Letters to the editors

Weekends wasted

I would love to see something positive happening in Lismore especially on weekends. It's a city and yet on weekends it's dead. I realise that most of the businesses are owned by one or two people, but if things were open along with the cafes it would encourage people into town. The lane featured in The Echo looks great. There are towns all over Australia that are vibrant places on weekends, but not Lismore. It's a waste.

P Roberts

Wardell

 

Invest in the future

Investors in coal seam gas did not foresee the huge opposition they would face from the community. Their world view of extract, exploit and make heaps of money has collided with the worldview of rural landholders who have concern for the environment, water and food security.

So far, shares in Metgasco have done well, especially with news that there is a Chinese takeover afoot. But I am not too sure that it is a safe investment.

Investors assumed it would be a sure thing. Buy off the politicians (think Stuart George), hire a good P.R. firm, advertise the benefits to jobs and the economy and get the stuff to China as quick as possible. I remember the headlines of "600 years of gas for Casino". Well this gas ain't for Casino.

We will stop the industrialisation of our farms and pollution of our soil, air and water. It just isn't going to happen in Rock Valley (where I live) and there are people all over the region more adamant than myself. As for the pipeline through Lions Road: "tell 'em they're dreaming". We are sending a message to investors that CSG is a risky investment, better to invest in the new green economy.

Anthony Neenan

Larnook

 

Poor service

How's your business travelling? Not well for most it seems. Last week I travelled to Lismore to shop. First shop - produce - wanted to buy five items but came away with one. Second shop - groceries - wanted 10 items, came out with four. Third shop - pet products - went in for three, came out with none. Fourth shop - groceries - went in for six items, came out with one. I wanted to buy a total of 24 items but ended up with only six. This is not good enough, businesses.

Today I received a Christmas card from a local business which states on the back 'Australian Christmas Cards' yet shows a truck on the front with Santa driving on the left hand side.

I've rung a security company twice to get a quote on a surveillance system but no one has rung back with the quote. Don't they want my business? We are asked to shop locally but unless the standard of service and availability of product improves why should I want to shop locally?

Name and address supplied

 

Black's not cool

What would possess people to use black roof tiles on their houses? Everyone knows that black attracts heat and white repels it. In addition, clay tiles do not cool down as quickly as other materials so I would imagine the roof spaces of these houses would be so hot and that running their air-conditioners flat out all summer - day and night - might be tempting.

Shame on Council for passing any DA when a plan to use these tiles is submitted, as it is certainly not environmentally friendly and may be increasing the energy load.

G Doggett

South Lismore

 

Drug Law reform

Research by the Mental Health Co-ordinating Council (MHCC) states that 'for people living with a mental illness, social inclusion plays a central role in recovery'. The Federal government is putting more money into services for people with mental illness. Services want to help people find a meaningful place within society in order to aid their recovery. However people with mental health issues often use illegal drugs to alleviate their symptoms. They choose to self-medicate. The drug laws cause them to feel like they are outside of and excluded from the rest of society. They don't want to go to services where they might feel judged or at risk of being arrested or of being attacked by sniffer dogs.

MHCC suggests that social support and social relationships are important for good mental health. For those recovering from mental illness, re-connecting with society promotes recovery. However feeling paranoid of police can keep you indoors and isolated. Drug law reform is important for the recovery process of those who medicate themselves with illegal drugs. How many people with mental health issues do end up in jail for drug offences? A great many. How can we help them? We can accept that a gentler, more supportive attitude to drug use would aid recovery for those of us who are suffering with mental illness.

Beth Shelley

Lismore

 

Slippery deal

The ascension of 'Slippery Pete' Slipper to the heretofore ethical position of Speaker of the House of Representatives once again shows that the ALP will do anything to cling to power.

Until now we could usually rely on the Speaker's impartiality and probity - but no more.

This move is a serious unethical ploy which could well backfire on the government. A man who sells his political allegiance to gain the perks of office cannot be trusted not to sell his casting vote to the highest bidder. This shoddy deal has been the ethical nadir of the Gillard Government and will forever leave a stain on the ALP but that is what happens when political advantage is put before doing the right thing.

