Letter of the Week
Have strong opinions, write in an engaging way? You could win our Letter of the Week, and with it a book from our friends and sponsors, the publishers HarperCollins. This month’s book prize is In a Great Southern Land by Mary-Anne O’Connor. It’s 1851 in the new colonies and Eve Richards and Kieran Clancy face the decision of a lifetime: whether or not, when it comes to love, will blood remain thicker than water.
ON Monday, Mayor Tom Tate dismissed Cr Daphne McDonald’s request for more off-leash dog beaches to relieve the pressure of popularity on designated areas at Palm Beach, Tallebudgera and The Spit. He said: “We’ll stick with the three we have, and the rest of the beach will be for humans.”
On Wednesday, he was spruiking the first ever bar on the beach at Burleigh Heads, which the council has approved and funded as a feature of Bleach Festival.
He was then asked about the possibility of a permanent beach bar. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Surfers Paradise in front of the new Jewel development, or Broadbeach in front of Kurrawa boardwalk, will be next. TORY JONES, BROADBEACH THE most disappointing feature of the Israel Folau affair has been the silence of the churches.
It took a Titan of the sporting world, the great Margaret Court – herself a committed Christian – to come to his defence. Who else?
Doubtless the Catholic hierachy, cowed by recent scandals, felt it better to lie low. But for them, as for the others, that is no excuse.
Words like “diversity” are pulled out at will to suit any cause.
It would help if the mandarins of Rugby Australia, desperate to protect their precious code, began applying them to Israel Folau. PC WILSON, MIAMI WITH reference to a letter written by Barbara Wiltshire and published in Thursday’s Bulletin.
It was obviously written by someone who will not be affected in any way by the potential development of Carey Park.
But I must take issue with the suggestion that us small group of very elderly residents should be overlooked. What a terrible thing to say. I am one of those elderly residents, I live opposite Carey Park and like many others chose this site because it was opposite a public park and not open for sale or to be given away under a long-term lease to foreign owned business.
The suggestion that any developer should be able to pick and choose public land is outrageous.
Perhaps it’s time for the Premier to stop distancing herself from Tom and Kate’s grand plan and come clean.
Southport is not desperate for a casino or more high-rise hotels, we have a casino 10 minutes to the south that does not run to capacity.
Barbara, not everyone wants their children and grand children working in a casino or hotel. DAVE GILMOUR, SOUTHPORT ANOTHER festive weekend and the beer swilling yobbos set up their marquees along Tally Creek drinking until their bladders are full then clamber down the rocks and urinate in full sight of anyone enjoying the creek.
When informed it’s not a toilet you are met with vile abuse, threatened with violence and sniggered at until you’re out of sight. Argh, today’s society. WAYNE SOFTLEY, BURLEIGH THE word ‘green’ has many uses and a number of forms, as in ‘greenie’.
Frequently, it’s used in an environmental context to indicate care and protection of the environment.
A new phrase included the word ‘green’ in the front-page headline of Thursday’s Bulletin – ‘Green Nomads’. This was a play on the popular phrase ‘grey nomads’.
So who are ‘green’ nomads in the story? Nature-loving older drivers, perhaps? Certainly not.
‘Green nomads’, it seems, is a new phrase coined by members of the police force to refer to older drivers who are being used by drug syndicates to run their illicit substances to the Gold Coast.
What’s ‘green’ about this? Few drugs are green unless it’s a fresh crop of cannabis plants. The case quoted in the paper was of a 67year-old man who was arrested with 12kg of ice and subsequently linked to a cache of firearms. Nothing ‘green’ there.
Sadly, this seems to be yet another case where the word green has been given negative connotations. It wouldn’t be hard to make the assumption that some ‘greenies’ – a term that has unfairly gained a derogatory meaning when referring to environmentalists – are also drug-running, senior motorists.
Let’s not confuse issues by using ambiguous language when referring to drugs. Alternative phrases like ‘motorist mules’ or ‘dopehead drivers’ might omit the catchy term ‘nomad’ but at least it also avoids the much-abused word ‘green’. YVETTE DEMPSEY, CARRARA WHAT a narrow-minded view Barbara Wiltshire (GCB, 18/4) expressed regarding Carey Park and surrounding areas being used by international proponents to build the global tourism hub there.
The promised job creation can be obtained wherever the GTH is built, without losing our open public parkland for ever.
Stating hotel guests should have the benefit of looking at our beautiful Broadwater while blocking the view from locals is just plain wrong.
The group of mainly elderly protesters she spoke of are, in their wisdom, looking out for the next generation. When public open parkland is gone it is gone for ever. PAULA LIPTON