HAPPY NAIDOC WEEK CELEBRATIONS
Dear Editor,
The community shares the great achievements over the past 30 years culminating with the State Government agreement to establish an independent Treaty Authority to further enable negotiations to occur. Press coverage of hard-working Aunty Geraldine Atkinson co-chair of the First Peoples’s Assembly with local Member Suzanna Sheed and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Gabrielle Williams at Parliament indicates the importance of gender equality in government. The strong Aboriginal voices and actions of the traditional owners, the oldest culture in the world, have changed the sad history of our electorate and in Australia.
Bernie and I moved here 58 years ago from the still-safe Labor Seat of Northcote, pleased to come to a population like ours with early migrant residents working together and supporting each other. Our growing up and education in the Victorian heartland of earlier Aboriginal strengths of William Cooper, Doug Nicholls and the Elder women are commemorated in the parks and gardens, the same as we now enjoy. We were both raised with values of respect and social justice in democracy. Sadly, struggles for Aboriginal justice with people living on Daish’s Paddock were evident. Living in rental housing abutting the site of the proposed GV Hospital, of community working to support that happening and continuing with fundraising is well recognised.
In 1968, Pat O’Connell Snr. managing the public housing estates offered us the purchase of a home in the new South Shepparton estate. How fortunate were we and with next door neighbours Aunty Elsie (recently deceased aged 91), niece of William Cooper, Uncle Bill Bailey and two children, we spent the next 26 years learning the truths of Aboriginal struggles since colonisation. We later put that imparted knowledge to work. Myself at the Department of community Services in Family Support Work and Health in 1979 and appointment to GVH Board and community Advisory Committees to work with the Aboriginal workers and Elders to close the gap in health.
Inspired by her gentle mother, Sandra Bailey, a Melbourne University graduate in Law, is working with her people and government to abolish deaths in custody and to further her great uncle William Cooper’s dream and vision that we should all be included in the Australian Constitution. In 2020 with our first elected Aboriginal representative Cr Greg James and others in Local Government across Victoria, and in the 2022 Albanese Labor Government Federal election of 11 Aboriginal MPs, nine of them women.
Congratulations to all who voted to make a difference for gender equality and social inclusion in Australia’s 21st Century Governance.
Pat Moran, Shepparton
SOCIAL HOUSING
Dear Adviser newspaper,
Thank you so much for supporting the ACE school.
At last ACE have won this ridiculous council proposal (Social housing proposal cnr Nixon and Maude streets).
Mind you, they shouldn’t have had to go through this hell in the first place. Council should not have let the bad idea even get to first base in the first place!!
I don’t know why Council didn’t buy the big chunk of land on the corner of Vaughan and Hoskin streets, where Phillips Winery used to be, for the social housing project. That would have been a perfect site, so close to all the essentials. But I see there is a sign saying apartments will now be built there. Now that’s a missed opportunity.
Kindest regards,
Susie Daniel, Shepparton
YOUR SIGN TO SAVE LIVES
Dear Editor,
I am hoping that you will publish this letter to save lives.
To everyone who thinks that the road signs would look great on your wall, please stop and think about the lives, you save maybe a relative’s life.
The signs are put out to warn of dangers, hazards, etc. when they are removed people are unaware of the dangers.
It is a $1,000 fine for possessing removed signs, plus the loss of six demerit points but more importantly, lives are put at risk when signs are taken.
If you have any of these roads signs at home, then just look for any traffic control depot, or any roadworks and put them there and they will make it back to the correct people as all traffic management work together to improve public safety.
Thank you,
Toni Delmonte, Shepparton
UNSUNG HEROES
Dear Editor,
I would like to express my thanks and praise to some of our country and city unsung heroes in the medical profession.
We have a wonderful health system in our country, and we should not take it for granted.
Thanks to my Nagambie Medical Centre doctors and staff for their ongoing support with my bad health over the past few years.
I was rushed to Goulburn Valley Healthcare Emergency Department (ED) in Shepparton on Friday, June 17, for emergency help.
Their ED multicultural nurses and doctors eased my bad condition and after much running around, were able to secure me a bed and a urologist specialist at the Epworth Freemasons Hospital in East Melbourne.
I thank them for all their care and arranging patient transport to the Melbourne hospital.
My surgery was done on Monday by the specialist and his theatre team.
I would like to thank them and the nurses and services staff at the hospital for their excellent pre-op and after care.
I would also like to say how thankful I have been to be able to afford Defence Health insurance for 55 years.
Which helps my husband and I be covered for ill health in our senior years.
Thanks everyone for all your care and compassion.
Diane Grant , Nagambie
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