It is great to find a local paper that can publish such informative articles.

My wife and I were on holiday in Warrnambool recently, we came down to ride the rail trail to Port Fairy. An adventure for us, enhanced by rock carvings along the route.

I took the opportunity to see a couple of Hampden League games and to ride around the Port Fairy Footy oval, one of the prettiest country grounds I have seen.

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

While in town, I discovered The Standard and have taken out a subscription, initially to follow the footy through the finals, but now to read about the broader issues facing the region.

My only previous experience of Warrnambool was two weeks in the excellent hospital in the care of Brendan Mooney and his team of doctors and nurses after I became ill at Tower Hill and was rescued by a couple of great paramedics.

The only hospital I have been in where you could get poached eggs for breakfast! A lot of good things about Warrnambool.

Ian Sharp, Somers

Farmers are always at the bottom of the pecking order. Here once again, the Warrnambool council wants to close our saleyards.

If we were any other business or profession they wouldn't even hesitate in fixing them.

Since the beginning of time, we - the farmer, or peasants as we are still treated - have been robbed and taken advantage of. This is a classic example.

The Warrnambool council have taken the profits from the saleyards, spent it on goodness knows what and now they say 'let's build a new art gallery, let's get rid of the farmers, they're just dumb peasants - they can go away somewhere else'.

It's discrimination at it's worst but because we are farmers, nobody cares. Heartbroken.

Ros Holloway, Mepunga

The shortage of rental properties in the region has been a problem for many years.

COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem as more people looked to move to regional Victoria, but the crisis precedes the pandemic.

More than 130 reforms to the Residential Tenancies Act were passed in 2018 and implemented last year - things like introducing basic standards, or limiting rent increases to once a year - sensible changes that give assurances to renters. But allowing renters to make minor modifications to homes without needing permission from landlords is just one example of how the reforms went too far.

At the time the laws passed, then-president of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, Richard Simpson, warned the reforms would swing the pendulum too far in favour of renters' rights over those of landlords.

That warning has become a reality.

There are now growing calls from industry experts who say the changes to legislation have inadvertently led to a mass exodus of investors from the property market.

No one would deny that renters' rights are important. There should be minimum standards landlords need to meet before their property can be rented out. But there needs to be balance. Without investors, there are no rental properties. And without rental properties, problems such as homelessness become more and more prevalent.

Fixing the housing crisis isn't just a matter of making more land available or building more houses - both of which are very important - but also ensuring there is a steady flow of available rental properties. If investors are going to continue to leave the property market because legislation is too restrictive, then that legislation must be changed.

Roma Britnell, South West Coast MP

Labor candidate Kylie Gaston in her letter (The Standard, August 22) claims $286 million has been spent on the Warrnambool rail line.

Where has the money been spent? For $286 million, one would expect the equivalent of British rail HST 125 (200km/h) trains introduced in 1978. But all we have is the same worn-out, unreliable vintage trains and not one minute of travel time cut between Warrnambool and Melbourne.

Gaston rolls out the same old failed Labor promise of VLocity trains for Warrnambool with less seating and no catering services.

She fails to inform the reader that stage two of the rail upgrade will cost a further $266 million to bring the line up to standard for VLocity trains (Warrnambool rail upgrade, Australian Government website).

Gaston also fails to inform the reader that of stage one, $226.4 million was funded by the former Federal Liberal Government and they have allocated a further $208 million for stage two.

So Kylie, where has the money gone? It's our money, our taxes and $434.4 million of federal funds topped up by Victorian taxpayer contribution of $67.4 million.

Kylie, how can a Labor Government blow more than half a billion dollars and deliver a worse service than we currently have?

Gaston: Labor had eight years and failed to deliver on this project.

They have also failed our ambulance service, our hospitals, and our roads are a disgrace.

We deserve better! Give Labor and Gaston the boot at the November election.

James Taylor, Warrnambool Branch, Liberal Party Member, Framlingham