Letters To The Editor - October 4, 2018

Town criers leave visitors with pleasant memories

Dear Editor,

Oyez! Oyez!

Anglesea has again hosted the annual Angair weekend featuring all things local – native plants, talented artists, and district history. This combined the wildflower show, art exhibition, and a display of research revealing the wreck of the Inverlochy.

I haven’t been part of it for the past few years, so this year I decided to go and see how I managed by myself. And I had a great time!

I didn’t do any shouting. That’s not what town crying is all about in the present age when we can all read, and have other channels for garnering news.

The traditional town crier, in days of yore, discussed the tidings with the townspeople (usually over a yard of ale in the tavern) after he’d cried out the news in the street.

Our role today is still to mingle with people in towns and at functions providing local information, spreading goodwill, and extending the hand of friendship to all we meet. I really enjoy this interaction with Surf Coasters and visitors.

Town criers are ambassadors for our towns, and endeavour to leave our visitors with pleasant memories. I tell them to send their friends along – we’d like to see them, too.

Melva Stott
Surf Coast town crier

Say no to plastic and save the earth

Dear Editor,

Did you know that up to eight million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year? If you marine animals then stop littering and start recycling. Up to ten million animals are killed by plastic each year.

There are some types of plastic that can be recycled like bottles, containers, wrapping and everyday items, but grocery bags, plastic bottle caps, Styrofoam and certain paper products, certain types of glass and shredded paper can’t be recycled.

There are ways to stop people from littering like making posters around your town, clean up your nearest beach, clean up the streets and get rid of most of the plastic from your house.

Bella and Zoe
St Leonards Primary School

Corangamite community survey tests climate

Dear Editor,

Sarah Henderson MP has sent me a “community survey” because “my views are important to her”.

Half of the form comprises a very intrusive request for personal details including: how I vote, my address and contacts, my employment status and occupation.

The other half helpfully lists issues of which I am invited to rank, unfortunately she has neglected to include the most important issue of all – climate change. I wonder why?

Also, her once passionate belief in stopping live animal transport to the Middle East fails to get a mention.

The survey form comes without a return envelope – I suppose all the funds are going to Wentworth.

Tom Tabart
Drysdale

Questions remain over botched Anglesea Futures

Dear Editor,

While the Andrews government’s announcement of much stronger planning laws for the Surf Coast is welcome, big questions remain over how the announcement can be reconciled with the botched “Anglesea Futures” process.

It is relevant to briefly summarise the unsatisfactory history of the matter:

In 2015, the polluting Alcoa Anglesea coal mine and plant closed
The Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) subsequently started a process known as “Anglesea Futures” to determine the future of the Alcoa site, which is adjacent to Anglesea, but outside the longstanding town boundaries
The Alcoa site comprises a mix of leasehold and freehold land, all of which is subject to very restrictive planning controls that expressly prohibit commercial and residential construction
Community feedback collated by DELWP showed that the Anglesea community strongly opposed commercial and residential construction on the Alcoa site
Notwithstanding the clear community feedback, both Alcoa and DELWP inexplicably prepared draft plans that contemplated large scale commercial and residential construction on the Alcoa site
Both DELWP and Alcoa then refused to release the actual community feedback on their controversial draft plans, which strongly suggests that the community feedback was very negative, at least insofar as the draft plans contemplated commercial and residential construction outside Anglesea’s town boundaries, and
The final Anglesea Futures plan has been repeatedly deferred, and with the state government entering caretaker mode on October 30, time is fast running out for it to be delivered before the state election.
As a result, the following questions are critical to the Anglesea community and demand answers from both of the major parties before the state election
Will the final Anglesea Futures plan be trumped by the tough new planning laws that the Andrews government has foreshadowed?
If not, why not? And
What is the position of the Matthew Guy-led opposition if elected? Will it protect Anglesea’s unique character (a position advocated by former Premier Jeff Kennett) or will it simply rubber stamp Alcoa’s rezoning wish list, thereby gifting the multinational huge windfall profits?

Andrew Laird
Anglesea

Quay needs a tower

Dear Editor,

I refer to the article in the Surf Coast Times of September 27 “Quay group don’t want new phone tower”, and wish to put the opposing argument that The Quay desperately needs a new phone tower.

I have lived in The Quay for some three years and have never had decent Telstra reception over that time, summer or winter, as have most of my neighbours.

My telephone often does not even ring, I need to go outside to ensure I can call and not have drop outs, and my PC has at most times one bar.

