STOCKTON beach needs urgent sand nourishment now. The suburb is at risk with ongoing erosion that can only be remedied with sand nourishment.
Design, engineer and install a sand transfer system to pump sand from Stockton Bight sand dunes to the beach. The sand accreting at Stockton Bight sand dunes came from the beach in the first place. The transfer of sand is just a sustainable reuse of a cyclic resource.
To save Stockton infrastructure, assets and buildings, action is needed now. This can be done relatively quickly if there is a political will. Sand from Newcastle Harbour was already identified as not suitable for nourishment at Stockton due to contamination concerns. The recent bureaucratic paper shuffling over harbour sand use at Stockton is reprehensible.
The Swansea channel dredging debacle is also reprehensible since all NSW programs were transferred from the Department of Planning, Infrastructure and Environment over to Transport for NSW. The current dredging program is 18 months behind schedule. Planned dredging of the navigation channel was due to be completed in November 2022 but has not been undertaken with excuses of itinerant shore birds. The purchase of a permanent Swansea channel dredge was approved and funded in the 2022 federal budget, supported by MP for Shortland Pat Conroy.
NSW MP for Swansea Yasmin Catley has been advocating for a permanent Swansea channel dredge and associated Blacksmiths beach sand transfer system. Stockton and Blacksmiths are iconic Newcastle beaches that need urgent political support.
Phil Donoghoe, Ballina
End political games over Stockton
STOCKTON'S sand loss is due to both Newcastle Harbour breakwalls not allowing the previous natural sand replenishment from south to north is common knowledge, ("Harbour hit", Newcastle Herald 16/1). The old paintings of Nobbys Island show it separated from the foreshore with the breakwalls being man made.
Whilst on a cruise ship I witnessed the turbidity when manoeuvring in Newcastle Harbour when the propeller thrusters were applied as the ship turned 45 degrees in the middle of the harbour.
What was not mentioned was the fact that there are at least four sand extraction mines in Williamtown, two at Salt Ash and one at Anna Bay in Port Stephens Local Government Area. These sand extractions are approved due to migrating sand swallowing up coastal forests at 6m-10m, moving westward and with sand accreting annually on the ocean side. Other previous mineral sand extraction programs have witnessed the removal of rutile, zircon and ilmenite, compromising the structure of the sand dunes. The natural, north-easterly littoral replenishment sand drifts back to Stockton are now ineffective due to these mining activities trucking sand to Sydney's building industries. Sand reserves at Kurnell have been exhausted for decades.
It's time the Liberal NSW government and Labor Newcastle council stopped playing political games with what's left of Stockton's beach and foreshore.
Brian Watson-Will, Corlette
Housing plans too little too late
LABOR must fund more housing. The Albanese Labor government's $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund plan to build 30,000 social and affordable houses over five years is woefully inadequate. Thousands more are now homeless, living in tents, cars, couch surfing and in overcrowded homes with multiple families. The plan does not address this crisis.
A real plan needs more funding from states to fix up neglected and unsafe public housing and identify areas to build more. A Commonwealth plan for a huge increase in suitable public housing shouldn't be just for a small minority lucky to get into a home.
NSW Labor's idea to amalgamate three housing agencies may mean a mega bureaucracy not knowing local needs. I find Newcastle's local housing offices' online and phone contact good but very busy, with staff already under stress.
Large new cohorts of people are homeless now and expecting some help in times of crisis, not inadequate plans or bureaucratic gimmicks. A distant bureaucracy only accessible by phone or online is not a plan; it just compounds this housing disaster. Labor needs to make a larger government investment in housing or see votes change and increased public campaigning over time.
Kerry Vernon, New Lambton
Time for a true national symbol
IN answer to Carl Stevenson's letter, ("Flagging a desire for unity", Letters, 16/1), Australia will finally have grown up as a country when we get our own flag, instead of the colonial rubbish we currently fly. A flag should be a national symbol which unites a nation.
Our current flag is outdated and should have been changed years ago. No self-respecting country would have the flag of another country in the canton of their national flag. In my opinion we could do a lot worse than to look at the examples set by two countries that replaced their colonial era flags with symbols that unite the whole country: Canada and South Africa.
