My family and I recently visited Toowoomba, Queensland while on holiday. Bendigo and Toowoomba are both large regional cities of similar population, located two hours from capital cities.
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However, Toowoomba's shopping and dining experience far surpasses anything Bendigo has to offer. Their Grand Central shopping centre rivals anything offered in metropolitan Melbourne, having recently undergone a $500 million redevelopment that doubled the size of the centre to approx. 90,000m2.
It comprises a three-level mall with 70 fashion stores including Myer, H&M, Country Road, Seed, Sheike, Veronika Maine, Jacqui E, Portmans, Sussan and Sportsgirl and other leading national retailers including Target, Coles, Rebel Sport, The Body Shop, 5x screen Cinema complex, a 550-seat food court and 140 specialty stores.
Bendigo has so much potential to harness. Coupled with the terrific boutique shopping, arts, and dining we already have along View Street, there is an incredible opportunity for the flailing Pall Mall precinct to be redeveloped into a major destination for the region, attracting tourism, boosting the local economy by offering employment and keeping local money in the town and improving the overall appeal and vibrancy of our beautiful city.
Tom Gardiner, Epsom
Cat regulations are 'draconian'
My thanks goes to Barry Nankervis of Bendigo, for his excellent letter in the Bendigo Advertiser on Saturday, June 29, 2024.
I was not aware that the City of Greater Bendigo had introduced this draconian rule. I was taken aback to read the the council is taking another step in it's social engineering of the city, and is now encouraging residents to turn their neighbours in.
We should not be surprised, it's a three-pronged attack on Bendigonians.
Firstly, those who are wilfully ignorant of the difference between a domestic moggy, like the one beside me, and a feral cat can enforce their flawed agenda.
Second, those who are on a bit of a power trip, you know the type, Hi Vis vest and clipboard, can use their little bit of authority.
Thirdly it appears to be a continuation of normalizing in people's minds that they must have permission to do the smallest things in their lives. Like having a pet.
When my wife and I moved away from Bendigo at the beginning of the year, we felt pleased to be leaving the increasing social problems behind.
We didn't imagine that being able to let the cat out without becoming a criminal would become a major issue too.
"Isn't that right?" I asked the cat. He just smiled and purred.
Murray McPhie, Bealiba
Nuclear power is 'costly and risky'
Australia is the driest inhabited continent and in the southeast and southwest of the country, it is even getting drier.
Nuclear power plants require huge amounts of water to stay safely cooled. At Three Mile Island, a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt destroying a reactor.
At Fukushima, the failed power supply disabled cooling systems causing all three reactor cores to melt. Overseas, drought has forced reactors to shut down.
The four inland plants proposed by Peter Dutton would take water from rivers or aquifers. Then there's the radioactive waste.
According to Scientific American, even though the US has had nuclear power since 1958, it has yet to agree on a storage site. About 88,000 tonnes of spent fuel are stranded at 77 sites across 35 states, increasing by about 2000 tonnes each year.
The article concludes, "Even if the US starts today, it will take decades to site, design and build a facility for disposal of its nuclear waste stockpile."
And finally, there's the need for ongoing monitoring to avoid accidents. After Fukushima, the US set up 61 centres just to respond to accidents.
In 2022, half of France's reactors were shut down because ultrasound checks found stress corrosion in their cooling systems.
Australia does not want to import these costly and risky problems. The simplicity and cleanliness of renewables avoid them all.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn
Push to stave off health services mergers
Hiring freezes, reduced elective surgeries and "turn the lights off" directives.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all, Victoria's health system continues to buckle under the stress of budget cuts and mooted mergers.
It's both sad and alarming that things are so tight financially that staff are being urged to flick the light switch on the way out the door to save on the power bill.
But it's understandable given the enormity of the cuts.
Small regional hospitals have been ordered to cut costs by up to 30 per cent.
The government's plans to slash funding, potentially consolidating Victoria's 75 public health services into a dozen services, is frightening to ponder.
The Victorian Healthcare Association (VHA) has declared many regional and small rural health services would face "difficult decisions" as a result of the cuts.
The VHA has stated than unless the Allan Labor Government changes course the cuts will have an immediate flow-on effect to patients, with a loss of services and ballooning waiting lists.
Bad news is mounting. There is growing unrest in regional towns, and rightly so.
Labor can't manage money, can't manage health and regional Victorians are paying the price.
Join our fight here www.handsoffourhospitals.com.au
Emma Kealy MP, Deputy Leader of The Nationals
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