My brother and I went to the skate park today to have some fun on our pupil free day.

When we arrived we were disgusted with the amount of rubbish that was scattered about, drink bottles, food wrappers and even cigarette butts.

Yes, people should put rubbish in the bins provided but it’s also the council’s fault for not supplying enough bins.

At the skate park there is one lonesome bin that is over flowing and is tiny.

We think the Council should put more bins there at the skate park so it doesn’t look as bad as it does and they should be cleared more regularly.

We went back later that day and picked up the rubbish.

Georgia Williams, aged 10

Dear editor

The looming by-election for the State seat of Cootamundra gives residents of small town rural Australia an unprecedented opportunity to send the strong message to the politicians and suits in Macquarie Street that enough is enough, and the bush deserves and expects better.

Do residents of Cootamundra, Gundagai, Young, Cowra, Junee, Coolamon, Temora and West Wyalong want more of the same – more amalgamations, poor representation, loss of identity, lazy policy and cronyism, or do they want to put the state Nationals on a chair in the corner of the kindergarten we call state politics for the next 18 months?

The bottom line is that this government has lied to us – no forced amalgamations; taken rural towns for granted – going through a sham consultation process that rejected the will of the people but rewarded mates appointing them as high paid administrators; been complicit in poor management – hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted on consultants and advisors while the real issues with service delivery and infrastructure are not addressed.

The state National Party has proven totally ineffectual in representing the will of their constituents.

The current Nationals candidate offers more of the same.

No rejection of forced mergers or amalgamations and support for the current Minister for Amalgamations on police restructure. No vision for the future of small town rural NSW, and no indication how she will stand up to her citycentric coalition partners.

It’s 18 months until the next state election. This gives voters in the Cootamundra electorate a riskfree opportunity to deliver a strong protest vote.

Think local government, think policing and security, think hospitals, health and doctors, think transport, think local jobs and services, think vibrant communities. It gives the state Nationals 18 months to get their act together, but they won’t if we vote for more of the same.

Dr Paul Mara

Chair Gundagai Council in Exile

Dear Editor,

I profess I had a basic ignorance of what the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party actually stand for, so I did some simple homework and looked up their attitude to environmental issues. 

What I found is appalling - a kind of regression to when the Nationals seemed to believe the only good environment was one that could be cut down, plowed up or stuffed up for human use.

Many readers will find the following almost unbelievable in this day and age. For instance, SFF want no more marine parks at all - therefore no safe areas where marine biota can be protected to make up for the decimation in the adjoining areas. They want existing marine parks opened up for fishing, thus destroying the whole point of the protected, sheltered havens in the first place.

They also back farmers ‘rights' to clear any native vegetation, which, considering great swathes of NSW have been decimated by decades of unregulated clearing over the past 100 years, is just lunacy. Landcare groups across the state will be disgusted by this attitude.

Just when one thinks this is so far right (and half a century behind the times) they also want National Parks opened up to bloody four wheel drive vehicles. The whole point of National parks, as with the Marine Parks they view as just one more recreational objective, is to protect habitat, especially in areas where the surrounding farmland makes it impossible for a rich native biota to survive and flourish. 

SFF seem to be a bunch of idiotic  'Barnabys' by another name - a kind of redneck hell that a new generation of landcare type farmers must find as ridiculous, gross and embarrassing as I do. 

Whoever in the party came up with this manifesto is truly scary and should never be allowed anywhere near political power, irrespective of how much they loathe the Nats in NSW.

Michael Durrant – Young