BUILDING A BRIDGE
I can't believe how long the upgrade to Windang bridge is taking. It seems they install one or two concrete sections a day.
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The RMS management is, it seems, quite happy for this to drag on and on must be a good way to fill in the days.
Fulton Hogan or Boral should have been contracted to do this I am sure it would have been completed by now and at a cheaper cost. It is no wonder they are using private contractors where ever they can.
I rather doubt the bridge will be done before the Christmas rush. Time to windup the RMS road crews
Paul Lovatt, Barrack Point
IT’S IN THE STATISTICS
We face a multi-faceted threat to our ability to produce enough food that warrants thought and budget allocation as the election approaches. We are mining topsoil.
At current world topsoil loss rates there is about 60 years of topsoil left. As Barnaby Joyce said “no-one is making new farmland”.
If we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions fast and hard then by 2100 we are projected to lose 20 per cent of our irrigated agriculture in the Murray Darling Basin and to suffer 40 per cent less rainfall in the wheat belt.
CSG proponents plan for 40,000 CSG wells in Qld alone by 2030. They would extract and pollute approximately half Sydney harbour of water every year and drop the artesian water table that bore irrigation depends on.
If we don’t stop building over productive agricultural land in and around cities then the Sydney Basins capacity to feed itself will drop from 20 per cent to 6 per cent by 2031. Then there’s fish stock depletion.
Our population growth rate is the highest in the developed world. If it continues then by 2075 there will be twice as many Australians to feed. There will be three billion extra people in the world. In these circumstances selling farmland to overseas interests is stupid.
The arithmetic of population growth, pollution and resource use is not moral or political. The numbers will not adapt to us and our “market confidence”. We need to balance our environmental account.
It is not acceptable to pretend this arithmetic does not exist and that somehow or other it will go away if we ignore it and stop doing scientific research about the issues.
Nobody now can claim to be a sensible economic manager unless they can articulate a plan to manage these issues. If we can’t feed ourselves there will not be an economy.
Rowan Huxtable, Mangerton
GETTING IT DONE
Brian, you continually blame Labor and Greens for graffiti problems in your area - which is confusing as there are more political parties which you are strangely not advised of. No Liberal Party in your area of Gymea?
I have incredible support from Dapto Rotary, Wollongong City Council, Dulux and the NSW Attorney General, and police patrols - because I have got off my butt and done something.
In my area graffiti has been reduced by 80 per cent over the past two years mainly due to volunteers and hard work.
Surely Gymea has a council and a Rotary club who can assist in your ongoing complaints instead of relying on Government to fulfill your wish lists?
Mick Chamberlain, Graffiti Co-ordinator, Dapto Rotary
- Letters on election issues must bear the name and full address of the writer(s). Responsibility for election comment in this issue is accepted by Fairfax Illawarra and South East NSW group managing editor Kim Treasure, 77 Market St, Wollongong. Writers should disclose any alliance with political or community organisations and include their telephone number for verification. Election candidates should declare themselves as such when submitting letters.