Letters July 2016

By Dan Hutton on July 14, 2016 in Other

Why are the Cover Stars Hot?

I was wondering who makes the choice on the interviews and cover of your magazine?

I would like an ugly person on the cover who doesn’t own a company.

I would also like to read the ‘favourite quote’ and ‘words of wisdom’ of somebody who has some life experience and is not ‘plugging’ due to self interest, or possibly these are interviews of joint interest?

Mr Purcell

Bondi Pav a Farce

Okay, let’s get this straight. The Liberal majority that controls Waverley Council is planning to privatise the entire top floor of the Bondi Pavilion. There is not a shadow of a doubt about this. The mayor herself does not dispute this. When you strip away the spin, smoke and mirrors this is the driving force behind the current plan and the reason the cost has blown out from a much needed 9 million dollar upgrade to which everyone agreed, to a 38 million wasteful extravaganza. Do you really want an additional 29 million dollars spent in order to renovate the top floor in readiness for it to be flogged off to a private operator?

Peter Winkler, Waverley Council Hunter Ward.

Pavilion Upgrade a Damn Shame

The Waverley Council proposal for the Bondi Pavilion upgrade is wrongheaded on many accounts. Cultural development aside, the process is non-transparent, will lumber the local community with an enormous debt and most likely contravenes the state government guidelines for merging councils.
I’ve made many records at the pavilion studios and taught a generation of local teenagers as part of the Bondi WAVE youth music program. Young world beating bands like Art Vs Science and Rufus have made records there. You would think the council would invoke bragging rights, pointing out to tourists, ‘Hey, look at us; not only do we have a great beach, but we make stuff right here that the world loves… music!’

The proposal will alienate artists from the pavilion precinct; it will take the soul out of it. Save Bondi Pavilion.

Brendan, Tamarama

Think of the Children

Dear James and Dan,
As someone who works in the adult industry for a living, I was surprised to flip from one page about the Maldives to… porn.

Who thought this was a suitable piece for a free distributed magazine read by people of all ages, and probably many young teens?

The first half talks about Porn Hub (well done giving that a good plug) and the next introduces feminists into the equation and porn for women, as though it’s an entirely new idea.

Regardless of whether female porn is nothing new, I thought it was a bizarre piece to read – not to mention full of BS by Matty Silver ‘sex therapist’.

While I personally love the stuff, I don’t think it’s right for the pages of The Beast.

Karl

Maroubra Plant Thief

I live in Maroubra. Over the past year I have worked tirelessly on our front garden; backbreaking work (which I did whilst pregnant), countless trips to pick up ‘second hand’ plants and so many hours tenderly growing plants from tiny cuttings.

You can only imagine my devastation to find that my plants are being stolen. At night, someone is carefully removing a beautiful selection and leaving my own garden bed decimated. This has not been a one-off occasion, but a recurring event.

It is astounding to me that this person can enjoy their garden knowing it is the result of their thievery and someone else’s hard work. Gardening takes time, commitment and huge physical effort, and for someone to blatantly disregard this is despicable.

The only group of people I imagine to be able to sympathise with my plant thief is perhaps the Baird government, which has also shown blatant disregard for the beautiful plants around our neighbourhood. And whilst the Baird government has seemingly gotten away with its crimes against plants, I don’t think my plant thief will be so lucky, as I now have my security camera installed, so am looking forward to meeting them soon.

Georgina, Maroubra

No to Kids and Bikes

New bike laws? Excellent! But how about addressing the irresponsible parents who carry children on the back, in front or behind their bikes? I cringe when I see these vulnerable little ones being transported like this. Clovelly Public School seems to lead this stupid practice, and as for the idiot who carries three kids around Bondi Junction at once, what a moron. These contraptions should be banned as should the bike lane through the Bondi Junction Mall. Let cyclists choose to endanger themselves, but not helpless children!

