Letters

LETTERS, FEEDBACK AND OPINION

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WHAT TO BELIEVE

The reason I am against all the climate emergency alarmism that school children are protesting about and some candidates are pushing is because we are not being told everything.

Besides volcanic eruptions, solar flares, moving of magnetic poles, ozone layer depletion etc. causing unusual weather events please check out what this guy says was happening just before the biggest recorded flood in Lismore which started in SE Qld going down the east coast https://youtu. be/A19BaLoJy_A and this on 27 Feb https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=GlPnT-iEakQ

I and others have seen this weather manipulation in our area and have photos like this 2min video in Qld https://rumble.com/ vwoo5o-prediction-qldaustralia-flood-round-2. html

These are not to be confused with contrails that planes leave behind that disappear. These chemtrails and chembombs grow in size and become rain bearing clouds. They are made from toxic chemicals that eventually come down on us polluting the environment see www. geoengineeringwatch.org

My question is why haven’t these climate emergency parties spoken up against what is happening in the skies around us? But it doesn’t surprise me as we already have artificial fluoride put into our water supplies, a mRNA vaccine being injected into us and now we have planes dispersing substances into our air making more rain in a La Nina year. Instead, we have people worrying about the unusual weather events supposedly being caused by CO2 emissions which plants use with water and sunlight to make glucose and oxygen, the sustainer of life, or don’t they teach photosynthesis in schools anymore?

Lynette Evans

NUMULGI

DEAR EDITOR

I’ve finally found a moment to thank the amazing Clarence Valley Community for their support during this ongoing nightmare created by the Catastrophic Flooding Event in our beautiful Northern Rivers.

It’s not easy to find the words to show our appreciation for the broad support our little team has received over the past couple of months.

We’ve had our volunteer numbers swell during the triage phase of this Natural Disaster to a level we’ve not experienced previously, that has been a huge compliment to our team to know what we do is so readily supported in times of crisis.

Additionally, the number of fundraisers from which we’ve benefited over this time has caused many a tear to be shed among our little Nerd Crew. I’m afraid to mention one for fear of missing many!

However, we do want to thank a couple of organisations who’ve so generously supported our ongoing efforts. In fact we had no idea that they had held fundraisers at all. So a massive thank you we love you to the Yamba Hotel Team, the GDSC Team, the Dougherty Property Team and the ETC Team for their financial donations and others who will receive a thank you (when my brain is a little less exhausted and Ive time to go back and list them properly).

There are so many organisations, individuals and small businesses that have supported our efforts through supplying goods at wholesale price, or the donation of goods directly to us. Again, so many that I know I can’t list them all here. Three that have been particularly generous are the teams at Bunnings Grafton, South Grafton News & Gifts and the Clarence Valley Wholesalers. Thank you we love you too!

When time permits we will ensure we thank as many as we possibly can individually. We’re actually toying with the idea of a thank you Op Shop Black Tie BBQ under the Stars which may have to wait until Spring and the much-desired departure of the El Nina weather pattern!!!!!

Sadly, there’s still so much work to do. I fear that the Clarence Valley is only just starting to count the cost. Unfortunately, our LGA covers a massive geographical area with a significantly dispersed population, unlike the Richmond & Tweed where populations are more condensed and the impact more visually distressing.

We’re still regularly encountering families and individuals who’ve not been able to access support, or for that matter leave their properties in more remote areas of the Valley. Small bridges and roads have been utterly obliterated leaving many isolated and without power and other utilities.

In a region where many Defence and Emergency Services Veterans choose to live either completely off grid or at the very least in isolated locations there’s great fear among many in our community that these individuals may be injured, or worse, and there’s no capacity to check on their welfare.

We’re working with officials, individual communities and community members to get support that is needed to where it is needed. A recent case was particularly distressing, albeit I fear not an isolated situation. A family of eight had been living under an open sided gazebo since the first flooding event until early last week when we were able to secure a tent, beds, kitchen items and other ‘camp furnishings’ for them via an amazing woman who has taken it upon herself to do the outreach work in her area. I won’t name her here, she’d kick my bottom if I did, however it is through the efforts of compassionate human beings in the Clarence Valley that flood survivors (I don’t like the word ‘victim’) are being identified and are able to finally access some support.