So be prepared for the dirt to start flying for, two days after Slipper became Speaker, the Sydney Morning Herald was claiming, "We already know that he's had to pay back thousands of dollars in wrongly claimed travel allowances and that his spending on travel, planes, taxis and other allowances is very much on the high side."

Graham Irvine

Nimbin

 

Cumbalum concerns

Do the majority of Ballina Shire Councillors merely pay lip service to the value of community consultation, open and transparent government and accountability?

It appears that only Councillor Jeff Johnson is interested in the contribution that the inclusion of local community representatives can make.

Recently, the proposal of a Lennox Head Consultative Committee was rejected by the Councillors in a 9-1 vote, despite the interest of numerous local organizations. All of these groups of people feel sufficiently motivated to nominate local representatives who will give their time to participate in a committee which seeks to review the strategic planning in Lennox Head. Surely, this is grassroots democracy in action!

Why do the other elected Councillors fear the input of the local people when they want their views to be considered and the Council to represent their interests?

An example of a decision which affects the residents of Lennox Head is the recent resolution for the proposed Cumbalum rezoning of rural land to be placed on public exhibition. The funding and delivery of the infrastructure required for this proposed rezoning has not been agreed to.

How do the Councillors imagine that the people of Lennox Head will respond when they find out that a new housing development at the top of Ross Lane has no planning or funding strategy in place to cope with the additional infrastructure required? (The proposal if approved will see the population of Lennox Head more than double).

Ratepayers may be faced with paying a significant bill for a housing estate that the Shire and in particular Lennox Head doesn't want or need.

Again, Councillor Jeff Johnson was in the minority who voted against this and raised the community's concerns.

Ballina Councillors, the community put you there to represent us.

Your actions, or lack of them, will be remembered.

Julie McVeigh

Lennox Head

 

Anamorphic art

Back lane art has improved Lismore tremendously. The Northern Rivers is lucky to have such gifted artists. However, in my opinion, gremlins, monsters or whatever it is the creatures depicted represent, (Echo, December 1) will have far less impact than art that would intrigue and fascinate. I am referring to artists using 3D effects or anamorphosis to create illusions and allow the public to be part of their work through the medium of photography.

I suggest you check out the website www.moillusions.com to get an inkling of what I am suggesting. Also you can Google 'Julian Beevers' and click 'Images for Julian Beevers'. I believe approaching street art in this manner would really bring in the tourists. So here's a challenge. It's something that could get millions of hits on YouTube, Facebook and other social media.

Andre Othenin-Girard

Lismore Heights

 

Serfs of capitalism, rise

The dire predicaments of several European countries are graphically and disturbingly showing where capitalist countries, ours included, are headed. The population at large is destined to become the serfs of the 21st century.

How so?

The profit extraction needed to sustain capitalism doesn't involve returning that money to its source, the populace at large. The result being a gradual loss of wealth to the obscenely wealthy few, which often manifests itself as household debt that may never be repaid, which is happening to millions in America now. Profits diminish as the populace becomes more impoverished, causing job losses, unemployment and loss of tax revenue. Unemployment continues to increase as market spending is reduced by unemployment, causing further job losses and unemployment. Drops in taxes are not recouped by increasing taxes of the wealthy, heaven forbid. Eventually, the tax revenue is unable to pay for the unemployed, as is happening in Europe now.

Governments are in debt to privately owned banks. Germany, one of the few that isn't, wanted the banks holding the debts of Greece, Italy and Spain to accept part of the cost of their bailout (release from their debt) by writing off some of their debt.

Germany soon retreated from those demands when suddenly they inexplicably found difficulty in raising funds themselves. The private banks don't want to lose money or their control over the countries indebted to them. They are run by profit-obsessed capitalists that will use their power to further extract profits by further deprivation. They've even got two of their ilk as Prime Ministers. Both the new, appointed (not elected) prime ministers of Italy and Greece are bankers. Their job was to contrive the best ways to extract wealth for the wealthy. They'll continue to do so.

