The Beast's Monthly Mailbag

Words The Informed People of the Eastern Beaches

Bus Shelters

Every time I await a bus at the various shelters, I cry. When I heard the news they were being upgraded, I was ecstatic. Imagine my disappointment when the new structures were no improvement at all, but probably cost Council/ ratepayers a lot of money.

At my North Bondi terminal, they DO NOT protect us from the baking sun, or the pouring rain, or the chilly winds. In fact, I’m not sure what they are good for. Who designed these inadequate structures, who approved their unacceptable design, who thought they were fantastic?

If JC Decaux provided a design, did anyone in Council’s approval section question their acceptability? I think we ought to know who makes such ludicrous decisions, because these people do not travel on the buses at all in the Eastern Suburbs. It is beyond belief that these shelters are so unsuitable for the purpose. Am I the only one that feels this way?

Nita Marusich North Bondi

Disabled Access

Dear Editor - I am writing this letter to inform your readers of the newly installed disabled access to our post office at 127 Bondi Road, Bondi. This local post office has a proud history of serving the local community from its beautiful heritage building for around 100 years.

In recent times the business has grown and the customer count has increased significantly. Some of our customers couldn’t access the post office because of the stairs at the entrance, so we have installed a new ramp with permission from Waverley Council so that these customers have easy access.

Through your local newspaper we would like to send a message that the new ramp has been installed and is now open to our customers. Thank you.

Vinod Kumar Kotturu Bondi

Cabanas Not a Symbol of Largesse

Dear Beast - Pearl Bullivant’s article, titled ‘The Eastern Suburbs Beaches’ Latest Must-Have Accoutrement’ in the April 2023 edition was utter garbage. Further, the gross generalisations contained within Pearl’s article were clearly written to serve her own agenda.

As someone who has suffered from skin cancer, I wish this sort of sun protection existed when I was a kid. Cabanas are not a status symbol, they simply offer a better design that better suits people’s needs than a traditional beach umbrella. That has been the cause of their popularity; they are not a “symbol of largesse,” as Pearl espouses in her article.

For those wanting the beach cabana banned from beaches, and for anyone in Waverley Council seriously listening to those people, good luck! Good luck being the people to ban families from protecting themselves from the long-term harmful effects of the sun when enjoying themselves in a public place. What an achievement you will have accomplished.

Craig Waverley

Wokery at Coogee

I applaud Russell Edwards for his lacerating critique of the ‘RacismNotWelcome’ street sign at Coogee Beach. Did Randwick Council not hear about the furore that the installation of these signs (as useless as they are smug) led to when they were installed in Woollahra last year? Those signs barely survived a vote to remove them, as residents rightly abhorred the imputation that their neighbourhood was some racist enclave in need of thought control rebranding on its street corners (as if that’s where most racism happens).

Sigh... can local governments just grow up and drop this facile virtue signalling once and for all? They’re fooling nobody.

Gary Malone Randwick

Have a Day Off, Pearl

I am not sure if your esteemed columnist Pearl is taking the piss (and if true I congratulate them for their genius), but has there ever been such a negative and self-righteous media figure (apologies for the generosity) in Australia?

Pearl used to be somewhat amusing when they ranted and raved to protect the weak and vulnerable working class from the “Cashed Up Bogans” who have apparently destroyed the tranquility of the most densely populated populace in Australia’s largest city. According to Pearl, there is nothing wrong with a bit of snobbery towards those deemed not worthy to live here.

Pearl had since moved on to protect us all from the diesel guzzling “Yummy Mummies” in their “troops SUVs”.

Now Pearl has regurgitated more bile and taken aim at the humble beach cabana, which is apparently a reflection of the “affluent human condition” from “thoughtless people” rather than a way to keep families out of the sun. Then, true to form, Pearl was able to connect the dots and link those trying to protect their skin with the evil Yummy Mummies and their SUVs (apparently these are not mutually exclusive).

A solution palatable to Pearl might be that families book a space at the beach (or apply for a licence), along with a government approved umbrella, and come from within a radius of two kilometres to enjoy our beaches. I am open for Pearl to provide further ideas, or just accept the fact that they are a NIMBY and go retire somewhere so they can avoid the crowds (and be a blow-in there).

One last thing for Pearl... The great part of this country is that the beach is free for all to enjoy. Unfortunately the sun is harsh, and people now have an effective way to keep their family safe while enjoying our great area.

