Think about the homeless
Homeless Person’s Week runs from August 7 to 13. There are over 105,000 homeless people in Australia, 44,000 of whom are under the age of 25. Homeless Person’s Week aims to raise awareness for those doing it tough.
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One in five homeless people seeking assistance are being turned away from vital emergency accommodation services. These statistics are alarming and there is a lot of work to be done to fix this. Homeless Person’s Week raises awareness of these figures in the hopes of gaining support for this significant issue.
People often only see homelessness as those sleeping and begging on the streets, but we need to ensure that our invisible homeless people are taken care of. Homelessness is all around us. People who are forced to couch surf, sleep in cars or those who just don’t have a home to return to every night are the invisible homeless. It is often convenient for us to forget or ignore them but these people need our help.
This Homeless Person’s Week I implore everyone to stop and consider not only homeless Australians sleeping rough on the streets, but to think about how we can also help our invisible homeless.
Homelessness is a nationwide issue that affects everyone and only by working together can we tackle this concerning issue.
Fr C. Riley, Youth Off The Streets
Tolls tax us all
Roads Minister Melinda Pavey, recently stated during a visit that a rebuilt F6 highway will definitely come with a toll – she said motorists do not mind paying up as long as they save time.
Melinda is wrong on both counts.
Irrespective of time saved motorists do not like paying tolls for the sole purpose of driving up toll company profits for fat cat investors.
I do not care how much spin she puts on it, a toll road is a sell-out for every man, woman and child living on the South Coast.
The right way to go is to actually do something for the region by spending billions of dollars on an electrified eight car rail system from Sydney to Bomaderry.
It will probably turn out cheaper than motorists spending a couple of billion dollars each year for the next 50 years to some tollroad giant like Transurban.
J. Macleod, Berry
Keep prawn disease at bay
I would like to encourage communities to play a role to ensure NSW remains free of White Spot.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries is working to minimise the spread of White Spot, which was detected in prawns in South East Queensland in December.
White Spot is a highly contagious viral disease of crustaceans, primarily prawns, but also crabs, lobsters and freshwater crayfish as well as marine worms.
There are three things communities should know: NSW seafood remains safe to consume; do not use prawns intended for human consumption as bait in any NSW waters; obey the current ban on importation from the affected area in Queensland of prawns, nippers, yabbies and other crustaceans or marine worms to prevent White Spot disease being introduced into NSW.
So far there has been no evidence of White Spot in NSW and we are doing everything possible to keep it that way, but we need the community’s help. DPI has instigated a surveillance program and sampled prawns from the Queensland border to the Hawkesbury and all prawn farms in NSW.
We have a new Biosecurity Act in place where all members of the community have a general biosecurity duty to consider how actions could have a negative impact on another person, business, animal or the environment.
We need everyone to play a role to ensure White Spot does not enter our state.