They'll impose the austerity, public service cuts, pension and welfare cuts, privatisation of public assets for capitalists' profit, de-regulation, de-unionisation and casualisation that the capitalists want. It's all meant to enhance profit, and can therefore only mean further and further deprivation of the masses.

Every element needed for us to follow that same path is here in Australia now. After privatisations for profit, people are finding it harder to pay the bills. Housing affordability is a contradiction in terms. Australians are struggling; unemployment is rising and will continue to do so. More privatisation for profit is about to happen. Poverty is increasing alarmingly, drug abuse, suicide and crime are all on the rise - all symptoms of an increasingly deprived society. The austerity has begun even before our inevitable budget deficit 'blow-out', after which things will begin in earnest.

Watch what happens in Europe and America as the people become the serfs of capitalism. Watch how their governments, at the behest of wealthy bankers, treat the people they're meant to represent. Government for the people, by the people? No. The people need to unite and fight for their self-determination, with an awareness that it was capitalism itself that brought about their plight.

It's that last bit that's a bit of a worry!

Doug Burt

Kyogle

 

Commercial Caravan Park

Lismore Tourist Caravan Park. The name says it all, really. Lismore's answer to the coastal towns. One problem, though. Lismore was (and is) a commercial centre, just as Grafton was a government centre and Casino a transport and livestock centre. So the Dawson St caravan park became a de-facto emergency housing centre, a place where, over the decades, hundreds of people passed through, some to move on to other places, some to get jobs and therefore able to go to the private real estate people for their housing needs.

Some, however, stayed on at the park, unable or unwilling to move away. They made their home there, enjoying the closeness to the CBD and generally making the best of things. The various councils seemed to have turned a blind eye to what was happening (after all, they were making a quid out of it too) until the last flood. The last flood has also seemed to be the last straw.

"Enough," they cried, "either it becomes a proper tourist park or we plough it under." And they have carried through their threat. That is why, at the last count, 12 households are still not sure where they are going to live next year. Never mind whether a tourist park is economically feasible, whether the residents were told their true rights etc, just blame the housing providers for not doing their job properly, scare the bejabbers out of the residents and move on.

I am disgusted at the way the council has handled this matter, and other matters to do with people who are disadvantaged and will certainly bring it up come election time

Peter Harris

Goonellabah

 

RRALI responds

In last week's letters to the editor (Echo, December 1) Councillor Clough raised a number of issues about the Ratepayers Association of Lismore Incorporated (RRALI) that are either misleading or factually incorrect. RRALI would like to clarify these matters.

Councillor Clough questioned RRALI's position on Coal Seam Gas (CSG). Perhaps RRALI is not doing enough to get its message though to Lismore City Council (LCC). RRALI's core belief is that every Australia citizen must have his or her personal rights and property rights respected. RRALI insists that landowners must have the right to say no. Whether that be to an E2 LCC environment zone that prohibits farming, or an E3 environment zone that prohibits farm buildings, a Koala Plan of Management (KPoM) that could lock up land and 'effectively' stop developments, and this also most certainly includes CSG wells. RRALI believes that it must be the fundamental right of all landowners to say NO!

LCC's position however is that landowners should be able to say no to a CSG well but not to a forced environment zone. This is hypocrisy. Landowners either have rights or they don't. RRALI's message clear, LCC's is not.

2. Councillor Clough in his letter alludes to a connection between RRALI and the National Party. Again this is incorrect. RRALI is diverse and its committee covers the entire political spectrum.

3. Whilst RRALI may not have been vocal on every single rural issue, we have raised most including the appalling condition of our roads, the failure to maintain road verges, the loss of the sidearm slasher, the DLEP, the KPoM, the Modanville locality speed zone, the rights of Nimbin rural water users, etc. Yes feral dogs are an issue but at least it's an issue individual landowners are able to do something about it.

