Mr Driscoll, you state that you are retired and receiving money from the Government via franking credits.

By definition you and anyone else not working and receiving money from the Government, you are receiving welfare.

I quote the Cambridge Business English Dictionary, 'welfare payment": an amount of money that is paid by the government to someone who is ill, poor or has no job'.

I assume that as you are retired you have no job, so by definition you receive welfare.

This could also apply to those who receive negative gearing.

I suggest Mr Driscoll use his time and effort to secure a better welfare payment for all Australians and not just himself.

Dave Schmidt, Towradgi

Meals on Wheels, a community-based volunteer meal delivery service, is finished. The feds have turned the exclusive city and town run volunteer operations into subservient, slavery.

The commercialisation with government involvement (My Aged Care) brings unwanted changes: for the first time, the introduction of meal administration fees "package deals" adds an extra $4 per meal.

The phasing out of "hot meals" in preference for "frozen" meals prepared by food delivery services. The proposed establishment of bulk frozen meal depots.

The purchase of trucks to convey meals from a central distribution point to service depots. The termination of any community involvement in the preparation of meals.

Local co-ops to be corporatized (Pty Ltd) for further private control of operations.

In the past, when meals services were the responsibility of the state-the costs to government were light: (a) a fuel voucher (meal deliveries, mon-fri) and (b) service administration fees (stamps and stationery etc). There were also provisions under the act to apply for grants (at cost to the government) for kitchen equipment.

Each service was autonomous and a benefit to the community-nothing should have been changed [before] everything ran like clockwork.

What we have now is a government inspired dictatorship-a behemoth - that's led to the creation, across the nation, of thousands of jobs, that are not needed-a falsehood to the community and a boon to the private sector-frozen meal companies that will, takeover and replace the hundreds of thousands of volunteer community kitchens in every state and territory of Australia.

It won't work.

John Macleod, Berry

I find it intriguing that Shellharbour City Council rangers and Lake Illawarra Police repeatedly fail to hand out infringement notices to truck drivers parking illegally along the Princes Highway at Albion Park Rail despite the very real hazard the illegal parking poses for local residents attempting to enter and exit their properties.

But they're very quick to hand out infringements notices to car drivers committing relatively minor offences.

Perhaps the difference is that truck drivers tend to be big and burly and hairy and scary?

Don Tate, Albion Park Rail