Dear ACT residents, you are not alone. We recently received the latest Origin Energy bill for the 10 weeks taking in November, December and first half of January; the warmest months of the year and as I understand the hottest summer in Canberra in a long time.

Nevertheless, there was a big, bright graph on the front page of the statement telling us that our consumption had increased by no less than 34.8per cent on the same period last year.

Of course I contacted Origin Energy about this huge increase but was met with complete indifference. There was no apparent explanation for it. If I wanted to have the meter tested, that was my own responsibility. They just read it and charge accordingly.

Talk about getting screwed left, right and centre by energy companies, not to mention telcos, pay TV providers, private health insurers and many others.

Anne Willenborg, Royalla, NSW

Several correspondents ("Honourable course for Bernardi: quit then stand for election", Letters, February 8) misunderstand the essence of representative democracy.

It was Edmund Burke who said (rightly): "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

I would add: "Or to that of his party."

While there are few, if any, of Bernardi's views that I would support, he is right to cleave to his own views and principles — and to be judged for that electorally in due course. Hopefully adversely.

The popular concept of elected members as mere compliant ciphers of their party and its current crop of powerbrokers is harmful to democracy and inhibits the role of the Parliament in holding the executive to account.

Mike Hutchinson, Reid

I was disappointed, to say the least, that the ACT Labor government is to increase charges to pay for their deteriorating budget position.

They are spending like drunken sailors as the government struggles to find money for its projects, including the obsolete tram project.

The article on the front page of The Canberra Times ("Surplus shrinks to $5 million", February 8, p.1) shows their thinking.

Guess who's about to receive the bill for this largesse? The ordinary people of Canberra, again.

The article states that the government is already raising significantly more year on year in rates, land tax and a range of levies "increasing at a pace well beyond inflation".

Apparently the overall rates intake is forecast to be up 6 per cent over the previous year and another 9 per cent from July. Then 9 per cent again the year after.

Who is to pay for all this? Us, the ratepayers, of course! Where does the Barr government think we are going to get this money?

In the case of this household, from our one age and one disability pension, which is already still paying off the mortgage and the usual household loans and bills.

Not happy in the least, Mr Barr.

Chris Yates, Scullin

Thanks to Richard Dennis for his excellent article ("How Christmas prawns explain Australia's power blackouts", Canberra Times, February 11).

The article touches too obliquely, though, on the pachyderm in the parlour: privatisation.

Electricity supply is a now privatised market instead of a publicly-owned provider of an essential service, so it's entirely predictable that infrastructure will be run-down to improve the bottom line and that "load" will be "shed" (ie your electricity will be turned off on 40 degree days) when, as the article points out, profitability is threatened.

Nor is it any surprise that the people who sold the system should fall over themselves to make excuses for failures, blaming everyone and everything but their own decisions, or that they'll demonise rather than support the inevitable move to decentralised sustainable generation.

Technology can change and it can fail; natural events like storms, solar flares or heat waves can affect supply; incompetence, human error, and bad planning can make an unholy mess of things despite the best of intentions.

But a market-based approach will always prioritise profits over people.

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

Prior to the ACT election in October 2016 Mick Gentleman wrote to The Canberra Times saying how proud he was with what he and the Labor government had achieved over the previous four years.

I wonder if Mr Gentleman and the Labor/Green government are proud of the unkempt state they have allowed the nation's capital to become by way of graffiti, lack of mowing and the amount of litter in general.

Mowing is supposed to be undertaken, weather permitting, on a four-weekly basis.

The area along Athllon Drive between Learmonth Drive and Sulwood Drive since September 2016 has been mown twice – in the weeks ending November 11 and December 23, 2016, and is an absolute disgrace.

Members of the ACT government must be chauffeur driven around with their eyes closed not to notice the disgraceful state our nation's capital is in.

R. Wright, Greenway

A relation of mine turning 80 this year received one of those now notorious letters from Department of Human Services.

She thought it was a scam and tore it up.

Now the deputy chair of the ACCC, Michael Schaper, is advising over-55s to use Scamwatch and avoid becoming targets of identity theft by being aware of a number of activities including letters from debt collectors for debts that are not theirs.

Ann Darbyshire, Gunning

Perceptive readers of John Wowk's letter on the Ellerton Drive Extension (Letters, February 7) will notice the number of conditional statements.

If the NSW government allows plebiscites on demerging councils, if the plebiscite is held separately in the former Queanbeyan and Palerang council areas, and if the people vote to demerge, then former-Palerang residents won't end up paying for a road they were never asked about.

At this point in time, they are paying for it, as are all NSW and Australian taxpayers.

If the road is built traffic may use it to bypass central Queanbeyan, but somehow they may also suddenly start using the existing underused $6.5 million Northern Bypass. The NSW Roads and Maritime Service may at some point in the future allow weight restrictions on their road, Monaro Street, thereby forcing trucks to use the two alternative routes.

These issues should be addressed and resolved before proceeding with the Ellerton Drive Extension, not after.

The EDE has been mooted for decades, but transport options of the 1970s are not necessarily the transport solutions of the 21st century.

Much of the opposition to the EDE is for both local and global environmental reasons, and on financial and democratic grounds, not NIMBYism.

Peter Marshall, former Palerang councillor, Captains Flat, NSW

John Wowk (Letters, February 7) says Queanbeyan residents want reduced main street traffic, especially heavy vehicles.

