There are many reasons for this:

1. Range anxiety. The typical range of current EVs is inadequate in Australia where travel distance in a day or so can be long. I would have had to recharge in Parkes.

2. Availability, power and reliability of charging stations. As Brewer notes, public charging stations are few and far between and unreliable. Their locations and facilities can be ascertained online but are not well advertised. A full charge takes some time.

3. Compatibility of EVs with public charging stations. There should be just one plug configuration, not several. Remember Beta videotapes?

4. Convenience of payment at charging stations. Brewer treats this. Motorists shouldn't need a special card or a "membership" to pay at a charging station.

5. Purchase cost of EVs. Self-explanatory. It's too high.

6. Uncertainty regarding taxes and charges. Australian governments' policies differ and are unpredictable and inadequate.

Having killed off its car industry Australia must rely on actions taken by the EV industry elsewhere. Australia's range requirement will likely get scant attention.

Both industry and governments have much to do now to promote transition to EVs, in particular regarding EV infrastructure and costs.

I welcome the government's announcements of increased funding for our national collecting institutions. I also support funding for a detailed business case for the establishment of the Ngurra Cultural Precinct. However I am very disappointed, but not surprised, that there is no mention of plans for a proposed Natural History Museum in Canberra.

More than two years ago a joint parliamentary committee report on Canberra's collecting institutions recommended the government develop a business case for such a museum in Canberra. To the best of my knowledge the government has yet to respond.

Such an institution should have been established decades ago. There is no excuse why it should not happen. It is not too hard to envisage such a 21st century museum using cutting edge technologies to engage and educate Australians and overseas visitors.

Behind this public face would be the plant and animal collections of CSIRO such as the National Herbarium, the National Insect Collection and the National Wildlife Collection together with the National Mineral and Fossil Collection from Geoscience Australia and the National Rock Garden.

Perhaps this is a task for our new chief scientist, Dr Cathy Foley.

As she held a similar position at CSIRO I have no doubt she is well aware of the value of collections and would be able bring all these elements together and persuade the government of the urgent need for such a museum.

Eric Hunter (Letters, May 8) views the Biloela family as deserving discretion from the minister to stay in Australia even though several independent review bodies have said that discretion is not warranted.

Would he have a return to the Rudd era when thousands arrived by boat?

Why are the Biloela family deserving of consideration as a special case?

The Rudd years proved that if you overrule the Biloela reviews then the boats will come: that's why we "need a line" to manage an orderly refugee program and avoid thousands more dying at sea.

Northern Development Minister Keith Pitt has vetoed a loan approved by the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility of up to $280 million for a wind and battery hub near Cairns. Despite the inclusion of a 100mW battery and the site having a 275kV high voltage transmission line running through it, the Minister said that the project would not provide dispatchable generation into the grid.

"I am satisfied that providing NAIF support would be inconsistent with the objectives and policies of the commonwealth government," he said.

The project's proponent, Neoen Australia, estimates that the development could reduce electricity prices for Queensland consumers by $461 million over 30 years.

This government action is yet another example of its blinkered reaction to the rapidly changing energy scenario where solar and wind are significantly cheaper than fossil fuels - and that's before we factor in climate change. What will it take for Australia's leaders to get real about renewable energy?

The total failure of the territory's planning authority has been revealed in the article "Planners look to thought leaders' input" (May 9, p4).

We are informed that consultants are being sought "to develop suggestions to improve the liveability of the city".

I, and I am sure most of this city's residents, have always believed that that is exactly what true, experienced, town planners were trained to do. Why the need for consultants? Is it due to the ACT lacking planners with the experience to plan this nation's capital?

It is time that the planning of the national capital was transferred to a properly staffed, independent authority before the city is completely ruined.

A professionally produced master plan would be a good start.

The Canberra Liberals are calling for harsher sentences for family violence. How they love the sound of a prison door clanging shut. In the past men were expected to beat women and a picture of a woman hitting a man with a rolling pin was regarded as hilarious. In the past, parents were actually advised to beat their children.

