Roel rocks

CONGRATULATIONS to whoever decided to give Roel Loopers space for comment in the Herald. 

His articles are always cogent and to the point and his latest one struck several chords with me. 

Looking at the Kings Square development, it is devoid of character and looms over the poor old church like some Japanese monster. 

In Perth, Yagan Square made me wonder if the people that designed it hate trees, grass and flowers; it is just a souless concrete space with the concomitant garbage that attend public spaces in Perth and Fremantle.

There is little to attract visitors the Freo; the markets ditched the bar years ago, a space that provided an outlet for local musos. 

The Dome is gone, HJ’s building provides sleeping quarters for the homeless, there is no central post office or even a decent size supermarket in the town.

I could go on but Mr Loopers encapsulated thing far better than myself, If the Port goes that will be the end of Freo as we know it, fortunately I probably will not be there to witness it.

Geoff Dunstone
Palmyra

The Voice’s time has come 

IN 2025 I will be 79 years of age. 

By then, those 79 years will be a third of the 237 years since the arrival of Captain Arthur Phillip in Sydney Cove in 1788. 

It seems to me that I’ve been around for about 15 minutes, yet it represents 33.3 per cent of the time since that occupation. 

That makes it 15 minutes since Phillip arrived, using the same reckoning!

But an Aboriginal man of 79 years has lived for only 0.1 per cent of the 60,000 years his people have been in Australia. 

So, my 79 years is 33.3 per cent of white occupation of Australia, whereas his lifetime is 0.1 per cent of Indigenous presence.

That stark contrast is why Australian Indigenous folk are entitled to respect, which can be confirmed by constitutional recognition in “modern” Australia by the “Voice”. 

Thereafter, if national law proposals have an impact on Aboriginal people their community will have the chance to have a yarn with those in power and express approval, or otherwise, of those ideas. 

This will help develop programs to close the gap, something this nation is clearly failing to achieve.  

In next year’s referendum we won’t be choosing between a “Voice” or “closing the gap”. The Voice is the road to the latter. 

The coming referendum won’t give the Aboriginal community the right to veto laws, nor give them any powers that might entitle critics to misrepresent the “Voice” as a third House of Parliament. 

Nor will indigenous folk become able to trouble recent arrivals, such as myself, even though the first Australian in my family arrived as a Marine private with Captain Phillip. 

The Uluṟu Statement is a simple, and gracious, request for recognition. Please smile back, and support the “Voice”. 

Ron Connors
Beaconsfield

Not a cruisy walk into Freo

FREMANTLE traders should be upset with the closure of the railway bridge near Captain Munchies now the cruise ships has started visiting again.

Passengers face an uninviting walk to the railway station before they can get to the city centre. 

Not good Freo council or the railways!

Steve Rogers
North Fremantle