There is already a track there, only requiring sand. This would not require any vegetation-clearing unlike anything adjacent to Lady Bay.

Charles Cowell, Wangoom

READ MORE: PUSH TO TURN COASTAL LAND NEAR LADY BAY INTO HORSE TRAINING AREA

Our new mayor, Cr Richard Ziegeler, shows his ignorance in his assessment of the coastal bush along Viaduct Road.

Most of it is not "noxious weeds" but healthy native shrubs, trees and understorey plants.

Sheoaks, beard heath, wattles, tea tree and saltbush provide a complex habitat for a wide range of birds and animals.

The diverse and dense nature of this bush is ideal for attracting bandicoots, dunnarts, scrub wrens, grey fantails and many other native animals.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE

The area provides an important biolink between Thunder Point Coastal Reserve and Lady Bay Foreshore Reserve. It could be improved with strategic plantings.

Cr Ziegeler is wrong to campaign to hand over more land to the horse racing industry when it already controls a huge piece of public land at Warrnambool Racecourse Reserve.

It has been suggested many times that a sand track and horse wading ponds should be installed there.

Cr Ziegeler says he is concerned about foxes and homeless people living in the bush. If so, then he should work to solve those important environmental and social problems rather than calling in the bulldozers to destroy precious native wildlife habitat.

Bruce Campbell, deputy chairman, Warrnambool Coastcare Landcare Network

I write this letter as a registered nurse and a refugee advocate.

I am confident if I was diagnosed with COVID-19, the public health system would provide a coordinated response to ensure I could safely isolate at home and if my symptoms escalated, so would my care.

What about the 15 men detained in the Park Hotel in Carlton who have received a COVID diagnosis? What about the other 30 men detained there who are now close contacts? How confident can we be that these men who were brought to mainland Australia in 2019 from Manus Island or Nauru for medical treatment will receive the same level of care?

These men were brought to Australia with issues requiring medical attention and have been held in hotel detention for more than two years.

The Department of Immigration and Border Force assures us their medical treatment, which is contracted out to the International Medical and Health Service, will follow 'state government health advice and direction'.

The treatment of these individuals has been so appalling that this is far from reassuring. I implore anyone who reads this letter to check the facts. The treatment of these men by our federal representatives in our names is so outrageous it is difficult to believe. Have no doubt.

We are holding individuals in indefinite detention in a hotel and now they are sick. The time has come to treat all individuals with respect, dignity and access to good healthcare.

Katherine Stewart, Warrnambool

It is unfortunate that Glenn Fahey (The Standard, 25/10) demonstrates his total ignorance of inquiry learning and school mathematics through a remarkable jumble of confusions and misunderstandings.

Teachers, academics and researchers who support sophisticated inquiry have never argued for '... learners to attempt to backwards engineer and generalise new knowledge from trying to apply it first.' Rather, learners work their way through problems bringing to bear their own knowledge and the knowledge of others as required.

If students are investigating shapes and structures, they may collate as many as they find in the world around them - soccer ball, beehives, chair design, leaves and flowers - raising questions about patterns, angles, strength, beauty.

Within this mix of personal experience, the teacher can introduce ideas to challenge students and to suggest common properties.

There is no evidence to claim that an inquiry approach to geometry prevents students from becoming effective problem-solvers. Organising students to collaborate and share their knowledge as they explore and experiment with ideas enables potent connections to be made between what is known and what is yet to be known - this is called learning.

It is apparent those who have utterly outmoded notions of schooling, where children are mere 'empty vessels' to be filled with pre-specified information, see themselves as dominating the views of others.

Conversely, children have an insatiable curiosity about the world, vibrant imaginations and intense intellects that must be respected. Inquiry learning in all subjects is based on these principles.

Dr Neil Hooley, Essendon West

New legislation before the Victorian Parliament is seeking to permanently enshrine government over reach into the lives and livelihoods of regional Victorians.

High vaccination rates and the winding back of restrictions on our society have sent a ripple of hope through our communities that our lives are getting back on track.

Vibrancy is returning to our pubs, cafes and wineries, kids are back in the classroom, community sport is back on the agenda and we're all eagerly anticipating a 'normal' Christmas with the people we love most.

But at a time when we need certainty, the Andrews Labor Government is seeking the power to permanently hold our lives to ransom.

Labor's proposed pandemic management laws hand the premier extraordinary powers, including the power to unilaterally make a "pandemic declaration" without warning and "whether or not ... the pandemic disease is present in Victoria".

A 'pandemic declaration' could last indefinitely in blocks of three months, with no accountability to Parliament or the Victorian people.

The Nationals have proposed common sense changes to these laws to make sure the government of the day is accountable.

We do not support handing over everything - our rights, our liberties, our livelihoods - to one person. That is not how democracy works.

Under our Private Members Bill, extensions to emergency or pandemic declarations would require a 3/5ths vote of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.

Victorians cannot suffer a repeat of the last 18 months. We need new protections that ensure transparency and accountability are at the centre of current and future pandemic responses.

If you agree, make your voice heard by signing our petition HERE.

Peter Walsh, Leader of The Nationals