ARTC have been the track managers since 2012. Why is it only now that they have announced a speed restriction over the entire length? Does this mean that the entire track and infrastructure is sub-standard? What have they been doing for the last 8 years if the track is sub-standard or not fit for purpose? Have the lives of countless thousands of passengers, and train crew been put at risk?

These are questions that the rail investigators and governments need to ask. If ARTC have been less than diligent and competent in their management of this length of track then the organisation needs to be sacked, with no bonuses for the bosses and the job of rectifying 8 years of mismanagement given to a company that can handle the job. The rail travelling public do not deserve the failure that ARTC has been any longer.

It breaks my heart and fries my brain the complete devastation and destruction I have seen in the Murray Darling Basin.

My great grandfather settled near Cobram Victoria in 1876. He and all the other settlers worked extremely hard to forge out a future, then came the advent of irrigation and our region exploded in development. That development is being destroyed by minorities and ill-experienced bureaucrats and politicians.

Mick Keelty has just held a round of meetings and we all said, "Not another bloody meeting". Yet we filled the room it was held in and listened, and this time we at least did not get fed outright lies. Mick gives us a glimmer of hope but it is only a glimmer.

Since the basin plan was incepted I reckon the lies to truths we have been told is - lies 5,000,122, truths 2. I could go on and on about the destruction to farms, towns and the environment but it has all been well documented.

We are extremely poorly represented in our regions by the two main political parties and that is showing at the polling booths, we need to keep that change rolling on.

Onward we fight, fight with all our might. Can the plan.

In light of the CORVID-19 situation, it's time for all hospital and doctors waiting rooms to remove all reading material from their premises.

In the times that I have been in them, waiting for my wife to undergo routine tests, I have observed people picking up glossy magazines and licking their fingers to turn the pages.

If you must go there, then please bring your own reading material, and take it home after.

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