Greg Aplin is probably sick of protesting, but if he isn’t he should have another go on behalf of Border residents.

Ironically the Victorian government was elected on a platform of sorting out this mess and has been a spectacular failure and of course the NSW government is preoccupied with damage control following public demonstrations of corruption.

Perhaps while Scotland is working toward independence, Australian citizens might rid ourselves of a layer of government.

This was one of the more constructive comments offered by Border residents in detention on a bus somewhere between Melbourne and Albury without explanation or apology.

The other refugees from the rail service were busy concealing their dinners or having them confiscated or placed in the bus luggage compartment.

Holding tightly to a first-class rail ticket as a talisman to ward off government inefficiency as usual proved fruitless and the wailing and gnashing of teeth from young and old, oaths and curses offered in the names of federal and state government also had little effect on the bus driver for whom this was obviously a common occurrence.

More wine into water for those foolish enough to trust government assurances but few politicians will ever notice this very public and all too common transport miracle of trains into buses as they know too much then to trust their own diaries, appointments and fortunes to the uncertain gods of that service laughingly called public transport.

— FATHER PETER MACLEOD-MILLER,

St Matthew’s Church, Albury