Letters, October 4, 2023

Disappointed

AS an outsider looking in, I find it most disappointing that the Summit Sports and Recreation Park board cannot come to a workable agreement with the local town’s football club for use of the new high-class Summit Oval.

As stated in The Courier (September 27) the board accept outsiders to the district – Sturt Football Club uses of the oval during the week for practice sessions – and is looking to Hills Football League Clubs to apply for use on Saturdays at a fee.

I can not envisage a Hills club wanting to sacrifice a home game for use of the Summit facility at a cost during the season.

If no club hires the facility the grounds will be not used on a Saturday.

What a waste.

Members of Mt Barker Football Club committee originally instigated the concept of a new sports oval with the local council nearly 20 years ago and spent many, many hours of behind the scenes work firstly convincing the council it was needed and then working with it to purchase the land and help with initial plans and finances.

Thanks must go to football club committee members Williams, Hughes, Greenslade, Filmer and others for their untiring work to help get the project off the ground.

May I suggest the local council step in and sort this mess out.

Upgrade facilities like fencing, kitchen facilities, bar facilities, decent electronic scoreboard et cetera to the required standards and then allow the Mt Barker Football Club use of the facilities at a reasonable cost.

Give local women, men, boys and girls the privilege of playing sport on the best playing surface in the Hills.

Costs to the council would have been many thousands of dollars toward the AFL Gather round game earlier this year.

May a bit of that generosity flow through to the local football club.

Robin Crompton, Totness

Diversity threat

I THINK most in our community will acknowledge the beauty of Mt Barker Summit Conservation Reserve.

It certainly features a lot in marketing publications and on social media.

However, all this attention is placing the future of this culturally significant and environmentally diverse site under threat due to the huge increase in visitor numbers and the pressure this puts on the flora and fauna.

Let’s not forget that only 20% of the expected development has thus far occurred across the district.

Last week the Mt Barker Council released results of its Community Scorecard revealing that the community clearly wants to see more action around conserving native vegetation, retaining trees and adopting best practice environmental management.

In addition, last week’s Courier (September 27) published two articles highlighting the significant loss of natural forest across our region and the alarmingly high numbers of flora and fauna at risk of extinction, including the western pygmy possum.

Though council, contractors and volunteers have been doing a good job to date, this effort now needs to be ramped up.

The council has a responsibility to provide additional and appropriately trained staff and resources to ensure we do not lose what we so obviously value.

Julie Hockey, Mt Barker

Affordable EVs

I CAN see that Tom Gilbert, Adelaide Hills Toyota, is concerned about the affordability of EVs for people (The Courier, September 13).

Hopefully that means Toyota will be releasing not just a high range SUV EV but something more in the price range of a basic Toyota Corolla.

The savings will be in purchase price and car running and repair costs.

In the meantime, people can buy second hand EV cars from people who were early adopters.

In addition, the Good Car company has been importing secondhand EVs into Australia and organising community bulk buys to help Australians access more affordable EVs.

As someone who has never spent more than $10,000 on a car, I will be buying an EV.

I did the maths on my well loved Mazda 3 (having done 275,000km), fuel costs and repairs over the 10 years I’ve owned it.

I looked at the rebates available for purchasing an EV and I’m going to do it.

Not because I’m a car elite but because there are more price entry options for buying an EV and I want to make a difference for our environment and the people who live in it.

Michelle Harvey, Mylor

Two things

There are some people who think it’s clever to use the catchphrase “If you don’t know, vote No”.

It’s easy to know.

Our First Nations people want two, yes, two things.

They want governments to listen to them, and they want governments to treat them fairly.

Just like everybody.

Rosemary Drabsch, Stirling

Looking back

IN a couple of week’s time we will be able to gauge the Australian voters’ attitudes towards Aboriginal issues in this country.

We reflect somewhat proudly on the referendum in 1967, in which a Liberal Government supported by a Labor Opposition supported voting for the proposition that Aboriginal people should be counted in our censuses, and that the Federal Government ought to be authorised to make laws on their behalf.

This referendum passed with a 90% approval and in a majority of states an unlikely result had the Opposition chosen to oppose the vote for political expediency.

The process which culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart was instigated by the previous Government, so why they now choose to oppose the Yes vote is for others to judge.

Should the Yes vote prevail, we will have another positive result we can look back proudly on over the ages.

Should the No campaigners prevail, they will have the satisfaction of winning what they have turned into a political issue and the responsibility, should they take any, of furthering reconciliation and closing the gap by other means.

Fortunately, in the states and territories, Aboriginal issues are not seen as for and against issues and therein will lie our hopes for progress.

In 1967, Prime Minister Holt and then-Opposition leader Whitlam supported a decision which we still look back on proudly.

How will this referendum be viewed in 50 years time?

Bob Innes, Mt Barker

Inconsistencies

DEAN Clifford claims “inconsistencies”, (The Courier, September 27) between my letters Lion cub fate” (September 20) and “Ban duck hunting” (September 13) and my ethics regarding cats.

He then states, “clearly I am missing something here”.

Yes, Mr Clifford, you certainly are missing something, and if you adequately researched your information before writing, as I do, you would not make such serious errors.

As the founding President of C.A.T.S. Cats Assistance To Sterilise, an organisation that has spent the last 33 years preventing the breeding of nearly 135,000 cats – literally millions of kitten births – I would say it is obvious that I am against breeding felines and having kittens taken from their mothers.

And yes, having seen the horrors of little kittens torn from their families, with their traumatised mother desperately calling for her lost babies, it reinforces to me the necessity of desexing to prevent this suffering.

Taking a baby kitten away from its loving mother and its siblings, confining it in a house and cat run, never to know the love and companionship of its own kind, brings tears to my eyes.

But there will never be a cat-free zone in an open system that sustains cats unless there is something 24/7 to keep the infiltrating cats out. With an estimated 200,000 unowned cats in the populated areas, removal, confinement and killing of cats is counterproductive.

The best to be achieved is to minimise the numbers of cats through a desex and return to home program, which has already shown tangible evidence of significant success, reducing numbers, problems and predation on wildlife.

So, Dean Clifford, where are my inconsistencies?

Christine Pierson, C.A.T.S. Cats Assistance To Sterilise