Denise Richards

Congrats on the Smoke-Free Trial

In honour of World No Tobacco Day on the May 31, the Sydney Cancer Advocacy Network would like to congratulate Waverley Council on the implementation of the smoke free trial in the Oxford Street Mall.

We believe this is a great step towards reducing smoking related illness and creating a healthier and more welcoming community space. We are looking forward to when this becomes a permanent change for the community.

Amber Reid on behalf of SCAN

Facetiming F**king Idiot

To the young woman driver in Coogee who was too busy Facetiming (Facetiming!) to indicate when she took a turn and also almost hit me. Don’t be a f**king idiot!

Brent McKean, Coogee

Alcohol Policy Raises Questions

On April 27, at the last meeting of the Randwick City Council, Randwick Councillors voted (7/7 with the casting vote going to the mayor) to lift the alcohol ban on the recently refurbished East Ward Senior Citizens Hall.

Despite requests from the community for consultation, and undertakings given by the General Manager in a report from 2010 that the hall remain alcohol free, Council determined that Randwick Rugby Club, local league clubs, and cricket clubs be allowed to use the hall for alcohol related activities.

There has been no assessment of impacts of this change of policy on the local area and nearby residents.

The lack of transparency and consultation in this process raises questions about the power and influence of registered clubs over Council decisions. It also raises questions about the desire to hurry the decision through Council, prior to an administrator being appointed last week.

Alix Magney, Coogee

Bondi Junction Plaza Safety

I love the fact that Bondi Junction Plaza is getting some attention and becoming more vibrant with the local produce market, but I really have some concerns about the way it is set up and dismantled each day. I have seen several near misses with the Bondi Junction Market stallholders driving their cars all over the plaza in the mornings and afternoons. I have seen children almost run over, people almost squashed between vehicles and complete confusion as cars are randomly driven in and out of intersections on either end of the plaza when there are pedestrian-only lights.

They are setting up and dismantling their stalls during the busiest times of the day and with the most people around. Surely there is a better option than having all these cars parked and driving all over the plaza?

I fear it will take someone’s child being killed before the council will do something to manage the issue.

I also ride my bike through the plaza (a NSW Government designated shared path) to drop my daughter off at daycare and ride to the city. Almost every day I ride through the stallholders abuse me, no matter how slowly or carefully I ride through.

I don’t want to ride right in front of the shop entrances because people do not see bikes as they walk in and out of the shops thinking about their latest purchase. It makes sense to ride through the middle of the plaza with the most space.

However, the market stallholders seem to think they own the space and spread their goods and park their cars all up and down the plaza leaving no clear access. If they were forced to leave a decent access way through the middle and stopped cars entering the plaza there would not be the ridiculous congestion created by the stallholders themselves.

There is plenty of room for everyone to share and make use of if a little bit of thought was given to the layout of the market space.

I only hope the council does something before someone is hurt.

Ben

Pedestrian Crossing Needed

Can someone please explain to me why there is not a pedestrian crossing at the busy crossroad at the corner of Spring Street and Bronte Roads in Bondi Junction? This is perhaps the busiest intersection in the whole of the Eastern Suburbs. And why, oh why, is there a ghastly brick planter box in front of the Westfield entrance on Bronte Road? If it’s to stop people crossing at the intersection, it’s not working.

Tim Muansell, Bronte

Container Scheme Environmental Vandalism

The June issue of The Beast (p. 36) shows a picture of Liberal state politician Bruce Notley-Smith holding three pieces of litter. The headline reads, ‘Container Scheme Set to Keep the Eastern Beaches Beautiful’. The electioneering picture of the litter-holding politician comes with the hidden transcript: ‘I am an environmentalist’. Thankfully, the picture remains undisturbed by Mr Notley-Smith’s very own state chainsaw massacre gang cutting down well above three hundred magnificent trees about three miles up the road. This is a level of hypocrisy only a politician can muster.

The state’s tree cutting location in Randwick marks the place where the Liberal government’s environmental wreckage annihilates anything in its path to make way for a 19th century transport (non) solution – an inner-city train with mostly ‘standing room only’ – for a 21st century transport problem. It is for the ‘light rail’ – perhaps called ‘light’ because it is light on urban planning and strategy.

