I don't know you or your family, but wanted you to know what a delight it was watching you on Junior Masterchef. I think all Bendigo would agree with me.

Your smiling happy face and cheerful nature made watching television a pleasure (for a change). Only 10 years old - wow, your grandma and family must be so proud of you, as you too should be.

Congratulations on getting so far and we'll all keep an eye out for your name in the future. Good luck.

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It's disappointing to see Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon quit the opposition front bench cabinet as Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources.

His views are right that the views of his electorate to the issues here in Bendigo or anywhere else are totally different.

Far too long elected MPs have been forced to take the party line irrespective of other issues at stake.

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The local candidate says they will work for you but it doesn't end up that way they get hamstrung along the way.

I know of a local member who voted for weekend trading and when asked why he did, his answer was some else voted for it, never mind it was a contentious issue here in Bendigo.

Traditionally Labor was the party that represented blue collar workers, the general rank and file of the country, but later years we have seen a shift away from that.

Early day politicians generally had some form of background knowledge behind them but the modern day politicians have come out of universities with bits of paper that amount for nothing.

Because they have no work experience, haven't learnt the basic skills of life and have no idea how to communicate with people.

The Liberal Party have looked after the high flyers, multi-nationals and big companies as evident in the taxation scheme of who pays and who doesn't. The National Party are supposedly supporting the farming Industry but all they appear to be doing is riding on the coat tails of the Liberals seeking glory. And now we have all these splinter parties just making a circus out of the situation.

And then you look at Four Corners on Monday night. The goings on are an absolute disgrace. We are paying high taxes for this sort of behaviour and no benefit to the nation.

We are certainly not getting value for money. They say you pay peanuts you will get monkeys but we are paying good money and still get monkeys. In fact a monkey wouldn't behave like this.

We need more people like Joel Fitzgibbon in politics - people with some honesty and integrity.

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