I hereby challenge the Albury City Council to offer a grant of $50,000 to save this community facility from closure. The people using it are, or have been, workers, tax and rate payers contributing to the growth of this city over many years. 

This council recently endowed a refugee program with a similar amount, despite the fact that these individuals have already received from $2000 up to $10,000 resettlement grants from the federal government, plus fortnightly Centerlink payments often larger than the aged pension. 

These people, in contrast to the hydrotherapy users, have not of course contributed anything in rates and taxes to the Albury community and possibly never will. 

Since council saw fit to donate a further $50,000 to help to improve the lives of these people, they are morally obligated to give equal priority to the maintenance and/or improvement of the lives of long-term residents who have contributed so much to the Albury community through taxes, rates, community involvement, neighbourhoods. 

Fair's fair! Over to you, council. I have personally paid ever-increasing rates for over 40 years. 

It is with much concern that I write to you re the closing of the hydro pool at the Albury base hospital. I, like many of the constant users of the pool, am feeling the results of the closure.

I was blessed when told about this facility 24 years ago after an accident injuring my hip. It has kept me going all these years and apart from helping with pain management, at the age of 86 years old, I am able to live independently and enjoy being part of the community. I pick up and drive one friend to the pool weekly, deliver library books to housebound members of our community and enjoy getting together with friends for gentle walks weekly. I was also taking my near blind sister-in-law to the pool and we go shopping weekly.

I think if you were in the position, age wise and suffering an injury, you too would be glad of the use of a hydro pool. You never know what might come your way. 

While the banking royal commission is busy uncovering rorts and scams in the superannuation industry, it should also consider the ethics and morality of Labor’s plan to confiscate dividend imputation credits from the pensions of self-funded retirees.  

A self-funded retiree couple needs an account balance of $990,000 to provide an income stream equivalent to the aged pension over 30 years. This assumes annual capital growth of 2.5 per cent in their share portfolio and that they totally run down their capital to fund the pension over 30 years.

Labor’s plan to confiscate tax credits on fully franked dividends of 4 per cent means they now need a starting account balance of $1,150,000. That is equivalent to a $160,000 raid on superannuation account balances that sustain pensions in retirement.