The toll road operator did not pay any company tax during the 2016-17 financial year, instead, receives interest write-offs benefit of $35 million.

To top it off chief executive Scott Charlton gets paid a whopping $6.604 million salary plus bonuses.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet.

John Macleod, Berry

Your article “The Flaw in Cycle Fines” (Illawarra Mercury, Thursday 10th August) tells only part of the story.

It paints cyclist as “victims” because they are now being fined the same as all other road users, including motorcycle riders, for offences such as riding dangerously, failing to stop for pedestrians on a pedestrian crossing, running a red light and not wearing a helmet.

During the first 10 months since the fines were increased, bicycle riders’ injuries reduced by seven per cent and the number of cyclists’ fatalities in 2016 dropped to 5 which is the lowest number of fatalities on record according to the NSW Centre for Road Safety.

That improvement in road safety is a huge benefit for NSW cyclists and they should be grateful for that.

Cyclists need to be more mature in their attitude toward road safety by not committing the dangerous offences they are being fined for instead of claiming that they are being victimised.

Allan Pryor, Figtree

The RFS crews are now starting to think of hazard reduction burns.

Ye Gods last week marked five years since the homes in Darkes Forest were nearly incinerated.

Why weren't the RFS cutting down the saplings and reducing the volume of our now five-year-old trees in a safe efficient way five years ago.

Would you prefer risky backburning of volatile bush with unpredictable winds or a walk in the safe bush with a battery operated chainsaw.

Should someone be responsible for allowing the catastrophic build up of volatile uncontrollable bush on the escarpment, planting to the side of Appin Rd, the M1, along creeks, around and up to houses.

Having been flooded five times I would not compare that to the horror of a fire.

One day we hope the penny drops.

Ken Mc Dougall, Bulli

With everything that is happening in regard to elected members and senators of the federal parliament being found to have been elected unconstitutionally and therefore non-members, thought is being given to legislation that has either been passed or defeated reliant upon the votes of these non-members.

The High Court, in the 1907 case of Vardon v O’Loghlin, ruled that, where the election of a senator is invalid, the return of that senator: “… is regarded ex necessitate as valid for some purposes unless and until it is successfully impeached”. Thus the proceedings of the Senate as a House of Parliament are not invalidated by the presence of a senator without title. The Court confirmed this more recently in re: Wood (1988).

However, one wonders whether this would apply in the case of Barnaby Joyce who has been found to be a citizen of New Zealand but who is required by the prime minister to remain in the Parliament and in office. If Barnaby Joyce votes in the Parliament knowing that he is a citizen of what is considered to be by the High Court a ‘foreign power’, then it may be found that he, together with the prime minister, have purposely defied the constitution.

Philip Benwell, National Chair, Australian Monarchist League