More Information: Credit criteria, fees and charges apply. RAMS home loans are not available for foreign borrowers residing outside Australia. Offer is current as at 1 March 2023 and may be varied or withdrawn at any time. For new refinance applications received between 1 March 2023 and 31 August 2023. Settle by 30 November 2023. Min Loan $250k per property refinanced. Offer available on the Essential Home Loan, Full Feature and Fixed rate home loan products (excludes Line of Credit) Owner Occupier with Principal and Interest repayments and Investment Loans. Only 1 rebate per settled application with the predominant purpose is refinance will be paid regardless of the number of loans involved. This offer is not available in conjunction with the New Purchase Buyer $1,000 Rebate. Excludes Line of Credit Loans, switches and refinances of home loans within the Westpac Group which include St. George, Westpac, Bank of Melbourne, BankSA. Offer not available for Owner Occupier Interest Only loans or residential lending originated under family or company trusts. Not available to company and trust borrowers. The offer is limited to one rebate per eligible application. Split loans are counted as one settled home loan regardless of the number of splits. Rebate will be automatically deposited into the home loan account within 60 days after settlement. If the home loan has a fixed interest rate, the rebate will count towards the prepayment threshold. Tax consequences may arise from this promotion for investors and customers should seek independent advice on any taxation matters.

The irony of Pearl’s regular tirades is that due to the affluence of our area (who can blame people wanting to move here?) a substantial proportion of people who receive this magazine are now the evil Yummy Mummies Pearl has worked for years to protect us from.

If you’re taking the piss Pearl I apologise, but, for the sake of everyone, have a day off and write something positive for once.

Yours sincerely,

Opal Carlisle

Bondi Junction

Charing Cross Heritage

Dear Editor - In relation to the article in your February 2023 edition, titled ‘Traders Hope for Minimum Disruption as Charing Cross upgrade Looms’... Communities are often blamed for using heritage to block developments. By deftly ignoring heritage altogether in its Charing Cross Streetscape Upgrade plans, Waverley Council has bypassed this potential obstruction. The community has seen no heritage strategy for this prized Urban Conservation Area, relatively intact and unique to Eastern Sydney. Plans are for engineering works to the road and footpaths; nothing to engage with building owners to restore the historic buildings, or to replace daggy awnings and ugly signs. Instead, wider footpaths, a narrower road, smart poles lining the street, trees obscuring building facades, power lines underground, replaced with 34 green electrical pillars littering the footpaths, trip hazards outside shopfronts, 34 smart poles replace 34 timber electricity posts... A randomly placed mid-block pedestrian crossing also ignores long held community calls for a logical crossing at Bellagio to the old Commonwealth Bank corner.

Charing Cross survived the arrival of Westfield in 2003, it has successfully survived the pandemic and is again trading well. Council seems blind to the reasons for this success. It is not a monoculture of cafés. The healthy diversity of businesses set up in historically small shops, visible and directly accessed from the street, along with a rapid churn of kerbside parking, buses and local pedestrian and cyclist activity, maintains this hum of activity. Footpath width is traditional and historic. Small business owners are clever and adaptable, but the changes may be too great for their survival: loss of multiple kerbside parking spaces and fewer, squeezed and difficult remaining spaces; buses struggling through more crowded and narrowed travelling lanes, taking off wing mirrors and swiping opening car doors; no space for bikes. The enviable road safety record could be lost. Customers will avoid the centre.

Please, Council, get it right. Understand how heritage and circulation intersect to make Charing Cross successful. Survey businesses not about Council’s streetscape plans but about the operation, clientele, turnover, scale and business models, how they build their customer bases, how their customers travel. And, let heritage inform restoration, greening, posted awnings and visual delight.

Traders and residents should be worried about disruption during construction, but they should be much more worried about the long-term damage to the centre’s businesses and to its built heritage from Council’s own plans.

Mora Main Waverley

Reply to David Harrison

Well, Mr. Harrison (Politics, Letters, The Beast, April 2023), you obviously don’t travel much by public transport. This Liberal Government has done its best to destroy our wonderful bus system. You’re lucky you don’t live in Randwick, where we had four buses to go to Bondi Junction via Alison Road and now we only have one. There is no bus that goes to Circular Quay to/from Randwick now. The 356 that goes to Bondi Junction is so unreliable, and if you leave Bondi Junction after 3pm you are competing with school children to get a seat.

