Many actually voted for you and your government and would have hoped that it cared enough about the difficulties they face when they leave home to study.

If your Bill starts from January next year then people will feel seriously ambushed. The 18-month 30 hour per week test is retrospective. Many of them have already worked hard to satisfy the 2008-9 Centrelink Youth Allowance test.

Their hopes and aspirations are all aimed to starting their tertiary course in a city next February.

What do you expect them to do? Defer their tertiary course for another year and keep finding whatever work they can?

Many of them will not have the opportunity to defer their course, instead they will have to surrender their tertiary place and re-apply.

Surely, you can’t possibly want them to defer or surrender their tertiary place and delay their learning and education for yet another year, or worse, to give up the possibility of further education completely.

Your party has not seriously considered the impact this Bill will have on young country Australians and their families and if passed without satisfactory amendments you will definitely lose votes.

We need to really care for our young people. We need to show each and every one of them now that we really care about them and what they think. Each of us and our Government must do everything we can to encourage them to pursue their education without any bias or prejudice.

The educational future of our young country Australians should not be decided on whether they live in the city or the country or come from a wealthy family.

If your Government is seeking to bring in these changes to stop students from qualifying for Youth Allowance and then remain at home while they study at a tertiary institution then surely there is a better way to refine the current system without causing such a burden.

I now challenge you and/or the minister Julia Gillard to debate the Bill and its changes with all young country Australians from our Far South Coast communities at our local Town Hall.

Please be prepared to hear some serious passionate submissions from our most respected and promising young country Australians.

David Freestone

Merimbula

# See stories page 8

Gotta be kidding

Well Mr Tegart, you certainly know how to get a reaction.

After reading, with a mixture of incredulous disbelief and horror, that the DA for the Wanatta Lane Waste Facility has been withdrawn and a new one is to be lodged, I completely understood the reason for council’s requested 7 per cent plus rate increase.

We, the ratepayers are expected to continue to pay for the absolute and utter diabolical mess this proposed waste facility has become.

From its mediocre inception, residents have been battling bureaucratic obfuscation, poor planning, hurried results and false reports.

We, as a community, have endeavoured to persuade a council, oblivious to our concerns, that this bloody-minded push to get a waste facility built on this site was not in anyone’s best interest.

To no avail; it just had to be.

Now, with however many millions already spent fighting to get this ill- conceived idea through, council has the unmitigated gall to just casually state the DA has been withdrawn so it can “make a completely fresh start”.

The Wanatta Lane site may not be operational yet, but it has certainly become a huge money wasting facility, hole in the ground for council, hasn’t it?

It would have been much cheaper and easier to just dig a hole and throw the millions of dollars already spent into it.

Or, alternatively, the money spent could have gone towards building the new and apparently essential, sporting facilities our rate increases are supposed to help build. Talk about double dipping.

It amused me to read council will be allowed to reuse information from previous studies, although residents may not.

Once again, there are two sets of rules: one for council, one for residents.

I wonder if council will be using the studies made from defective information as were previously submitted or will they have yet another consultant wade through the thousands of pages of information, both fact and fiction, to decide just what will be submitted in the new DA and what will be left out.

How many more studies have to be done until you can get the answers you want to hear?

How much has it cost us already for absolutely nothing?

If it were not for the tireless fighting of a few to keep the council honest on this proposal, this facility would be well on its way to being a state-of-the-art hole in the ground, environmental disaster in the making.

If a “fresh and independent assessment” is to be made, wouldn’t this be a great opportunity to stop throwing good money after bad and realistically look for a better and more suitable site than Wanatta Lane?

Or would that be an idea just to “fresh and independent” to consider logically?

Beth Smith

Wolumla

ETS a con?

The Federal Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (Carbon

Pollution Reduction Scheme) is a con.

Under the proposed scheme large polluters benefit from emission abatement measures undertaken by others with no consequent reduction in Australia’s carbon emissions.

This cost shifting is inconsistent with the “polluter pays” principle and the use of the market to provide environmental benefits.

The Rudd Government’s proposed legislation must be changed in the Senate so that large polluters are prevented from benefitting from emission abatement measures undertaken by well-meaning households and by communities such as Bega.

Jack Miller

Bermagui

Outrage ous proposal

I would like to add to the interesting letters regarding the outrageous

proposals for raising even more revenue from the Shire’s long-suffering

ratepayers.

I contend that the Plan perpetuates council’s crime of demanding money

from the ratepayers without providing any equitable benefit to them.

I refer to charges for services not required or needed; e.g. charging water access for vacant blocks; charging a flat rate for the removal of waste regardless of the volume of that waste; charging for the collection of recyclable material and green waste when many ratepayers/householders do not have any.

Now we have a new proposed impost of a levy for sporting and tourism facilities, and the majority of the members of the community do not

benefit from the facilities/promotion to be provided.

Further, charging for inspections of septic systems when there is no evidence of the inspection covers being opened.

Council are unable to maintain unsealed roads in the Shire in a safe and

roadworthy condition, and they blame the lack of water.

However, I know from many letters to and from council, the Department of Local Government and the RTA that individually and/or collectively, these organisations are unable to place local traffic, speed and weight restrictions such that if implemented, any/all of these initiatives would reduce the wear and tear (and build-up of dangerous levels of loose material on the unsealed roads/lanes) and thereby reduce the need

for regrading and consequently saving scarce financial resources.

