DEAR News Of The Area, THIS Federal Election is an opportunity for voters to protect our children's future and avoid the serious risks emanating from any Coalition victory. My concerns about the Coalition were not allayed by Mr Dutton's recent budget reply speech (27 March), where he failed to offer any

PORT Stephens’ natural environment is at the heart of what makes living here so special. It is a key part of our identity and everyday life. Unfortunately, not everyone understands how important our natural surroundings are or the vital role they play in our community. This year, we’ve already had several

DEAR News Of The Area, DUTTON and his LNP members say that they will reduce electricity prices, reduce the cost of living, reduce inflation - how? Just slogans with no policies underpinned with competent concrete data. Their nuclear electricity “policy” was evaluated by the Australian Energy Market Operator and CSIRO as being

WITH the federal election finally called for 3 May, let’s look at why the cost-of-living is shaping up as the key policy issue. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compares the percentage change in real household disposable income per capita for residents in the developed world. Unfortunately

DEAR News Of The Area, I THINK everyone breathed a sigh of relief today when Mr Albanese named 3 May as Election Day. Now we have about 30 days to get ourselves vote-ready. Let's celebrate the independent and trustworthy voting system that is applied uniformly and fairly across our country and

DEAR News Of The Area, THE Federal Coalition's opposition to the proposed Hunter offshore windfarm proposal is opportunistic in my view! It was the previous Liberal-National Party Coalition Government which enacted legislation for offshore windfarms for large scale electricity production. The Hunter windfarm proposal is one of six priorities for Australia

DEAR News Of The Area, THE election campaign so far has done little to encourage our attention. Mr Albanese more or less offered a direct bribe to vote Labor via the budget’s tax cut offer, then adopted the policy of not doing or saying anything which might frighten the horses. Meanwhile

ACCORDING to my young son, this week will be the “most important week in cinematic history”, seeing the release of two features which your own children or grandchildren will insist on seeing at the movies. A Minecraft Movie will probably receive the bulk of the attention from the middle-school crowd, being

DEAR News Of The Area, I WAS disappointed to read that Port Stephens Council has now asked for expressions of interest to develop Medowie Social as a Registered Club. Contrast this decision with one made by a previous council in 2011, when Council rejected a bid by the Motto Farm Motel in

DEAR News Of The Area, I APPRECIATE Janet Olney’s letter (‘Honesty in funding’, 21 March) for prompting this opportunity to update the community on the nature and scale of my campaign. It’s important that voters feel informed about who is running to represent them. Firstly, I understand that the advertising we have