I beg to differ with this sentiment. I would hope the NSW Police internal investigation procedures are today more thorough than they were 60 years ago.  As such, any corrupt or inappropriate behaviour of an officer would not be tolerated, and disciplinary action would be taken against that officer, if it were deemed necessary.

To put it simply, steps would be taken before a desperate man (Myron Kelly) resorted to an act of violence to put an end to years of continual harassment and fabricated traffic infringements metered out by the constable. 

To give you one example, Myron Kelly received an infringement notice from the constable for the heinous offence of “J walking”, in George St, Sydney, when he had never even been in Sydney.  I have read comments on Facebook saying that the constable was only doing his job.  Surely this is a blatant abuse of power by anyone’s standards.

A lesson can be learned from this tragic incident, that to be a police officer in a small country community takes a particular skill.  You are not anonymous.  You are part of the community that you serve and you live in that community.  You need to uphold the law, but you need to do so fairly, to gain the respect of the community. 

I feel justified in making these statements.  I was a serving police officer for 15 years, 12 of those in Bega.  In all that time I believe that I treated everyone fairly and with respect, and never once did I have fears for my safety out of working hours.

We remember the tragic event of the night of July 29, 1957, where sadly three people unjustly lost their life.  This is a blight on the history pages of Bega.  The untold events leading up to this tragedy are sadly a blight on the history of NSW Police. 

What happened was dreadfully wrong and unforgivable, but to paint one person as a hero and the other as the villain is unfair.  There are two sides to every story.  There is a lesson to be learned from all this, and hopefully it will never happen again.

While Rome suffers from water restrictions for the first time, droughts and fires are more frequent and in unexpected places, we are experiencing in the Bega Valley a super-early spring with warm temperatures, spring blossoms out already and winds picking up.

Neither current state nor federal politicians in Australia seem to care about climate change or pollution.

Our local grassroots movement Boomerang Bags Bega Valley Sapphire Coast is counteracting climate change by reducing single-use plastic items and therefore the reliance on fossil fuels, avoids discarded fabric going to landfill, protects wildlife, keeps our waterways and oceans clean and keeps humans healthy.

The most common question we get asked is what to use as rubbish bin liner when the plastic bags are phased out?

Rubbish bins can go nude and simply be rinsed out under the garden hose, if necessary. A lot of times the single-use plastic bags developed holes at the bottom anyway and did not really avoid dripping.

Composting or digging plant scraps directly into the ground near a tree helps to avoid soggy, smelly residues in the bin. Butcher’s paper or old newspaper is good to wrap up meat-contaminated items. There will also still be plenty of plastic packaging around – e.g. from parmesan cheese, mail order satchels, animal feed bags etc. Soft plastic bags can be left at Coles now, which works together with Redcycle to recycle any soft plastic that can be scrunched up in one hand. Australia Post accepts used post satchels back for recycling.