Wheat growers were “extremely upset” when the member for Farrer joined with her Liberal colleagues and the Rudd government to abolish the iconic wheat export single desk legislation.

Ms Ley dismissed their heartfelt concerns with a wilful naivety and later likened them to a bunch of rednecks with a mob mentality out of a movie scene from Wake in Fright.

Sussan Ley should look at the positives. Firstly, she was well rewarded with a ministership for following the directives of the urban elites who run the Liberal Party and secondly, she has a very generous pension entitlement coming her way upon retirement.

On the other hand, wheat growers have an industry that has fallen into the hands of middlemen and merchants and they are being subjected to unmanageable risk and volatility and low prices that we have not seen for two decades.

I have a solution to curbing political excesses. 

1) Put all politicians on the basic wage (with the necessary expenses) for a period of, say, two years. This will allow their core political promises to be achieved. If they are, then there is a generous but staggered benefit, tax-free. If they don't, then they are kicked out of parliament.

2) Next, defer final political remuneration until, say, another two or three years after they leave politics to allow for any suppressed or revealed corruption, incompetence, maladministration etc to arise and if so, no such remuneration is given. 

As it stands now in Australia, if a politician somehow manages to stay in office for a minimum term, despite incompetence, corruption etc then they still receive both an overly generous salary to begin with plus a huge golden hand shake.

In other words, we reward political failures/incompetents who happen to last the distance.

I don't believe that “if you pay peanuts you only get monkeys” because, as we continue to see, “if you pay with gold bars you'll only get gold diggers”.

We need humble, sensible people who see politics primarily as an opportunity to serve their community so remuneration becomes a secondary aim. 

Politicians need to earn respect to be called “honourable”.

Paul Upton (“Bureau neglects regions”, Letters to the Editor, The Border Mail, January 10) is drawing a long bow with his suggestion that the temporary breakdown of the Bureau of Meteorology's Yarrawonga radar “typifies how regional Australia sits as a poor second place to the cities”. 

Where is the evidence?

Does he think that the Bureau of Meteorology is happy that its Yarrawonga radar stopped working? 

The radar malfunctioned because a transmitter failed. Simple as that. The problem needed to be diagnosed and a replacement transmitter ordered and installed, which took time. 

Our democracy allows its citizens the right to express their opinions openly.

But conspiracy theories without hard facts to back them up serve little purpose. 

The winner of the Letter of the Week is Yvonne Cugley, of Jindera. Collect your prize from the offices of The Border Mail at 1 McKoy Street, Wodonga.

Submit your Letter to the Editor via email to letters@bordermail.com.au.