The two bottles and one can of Coke in Notley-Smith’s picture look surprisingly unspoilt. Is this an indication that they were simply ‘picture prop’ purchased quickly in a bottle shop up the road? Alternatively, they can’t have been lying around for long at Coogee Beach, showing not a single scratch, no labels torn off, nothing! In this case, it is perhaps an indication of Randwick Council’s tireless – and often rather unthanked – work to keep Coogee Beach clean. Something the council does with great success.

Strangely it is not the Liberal Party’s favourite ideological hobbyhorse of the ‘free market’ that cleans up Coogee Beach. Instead, it is the taxpayer funded early morning tractor and the handiwork of council workers that keeps the place liveable. But these are things the neo-liberal ideology of Mr Notley-Smith’s political party rejects. Instead, it favours tax cuts (lots for the rich and some for the poor), remains staunchly anti-environmentalist, supports rampant deregulation, seeks the reduction of state provisions wherever possible and even plans the elimination of Randwick Council altogether. Politically, Mr Notley-Smith’s party remains asphyxiated in the ideological hallucination of Hungarian aristocrat Herr von Hayek’s neo-liberalism. This brings us to Europe, with which The Beast article closes.

At the end of the article one reads: “NSW now joins over 40 jurisdictions globally in countries such as Canada, Germany and Sweden in running a container deposit scheme.” What one does not read is that many of these countries have been running such schemes for several decades. Meanwhile Mr Notley-Smith’s own political party has been fighting against such as scheme for decades. But above and beyond all that, the container scheme has five significant advantages for Mr Notley-Smith.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, as a member of Mike Baird’s chainsaw massacre gang and the ‘global-warming-is-crap’ party, Notley-Smith can present himself as an environmentalist. This might come under ‘The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda’ (Chomsky) and the hope to get re-elected. But it also remains a fine example of what hypocrisy and propaganda are all about.

The second great advantage of the container scheme is that it leaves the industry that produces fancy packaging, rubbish and litter largely alone. The container scheme does nothing to prevent the production of rubbish and waste. Seen from the perspective of the ‘waste hierarchy’, for example, the scheme remains on the low level of three (‘recycling’). The scheme produces stagnation, asphyxiating us at this level. It does not even move up just one level to ‘reuse’. And it is far off from preventing the production of rubbish, packaging, and leftovers. Preventing rubbish remains at the highest level of the hierarchy. But Mr Notley-Smith’s scheme has never been about preventing rubbish, nor has it been about the environment. Instead, it locks us into one of the ‘least favoured options’, i.e. bad for the environment.

Thirdly, left untouched in the production of rubbish and undisturbed by environmental regulation, large corporations can continue to rake in humongous profits. The scheme favours the profitability of the top-end of town – Mr Turnbull’s end. Not surprisingly, Coca Cola Amatil promotes the scheme. Perhaps the whole thing is not so much a container scheme as it is a container scam.

Fourthly, the container scheme – rather cunningly – off-loads its costs onto consumers. Economists call this externalisation. As the former CEO of Shell Sir Mark Moody-Stuart once said: “Let someone else pay the bill.” Consumers pay the bill by purchasing the litter in the first place.

But now they also pay for its disposal three-times over: (a) in the form of Mr Notley-Smith’s container scheme, soon to be included in the cost of the product; (b) through the normal yellow bin in which some of the litter will still end up; and (c) in council rates as council workers will still have to clean up the rubbish left behind on Coogee Beach. Only people on crack cocaine might believe that this scheme will end the litter on Coogee Beach.

In the end the picture’s subtitle remains true: ‘Good on you, Bruce’ as it has only advantages for large corporations and a Liberal politician eager to present himself as the friend of the environment while his government cuts down trees like there is no tomorrow. The scheme does not prevent litter, but supports the production of it. Finally, it offloads the cost to us – the consumer and the voter. Perhaps we are conned twice when voting for such a scheme. Good on you, Bruce – an ingenious con-job. ‘Con’ as in container, of course.