The buses should never have been privatised. Public transport is the responsibility of the government. Transdev also has the Manly ferries and is determined to get rid of the Freshwater class ferries. I can’t believe the Transport Minister was not listening to the travelling public. It’s obvious he didn’t care and so the Libs deserve at least one term in opposition.

I am not a regular Labor voter, but Marjorie O’Neill has earned her place in NSW Parliament with her constant efforts, and not just showing up at election time.

Jennifer L Randwick

Irresponsible Dog Owners

Dear Editor - Waverley Council has recently revamped the pocket park in Murray Street with good play equipment for small kids and shaded seating for parents. The sign on the gates clearly states that no dogs are to be off-leash or within ten metres of play equipment. Yet this morning there was a young mum and her child quietly sitting and playing, in walks a young woman with her dog off-leash, she’s playing with her mobile phone and throwing a ball to the dog. The ball bounces near the mum and child, the dog chases, and mum has to pick up her baby. The young woman with the dog mindlessly continues to talk on the phone.

In Bronte Park and Beach there are restrictions on where and when dogs can be off-leash. Kids’ playgrounds, bathing areas and change and toilet facilities are no dog zones. Yet Waverley rangers, either by design, policy or indolence, fail to enforce the very moderate restrictions as mandated by the Companion Animals Act. At a café I had the ‘pleasure’ of seeing two dog owners have an argument after one of their dogs cocked a leg at the table where the other was sitting.

Clearly, any sense of social responsibility and fairness is irrelevant to dog owners and their ludicrously named ‘fur babies’. It’s time Waverley Council started to enforce their legal obligations.

Paul Bronte

The Kindness of Strangers

I just want to say a big thank you to those who helped me when I had a bad fall near Woolies at Bronte on Sunday, March 12. I was cleaned and bandaged, and even given a bottle of water and some bandaids. It means a lot to me. Thanks, especially to Mark the first aider. May God bless you all.

Rochelle Waverley

Regulate, Regulate and Sanction

The Robodebt scandal was a moral and legal crime perpetrated on victims who are without effective remedy. There was no ‘live ear’ to hear their story or to investigate the abuse. This is an instance of a much more common affliction. How often have your readers sought to speak to a bank, a utility or a corporation to be met with a bot that understands nothing or a message stating, “We know that your time is valuable but due to exceptionally high demand we are unable to attend to your enquiry… etc.”

Corporations are routinely able to increase profits at their customers’ expense without effective pushback. Which political party has the courage to bring on legislation that will make duty of care to customers and due diligence stick? Solution? Regulate, regulate and sanction!

(Dr) Michael Pusey, FASSA Waverley

Bronte Pool Cliff Jumpers

Dear Beast - On any given warm weekend at Bronte Beach there is a plethora of (in no way is this meaning to be racist) large groups of people who I dare say are not locals, however most likely have travelled from about 35 kilometres southwest. Anyone is of course welcome at all areas and beaches in the area to enjoy the amazing surrounds which some of us are lucky to call home. However, the attitude some of them bring to our beaches is similar to that of the typical local Eastern Suburbs dog owner - complete contempt for anyone or anything else other than themselves.

They leave large amounts of rubbish at picnic booths with no intention of putting it in the bin, just metres from their location. They swear and shout obnoxiously at each other around small children and families, they double park their giant utes and SUVs for 15 minutes to load half a container ship into them with no regard for other road users.

What really gets me going though is their use of the Bronte Pool, and in particular the clearly (barbed wire) fenced off area, which is there to prevent people jumping off the edge into the shallow pool. Over the past hot weekends at Bronte I was using the pool with my 3-year-old daughter, and we were very nearly jumped on by dozens of kids (and adults) of all ages, mostly from these large groups of people traipsing out here from wherever they live.

Yes, I am aware local kids jump off these cliff edges into the pool too. However, they usually show small amounts of consideration for other pool users. These kids (and adults) however, who were often jumping within a few feet of other pool users, couldn’t have cared less about anyone else, let alone possibly jumping on some poor swimmer’s head and most likely causing them a lifelong spinal or head injury. Then when the cliff jump was overpopulated with a line of jumpers, they then migrated to climbing the fenced area near the seats and a young girl jumped almost on top of me, my daughter and my friend. I had to tell her and her friends off. They didn’t seem to like that; maybe I should have been more diplomatic?

