Zoe Askew
Regarding the Voice
NATIONALS leader David Littleproud and his team, including both federal and state members Tim Bull, Danny O’Brien and Darren Chester, have nothing to be proud of with the announcement regarding the Uluru Statement and The Voice to Parliament for First Nations people.
They represent a very small demographic of regional and rural Australia. This very sector of Australia have profited, benefited, and exploited the land that historically was taken under force and deceit from the original inhabitants of the land.
The recent public declaration demonstrates the lack of understanding and vision The Uluru Statement gives to wider Australia.
The Nationals’ lack of vision is a sad and tragic reflection of a bygone era, and a constitution that was formulated when massacres and a White Australia Policy was acceptable practice.
This ‘political stunt’ risks undoing the progress of the reconciliation movement.
Might I suggest those who think The Nationals stance is acceptable, undertake some cultural awareness training, research primary pre and post colonial-historical records, find out how your ancestors got the land you are blessed to live on, investigate the notion of generational trauma, research the impact of the outrageous number of Indigenous deaths in custody, and question why jailing children as young as 10- years-old is acceptable and practiced.
Only after that can the people who condemn a Voice to Parliament, Treaty, Constitutional Recognition, Reform and Reconciliation legitimately enter a conversation about closing gaps and really mean it.
Leanne Flaherty,
Sale
Response to love letter to the Sale Botanic Gardens
IN response to Jonathon Kendall’s (can I call you Jono now that we have started a thing?) ‘A love letter to the Sale Botanic Gardens’ (Gippsland Times, November 8) – why thank you. I’m very flattered, but not surprised.
I am not just your usual park – I’m the outstanding, one-of-a-kind Sale Botanic Gardens.
I have been doing a lot of self-growth for the past 160 years, but the last couple of years have been particularly transformative.
I have always been a standout – from the centuries-old Gippsland Red Gums that pepper my expansive lawns, to the elm forest, with its roots back in the 1880s. Even the sand bunker I kept to remind me of my days as a golf course in the 1950s.
But now, I am truly captivating.
The addition of the Nakunbalook Environmental and Cultural Education Centre and the Lakeside Entertainment and Arts Facility mean I can really capitalise on the nature-based education and outdoor recreational opportunities I’ve always wanted to host.
My Living Collections – with the recent additions of the Garden for Life, Bill Cane Collection and a climate-matched garden, to name a few, mean I’m not only the jewel in Sale’s crown, but the pre-eminent Botanic Garden in all of regional Victoria.
I’ve even flirted with showing my softer side, installing the Care for the Rare Collection last year to highlight my role in plant conservation and care, ensuring future generations have access to the sort of biodiversity everyone enjoys now.
Between the bursting blooms, chittering birdlife and endless loop of pedestrians lapping the lakes, I must say – this time of year certainly looks good on me.
In fact, walking my grounds is scientifically proven to lift dopamine levels, so by all means, spend as much time as you can here – because that’s what I’m here for!
As for the people who work hard taking care of me, the Friends of the Sale Botanic Gardens, along with my friends at council and curator Tony must get all of the credit. Their passion, care, and attention to detail keep me flourishing and looking trim(med).
So no, I don’t blame you for writing me a love letter Jono, but you should know – I’m not a one-person kind of garden, you know?
I have seduced more than my fair share of the population over the years.
Can you name another regional town with a double-lake front botanic gardens with eight living collections, an education centre, an outdoor performance space, an enormous playground, so many trees of significance and native fauna free to roam?
By the way, keep an eye out for my significant others in other towns across the shire. Sure they aren’t officially botanic gardens like me, but they are certainly splendid examples of beautiful spaces to be enjoyed by all.
Sale Botanic Gardens,
Guthridge Parade, Sale
Need to adapt
THE Gippsland Times (8/11/2022) has a letter from Rick Cooper, president of the Howitt Society, calling on the government to implement the 2009 Black Saturday Royal Commission recommendation to conduct fuel-reduction burning on a minimum of five per cent of forest area annually.