Thomas Klikauer, Coogee

Wood Fires on the Nose

Dear Beast,

As winter finally arrives, many Sydneysiders are lighting up their wood fuel fireplaces in an effort to keep warm. Not only do they keep you warm, but, let’s face it, who doesn’t like to sip a Hunter Shiraz in front of a crackling open fire? However, what most people don’t realise is that, as they enjoy the ambiance of the fire, they are putting their own health, and that of their neighbours, at great risk.

Wood burning heaters produce a toxic mix of fine particle pollution, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, benzenes and other chemicals. All of these toxic substances are known to cause heart and lung disease, and they make life miserable for the many of our children who have asthma. It’s enough to make cigarettes seem healthy.

The problem is not one to be dismissed as insignificant. The NSW EPA states that smoke from wood heaters is a major cause of air pollution, producing up to seven times the particle pollution of cars. It’s a serious problem that has the potential to make us all sick.

Our society has recognised the harm caused by cigarettes and moved to reduce their consumption. In fact, Waverley Council has banned smoking in many public places. Yet whilst you can walk away from a smoker, you cannot walk away from your neighbour’s wood fire smoke. So for the benefit of all, it is now time for Waverley Council to clean up our local atmosphere and ban all wood fires in our municipality.

Dr Stephen Lightfoot, Bronte

Who’s the Cock Now Gus?

Dear Editor,

In response to Mr Bennett, (Randwick’s Roosters Sponsorship a Cock-Up, Letters, The Beast, June 2016), I wanted to say how proud we are to have a community partnership with both the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs. As the famous ‘sports coast’, we are so lucky to have not just one, but two NRL teams based within our council boundary area.

Randwick City Council has community partnership programs with both the Roosters and the Rabbitohs. As part of these programs the clubs send players out into the Randwick City community to work through structured programs with local schools and community groups.

As a way of acknowledging Council’s support, both teams provide a sponsored player for each match. Council does not choose the player and there is no charge for this.

The partnership with the Roosters and Rabbitohs is one we’re really proud of. We believe it’s a fantastic way for our sporting heroes to inspire the next generation to have a go and give it their best.

Cr Noel D’Souza, Mayor of Randwick

Ocean Has Final Say

Dear Editor,

Over the past few years Waverley Council has been lobbied by a former employee to build an ill advised function centre into the cliffs below Waverley Cemetery. If the weather events of the weekend of June 4 and 5 haven’t put paid to this idea, it’s time those promoting it saw sense and stopped. A report by top four accounting firm Deloitte has already concluded that the proposal is not financially viable. The terrible storms of that weekend have shown in no uncertain terms that the idea is also both foolhardy and dangerous. The predictions are that we will continue to experience these sort of extreme weather events and they will become more intense. Councils must ensure that, in future, building is not allowed in places at high risk of tidal inundation. It is abundantly clear that the cliffs below Waverley Cemetery are at risk of severe coastal impacts and it would be utter folly to build there.

Penny Mora, Residents for Waverley Cemetery

NSW Police on a Power Trip

To the Editor,

My name is Mario Abdel-Sayed. I am a law-abiding citizen of Australia. I am a university graduate in Health Science and have a Masters in Education. I am making contact with you because I strongly feel that I need to make my story public and feel everyone needs to know what I am about to say.

On Saturday, May 21, 2016 at approximately 3:55pm, I was pulled over by a police officer from Rose Bay Police Station for making a wrong left hand turn on to Grafton Street, Bondi Junction.

I was exiting the Westfield car park onto Adelaide Street, and unwittingly made a left turn on to Grafton Street. I am from Penrith and have recently moved into the Sydney CBD and was not familiar with the Bondi Junction area. I was not speeding and travelling very slowly. I had no intentions of breaking the law, but simply made a wrong left turn due to my unfamiliarity with the area. I made the turn without noticing the ‘no left turn’ sign as it was not visible enough and I proceeded up the road.

