Forgive me if my heart doesn’t bleed for Barnaby.

I could not agree more with those that say the personal lives of politicians are their own business. Barnaby’s love life is indeed his own business but if only that were the only issue at play.

What riles any fair-minded person is that, on a salary of some $400,000 a year, Mr Joyce was fortunate enough to have a millionaire mate offer him much needed “housing assistance” after the end of his marriage. For some reason, something in Mr Joyce’s thinking led him to believe it was OK to have a roof over his head – and a rather luxurious one at that – for six odd months at no cost to himself, despite that jaw-dropping income. 

Meanwhile back in the real world, the plebs of Australia – that’s you and me – keep hearing the message that it is we who must stop putting our hands out for assistance and draining the national purse. We need to work harder, we need to work longer. I can see we need to do this to keep our politicians surrounded by the many comforts to which they have now become very accustomed.

This kind of entitled behaviour by many of our elected representatives is making most hard-working and financially challenged Australians sick. 

On the one hand they stand up with a straight face and tell us all that there isn’t enough money and the age of entitlement is over, and when we look away they gorge on the public purse like pigs at a trough, take free rent and donations from their rich mates and most astonishingly, somehow manage to sleep at night. 

And they wonder why the Australian public has begun to turn away.

The Cobram Barooga RSL sub-branch is seeking assistance from your readers. We are looking for relatives of Harold Shadforth, date of birth 1/2/1926, son of Walter Haddock and Grace Shadforth. Harold made the supreme sacrifice during the Second World War and was honoured with a plaque in the original Memorial Avenue in Cobram.

These plaques have been restored and placed on a new memorial in Cobram and it is the plan to re-dedicate the memorial on March 24. We want to be able to send invitations to relatives of those men honoured on the plaques so that during the ceremony we can also honour those who endured their loss.

Our research leads us to believe that there may be a family connection for Harold Shadforth in the area covered by The Border Mail. If you have any information please contact 0407 040 208, or email cobrambarooga.rsl@gmail.com.

Any assistance provided by your readers in sharing this request to family members now living beyond your circulation area would also be greatly appreciated.

Regarding the Barnaby Joyce debacle, am I being simplistic or cynical in thinking that it would be different had there not been a pregnancy?