The eyes of the world will be on our city and region.  This is a great opportunity for us to show the world our home and what we have to offer our visitors.

I have asked the Council troops and RMS to work with us to ensure our city will look its best.  With our enormous sense of community pride, I encourage everyone to join us as we welcome the arrival of the Radiance of the Seas.  Let’s put on a great show and make our city spick and span or ‘ship shape’ – (excuse the pun).  This visit will boost our tourism sector, economic activities and job opportunities.  I’m inviting everyone to ensure our streets look clean, tidy and reflect how proud and blessed we are to live in such a beautiful city.  Wollongong City Council provides over 81,000 domestic waste pickups each week providing lots of opportunities to dispose of our litter responsibly.  For larger items we also have the On-Call Household Cleanup Service. Residents who plan to use this service this coming month are asked to ensure they book the service prior to placing items on the kerbside and the items to be picked up are neatly piled.  Council will do its best – but we need your help.

There will be lots of visitors and tourism events over this very special weekend.   Along with the arrival of the cruise ship there is Australian Harley Days Thunderrun, Wollongong Film Festival and Illawarra Past and Present Exhibition just to name a few.  For those who would like to assist with welcoming visitors to our city across this weekend, we encourage you to join the Ambassador Program, greeting visitors with information, sharing stories of our city and showcasing the pride and passion we have for our region.

Join in the city pride and let’s show the world we are a city and region who is proud of who we are and what we have to offer.

Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery

The battle raging on the letters page over the Vietnam War are similar to the conflict itself, everyone has their own opinions of right wrong hero and villain.

I think the important thing to remember is who won the war and who lost the war and of that there can be no real debate.

The war was won by wealthy American companies corporations and individuals who increased their profits and portfolios by exporting death terror and destruction.

The losers were everyone else involved, the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, the American Australian and all the other soldiers sailors and airmen involved, the families of the dead and wounded, and finally the terrible legacy of a poisoned country that will remain toxic to man and animal for generations to come.

Sadly so many “Leaders” are desperate to have an enemy that makes them look strong, they do not care what suffering they inflict onto others so long as they are seen as the strong protectors or everything righteous and good.

The tragedy of Vietnam is that we learned so little, we still fear refugees escaping war, our leaders still want enemies to make them look strong, we are still winning to inflict death and destruction on others our side is right and the others are evil.

The EVIL communist Viet Cong and NVA regulars are our friends and welcome us into their country now, they are not the monsters our propaganda told us they were, we are not the monsters they were told we were.

Globally $1.7 TRILLION dollars is spent every year on weapons and warfare, $1.7 Trillion dollars would also feed house and educate every one of the 9 billion people on earth for the next 30 years.

Perhaps rather than blame and hate, fear and ignorance, we should work to get our priorities right?

Doug Steley, Heyfield