It was remiss of me not to mention the new council’s role in widening the opportunities for input into the Community Plan beyond letters to rural residents; this is worthy of praise.

For any perceived affront, I apologise, but I certainly didn’t intend disrespect.

My letter noted that council was taking a “step in the right direction”; had “made a well-intended attempt to reach out to rural people”, and “I applaud the new councillors, in a promising start, by pushing back on overwhelming officer influence in decision-making”.

The fact still remains that a limited number had input into the Community Plan, hence our constructive offer to help develop an improved community focussed survey next year – “A search for the best ideas”.

Will this community opportunity now be missed?

I agree with the mayor, the buck stops with council. Councillors are elected to do a job and they are getting on with it. However, this should not preclude, as Marg implied, anyone, whether they stand for council or not, from commenting, and offering improvement ideas. We all pay our rates.

For the mayor to say “councillors are calling the shots” is not as it seems. Council appears to have no control over approximately 40 per cent of its costs, with the CEO having total authority over how many staff he employs.

I suggested to Margaret a way around this problem. Fix a budget for salaries and direct the CEO to operate within that budget. I hope councillors act on that idea. Elected councillors should have a greater say on council’s finances, not the executive arm.

I, too, was disappointed at the mayor’s cheap jibe, describing me as a “keyboard warrior”, ignoring my role as spokesperson for the less well-off with numerous submissions on council issues over many years, and my key role in the Independent Review with savings of $11 million.

In reference to Helen Leach 's comment "I find it extremely offensive when fellow Christians and Yazidi are literally being crucified and worse by Islamic fundamentalists right now in various parts of the world” (“Not all human rights abuses are equal”, Bendigo Advertiser, April 19).

I agree. And I also find it extremely offensive that our Australian government deliberately commits human rights abuses.

I find it incredibly offensive that the Australian government incarcerates the very people Helen is concerned about – Christians, Yazidis and others who have fled Islamic fundamentalists and similar persecution.

To incarcerate any person without trial is offensive. To indefinitely incarcerate innocent women and children without trial is utterly offensive. It is un-Australian. Yet that’s exactly what we Australians have done. And I am offended by it.

Children and their families are detained on Nauru, 3000 miles northeast of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific, in the middle of nowhere. Nauru is not a dreamy Pacific island. Phosphate mining in the central plateau left a barren terrain of jagged limestone pinnacles up to 15 metres high. Mining stripped and devastated about 80 per cent of Nauru's land area and 40 per cent of marine life is estimated to have been killed by silt and phosphate runoff. Nauru often suffers severe fresh water shortages. The entire island of Nauru is less than half the size of Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport.

The federal government has spent almost $10 billion on offshore processing, mandatory detention, etc. It costs about $400,000 to keep a person on either Manus or Nauru, that's per annum.