Bike spend insufficient
I congratulate Brimbank council for completing local bicycle trails in recent years (‘Kororoit Creek trail extension a treat for cyclists’, Star Weekly, June 10).
However, I note it seems almost all council funding for walking/bicycle infrastructure seems to have been forgotten in the proposed budget for the new financial year.
The main project for 2014-15 appears to be a section of trail beside the Regional Rail Link project and is to be entirely funded by the state government.
Proposed council expenditure on roads is $16.9 million, or $86 per person. Proposed expenditure on walking/bicycle infrastructure is $145,000 or 75 cents
per person.
I wonder why Brimbank has a problem with encouraging people to give up their cars and start exercising.
Other councils around Melbourne spend closer to $5 per person.
Phillip, via web
Law and disorder
As crime rates continue to rise, Victorian taxpayers are now paying an additional $1 billion a year under Denis Napthine to prop-up the Liberal government’s failed law and order strategy.
Under Denis Napthine, family violence offences have exploded. Crimes against the person have jumped, largely driven by breaches of intervention orders. Drug offences continue to rise and assaults
are also up.
According to Victoria Police crime data, there were almost 40,000 more criminal offences recorded across Victoria last year than before the Liberals came to office in 2010. The state’s prison population has increased by almost 12 per cent in the past three years.
A Productivity Commission report on government services revealed the state’s recidivism rate has also grown, with 36.8 per cent of released prisoners returning to jail within two years, up from 35.1 per cent in 2011-12.
Forget the slogans and endless spin about frontline police numbers from Denis Napthine and the Liberals. The simple fact is that Victoria is less safe today than it was three years ago.
Only a dysfunctional and out-of-touch government would consider an increasing crime rate, an epidemic of family violence and overflowing prisons as a mark of success.
Wade Noonan MP, opposition police and emergency services spokesman
School zone stupidity widespread
It’s not just Brimbank where we have idiots defying the 40km/h school zones (‘Close calls prompt school speed warning’, Star Weekly, June 10).
It’s amazing how many times I’m tailgated and abused by drivers when obeying the 40km/h signs in front of schools at Brookside in Caroline Springs.
I often see police patrol that area and take great delight when they book drivers, who often are mothers doing the school run.
Tony Lucas, Caroline Springs
