LETTERS
Letters - 300 words maximum and including full name, address and contact number - can be sent to The News, PO Box 588, Hastings 3915 or emailed to: team@mpnews.com.au
New councillors face great expectations Congratulations to the yet to be announced new Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors and their successful campaign to serve the residents the shire. I hope they realise that residents have invested and entrusted them with the power to make MPSC the envy of every other municipality in Australia. It’s going to be a huge job and a long hard slog because MPSC is coming off an extremely low base. They should adopt the mantra of [former football great] Ron Barrassi: “If it is to be, then it’s up to me.” First and foremost, they should not rush to elect a mayor. Previous experience as a councillor is not an essential requirement to be a figurehead. Residents do not want a mere figurehead. We want a “can do and will do” mayor. A mayor who will take personal interest in the operations of council officers to ensure that local laws are obeyed and enforced. The next new CEO should be put through the same vetting process. Does anyone know if we currently have a CEO? An even more stringent vetting process is required for hiring unit managers and their officers. They should all know the local laws and how to enforce them - that is their job. They should also know that it is their duty to respond to letters, emails, messages and telephone calls. Finally, to make it abundantly clear that MPSC is serious about improving its rating, notify all employees in writing that it intends to reinstate the age old consequence for dereliction of duty, for negligence, for indulging in deceitful practises and blatant fabrications - dismissal. There are plenty of well qualified, even better qualified unemployed people waiting to replace them. Having been elected to council, I hope councillors don’t let your supporters down. Jane Smith, Hastings
centres. We need big thinkers in government, not the narrow-minded rhetoric and cruel unsustainable and expensive policies advocated and supported by our government. Our taxes could be spent much more wisely and successfully and we should look to the advice of the people who will suggest considered policies to manage this complex issue. Ann Renkin, Shoreham
Health labels a joke It has been a year since the introduction of “health star” food labels and health ratings on packaged food and they are a complete joke and waste of time because they are optional. Virtually no product has them. Most people have never heard of them. I don’t want some government agency telling me what is healthy for this individual. This foolish scheme should be immediately abandoned and replaced with a system that is valid, informative and compulsory. As a diabetic it is critical that I know the percentage of sugar in a food. I will then decide how healthy, or poisonous, that food is. The same goes for fat. All Australians must be made aware of these simple facts, given that we have serious epidemics of diabetes and obesity in this country. People don’t know what they are eating. Such labelling must be compulsory and conspicuous. Like the cancer warnings on cigarette packets. We also must know where the food is made. We have strict food hygiene regulations in this country,”clean and green”, and this is what I want to buy. Some other countries use raw human sewage as crop fertiliser, some have appalling food hygiene standards. Eating E-coli cannot be healthy. The misleading label “Made in Australia (or Belgium, France, USA) from local or imported ingredients” should be made illegal. It means simply local water added or packed here from the cheapest possible ingredients imported from somewhere. There is also the use of GM foods (genetically modified). Surely I have the right to know if the canola margarine I may use is made from this? Will we ever get protective and informative food labelling or is our government putting free trade agreements and food industry profits ahead of the health of Australians? Brian A Mitchelson, Mornington
to get this pathway built to create a precedent for shifting the financial burden of infrastructure development onto ordinary ratepayers. Rate capping by the state government is making it harder for councils to just increase rates to ever higher levels, so this scheme would enable local government to circumvent the new laws. Rupert Steiner, Balnarring
Save the ducks My family members and myself are totally and extremely angry, shocked, horrified, disgusted and appalled beyond words at our the Daniel Andrews government-approved duck shooting season, which is nothing less than a huge massive insult and affront to everyone and everything good, decent, humane and ethical. Please support animal welfare in Australia and contact the premier to totally stop this so-called sport permanently. Sharon Bayer, Frankston
Save the Dolphins The AFL hasn’t trousered any of my hard earned for over 30 years. Having witnessed Sting being paid more than $1 million to perform three songs at this year’s Grand Final while, at the same time, seeing the Frankston Dolphins and their creditors allowed to go to the wall, I won’t be patronising the AFL in any way in the foreseeable future either. Michael Long, Frankston
Peninsula crime wave The latest crime statistics confirm what I have already been hearing from locals and that is that we are in the midst of an increasing crime wave on the Mornington Peninsula. We have seen a 9.4 per cent increase in crime over the past 12 months and the Andrews Labor government still believes that, in defence of its own ideological purity, we deserve to feel unsafe in our own homes. Unfortunately the government has done nothing to resolve this issue which has been building up since it stopped recruiting enough front line police after the 2014 election. Our hinterland areas are particularly vulnerable as the response times are now extending out to the point where criminals can operate with virtual impunity, knowing that they will be out of the area long before the police arrive. I will continue to take these concerns direct to the police minister whose only solution to date is to slash funding for the very successful Neighborhood Watch program, without any plan to actually reduce crime and restore order to our community. Martin Dixon, MP for Nepean
