This is what has occurred in the much discussed Israel Foleau case.

What has been quite irrelevant to his situation has been the discussion which has also taken place around the issues of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

To my mind, If Israel had said to me that because I was an atheist I would go to hell unless I repented I would not feel that he had "crossed the line" with regard to either issue.

He is quite entitled to that religious belief and also entitled to express it.

If however he said I should go to hell I would have a problem, particularly with regard to freedom of speech.

This would be "hate talk".

Experience throughout the world has shown that comments such as the latter, in the public arena can incite violence, often on a large scale.

Israel's comments were however not "hate talk"

If someone remonstrated with him with regard to his comments, Israel would be quite entitled to reply along the lines of, "Hey mate I'm just telling you what I believe to be true. Don't shoot the messenger".

John Martin, Woonona

Built at a cost of $1.083 billion and powered by 100 per cent renewable energy.

It was the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and the second largest of its type (reverse osmosis) in the world.

Between 28 January 2010 and 2 July 2012, the Sydney Desalination Plant supplied 250 million litres of water a day (15 per cent of Sydney's drinking water) until dam storage levels reached 90 per cent capacity, when it was shut down.

The idea being the plant would be recommissioned once dam levels dropped to 70 per cent.

In the latter stages of 2012 the government sold/leased the plant for 50 years on a $200 million a year "upkeep and maintenance contract".

Late august 2014, enough time for the plant to sit idle for a couple of years, which seemed to irk Greens MP John Kaye who described the desalination plant as a "white elephant".

On 16 December 2015 a mini tornado, struck the plant (winds up to 213 kilometres per hour). Large areas of the desalination plant's roof were blown off, as a consequence, the control room suffered significant water and wind damage.

It wasn't until January 2019 that sufficient repairs had been carried out to allow a trickle of water to be produced-what an outrage-for over a period of four years the operators had received in excess of $800 million from the state government and done nothing except to fatten their bank accounts.

The NSW taxpayers have been taken to the cleaners not only by the controlling body looking after the plant but also the New South Wales state government.

The whole episode stinks.

We need a Royal Commission to carry out an investigation.

It is time for the NSW Labor Party to take an interest and raise this matter in parliamentary debate.

John Macleod, Berry