WITH two of our flagship sports teams in national competitions achieving great heights this year - the Northstars going down in a tight finish at the AIHL grand final and the NRLW Knights taking out a convincing win to claim the premiership - the tide may be turning for sport across the region.
In football a number of clubs have recently celebrated major anniversaries with Toronto FC marking 100 years, Lake Macquarie City Football Club 110 years, and both West Wallsend and Edgeworth 130 years since a ball was first kicked in competition. The history that was revisited during these events was exceptional, with Toronto Stags in particular displaying an in-depth representation of its past that would make anyone involved in the club extremely proud.
With the Newcastle Jets men and women about to kick-off this week and in six weeks time respectfully, the community is longing for all this positive energy to flow through their seasons with equal results. The upcoming World Cup in both men's and women's football as well as rugby league, along with the many other international sports tournaments featuring Australia over the next 10 years should generate a spike in the levels of engagement in sport either as players, officials or volunteers across the Hunter, contributing to greater community spirit and resilience into the future, carrying on from Australia's great results in Birmingham at the Commonwealth Games this year.
Sport kicking on in 2023!
Richie Williams, Valentine
Good story we have waited for
IT is so wonderful to see our Knights women's team recognised by the mayor and the City of Newcastle for their amazing efforts and first class representation of this town. They are the refreshing sporting news story I imagine most Novocastrians have been waiting to read for too long. Congrats on the Herald for your coverage. The women's game deserves it.
I am disappointed I missed the edition where you covered a statement of congratulations from the Knights CEO or NRL coach, captain and/or male counterparts. Oh yeah...
Lisa Davies, Mayfield West
Digital honeytrap
OUR world is changing drastically around us. It's not like all the changes take away from everything we cherish. It's the way in which the changes are happening. We've been lured into accepting digital technology through entertainment mostly, through the ability to connect potentially with the wider world, through audio-visual at our fingertips. But the end result of all this screen entertainment is economic, social, and potentially political control.
Once Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or smart money replaces all cash, our ability to buy and sell can be controlled by a centralised authority. Centralised administration of smart money will be able to control what we buy, where we buy, the quantity of what we buy, and even if we can buy at all. Artificial intelligence algorithms in real time will be able to block certain public transactions - something that the present system is unable to do while cash is still available and widely accepted.
There's nothing stopping a present or future government from denying someone the ability to buy and sell because of political activism considered dangerous and harmful by the system, like publishing leaked information documenting government crimes (Assange), whistleblowing on government crimes (Manning), or leaking classified information detailing government crimes (Snowden). How about membership of CND? Could this be construed as treasonous behaviour justifying someone's inability to buy and sell until they leave aforementioned organisation with a three-year probation period? Or seeking justice for the victims of the grooming gangs? Or those marching against lockdown restrictions?
Louis Shawcross, Hillsborough
We get nothing
EVEN if we were an extension of Sydney, which we are not, we will get nothing!
The only way Newcastle will get anything is to have true Independents run who have integrity and vision to be successful at a state and federal level. We need independence as a city to go forward.
We have a tram and a city full of apartments with Honeysuckle, a NSW government initiative that saw no parkland, offered just apartments and no overall strategy for the city. Perfect example - the community denoted building that George Keegan (Independent) told me to secure for a maritime museum has been taken back for a wine bar/pub!
I am a Labor/Liberal/Green voter. I am a swinging voter - Labor has been here way too long and Newcastle is taken for granted by federal Labor and ignored by state Liberals!
Jeanne Walls, Newcastle
Immigration not the answer
I CAN provide some specific reasons for falling net reproduction rate (NRR), Geoff Black ('Fertile grounds for immigration', Letters, 5/10). One is urban and now regional overcrowding. Falling NRR, and other behavioural symptoms, are a natural response observed in crowded populations.
Another is the unfair distribution of wealth in the socio-economic situation our lawmakers have created. Young people simply can't afford to have kids. The current world unrest is a response to population numbers and limited resources. Immigration is not the answer. Greater poverty and numbers of homeless would follow a return to immigration.
It is not racist to be blanket anti-immigration. One day ecology over economy will be better understood.
Marvyn Smith, Heddon Greta
What do you expect?
STEVE Barnett (Short Takes, 1/10), I've found myself asking questions like "what do you expect?" more times than I care to count when it comes to people making noise complaints about places they've just moved near.
A teacher I know told me that the school he's at has received complaints from the next door neighbour about "children talking loudly", because it seems that he didn't know that children do that. Worse still, when a cousin of mine was working at the Williamtown RAAF base, they would receive complaints from nearby residents about the sound of the aeroplanes, because it seems that they didn't know that a RAAF base would have aeroplanes, and/or that they would be loud.
I don't think that these complaints are any different to those people who move near Newcastle harbour and complain about the sound of the boats in a working harbour, those who move near entertainment districts and complain about the sound of people, or those who move near live music venues and complain about the sound of live music.
Moving near absolutely any area associated with any such noise, I ask again, what do you expect?
Adz Carter, Newcastle
SHORT TAKES
WE are in a season where hay fever is rife. As a kid way back in primary school I learnt that privet caused a lot of hay fever every spring. Are people aware of this these days? Around the suburbs of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie I have noticed huge white flowering bushes of privet in many front yards and on vacant land. Surely getting rid of or at least controlling this shrub would help the many sufferers of hay fever.
Colin Robinson, Cardiff
IT was very sad and alarming to watch many members of both the Parramatta and Penrith teams struggling to remember the words of our national anthem before the start of Sunday's grand final. Granted, some weren't born in Australia, but many of these will wish to complete their lives here. If people are going to accept the generosity of this great country and make a future here, surely, it is not too much to ask of them to at least mime a few lines. Standing there looking like a dying fish gasping for air is not an impressive sight.
Richie Blanch, Newcastle
WITH petrol prices on the rise it is so comforting to know that the ACCC (government watchdog) is keeping an eye on the situation, threatening to come down hard on those who do not comply. We all definitely feel a lot better with this "reassurance''.
Col Parkins, Wallsend
TORRES Strait Islanders are Australians too, Steve Barnett (Short Takes 5/10). Indigenous Australians, in fact.
Michael Hinchey, New Lambton
I WOULD like to ask Steve Barnett: since May this year has there been any noticeable increase in population, or on the other hand has there been any noticeable decrease in housing in Australia. I have a house so haven't been on the lookout, but it seems Steve has. If the answer is no to those two questions, how is it a problem caused by his mate "Albo"?
Fred McInerney, Karuah
WITH the Ukraine/Russia war escalating, is it time to go full nuclear and send the chief peace negotiator Donald J Trump over to broker a ceasefire deal between Zelensky and Putin? Trump has runs on the board with the Abraham Accords and North Korea, which were both successful peace deals. It's worth a try!
Alan Hamilton, Hamilton East
I READ in Tuesday's paper that Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is proposing a naive peace deal in the Ukraine/Russia war. This shows that you can be extraordinarily good in your own narrow field and be pretty thick outside it. The alternative view is that he can see money in it for himself by compromising democracy to increase his own fortune.
