More than 100,000 rural and regional seniors have successfully signed up for the NSW Government’s new $250 Regional Seniors Travel Card since applications opened on 29 January.
Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole said eligible seniors would soon receive their cards, easing the burden of travel costs and injecting more than $25 million into regional economies.
“This is the first time we are rolling out a program like this. This card puts $250 in the pocket of regional seniors, which can mean an extra few trips to visit grandkids living in other parts of the state, the ease of staying connected locally or the ability to volunteer in local community groups,” Mr Toole said.
Mr Toole said thousands of rural and regional seniors were applying for the card each day, with the eligibility requirements widened to include pension-aged veterans collecting a Service Pension or recipients of a War Widow Pension through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“We’ve heard the feedback from the community, which is why we are now including more seniors in the program. Veterans who are now eligible will be able to apply in the coming months, once we have made the necessary updates to our application system,” Mr Toole said.
Mr Toole said the rollout of the card followed a pilot in Coffs Harbour, where about 80 seniors have been trialling the pre-loaded Visa card.
“Our Coffs Harbour pilot provided valuable feedback and we responded by adding more information to the website and making minor changes to the application form,” Mr Toole said.
“These seniors also told us how easy the card is to use, with participants predominately purchasing fuel, followed by taxi rides, but can also be used to purchase pre-booked TrainLink services.”
Eligible seniors have until 30 November to apply for a card in 2020 and 12 months to use their card from activation. Seniors can apply online at service.nsw.gov.au, in person at a Service NSW Service Centre or over the phone on 13 77 88.
Author: admin
Teens nabbed for break and enter in proactive Lake Macquarie operation
Two teens have been charged after an alleged break and enter at a school in the Lake Macquarie region early today.
Officers attached to Lake Macquarie Police District have been investigating a number of property offences in the Belmont area, including an increase in break and enters.
Police have been proactively responding to this increase with the Lake Macquarie Target Action Group performing Precision Policing in the area.
At 1.30am (Monday 17 February 2020), police stopped two young males walking along the Pacific Highway in Belmont.
Upon searching the two teens, aged 13 and 14, officers allegedly located 11 tablet computers, chargers, a computer modem, food and cleaning materials, as well as house breaking implements and face coverings.
A knife was also seized from one teen before they were taken to Belmont Police Station.
Following inquiries, police were told that a security system was activated at 1am at a school nearby, with entry forced into a computer room.
The 14-year-old was charged with aggravated break, enter and steal in company, possess house breaking implements and custody of a knife in public place.
The 13-year-old was charged with aggravated break, enter and steal in company and possess house breaking implements.
Both were refused bail to appear at a children’s court today (Monday 17 February 2020).
Pedestrian dies after being hit by car – Hunter Region
A woman has died after being hit by a vehicle in the Hunter Region last night.
Just before 11pm, a 47-year-old woman was walking across Main Road in Heddon Greta, near Kurri Kurri, when she was hit by a car travelling south.
Officers from Hunter Valley Police District attended and found the woman with serious head injuries.
She was treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics on scene, but later died.
The female driver, aged 27, stopped to render assistance. She was conveyed to Maitland Hospital for mandatory blood and urine testing.
Investigations continue
Four teens charged following investigation into break-ins – Maitland
Four teens have been charged following an investigation into a number of break-ins in the Maitland area.
Officers from Port Stephens-Hunter Police District commenced an investigation after a number of business at a Rutherford shopping centre and a Maitland motel were broken into during January and early February.
About 10.30am today (Friday 14 February 2020), police attended the shopping centre after a 13-year-old boy was detained by security. Officers arrested the teen and he was taken to Maitland Police Station.
Following inquiries, investigators arrested two girls, aged 14, at a Rutherford home about 11am. Both were taken to Maitland Police Station.
About 1.40pm, a 13-year-old boy, accompanied by his mother, attended Maitland Police Station where he was arrested.
One boy was charged with two counts of enter inclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse, enter vehicle or boat without consent of owner/occupier, larceny, two counts of aggravated break and enter dwelling in company – steal, common assault, and an outstanding warrant was executed.
The other was charged with two counts of aggravated break and enter dwelling in company – steal, enter inclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse, and breach of bail.
Both were refused bail to appear at a children’s court tomorrow (Saturday 15 February 2020.
One girl was charged with six counts of enter inclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse, Enter vehicle or boat without consent of owner/occupier, and larceny.
She appeared at a children’s court today and was formally refused bail to appear on Friday 28 February 2020.
The other was charged with two counts of enter inclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse, enter vehicle or boat without consent of owner/occupier, larceny, and dishonestly obtain property by deception.
She was granted conditional bail to appear at a children’s court on Friday 27 March 2020.
