THE 109-years-young Newcastle Ocean Baths is a state and regional icon. We all must treat it with due reverence and respect. I understand Newcastle council's decision to cover the existing natural rock-shelf base with a huge concrete slab was driven by the cleaning staff to make the annual job of complete sand removal easier and reduce costs.
I understand the last small proportion of the annual sand removal requires manual labour for about a day to remove the sand from existing rock crevices that also serve to stabilise and evenly disperse the sand washed in by the wave action. It's estimated that the likely cost saving may be around $5000-$10,000 per year. Compare this with an estimated minimum $1.5 million cost to impose a massive concrete slab. I understand insufficient assessments have been undertaken to determine the full negative impact of the concrete slab, including on the vibrant marine ecology, such as seahorses, crabs, fish, and the occasional penguin.
I am sure that the many thousand supporters of our people's pool, like me, would be willing to volunteer one day a year to manually remove the remnants of sand that cannot be extracted by the existing machinery and hoses. This would be a win-win outcome for Newcastle ratepayers, saving around $1.5 million and the many users of our baths and marine life, so dependent upon the retention of the soft sandy bottom stabilised by the existing natural rock-shelf.
John Dickenson, Newcastle West
Invasion day
PETER C Jones's letters (Letters, 21/1, 28/1) are an insult to fair-minded Australians, particularly the Indigenous Australian community. I suggest he reads the historical description of his hero Lachlan Macquarie entitled Secret Service, Governor Macquarie's Aboriginal War of 1816 by Michael K Organ of the University of Wollongong or the book Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770 to 1850 which includes military campaigns ordered by Macquarie against Aboriginal people in 1816.
It depicts a man of callous brutality lacking insight into the understanding of Indigenous Australian culture. The decapitated heads of slain Aboriginal people sent back to London as trophies by Macquarie, the disease, violence, massacres and dispossession of children and land is not a reason to celebrate. To have a statue of a murderer in Speers Point Park is offensive and inappropriate. If willing, the local Aboriginal community should consult with the council and have the lake renamed to Awaba, which is its original name.
Ironically the modern Liberal Party, formerly called the Protectionist Party, led by Edmund Barton introduced the White Australia Policy in 1901. The aim was to make Australia white and British. Thankfully this draconian policy was abolished in 1973 by Australia's greatest prime minister Gough Whitlam, who embraced multiculturalism and acceptance of all races.
The British didn't bring civilisation, they brought despair with murderous intent and genocide on a race of beauty, tolerance and culture. Racism and ignorance are some of many human frailties. Accept the historical facts that a wrong was done and should not be celebrated. January 26 was and always will be invasion day.
Kenny Hicks, Blacksmiths
Renewable scare campaign
QUEENSLAND energy company Energex reported they were repairing damage "mostly due to storms as well as a vehicle hitting a pole, underground cable faults and branches in lines that had cut power to over 21,000 properties". LNP Senator Matt Canavan chose to broadcast this showed "Green energy can't keep the lights on", when it clearly had nothing to do with generation, renewable or otherwise.
Ironically, on this day of record peak demand, almost two gigawatts of his favoured coal generation was out of action, mainly due to unplanned outages. The bigger problem for Queenslanders is the lack of their state's renewable generation capacity, at just 20 per cent. This puts them at risk in peak demand periods, and has seen them go from paying the lowest, to the highest, energy prices among the states.
Conversely, South Australia, with 65 per cent renewable generation, has gone from normally dearest to among the lowest. Perhaps this the start of another inaccurate, ingenuous and occasionally infantile pre-election renewable scare campaign.
