First, Malcolm Roberts got elected because he got enough preferences from voters and not from dodgy preference deals between micro parties. I detest One Nation's platform, but if a quota's worth of voters give their preferences to one of its candidates, that's how it's supposed to work.

Another reason Roberts and several other One Nation candidates got elected is because we had a full Senate election, with a smaller quota than in 2013. In a half Senate election probably only Pauline Hanson would have been elected.

Another good outcome from the Senate voting changes was that Tasmanian voters were more easily able to re-elect ALP Senator Lisa Singh. Before this year's election she was placed in the unwinnable sixth position on the ALP Senate ticket.

R. Neville, Fraser

It doesn't make sense

David Kalisch, ABS chief, is reported to have said that people were more likely to tell the truth if they had to provide their names. He must therefore believe that all anonymous surveys, or censuses, whether conducted by the ABS or by other statistically competent organisations, have had a tendency to yield unreliable information.

Yet, over the years I have seen claims, seemingly by reliable people, for the value of anonymous surveys in planning about health, social or economic issues. Now, in view of Mr Kalisch's claim and given that many decisions on major issues have been based on anonymous data, the powers that be must have been stuffing up things for decades.

Heino Lepp, Macquarie

One-eyed view on rates

Peter Martin apparently doesn't like banks ("The defenders of banks don't get capitalism", August 11). He criticises them for not passing on fully to mortgagees the Reserve Bank's recent interest reduction, ignoring that they've passed on part of the benefit to depositors (who vastly outnumber mortgagees, and suffer from reductions in interest rates) by higher term deposit rates.

And Martin is also critical of privatised ex-government business enterprises charging their customers more, e.g. by Sydney Airport's landing charges being increased. What he ignores is that, before privatisation when the Federal Airports Corporation owned the airport, the charges to airlines for use of the airport was nowhere near their cost, so that taxpayers were subsidising air travellers — and the increase in charges was simply to make air-travellers pay the full cost of the services they enjoyed, in accordance with the desirable "user pays" principle.

R.S. Gilbert, Braddon

Census barriers

After finally being able to log in to the census website to fill in the census, I am unable to proceed past the first page. My problem has nothing to do with my ability to fill in the form. It isn't even about the form's usability.

It is that an obvious scenario has been overlooked: families who are not at home on census night.

My family of four (who normally reside in the home) were out of town on census night. My family consists of two adults and two children. A nuclear family.

The form would not accept that "0" people were at the house on census night. Furthermore, it didn't accept that more than three people were away who usually live at the home. I was directed to contact the Census Inquiry Service for assistance, which was offline when I called at 8pm.

I do wonder what other obvious scenarios have been overlooked and whether I will be able to get past page 2.

Jeannie Vlatkovic, McKellar

PM just gets worse

The more public statements that the Prime Minister makes, the less respect I have for him. One day, the PM was saying that IBM was responsible over the census IT problems and action would be taken. Later, the PM is threatening that "heads will roll". It's time for the PM and his government to take stock. They say that they want innovation and (well-managed) risk-taking by public servants. But as soon as there is a problem, as there often is where innovation and risk are involved, the PM wants heads to roll. The facts should be gathered before our leader makes inane and loathsomely uninformed public remarks, that appear to be a reactionary rather than informed. This government's blame culture is pathetic. Moving to an almost fully online census collection can be seen as innovation and not without risk. Rather than looking for scapegoats and punishing people, it would be better to learn from the experience.

J. Grant, Gowrie

He needs a prayer

James Allan, of Narrabundah (Letters 10 and 11 August), has been given the opportunity to vent his hatred for religion on two consecutive days.

On the 10th he had a go at me personally but really only exposed his complete ignorance of the purpose of prayer.

He seems to think that the (now banned) vigil outside the abortion facility in Civic was some sort of political protest that could be shifted elsewhere when, in fact, the prayers were for the souls of the babies lost through abortion and for all those hurt by abortion.

That is why it was important that we stood as peaceful witnesses as near as possible to the scene of the atrocities being committed there.

On the 11th Mr Allan then had a go at Christians and Muslims. Perhaps his massive ego does not allow him to acknowledge the existence of God or to respect others' sincerely held views, or perhaps he is operating on the basis that if he says it often enough he might actually believe the venom he is spewing.

John Popplewell, Hackett

According to David Pritchard, our Olympic team is a terrible waste of money (Letters, August 8). More, he suggests Australia is an example of massive state subsidy of Olympians.

He is totally incorrect to suggest that each gold medal at the Olympic Games in London cost Australian taxpayers $37 million. In fact as the Australian Olympic Committee makes clear, it is their responsibility to select, send and fund Australian teams to the Games. It is not the government or the taxpayer. And it is certainly not at the expense of health and education. Funding is derived from the support of sponsors, contributions from the Australian Olympic Foundation, fundraising at corporate events and the backing of state and territory governments who donate to the Olympic team appeal.

The value of sport including the Olympic Games has been clearly demonstrated with numerous benefits accruing to the economy, society and the health and wellbeing of individuals.

Yes, from time to time it is tainted by doping and drug cheats, a practice introduced more than 1000 years ago by Greek athletes.

As a lecturer in Greek history, David Pritchard could heed the wisdom of Plato: "Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something".

Stephen Haynes. Jerrabomberra, inaugural CEO of the Australian Sports Drug Agency.

