New boat lift in action

By Jo Kennett

FINAL TESTS have been conducted on the long-awaited $7.5 million boat maintenance facility beside the Tweed Heads trawler wharf which is about to be opened for business, although it won’t suit bigger boats.

Sean Spiers is the captain of Denison-K, which was chosen to test out the new travel lift.

“It was a final test for operation,” Sean said.

“They asked me to help out, being the heaviest vessel in Tweed; I’m 87 tonnes now and it’s a 75 tonne lift but it can do 10 per cent more.

“My maximum weight is 110 tonnes with fuel, water etc, but I can lose weight to go under the 82 tonne requirements.”

To get under 82 tonnes, Sean said he brought the Denison K in low on fuel as well as dropping water.

“I can lose more weight if needed,” he said.

“I was happy to help out and do the test lift for them.”

Unfortunately, Sean said he didn’t think he would be able to use the facility in the future.

“Being around 87 tonnes I’m still a bit big so it’s a bit of a mission to get up there.

“Taking weight off the boat costs money with cranes etc so it’s not really ideal for me.

“All the other trawlers will be fine. They are only 50 tonnes.”

Another commercial boat operator said the slipway, which was announced in 2019, was supposed to be completed last year, and it had cost his business a lot of money having to buy temporary operation licences and being unable to operate for several weeks as he couldn’t slip his boat for survey, which commercial vessels need to operate.

According to another operator, stage two of the project, which was to include a bigger hard stand for more boats, has now been cancelled due to a lack of funds.

“The machine is great but they have put a 75 tonne travel lift on site and made the site smaller than before,” the man, who didn’t want to be named, said.

“They have put buildings and power in the wrong places.

“In 2013, the Crown Lands Department came up from Coffs Harbour and asked what we needed to do to the slip, then we never heard from there for another three years.

“They came again in 2016 and then I never heard from them again.

“Then they decided to scrap the slipway and put a travel lift in.

“I reckon they would have spent close to $4 million ($7.5 million) and there is no slipway, only a travel lift, with a two or three boat hardstand when the old slipway could get five boats up there.

“For under a million dollars you could have fixed the old slip.”

Local police are valued

Until recently, Tweed police officers were on the periphery of my life; I would see them at a distance, usually passing by in their cars.

However, a couple of weeks ago I needed some assistance and I got to see what their work entails.

They are often dealing with very dysfunctional people 24/7; people who are criminals, aggressive people, antisocial people, vulnerable and frightened people — the list goes on.

I marvelled at their patience, their professionalism and their highly trained skills when striving to de-escalate potentially volatile and dangerous situations.

I can only imagine how tiring and stressful and somewhat despairing it must be working in such an environment all the time.

So, I want to remind everyone to just keep in mind how wonderful our police force is and how vital their work is in keeping an orderly and safe community for us all to live in.

Maybe think about dropping in a note of appreciation at the station and just letting them know they are valued and their commitment to their very challenging work is awesome!

Name withheld for privacy reasons

Councillor pay rise

Cr Reece Byrnes may wish to add some more context to his recent words regarding the mayor and councillor salaries (TVW page 3 ‘Councillor pay rise debated’).

When I moved to the Tweed decades ago, the mayor was the only councillor to be paid a set allowance. Others simply received expenses.

The mayor’s job was, and remains, a full-time position as the person in that position is responsible for representing the people of the Tweed.

Mayor Cherry does this in a manner which has brought a great deal of integrity back to the role in her representations to the state and federal governments and her work with the Tweed community, particularly in relation to disasters which have struck the Tweed recently.

Her achievements along with other councillors recently have enhanced the reputation of the Tweed.

As Cr Byrnes is aware, local council representatives are paid according to the recommendations of an independent Local Government Remuneration Tribunal

It is my understanding that due to the large increase in population, the Tweed has been classified due to the vastly increased size of the population. I would suggest to the people of the Tweed that the mayor earns every cent she is currently paid.

J Boyd, Hastings Point

We all have to balance our books

I was astonished that the councillors agreed for the special rate rise in a time of inflation.

At the same time they gave themselves a signing pay rise.

What surprised me the most was that Mayor Chris Cherry highlighted that the ‘majority of councillors supported the motion’ — of course they would!

If the council has a budget of $270 million, one would believe that the council could live within their means like we all need to do.

Funding of $187 million is the general fund, will they balance the direction of their funds or will it only suit decisions of the ‘majority of councillors?’