Adam Bandt opens the National Climate Emergency Summit
I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and elders past, present and emerging. I want to acknowledge that this is stolen land, that sovereignty was never ceded and that it’s time for treaties with our First Nations communities. Around the world, First Nations communities are at the front line of climate impacts and crucial to solving the climate emergency.
And I want to say welcome to those of you who are visiting my electorate of Melbourne.
I also want to acknowledge and thank our emergency services and community volunteers who have been working so hard to protect us in the past months as we faced the unprecedented coal-fuelled bushfire crisis.
And finally can I thank all of you.
If our global civilization can survive the environmental and climate emergency, the history books will record that on this day and in this place you came together to find a pathway to a safe climate.
And you will all be considered heroes.
I have just spent the last two weeks in Parliament.
It is hard to describe the level of continued denial and spin that is constantly on display in Canberra.
We have had people whose houses burned over the summer come to Canberra with what was left of their homes in wheelbarrows and buckets.
They have spoken powerfully and eloquently about the impacts of the climate emergency on their lives.
I was humbled to meet with some of them.
But for most of the Parliament it is like they were invisible.
It is like being in the twilight zone.
From Barnaby and his band of Nationals wanting to build coal fired power stations, to the Prime Minister’s contortions over climate and the bushfire crisis and the shameless deceptions as though everything is under control while their inaction is driving us to a 3 to 4-degree-warmer world that will completely overrule our economy and society.
And unfortunately the Labor opposition persistently defends the continued role of coal in our economy both for energy and export and they have dropped their 2030 targets.
So it is good to be here among friends who accept the truth of the crisis and want, as Greta Thunberg says, to “listen to the scientists” and act accordingly.
As you may know last week I also became leader of the Australian Greens.
In my first media conference after becoming Greens Leader, I said we should refuse a future where children need to wear gas masks because their cities are full of smoke.
I also spoke about people I meet and talk to who are angry and anxious and desperately looking for leadership.
So now is the time to tell it like it is. Now is the time to face up to the reality of the powers we face if we are to save the planet and save the future.
We’re in a climate emergency because of politicians and power brokers trying to preserve a status quo that sees the coal, oil and gas barons get rich, and then funnel off a tiny bit of that wealth to political parties when they’re in power then give those politicians cushy jobs in their organisations when they leave office.
This is what has taken us past 1 degree of global warming, which has given us towering infernos, flooding, record heat waves, toxic air pollution and so much more.
The last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the air was at least 2.6 million years, before humans existed.
Back then, temperatures were more than 3C warmer, there were trees in Antarctica, and sea levels were 25 metres higher.
If we keep polluting at our current rate, we could be at 1,000 ppm by the end of the century. Last time that happened, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Like them, we face an existential crisis brought on by a rapid shift in the climate system.
The warming-track of up to 4 degrees we are currently on is a world full of death, destruction and hopelessness.
It will be a world that may be capable of supporting only a billion people, perhaps less.
This is horrible to contemplate but it is real.
Even if there was a 1% chance of this occurring, the potential outcome is so bad we should mobilise the entire machinery of government and society towards avoiding this possibility.
When the Allies won World War 2 it wasn’t just because the US and other governments put their resources into winning it.
The war was won because the government, industry and communities worked together to meet an unprecedented threat. In 1942 America a spark plug factory started producing machine guns. A merry-go-round factory made gun mounts, a pinball machine plant made armor-piercing shells and a toy company started making compasses.
By working together, the government, industry and the American people met and triumphed over an existential, unprecedented threat.
Now we don’t need to militarise, we need to decarbonise, but fast forward 80 years to today and nothing like that is happening in Australia. We have some parts of industry, including people in this room who are starting to transform our energy sector. And the economics are in your favour, that we know. But we also have other parts of industry trying desperately to hold back this tide–and we have a government that is joining them.
We had the beginnings of something in the 2010 shared power government, where Greens, Labor and Independents teamed up to implement the Clean Energy Package, but later we became the first nation ever to rescind a carbon price.
I have an unwavering belief that nothing will stop the clean energy revolution.
Nothing will stop scientists and engineers from solving these problems.
We will get there eventually.
The problem is that we don’t have until eventually. We need to act super fast. If we only reach net-zero by 2050, 2060 or 2070, we will still confront disaster.
That is why the government and the whole of society must recognise we are in an emergency and take action at emergency speed, devoting all the resources we need to stop a threat that simply may become overwhelming.
Now I know there are some who get nervous when we talk about an emergency. They see it as reinforcing the potential for a suspension of rights.
But there’s also a way of thinking about emergency that is not about police and military, but about rescue.
Ambulances under lights and sirens take emergency action, and no-one thinks they’re taking away your rights.
Firefighters take emergency action and they do it to save life.
We all now need to be the firefighters of politics.
And over the next two years the Greens will continue to pursue a declaration of an environmental and climate emergency by the Australian Parliament.
