Thought for incoming council
Here's a thought for the incoming council, whoever they might be after Saturday's long-anticipated local government election.
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Please, please, please pay some attention to the look of the Peel Street CBD. It's our main street, the one place that people who come to our lovely town will most definitely go, and it's a total disgrace.
There are weeds growing around the trees, and the seats are in such a state that I doubt anyone would want to sit on them for any length of time. Our main street usually gets a bit of a spruce up at about this time - just in time to welcome thousands of visitors to town for the Country Music Festival.
That's all well and good, and it's terrific that we present such a lovely face to people coming into the town, but those of us who live here all year round would love the same respect as people who are here for just ten days of the year.
I am not a ratepayer, I am a renter, and I do appreciate that councils have only a certain amount of money that they can spend each year, depending on rates collected and pressures elsewhere etc. But surely you can find a little something in the budget to keep our main street looking more inviting.
A number of our potential council candidates have expressed discontent with just this issue, so it will be interesting to see, if they are elected, whether they keep their word when it comes to the 'little things'.
Angela Young, Tamworth
Cotton and rivers
Michael Murray, the GM of Cotton Australia, makes numerous claims including a charge of misinformation and what he considers misconceptions (NDL 'Letters to the editor' Saturday Nov 13, 2021). Stating that the 2017 ABC Four Corners programme "did not accurately depict water management in NSW" but then pointing out that there has been a huge change in this same management since the programme was aired.
Isn't it strange that an industry changed its practices following an inaccurate programme? Mr Murray also repeats the claim that pumping from rivers cannot make the river flow backwards which is a clever bit of sophistry. Sure, the rivers don't flow backwards but a fair bit of the water in the immediate area does when those huge pumps are turned on.
Mr Murray also thinks the fact that there are "no single earth dams that are anywhere near the size of Sydney Harbour" is an important point to clarify. Maybe he can assure us that there are not multiple earth dams on single corporate owned farms that collectively exceed that amount of water.
Mr Murray seems to conclude that because irrigators did not extract water during the 2018 to 2020 drought that they had no impact on the water in the Darling River. The fact that a lot of water had been collected before it hit the river doesn't seem to matter eh?
Does Mr Murray assume this is "ground water" and shouldn't count as water that was destined for the river?Cotton is an important crop, but our rivers are even more important.
Andrew Brown, Nundle
Going electric, not so fast
I feel certain that a large number of Australians would not be aware that Australia is way behind many other countries in regards to providing the opportunity for people to drive electric cars at a sensible cost and with suitable infrastructure being available.
In 2020 all electric car sales in Norway reached a record of 54 per cent market share of total new car sales. Very many other countries are also making great strides in relation to using electric cars. In 2020 Australia's share of electric cars sold as a percentage of new car sales was a miserable 0.6 per cent.
The ever so obvious problem in Australia in relation to being able to drive an electric car has, to date, been the lack of any real interest being shown by our Federal Coalition Government in relation to developing the very necessary infrastructures and cost structures to make it possible.
Of recent times our Federal Coalition Government has suddenly started to make enouncements about how important it will be to encourage the use of electric cars A number of people are saying that the sudden interest being displayed by the Federal Coalition Government in using electric cars is many years too late.
The wide spread use of electric cars is of the utmost importance in relation to reaching net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050.
The fact that an election is coming next year will surely spur the Federal Coalition Government into taking some urgently needed action in the lead up to the coming election, concerning using electric cars. Will this be too little, too late to establish credibility for the Federal Coalition Government in relation to this much needed but long neglected matter?
Brian Measday, Myrtle Bank, SA