Plus, they have also had six schools come for learn–to-swim programs and adult learn-to-swim programs. There are also many other groups that use the pool.

In a summer with one of the highest number of drownings in the state ever, they provided a most valuable and important service. One the community could not do without!

Can the Bega Valley Shire Council please organise the necessary funds and builders for a new and bigger pool now?!

The current one is leaking, rapidly deteriorating and well past its use-by-date. It is also too small and the wet area is crumbling and dangerous. One day, it will become unusable and unfixable and have to close.

It would be a tragedy and debacle if the community went without a pool and its learn-to-swim programs for even one year while the council organised the funds and builders to erect a new aquatic facility.

While letters to the editor in the past have suggested good ideas to get people into the overpriced housing market, it makes me wonder why our government won't do something about it.

Negative gearing is rewarding investors who actually lose money, and costs the taxpayers billions of dollars a year.

For some students HECS fees are never paid back and still the government keeps putting billions of dollars into this system. The government seems to have plenty of money to throw towards these schemes.

So why not create a good housing system for those desperately needing a good home of their own?

Why couldn't stamp duty for first home buyers be abolished, especially in rural areas? Or a scheme set up to let those in public use their rent as a deposit and if they have a good rental record, help with the finance for buying a new home?

People should be encouraged to live in country towns where they can buy cheaper houses to ease city congestion and keep struggling towns alive. 

When buying and selling a house around $500,000 there are many factors to take into account.

Stamp duty is around $18,000, a real estate agent's fee is near $16,500 and when you take into account negotiation dealings of around $20,000, then factor in the continual monthly mortgage payments.

It's no wonder why people have to put on an extra $100,000 on the purchase price just to break even. Which adds to the reasons why housing affordability is getting out of reach for the first home buyers.

Surely politicians could find a way to ease the housing problem as every Australian deserves the right to own their own home.

You would have thought Rex had more regard for its own hard-earned reputation than to fall for a sucker punch from the local Luddite Lobby, the so-called Bega Valley Ratepayers Association, which wants to shut the doors and turn out the lights on progress.

But Rex ignored the basics of customer relations 101, publicly threatened the community, and got most of us offside.

What an own goal! Rex deserves credit for its long-term, safe, reliable – albeit very expensive – service to Merimbula.  

But the animal spirits are stirring for the Sapphire Coast; long-haul international flights are coming to Canberra.

As well big investment is going into Eden for the cruise ships wharf and recreational vessels marina and the Bega Cheese recapture of Vegemite is going to put a rose in a lot of local cheeks.

Time for Rex to look for opportunities, not problems.