Long-term climate-change is not to be confused with weather variability. Cold, wet weather periods are merely a “blip” in the on-going trend towards a warmer planet.

Confirming this, average global temperatures in July and August were the hottest on record with the World Meteorological Organisation forecasting that 2016 will be the warmest year on Earth ever recorded.

Typically, July has been the hottest month of the year but now we see global heating dispersing across the month of August as well.

Scientists confirm the heating trend is driven by our continued fossil fuel burning, which is accelerating global warming.

In Victoria, during the coming months, we will again experience elevated temperatures causing rapid drying of soil moisture and dense plant growth.

Victorian chief fire officers are already planning for the coming summer and remind us, that although we have experienced a very wet winter period, it only takes two weeks of hot, dry and windy weather to create dangerous fire conditions.

Following the recent wet weather conditions in Victoria there remains no room for complacency about the inevitable impact of climate-change and, certainly, there is no place for resurrected scepticism of the advice and predictions of world renowned climate scientists.

Year 2015 was the hottest on record, and year 2016 is predicted to be even hotter.

When are commuters on the Bendigo line and beyond to Swan Hill and Echuca going to get a better rail service than what they are receiving?

This will not happen until such time as the designated line from Sunbury to Southern Cross is completed, and the Bendigo line doesn’t share a line with the suburban network like it does now.

Something Geelong and Ballarat don’t have to encounter.

The meaning of “designated” is to give some priority or a special appointment or position, but this doesn’t happen because a train from Bendigo to Melbourne, or in return, can arrive or leave any platform between platform one and 16.

The other problem is the single line where trains have to wait for the other train to pass resulting in lost time. 

It’s quite apparent that politicians don’t understand that two doesn’t go into one.

It appears that governments of all persuasions don’t learn from their mistakes, especially after the fiasco that embroiled Public Transport earlier this year.

We now learn that contracts have been let to China to supply new trains. Are we going to see the lack of maintenance on these trains also?

All though it’s interesting that a two-year contract has been awarded to the company occupying the old North Bendigo Workshops, is this an admission of bad management?

What consultations have taken place with employees or any public surveys with the people you want to patronise the use of these trains?

Are we going down the same pathway again imported shells and components and put together in a factory?

There is a perfectly good facility here in Bendigo and Ballarat that could be utilised better to create proper employment and jobs.

Unfortunately, a government was quick to sell off all these assets to get themselves out of financial difficulties, plummeting the state in to the doldrums because all income from public assets going into the private coffers instead of supporting the state.