Just watch your babies on the verandahs – l don't understand how the railings passed council inspection.

Wish I lived closer to you,  l would love to make your wedding cake.   

What I am about to outline relates to Bega TAFE, however from my experience it relates to a large number of TAFEs in regional, rural and remote areas.

I have a lot of hands on “real’ knowledge of traineeships, apprenticeships and TAFEs. Under the old CES I ran these across most of Western and South Western Sydney and also developed and ran the CES best practice unit in vocational education in the transport industry

Politicians at all levels are raving on about what they are going to do about improving employment for young people and apprenticeships would appear to be the big focus.

Problem is at Bega TAFE and a large number of other TAFEs, the courses offered don’t relate to the local job market.

In the Bega shire the main employment opportunities relate to all trades, tourism and anything to do with farming. Why then does Bega TAFE not offer plumbing, electrical, carpentry, mechanics, anything to do with building trades, farming or tourism?

While on the subject, Bega TAFE urgently needs a satellite campus in Eden where there are kids that really need a hand up to achieve their dreams and aspirations before they become a lost generation.

Education is only the journey. Meaningful jobs and careers are the destination and currently what’s on offer at TAFEs everywhere will not achieve this. All the cuts and changes to TAFE structures certainly are not sending the right messages.

None of this is rocket science just plain common sense, which it would appear all levels of government have little of.

Like Diana Gillies, I also fear for the future of our forests. I fear that people actually believe the opinions of Mr Sweeney or anyone from the NSW National Parks Association, because fear campaigns are for raising campaign funds, not providing sustainable ecological solutions.

It appears that Ms Gillies is not aware of the blackest days of January and February 2003, when 60 per cent (over 400,000 hectares) of Koscuiszko National Park was incinerated by mega fires. This area was about 13 percent of the 2,400,000 hectares of the main range, between Canberra and Myrtleford, that was incinerated during the 2002-03 mega fires.

Like Nero, Ms Gillies and her armchair activist associates fiddle about native forest harvesting, while our supposedly "protected" forests are decimated by wildfires.

What is Mr Sweeney's solution to the biggest threats of mega fires, feral animals and predation, that are devastating our biodiversity across the whole continent?

A tiny fraction of the total native forest estate is still available for timber harvesting. But, these forests continue to be a critical fundraiser for the activist organisations that pay people like Mr Sweeney to run their scare campaigns.

I've been studying wind power developments in Australia for at least 15 years and I've worked in the hydrogeology (underground water) field for 30 years.

I hope it might help settle people's concerns about the suggestion of pollution of the aquifer if I say that I have never heard of a wind farm resulting in the harming in any way of an aquifer, and I find it very difficult to imagine any way it could happen.