Richard Mallaby, Wangi Wangi
Grant numbers don't stack-up
AFTER many years of pleading Newcastle has finally received funding from both state and federal parliament for the very modest art gallery expansion, compared to other gallery expansions in lesser cities such a Shepparton with a massive 5300 square metre expansion compared to our 1600 square metre expansion. Instead of expressing gratitude there should be an inquiry and protest. An analysis of other Australian cities in 2021 that received government grants for art gallery expansions are; Shepparton (National Party), Rockhampton (National Party), Orange (ex National Party now Shooters & Fishers Party by 50 votes), Grafton (National Party). On a pro rata basis they received grants of $301 to $434 per person in their electorate, except poor Orange receiving only $100 - but the grant then covered the entire cost. By comparison Newcastle (Labor) received $21.58 per person. You would have to be blind not to see political bias. If Newcastle received the same funding as say Grafton, which topped the funding, we would have received a $201 million grant or $139.5 million if equaled to the modest Rockhampton grant. These amounts would have funded a grand gallery to showcase our great collection of 7000 paintings attracting visitors from far and wide helping our economy. This is simply another scandal involving pork barrelling reaching to the highest level of our government and needs to be revealed and stopped now.
Darryl Stevenson, Coal Point
Public should not be misinformed
AMONG other factually unlikely utterances, the PM said that the government had no influence over house prices. Which within the framework of this unbridled laissez faire system he has imposed on us is probably half true. Of course, there is existing legislation (eg. negative gearing) and potential legislation that would easily affect the price of houses.
So did our PM lie again, was he willfully ignorant or just plain reckless with the truth, again? No matter what, his position as leader in any other organisation would be untenable. We all know why it isn't in our government. Other than for national security there are no excuses to misinform the public. We should be totally intolerant to deception before we even begin to examine his competence. I believe those who are now seeking election should be advocating not only a federal ICAC but drafting an instrument that allows the Governor General, on advice, to dismiss the PM.
There need not be a general election. The parliament by majority would select another leader. The PM would retain his seat until his constituents decided his fate. When did our standards slip so low that we would accept this amount of deceit as acceptable behaviour for someone in such a high office?
Tony Emanuel, Pomona
SHORT TAKES
EVERYBODY is talking the same BS. Albo is on about 'green hydrogen' pumped up by AGL from Sydney-Newcastle pipeline. That is a 'natural gas' line. We all know where that comes from. It would require a separate gas line. The generators are designed for a 30 per cent blend of hydrogen. So where does the 'green hydrogen' come from? Coal. If you don't believe in 'clean coal', don't believe in 'green hydrogen'. The only 'green hydrogen' is from electrolysis using renewables. Where are they making that in a commercial quantity? Twiggy is 'talking about it'. Twiggy 'the greenie'.
Brian Dirou, Cooks Hill
JUST watched St Helens beat Catalan 28-8 and Mitchell Pearce's defense hasn't improved with the shift to the Super League.
Greg Parrey, Rutherford
OUR state premier is too busy to meet with NSW nurses - he is showing utter contempt. He, as a liberal, is only worried about business, and not what matters. What matters is the lives of people who live in NSW. He is hiding behind "the advice that I've received", and definitely not listening to the people of NSW who, by the way, voted for the Liberals. He should be listening to all members of this state.
Peter Selmeci, Murrays Beach
THERE is an old saying that to be a successful politician one should be a liar or a hypocrite and ideally both, so when Barnaby Joyce called Scott Morrison both these things was he being derogatory or complimentary?
Ian King, Warners Bay
CONGRATULATIONS to those Liberal ministers who crossed the floor to introduce needed amendments to this divisive bill ('Time running out for religious bill', Newcastle Herald, 11/2). This government continues to dig a deeper hole for itself. When are Australians going to start thinking outside the square and start looking at the real issues facing our future: Climate change and affordable housing? Pull your heads out of the sand!
Colin Rowlatt, Merewether
RE: The Newcastle Herald's front page (9/2/22) on the fight for life of the ACM (Australian Community Media) newspaper group to stay financially alive in the modern age. I am waiting to hear if going fully digital is the way forward for newspapers and stopping all print editions. I am 70 and I think digital download is the future for success.
Alan Hamilton, Hamilton East
Steve Barnett, I hope after listening to our two cricket captains pathetically tell us why Langer had to go, you won't watch cricket again. Hardly watched the Ashes series when I usually watch as much as I can due to sandpaper. Wonder if Smith or Warner had any part in it.
