It's a 'fait-accompli' and it's going to happen. Yes, I am directly affected. Out the front we have some of the best examples of the Spotted Gums in the street and we take great pride and joy in their existence.

We also accept that the existing trees are reaching their end, that the Lignotuber (bulbous growth just below the surface) of the Spotted Gum is causing problems with the infrastructure and for safety reasons, removal is inevitable.

The proposed replacements are the most common urban forestry tree used in streetscapes throughout Australia and the easy choice. But what size will these replacements be and how long before the birds, shade and micro climate returns?

The real problem here is that it seems this council has again put in place infrastructure change without any prior consultation or discussion with the community or the local residents.

Have our elect councillors been side lined again or do they think it doesn't affect them so they didn't bother? Looking at the outcomes of some of the other recent infrastructure upgrades and supposed beautification projects and I suggest that it's time for a change.

I would like to see us work towards electing replacements in the upcoming September council elections.

Whilst NSW residents will no doubt welcome the news of more injection hubs during this pandemic, here in Port Stephens all we want is for our medical practitioners to have enough injections without the excessive travelling to get to these hubs in the major cities.

We deserve better and I'm calling on our local politicians to demand we get vaccine injections for our community immediately.

We have had a number of phone calls, so called from Amazon. We have never had an account with them. These calls have been received on landline and mobile phones.

They seem to use other people's mobile numbers to call from. They have used my number. Luckily, the person who received the call rang me after, realising it was a scam.

We rang the phone number of a call made to us to find that it was meant to be private, and informed the owner that someone claiming to be Amazon had used their number.

One call I answered from the Amazon scammers, I asked for their number and was asked why. I told them I wanted to report the scam. The reply was [nasty].

I want others to be aware that this is happening.

In our peaceful corner of the world, many may not be aware of the recent decision of the United Nations Court of Justice to uphold the genocide conviction of Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic for killing over 8000 men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 and other war crimes during the 1992-95 war.

In 1996, I was called to join the UN rehabilitation team to resettle tens thousands of refugees and displaced families before the northern winter. The destructions in Bosnia had been horrific, but the resilience and resourcefulness of the people to recover from the devastation were uplifting.

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