A letter from the other Bendigo about mining
I am concerned to read today’s ODT article making light of the impact of the potential Bendigo-Ophir Gold Mine project (Opinion 17.2.26).
I currently live in Bendigo Australia. In the late 19th century, this was one of the richest cities in the world thanks to the gold rush.
What is left now is a town of 125,000 residents, and a toxic legacy that the local Dja Dja Wurrung people describe as "upside down country" — it is not safe to plant a vegetable garden in the soils of Bendigo due to erosion, salinity and toxicity from contaminants, the legacy of the gold mines.
The last major gold mine in town closed in 1954.
Living with a live gold mine is more complex. It is just not possible to control toxic dust, noise pollution, air pollution, and water contamination in industrial operations of this scale.
Turning a threatened ecosystem of wetlands and fen marshland into a gold mine is serious breach of environmental stewardship. The site though, offers great potential for replanting and ecological restoration.
[Dr Philip has a PhD in ecosystem management and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham.]
Other views
An excellent article (17.2.26) from Damian Spring regarding the Bendigo Ophir Gold Project .
It puts paid to the purveyors of doom, fact-denying opponents who claim that modern gold mining, with the controls required in New Zealand, will result in catastrophic environmental outcomes and that its effects are worse than goldmining of the past. What absolute rubbish.
Not out of sight or mind
Graham Bell (Letters 5.2.26) says remoteness means few people ever see where a dam has been rehabilitated.
We on the other hand have a clean, green reputation to uphold which our multimillion-dollar tourism industry rely on. Also award-winning vineyards.
For decades all they will see is a giant hole with machines working around the clock.
Not what they signed up for when they come to our much loved Central Otago.
Climate and growth
Hazel Agnew’s letter (4.2.26) was titled: "Why is growth seen as more vital than climate?"
Because growth keeps the world ticking along, and governments in power (for now, anyway).
Climate change is ignored because nobody, not even the top scientists in that discipline, have the foggiest idea what to do about it without bringing civilisation crashing down.
Or does somebody know? If so, please spell it out.
Proper care
Kay Hannan (ODT 20.2.26) makes a critical point re the running of the lambs at the Southern Field Days. People in charge of animals are required to comply with the Animal Welfare Act 1999 which states that animals are "sentient" – experience feeling and sensations — and have the rights to " proper and sufficient care".
It appears that there are many breaches of the Act in play in farming practices that government regulations need to address.
Let’s put animal welfare before human "fun" and profit.
Sometimes the world is a very small place
I was recently called in for an angiogram. I got a call Wednesday morning
and my procedure was done the next day. I have great admiration and appreciation of all staff. Prof Williams and his team were incredibly skilful and professional. I even watched the whole procedure on a computer monitor which resulted in the placements of two stents in my left and right coronary arteries.
The nursing staff were not only professional but caring and interested in me as a person.
I often meet international staff. My last visit to hospital I met a nurse from India who trained in the hospital in which I was born, the Christian Medical College Vellore, (CMC) South India.
In 1951 my father started at CMC as a radiologist. Dad worked with missionaries from all over the world. A multidisciplinary team pioneered the cure treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients. Dad became professor of radiology.
The irony of the story. Sixty-eight years have passed. I am cared for by a nurse from the hospital in which I was born and received treatment from a prof of cardiology.
I believe acts of kindness return in most unexpected ways.
Missed point of Trumpian opinion piece
In response to David Tackney’s somewhat conspiratorial letter (16.2.26), he appears to have missed the point of my original article.
I am not advancing, nor have ever advocated, either a left- or right-wing agenda. I am arguing that the current Trump administration should adhere to the rule of law, uphold good governance, and sustain the rules-based global order that has promoted democracy, human rights, and international co-operation.
My long-standing position as a centrist advocating bi-partisanship and common ground has been consistent across multiple opinion pieces. This is not about one ideology triumphing over another, nor about whose "turn" it is to govern. It is about recognising that national and global challenges are best addressed through collaborative, evidence-based approaches, irrespective of party, or national, allegiance.
The post-war global order was not imposed by one faction. It was shaped by Republicans and Democrats alike, alongside governments worldwide who understood that for the good of human kind, many matters transcend ideology.
I disagree that the world is safer today than under the Biden administration. I also reject the claim that I failed to criticise President Biden. Why would I?
My core argument concerns respect for constitutional process and the rule of law, standards upheld, whatever their policy differences, by Presidents Reagan, Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior, Obama, and yes, Biden.
Indeed, in 2018, without consulting Congress or key allies, Donald Trump withdrew from the functioning multinational agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear programme. The very bunker busting military escalation toward Iran applauded by Mr Tackney may represent the most striking example of a Trumpian self-fulfilling prophecy caused by a lack of respect for bipartisan and multilateral agreement; a solution to a problem his presidency ultimately created.
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