What hope has regional Victoria got when the COVID-19 restrictions are so blatantly ignored. Please visitors, stay home for everybody's sake.

Graeme Mayne, Warrnambool

Bloody protesters! Who organises these things? They should be locked up in a jail and kept there on murder or grievous bodily harm charges for every fatal or ICU COVID case coming from this protest.

If I was premier I'd deploy the fire brigade to spray them off their feet. NSW and QLD too. I'm furious at the way police were treated. This has us all locked down again. Watch the number of COVID cases explode. Time for water and rubber bullets.

Jo Archbold, Koroit

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If there was any air left in our lungs before the latest lockdown, it all but emptied last Saturday at 1pm. It was also the day we learnt of the decision that this year's Camperdown Show was being cancelled - again.

While the community adores this beautiful event, it is the organisers who must feel the greatest disappointment. The 150th show had been looming in the headlights for some time - with the anticipation of a memorable milestone. Its cancellation for the second year is due solely to COVID-19 rules, regulations and restrictions. It is a decision being replicated by show societies in a devastating ripple across the state.

Victoria has gone from being the events capital of Australia, to the lockdown capital. Quite simply, the layers of bureaucratic demands that must be met to host such an event are too big a burden for many organisations to carry. This includes the need for COVID marshals and density limits that ultimately make it too hard and expensive. Even the best effort could result in fines - and what volunteer organisation needs that?

The event industry broadly has been smashed by the inability to get insurance. $1.3 billion is being lost in Victoria every month due to the absence of domestic visitors.

We can only look to 2022 in the hope much will have changed by then. It must. Bring on the Camperdown Show 150th. It will be worth the devastating wait.

Bev McArthur, Western Victoria MP

Our government is to be commended on its efforts to evacuate desperate people from Afghanistan. There are, however, additional actions that are also urgent. These actions have been called for by the Refugee Council of Australia with the endorsement of over 300 agencies, a broad range of groups within Australia. They call on the government to: Urge governments in Pakistan, Iran to keep borders open for people trying to flee persecution in Afghanistan; match the Canadian offer of 20,000 additional refugee re-settlement places for people from Afghanistan; increase aid for displaced people in the region; grant Permanent Protection visas to Afghan citizens in our immigration detention facilities, those in the community on Temporary Protection Visas; and prioritise family reunification applications for all members of our Afghan community.

Katherine Stewart, Warrnambool

I'd like to thank all those who helped me after my fall and injuries at Mack Oval on a recent Saturday morning.

It was so great to see that Aussie spirit really show through, even in a world currently full of trauma.

Not sure of all names; a special thanks to the off-duty nurse and her mother who seemed to be connected to the Creek Club.

She was not my nurse at ED but she came over and made herself known up there and made sure I was being looked after. Which I was.

Special thanks too for the young Creek netballer who seemed to be the one who saw me go down on the sliding gravel slope as I tried to go to toilet.

Thanks to Burkey and his four Spikins lads, Tanya and all others I don't know and thanks to Cael for coming off the ground to make sure I was ok.

And, of course, my two daughters who got me and my car to the hospital. Also Cael's coach Wick Wickenton for his kind support.

I notice there is a final played there coming up. With the loose small gravel on such a slope, this could happen again with even greater injury to somebody.

I'm going to be weeks - if not months - getting over mine. Fractured ribs, damaged hip, bruised and cut feet, knees and hands. But I'm not out of pocket. Just in intense pain till I recover.

But I must point out to the Warrnambool City Council that the loose gravel on such a slope so close to the entry to the toilets is really an accident waiting to happen.

Maybe just a danger sign near entry is worth preventing this happening again?

One of the ladies helping me told me her son had already fallen on the same section earlier that morning.

Jack Patterson, Warrnambool

I read with interest 'Uncovering the Past' (The Standard, August 21) about the plea for an access track from the Great Ocean Walk to the monument to the 11 seafarers and a rescuer who died during the wreck of the Fiji at Moonlight Head in 1891.

In book Mystery at Moonlight Head, Alan McLean gives a gripping account of the wreck and the heroic efforts to save the crew. Without the rescuers it is certain the entire ship's complement would have died.

The coast of Victoria is strewn with wrecks from the era of sail.

In 2021, when every ship must, by law, be equipped with modern navigation aids, it is difficult to appreciate the immense challenge of piloting a ship safely across thousands of miles of blank ocean.

Reliant on basic sextant and chronometer, with charts that often lacked detail, approaching the land in bad weather was fraught with danger and relied on the skill and experience of the master.

A small error of reckoning, indistinct seamarks, the inability to sail away from the coast against gale-force winds - any of these could spell disaster of the kind that befell the Fiji.

The monument at Moonlight Head is a rare tribute to the dedication of the small communities of the time to saving the lives of seafarers.

The fact it was erected at the expense of the community and that descendants of the rescuers still live in the area adds poignancy to the memorial.

It would be a small but highly appropriate recognition of that dedication to open a track, so residents and visitors could see the memorial.

Peter Cardy, OBE, Honourable Company of Master Mariners, United Kingdom

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