What about the empty commercial buildings that are lit up like a Christmas tree every night?

There has been a fair bit of publicity in the local press lately about the plight of the homeless in Wagga.

Apparently, according to reports, there are a number of people sleeping in doorways, bus stops and under bridges.

There are other unfortunates that are also sleeping in tents and other make-shift shelters in parks and other vacant lots.

In the June 15 edition of The Daily Advertiser there was a photo of a number of notables including Michael McCormack MP, and Wes Fang MLC.

They were celebrating the opening of the Wagga Beach Riverside Precinct. The project cost a mere $9.93 million.

However, this is the part that I can't understand. Why spend all that money on a needless project when we have all these people sleeping out in freezing conditions?

Perhaps, somebody has got their priorities wrong?

I know that Mr McCormack has always advocated for more migrants to be settled in Wagga and, on arrival, they move straight into government-provided housing.

This is despite anxious locals being pushed further down the waiting list for similar accommodation. And I am told that list is a mile long.

Shouldn't it be - first come, first served? Again, where are the priorities?

I believe that any reasonable person would want the homeless and the locals to be taken care of first instead of building some expensive 'precinct' that should be at the bottom end of the priority scale.

Some of our community leaders have got to get away from their "I'm alright Jack" attitude and think about the most deserving members of our society.

Believe me folks, it's not that hard to do.

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How about the Education Department reintroducing back into the school curriculum Dorothea Mackellar's famous poem My Country.

Such sums up our nation's ongoing climate the same as it was when she wrote this all those years ago.

Our young school children need to be allowed to learn about the climate in their own country.

I quote the second verse of her poem:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror,

The wide brown land for me!

I learnt this poem in primary school 82 years ago.

There are more verses, the words of which momentary escape me.

Food for thought.

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