It's a magnificent achievement that expectations have changed since those awful days. Caring families are more common but some women and men are still violent towards each other and their children.

There is nation-wide condemnation of rape of women but kneeing a man in the balls (also a form of sexual assault) is still depicted as amusing in some films.

So progress is being made but we have not arrived at a satisfactory place.

The "Circle of Safety" is a program which helps mothers and fathers who are having difficulty with parenting in caring and non-violent ways. Relationships Australia can help women and men to learn to relate non-violently and with mutual loving respect.

It would be far more effective to increase funding for these organisations than to score cheap points by calling for longer prison sentences.

Fossil fuel subsidies are reported to have cost Australians $10.3 billion in the financial year 2020-21, or $19,686 per minute, according to research by The Australia Institute.

Electric vehicles can help reverse rising transport emissions, are good for our health and are efficient to run, yet are deemed ineligible for federal subsidies.

Gas, a chronically expensive and polluting form of energy, long overdue for orderly replacement, will receive extra subsidies in the federal budget.

Instead of a greater focus on energy and manufacturing technologies that offer a safe, sustainable alternative, Australian governments are opting for buttressing fossil fuel interests that neither the public purse or a liveable climate can continue to bear.

The government has chosen popularity over sound policy in allowing the resumption of travel from India.

This opens Australia to the very tough mutation of COVID-19 which India has been battling. Or perhaps I should say "some Indians" are battling this infection. One Indian in particular does not seem to be concerned about COVID-19. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding political rallies with tens of thousands of Indians crammed together.

No doubt being in India is tough for those Aussies preferring to return. But who comes first? People who went to India for some no doubt legitimate purpose but now wish to return, or the 25 million Aussies who are at risk from a super mutation? We need maximum certainty that this mutation is left in India.

In the meantime perhaps the Howard Springs quarantine camp in the Northern Territory can be extended to double or triple the capacity, and air circulation improved.

The budget funding for road infrastructure improvements in the ACT is welcome. Those major arterial roads identified for duplication or upgrade will improve traffic flow and safety. But would it be too much to ask for some funds to be spent on the hundreds of neglected suburban roads that are in a dangerous state of disrepair?

What a magical, mystical way to decide on APS staffing levels, simply keep below the Rudd-Gillard levels of 2006-07 irrespective of work that needs to be done. Thank you Senator Birmingham for the insight.

Craig Kelly is worried about leaving a debt burden for future generations but has no compunction about leaving a climate burden. Debt they could cope with. Dealing with a potential average temperature rise of two degrees would undoubtedly be a less than welcome legacy from our generation.

The government hasn't even attempted to account for the vastly increased spending in the budget. It includes pandemic-related measures; child, aged and disability care; increased social security payments; mental health funding; natural disaster responses; increased defence and cyber-security spending and so on. What are the revenue measures to offset this given the additional tax cuts announced?

I tried. I can hold my breath for a maximum of 10 seconds, not 10 years. In those 10 years imagine another pandemic, a financial crisis, or other economic turbulence. We will be asking Greece to bail us out.

The federal budget funding figures remind me of a game of monopoly - but without the get-out-of-jail cards.

Of course the budget did next to nothing for Australia's universities. What did we expect? This mob has for decades had it in for universities. This attitude to higher learning is surprising given the contribution of universities to the economy; tens of billions of dollars a year. Menzies would weep.

I refer to the photo on page 9 of The Canberra Times of May 8, 2021. The description under this photo refers to a "deceased parrot". Why is a reference to a "dead parrot" not satisfactory?

Rod Olsen's (Letters, May 13) criticism of Richard Nixon as a warmonger who would have ended the world is quaint to the point of being peculiar. Nixon was the president who extricated the US from Vietnam, brokered the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and did more for peace in the Middle East than any US leader before or since. What were JFK's accomplishments (outside the boudoir) again?

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