Cold meter, then an icy reception

ONE frosty winter morning this week, I had the misfortune to park in a spot in Victoria St with a faulty parking meter. No matter how hard I pressed the “select parking meter bay” option, it just wasn’t going to co-operate. Stubbornly it persisted in displaying absolutely nothing. No matter, I thought, I’ll park there anyway and should some kindly parking inspector come across my vehicle, then surely he would just pass it by. How wrong I was. Upon my return 20 minutes later, a miracle had occurred. The frozen meter had come back to life and there stuck on my windscreen was a $40 parking infringement notice. I immediately dobbed in the faulty meter to the council, only to receive a letter three days later saying words to the effect of “stiff cheddar, we checked it, nothing is wrong with it, so pay up or take us to court” (as if any sane person would). I wonder how many readers of the Mercury have had similar experiences with avaricious and faulty meters?

No illegals

NO Robert Rodway (Letters, July 20), asylum seekers are not illegal arrivals — their right to seek asylum is enshrined in laws to which Australian is a signatory, and they have been assessed by the United Nations as being genuine refugees. What is illegal, immoral and shameful, is the fact that having rightly criticised other countries for their poor observance of human rights, we are prepared to incarcerate innocent traumatised people for four years and counting, for the “crime” of fleeing for their lives. of the decades-long abuse of vulnerable young children by Christian “men of God.” To make it worse, this ongoing abuse was covered up for years by church leaders who, by definition, would be staunch Christians. So it would seem that the profession of one particular religion rather than another would be no guarantee of decent behaviour by the followers of that religion.