I have been living here for 39 years and I can honestly say that over this time, all consecutive governments have forgotten about us.

For everybody else in the Illawarra, you can get off the freeway heading north to get home, but the people in Dapto can’t we have to get off at Yallah.

Then to go south we have to go yet again to Yallah to get on the freeway/highway.

For a suburb that has had enormous growth over the last ten years this is disgraceful. We are now only getting a bridge to help us get to our homes when it floods.

Forty years too late, but wait, there must be an election coming.

I had numerous conversations with Gareth Ward on Facebook and for two weeks could not get an answer as to whether the residents of Dapto had access to this new wonderful by pass. Eventually, of coarse the answer was no. I would like to know from all involved in this planning WHY NOT!

The government is willing to let so much land to be developed here but we can’t get direct access to the freeway! How about you explain to all of us that live in this are WHY?

Just want a simple answer that is all not a whole lot of political jargon.

You can pull down a stadium that is only 18 years old and build a multi million dollar new one, but I along with thousands of others can’t access a main highway/freeway ! What a waste of our hard earned money.

Susan Walton, Kanahooka

Once again we have disastrous flooding in the North of the country. Yet in Western Queensland and Western NSW, we have one of the worst droughts in living memory.

A century ago, John Bradfield's foresight saw an imaginative plan to divert wasted Northern water down to the Murray Darling system. Later there was the Burdekin Plan for the same project.

Now a qualified engineer has costed a project to utilise canals and existing waterways to provide consistent water flow right the way through to Lake Alexandrina.

At $9 billion, it seems like a real bargain. Just ask the farmers in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.

Sadly, we hear nothing from politicians about the sensible prospect of such an obvious program. With elections looming, it would be refreshing to see a project like this set out in policy. I'll vote for the first political party to do so.

Don Driscoll, Wollongong

Anna Bligh from the Bankers Association says that the finding of the Royal Commission into the Banking Sector offers banks the opportunity to reset their policies and regain the public's trust.

If she and the banks who were named and shamed in the report are serious, the first thing that needs to happen is the sacking of the CEOs of all banks, and the complete cleaning out of their boards.

These people were complicit in the appalling behaviour of their institutions over the years, and so need to pay the price.

The public will only believe the banks are serious about resetting their cultures when those at the top are called to account.

Jennie Morris, Wollongong