LetteroftheWeek

Have strong opinions, write in an engaging way? You could win our Letter of the Week, and with it a book from our friends and sponsors, the publishers HarperCollins. This month’s book prize is The Ones You Trust. The brand-new psychological thriller from bestselling author Caroline Overington will have you thinking twice about who in your life you can really trust.

LAST week my wife and I returned from London after a river cruise in Europe.

I left my bag on a train in London with wallet, phone, credit cards etc. and no UK contact details.

Panic was beginning to set in when a young Londoner appeared on the platform with my bag.

He noticed me run after the train once I noticed my error and took a taxi from the next station back to the station where I was and returned my bag intact.

He would not accept any reward or even give me his name.

I hope something nice happens to that young man.

His honesty certainly made our holiday end on a good note. It’s nice to know that there is still some incredible people out there. PATRICK SMYTHE, NERANG

BILLY Slater’s try-saving tackle was the outstanding spectacle of the entire match won by the Storm.

If “Grade 1” meant “the very best” or “perfect” that would be an apt description of the traditional shoulder charge he used.

It was nothing like the shoulder charges directed at the front of the body so rightly condemned and punished by the NRL Judiciary, but so poorly defined.

When I played rugby league at secondary school level, I was probably the smallest on the field and at fullback (last player chosen), I was often run over by opposition players. Then my teacher/coach, a colleague of the great Cyril Connell, taught me to use the shoulder charge and changed me into a very effective tackler, while also saving me from the many injuries I had formerly suffered.

Slater deserves high praise for his tackle and, if he is penalised in any way for it, that is the end of rugby league for me. BOB HALL, HELENSVALE

IN your text section on September 22 the following assertion was made by “Kev”: “Well Ken let me tell you the real reason the Fed. Government only fund the M1 to 50% and the NSW roads 80% ... The State Gov. in NSW is LNP and the state Gov. in Qld is labor. End of story. Kev.”

This is patently untrue and an obvious bias.

The reality is that the Federal Government put a proposal forward some years ago that if state governments capitalised their assets (leased their assets) to fund infrastructure then the Federal Government would provide 80 per cent funding.

Both NSW (LNP) and Victoria (ALP) both capitalised assets and received 80 per cent funding for infrastructure investment.

The Queensland Labor government chose to demonise asset capitalisation and we have paid the price.

The Queensland Labor government has sold the lie that the feds are dudding us but this is patently false. The Queensland Labor government has let ideology and union pressure override a perfectly sensible proposition and have tried to cover up their ineptitude with a

constant lie. As recently as two weeks ago, Minister Mark Bailey has used this lie as an excuse for a lack of movement on the M1 funding. We will all pay the price long term. PETE LEE, BUNDALL

THE ABC has broken the story of possible conflicts of interest among the generals in the weird war on a certain spiky black native starfish called “Crown of Thorns”.

If you missed it, search the ABC’s website for “crown of thorns funds funnelled through companies linked to tourism operators” from September 19. There’s a lot that smells fishy about the vast amounts of our money that gets poured into the Great Barrier Reef.

The “reef is dead” stories from the alarmist fraternity severely damaged our tourism industry while tourism thrives on lesserquality reefs in Asia.

Professor Peter Ridd blew the whistle on the non-replicable, poorly-reviewed studies the government relies on when allocating funding.

We still cannot be certain that Crown of Thorns outbreaks are bad for the reef.

It is an irruptive species with large fluctuations in numbers and it may, in fact, be important to the reef’s diversity.

And now the long-rumoured connections between some of the big names that dip their hooks in the taxpayer-cash current are starting to emerge. PETER CAMPION