Peter C Jones, Rathmines
Rules on what we run up flagpole
CARL Stevenson, ("Flagging a desire for unity", Letters, 16/1), considers the Indigenous flag one of protest. The Australian Aboriginal flag was, in 1995, proclaimed an official Australian flag covered by the Flags Act of 1953, the same legislation that caused the flag previously known as the Blue Ensign to become the Australian National flag.
According to the Flags Act the Australian Aboriginal flag is outranked only by the Australian National flag, the national flags of other nations, and the flags of the Australian states and territories. The rules for flying flags are extensive and complex but in the case Mr Stevenson describes the flags are correctly positioned, provided the flag he was not able to identify was not of a higher rank than the Aboriginal flag.
There are however many examples of the disrespectful and illegal use of flags.
I have seen an Australian national flag, so worn out that only half of it remained, flown inverted on an RSL club building. I pointed this out to the staff but nothing changed. During an election campaign the offices of both the Labor and Liberal Parties in the town where I lived at the time used the National flag as a tablecloth.
Ian Roach, New Lambton
Sounds like an assumption
I HAVE been over my letter concerning the Elton John concert quite a few times and I cannot see anywhere within my comments where I compare it to Supercars, ("Rocking the suburbs", Letters, 12/1).
It was indeed more about the good people of Waratah and surrounds being more accepting of loud, live music compared to their inner city counterparts. You do know what they say about the word "assume"?
And another thing: it sounds like one whinging, moaning, complainer can almost shut down an inner city hotel ("'Noisy' Newy warned", Herald, 16/1). What a joke. It appears the gentrified are spreading.
Tony Morley, Waratah
SHORT TAKES
I BELIEVE to give Cardinal George Pell a state funeral would be hypocritical to say the least ('Pope gives the final blessing for Pell', Newcastle Herald 16/1). The Church has the money so they can pay for his funeral. My heart goes out to the victims of sexual abuse at this time. Thank the Lord, Cardinal Pell never reached the heights of becoming "Pope". I fear the Church would have been dragged back 40 years. He will be given a funeral with all the trimmings, while many victims of abuse are still suffering.
Robyn Nehl, Charlestown
WITH the Premier's costume saga, here we have a case of past deeds being found out. People suggesting avenues of regret. An apparently repentant premier admitting his lack of forethought at the tender age of 21, only seven years older than a child that can be considered criminally responsible. Contrition, as I recall, can be described as feeling or displaying sorrow of an action. I wonder which in this case.
Vic Davies, Tighes Hill
YES Graeme Kime, ("Let politicians' pasts stay buried", Letters, 14/1), I too believe that we were all a little crazy at 21, but at my 21st, I dressed up like a 1980s glam rocker, and at my brother's 21st, he dressed as Eminem, (Nazi uniforms just weren't on our radar). I guess many young people try to imitate those they look up to, and I'd like to think that this wasn't the case with Dominic Perrottet at his 21st, but I really don't know what to think. Mr Perrottet has tried to dismiss his actions by claiming that he was "young and naive", and somehow didn't understand the implications of dressing up like a Nazi, yet despite this, he still won't raise the age of criminal responsibility above 10. So while a 10-year-old is supposed to be able to completely differentiate right and wrong, a 21-year-old Dominic Perrottet couldn't, apparently.
Adz Carter, Newcastle
I THINK that Carl Stevenson is on to something with his point about having one flag, ("Flagging a desire for unity", Letters, 16/1). We could easily achieve this by amalgamating the Aboriginal flag with the present Australian flag. Simply replace the Union Jack in the top left corner with the Aboriginal flag. This would reflect that as a nation we have indeed "grown up" and left behind the mother country. Rather than continuing to pay tribute to a defunct empire, we could all share in the pride of living together on the continent that has the world's longest continuous civilization.
Peter Rees, Whitebridge
CARL Stevenson ("Flagging a desire for unity", Letters, 16/1), Australian flag protocol demands the Australian flag takes precedence by placement to the left of other flags when all flagstaffs are the same height. No other flag was taking "centre stage". Albanese had it correctly placed.
