TAKING ITS TOLL
Can Gareth Ward explain to me why contracts are awarded to a foreign company in Transurban; a company that in the first half of 2016, made $799 million from tolls paid by Sydney motorists? Why is this so?
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Why cannot NSW Roads and Maritime Services collect the tolls?
Look at WestConnex-F4 – a motorway built by SRG Limited and Fulton Hogan Ltd.
Yet Transurban is set to be awarded the concession holder right to levy and retain tolls on the motorway for the next 43 years. Why?
Why can’t the NSW Roads and Maritime Services collect the tolls, pay the road builders and pay the rest of the tolls collected from thereon (billions of dollars) into Treasury?
John Macleod, Berry
HIJACKING MENZIES’ LEGACY
In reference to the PM's pronouncement that the late and great Sir Robert Menzies had a mindset to set in motion in office on 31 August 1945 to amend his party’s policies and ideologue to shape and motivate today’s LPA …... balderdash.
Sir Robert was a champion supporter of the monarchy and a 'royalist to the bootstraps'. In contrast, the PM has destroyed the hearts and souls of LPA supporters, and also what it means to be a committed conservative.
Moreover, the PM is a prime mover and a shaker and the high profile face of republicanism.
No Prime Minister, Sir Robert would be disgusted with the hijacking of his legacy, particularly with the downwards trajectory that the party has alarmingly swung under your stewardship.
The PM's 'road to Damascus' moment has been achieved in a relatively short period of time not, as he reports, from 1945.
D J Preece, Balgownie
BANNING THE BAGS
In regards to plastic shopping bags I raised this issue in the Parliament of NSW 21 years ago.
It’s great to see some movement at last by the big supermarkets.
Now its up to the NSW Government to ban plastic shopping bags.
Colin Markham, Figtree
SCRATCHING MY HEAD
Here's a couple of beauties to consider.
The first one involves a woman who put forward a proposal to have a bus shelter erected on the Princes Highway at West Wollongong/Figtree opposite the cellars, to give them some protection from the weather whilst waiting for the bus.
The only catch is the letter was sent and stamped in January 1968 and a letter of confirmation/tabled in June 2016. The shelter has been erected but with no sides for weather protection but at least it is done, only took 49 years.
The next involves the bus shelters on Foley's Rd. All of a sudden there's a pedestrian crossing placed right at the front of the shelter and now the bus has to stop 10 metres further up the road as the island narrows the road.
People crossing at this spot are hidden by the bus and approaching motorists see them at the last minute.
Something must be happening as they have now put striped tape around the shelter so it looks like it might be moved.
They must have used the same engineer who put in the causeway near my place to catch the water that goes uphill. I scratch my head constantly.
T Dunn, West Wollongong
EXCELLING IN INCOMPETENCE
An observation that the tendency in most organisational hierarchies is that employees rise, by promotion, through the hierarchy, until they reach the levels of their respective incompetence.
I think Peter Dutton’s record shows that he has excelled at this system of promotion.
Doug Steley, Heyfield