Travel questioned

David Purnell (letters, 12 August) wonders whether those who oppose light rail travel much on public transport, and correctly points out that, despite "various attempts to make the bus service better ... ongoing rises in patronage seem very hard to achieve". The Transport Demand Elasticities Study showed that the most effective ways to increase patronage are increasing car parking charges (demonstrated by the federal government in the Parliamentary Triangle), reducing in-vehicle travel time (the ACT government has a seemingly ideological aversion to transit lanes), reducing walk times (Capital Metro will increase walk times), reducing fares and reducing wait times (Capital Metro will increase wait times).

I don't travel much on public transport because for most trips my ancient bicycle is quicker, and because several of my attempts to use ACTION buses have been affected by ticket or NXTBUS failures, buses that either did not arrive or departed more than four minutes ahead of schedule, or bus interchange closures.

Leon Arundell, Downer

Bus facts challenged

Howard Carew is inaccurate in his claims (Letters, August 12). There are not the number of electric buses on New York roads that he states. MTA ( the New York transit company) has put one electric BYD bus on trial for a short period and is considering its options. There were over 1600 hybrid diesel-electric buses in New York (out of the MTA fleet of close to 6000 vehicles) but reports suggest that at least one-third have been reconverted to diesel engines only, due to faults and costs with the electric storage/propulsion system. No new hybrid buses have been bought for three years and the principal model purchased has ceased production.

London aims to replace all its single deck diesel buses with hybrid diesel-electric units by 2020 and it is, as of May 2016, trialling the first of six double-deck electric buses in route service.

There is yet no experience in Western traffic conditions of successful operation of electric buses as a base fleet for mass transportation.

Gerald Lynch, Hawker

Wrong information

I believe that the ABS has been a victim of its own census advertising. The census advertising either said or very strongly implied that the census form had to be filled in on census night, that is, on the night of Tuesday the 9th. That is incorrect. I filled in my census form online on the Tuesday morning and I know someone who filled in theirs on the Monday and others who were planning to fill in their forms on either the Wednesday or Thursday after census night. What was and is important is that the census form is filled in as at census night. The actual day on which the census form was filled in — within limits — was not that important.

If the ABS had made this clear in their census advertising then it is highly likely the load problems the census web site experienced on census night may have been avoided.

Don Sephton, Greenway

No surprise

After year upon year of "efficiency dividends" inflicted on government departments and agencies, thousands and thousands of redundancies resulting in decimating the public service of most of its corporate knowledge and expertise, thereby justifying the outsourcing of as many as possible of the government's core functions to big business, we are now meant to be surprised that something that should be a "run of the mill" activity as conducting a census should be a catastrophic failure.

John Dunn, Gowrie

Declining marriage

I think the Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, deserves all the support he can get in his call for the "federal government to abandon its same-sex marriage plebiscite" (August 11).

We all know traditional "marriage" is a declining fact. There are more and more defacto "marriages" which then take on all the legal responsibilities of a "marriage". And the divorce rate for traditional marriage seems to be climbing every year — hardly a resounding endorsment.

This is also leading to a much more unstable life for many many children who see their parents living a completely disatisfied life.

And yet people of the same sex are prevented from any form of legal relationship so that they are unable to ensure the financial stability of each other. There are many well documented examples of same sex couples who are prevented from leaving their superannuation to the other in case of premature death.

The resistance to same sex marriage comes from the big organisations, like the super funds, who realise they would have to be a bit fairer in allowing partners to have access to their legally married partner — regardless of sex.

Geoff Barker, Flynn

STILL A TRAM

No, Kevin Cox, (Letters, August 5), "tram" and "light rail" are different terms for the same thing. Trams run on rails which are lighter (ie weigh less per metre and smaller in cross-section than the standard rails used by railways). Hence the term "light rail".

Paul E. Bowler, Holder

HARD TO PREDICT

I have heard the Conservatives are looking forward to a win in October. They are basing this belief on the result in Tasmania. They had a coalition between Greens and Labor and the Conservatives won easily next election. The ACT is not Tasmania. The past does not predict the future.

Ken Morehouse, Wangaratta

SAVINGS ARE COSTLY

When the Liberal government slashed $68 million from the ABS budget and outsourced the IT systems to the lowest bidder, they effectively hacked their own system to death. How many more dollars will be spent because of the insane ideology of saving money no matter how much it costs?

Doug Steley, Heyfield, Vic

KEEP THEM IN JAIL

Simon Corbell's "in principle support" for Orwellian legislation, keeping terrorists in jail indefinitely, means he joins the select company of Erdogan, Xi Jinping and Fattah el-Sisi, who now seem to be determining new global definitions of democracy, which Western countries are ardently embracing.

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan

HERITAGE TRASHED

When the NIMBYs are dead and buried, Andrew Barr may realise that the heritage Manuka Oval he trashed was his loss.

B. Moore, Kingston

TESTING US

While it is gracious to be thankful for the Lord's blessings, Eric Hunter (Letters, August 8) is troubled by the nasties He can also fling at us. For these seeming illogicalities so puzzling to the inept human brain, there exists a simple four-word explanation: He is testing us.

Barrie Smillie, Duffy

BISHOP FOR BOSS

I have never been a Liberal supporter but it is shame the party's attitude doesn't allow the likes of Julie Bishop to fill the top job.

D.J.Fraser, Currumbin QLD

NO FOOTPATHS

Jack Kershaw raises the issue of cracked footpaths (Letters, August 11). Luxury. We (in Upper Kambah Heights) don't even have any footpaths.

Gordon Fyfe, Kambah

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