Letters to the editor

Or perhaps it’s like the bike helmet law where the revenue generated doesn’t match the effort involved.

Recently I had the unfortunate experience of being tailgated all the way from Echuca to Bendigo by a huge B-double fuel tanker.

I know I was doing the exact speed limit thanks to a recently calibrated speedo and the car GPS.

Now having a 40-tonne behemoth sitting four metres from your bumper is fairly intimidating, so I took a risk of contributing to the state coffers and increased my speed to overtake a couple of cars (also doing the correct speed).

I’d rather be booked than dead!

But then, the same two cars came past me at around 120km/h.

That’s when the penny dropped. This was a deliberate tactic by the truckie.

To be fair, the real professional truckies value their livelihood (licences) too much to break the rules, but can we do something about the cowboys?

Lance Carrington,

Echuca

Corop-Rochester Rd .... again!

I am at a loss to understand how the ‘authorities’ work out what roads get resurfaced, but obviously the condition of the road is not part of the assessment process — one only has to look at either end of the Corop-Rochester Rd to see what I am talking about.

The Midland Hwy end of the road has gone from a temporary ‘80 km/h rough surface’ zone, to a permanent ‘80 km/h rough surface’ zone, with some third rate patching in some of the worst areas, while the Rochester end of the road, from Howard Rd to Webb Rd, has been resurfaced, and not very well, twice in the past two years!

I hope Wendy Lovell’s suggestion to bring the Victorian parliament to Rochester is successful, and every state parliamentarian has to drive up from Melbourne, on this very road.

What am I talking about? As if anything would happen.

Phil Minns,

Corop

On this planet

Earth is just a small planet in a vast universe that contains a countless number of stars and planets.

It is turning around its axis once every day and orbiting the sun once each year.

The seasons are changing according to its position to the sun.

The sun is a huge ball of burning gases with planets orbiting around.

The heat from it has set off a chemical process and started life on Earth.

But it has taken ages before humans have developed.

Jiri Kolenaty,

Rushworth

Budget countdown is on

Over the next six weeks, Victorians need to brace for the horror show that will be the Andrews Government’s state budget.

The Premier and Treasurer have been tempering our expectations, finally acknowledging the presence of Victoria’s record state debt.

Despite Premier Andrews promising no new taxes on live TV in 2014, Labor has since slapped Victorians with 44 new taxes.

It is likely more taxes are set to be introduced in the May budget.

Victorians are paying a staggering $10 million every day to simply service Labor’s debt.

That’s enough to resurface 10km of road every day, or to resurface the entire Calder Fwy between Melbourne and Bendigo every six months.

The reported axing of 10 per cent of the public service shows Labor is desperate to cut costs.

Treasurer Tim Pallas himself has said this will have a massive impact on key services, but they’ll charge ahead with 5000 job cuts anyway. That could mean fewer nurses in a health system already in crisis, and fewer teachers in our classrooms.

The carnage won’t end there.

Labor is already struggling to pay invoices to businesses that helped with the flood response, road maintenance funding is likely to be cut further and community support grants are set to be scrapped entirely.

Only time will tell how Daniel Andrews will try dig himself out of this Labor-made crisis, but make no mistake, it will be Victorians who will pay for it.

Peter Walsh,

Victorian leader of the Nationals

Thoughts after AFL’s Gather Round

The inaugural AFL Gather Round in South Australia proved a raging success.

So much so, that the AFL and SA Government clinched a deal to keep it there for the next three years.

Money is the language that talks best at the AFL, especially after the coffers were drained keeping the show on during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

But a precedent has been set, staging games at boutique venues such as the specifically designed ground at Mt Barker in the Adelaide Hills and Norwood Oval, better known as The Parade.

I’m proposing that every Victorian club play one of their home games against an interstate team in a regional location, starting from next year.

If Mt Barker can host a game, then there is no reason why Bendigo, the Latrobe Valley, Shepparton, Albury-Wodonga, Warrnambool, Mildura and, of course, Echuca can’t.

GWS, Gold Coast, West Coast and even Fremantle struggle to draw big crowds in Victoria, so when they visit, why not head to the bush?

I’m sure GWS would get great support from Sheppartonians to watch Lachie Ash and it would mean plenty if West Coast or Fremantle played in Echuca-Moama if Noah Long and Lachie Schultz were in the teams.

To borrow a line from Sam Kekovich, himself a country boy: you know it makes sense.

Gavin Norman,

Echuca

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