He is correct, but Ellerton Drive Extension does not deliver that. Council engineer Phil Hanson admitted that EDE plus 13 intersection upgrades only reduce main street traffic by 5 per cent. Mr Wowk wants council to load limit the main street, to stop trucks. It cannot. Monaro Street is the Kings Highway.

Mr Wowk and other Queanbeyan residents may have followed the EDE discussion, but I guarantee almost nobody read council's EDE documents.

It is wishful thinking to say EDE takes traffic out of the main street. Do you think the traffic is heavy now? Council figures show it increasing.

Don't believe me? Write to council, asking for a response in writing. Ask for total traffic counts, peak hour counts, wait times. Ask for the cost of EDE plus 13 intersection upgrades. Especially ask for these compared to Dunns Creek Road plus Northern Bypass.

Alan Gray, Jerrabomberra, NSW

Sadly, John Wowk, like many other Queanbeyan residents, is set to be disappointed if Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council builds the proposed Ellerton Drive Extension (EDE) ("Bypass overdue", Letters, February 7).

Long touted as a bypass that will keep trucks and other vehicles out of the main street, the road is nothing of the sort.

Council conceded two years ago the EDE was not a bypass and the most optimistic forecast was a 5 per cent reduction on projected traffic flows. Traffic volume would continue to grow, but a little slower than had the EDE not been built.

Council also conceded it cannot force heavy vehicles to use the EDE, other than trucks from the quarry, having imposed this condition when it approved an extension of the quarry's operating licence.

John Wowk suggests imposing weight limits to keep heavy vehicles out of the city centre. It sounds sensible. The most obvious measure is to place a load limit on the bridge over Queanbeyan River. But Monaro Street is a state road.

Only the NSW government could impose such a limit. Council has never asked the state government to do so.

Far from being widely popular, more and more people are opposing the road as they learn about its shortcomings and high social, economic and environmental costs.

Katrina Willis, Queanbeyan

I am a taxpayer and a Queanbeyan ratepayer and I oppose the EDE. I suppose that makes me a "NIMBY" in relation to the multimillion-dollar Ellerton Drive Extension (EDE) by John Wowk's definition (Letters, February 7).

l don't live anywhere near the EDE but, like many other residents, oppose it because it won't solve the traffic problems, it will waste public funds and state grant monies that could be better used elsewhere, it will cause enormous environmental damage and is primarily for developers to access an area they couldn't otherwise develop.

A recent Queanbeyan Age online poll shows the community is deeply divided on the EDE. The only way to resolve this is tomake the EDE an election issue at council elections in September.

Tania Mathewson, Queanbeyan

Now Australia Day is behind us, I thought I should inform you of a historic event that occurred on January 26 that most Australians would be unaware of.

It was when Captain James Cook landed at Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, Tasmania, on his third voyage in 1777.

The day does not just mark the landing of the First Fleet at Farm Cove, Sydney, in 1788.

Tobias Furneaux (captain of the second ship of Cook's second voyage) was the first recorded European to land at Adventure Bay in Bruny Island. He obtained supplies as well as taking water from Resolution Creek.

After landing at Adventure Bay in 1777 Captain Cook left for New Zealand on January 30.

During his stay he had also watered his two ships from Resolution Creek.

Adventure Bay hosted ships from Cook's second and third voyages.

I had thought he reached Australia only on his first voyage.

Greg Hutchison, Florey

BIG MONEY, BAD SERVICE

The day I heard of the obscene salary of the CEO of Australia Post I registered a complaint about the third misdirection of mail from my old address in three months. The money would perhaps be better spent on reading lessons for staff to carry out the service I am paying for.

David Mackenzie, Duffy

Since the Prime Minister believes that Ahmed Fahour, the CEO of Australia Post, is overpaid, he should sack the Australia Post board immediately. If the CEO has the whip hand over a board, that board is incapable of doing its job by definition.

H. Simon, Watson

WAKE UP TURNBULL

Glaciers are melting faster than the response of our federal government to climate change. Perhaps our PM imagines impersonating a windmill as he rants incoherently will suffice. Pathetic! Meanwhile the harbour has just moved closer to his home to remind him rising sea levels won't wait for conservatives to wake up.

Rosemary Walters, Palmerston

SOLAR IS CRUCIAL

The threat that there may be electricity blackouts on a stinking hot day when the sun is out ("Capital Scorcher", CT 10/2/17, p1) is not an argument for more base load power from fossil fuels, as some fossils claim, but an indication that we don't yet have enough solar power generation capacity and should build more fast.

David Walker, Ainslie

KANGAROO CAPERS

By reclassifying the Eastern Grey Kangaroo to a "controlled native species", the ACT government avoids the need for a licence, and limits the legal avenues available to activists. It also addresses the inconvenience and embarrassment having been incapable of granting itself a legally valid licence the last few killing seasons.

Chris Doyle, Gordon

IT'S ALL WHITE NOW

In this 40-plus degree heat, it's disappointing to see so many houses with those dark grey roofs. I had my roof painted white (over the tiles) some years ago and it makes a difference on these hot days. The building code should be amended to include a higher star rating for homes with white or light coloured roofs.

Kathryn Kelly, Chifley

SO OUT OF TOUCH

It seems Ian McDonald went to the Bronwyn Bishop school of entitlement. Many employees work hard and long hours. I can think of none that receive, regardless of performance, a life time reward of 10 business class trips year for employee and spouse till death.

Ian McKenzie, Canterbury, Vic

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