The double tram tracks once in McCrae Street were replaced by a single tram line by Vic Roads, and that is why there is now so much trouble at the Chapel Street intersection.

Nowhere in any of the road rules is a vehicle allowed to turn into the path of an oncoming vehicle, but that is what Vic Roads is permitting motorists to do at McCrae Street and Chapel Street intersection and at other locations on the tram line. How dangerous is that?

Road Rule 187(2) prohibits motorists from stopping on tram tracks, but that is what Vic Roads is permitting with their turning lanes.

The same laws apply to commuter trams in Melbourne as they do to their restaurant trams and the Bendigo trams.

Is it any wonder that motorists are confused and tram drivers are frustrated?

I expect Vic Roads to spend my taxes in designing clear, unambiguous  and lawful road management systems.

I think that Vic Roads has some explaining to do.

Climate scientists have repeatedly warned of the impact of climate change on Australia; advice largely ignored by politicians.

For the Australian continent they correctly predicted increasing severity and frequency of heat-waves, flash-flooding, coastal erosion, severe bush-fires, prolonged droughts, together with sea-level rise.

Our political leaders have been negligent in accepting these warnings, with little long-term planning and minimal address to environmental issues.

This week, 20 prominent Australian scientists and community leaders including John Hewson, signed an open letter to declare a Climate Emergency.

The letter, directed to our new government after July 2nd called for ‘an immediate ban on coal and gas developments and an emergency-speed transition to zero emissions’.

Climate change they said ‘is devastating rural and regional communities and severely impacting on the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray-Darling Basin.

The next Australian government should be declaring a climate emergency and facing up to the fact that we need a credible plan to deal with global warming as it poses a threat to all industries and our existing way of life’.

With year 2016 expected to be the warmest on record globally, ‘the future of human civilisation and the survival of the precious ecosystems on which we depend, now hang in the balance’ write the signatories, adding, ‘with the Federal election only days away, neither major party has a credible plan and both lack urgency on this issue’.

Voters are rightly being called upon to recognise the seriousness of accelerating global warming and the impact it will have on jobs-growth, their very livelihoods, and ultimately our national food security.