Next fortnight I will introduce to the Commonwealth Parliament the Climate Emergency Declaration Bill.
The bill will declare a climate emergency, require every government department to be guided by the declaration and mandate the establishment of a what in the past was called a ‘war cabinet’ to guide the country through a rapid society- and economy-wide mobilisation to decarbonise the economy.
This bill reflects the scale of the crisis we face and represents the scale of action that is needed.
Winston Churchill was a flawed man and flawed Prime Minister, but in his greatest hours he reached across the aisle during WWII and formed a grand coalition, with the Labour party and others.
I know it seems incomprehensible that in today’s political context this could happen, but it’s what should happen and what we need to keep fighting for.
The time for appeasement is over.
It’s time for a Green New Deal.
A Green New Deal is a government-led plan of investment and action to build a clean economy and a caring society.
A plan where we can fight the climate crisis and fight inequality at the same time.
I want to create a manufacturing renaissance in this country.
I want to make Australia the renewable energy superpower where people bring their businesses from overseas for cheap, clean electricity as we urgently phase out coal.
Let’s export renewable energy while processing our minerals and making the things the world needs here in Australia, as Ross Garnaut proposes.
I want Australia to make things again and with a Green New Deal we can.
Over the coming months and years I will be traveling the country hosting town hall meetings, community gatherings and kitchen table conversations explaining how a Green New Deal can provide the hope and the action we need to solve the climate crisis.
Because just shouting ‘fire’ at someone doesn’t help them find the exit.
We need to provide a pathway to safety.
That’s what a Green New Deal, a plan for a whole of society mobilisation, provides.
By showing that emergency action on climate can make people’s lives better, protecting their lives and their children’s lives, we will mobilise a powerful movement that can change our country and help save the future.
Friends, our country is on fire and our planet is heading the same way.
We have no choice but to tell the truth about the crisis we face and what is needed.
The time for half measures is over. Because time is running out.
So please use the next two days together to generate the energy and ideas that will make our movement stronger and more powerful.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Adam Bandt
Stockton Holiday cabins relocated, Lexie’s café closed ahead of severe weather
City of Newcastle will relocate up to 16 beachfront cabins at Stockton Holiday Park and has made the difficult decision to immediately close Lexie’s Café ahead of the second east coast low to batter Newcastle in a week.
The cabins will be moved indefinitely to Crown Land managed by the City under reserve trust on the eastern side of the Stockton Swimming Centre, south of the Skate Park.
City of Newcastle Infrastructure and Property Director Ken Liddell said the actions are necessary to protect public assets and safety with heavy swells expected to hit the coast over the next few days, as Cyclone Uesi tracks south.
“While we welcome the State Government declaring a natural disaster for Stockton this week, we are taking immediate action to protect important public assets.
“The cabins, previously protected by about 10 metres of dune vegetation, are now at imminent risk from the swells.
“So we’ve taken the decision to move them to community land next to the swimming pool, where they will be safely tucked away behind King Street carpark and the Stockton breakwater.
“By moving the remainder of the cabins, we will avoid sacrificing more sites for caravans and tents within the existing footprint of the park.”
The City will look to re-open the cabins on the new site after following due process, including site investigation, community consultation and planning approval.
“Once we’ve secured the remainder of the holiday park and this weekend’s threat has passed, we will look at the planning requirements for the site and lodge a DA as soon as possible to begin leasing them out again.”
For the same reasons, City of Newcastle has closed the city-owned building held by Lexie’s Café until it is again safe for the public to enter.
“The impact of the recent wild weather which the State Government has now recognised as a natural disaster, combined with forecast huge swells this weekend, mean we can no longer guarantee public safety at Lexie’s Café,” Liddell said.
“Given this, we have had to make the extremely difficult decision to immediately close and barricade the building. We understand that Lexie’s has become a much-loved part of the Stockton community and this decision was only made after examining computer modelling of the likely impact of the forecast huge swells this weekend.
“It is for the same reason that we have had to relocate several of the most eastern cabins at the caravan park. We are losing sand at a record rate, and with the impact of tropical Cyclone Uesi likely to be felt at Stockton as soon as this weekend, we had to close the building held by Lexie’s Café.
“We again call upon the NSW Government to recognise that mandated processes for long term solutions to coastal erosion at Stockton should no longer apply given the natural disaster that is now much of the eastern coast of Stockton.”
Man charged over alleged possession of child abuse material – Lake Macquarie
A man will appear in court today charged over the alleged possession of child abuse material at Lake Macquarie.
Following an investigation, detectives from Lake Macquarie Police District executed a search warrant at a Wangi Wangi home yesterday (Thursday 13 February 2020).
During the search, officers allegedly seized a number of electronic devices containing child abuse material. These items will be forensically examined.
A 46-year-old man was arrested at the home and taken to Toronto Police Station.
He was charged with use carriage service to access child abuse material, possess child abuse material using carriage service, and possess child abuse material.
