Australia has one of the highest species extinction rates in the world.

Cats are a major contributor to this sad and sorry record.

Nowhere in either the original motion to council or in what was passed after amendment was there any mention of banning cats or confining them to a leash.

Contrary to Mondays' benign picture painted by Mr Wheeler in his eulogy to the dearly departed family moggie, his old ginger tomcat did not carry a copy of Field Guide to the Birds of Australia on the nightly hunt of its younger days.

Blue wrens or honeyeaters were every bit as likely as starlings to be on the menu at Ginger's cafe because that is simply the way of cats if they are allowed to roam.

Hopefully we may now have some movement on this issue, thanks to a deputy mayor with the intelligence to recognise council has obligations beyond fixing potholes, and enough councillors prepared to risk the inevitable misinformation onslaught that comes from those who like to throw rocks from the sidelines.

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Can someone tell me, what does freedom of speech mean?

As far as I am concerned there is no such thing.

We are in a police world and it is getting worse by the day.

The Manly Football Club players are standing up for what they believe in.

This should be the end of it.

The players who want to wear the new guernseys should go ahead and do so.

The players not wanting to should be able to go ahead and play in the guernseys of old. Instead they are being told what to do.

We are told to be accepting ... the thing is, we are being told, whether we like it or not.

There is a big difference between accepting it and being told to.

There is quite a simple way that Australia can recover from the financial consequences of the COVID pandemic as well as militarise for an ever-changing Pacific; increase the royalties mining companies pay for the commodities extracted from the ground.

Mining companies don't own the commodities in the ground. The Crown does. It has always been the public view minerals are extracted for the benefit of all Australians.

It surprises me that the Coalition didn't reform the taxation system during their time in government, particularly given how much they were spending and their close ties to the mining sector.

The way I see Australia progressing, mining companies could come together and design a way to pay more royalties to the Commonwealth and state government which reflects the risks they take.

Or inevitably, it is only right our government acts in the national interest and implements their own agenda.

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