UP until Monday night, 1/1 at 11.30pm, I had always been a huge supporter of taxis in Newcastle. And I would always get a cab because I thought Uber had done the wrong thing.
But on this night, hopping into a cab at the Kent changed my perspective completely. I was looking after an inebriated mate who had to go to Georgetown which, by the way, is on the way to my destination at Waratah.
I expected the fare to be a little more than the $25 I usually pay and also because it was a public holiday. So with no meter activated, which I enquired strongly about, the driver said it would cost $24 to the first destination and thinking it wouldn't cost much more, I paid that ... only to find when we got to Georgetown that is was to cost me another $27 to get home.
At that point I hit the roof and gave him a piece of my mind and refused to get out of the cab. He promptly discounted the price to $10 and gave me the reasoning that was what he had been instructed to do.
I could have got out of the cab at this point, but didn't because it gave me the opportunity to express my frustration all the way home.
Tony Morley, Waratah
A question of priorities
THANKS Tim Roberts for pointing out the problems with council's spending priorities, ("Finish one job before starting on the next", Letters, 6/1). He could have gone further.
Why spend an extravagant $12 million on a playground in Foreshore Park when the large crowds at Nobbys Beach have to get changed in toilet cubicles?
Why construct new change room facilities at South Newcastle Beach when there are change rooms at Newcastle Beach, about 100 metres away, requiring maintenance?
Why spend an unknown amount on resurfacing Supercars circuit through Camp Shortland, a road not even used by the public, when roads throughout the LGA are littered with potholes?
Christine Everingham, Newcastle East
Getting the job done
BRAVO Tim Roberts, ("Finish one job before starting on the next", Letters, 6/1). We need people like you on our Newcastle council making decisions regarding the priorities of spending ratepayers' money.
What appears to be common sense has been lost, and if you are not in the Labor team you probably would not have a voice anyway on this council. Yes, we should be completing projects that have begun and our council should be consulting more with users of public facilities.
When beautifying with planting, long-term care should always be considered including watering systems, and if you want to know what the public want you could try asking them or wander up to the baths any day and watch how many people are peeping anxiously through the surrounding fence at the baths.
Denise Lindus Trummel, Newcastle
Voice won't solve real problems
MOST Australians believe in a fair go for all Australians sharing the same view. I am perplexed that we need another level of bureaucracy with regard to Indigenous Australians.
The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Linda Burney MP leads the National Indigenous Australians Agency with 38 offices spread across all states and territories.
Their undertaking states they are committed to implementing the government's policies and programs to improve the lives of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The NIAA recognises that each community is unique. It says the team includes people across Australia who work closely with communities to make sure policies, programs and services address these unique needs.
That sounds horribly like a Voice to Parliament?
So, if all this parliamentary structure is not working or delivering on their policy, one has to ask why not? The 38 offices spread across Australia should already be speaking to those seen as the mouthpieces for the Voice in Parliament.
If we need a separate Voice to Parliament, then we need to sack those that were supposedly invested to achieve that very aim.
Albo, like all new brooms, wants to show he sweeps clean; the Voice to Parliament is fluffy bureaucracy to create a "feel good" feeling without fixing the real problems.
Paul Duggan, Garden Suburb
Which voice to listen to?
IN regard to the claim of a contributor to this paper that "the Voice to Parliament will simply be an advisory group to Parliament" is not supported by former High Court judge Ian Callinan, who suspects there will be a decade or more of constitutional and administrative law litigation, and that the Courts might give the Voice a larger role than the constitution would give it.
I think I would be guided by the opinion of a former High Court judge rather than the opinion of a contributing member of the public.
John Cooper, Charlestown
Explaining a wild winter
GREG Hunt (Short Takes, 30/12), there is a relatively simple answer as to why the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing extreme winter weather.
Travelling around the Arctic is a jet stream which is normally formed into a gentle wave and during the winter months this keeps the very cold air localised over the Arctic and allows winter ice to re-form which has melted during the warmer summer months.
Due to the rapid warming of the Arctic (five times faster than the rest of the planet) the warmer air has disrupted the jet stream and has caused it to oscillate wildly and it dips down into the northern continents sucking the very cold air with it thus bringing these extremely vicious winter storms.
Pay a visit to the NASA website and you will find a picture demonstrating how the jet stream has been corrupted.
Alan Kendall, Neath
Keeping up with the times
Newcastle Airport is having an upgrade. I certainly hope they improve their welcome tactics.
When you arrive 2-3 hours prior to departure as instructed, I would have thought that departure areas would have staff ready to book you through, not a sign on the check-in counters indicating they don't open for another hour.
As you can't go through to the waiting area without boarding passes, you are left out in the departure check-in area with only a snack vending machine.
Once you finally get through security after you receive your boarding passes, you have to again wait till staff arrives to open up the few shops available.
Surely if Newcastle is to become an international airport they can make arriving and departing a pleasant event, not a stressful one. These facilities should be open 24/7 if Newcastle is to become a user-friendly airport; a pleasant place to leave for holidays/ business trips.
Yes, airlines and airports are doing it tough at present, but, in my opinion, this doesn't mean that passengers should do it tough as well because of airport shortcomings or employee issues.
Graeme Kime, Cameron Park
SHORT TAKES
I WAS a wee bit disappointed in Ian Kirkwood's article exposing my second-best view of Newcastle harbour fireworks - Tipplers Bridge, ("Surprise in the sky on New Year's Eve", Herald, 5/1). LOL. More people should know of this area that is available to members of the public on our harbour.
Bill Slicer, Tighes Hill
IT'S almost funny seeing conservatives attempt to define their favourite word, "woke", in these pages (Letters, 4/1). Greg Hunt sums them up with: "when vibes and feelings dominate facts and common sense". This is extreme irony as this definition is nothing more than Greg's "vibes and feelings", what he imagines it means. The factual meaning is easy to find with a simple search - for example, "being aware or well informed in a political or cultural sense". So these people are unaware they are unaware and their 'War on Woke" is in fact a delusional war on awareness. That sounds about right.
Michael Gormly, Islington
SIXTEEN year olds who commit violent crimes appear in the Children's Court. Ask a 16-year-old if they think they are a child or an adult. It's time for the age for adult incarceration to be changed to 16. I believe they should be locked away with no protection from the adult prison population.
Steve Barnett, Fingal Bay
I FIND it humorous when Australia and America point the finger at China and Russia. Australia and America are now involved in the Ukraine war by supplying arms to Ukraine. Let us not forget Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, which were a trifecta of lies, by the CIA, involving these wars and many many deaths. If Satan was the leader of America, Australian politicians would be lining up to shake hands with the devil.
Richard Ryan, Summerland Point
MY thanks to the obviously highly-credentialed contributors who have enlightened us as to the cause of record low temperatures on the other side of the world, even if some replies were a tad condescending. I now understand it's the fault of climate change if it fits with the alarmist warming narrative, but when it doesn't it's just normal seasonal weather. Simple.
Greg Hunt, Newcastle West
JOHN Arnold, (Short Takes, 2/1), I, Greg Hunt and others haven't read Global Warming for Dummies because the book is for, well, dummies. But you keep it in your reading list if you wish. Mr Arnold thinks that the recent horrendous cold weather and snowstorms to hit North America, Japan and Europe were caused by climate change.
The warming kind or the colder kind?
It doesn't matter really, because your argument appears to be that any bad weather is evidence of climate change. At that rate, the climate change argument can never be lost.