4. RRALI is in regular contact with some members of the KPoM reference group. If Councillor Clough is not aware of the following he should be. The landowner representative members of this group are far from happy with LCC's Draft KPoM. In fact there is currently a rescission motion in relation to the KPoM before Council as a direct result.

So once again LCC would appear to have missed the primary message contained in RRALI's letters to the editor that enticed Councillor Clough's response. LCC, your KPoM is wrong, it sends the wrong message to landowners. We are not stupid, we now know that if we plant Koala friendly trees on our properties LCC will seek to lock them up. Please, let's have some common sense, instead of penalising landowners who help koalas how about we help them instead, or at the very least, leave them alone!

Greg Bennett

President

Ratepayers Association of Lismore Incorporated (RRALI)

 

Why so high?

As correctly pointed out by a senior Rosebank resident (Echo, December 1), the spire of the Golden Pagoda will be visible from many surrounding areas and being unfamiliar with Asian culture, questions why it is so tall. There is a tradition of size in Buddhist monuments which symbolizes the potential of universal law among the many thoughts in the mind and how that law must be refined out and magnified, like gold from dross. A pagoda is a circular structure rising steeply, like the space enclosed between two adjacent circles and is of Burmese origin. The distinctive shape represents the ascent from the gross to the less material, encompassing the 31 planes of Buddhist cosmology. The ground section denotes the planes of the sensual realm, including human beings, with its admixture of pleasure and pain which provides motivation to develop detachment from the world. The ascending mid-section indicates the planes of the fine-material realm, the level penetrated by those who attain mental development through meditation. Towering above is the spire with its orbital saucers, representing the four planes of the immaterial realm, where there is no corporality whatever; only mind exists there, so it generates special reverence. The spire of the Global Pagoda in India was constructed in Burma as the genuine article and presented as a gesture from the Burmese people, symbolizing the handing-on of a tradition from ethnic Buddhism to a new egalitarian era of global meditation. The Northern Rivers Golden Pagoda is an extension of that worldwide movement. It should be cautioned that one in four Australians is obese and the rate increasing, indicating a preoccupation with the grosser levels and reversed priorities due to ignorance of the parameters of mind illustrated in the pagoda and its spire.

P Griffin

Lismore

 

ALP Conference

An ethical - i.e. a democratic, humanitarian, open, transparent and accountable - political position requires that the conference should have espoused and endorsed demonstrably ethical positions in relation to the issues of marriage equality, off-shore refugee processing, uranium exports to India, live animal exports and internal democratisation.

A consistent right-wing majority of 20-30 delegates out of some 400 seems to have applied former ALP powerbroker Senator Graham Richardson's line of "whatever it takes" to avoid risking apparent electoral suicide in outer metropolitan electorates. There's ethical merit in retaining power but with what ethical cost to policy?

Despite 75% support within the Australian electorate, the conference refused to assure marriage equality. Instead it transferred political responsibility for it to the consciences of Coalition MPs. Parliamentary passage now depends on whether sufficient Coalition MPs are sufficiently moved to risk their careers by crossing the floor.

The same transfer of ethical ownership to the Opposition has attended the conference vote to endorse third-country processing of Australian asylum-seekers. Besides enhancing the emotionally addictive but logically nonsensical concept of 'border protection', it runs away from our international obligations under the UN Refugee Convention to check the health, security and genuineness of claimants and to ensure their domestic resettlement.

The conference has declared that it believes by implication that the Australian Government will trust in and/or has the power to enforce what the N cannot: a humanitarian treatment of asylum seekers within countries (such as Malaysia and Indonesia) which have not ratified the UN convention.

The conference has repeated this type of declaration in relation to the export of uranium to India. It has directed the government to say to the world, "We believe India will do the right thing; we will export uranium to this non-signatory country to the UN Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," and, by implication, "We can and will at least trust in, if not enforce, India's effective compliance."

The United States can implement this policy with credibility. Australia cannot.

In relation to the live export of animals: the National Conference should have at least made it very clear that the government's measures enable it to accurately monitor and consequently enforce as humanitarian a treatment of them as is possible.

