Dear Editor,

Thank you for finally admitting to using your own paper to voice your bias for the Terminal. Those of us who support SOSA have been disgusted by your one sided promotion and propagation of misinformation. It is good to know the other local papers are interested in unbiased reporting. They, at least, are open to publishing both sides of the issue.

There has been no publication of any of the Save our Spit Alliance's viewpoints or letters, nor any attempt on your part to report their side of the story. You have made no acknowledgement that SOSA is actually a group of Community Organisations & Businesses. Instead, you have chosen to berate them as Greenies and Environmentalists, in an attempt to sully their image and further your own agenda. That, however, backfired when the propaganda you accused them of spreading, was actually released as part of the Draft Terms of Reference. Maybe you are fearful of their proven track record in stances such as this.

Has it ever occurred to you that some of the people protesting against the Terminal stand to lose their businesses or jobs? These are Tourism and Adventure Sport operators that contribute substantially to our economy. One year of their documented figures, exceeds any of the unsubstantiated figures released by Beattie's office to date.

As for your comment about the Seaway being a manmade creation! It was already being created by the northward drift of sand, all we did was stabilise it. The construction of the Seaway was to make accessing the ocean safer for boaties and to save lives. The operation of a terminal in the seaway will actually create new safety issues, especially if a ship is in port and the seaway is declared a no go zone as was the case in the Brisbane river last week.

Now Super Yachts on the other hand, are economically viable. If you had discussed this with SOSA, you would already know that they are not opposed to Super Yachts, only that they do not want them to resume public open space to create the infrastructure for these. It would be a resumption of land for the benefits of a few, at the expense of the masses who already enjoy the area as it is.

If you cared to investigate the issues that SOSA has raised, you may find how enlightening their arguments are.

Your articles, so far, have pushed your own hidden agenda and have had a blatant disregard for any factual evidence. So blatant was it, that you even attempted to pass off one of the proponents of the development as an unbiased member of our community who thinks it would be good for the Gold Coast. Of course he would! He has a financial interest in it!

It makes a person wonder whether your rumoured financial interest in the project, is not unfounded!

If you were really interested in reporting the facts, you should have been reporting about the developers having an open door directly to Beattie at any time, while SOSA has been denied even one meeting with him personally.

Reporting is about giving both sides of the story, not a soap box for you to stand on and push your own agenda.

From
A Born & Bred Gold Coaster
Megan Burns
Southport

Our shock over your honesty, to a point!


Thank you for publicly stating the obvious, the Bulletin's bias towards a shipping terminal in the Seaway. I am frustrated however to read the degree of contempt this paper has for the long time locals of the area. To suggest that prior to 1986 a marine colony did not exist is just foolish and shows the editors lack of local knowledge or plain ignorance.

Prior to 1985 and the massive dredging that took place in The Broadwater for Wave Break Island and the Seaway there existed a fantastic marine habitat know to thousands as the Deep Hole Artificial Reef. Built up for over a decade prior by the many members of the Gold Coast Underwater Club of which I was a part in the late 70's and early 80's.

This haven for marine creatures featured soft corals, schools of Whiting, Bream, Flathead, Trivally, Sea-horses, Rays, and several metre plus Grouper that lived inside the sunken wrecks and car bodies on the bottom. Much of the same marine bio-diversity that we now find on the Seaway Rock Wall, that has taken 20 years to recover from the dredging impact.

The second point I wish to make as the originator of the alleged "blatantly dishonest picture", that the GCB has chosen to publish not once but three times without due credit or fee (for which they are currently being sued) which was generated in direct response to the equally "blatant" image they chose to publish of a miniature ship poised next to old growth forest with not a jetty or building in site (see attached).

It is one thing for the GCB to show obvious bias towards the Developers, but how about a "fair go" for those of us that care for our future, the selling off of our Public Open Space and the environment.


John Wayne
Wongawallan

WARNING!
This letter is a bit course so if you prefer not to read it please stop now.

The beautiful Gold Coast on Queenslands south east coast is home to a great many good things. Great climate, fantastic lifetstyle, excellent but dwindeling surf beaches and an abundance of things to do and see. But along with the good, as always, is the bad and they don't come much worse than this poor excuse for a knuckle dragging, lowest common denominator style newspaper as our very own Gold Coast Bulletin.
Like all things Australian the name has been shortened to "The Bully" an endearing term obviously devised by one of their spin doctors to give the paper a warming mate type feel, when in actual fact it's the same old ploy used by every other commercial media service around the globe, suck you in by making you feel that they care, they're a friend, they're looking out for you and giving you the chance to win some crappy thing you don't need.
Now the Bully or, as we like to know it, "Le Bullshit" isn't satisfied with reporting the news or maybe sensationalising it a bit as most papers do, they've taken to plastering the front page with editorial comments and lately have taken sides with the developers of a cruise ship terminal that will do untold, unreversable damage to the northern end of the Gold Coast. Not only will this stuff up the seaway but will also create ongoing tax payer funded costs in the way of constant dredging and sand pumping that will not be realised by the community in terms of generated business and will threaten to stuff up surf beaches on the nothern strip as has been done to Kirra on the southern end.
Now the latest in this series of Cruise ship terminal kick back stories features the arrival of an American warship into Brisbane with cashed up sailors ready to bombard our local economy with hoards of cash, give me a fucking break. Actual data from ports around the world show this to be a total load of crap.
In reality the Port of Brisbane is now an exclusion zone, bring this same scenario to the coast and no boats are coming in or out of the Gold Coast seaway, the very reason why the seaway was put there in the first place. Close the seaway and jumping bar is the only other way out and this is not safe place to cross.
Add to this the fact that the data used to substantiate the cruise ship terminal was heavily flawed and if allowed to proceed will be one of the most dangerous ports in the world due to tidal and current conditions.
All in all this just adds up to a bad idea that has been given merit by greed and the smell of money, "allegedly", some of which is ending up at our good friends at the Bullshit.

The G-man

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