So the Wodonga Council has been caught overcharging, with its waste fees. Sounds like another fee for non-service, along the lines of organisations currently before the Royal Commission into financial services. As per the practise now established before this commission, those heads responsible for allowing council to overcharge should roll.
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We pay close to the highest, if not the highest rates in the state, and now find we are knowingly being charged excessive waste fees which apparently has been condoned and approved by many Councillors, currently and in the past.
We should expect a number of matters to be dealt with immediately, one being, after the disgusting off-handed answers to questions is that Anna Speedie should resign as mayor, if not from the council, and be replaced by someone who is willing to genuinely represent ratepayers interests.
Either our local state representatives or state government must move to remove the current Councillors, put someone in charge who is willing to truly act in our interests and hold a full inquiry into past and present practices of which, the currently unearthed financial mismanagement, may only be the tip of an iceberg. It is far overdue for this council to be made more responsible, transparent and accountable to the ratepayers. The Councillors, council executives and any others involved must be held accountable for the betterment of our City.
Richard Young, Wodonga
End our shame
I wholeheartedly applaud Sussan Ley for taking a stand against the cruel live export trade. It's high time we stopped acting like barbarians by needlessly sending millions of our animals to a brutal, terrifying and agonising death by ritual slaughter.
Regardless of what measures are put in place to reduce deaths at sea, the reality is that once our animals are sold to foreign buyers we have absolutely no control over what happens to them. Just last week Animals Australia released footage of sheep at a Qatar abattoir being mercilessly beaten. They also learned that Australian sheep from this same abattoir were being illegally sold to private buyers.
In 2017, 1,953,918 Australian sheep and 879,958 cattle were exported. Even if the government was interested in monitoring the treatment of our animals it would clearly be impossible to do so. The only way to ensure our animals are not subjected to atrocities is to end live export.
Jenny Moxham, Monbulk
We’ll never really know
Your article (‘Valour frozen in time still kindles awe’, published in The Border Mail, April 23) written in regards to my passed great uncle Alby Lowerson and his recognition as the only recipient of the Victoria Cross in North East Victoria mentions that he died aged 49.
These were the young men who went to war for the sake of King and Country, foolishly perhaps but history is history I am still bemused when I am told that my uncle won the Victoria Cross.
My uncle died aged 49. Why?
It will never be documented but it would be because in his heart he was keeping Australia free for the likes of me and you. Read The Story of Danny Dunn by Bryce Courtenay and you may comprehend shell shock, post traumatic stress disorder and the like.
Don't ever light a match in the trenches because that will be your last cigarette. To those who did mightily.