Salary cap questions
With Brett Morris being granted a release from my beloved Dragons to join the Bulldogs and other top-grade players also being shown the door amid ongoing salary cap problems, clubs like the Sydney Roosters boasting that they are under the salary cap by $50,000, considering they have some of the most expensive players in the world on their books, something is really rotten with the current salary-cap structure and the whole second-tier payments system.
The NRL has to really have a look at themselves in the mirror and realise this system is killing rugby league.
If the league-points table year in, year out, keeps staying the same, then lower-placed clubs will start losing patrons and fan frustration will lead to smaller crowds following their football side on the weekends.
Let's take some lessons from the AFL.
B. Bourtzos, Bexley
Business moves out
Our federal Liberal MP couldn't stop the closure of the Hurstville tax office — 500 jobs gone.
Our state Liberal MP could not stop the relocation of the Office of Environment and Heritage from Hurstville to Parramatta — more jobs gone. (On the plus side we might be getting the State Office of "Hatches, Matches and Dispatches" moved to Hurstville — Births, Deaths and Marriages).
With Hurstville's changing population demographic and loss of local jobs, the "knock-on" effects begin to show with Myer closing its store at Hurstville (Leader, November 6).
Hurstville once was a great shopping centre but Westfield Miranda got the recently opened big expansion leaving Hurstville to become a "backwater".
Stay tuned too because Hurstville Council itself is likely to soon disappear with state government-enforced council amalgamations set to create a St George Council based at Kogarah.
N. Birdsall, Mortdale
Seniors' Opal help
Re: seniors Opal card (Leader, November 6).
So, Opal for seniors is now available. In my case, I welcome this move as I am able to avail myself of it through the online application process.
However, I feel there will be some seniors who will be unable to obtain Opal because of an inability or no desire to use a computer.
Are paper tickets going to be available indefinitely?
Now, here's a thought, to help seniors could a service be set up by local libraries or maybe local MPs. Easier still, for identification purposes, why can't the pension details simply be sighted by the agencies, that is, newsagencies, service stations and other outlets.
C. Bube, Penshurst
