Council debate
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At last Tuesday's council meeting, councillor Burnside delivered an extraordinary and uninformed diatribe against certain members of the community.
Under the Local Government Act, deputy mayor Burnside, along with other councillors, is required "to provide leadership and guidance to the community" and "to facilitate communication between the community and council".
Instead, behaving nothing like a leader, he poured scorn upon those constituents who seek to formally engage with council on the matter of HuntFest.
And he did so in an unbridled, highly intemperate fashion.
At the very least, he has shown contempt for the more than 900 signatories to a petition of local residents that calls for an end to HuntFest.
He needs to learn that in our democracy there must be room for civil debate on issues of difference.
Outbursts of the kind he made on Tuesday are more suited to a pub than to a council chamber and do nothing but work against our democratic values.
And on the matter of the claimed $900,000 cash flow into the local economy over the two days of the event, if we assume, say, 100 local businesses shared in this largess, it would mean that, on average, they each received $9,000 - in just two days. Really?
Peter Cormick
Deua River Valley
Mayor's say… Our dairy industry, then and now
LATER this week on Friday, September 5, Eurobodalla Shire Council will celebrate History Week with a photographic exhibition about Eurobodalla’s fascinating dairy heritage and stories from pioneering days.
The exhibition will open at 6pm at the Mechanics Institute in Page Street Moruya and be open until Wednesday, September 10.
Our dairy heritage can be traced back to 1829 when Francis Flanagan built a farm at Mullenderee.
He was soon followed by John Hawdon who started farming at Kiora. The creation of the Bodalla Estates by Thomas Sutcliff Mort in the 1860’s was one of the high points of the development of our dairy industry and by his death in 1878, this estate covered 56,000 acres.
Around this time Eurobodalla’s dairy industry was regarded as the most significant in Australia and it led the way in innovation and technology. The ABC Cheese Factory in Central Tilba that is still open today was established in 1891 and has seen many changes of management, ownership and production during its life.
You will find some interesting stories about the growth of this industry and the region in local history books, and of course at this photographic exhibition
Fast forward to the 2000’s and we are once again celebrating a revival in our dairy industry with some exceptional milks, creams, cheeses and yogurts being produced by the Bodalla Cheese Factory and South Coast Cheese now based at the ABC Cheese Factor in Tilba.
If you haven’t yet sampled and taken home any of this locally produced range of food then you are definitely missing out!
You can buy these local products directly from the factories in Bodalla and Tilba and you can also find them at the Moruya Tuesday farmers market, the Saturday Tilba produce market and in specialist shops and IGA’s stores.
These local farmers are not only working hard to supply dairy to the locals but are fast becoming an important and well publicised attraction for our tourism industry.
This was in evidence last week when the Bodalla Cheese Factory won a Gold Award in the category of tourism attractions at the South Coast Tourism Awards. And River Cottages’ location on an old dairy farm has also helped the profile of our modern dairy industry.
The exhibition in Moruya includes photographs by Andrew Metcalf of dairy heritage buildings and homes and a video that will bring to life key aspects of this great period through interviews with local dairy farmers and heritage building owners which have been recorded by the oral historian Myfanwy Thompson.
Please let me know if there are any issues that Council can assist with. You can contact me at mayor@eurocoast.nsw.gov.au or phone 0418 279 215.
Clr Lindsay Brown
Mayor of Eurobodalla Shire
Paper can do better
Regardless of their political persuasion, anyone who read Mark Ikonen’s letter “Eight down, how many to go?” published August 20, would have to cringe.
Apart from a few facts, the letter is composed of ridiculous assertions, pathetic attempted humour and sheer ignorance.
For example, Mr Ikonen says, “I don’t drive much due to the recent hike on the fuel exercise (sic).”
The proposed one cent per litre excise increase has not been legislated yet (and even if it gets through Parliament it won’t take effect until July 2015)!
Please Narooma News, exercise better professionalism, responsibility and judgement in the quality (particularly veracity) of letters to be published.
Dave Richard-Preston
Bermagui
Festival numbers
It looks like Pinnochio is working on those numbers for HuntFest (Aug 27).
Let's hear from the accommodation operators, shops and businesses about the actual financial boost they get during the two-day ‘festival'.
I'm not against any event bringing numbers and money into town.
HuntFest Organisers threatening to “turn off the tap” because of a council process requirement, which could be done in the other 363 days of the year, sounds plain childish.
Lesleigh Sayers
Narooma
Renewable Energy Target (RET) worth it
Australia's Renewable Energy Target (RET) has been successful over the last decade in bringing down the cost of renewable energy such as solar and wind power, as well as employing 21,000 people across the country.
Millions of homes and thousands of farms and other businesses have saved on their power bills by installing solar panels or solar hot water. Thousands more farmers have drought-proofed their properties by earning money from hosting wind turbines.
The RET is being reviewed by the Federal Government, and recently it was reported that Prime Minister Tony Abbott wants to close down the policy - even though the Coalition said before and after the election that it supported the scheme.
All major parties have backed the policy for more than a decade after it was introduced by John Howard in 2001.
Plenty of evidence shows that closing down the RET will not save you on your power bills.
What it would do is cause the renewable energy industry to grind to a halt and lead to the loss of thousands of jobs in regional areas. We will also need to produce more of our electricity using fossil fuels such as coal seam gas, which will actually increase bills.
If we leave the RET alone, we will get a further $15 billion of large-scale renewable energy investment, billions more in household technologies such as solar and thousands of local jobs.
It's hardly any wonder that Australians want to see more renewable energy.
A recent Newspoll found that 88 per cent of those surveyed were in favour of governments supporting the development of more renewable energy from the sun, wind and waves.
Kane Thornton
Acting chief executive Clean Energy Council
HuntFest consultation
I could hardly believe my eyes when I read (Narooma News, August 27) the complaints of the South Coast Hunters Club president Dan Field about councillor Gabi Harding's motion calling for community consultation before any further changes to the HuntFest event.
Mr Field says consultation would be make it “too hard” to stage the event, given that two months would be taken up canvassing with the community any proposed changes.
How could two months to have changes approved affect an annual event? And to have Mr Field complaining of lack of consultation is quite amazing, given that the motion is all about consultation with the community on what has been a very contentious issue.
No consultation with ratepayers was undertaken before Council voted on the inclusion of firearms in this year's HuntFest.
Presumably, Mr Field was quite happy with that approach, and would like it to continue.
The fact is that many in the community would like a say in any further expansion of HuntFest, and councillor Harding is responding to community concern by putting forward this motion.
Louise Webb
Kianga