Recommending a target of five per cent is a political response to an environmental problem that was opposed in the Gippsland Apiarists Association Inc (GAA) submission to the Royal Commission and has been opposed by the GAA in every submission on land management that we have been involved in since.
Our opposition to a target-based approached was ignored by the Royal Commission.
Every forest type is different, and there is a need for different responses to different forest types. However, it is likely that burning any forest type every 20 years with the present methodology of prescribed burning would be about the worst possible management there could be.
Fire in our local environment is a subject I have researched and written on for more than 40 years, and would confidently say the present burning by the government bodies is nothing remotely like the early cattlemen and other bushies, who usually lit up with single ignitions giving a fire burning in a circle outwards.
The updraught from a fire-burning in circle outwards draws the flames away from the fuel, giving a fire of the lowest intensity under the conditions, and it was usually lit at a time of year when it would go out in the evening.
A circle burning outwards also lets the animals, birds and insects escape.
High points were favoured and a fire-burning down a slope burns with a lower intensity.
In recent years, Indigenous burning practitioners such as Victor Steffensen have given a brilliant understanding of their ancestors management with fire.
Guess what, single-ignitions burning in a circle outwards predominates in Indigenous burning.
Modern prescribed burning often lights up the perimeter of a block, then drops incendiaries into the center from a helicopter or other methods of lighting the interior.
The updraught gives a very intense fire that traps animals, birds, insects, and just about every living thing in the forest.
Other times, prescribed burns have been lit up on a long front in the wrong conditions with severe consequences.
High intensity fires germinate a lot of scrub, as well as a high volatile oil content in the leaves, which burn with an extreme intensity in a drought summer wildfire.
Simply put, a lot of the modern prescribed fuel reduction burns are counterproductive.
Can anyone provide any scientific literature or observations from the bush to indicate that burning any forest type in the order of every 20 years with the present methodology is anything other than an extremely negative influence.
Neil Barraclough, Meerlieu, on behalf of the Gippsland Apiarists Association Inc.
Note of thanks
ON behalf of St Paul’s Chapter, I am pleased to advise that our plant, cake and Devonshire tea event, held on Saturday, October 15, was extremely successful.
To our local community who supported this event, we are ever so grateful.
We are thankful to all those who donated plants, gardening items, cakes, slices, preserves, raffle prizes, and books.
Thank you to the volunteers who worked so tirelessly, and to our special gardening guests Nancy, Sherril, and David, who were an integral part of our garden theme.
Thanks to the generosity of those who supported us, we’ve been able to ‘pass it forward’, with a significant portion of the proceeds going to support a number of local charities helping those in need.
Our next plant sale will be on October 14 2023.
In the meantime, we look forward to welcoming the community to our giant book fair which will run from January 7 to 22 2023.
Donations of good quality new and second-hand books are being accepted now.
The Very Reverend Keren Terpstra,
Dean, St Paul’s Cathedral, Sale
Make a move that counts
STROKE Foundation’s annual physical fundraiser Stride4Stroke has raised more than $320,000 this year.
Every step, every minute of activity, and every dollar raised will make an enormous difference to survivors of stroke and their families.
Around 75 per cent of Stroke Foundation’s income came from donations and bequests.
Preventing and treating stroke should not be the sole responsibility of the family members who have already had to endure so much.
Currently, without their donations, 1335 phone calls to Stroke Foundation’s dedicated phone support service StrokeLine, would have gone unanswered.
We know that without our amazing supporters, even more people would fall through the gaps once they have been discharged from hospital.
Put simply, no one else provides these vital services.
Over 445,000 Australians are living with the impact of stroke.
Together, we can make life better for stroke survivors, their families, and carers.
If you can donate regularly to our work, even a small amount, you will help ease the burden on survivors and their families.
Visit the Stroke Foundation website for more.
Sharon McGowan,
Stroke Foundation
