How would you and your family feel if the saleyards were imposed in your suburb without consultation, and then when the residents did mount a campaign to stop the relocation, the Council not only ignored the residents' concerns, but hired a major Melbourne legal firm to prosecute their case, a $250,000 legal fight.

The council sold a multi-million dollar profitable business for a negligible amount but the current saleyards generate income of around $200 million per annum.

As a parent how would you feel if the saleyards were dumped in your backyard, 800 metres from the school and kindergarten where a large number of young families and children live in the area. It astounds me everyone is overlooking the serious health issues that can be produced by saleyards affecting both humans and livestock and must be addressed. The proposed proximity to housing estates, the school and kindergarten contravenes all recommended barriers between intense livestock activity and residents which should be located at least two kilometres but, preferably, five kilometres from existing or proposed residential development.

Why have the concerns of the residents of Miners Rest been ignored? Why can't the saleyards stay in their current location at Latrobe Street until an appropriate and safe relocation is found that complies with all the requirements and why is Miners Rest deemed the only suitable place for the saleyards? I appeal to our new council to act immediately, listen to the concerns of the residents of Miners Rest, take notice of the expert advice regarding the serious health issues and review the actual sale and relocation of the saleyards to Miners Rest. It is time to put the community's wellbeing first.

Ron Egeberg, Soldiers Hill

As a retired business man and Liberal party voter, l hold the view we need in this country strong unions. I take you back to the early coal mines in England where the miners work day was 12 hours, together with their wives and children down the mine. Plus, 150000 fatal accidents.

The clothing manufacturers worked the same conditions. Their owners were rich, the workers were hungry.  

This does not say we need corrupt unions and stand over men in those unions. We need some controls. We also need industry to be organised so a business can make a profit. The unions also need to work with industry to compete against overseas conditions.

There are still bad unions and bad industries, so you need controls to find the centre of what's achievable. Businesses that go broke stop employing staff.

Businesses that put safety as a low priority need their union to growl. A business needs its staff; the staff needs the business.

Don Woodward, Brown Hill

We are facing the most cataclysmic time in our history. The big question is if organised human life will survive in any sort of recognisable, civilised form, or at all. Yet we keep electing governments or voting for those who will accelerate us to disaster. The media are strangely silent, obdurately non-alarmist, in total denial or absolute derision in their reporting of climate change. Many editorials are devoted to reducing the road toll or local crime.

Many opinion writers seem bent on dividing us into left and right, winners and losers, reducing us to idealists rather than people who want little more than a world that will sustain our children and theirs.

The irony is climate change is set to massively increase both the death toll and crime rates. It will exacerbate homelessness, food and water shortages, energy affordability.