The first is to Constable Wilson from Ulladulla Police who was very helpful and understanding regarding a fire at my property on Brooman Road, Morton. He gave me some timely advice for which I am grateful.

The second is to Neil Greasly, parklands administrator from Shoalhaven City Council’s Ulladulla office. 

I actually dreaded a face to face meeting but found him to be a very decent and understanding human being. He is South African and I can say we are happy to have him in Australia and in our region.

I would like to thank the NSW community for their generous contributions to The Smith Family’s Winter Appeal. We are very pleased to have raised over $4.5 million nationally to help thousands of disadvantaged children across Australia with vital support for their education.

For the one in seven young Australians living below the poverty line, keeping up at school can be extremely challenging. Family struggles at home can have a flow-on effect to a child’s learning. In our daily work, we hear heartbreaking stories of children missing school because they’re embarrassed about not being able to read or pretending to lose their homework because they hadn’t understood what was happening in class.

The donations we’ve received will help us reach almost 11,000 children in need through The Smith Family’s out-of-school learning programs – such as student2student, which helps younger children improve their reading skills by pairing them with older “reading buddies”, as well as our after-school Learning Clubs and the iTrack online mentoring program.

We are seeing great outcomes for the young people participating in our programs. In 2017, 96 per cent of primary school students improved their reading ability through the student2student program, while 86 per cent of students agreed that going to a Learning Club helped them do better in class. Another 85 per cent of high school students said their iTrack mentor helped them feel more confident about their future job, career or study options.

All of these key programs rely not only on generous donations from the public but also volunteering support from the communities in which we operate. To everyone who has given their valuable time and dollars to support our work, a huge thank you.

It is heart-warming to see people responding with great care to this large-scale issue of poverty in Australia, which is affecting so many of our young people. With this support, we can help more children in need break the cycle of disadvantage and create better futures for themselves.

Anyone wishing to find out more about The Smith Family and our work can phone 1800 024 069 or visit thesmithfamily.com.au

With all the argument, vitriol, backflips and hypocrisy regarding single use, heavy duty and so called biodegradable  plastic bags, I am at a loss to understand the lack of foresight by major supermarkets and other retailers about the way this sorry episode has been managed.

My household has used fabric bags of varying sizes for some years and I would have thought those in charge would have realised the interest in these.

We also do not buy prepackaged fruit or vegetables. Why then did they not introduce a scheme to provide free, a fabric bag to each customer for a certain value of products sold?

This could be one bag for every $15 or $20 spent and I am sure with their penchant for advertising this would have raised their public relations and environmental profile to such an extent as to negate the unedifying anti-environment profile for which they are currently in the spotlight.