AS regular as clockwork, the debate about a public holiday for the Newcastle Show comes around each year.
And each year the issues are similar.
Businesses would prefer the holiday wasn’t gazetted, since it costs them in lost productivity and higher payroll costs.
Full-time employees and their trade unions want the holiday, of course, since it can mean either a paid day off or extra money for those who work.
But many casual employees, it is suggested, may lose shifts altogether since employers will opt not to roster them on.
There was a time when the business argument was hard to support. That was when the Newcastle Show was one of the premier events on the region’s calendar and when organisations jostled for the opportunity to put their wares before the crowds that flocked to see the best of what the district had to offer in agricultural and consumer products.
It can’t be denied that the event has altered dramatically in the 21st century. It’s still popular – indeed, this newspaper supports it strongly – but the Newcastle Show is today a carnival of relatively limited local interest.
Given that anybody who wants to attend the show can do so on the weekend days during which it runs, gazetting the Friday as a holiday is a redundant tradition that causes more disruption than it’s worth.
That’s the case for Newcastle, in whose local government boundaries the show is held. So it’s even more the case in neighbouring Lake Macquarie, which frequently complains of being bundled in with Newcastle in the eyes of outsiders to the region.
Lake mayor Greg Piper insists the holiday should remain for his local government area. Many will support his view.
But in a world that has greatly changed he must not be surprised if some accuse him of clinging to an anachronistic custom that has long outlived its relevance.
Offset or cop-out
THE NSW government’s concept of ‘‘biodiversity offsets’’ for major projects raised many eyebrows from its inception.
In principle, the idea is to approve developments that damage species endemic to one area, provided the proponent agrees to acquire some supposedly equivalent land somewhere else for long-term preservation.
There are probably occasions when such arrangements produce results that are environmentally and socially beneficial. On other occasions, however, they could just as easily be seen as a ‘‘cop-out’’ for both developers and approval authorities, pushing the real issue of biodiversity preservation aside for the sake of economic convenience.
The worrying fact that the department of planning appears to have no real idea of the extent and location of lands already allocated as offsets for mining proposals in the Hunter suggests a lack of rigour in the application of the concept. With such lack of knowledge neither the social impacts of quarantining tracts of land in particular areas nor the actual impact on the preservation of endangered flora and fauna can possibly be gauged.
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