The Member for Gilmore should have written a formal letter to her state counterpart Shelley Hancock outlining her concerns and copied in the Premier, Police Commissioner and Member for Kiama Gareth Ward.

Writing to the SCR, although a noble cause, was simply an improper and bitchy way of having a cheap shot at her political colleagues. I would suggest she attempts to participate in the playing of adult politics if she feels the the issues she’s raising are that important.

Personally, I would be happy to have the police station built and then argue the staffing arrangements. It appears Mrs Sudmalis will be gone by the times this happens and that’s the problem in a nutshell.

Regarding the letter in SCR by A. Sudmalis, Member for Gilmore

The Sanctuary Point Police Station is in progress. It was an exciting and delightful privilege to attend the turning of the sod in June 2018.

The operational decisions will be made by those experienced in the needs of the local area and the type of policing required. Congratulations to our wonderful South Coast MP, Shelley Hancock, for her persistent efforts to obtain the land and arrangements for the new police station. Shelley is doing a fantastic job for our area.

Kiama Council north and Eurobodalla Council south use green bins and have done for a decade or more. In a survey by Kiama Council in 2011 red bins were found to contain 45 per cent organic waste.

No reason to think Shoalhaven would be any different. So what do we in Shoalhaven do?
We mix are general waste and green waste together in our red bins. We have all these red trucks almost half full of green waste being trucked to Nowra for land fill.
If the green waste was put in a green bin it could be taken to our local tip and mulched. Isn’t it time we joined Kiama and Eurobodalla and started to take green bins seriously?

I met a young man a few years ago, a student at the time, who had started to turn his life around and was enjoying and attending school regularly. On the outside, he was a healthy teenager who just had some trouble engaging at school, I didn’t recognise the pain he was starting to suffer. 

This young person moved away from our services at Youth Off The Streets and to another city. Gradually he became overwhelmed by an intense internal trauma, he fell into abusing alcohol and committed suicide one night when he was drunk.

I attended this young man’s funeral soon after he died and heard the most gut-wrenching story from the father’s partner: the boy had also lost three of his brothers to suicide.

October is mental health month and this year we are asked to share the journey for better mental health and wellbeing.

What I want to share with you is one of the reasons I think we should take mental health so seriously.

These days mental health issues are far too common, particularly in young people. 

Issues of anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and many more plague some of our most vulnerable people. 

Sadly not enough people get help with these issues which often extend from some form of abuse, and those that don’t get help addressing their health often go on to suffer from further disadvantage, a life of crime or spiral downwards into alcohol and other drug abuse.