I am sure that deep down we would all love to see her hold the government to ransom for the good of her Indi electorate. Those who know Cathy however will be aware that she is a much better person than that and would no way lower herself to the level of so many of her fellow politicians. 

What I would love her to do however is to use her position of power to insist that our Prime Minister starts to treat her with the respect she deserves as the person chosen by the electorate to represent our region in Parliament.

That means having her acknowledged and involved when funding, projects and government activities are announced or launched in her electorate. 

Cathy along with all elected representatives to government, be they part of the ruling party of not, deserve this respect. 

It would also be great if she could take this opportunity to express to Malcolm Turnbull the fact that so many of us are disenchanted with the lack of professionalism of most of our party aligned politicians and demand a higher standard.

Cathy holds herself to this higher standard and we should be able to expect the same of all our elected representatives. 

The lies, infighting, misrepresentation and the hatred which appears to exist between the major parties is not acceptable. There are too many challenges facing our country and in fact the world, for our governments to continue along these lines. 

The only thing better than this would be if Barnaby Joyce got knocked off in his bid for legitimate re-election by an independent of Cathy’s high standard. They would all sit up and take notice then. 

Your editorial on Saturday (‘Cathy could cash in on position of power’, October 28) is relevant to recent events and Cathy McGowan could – not just could but should – utilise her brief window to gain advantage for her constituents.

This is the time to utilise her advantage to obtain pledges from both major parties to secure favourable outcomes for North East Victoria.

No doubt Ms McGowan is being touted at this time from both major parties for allegiance and, to be honest, were I in her position at present I would go for the jugular and attempt to bring this repressive government down.

I still well recall the arrogance and disrespect of the former member for Indi toward the people of Indigo. But Ms McGowan has credence.

I shall continue to support her, however, politics is just that you need to strike whilst the iron is hot. For the population of Indi.

While sitting at the newly installed traffic lights on the corner of Elgin Boulevard and High Streets in Wodonga – with traffic banked up to South Street and beyond – I was reminded of the good old days when one would do the same thing while a H-Class steam train would rattle through the same spot, hauling sometimes 100-plus freight cars, or cattle and sheep trucks, and I mused to myself, ‘yeah, so what’s changed?.’