Striking a balance on parking
The Goulburn Mulwaree Council should be mindful of removing standard car parking spaces on Auburn Street and recognise the impact of doing so on nearby Goulburn businesses. Spaces out the front of the Goulburn Post Office and NSW Government offices have recently been redesignated as more disabled parking and a new bus zone, removing a number of standard parking spots.
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Yes, it is important that there is adequate disabled parking and bus access, but we must also make sure standard parking spaces are preserved and not needlessly removed on Auburn Street. In conversation I have recently had with small business owners on the Auburn Street block between Verner and Montague Streets, there is concern that parking has been taken away by the recent changes.
For their trade, small businesses in the CBD rely on passing traffic often finding the opportunistic car park to service their needs. We cannot have a situation where standard car parking spaces are slowly eroded away over a period of time. A vibrant Auburn Street is heavily reliant on having close and immediate parking to shops.
Michael Prevedello, Goulburn
Election speculation
Saturday May 21 is shaping up to be an interesting election contest and we are going to be bombarded with it for the next six weeks. The recent SA State election which saw a change of Government will only have a minor influence on the Federal Election. Many in the national news media were placing strong emphasis on this but I don't agree. The vast majority of voters are intelligent and they can tell the difference between State and Federal issues. The SA result won't affect what happens in Hume electorate on May 21.
All this talk of donkey votes (an insult to donkeys) giving the candidate at the top of the ballot paper a sizeable advantage is not true. You would be lucky if it is half of 1 per cent at the most. Again, voters are intelligent and they usually vote correctly for the candidate and preferences of their choice. Informal votes are either deliberate or inadvertent errors (like using the same number twice) by the voter involved. It only helps the candidate ahead in the vote counting to stay ahead. I have been an OIC of Federal Polling Places for 33 years and I am a former NSW State Returning Officer. I could write a short book on my varying experiences but it might put most people to sleep. At the end of the long election day both me and my allocated staff always got the job done. We'll see what May 21 has in store.
Barry McDonald, Goulburn
Climate claims questioned
Re "A question on climate change" Tony Morrison letter Wednesday April 6. In making his claims (which interestingly he does without naming any of his sources) Tony is in a very, very small minority; indeed, his claims would be regarded as inaccurate by the vast majority of informed climate scientists around the world. The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is the intergovernmental body of the United Nations responsible for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change.
The latest IPCC report explains it clearly: "The greenhouse gas emissions spewed out by fossil fuel burning, forest destruction and other human activities are now clearly destabilising the mild climate in which civilisation began, the report shows. Carbon dioxide levels in the air are now at their highest point for at least 2m years".
I challenge Tony Morrison to come to the Citizen's Climate Lobby meeting on Wednesday May 11 at the Workers' Club. He can then explain his claims to the guest speaker, the Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at The Australian National University and a Vice-Chair of the IPCC. I look forward to listening to the debate.
