) and Mary Sharkey ("Plan to build missiles puts region on map", Letters, 26/8), I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I think there are military aircraft in use at Williamtown, so I would think it's already on the radar for a nuclear strike from our wonderful friends in the Chinese Communist Party when the war starts. When China takes Taiwan by force in the next few years, one thing for sure it won't be good for Albo's net zero climate targets.
Steve Barnett, Fingal Bay
We're not the only game in town
I FIND the following quote from Reuters interesting. Also, I see that China has 1142 coal-fired power stations: "Littleton, Colorado, July 24 (Reuters) - Coal-fired power plants generated 59.6 per cent of China's total electricity output during the opening half of 2024, the first time on record that coal produced less than 60 per cent of the country's total electricity during that period". If the eco-warriors succeed in stopping Newcastle's coal exports, China will simply make up the shortfall by importing brown coal from Indonesia,
