He stated at the end of the rant that the only beneficiary is Bunnings, but he is wrong. I am a tradie praying for Bunnings as it will create competition for Mitre 10, which has a monopoly from Bega to Eden and charge what they like for items that are significantly cheaper at Bunnings.

I personally buy things in Canberra Bunnings as I use them regularly at vastly cheaper rates. I purchase parts for up to $30 difference between here and Canberra.

We as tradies want competition to reduce what should be normal charges to save you, the public, money.

So in answer to his final statement, the main beneficiary is him and others in the community.

Unfortunately I can not put my name to this as it would affect my reputation around the community and especially with Mitre 10.

It would be wonderful to have the proposed Twford Theatre available for the Merimbula Jazz Festival.

Great to have a much needed additional venue to cope with the ever-increasing interest in the festival and great for intimate concert style performances.

The Merimbula Jazz Festival currently attracts 600 musicians, 3000 visitor jazz lovers and brings in around two million tourist dollars to the town over the June long weekend.

As a voluntary festival committee member of eight years I wholeheartedly support the efforts of the Twford committee in their drive to make Twford Theatre a reality.

I would like to provide some further facts to your readers following recent consultation in Eden for the NSW government’s Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs).

Firstly, I would like to encourage all individuals and groups to have a say and participate in the consultation process.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) is currently seeking feedback to assist the NSW and Commonwealth governments to determine what form the RFAs take for the sustainable management of native forests.

RFAs seek to balance economic, social and environmental needs on forests by setting obligations and commitments for forest management. 

RFAs have delivered ecologically sustainable forest management arrangements across the entire NSW forest estate, and timber supply and regulatory certainty to the forest industries sector that is valued at $2.4billion to the NSW economy and directly employs 22,000 people across the state.

There are two separate RFA consultations underway at present in NSW – a review process and a renewal process.  

This consultation coincides with an extensive review being led by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) on how we are tracking in our current implementation of the RFAs.

The review is independently looking at the performance over the past 10 years in delivering what the RFAs were designed to achieve. 

Feedback given to the EPA’s implementation review will help DPI to understand how we are performing under existing agreements, what the future holds for these agreements, and how we can learn from our experience over the past 20 years.

This feedback will also be taken into account in the design of the renewed RFAs.

Public submissions have now closed for the review process.

However I would encourage submissions on the renewal of the NSW RFAs which need to be made before 5pm on March 12 at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au.