Kevin Rudd's remarks concerning the massively limited percolation of one or two small reforms to further democratise the party are apposite. Essentially only one broad but particular reform needs adoption if the party wishes to become effectively democratic: decisions based only on votes by individual members on policy, procedures and people. The Australian Democrats pioneered this methodology decades before GetUp! demonstrated its (electronic) practicability.

In short, the ALP National Conference should have set a clear and simple lead to the Australian voting community by endorsing gay marriage, committing to a permanent on-shore processing of all asylum seekers, refusing to sell uranium to India, mandating stunning before slaughter of our exported live animals and implementing direct member voting on policies, procedures and people.

Despite the ethical excellence of its Left Wing (particularly our Member for Page), not doing so has corroded its own future - and ours.

Charles Lowe

Goonellabah

 

Breast is best

Two examples of sexism - in a separated couple situation with a child under the age of two, the father is not allowed to have the child stay overnight as it is not considered in the best interest of the child to be separated from the primary carer at such a young age. A dubious proposition at best that is patently hypocritical because it is perfectly all right for the same child to be dumped at day care for eight to ten hours.

Having control of your body and what is in the best interest of the child are two distinct propositions. It is known that it is in the best interest of the child to be breast fed for six months. If the mother wants to breast feed for six months or longer, and the father wants her back at work with the baby weaned before then, quite rightly the kid stays on the teat.

However, when mum wants to go back to work after a few weeks of breast feeding but the father wants her to continue to breast feed in the best interest of his child, the mother goes back to work.

Cuckoldry is when a woman tells a man she is pregnant with his child when, in fact, the genetic dad is a different fellow.

A single act of cuckoldry is far worse abuse than 1,000 men grabbing some tit without permission in the office work space.

Yet boob grasping is illegal sexual abuse but cuckoldry is not. Why?

An absolute minimum of one percent of all births involves cuckoldry, the second most heinous fraud a person can commit.

Dr Paul Recher

Dorroughby

 

Proper propaganda

I am an avid reader of Geoff Lamberton's Ethically Speaking column, and found 'Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies...' (Echo, December 1) on the topic of propaganda particularly interesting.

The article starts with a quote from Jay Black saying that in Western societies "...instruments of mass media (in particular, advertising and public relations, and other tools of persuasion) are every bit as propagandistic as were totalitarian dictatorships of days gone by."

Personally, I would go even further and argue that propaganda plays a far greater role in the Western system than it did, for example, in the former so called communist regimes.

Having lived behind the Iron Curtain and in the West, I could observe at close range the striking similarities of control by a few over the many, not to mention the carbon-copy mentality of the controlling few in both systems.

The two main pillars of control, aggression and deception, are there in both systems, and the difference is merely in emphasis.

In the former Communist regimes the emphasis was on the various forms of aggression. There was plenty of propaganda too, but it was extremely crude, clumsy, and sometimes downright laughable even.

The power-elites of the West are certainly not shy of aggression either. (Understatement of the year, perhaps?)

However, when it comes to controlling the behaviour of their own populations, then the emphasis is on the various forms and means of deception, which is practised at a very high and sophisticated level in virtually all aspects of life.

This excellence in social mind-control is one of the main reasons why the Western system has (so far) outlasted other systems of control.

After all, when you hold a gun to someone's head, there is no doubt in that person's mind about his situation. As soon as you're distracted for just a milli-second, or fall asleep, he will pounce and it's game over.

Whereas if you have managed to persuade him that you are his only hope for happiness in life (perhaps even in the after-life) then you can relax and even have a snooze, because he will only gaze under the bed for the reasons of his continuing unhappiness.

And if he is gullible enough, then he might even defend you and serve you, often against those who genuinely care.

The internet has already expanded the propaganda capabilities of the power-elite and the agencies who serve them.

And new advances in the field of neuro-sciences might provide them with opportunities to take the art of mind-control to a level that would make even George Orwell turn in his grave.

Tom Koo

Alstonville