MANY years ago I watched the original version of the film 1984 by George Orwell.
I found it quite disturbing, people being watched by an entity called Big Brother, pitting neighbour against neighbour. Well I thought “It’s only fiction”.
Forty years on and we are living the nightmare, courtesy of Prime Minister John Howard and his cohorts, putting fear into the population with the threat of terrorism.
Until this government got into bed with the US and Britain and went to war against Iraq, where thousands of innocent people die every day, we had no need for such Draconian laws.
And to Philip Ruddock, stop wearing your amnesty badge, you bring nothing but shame to it.
Valerie Butler
Cockatoo
Where eagles dare
OVER the last 15 years, my wife and I set about trying to restore an Avenue of Honour at Lysterfield.
It represents history and heritage for both the City of Knox and the Shire of Yarra Ranges.
At the same time a small colony of eagles was establishing itself in the Lysterfield Hills, just nearby, to our project.
I would look up and see the eagles soaring in the sky, and we thought “that’s what this country is all about… freedom… to do what you have been taught, and do it well”. That’s what we fought for.
The eagles have their nest in the catchment area of the Lysterfield Dam, which comes under Parks Victoria.
The Commonwealth Games has part of its cycling series here.
The eagles hurt nobody, or so I thought, until the other day when one of them was shot, under instructions. Why? Because they were attacking young wallabies in a sanctuary further down the road. The eagles can’t read, they are doing what they have done for many hundreds of years, providing food for themselves, and their young.
They don’t know about sanctuaries, and such, furthermore man has exterminated most of the rabbits, so what do you expect. To us both the shooting of this magnificent bird was sacrilege to say the least, and entirely unnecessary.
These eagles have just as much right to be here, along with our other wildlife, platypus, koalas etc.
If we have to protect our wallabies, let’s do it properly, not start shooting at everything that doesn’t fit.
Why not try technology.
Edmund IngouvilleWilliams
Co ordinator Avenue of Honour
Lysterfield
LEAVE poor Jenny Moxham alone! Perhaps John Nieman’s old woman in the wheelchair refused to leave her New Orleans home because no one would rescue her beloved cat.
Jane Scrivenor
Belgrave
