After nearly four years of campaigning, emails requesting answers and even an Illawarra Knitting Nannas Against Gas (IKNAG) knit-in outside her office, MP Noreen Hay is still silent in regards to her position on coal seam gas mining in our drinking water catchments.
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This is the drinking water for 4 million people that is at risk.
Even though Wollongong City Council has unanimously declared Wollongong ‘‘Coal Seam Gas Free’’, our drinking water catchment is still not safe from CSG mining.
We have asked Ms Hay three questions:
Will you back an unequivocal request to the Premier to ban CSG mining in Sydney Catchment areas forever?
What will you be doing to ensure that CSG mining and exploration does not occur in the water catchment areas?
Bearing in mind that we can be fined up to $44,000 for entering these areas, how can it be conceivable to allow CSGexploitation?
Please Noreen, tell us where you stand in regards to CSG mining in our drinking water catchments.
Cherrida Hardaker, IKNAG & Stop CSG Illawarra
In defence of the shield
Of all the many lies that Tony Abbott told to become Prime Minister, the one that will ensure his demise is ‘‘No cuts to the ABC’’.
The religious lobby may find it in their hearts to ‘‘forgive’’ him for the decimation of their programs, but sports lovers will certainly not. The women’s vote will disappear in line with the loss of women’s sport, as will the vote of all those who formerly enjoyed Shute Shield rugby matches on Saturday afternoons. This is my particular complaint.
The televised Shute Shield matches have provided great weekend entertainment for rugby lovers for many years and will be sorely missed. This competition is also the nursery for future Wallabies. Australia’s position as a leading international rugby nation must suffer.
I note that Mr Abbott has steadfastly kept to his promise, ‘‘No cuts to defence’’. He could probably have got away with breaking that one. One less submarine could have saved the ABC and nobody would have missed a submarine.
John Martin, Woonona
Predictable predictions
After the 2013 federal election, I wrote a letter to Your Say column. I predicted then that the wheels would fall off the Abbott government within six months, and we now have a looming recession after 12 months of nothing but broken promises and backflips and cutting the ABC funding.
Adrian Devlin is defending the indefensible on weekly basis. Even he must see the rot is setting in.
The latest debacle with an expensive trip for two ministers to Lima to talk about climate change, is like two Japanese ministers going somewhere in the world to talk about protecting the whales. I am usually an optimist, but my next prediction is that worse is to come in 2015, in spite of Smoking Joe saying otherwise.
John Pronk, Wollongong
Dismounting anger
Sunday was nippers day at City Beach. Shannon Eckstein was the special guest for our nippers. Several hundred people going back and forth from the beach yet cyclists continued to ride along the pedestrian-only strip. It’s about time the council got serious about enforcing its ‘‘cyclists must dismount’’ bylaw before someone gets really hurt.
Duncan Fyfe, Wollongong