Some six-eight weeks ago there was a near fatal accident on an unsealed Lane in the Shire, and I understand that in the opinion of the police the accident was due to the build-up of loose material on the side of that thoroughfare.

Now we have the even more outrageous re-submission of a DA for the Wanatta Lane tip.

Not only is the waste facility at this site a demonstration of poor

judgement and planning, but it is an even greater waste of ratepayers’

funds.

I am inclined to suggest that there seems to be some moral and

ethical issues that need to be addressed.

Terence Carpenter

Candelo

Insur ance

campaign

Please join us in our campaign to change how Insurance Premiums are taxed.

As you may be aware, following the devastating bushfire in Victoria earlier this year, the high level of under-insurance and non-insurance has caused a great deal of concern, as many residents and businesses simply just couldn’t afford insurance.

As your broker, we believe that the cost of insurance shouldn’t be any higher than need be, but with the high levels of tax on insurance charged by the NSW State Government it is taking insurance into the area of unaffordability.

At the moment, the taxes you are paying on your insurance premium are equal to and in some cases higher than those imposed on alcohol, tobacco and gambling.

This just doesn’t seem right.

And, with the notice from May 15, that the Fire Service Levy is increasing to 40 per cent on business insurance and 22 per cent on household insurance and has started to include the component that will fund the NSW State Emergency Service, the cost of insurance is only going to rise.

Please don’t take this information the wrong way, we not only applaud the hard work done by the Fire Brigades and State Emergency Services, but believe they should be properly funded to do the work they do.

But, there should be a fairer and more equitable way to collect money for these vital services that doesn’t mean that hidden taxes on your premiums.

More information on the scale of this problem can be found at our website www.austbrokerssouthern.com.au by selecting the About Unfair Insurance Taxes link.

Kelly Commins

Austbrokers Southern

Hitting the nail

Matthew Nott has hit the nail on the head in his article Money from

Budget (BDN 22/5).

With 600 coal fired power stations in the USA and two new coal fired power stations being built in China every week, there is no practical way that little old Australia can make any meaningful reduction in total world carbon emissions.

All we can do is to promote the idea of reducing pollution, but despite what Mr Rudd and Ms Wong seem to think, the rest of the world is not waiting with bated breath to see what Australia does.

To the rest of the world we are a pip-squeak nation, and many countries look with bemusement at our presumption in telling them how to run the world.

However, while we can do nothing in real terms to reduce world pollution, it is still very worth while to reduce our own carbon footprint.

The benefits are small (in global terms) but real, nonetheless.

But it is very important that we count the cost.

Already, because of the high cost of renewable energy, electricity prices are set to rise by 20 per cent with more rises to come.

Now this won’t mean to much to some folk, but to many in the Valley on low incomes, this is a tremendous impost.

It is an unfair impost, given that as Mr Nott says, the benefit is insignificant with 600 US coal generators and two new ones built each

week in China.

It is time we concentrated our efforts on reducing our carbon footprint

by using less energy, not just trying to stipulate the use of expensive

renewable energy.

This would result in permanent cost and carbon savings rather than cost blow-outs.

It is time we considered the impact on the less wealthy citizens of the Valley.

If the effort and money put into generating renewable energy was put into technology for reducing energy consumption everyone would be better off.

A good start would be to replace appliances with more efficient ones,

but not until the old ones have worn out, because a huge amount of

energy is used to manufacture goods.

Replace cars with more fuel efficient ones, but again, not until they are worn out.

Most of the pollution generated by cars happens in the manufacturing process, not in the driving.

We should mandate five-year warranties (at least) on manufactured goods to get the most out of the energy used in manufacture and to reduce the amount of landfill.

Cars should have 10-15-year warranties.

Make no mistake, it is totally practical to give manufactured goods these sorts of lifetimes, and the increase in cost is very small.

It is purely economics that manufactured goods are given a design life of as little as 12 months.

Paul Scherek

Tantawangalo,

M IS issues

Plantations, subsidized by taxpayers including were originally

introduced to stop the dreadful over logging of Australia’s native

forests.

Recent Managed Investment Schemes (MIS) promoted by Timber Corp and

Great Southern, were obviously shaky.

However State Governments have compromised the viability of plantations as much as tax advisors.

In the past 10 years the Eden woodchip mill doubled exports of native

forest woodchips to Japan to one million tonnes per year.

They were supplied with ever cheaper chip logs by the Victorian and New South Wales Governments; NSW Forests admitted losing $14ml last year on chip logs; Victoria is undercutting NSW, selling them as low as $2.50 per tonne, less than an ice-cream.

Native forests, unlike plantations, are a free resource with no

council roads or rates to pay, no carbon emissions or water loses to

account for.

NSW’s RFA reviews are almost five years overdue; the recent Attorney General’s report shows NSW Forests lack of for accountability for their managed forests’ sustainability.

What if we to stop this unfair competition from native forest

woodchipping; what if we move to our purpose grown plantations for

virtually all our fibre and timber needs.

What if we leave forests as precious carbon and water catchments?

What if we protect natural, native forests for their resilience

against climate changes, for their unique and fascinating plants,

fungi and animals, for their sheer beauty?

What if we stop native forest woodchipping and accept forest

protection is climate protection.

Prue Acton

Wallagoot