The Big Screen
IT’S a quieter week at the box office, with only two releases vying for audience attention. Black Bag is Steven Soderbergh’s latest film – a spy thriller starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as a married couple who work for…
Category Opinion
Letter to the Editor: Tourists not welcome
DEAR News Of The Area, ON my recent holiday to Port Stephens I could help but notice the parking meters at Nelson Bay have spread like a virus, easterly. Seems like everywhere I went there were parking meters for tourists,…
Letter to the Editor: Notable backflips from the major parties
DEAR News Of The Area, BOTH major political parties make great promises during the build-up to an election. But in reality many are reversed or altered after winning office. Here are five notable backflips from each party: ALP: 1. $275…
Letter to the Editor: The lowest blow yet
DEAR News Of The Area, WHERE were you on Friday, 28 February 2025… the day the music almost died in Port Stephens and the Myall Coast. On that afternoon, Federal Minister Chris Bowen and his sidekick Meryl Swanson washed their…
Letter to the Editor: Dutton’s energy policy backflips
DEAR News Of The Area, VOTERS cannot trust Dutton on energy policy. While the Coalition, in its final act of government in 2022, supported the development of Australia’s offshore wind industry by introducing enabling legislation, Dutton now seeks to play…
Letter to the Editor: Trees worth far more than stored carbon
DEAR News Of The Area, I RESPOND to the letter by Steve Dobbyns: ‘The potential carbon storage of trees’. His argument in favour of using forests full of young thin trees in order to store more carbon is flawed on…
Letter to the Editor: From forestry to restoration
DEAR News Of The Area, I WOULD like to respond to the article in NOTA on 21/2/25 titled “Conservationists dispute job loss claims”. The article related to the number of people currently employed in the local timber industry and its…
Letter to the Editor: Fear campaigns work
DEAR News Of The Area, THE NSW National (Mining) Party has been making a lot of noise lately about “youth crime”. In their quest for relevance they have chosen a campaign against a group that we all have a legitimate…
Letter to the Editor: Fukushima’s damaged reactors
DEAR News Of The Area, It is sobering to learn that, fourteen years after the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, the three destroyed nuclear reactors still have not been ‘cleaned up’. On 11 March 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake shook…
The Write Direction: Protecting political promises
I HAVE only been out of the country a few short weeks, but I have returned to a list of political promises being flung about before the upcoming federal election, to be held before 17 May. Every major issue that…