In no less than five seconds, I heard sirens screaming behind me with lights blaring and I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed a green police vehicle speeding towards me. I initially thought it was travelling at such high speeds in response to a police emergency. I said to my partner, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to me, “Far out, look how fast this police car is going. We better get out of the way; it’s going to knock someone over.” The street, Grafton Street, is a small one-way street, which is in a high pedestrian area. I began to take measures to give the police vehicle way and let it pass by, so I pulled over into a taxi zone to let the car speed past.

By the time I had travelled at 50km/h for approximately 150 metres to the next set of lights, this green police vehicle had caught up with me and as I was giving them way the policeman signalled for me to pull over. I said to my partner, “I wonder why I am getting pulled over? I’ve done nothing wrong.” She agreed. Anyway, I pulled over and waited for the policeman in the police car to come to my window and explain what was going on.

I had noticed in the rear view mirror that the police officer was walking towards my car very angrily, storming towards me. As he approached my window, he demanded my licence in a loud, rude and angry tone of voice, making me feel belittled and leaving me wondering what on Earth I had done for him to speak to me like this.

I asked the officer, “Why did you pull me over? What have I done wrong for you to be speeding so fast and to speak to me so angrily? Are you after me?” He said, “Yes, I am after you. You turned left in a no left turn street.” I said, “I am not from the Bondi area and I did not see a sign to indicate this instruction.”

He continued to speak to me with such anger and superiority and said, “Yes, there was a sign. You turned left into a no left turn street. Give me your licence.”

He then went on to say, “I will be issuing an infringement notice,” before he walked off towards the police vehicle. I was extremely upset and waited in the car for a few minutes and decided to get out to ask the officer more questions about the fact that I could not see the sign and did not intend to make this mistake. He rudely told me to get back into my car.

As I walked over to his car, I could not help but notice how he had parked in his erratic attempt to catch me for my ‘crime’. The police vehicle had blocked off a pedestrian crossing, obstructing a busy intersection and interfering with buses that were turning into the street due to the bus rank in the vicinity. As it was a one way street, it was already very tight. The police officer had parked in such a way that was clearly unsafe in his hurry to pull me over. It looked like a crime scene and not the scene where a driver had unwittingly made a left turn into a street that he was not familiar with.

While he was writing up the ticket, pedestrians were trying to make their way across the street, buses and other vehicles were having to merge right to avoid the police vehicle, and traffic seemed very disorganised.

I felt that this police officer was jeopardising pedestrian safety, firstly by speeding to pull me over and secondly by pulling me over in an unsafe location. I began to get upset and made this point to him and he continued to tell me to get back into my car.

Eventually I noticed another two police officers arriving as back up, who he had called, who were just standing there viewing what was going on. I asked the female police officer, “Is it safe for a police officer to speed ridiculously to book a person travelling less than 50km/h for a no left turn and then stop them at a pedestrian intersection obstructing the pedestrians from safely crossing the road and putting himself, myself and the pedestrians at risk in order to make such a booking?”

She said, “Police are exempt from the law.” Then I said, “Excuse me, when is it safe to speed and block a pedestrian crossing, putting the public at risk and jeopardising their safety?”
She did not make a comment and I began to get more emotional and upset at the fact that NSW Police were willing to break the law to book a person when there was no need for them to speed.
To me this seems like a very unreasonable course of action and there was no need for the police officer to act in such an inconsiderate way.

The police officer issued me with the infringement notice for disobeying a road sign indicating no left turn, which is going to cost me $248.00 and two demerit points. I made it known that I would take this to court and contact the media to explain that the legal system in this instance had jeopardised safety in a busy, high pedestrian intersection. The NSW Police are there to help, support and protect us, not to jeopardise our safety and hurt us financially.

The police have discretion and he could clearly see that my licence address stated I was not from the area.

I intend to take these matters to court.

Mario Abdel-Sayed