Bega District Letters to the Editor, July 30

I think we should build a nuclear power plant. A very large number of nations now have a nuclear power plant or at the least a nuclear reactor.

However, I would not consider this as a solution for the base load in the transition to renewable energy. I think we should build a number of gas turbine power plants. Gas would be a lot cheaper option if not for us selling a lot of the eastern seaboard gas supply overseas some years ago. New deposits are being found especially on the NW coast.

The real problem with the transition to renewable energy is that there is a complete lack of anyone with the managerial and engineering project skills to oversee this transition including driving the technology changes necessary. Formulating policies are not going to drive this change.

What is happening to our shopkeepers having to put their goods down 15-30% so they can get customers into their shops?

Customers are dwindling a lot, because of Big W and increasingly high rents the shops have to pay. The owners cannot afford the high amount of rent. And I supposes Big W can do what they like.

Bega is a big town, they are doing it tough, but it comes down to us, the people of Bega and district. It only takes one to start it up.

It is interesting that people just quote statistics on crashes. Out of seven fatalities on the mountain, locals know that four of them have nothing to do with speed or road conditions. The road from South Pambula to the bottom of the mountain and again from the top to Cathcart are perfectly safe. If the speed limit on these strips is reduced to 80 then it is nothing but ridiculous.

Again a knee-jerk reaction by some. We are becoming the most over regulated country in the world.

The NSW Legislative Council has initiated an inquiry into koala populations and habitat in NSW. If one were looking for a good example of why such an inquiry is necessary, it's difficult to go past the massive waste of public funds and appalling management koalas are subject to in the south-east.

Take the secret 150 hectare hot burn undertaken in critical koala habitat near Bermagui last week. Of course we know such burns will not stop a fair dinkum bushfire, nor will it stop a fire from starting. However, there are many negative impacts including the further degradation of the limited suitable habitat available for koalas.

This sledgehammer approach to koala management is apparently supported by a secret new conservation group that the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) set up in Bega earlier this year. It seems the purpose of the group is to continue withholding information, while supporting what the OEH and the Forestry Corporation support (aka the koala extinction plan). For example, the planting of thousands of trees on private land (BDN July 19) was first proposed by the Forest Corporation back in the 1990s. All of the evidence demonstrates this will not help koalas, unless they are special or magic trees. Then there are the perennial and secret publicly funded pre-logging koala surveys that don't help koalas either.

If nothing else the inquiry will provide those interested in helping koalas with a forum, that otherwise doesn't exist, to express concerns.