Surprising announcement
The Bega Valley Shire Residents and Ratepayers Association believes the Member for Bega, Andrew Constance, has always presented himself as a confident, professional and apparently attentive politician – someone who will not only take the trouble to listen to the views of his constituents, but to actually seek them out.
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That is why the Association was pleased by his request to Bega Valley Shire Council (BVSC) to engage with the community on behalf of the state government to ascertain its views on the possible deregulation of the Sydney-Merimbula air route.
The Association was therefore extremely surprised by Mr Constance’s sudden announcement that he intended pursuing deregulation of the route only three weeks after the council had agreed to conduct a supposed consultation process.
The Association was even more surprised by the claim reportedly made by Mr Constance that he had not requested council to engage with the community on the issue, when the report tabled at council’s October 12 meeting refers specifically to a letter dated July 12, 2016, from the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and states explicitly that council had been requested to “commence engaging the local community as to its views on the matter”.
Of course, if the community needed evidence of council’s absolute failure to undertake anything more than the most superficial of consultation processes, it need look no further than the fact that it waited a full three months before actioning the request, and then initiated only the briefest of two week processes, consisting of little more than a “yes/no” survey deployed on council’s website and its Facebook page, while there was no sign of the promised “fact sheet” to inform the community.
The BVSRRA believes Mr Constance’s remarks in respect of the government’s intentions suggest that he is no more interested in or concerned about the opinions of his constituents than council is.
John Richardson, secretary/treasurer, BVSRRA
Suspicious fire
Given the current bushfire danger period, I urge Tura Beach residents as well as those in other parts of the Bega Valley Shire to keep a lookout for anyone acting suspiciously in or near bushland.
On Sunday, October 23, about 5.10pm I found a small fire burning through grass and bush in the council reserve just off Pacific Way, Tura Beach near the roundabout at Bournda Circuit and The Dress Circle.
It looked as if the fire would quickly spread because of the windy conditions.
The Rural Fire Service was immediately contacted and they attended and extinguished the fire before it got out of control.
Another local resident, who helped to contain the fire, remarked that moments before he had seen a youth hurrying away on a bicycle through the council reserve heading in the direction of Headland Drive.
Let's hope this is an isolated incident, but we all need to be vigilant and promptly report any suspicious activity to the emergency services.
Geoff Dove, Tura Beach
Skills of the past
Appreciating old skills is what we admired about Australia when migrating 30 years ago and it is still valued today.
Quite often repair of quality items is far better than buying a new plastic item, which sometimes breaks during the first use. Antique items are only still around because they used quality materials, good craftsmanship and people looked after them.
In a world that is using five times more resources than our planet can produce, we should really rethink what we buy, if we need it or what impact our consumerism has on our planet.
As coordinator for Boomerang Bags Sapphire Coast I would appreciate less plastic packaging and supermarkets not handing out plastic bags so liberally.