With no power, no internet access, no vehicular access to major centres many of our community members are feeling forgotten. Many have no idea what support is available, if they do they have no internet access, no functional IT devices and often a level of IT literacy that simply won’t enable them to successfully navigate the web-based support mechanisms.

We continue to communicate through our Facebook Group the needs of specific individuals and families, and the ongoing needs for our core caring kit range.

Again, we are incredibly humbled by the support and will make every effort humanly possible to ensure that the service we deliver is top notch, compassionate and where appropriate add a little humour to the situation. As the saying goes; if you don’t laugh you’ll cry and there’s really no time for tears.

Nerdiest of nerd hugs,

Ursh & the Shed Screw

The Mend & Make Do

Crew Inc

HUNG UP

In response to Jenni Cargill-Strong NRT

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LETTERS AND OPINION

12/05. Are you serious? Really. The only good result a well-hung parliament would produce is a well-hung Adam Bandt’s hide drying on the shed, while limp each way Albo looks for someone else to tell him what to do next, would the mean girl’s help? Nah, they also have leadership ambitions. They shield him with a cohort of shadow ministers daily, to half answer questions, and make corrections to Albo’s on the run, not thought through un-costed policy announcements. A hung parliament with fake independents would only thrust a diabolical, disorganised rabble of lightweights upon the great people of this nation, heading in an out-of-control downward spiralling direction. Do you really believe the IPCC reports? The Liberal, National party coalition commenced in 1923, please do not question their legitimacy, it makes you look foolish. If you enjoy a good laugh vote for Mandy Nolan. Coal mines, iron ore and gas extraction pays the nations bills, I have asked the lefty’s to the point of ad nauseam to explain how they will pay the bills when fossil fuels and resources are eventually destroyed, it is obvious they have no clue as their silence is deafening, their ignorance is exposed time and time again. They do not know, they do not care, they are happy to degrade our living standards to get their misguided way. Please think carefully before you cast your vote this federal election, you have a chance to stop the mad left. G. MacDonald Pimlico

LISMORE FLOOD

I walked around the Lismore CBD and whenever I came to a crossing, an oncoming car would stop gently as if it was important to be careful. I would smile and wave to thank them for stopping and they would smile and wave back at me and it felt like we were connected in caring for our poor, beloved town.

As I walked around, I had tears down my face and an ache in my heart. The CBD is destroyed with the empty, still muddy, and damaged shops, even the walkways sometimes pulled up and destroyed by flood waters, like a giant has waved a hand and wiped them away. A giant flood.

I’m still glad that so many were saved from the water that destroyed so much. But this is not like any flood before. It’s climate change. It’s disturbing to see how the Liberal government has ignored this obvious warning about climate change and continues to provide funding and support to fossil fuel companies. Is Scott Morrison simply incapable of seeing what’s happening or does he just not care?

We need to vote for people who have a heart and will act on climate change rather than supporting companies who have already made billions. Please vote for the Greens or the Climate Independents and Labor. Beth Shelley Booerie Creek

PETROL

America must crush OPEC and put sanctions on OPEC countries that don’t up production. Furthermore Australia must fix petrol at a dollar a litre and tie it to the CPI that rises twice a year at 3 percent and petrol excise must be scrapped and Australia must use its own oil and not be at the behest of OPEC Russia or any other foreign entity governments waste the fuel excise and don’t really spend it in roads otherwise our roads would be paved with gold the petrol commissioner is a waste of time and toothless tiger we know petrol companies collude and the petrol boss does nothing plus the time lag with passing on petrol discounts of two weeks if ever . In contrast as soon as oil prices a barrel go up petrol goes up immediately it’s just greed by governments and the oil companies and they must be crushed by America and Europe to make sure we have affordable oil. In addition, we must tax big business sixty cents in the dollar for the first ten million dollars coming down to thirty cents after the first ten million cooperates like oil companies get away with murder while Joe public gets it in the neck always. Alan Mosley Yamba

SCU HERE FOR U

Over the past couple of harrowing months Southern Cross University at Lismore has been “here for” the community in spades. It has provided refuge for the homeless flood victims, office space for emergency services, classrooms for children who have lost theirs and housed sundry other essential community services.

But when COVID closed the borders, lectures were stopped and SCU needed help, the Morrison-Joyce LNP government denied them and other public universities Job Keeper. Private universities and profitable businesses like Harvey Norman were not treated in the same way.

