This council has about 850 workers and the town is in tatters; bad roads, the town is dirty and the showground is a mess. We go to a funeral and friends remark on the road to the Shoalhaven Memorial Gardens Cemetery. “What a disgrace,” they say.

In Keft Avenue, Nowra they so-call fix the potholes, likewise the same. The work is done very poorly. Everywhere I see this going on. 

The council needs an administrator to go through and clean Shoalhaven City Council out as they did in 1970. 

Sorry, Nowra has gone to the dogs. The council has to pull its socks up and give the ratepayers a fair go. 

I agree with Shoalhaven Independents so, ratepayers, get behind them and our rates will come down.

B. Tomkinson (SCR Letters, January 20) asks what it was that councillors were thinking when we voted to maintain the “minimalistic” sea level rise projections out to years 2050 and 2100. I would never presume to speak for others but I’m quite prepared to state my position.

While we are constantly lectured by the Greens and their supporters on council about the impending doom we face with climate change, our ultimate responsibility is not to sign up to an ideology but to make pragmatic decisions to the benefit of every resident of the Shoalhaven.

If we completely disregard all evidence of sea level rise then we will leave future generations with legal bills for our negligence. Under the policy, we are not doing that. However, if we completely adopt the worst case scenarios on sea level rise, then we leave every coastal resident and landholder with a devalued asset that they won’t be able to renovate, improve or enjoy.

Good sense prevails with our current policy which is conservative on sea level rise and builds in an important seven-year review period. If things are going pear shaped then there are plenty of opportunities to adapt the policy between now and 2100. However, if the risks are being well managed then we have not needlessly restricted and financially damaged many of our local residents.

“Professional advice” is widely available on all manner of issues, yet it should never be blindly followed.  A key reason for having elected representatives of the community is for us to be able to contest and shape advice so that it ultimately serves the interests, first and foremost, of all our residents.

I challenge Ann Sudmalis to rise in Question Time and present a bill that would call for a Royal Commission into the alleged chronic abuse by her parliamentary colleagues of their travel entitlements.

So damaged are current and past parliamentarians by the demonstrated improper claiming of entitlements that a Royal Commission is the only way to restore public confidence in our political system. 

If summoned the pollies would not have the right to silence and would have to answer openly and honestly for each and every claim made. Lying, if proven, is a charge in itself and this tactic must be pursued.

I challenge all parliamentarians to support this initiative as a way of declaring their validity of their individual claims. 

Where to from here after our anti-environment, council amalgamating, pro-development Premier has thrown in the towel and left us with a bunch of do-nothing ministers such as Jillian Skinner, Brad Hazzard, Piccoli, Gay, Stokes and Constance? At least the departure was wine free.