It is all very well for some to claim they have no issues, but please imagine how frustrating this would be if you suffered like so many of us do.

I have contacted Telstra and the Ombudsman several times, to be told “yes, we have an issue, and yes we need to put a new tower in the area”, so you can imagine how delighted we are to hear that finally a tower is planned.

Provided the safety standards are met, and it seems that they are, then bring it on, and soon.

Gordon McComb
Torquay

Could we welcome them?

Dear Editor,

I have worked with refugees in the Nauru camps. A harrowing privilege. A stark insight.

The reason refugee boats have almost totally stopped, is no longer, because of harsh treatment of refugees on Nauru.

Rather, now, it’s because increased Border Force surveillance and renewed diplomatic arrangements with Indonesia are working effectively.

Consequently, people smugglers now have minimal chance of continuing their treacherous trade in human lives.

My question is: could Australia now, with compassion and justice, welcome the remaining Nauru and Manus refugees, and especially the children?

Gerry Baldock
Torquay

Setting sail with the facts

Dear Editor,

Linda Cusworth (“Fairness and decency for all”, Letters, September 27) believes I invent my own facts. I leave it for the readers to decide who is telling porkies.

I said “people on Manus and Nauru are free to leave the island as long as the destination is not Australia or New Zealand”.

Ms Cusworth disagreed, apparently because she believes only “some” returned.

However, 646 people from Manus and 165 from Nauru voluntarily returned home and most were from Iran who had their asylum applications rejected.

She believes that children on Nauru “have suffered the same trauma as those in refugee camps around the world”.

I think she should actually visit a UN refugee camp for a wake-up call on reality.

She said that medical care is inadequate but in May 2018 there were 460 people from offshore centres receiving medical treatment in Australia.

I said that none of these refugee activist organisations advocate for sexually abused Indigenous children and she believed this was a “ridiculous” assertion.

Readers, when was the last time you ever heard one of these organisations demanding Indigenous kids identified as being at risk be removed from the toxic environments they live in? Or demanding kids in UN camps have priority over boat people?

Ms Cusworth was very vocal during the period when more than 800 boats containing 50,000 people arrived. People smugglers grossed around $500 million dollars and 1,200 boat people drowned.

Ms Cusworth believes that people in the boats were fleeing persecution to a place of safety. However, this is simply not true as the overwhelming majority of boats came from Indonesia, a safe place, and asylum seekers upon arrival in Indonesia are required to register with the UN and wait their turn for resettlement just like refugees in UN camps who have no money to get on boats.

Imagine if there were no refugee activists and border protection had never been dismantled. All the offshore centres would have been mothballed 10 years ago, 1,200 people would not have drowned, people smugglers would never have made a fortune, billions of dollars wouldn’t have been wasted, and our refugee system would only have accepted the neediest from UN refugee camps.

Peter Rees
Bell Park

Fictious claims

Dear Editor,

Peter Rees (“Organisational efforts misdirected”, Letters, September 20) continues to display his ignorance and extreme right-wing views with his delusional comment that refugees on Nauru “are free to roam the island, establish businesses, work for locals, receive excellent medical care, education and facilities”.

This comment, as with his claims that refugees coming to Australia by boat were illegal and that they were jumping the queue, is imaginary tripe and made without any evidence to support it. To the contrary, a report authored by the Refugee Council of Australia and Refugee Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and released in early September:

Lifts the lid on the government-imposed secrecy surrounding Nauru’s detention centre
Details escalating levels of abuse, trauma and desperation
Found about 50 overseas medical requests were being actively blocked by the Australian government
Stated that “children as young as 10 are now attempting suicide, dousing themselves in petrol and becoming catatonic”.

Further, three healthcare workers who returned from Nauru during August-September, spoke out about what they experienced there – the deplorable health of child refugees on Nauru.

As if this isn’t enough to evidence Peter Rees’s fairytale deception attempt, in August the Australian Medical Association wrote to the Prime Minister demanding that the government move asylum seeker children and their families off Nauru to more appropriate settings for their deteriorating physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Peter Rees, along with other supporters of these inhumane and right-wing measures, makes unfounded, incorrect and wildly fictitious claims in the hope that those with similarly limited intelligence will suck up their maliciously incorrect propaganda.

Oh, and by the way, Peter, the refugees on Nauru and Manus are not economic refugees as you seek to imply.

They have been found, by the Australian government, to be genuine refugees fleeing persecution, death and destruction. Further, the United Nations recognises them as such.

Ray Frost
Jan Juc