The first and most obvious - Cobargo Post Office did not burn down and the limited money granted could perhaps be spent on the buildings/business actually fire-affected.

In the zoom meeting dated 23/10/21, John Walters stated one of the main reasons for the post office getting a brand new building is that since COVID, Cobargo Post Office has been receiving more parcels and space was an issue due to fridges etc being mailed. Well my understanding is that Australia Post only accepts parcels to the following measurements:

The entire world has been affected by COVID and the increase in parcel delivery. Cobargo already has limited Australia Post support, we do not even get our mail delivered to our homes. I believe this is a blatant stretching of the funding rules and is not what our fire-affected community needs.

In response to FMD. I was in the UK for a holiday at the tail end of their outbreak. It was heartbreaking to see piles of carcasses being waiting to be burnt. All farms had disinfectant foot baths at all entry points so you HAD to go through this entering and leaving. This is something ALL Australian farmers should instigate NOW to prevent spread to their properties.

Upon return to Australia, Australian Quarantine checked out shoes and boots but that was all. This was 2006. They should be making everyone returning from Bali and/or Indonesia, walk through a disinfectant solution to ensure nothing is spread. This is my views and experience. I do hope that the spread doesn't reach this region.

Prior to the recent federal election, both major parties put proposals forward to make home ownership easier for young people. More effective though would be to give attention to the investment strategy referred to as Speculative Vacancies.

This is where investors purchasing residential properties do not want to have anything to do with tenants but leave the properties empty for years to capitalise on the increase in value. This strategy could be:

Whatever the case, the investor would be using surplus funds to outbid anyone else at an auction thus forcing prices higher and further out of reach of our young people. According to Prosper Australia, in a study of Melbourne residential properties released in 2020, "Of the 1,669,151 properties within the study area, we found 22,684 properties using zero litres of water per day averaged over 12 months. We define these as absolute vacancies. This is a 6.4per cent increase on the 2017 data findings."

It would be reasonable to believe the above would be similar throughout all of our other cities and perhaps to some extent, our regional areas. The 2021 census shows there were 1,043,776 unoccupied dwellings on census night. In 2021 in NSW alone, there were 44,127 applicants on the NSW Housing Register, many having to wait 10 years.

Properties falling under Speculative Vacancies should be very heavily taxed so as to force them into the home ownership, public housing, and rental markets. Taxes raised could be used for public housing. Curbing the Speculative Vacancies practice would help keep house prices down, reduce dubious financial practices and pressures on a construction industry in crisis.