I just want to say that this incredible result has been many years in the making and is the result of the dedicated people in the performing arts community in Bendigo who have worked tirelessly over a long period of time.

This includes the school communities who work so hard each year to incorporate the performing arts, to the youth theatre groups who provide such grounding for their young charges, to the Capital staff, the Bendigo council (including our patron, Rod Fyfe) and the many other theatre groups who make up our vibrant arts community.

This desire for excellence is what drives us on and has resulted in theatrical performances that improve with each season.

We all share in this amazing recognition. Well done.

Read more: Bendigo's Wicked sweeps Music Theatre Guild of Victoria awards

In regards to the use of the Bendigo National Park, MTB use is the least of the worries when it comes to damage.

Read more: Bendigo Mountain Bike Club blames Parks Victoria for likely Golden Triangle Epic cancellation

I would suggest focusing on illegal firewood collection, motorbike use, dumping of garden waste and rubbish as bigger priorities than a organised group using the park to ride bicycles.

The active use of parks for fitness has shown to provide health benefits, park benefits, passive surveillance of illegal activity and community ownership which leads to protection and actual improvement of biodiversity within natural reserves.

If anybody needed any more convincing that Australia is being "led" by a bevy of spin doctors, just look at the latest round of excuses.

High unemployment here to stay, wage rises non-existent just as Mathias Cormann wanted them to be.

Are these people totally brain dead to the reality of everyday life, or, are they totally at home with the everyday Australians' struggle to survive? I believe it is the latter.

Isn't it time in this country that unemployment, and the formulae used to calculate it, was brutally exposed.

One hour a week is classed as employed, which, if it was not so serious, would be absolutely laughable. The real rate of unemployment has to be in the range of 15 per cent, and as for Newstart - what an insult.

Six years ago when Australia was in the top ranked economies in the world, this mob told all in sundry that we were facing a "debt and deficit disaster".

Six years later, the debt has doubled and wage growth and the economy are heading down the toilet.

We have no effective plan for our water resources, practically no interest in managing climate emissions, while we watch the country ablaze from one end to the other.

We all live longer because of medical science, improved food quality due to agricultural science, but totally ignore the science of our planet.

We were told that action taken on climate change was achieving their objective.

All I can say is hear, hear.