Where was plan before explosion?

Urban development is a touchy subject. People come to live in Warragul and Drouin because they love the quiet roads, slower pace and open spaces, yet they don’t realise that their very relocation and building of a new home in this land is taking away that aesthetic; trees, arable land and creating an urban sprawl, that the locals have witnessed for many years, but more rapidly in the last six to seven years.

Strangely, we have council seeking feedback on what should residential development look like, read the small print ... to define future residential development.

Great to have a plan, I agree, but why was there not a plan and design guidelines before this explosion took place? Already now we have little boxes on the hillside, crowded roads, higher crime rate all because of growth.

I attended the online meeting on October 14 and heard from likeminded individuals (only four of us) and an important question was asked about how the process would work for these guidelines.

I was shocked by the long-winded answer from a council representative: simply it would take about two years for council to develop these guidelines and that was not guaranteed that would be accepted by council.

What sort of reassurance is that about making guidelines for the future if it needs two years to be finalised and applied?

In the meantime I am sure deals are going ahead at a rapid rate to rip up more land. Who knows? The future guidelines need to include sustainable houses and increase biodiversity if we want our community to live and breathe.

Read David Attenborough’s book, ‘A Life on Our Planet My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future” if council wants to make a sustainable life for the generations ahead. I care, do you?

Lisa Benn, Drouin West

Put nature first

David Attenborough is revered as a naturalist, and a man who has been able to make the world of natural living things come to life in our own houses through the magic of television, for generations to see.

We have been thrilled, held in awe by the lives of creatures from the coasts, deserts, tropics and plains of every continent. Under the ocean, in the air, under the ground and on it.

Too bad we don’t notice, and fight for, the species of precious flora and fauna on our own doorstep.

Every living thing in every local wetland in this area is being obliterated by development. Thousands, probably millions of cubic metres of soil are moved and dumped. Water is channelled, pumped underground, remade, artificial.

Every living thing is destroyed, plantings of a limited species, a few survivor species eventually restoring themselves. The rest are gone from our area. The destruction then carries on right up the food chain to all the birds and animals that live around wetlands.

What would David Attenborough say? He would be appalled.

Put nature at the heart of development planning. Once we say the environment is the most important thing it all changes.

What can you do? Join an environmental group or start one., lobby for laws that protect the environment, find out what is happening locally and have an opinion.

Do something as it’s never too late.

What do our local representatives think of the environment? Ask them what action they will take to gain our vote.

After all it’s just a numbers game to some people.

Jeannie Haughton, Drouin

Outer Melbourne suburb

Recently I was mulling over various ideas as they passed through my mind and I thought about the meaning of the word, government.

If you break it into two parts and transpose the two parts, one can create “meant to govern". The trouble is, we have allowed local government to become ineffective .

In the 90s, Victoria had 178 local councils and Premier Jeffrey Kennett decided we were over governed and reduced the number by increasing the size of each LGA by amalgamating several.

Unfortunately, instead of massive efficiencies, several layers of bureaucracy have been added over the years since amalgamation.

Before councils were reduced in number, each one was run by a town clerk, and in some cases the senior engineer had equal status.

Now we have corporate governance with each council run by a chief executive officer.

Unfortunately, as each lot of elected councillors have come and gone, the CEO's position has become stronger, and in my opinion, councillors defer to the CEO too much.

Another layer to our disadvantage, is the State Government departments. It is they who decided that this area should be a “peri urban" area. Using the term peri urban is only a flash way of concealing the fact that it means “outer suburb of Melbourne".

So you see, whilst the developers are doing very well, we wouldn't have thousands of houses here if it wasn't for the public servants in the Melbourne office and the regional planning office.

Ian Honey, Warragul

Media destroyed Trump

In your vox pop question (Gaz 19/10) It was suggested that ‘a growing sentiment of mistrust for news organisations and journalists’ was ‘perhaps brought on by an era of Trumpism and “fake news” rhetoric’.

Anybody following American politics would know that the main stream media in America set out to destroy Donald Trump from the day he was elected.

They kept the Russian collusion hoax going for three years without a scrap of evidence in an attempt to delegitimise the election result. They buried his achievements and highlighted his mistakes.

They buried the Hunter Biden laptop story that would most likely have changed the election result.

After the election, the media chastised anyone who questioned the election result despite the recent independent audit of Arizona’s ballot papers finding 50,000 illegitimate ballots, sparking further audits in other states.

Trump didn’t destroy the credibility of the mainstream media; he provided the catalyst for them to destroy themselves.

Marc Schellekens, Drouin

Stand up for the bush

If the Nationals did not stand up for the bush, they might as well pack their bag and go home. The bush are the ones that produce most of our exports and are essential to our economy so to say that some fictional target is more important than our export industries is pie in the sky.

At the moment the government is being held to ransom by city people who have no idea how the economy works and what is essential so I for one do not want them deciding what is best for the country. If they care about the country, they will listen to those who know what they are talking about and stop insisting on what is irrelevant.

Even if we get to zero emissions by 2050, it will make no difference to the overall scheme of things. Globally, we are not going to change anything until both China and India get serious about reducing their emissions. Reducing 1.3 degrees to zero will change northing when both China and India are spewing out up to 30 per cent of the emissions that are affecting global warming and are adding to their total of coal fired power stations.

I notice the evangelical climate change warriors never mention those facts.

Roger Marks, Drouin

Saving lives

It is great news that we are making headway with the battle against the COVID-19 virus and the reduction of restrictions, especially between movement between metropolitan and regions and the return of all children to school full time.

There will be concerns raised about the fact that there will be restrictions still on those who are unvaccinated.

The reason why these restrictions are still in place can be best seen by the fact that of all the people in intensive care and on ventilators with COVID related symptoms, 93 per cent of them are not fully vaccinated.

The government restrictions will save lives, will help to ensure that the unvaccinated are less likely to end up in hospital, and the critical care beds are able to be used for other patients who are currently in general wards.

Many people, despite being in pain, currently can't get elective surgery because of the shortage of beds in the general wards. With more and more people getting vaccinated, pressure is reduced on our health system and the staff who have to work in it.

They have worked hard saving lives non-stop for nearly two years. People who willingly choose not to get vaccinated need to recognise that they are also willingly choosing to be restricted in what they can do.

Greg Tuck, Warragul