Supply is underwhelming
ONLY 25 per cent of eggs sold are free-range or barn-laid (''A paltry existence'', Forum, April 18, p6-7).
The Australian Egg Corporation says this proves that there is a lack of demand, that most people ''overwhelmingly choose to buy cage eggs''. Wrong. You just have to go into any supermarket to see the truth.
The reason people buy cage eggs is because they can't get anything else.
The shelves of organic, free-range, barn-laid and other more humanely produced eggs are always bare, despite their much higher price. The choice is usually cage eggs or no breakfast.
Personally, I'd rather go hungry than eat the product of such cruelty.
Ian Barnes, Lyneham
What's one more war?
AFTER his comment that people smugglers are ''the vilest form of human life'', I'm interested to know if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will introduce yet another war, joining the war on interest rates and many others.
Eddie Handby, Kaleen
Supply and smuggle
I WAS slightly alarmed to read that Kevin Rudd thinks people smugglers are evil scum who should rot not only in jail but also in hell (''Another boat stopped as Navy tells of 'threat' '', April 18, p1).
This does not seem to have much to do with the Christian principle of loving your enemies. In fact, it is beginning to sound a bit fundamentalist. It's enough to make you consider going agnostic.
In any case, I'm not sure that people smugglers are necessarily any more evil than drug dealers, for example. Both are simply responding to demand in accordance with the principles of the capitalist economy.
Michael McCarthy, Deakin
Justice, capital-style
DID I read this right? A man who stabs another man in the head several times with a carving knife over a video game actually has a judge try to talk him out of making a guilty plea because that judge thought he was provoked? (''Man avoids jail after stabbing housemate, 21'', April 18, p9).
Even if being provoked can possibly justify stabbing a man in the head, isn't that what defence lawyers are paid to do? Last I heard, judges were supposed to be impartial and neutral.
And then, to add insult to injury for the victim who is lucky to be alive and is scarred for life, the offender is granted a wholly suspended sentence! Welcome to justice, Canberra-style.
J. Tanner, Amaroo
More water woes
AT LAST, your paper has begun to understand public frustration at the ''dithering'' and mismanagement by successive ACT governments and ACTEW of Canberra's water sources and storages, which, with the collaboration of the so-called price regulator, have made Canberra household water prices the highest of any Australian capital and have desiccated the city by the long-term imposition of water restrictions (''Government should have acted swiftly on our water shortage'', Sunday Canberra Times, March 29, p28).
It seems previously your journalists accepted uncritically ACT Government and ACTEW press releases which laid out their plans for a sewage-to-tap purification plant, with a proposed $6million demonstration plant (dismissing overseas experience about the efficacy or otherwise of such plants); their proposals for new pipelines and pumping stations for the buying of expensive water from interstate and enlarging the Cotter Dam from an aquarium to a capacity still insufficient for Canberra's needs; and ACTEW's excessive environmental water flows and spills in drought years.
The Chief Minister divinely declared in late 2005, after 649mm of rain, that the drought was over but 2006 renewed the drought with 365mm compared to the annual average of 632mm.
Jon Stanhope ought to have been advised by his water planners that data since the 1870s show rain in the ACT and catchment regions is cyclic and has been no worse since 2000 than in other low rain periods.
From 1897 to 1913 conditions were dryer than we are experiencing this decade and there have been brief comparably dry periods around 1928-30, World War II years and 1978-82.
Government and water professionals have over-dramatised our recent normal lower rain period by their promotion of pessimistic CSIRO climate modelling, and talked up shortages to force water prices higher while imposing restrictions to curb use.
Canberra's water shortage has been caused by the ongoing failure of government and its agencies to increase water storage while paying too much heed to green anti-dam sentiment.
Warwick Hughes, Nicholls; Christine Hughes, Nicholls; Greg O'Regan, Farrer; Ric Hingee, Duffy; Chris Borough, Kingston; John McCarthy, Pearce; Reginald Goldfinch, Weetangera
Better investments
SO FAILED 2001 ACT ALP candidate Victor Rebikoff has come out of retirement (Letters, April 13, p8) to push his multicultural barrow.
Even if President Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy were honorary ambassadors it does not get away from the fact that the proposed bridge is an unwanted monstrosity being thrust upon Canberrans by a group of glory-seeking outsiders.
By the way, Vic, what is a multicultural community? And are there any non-multicultural communities in Australia? Can you give examples of each?
Millions of taxpayers' dollars being spent on the Irritation Bridge would be better spent providing much-needed medical equipment and services in the community. Many Canberrans would suggest that instead of taking a walk along the lake foreshore he visits Canberra Hospital, or reads The Canberra Times, to find out what is needed. Then let him jump on that bandwagon.
Athol Tyler, Victoria
No songs here
I WAS surprised to read Ian Warden's complaints regarding his travails while having to research Australian country music (''Our antiquity makes faces drop'', Forum, April 18, p18). As the subject only comprises two tunes, The Pub with No Beer and all the rest, I'd have thought the task would have been a doddle.
Bill Deane, Chapman
Suburban mayhem
RECENT correspondents have bemoaned the neglect of barbecues and other facilities in picnic grounds in the ACT. They should be reassured to know the Government is no less unwilling to deal with many other matters.
On two or three nights a week, gangs of drunken teenagers congregate in our street, carouse, do burnouts, vandalise property and introduce young female friends to alcopops. We estimate in the past three years these visitors have done nearly $3000 worth of damage to common property of our owners' corporation, and in the adjacent playground.
Police have attended, but have been unable to improve the situation.
Last year, I was directed to the Attorney-General to ask him to make a regulation proscribing the consumption of alcohol in the playground and adjacent streets after 9pm. That request was delivered to Simon Corbell's office on July 24, 2008. To date, the Attorney-General has not even acknowledged receiving it.
Leon Webcke, Gordon
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