Well done and congratulations to all the nominees and award recipients as they all do truly embody the Rotary motto of "Service Above Self". I would like to thank the four Rotary Clubs of the Shoalhaven and Dr Peter Taylor for organising and running this inaugural event, I'm sure it will become an important event in the diaries of everyone that attended as it was an excellent night and I look forward to attending again next year.

So glad people are being brought to account for doing the wrong thing in relation to parking and vicious dog issues. I really wish more was done about the amount of dog poo left by lazy owners on our grass verges, especially around school areas, where mothers need to push their prams on the pavements while other children walk on the grass - and often into and through the path of stinking, germ infested dog poo. People do not realise, I am sure, that penalties apply for not removing dog faeces. I think more could be done to make this clearer to all dog owners. I hope Council can step up the campaign. This also applies to public areas like the Showground. I have witnessed, first hand, people just walking away when their dogs relieve themselves.

This week, two young female jockeys died after falls, one at Cranbourne in Victoria and the other in Darwin.

Horseracing's continuing bloodbath continues to shock and horrify even those who profit from it. A former jockey who had to retire with brain damage after a fall in 2014, in which another rider was killed, wrote that "sometimes the price of this industry seems too high". And humans are not the only victims of this vile industry. On average, one horse will die on Australian racetracks every three days.

Why all this carnage? To entertain and extract money from the public. Racing is a business, and racehorses and jockeys their raw materials. Racehorses regularly suffer from injuries, lameness, and exhaustion. Horses are whipped and forced to run at break neck speeds and may be given painkillers, muscle relaxants, and anti-inflammatory drugs to keep them running. All this leads to falls, broken legs and death.

You have to realise the state government does not care about you and me: if we do not survive financially, there is always Vinnies.

The government can put a grin on the faces of directors have investors clapping their hands with glee when TCorp selects a company to complete a project. This government through the treasuries privately controlled investment corporation, runs the state for those people looking for company and investor profits on the stock market.

Another complete disregard for our welfare. At present, we are back in the early American 1920s and prohibition. Except there is no "prohibition". There's instead government encouragement to gamble on private "numbers rackets" and sports betting.

In the 1950s the government through the sale of lottery tickets delivered for posterity the Sydney Opera House. And what is today's reply? A phallic pillar of iron and concrete funded by overseas gamblers.

What will the outcome be? Who knows. No one cares.