Did Kevin Hogan speak up about this disgraceful treatment of one the biggest employers in his electorate? Not that I heard. John Drysdale CLUNES

NOT VOTING FOR KEVIN

Here are my reasons for NOT voting for Kevin Hogan in Page. 1. Silence is complicity. Esther Rocket sent Kevin Hogan & other local Politicians valid & credible evidence concerning the toxic influence of the “socially harmful cult” Universal Medicine. He did nothing. After the Supreme Court vindicated Esther’s findings, I wrote to Kevin to request the Federal Government stop any grants/funding going to associates of Universal Medicine. He sent me a weak reply which was basically nothing. I believe he still hasn’t publicly distanced himself from or denounced associates of Universal Medicine. 2. He is a hypocrite. When the Federal Liberals were replacing Leaders regularly, Kevin grandstands & sits with the Cross Benchers as a “protest”. However, he was part of the challenge against Nationals Leader Michael McCormack & reinstated Barnaby. He was rewarded by Barnaby with a promotion for his vote. 3. The standard you walk by is the standard you set. Kevin is part of an unethical & immoral LNP Government these past 9 years. The list is quite long and any reasonable & level thinking person would come to the same conclusion.

For the above & many more reasons, I will be voting FOR a Candidate who I want to represent me & the Page Electorate. John Heaton Uralba

ZERO DIPLOMACY

The liberal national party have no diplomacy skills especially foreign diplomacy hellbent on trying to pick a fight with Russia and China a war that Australia would have Buckley’s of winning without the USA and of course no guarantee they would come to our aid if war did break out. One person in particularly is even more hellbent than others in the party as trying to be some hero and of course would be hiding in a nuclear bunker if war did breakout. Time to get rid of these nutters and get a government that has great diplomatic skills and beats China and Russia by getting massive trade deals where we have the upper hand in the deals that’s the way to deal with the situation does not sabre rattling that is empty rhetoric. Alan Mosley Yamba

YET ANOTHER WAR… by Nigel Dawes

AS military personnel, fighter planes and tanks rumble across Europe once more – crushing lives and claiming lands that are not up for the taking. I can’t help but reflect on the humanist thinkers of the last century who devoted their creative energies to warning the world against such things.

One hundred and eight years after ‘the war to end all wars’ jettisoned the western world into the hinted wasteland of the modern industrial age, we once again teeter on the brink of a conflict that threatens to efface all that civilisation and culture have not just built, but has ultimately stood for.

From Einstein himself, to lesser known but no less cerebral luminaries and Nobel prize winners like Norman Angell, Bertrand Russell, Herman Hesse, Romain Rolland, Bertha von Suttner: the message from each and every one of these elevated souls was the same – avoid the lunacy of war, at all costs!

When will humanity come of age, at what point will maturity be reached and an awareness that we all rightfully belong, albeit deserve to occupy a place upon this tiny outpost of a planet. Maybe it’s naïve of me, but I often imagine a world without any military presence or armies at all, a world where such things are not necessary.

According to research, the total global military expenditure is just shy of two trillion dollars per annum. The mind boggles as to how such funds could be infinitely better spent to improve education and access to medical facilities the world over, and dare I even say to abolish poverty. Just imagine channelling these resources to improve the world, instead of manoeuvring it closer to oblivion.

The big-hearted German, and selfconfessed international citizen, Herman Hesse, who had to live through two world wars as someone looking on in utter disbelief, once said: “We must learn to value ideas as highly as bullets or gold pieces, to love possibilities and cultivate them in ourselves; we must gain intimations of the future and of the future in our own hearts…Ideals and faith in the future are always right. They are the one source from which the world draws strength.”

And it is such strength, right now, that we need to find and draw upon – strength in unity, not a weakness in menial opposition. Our directed anger is required right now toward leaders such as Putin who do not deserve the right to lead. Not ire towards the entire Russian population, who, crave more than anything avoidance of international conflict and crippling economic sanctions.

Thus, in the words of Romain Rolland, one of history’s greatest peace-oriented thinkers: “Let us unite! Above all race questions, which are for the most part a mask behind which pride crouches and the interests of the financial or aristocratic classes dissemble, there is a law of humanity, eternal and universal, of which we are all the servants and guardians; it is that of the right of the people to rule themselves. And they who violate shall be the enemy of all.