Nevertheless, others in the pool backed me up and told them off too. Lifeguards soon were in the vicinity and I told them to tell them all to stop, which they did. I’m sure they got back to it a few minutes later though.

Anyone is welcome at these beaches, they are not anyone’s to own. However, if you are going to come here to act like you own it and do whatever you want, while putting others in danger and generally being a nuisance, then sod off and go somewhere else. Maybe I could suggest a pool with a diving board or a more appropriate place to jump off ledges into water? On hot days and in general, lifeguards should patrol and monitor the pool and rockpool area to deter cliff jumpers. They should give any jumpers a stern talking to about the dangers and general inconsiderate nature of their actions. Either that or electrify the already unsightly barbed wire fence. Maybe that will sort them out. Only time will tell.

Samantha Bronte

Not Hitting The Spot

I was wondering what is happening with the newsgency at The Spot in Randwick. The shop is open irregular hours (if it’s open at all) and they don’t have newspapers, lotto or magazines. I’ve never heard of a newsagency that doesn’t have newspapers! The guy behind the counter just sits there in the dark. It’s basicallly just a lollipop shop - useless!

Diana Randwick

Vale Skipper

Dear Beast - This section is often filled with complaints, strife and derision, which is to be expected - there’s reason enough for much of it, no doubt. But I would like to post a brief recognition where the opposite applies.

Earlier this month we lost our beloved Skipper, a gallant and loyal family dog whose ‘hood was the Varna Park-Cloey-Iggys patch. He was well known by many, considered handsome by most and befriended by all.

When terminal illness arrived, Bronte Road vet Dr Josie Gollan could not have managed the situation with greater situational awareness, professionalism and sincere sensitivity. This is the stuff they don’t show in those cute RSPCA ads, and it is every bit as important.

So, thanks to Josie and her Animal Doctors team for the fitting farewell for the most faithful of friends.

The Greene/MacDonald Family Clovelly

Labor's Submarines

Dear Editor - Over the last 12 years we have been able to follow the incessant endless ongoing repeated complaining about the Liberal Party’s Submarines (originally Kevin Rudd’s idea) that would cost $90 billion, which could have been so much better used in education or healthcare according to Mr Klikauer.

I’m not sure we’ll hear much about this from now on I guess (even though Labor wants to spend even more than that!) because it seems quite obvious that federal Labor can’t misstep... Watch the silence about this subject!

Tilmann Rust

Maroubra

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From the Desert to Boondi

From a room in Bondi Pavilion, the music of the desert is being broadcast across the Eastern Suburbs and beyond on Eastside Radio’s new weekly show, Boondi Nights.

Presenter Earl Weir has been showcasing the music of Arnhem Land acts like the Andrew Gurruwiwi Band, a seven-piece ensemble that plays desert funk, with vocals in the Yolngu Matha language. Plus the Wednesday night show features urban Koori music artists such as rappers Barkaa and Briggs.

In addition, you’ll hear long-established Indigenous music stalwarts like Warrumpi and the Black Arm Band. The latter act credits former conservative prime minister John Howard as the brainchild behind its name.

“Howard said Indigenous people like to be portrayed as victims wearing black arm bands,” Earl says.

While the focus of the 90 minute show is music, Earl also keeps his listeners in the loop about local First Nations events like the Blak Markets, held four times a year at La Perouse.

Earl is a Bondi resident who has been carving out a profile as singer-songwriter with Eastern Beaches band Krystal Rivvers. By day, you’ll find him on a building site shifting dirt and rubble from the cabin of a giant excavator. He is very much a man of the earth.

The 32-year-old Boonwurrung-Wurundjeri man was approached by Eastside about hosting its first-ever Indigenous show after Krystal Rivvers headlined at the Pavilion reopening at the end of last year.

“I feel honoured to have been given the opportunity, and I’m doing my best to immerse the listeners in the numerous facets of Indigenous culture,” he says. Boondi Nights takes its name from the Dharug name for Australia’s most famous beach, Boondi.

“It means water crashing over rocks,” says Earl.

You can catch Earl’s show on Wednesday nights from 9.30pm-11pm, or download the Eastside app and listen to it any time.