Final Post -- Oatley Park Defenders

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Date Posted: 03:32:32 04/22/03 Tue
Author: DR
Subject:

Final Post

I think I'll just summarise my views and leave this forum so that the true-believers can tell each other why they're right.

This whole issue is basically about a divergence between commercial interests (that of Hutchison trying to make a buck) and the interests of the local community. If you look at it from a neutral perspective, then you'd expect there to be some kind of compromise that allowed Hutchison to pursue their commercial interests without having any major impact on the local community.

On the surface, this would seem to be a fairly boring issue. The addition of the mobile antenna/transmitter on top of the existing light pole and the small shed to accompany it was probably the lowest-impact option available. The new transmitter will put out about 50 Watts of Radio-frequency Electromagnetic radiation at its peak (imagine a small lightbulb sitting on top of that pole whose 'light' is covering the whole Oatley West area).

However, things are not always as they appear on the surface. Members of the local community (particularly the P&C at OWPS) took issue with location of the antenna/transmitter and were concerned that the radiation from the tower only hundreds of metres away would adversely affect their children. This concern is understandable but not based on facts or evidence. I may be wrong (I was overseas at the time) but the issue came to the fore when the concerned citizens lobbied Hurstville council who ended up removing the light-poles in the belief that this would stop Hutchison in their tracks. All it did was halt any community co-operation on Hutchison's part who went ahead and did what they legally had a right to do. What would you do if you were Hutchison? I personally think that the current situation reflects more poorly on Hurstville Council than Hutchison - see what happens when politicians pander to small interest groups.

The erection of the pole/tower is when things really becamed inflamed: it was a case of big business imposing their will on our small community and that is unacceptable - especially in elitist Oatley. All the NIMBY's came out of the woodwork and the reasons against the mobile 'tower' diversified and changed focus.

I'm sorry protestors but when you consider the facts of the case, your actions seem wildly out of proportion. Sure, Hutchison put a few noses out of joint by erecting the tower under the circumstances they did but they were left with very few options. It's time for you guys to move on and accept that the tower is there for good (the law is on Hutchison's side). The only real course of action now is to lobby the Commonwealth to get the relevant laws changed - not an easy task, especially when the current laws seem good and quite adeqaute.

Final thought - why am I even writing this - it'll probably just get deleted anyway.

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[> rules of the forum -- webmaster, 15:18:34 04/22/03 Tue

DR:

this board is about responsible discussion.

Initially the board was not moderated; this resulted in posts containing personal insults, multiple posts from the same person under different names, mostly unattributed (don't forget when someone posts, their IP address is recorded and they are thus identifiable).

This sort of thing has meant that the forum is now moderated, and posts which abuse the rules of the forum will not be permitted.

The rules are fairly simple:

>> no personal abuse

>> contributers to correctly identify themselves - ie attributable name and email address.

>> no spamming.

>> relevance to the topic.

If you have an opinion, you are prepared to be open about your identity and are able to refrain from personal abuse, your comments will be welcome.

Regards
Michael Korber.

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