So, what’s the plan?
THE Rethink the Link campaign worked really well.
There was only one major flaw—they didn’t have a viable transport solution instead of the Roe 8/9 project.
Their campaign was emotive not factual:
“Save our wetlands and our animals”. Building a bridge over the area and closing Hope Road would have done this. Instead, the current plans force rat runs all through the area, and increased traffic means increased road kill and emissions.
Instead of using reserved land to build the link, let’s destroy Cockburn Sound instead. Why on earth would they wish to destroy a large marine ecosystem and native bushland to build an outer harbour and port area, especially as the current port in Fremantle is at 50 per cent capacity.
“Don’t build Roe 8 we don’t need more roads”. So instead let’s just duplicate all the roads around the wetlands and build the biggest roundabout on Leach/Stirling Highway, destroying homes. While not removing any of the trucks/traffic congestion from Leach highway. For trucks/road trains to safely go around, this roundabout will have be massive. Wouldn’t a tunnel beneath the area be so much better?
It would remove the trucks off the highway, and decrease traffic and we wouldn’t need a roundabout.
But, hey, let’s just Rethink the Link because this sounds better than a federally-funded, planned, approved, safe and viable transport infrastructure that the state didn’t have to pay for. It would have created jobs and future revenue, and that included millions of dollars for revegetation of plant species actually endemic to the areas affected.
If the Rethink the Link campaign results in an outer harbour it will end up being one of the most environmentally damaging campaigns ever run.
And that doesn’t even begin to mention the billions of dollars of WA taxpayers money paying for the bandaid ‘rethink’ traffic solutions.
Lorna Hardy
Bibra Lake

Paradise lost
WE are two 80-somethings who for many years absolutely loved to go for a swim at Port Beach.
We would meet many lovely people who had the same like-minded love of the beach and a swim.
At our beach now we have large rocks and stones making it extremely difficult to get into the water.
Please Fremantle council do something to get rid of this danger.
Jean Lucas
Ten Seldam Circle, Winthrop

Questions…
WHY, What, Who?
Why does the City of Melville mayor, CEO, some councillors and a few City of Melville employees support a wave park?
What gives this council the right to take away precious riverfront land from the broader population?
Who is benefiting? Not the broader Perth population from babies to the elderly.
Questions to be answered.
Ros Armstrong
Canning Bridge

A can of worms
CONGRATULATIONS to Glenn Arendts (“Hopelessly Naive”, Thinking Allowed, Herald, February 3, 2018) for his cogent and erudite comments on the banning of Australia day.
With neo-Nazis now making  appearances at various AD events around Australia, it appears that the wacko green/left have brought the wacko right wing out of the woodwork.
Neither of these groups are going to improve the problems besetting the Aboriginal population, which really is entirely up to indigenous people themselves.
Whilst old wrongs should not be forgotten, the perpetuation of black-armband histories is less than useful to any form of advancement in the fields of health, education and welfare for both urban and bush Aboriginals.
Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettit, in his fervour to be loved by minorities, has opened a can of worms that has caused division where none existed before.
Geoff Dunstone
Carrington St, Palmyra

Thinking Aloof
MELVILLE Councillor Matt Woodall’s Thinking Allowed (”Not Connecting with People” (Herald, March 3, 2018) and his Liberal party fellow traveller Cr Nicole Robins have complained in the media and at Liberal party meetings that the state government has “turned a blind eye to the concerns of Melville residents” in planning the Murdoch Interchange.
Since when can they claim to represent the residents of Melville?
For the past 18 months these two have consistently turned a deaf ear to the outcry from ratepayers about the appalling management at the city which has promoted the wave park at Alfred Cove, resulting in petitions to the legislative council, a state government inquiry and now litigation in the Supreme Court.
They turned their own blind eyes to the environmental risks, the lack of planning, lack of community consultation, and the financial double-speak of the wave park project.
They have overlooked the resounding thumping that the mayor’s pro-wave park bloc (of which they are members) received at the polls in October last year.
Despite overwhelming evidence of the high risk of spending $9.4 million of ratepayer funds to clear the Tompkins Park site for the wave park, they ignored the pleas of ratepayers last month to pause and reflect.
Instead they both voted with the cabal to continue the waste of ratepayer money. It would seem that they are not representing Melville ratepayers, but rather their own personal agendas in the wider political arena.
And now they complain that the state government is not listening. Tsk tsk!
David Maynier
Burke Drive, Attadale

Poignant note
UPON returning to my vehicle parked in the car park of the Gateways Shopping Centre in Cockburn recently, I noted a message left under my window screen wiper.
The writer had observed from decals displayed that I was a Vietnam Veteran and with which unit I had served.
His brief and sincere note thanked me for my service to our country.
This simple expression of gratitude was worth more to me than all the lofty, noble and empty rhetoric of our politicians and flag-pole patriots spoken in the theatre of parliament and regurgitated on Anzac Day that lauds our fallen and does little, if anything, to ameliorate the circumstances of those suffering from the after effects of their service; put together.
To the best of my recollections, this was the first time since returning from active service that I have been thanked in such an unsolicited and heartfelt manner.
I was deeply moved by it.
This gesture ranks alongside that of my mayor who on his own initiative had placed an Anzac poppy on my street sign.
My thanks to him also.
I understand that “JA” has his sights set on a career in aviation and has already made his mark in that field.
With his like among our youth, the history, heritage and future of our great nation is in safe hands.
Thank you JA and my best wishes for your future endeavours.
Lest we forget.
Kevin Bovill
Noble Way, Success

Edgar Allen Woe
WHO was the bright spark who decided ravens should be protected?
They are a bloody pain in the proverbial.
They breed like rabbits, steal eggs and chicks from other bird nests.
They are a cruel bird: they see a magpie with a morsel to eat and they swoop down and land on top of maggies virtually crippling them.
I counted 15 of them in a gum tree on the corner of the street.
They are “ark ark arking“ at 4:30 in the morning.
What a mournful bloody sound.
Surely local councils have permission to cull a few off before we are overrun with them and have no other birds left.
Rosanna Bunting
Phoenix Road, Hamilton Hill