Police should be embarrassed that this got to the paper.

WHILE millions of people starve in Ethiopia, we have food production regions that are grinding to a halt as a consequence of a Murray-Darling Basin Plan that in many ways is an abject failure.

Yet our federal government refuses to pause this plan so we can reassess and try to get it right, instead insisting it will be completed “on budget and on time”.

Let me put it this way.

Assume you were building a house, let’s say with a budget of $500,000, and it was due to be completed by Christmas.

In October, the builder came to you and said: “Look, I can have it finished by Christmas and within budget, but there are a few problems. Firstly our drainage isn’t right and will flood the neighbours when it rains. Then there are the miscalculations with the foundations, and it looks like they won’t be strong enough to hold up the second floor, which might collapse at some point.”

Do you tell the builder to step back, analyse what has to be done and make sure the house is properly constructed, or do you push ahead with “yep, we’ll have it on budget and on time regardless of the consequences”.

I’d suggest every reasonable-thinking person would go for the former, yet with the basin plan the federal government is adopting the latter approach.

What do we have to do for common sense to prevail? Let’s ditch the ridiculous “on budget and on time” notion and start looking at solutions that provide a win-win for food producers, our communities, the environment and millions of starving people in Ethiopia and other countries.

IN MY recent letters I referred to the folly of bringing Syrian refugees into the Gundagai community or anywhere else for that matter.

The murder of all those innocent people in Paris certainly vindicated my views on the issue.

I am led to believe that there were a number of Syrian "refugees" who were among those responsible for the massacre.

In one of my letters, I quoted Gundagai councillor Peter Gain as saying: "I have always believed this community would benefit socially and in other ways from having a broader community base".

After the recent events in Paris, I am wondering if Cr Gain still holds this same belief?

Perhaps he could explain to the community just how Gundagai "would benefit socially in other ways" by having "a broader community base?"

It should be obvious to everyone that all security systems and security checks in the world are ineffective and useless in detecting these types of religious fanatics.

The only way to beat Islamic State (IS) is troops on the ground, yet both Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama don't agree on this solution.

PM Turnbull is only kidding himself by telling everyone that we are the envy of the rest of the world because of our wonderful multicultural society.

Letting them into our community is akin to buying a pig in the poke - you just don't know what you are getting until it's too late.

In other words, contrary to what Cr Gain may believe, the negatives most certainly outweigh the positives.