The man has been refused bail to appear at Toronto Local Court today (Friday 14 February 2020).
Man charged over alleged animal cruelty – Hunter Valle
A man has been charged following an investigation into an alleged act of animal cruelty in the state’s Hunter region.
On Monday 23 December 2019, police will allege that a 37-year-old man became aware of heifers grazing on his property that were not his.
It’s alleged he got into his vehicle and deliberately drove into one of the heifers – breaking its leg – before slitting its throat and releasing his dogs.
The heifer’s owner discovered the injured animal and was forced to euthanise it. He then reported the matter to officers from Hunter Valley Police District.
Investigations commenced by Hunter Valley Rural Crime Investigators, with the assistance of Dungog police and local government authorities.
About 2pm yesterday (Thursday 13 February 2020), the 37-year-old man attended Gosford Police Station, where he was arrested and charged with:
• torture, beat and seriously injure animal,
• torture, beat and cause prolonged suffering to animal,
• dog attack animal due to owner’s reckless act, and
• two counts of fail to prevent dog from escaping.
He was given strict conditional bail and is due to appear in Dungog Local Court on Wednesday 11 March 2020.
State Rural Crime Coordinator, Detective Inspector Cameron Whiteside, said this investigation highlighted the teamwork and coordination that is ever present between police, the Rural Crime Prevention Team, RSPCA, local government and Local Land Services.
“This is just one example of a great team coming together, sharing expertise and tackling animal cruelty head-on,” Det Insp Whiteside said.
“I would also like to remind the community they can report matters of animal cruelty to their local police, Crime Stoppers, the RSPCA or the Animal Welfare League.”
'Climate Trigger' laws introduced to Senate to stop making climate crisis worse
New laws that would require climate impacts and carbon emissions to be assessed before large-scale projects are given environmental approval have been introduced into the Senate today.
The ‘Climate Trigger’ Bill would ensure mining, drilling and large-scale land clearing projects would need to be assessed on whether they make climate change worse.
Greens Environment Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young who introduced the Bill said a federal climate trigger was long overdue.
“We know a lot needs to be done to reduce pollution and put Australia and the globe on a transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy,” she said.
“While we work to reduce carbon emissions, we must stop making pollution worse.
“The PM and Energy Minister keep claiming Australia will meet its emissions targets ‘in a canter’, but the reality is this Government is burying its head in the sand by ignoring the clear link between burning fossil fuels, carbon emissions, and worsening climate change.
“We are in fact galloping towards environmental collapse and climate change is at the heart of it – the bushfires, the flooding rains, and other catastrophic weather events.
“There is no time to waste if we are going to prevent further global warming. Assessing the emissions of fossil fuel projects and tree-destroying developments is one of the easiest steps this Parliament could take to save the planet.”
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2020, Explanatory Memorandum and Second Reading speech can be found here.
City welcomes funding support as natural disaster declared at Stockton beach
Work to fight against severe erosion at Stockton beach exacerbated by extreme weather over the weekend has received desperately needed support, with the NSW Government declaring Newcastle a natural disaster area.
Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes has welcomed the news that the NSW Government listened to City of Newcastle’s urgent request to declare a Natural Disaster at Stockton.
“This declaration means that City of Newcastle is eligible for assistance through the Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Fund to assist with the cost of cleaning up and restoring our damaged essential public assets at Stockton.
“An enormous thank you goes to our amazing City of Newcastle staff who have been undertaking emergency works to protect the Stockton community and our public assets from this erosion catastrophe.
“We’re pleased that this declaration enables us to deal with the short-term impact, but we will continue to call for urgent support from the Premier, Deputy Premier, Environment and Local Government Ministers to deliver a viable long-term solution.
The support offered through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements assists local councils to help with the costs of cleaning up and restoring damaged essential public assets.
“Our immediate priorities are to ensure public safety along the coastal area and to protect public and private assets and property,” Councillor Nelmes said.
Meanwhile, emergency works will continue today at Stockton following significant beach erosion as the City prepares for another storm front and large swells in coming days.
City of Newcastle has completed the relocation of 3 cabins, and we continue the relocation of all ocean edge cabins at Stockton Holiday Park at risk of collapse into the ocean in the face of a low-pressure system predicted to batter the coast in the coming days. To facilitate emergency works, traffic management is in place.
In the interest of public safety, all accessways along Stockton Beach have been closed until further notice and the community is advised to keep away from the top and bottom of sand cliffs as they may be unstable and collapse without warning.
Erosion has exposed significant amounts of historic material and debris which poses public safety risks. Please avoid the beach and this debris. Arrangements are being made to clean up the debris as weather conditions permit.
City of Newcastle requests all residents and visitors be aware of changed conditions and follow directional signage, warnings notices and instructions of City of Newcastle staff and other authorities.