JayJayKay, Tweed Heads West Council rates and pays

First council ask the Tweed Shire about the extra increase in rates. An exercise in ‘tick the box we have consulted’, who cares what we said, increase anyway.

Nothing on saving money by reducing legal costs, they could choose to not be involved on a day-to-day level with C zones and leave it to state government, focusing on what needs to be done, but now they want to fight the state government regarding housing development.

Voters should learn that voting for a party/parties regardless of the quality of the candidates is not wise, in my opinion.

Thank you to Reece Byrnes, Warren Polglase and Meredith Denis.

Meg Houghton, Murwillumbah

Fed up with roads

Would someone from Tweed Shire Council please have a look around Hastings Point from Shell Service Station to the creek and see how disgusting it is and has been for 30 years. Riddled with potholes filled after rain and always rough.

It is a disgusting and horrible mess and as I said earlier has been the same for many years now.

Geoff Condon, Hasting Point We’re back for joy, harmony and goodwill

Two very well-known local institutions got together last Sunday afternoon for a time of joy, harmony and goodwill.

The Chillingham Voices Choir (which has not performed in public since before the Covid days) put on a wonderful and ambitious concert of old and new, appropriately titled Pieces and Bits, at the Jessie McMillan Hall, Murwillumbah.

A delicious afternoon tea was served to a capacity crowd and all the proceeds were generously donated to the Uki Refugee Project. This donation is hugely appreciated and the money will go towards funding our upcoming Friendship Weekend as well as to our ongoing refugee support and advocacy.

On behalf of the Uki Refugee Project, I would like to thank the Chillingham Voices for their generosity.

Meg Main, Uki Refugee Project Tap vs bottled water

That ‘Tap water (is) a top drop’ (TVW, June 29) is a no-brainer. Why would you pay 1667 times its price for water in a plastic bottle when a better product is available from Tweed taps almost free?

Recent comparative testing by the NATA-accredited Tweed Laboratory Centre found, “Tweed tap water stands shoulder to shoulder with leading bottled water brands in Australia”.

The producers of bottled water call it spring water. It’s not. It’s bore water.

But that doesn’t sound quite as nice.

The sale of water in plastic bottles is a marketing coup, great for its producers but no one else.

It depletes groundwater resources, creates plastic waste and is totally unnecessary. Save money, be smart. Get a good reusable water bottle and fill it with tap water. It’s very good and very cheap.

Trevor White, Uki, Tweed Water Alliance Incorporated

Climate change is real people

I am continually amazed by the number of people who think they know more than the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) on man-made climate change.

Their latest report comes after over 66,000 peer reviewed studies were analysed by over 780 scientists.

The odd anomaly may occur here and there but there can be no doubt regarding the veracity of the science.

Anthony Malivanek, Bray Park Integrity and scepticism can save sick science

Most science is self-correcting, as stated by Alan Watterson (Letters, TVW June 22), but long after the media and many scientists rely on it.

Of 49 peer-reviewed papers cited over a thousand times in the medical literature, John Ionnidis found only one in four remained unchallenged.

The Lancet published a fraudulent paper linking autism to vaccination, doing untold damage before being retracted.

Its editor, Richard Horton, stated in 2015: “much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.”

Dr William McBryde achieved fame by tracing birth defects to thalidomide but was later disgraced and deregistered for fudging figures in his Debendox paper.

Michael Mann substituted thermometer readings for inconvenient tree ring proxies to produce the famous 1999 hockey-stick graph of global temperature but remains a professor and world authority on climate!

Group think and mate-review results in contrary papers being rejected. Institutions with snouts in government troughs and squealing “climate crisis” sack sceptical scientists who threaten funding.

A marine biologist who worked at Lizard Island confided her concerns about the methodology used to measure coral bleaching because it greatly exaggerated it; the Great Barrier Reef had the highest coral cover on record last year.

Data from Canada’s Wildland Fire Information System shows wildfires have more than halved since 1989, when 7.6 million hectares burned, ten times more than in 2020, the lowest on record; major fires have halved since 1964.

Satellite data from NASA and the European Space Agency show global wildfire activity trending downward for decades and currently approaching the lowest on record.

Is that due to climate change or to green ideology which prevents controlled burns, then blames climate change for fierce fires, and now says “there is no window to safely burn”?

Only a large injection of integrity and scepticism can save a sick science.

D Weston Allen, Cudgen

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