This is only the tip of the iceberg on this subject. Some politicians appear to believe it is their right to get as much from the system at the expense of the public purse.

A review of the system should be carried out immediately and must be independent of the people who benefit from it.

The review panel should be made up from a cross-section of the voting public.

Tony Pelling, Nicholls

Your editorial ("Plastic claims need verification", January 12) seeks verification of FOY's claims that plastic-to-fuel technology for their proposed Hume plant is "Australian-patented, innovative new technology" with "negligible emissions of harmful chemicals". At stake are the long-term health of southern Canberrans and reducing Canberra's carbon footprint.

FOY's EIS is laced with well-drafted spin, appealing at first, concerning when scrutinised. Mick Gentleman's appointment of health and environment experts to assess the plant's impacts is appropriate, as is Shane Rattenbury's concern of "dressing up a dirty process as green energy".

The panel may probe patent veracity. FOY's Australian "patents" seem merely provisional patent applications.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation assessed another application as "mere workshop improvement" and "the claimed invention ... does not involve an inventive step".

FOY's claim of processing "end-of-life", non-recyclable, plastics finds no support in the Plastics and Chemical Industries Association's promotion of recycling options for these plastics. There seems little benefit in converting these plastics back to fossil fuels, besides FOY's profits.

Plastic recycling, however, amounts to easy and safe carbon capture and storage. Combustion of the refinery's fuels will add 220 kilotonnes of CO2/year to the ACT carbon footprint, dwarfing the 20 kilotonnes saved by Hume's new solar farm. Disturbingly, FOY's fuels will more than negate all CO2 savings of ACT solar farms and rooftop systems combined.

A Hume refinery will thwart ACT's legislated target of carbon neutrality by 2050. Canberrans with rooftop solar may feel let down by the very gentleman who instigated the feed-in tariff.

Chris Klootwijk, Macarthur

After Friday's windstorm I happened to drive around Reid and Ainslie. Whole trees and large trunks and branches were down everywhere. With further climate change and more intense storms a certainty, it doesn't take much foresight to conclude that brittle gums are a silly choice for the Gungahlin light rail route.

Murray May, Cook

Josh Frydenberg is about to roll a $25 million pork barrel into Queanbeyan to build the Ellerton Drive Extension, which won't bowl over the residents.

However, the $40 million that the Queanbeyan administrator wants to borrow on behalf of the ratepayers may, especially the residents of Palerang who will be handed this debt due to the amalgamation. The NSW state government is contributing $25 million.

This road conservatively costing $90 plus millions is going to be built without a regional transport study, which will benefit Canberra airport, Hume and Fyshwick traders, Palerang residents and regional businesses that are now taking the export advantages of the Singapore flights.

Queanbeyan council's own road study shows that the EDE will increase traffic flow through the main street and will not benefit the region to anywhere near the same extent.

Surely the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Planning hasn't approved the spending of federal government money on such a restrictive road. Is the minister ignoring his department's advice?

Why is the NSW National Party disadvantaging its rural produce exporters?

Why does the Queanbeyan Council not admit it needs a regional study to spend this money wisely?

The Minister should immediately stop the transfer of the $25million to NSW until a proper study is done that provides the maximum benefit to the maximum number of people.

David Dempster, Karabar

Has anyone else noticed how many of the reserves of the Canberra nature park are now completely devoid of kangaroos?

Not surprising, since the ACT government has been killing them at a rate of 40 per cent of the population per year, for the past seven years. The maximum annual growth rate of eastern grey kangaroo populations in the wild is about 10per cent, so the government has been removing the population much faster than it can replace itself.

If without kangaroos to manage them, the overgrown pastures of Canberra reserves survive the summer bushfires, kangaroos from outside the Canberra nature park and from surrounding NSW will probably move into the empty reserves just in time for this year's slaughter.

If the government is true to form, it will estimate a thousand kangaroos for every 10 present, and then slaughter every one theyfind.

The same thing will happen next year, and the next, until there are no more kangaroos left outside to move into the reserves.

Eastern grey kangaroos are already extinct across vast tracts of their former range. The NSW government's recent biodiversity legislation is set to complete their extinction.

The ACT used to be a refuge for kangaroos. Now it has joined thenationwide conspiracy to exterminate them.

Extinction of kangaroos will mean that all the other threatened species which cannot survive without kangaroo grazing will also disappear. No doubt, the government will still blame the non-existent kangaroos for their loss.

Frankie Seymour, Queanbeyan

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attached file. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

Keep your letter to 250 words or less. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).