Silence deafening

Well overdue is consideration of the public interest issues that the confected federal election narratives of the Coalition and the ALP studiously avoided.

Amongst so many was the behaviour of the Australian Taxation Office.

This was exposed in April, 2018 Four Corners program, 'A Mongrel bunch of bastards' in which a tax lawyer said that an accused murderer had more rights than a taxpayer.

In the wake of the program Kerry O'Dwyer, the then relevant minister announced an inquiry which has since reported but nothing has changed.

O'Dwyer departed parliament before the election.

Worse, an ATO employee whose internal complaint of unscrupulous ATO behaviour was ignored now faces the possibility of a sentence of over 160 years for going public.

This brings to mind the case of the Australian lawyer and the security agent who legitimately exposed immoral and illegal bugging of the East Timor cabinet in 2004 for unscrupulous Australian commercial advantage.

Will they also be prosecuted using misapplied anti terrorism legislation in an act of political revenge?

In all of the foregoing matters the silence from the Coalition and the ALP is characteristically deafening. So much for the national interest and the public interest. Both are invariably trumped by the parties' interest.

Reader should begin to address other public interest issues that were omitted by both sides of the party playground during that tedious five week election campaign of shrill slogans and mutual blame games.

Frank Carleton, Longwarry

A big bouquet to the mother who drove across town to care for my son when he hurt himself at Warragul Skatepark and I was not around. Another bouquet to my son’s friend for thinking to ring his mum.

My husband and I would like to thank the people who assisted in capturing our dog when she escaped our Warragul home on Tuesday afternoon. Also thanks to the cars that stopped. Thanks to the couple who fortunately had a lead.