People expect unadulterated facts, not spin

I am becoming increasing annoyed by the misleading information being spread by our politicians.

Two such matters were in recent articles in the Peninsula News: coal seam gas and hunting in national parks.

Coal seam gas by any other name does the same amount of damage to us and our environment.

Katrina Hodkinson informed us that there was no need for people on the Peninsula to worry about coal seam gas because there was now an exclusion zone around residential areas. Surely even this statement is an admission of failure in the integrity of this industry.

Bores can go down but they can also go horizontally in any direction.

Fracking often needs to be used, which uses an extraordinary amount of chemicals and water, our most valuable resource.

What do they do with all the polluted water when finished or with the large amounts of salt? What about the chemicals which leach into our drinking water catchments as well as into the air?

Many of the chemicals used are carcinageous and reproductive toxins.

Don't we on the Peninsula receive much of our water from the Hunter River where coal seam gas mining is rife?

Methane gas is a pollutant 20 per cent worse than CO2 and the air from the Hunter region does not just stay in situ; we all breathe it in.

Can the water be potable if water from rivers and bores bursts into flames when a match is struck?

Mr Holstein reassures us that hunters will not be in our national parks so we will all be safe. He is obviously unaware that the many bushwalkers on the Peninsula do venture further afield, enjoying walks in other parks throughout the state.

Parks nearer to Sydney are probably exempt because they are tourist attracting and we do not want a nasty international incident.

National parks in NSW have become a farce.

Staff cuts mean that more and more work is done by fewer and fewer people.

We must all be aware of the adrenalin rush which must excite people when on the hunt.

Will these now highly qualified shooters be capable of considering the vegetation they are crashing through?

Of the fear they will engender in our native animals?

Of the weeds they will spread?

What will happen to their spent shells, water bottles and other rubbish?

Will they be able to differentiate between animal and person; after all even a fellow hunter has been killed in the past?

Do we really want to adopt a gun culture like they endure in the USA?

This surely is the aim of some people within our society.

Admittedly, this program is now to be supervised by officers from NPWS but is there any extra money to do this?

There should be no hunting in any national parks.

If we really cared, we would make money available for NPWS staff to do the job efficiently and humanely instead of encouraging blood sports which must surely have a desensitising effect on participants

So politicians of any hue, please remember that people on the Peninsula are not idiots.

They expect the unadulterated facts, not spin.

Email, 22 Nov 2013

Margaret Lund, Woy Woy