climate change which caused the damage. In Europe the towers are often caked in ice yet they withstand similar or greater winds. With the cutting of research grants to the CSIRO, some of which could have been used to research power from wave action, we lost another source of power which would have provided extra energy when sun or wind fails. The prime minister and other ministers will, I hope, learn from this episode. More thought and professional advice before making such misleading statements would be advisable. Peter Strickland, Balnarring
Not a solo act Cr Hugh Fraser is obviously misinformed when he says I am putting at risk much needed capital investment by the state government and council to revitalise Rye (“Community ignored” Letters 11/10/16). The $588,000 boating safety and facilities grant won’t be lost should the boat/jet ski facilities be made more efficient rather than expanded. These government grants are offered every year and are a very easy-to-get bucket of funds, which the Mornington Peninsula Shire regularly taps into. Cr Fraser mentions these innovative and exciting proposals revitalising Rye. There is nothing innovative or exciting about the foreshore plans that have been presented to date. However, Rye is finally being paid some attention. If Rye received funds to actually do something that was needed or wanted rather than funding allocated for more plans, that would be exciting. Rye’s popularity as a place to live and visit is growing in leaps and bounds. Its common knowledge that the younger set see Rye emerging as the Fitzroy of the south. Planning and development of Rye around the Fitzroy concept and other aspects of Rye’s unique funky character would indeed be innovative. Mechelle Cheers, Rye
Misleading application
The almost total blackout of South Australia, in part, to unusually strong winds and weather conditions, clearly demonstrated what climate change scientists have been predicting for a long time: more frequent and stronger unseasonable weather conditions. Prime Minister Turnbull showed his colours by jumping in, boots and all, attributing the total blackout as a demonstration of the unreliability of renewable energy. Photographs of the power towers crumpled on the ground, clearly suggest that these towers were not designed to withstand a strong wind. One wonders, was it cost cutting, or design, or lack of understanding of the real effects of
I believe it is disingenuous of Cr Hugh Fraser to say that I have put at risk much needed capital investment to revitalise Rye, as the $588,000 grant is specifically for the construction of a fourth boat ramp (“Community ignored” Letters 11/10/16). It is questionable whether it is needed as it wasn’t a priority in two of three council reports and the other only did so only after it had dismissed a recommendation in the major report. How will an extra boat ramp revitalise Rye? I have not conveniently overlooked facts. It is precisely because the Boat Ramp Precinct Plan had “in principle approval” that I have attempted to have the decision overturned. It was also because the “input from further consultations” was ignored that I have pursued the matter further. The community and I were misled into believing that our input would be considered, when the decision had already been made. The grant application also misled the state government, as [Nepean MP] Martin Dixon has stated in parliament. I have attended consultations about the draft Rye foreshore master plan, but Cr Fraser is mistaken about my attendance at the Rye Movement and Place public meeting as I was overseas. No one is more passionate about Rye than me, but any changes need to be properly thought through and the community consulted before the release of any plan. David Trunfull, Rye
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Humanitarian approach Refugees make up a very small part of the 800,000 people coming to Australia each year: short and longer term immigrants, students and workers. The government’s current policies for refugees, which are shrouded in secrecy, seem punitive and short-sighted and certainly lacking understanding of the plight of refugees. It also seems that refugees coming by boat are considered separately to immigrants and that the huge numbers of arrivals is not common knowledge to government advisors. It is a relief to know that there are people and organisations looking at the whole picture in a humanitarian way, with a view to finding solutions to very difficult and complex issues around refugees in Australia and around the world. The government has many people in our communities who would support changes to our current policies of mandatory detention and certainly to allow the men, women and children to come to Australia from both offshore detention
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High price to protest The shire’s ill-conceived concrete pathway program for Somers is coming up for a hearing at VCAT this week. But the opponents to this totally over the top proposal by Mornington Peninsula Shire have been hit with a demand for around $9000 to be able to be part of the proceedings at VCAT. This demand was communicated less than a week before the hearing. It seems justice and local government are possibly conspiring to disenfranchise our local population. It seems as if the shire is hell bent
Powerful argument
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Mornington News 25 October 2016
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