Given the number of people who have complained about the estimated readings that ICON water has been using, I discovered something interesting. I got an estimated reading of around four kilolitres lower than the normal consumption for spring.
I thought nothing of it until I entered the past few years into a spreadsheet. Because the following reading was for summer when the water use generally peaks, the four kilolitres were part of that reading.
That extra water pushed my daily consumption above the 0.548 kilolitres per day ($2.61 per kL) when my average water use would be around .45 kilolitres per day. Due to the estimated reading issue, I was charged at the higher rate of $5.24 per kL for part of my water use.
My summer reading was higher than normal. It was an estimated reading. Thus, even though the bill said nothing about estimated reading, it was. I encourage readers to look at their water bills and see if this sort of unconscionable behaviour has happened with them.
Stephen Petersen, Dunlop
Full picture required
The unions are right to raise the matter of the number of workplace visits and their outcomes.
I am a former government workplace, health and safety inspector.
To carry out a general construction inspection for even a reasonable size site and providing WHS advice would take a competent construction inspector a minimum of two hours.
After the inspection you would discuss your observations with the construction management team.
I note with interest the comment employers were being lax with scaffolding hazards.
In regard to the recent scaffolding inspection, I can only assume inspectors looked at the requirements of the two most common scaffolding standards AS-NZS 4576 and AS-NZS 1576.
Most, if not all scaffolding providers employ licenced scaffolders at either Advanced, Intermediate or Basic scaffolding high risk licences.
Perhaps statistics can be provided on the actual incidents and/or injuries related to unsafe scaffolding in the ACT. What are the facts of the matter?
I hold an Advanced High Risk Licence in Advanced Scaffolding. I gained this back in the '70s when you had to work in the industry, pass an exam at TAFE, and then provide evidence to the then Department of Labour and Industry (DLI).
James Bodsworth, Phillip
Tweaks to timetable
There have been a number of letters recently complaining about the discontinuation of Action bus Route 5 with the introduction of the new timetables from October 7, 2017.
Most of the concern has been directed at the new Route 6 bypassing "Old Narrabundah". As a compromise, may I suggest that the new Route 6 when travelling from the city to Woden, make a small detour from the proposed route off Sturt Street, along Kootara Crescent to the shops on Iluka Street and back along Boolimba Crescent to rejoin Sturt Street.
The reverse route could apply when travelling from Woden to the city.
Obviously there would still be some inconvenience to Narrabundah residents compared with the old service, but I believe it would be a significant improvement on what has been proposed and would only add five to seven minutes to the timetable.
Steve Whennan, Richardson
Marriage debate fallout
On Saturday, October 7, at the Jolimont Centre I heard a loud voice coming from a young man across the road from me.
He was sitting with another young man. He was yelling expletives to a group of about 15 men who were walking past.
At first I thought the young man was the aggressor and then I observed how distressed he was.
I then realised what else I had heard, one of the group of men or maybe two or three had yelled out "faggot" to the two young men.
This may or may not have occurred with or without our debate around SSM.
Jan Gulliver, Lyneham
For whose benefit?
Frances Cornish asks why her Giralang house had to be demolished despite having "the asbestos removed ... and two subsequent inspections detected no fibres anywhere in the building" (Letters, October 6).
The answer can be found in another question: cui bono? This Latin phrase literally means "for whose benefit?"
Displacing 1000 families from their homes, smashing the houses and replacing them with dual-occupancies is to the benefit of the knockdown/rebuild industry, and its agents.
Since this industry appears to have the ear of the ACT Labor government we need look no further for the answer.
Hugh Dakin, Griffith
Christmas is coming
So Minister Frydenberg says the government intends to make a decision on the clean energy target before the end of the year.
It's only taken four years, of course. What are the chances that the announcement will be made on Friday, December 22?
Robert Beattie, Queanbeyan, NSW
All fine and dandy
Thos Puckett (Letters, October 8) fears mass identity scanning may be used on parking fine non-payers. Bring it on. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars are outstanding? Why should the offenders avoid their responsibilities?
Alex Wallensky, Broulee, NSW
Lest we forget
Further to my request for a poppy to be placed on my relative's name at the AWM, he was James Herman Breur who died on October 12, 1917; not Brewer as originally stated.
Betty Havercroft, Mount Pleasant, WA
There are guides to level of better behaviour on dog daze afternoon
Neil McMahon ("Whose off-leash dog beach is it, anyway? Answer: not your dog's", canberratimes.com.au, October 9) complains because he was fined $238 when his dog broke the rules on a public beach at Port Melbourne.
His article implies that when dog owners are permitted to exercise their animals off-leash they should have exclusive use of the area.
Where I have a house on the coast the most reliable beach for body surfing is designated as off-leash from 4pm onwards.
I often swim in that period making sure that I am not bowled over by some boisterous Great Dane on my way to the water.
What is Neil suggesting? That I forgo my swim on a hot afternoon because his dog "owns" the beach? Or is he suggesting all people should enter off-leash beaches at their own risk?
As a human, I am generally allowed off-leash but I'm aware that I am required to always obey the rules of generally accepted behaviour.
I know, for instance, that if I'm at a public beach and choose to defecate in the sand, kick sand on sunbakers, or lick someone's baby I will probably attract the ranger's attention and will be very lucky to escape with just a $238 fine.
Maudie, Mr McMahon's English Staffy, is not being picked on. She just has to obey the rules like the rest of us.
Mike Reddy, Curtin
Abbott at the margins
It is difficult to imagine a more disingenuous way of debating climate change effects than the reported statements of the ex-PM, Tony Abbott, to the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London.
He uses methods of debate that are textbook cases of how to proceed in arguments if your aim is to deflect from the real issue and to draw opponents into a debate on marginal issues.
The debate about climate change detriment is about many, often subtle things, that are not as obvious as a simple death count, although this may be one indicator that might indicate adverse effects of effects from global warming and climate change.
Higher death rates from something referred to as "cold snaps" versus deaths from "heatwave" conditions is a poor and and irrelevant comparison.
The asthma-inducing grass pollen cloud created by an unseasonal storm in Victoria last year, which was likely a result, in part, of climate change, might equally be brought into such a comparison.
An honest appraisal of the accumulated evidence for, and pointers to, trends in the future on global warming/climate change, would suggest that no such facile comparison as the ex- PM has made could validly be put.
People will die, and more will be rendered unhealthy, because of adverse changes.
You can add to that armed conflict ultimately founded on increased competition for resources.
Energies would be better spent concentrating on developing modern strategies to ameliorate the already present and still developing changes to the world's meteorology.
Dr Frank Ingwersen, Higgins
The heat is on
Unbearable heat is coming to south-eastern Australia. In just two decades there will be days that will reach 50 degrees. ("Really awful: 50-degree days possible for Sydney, Melbourne, as warming worsens", canberratimes.com.au, October 4).
Federal governments haven't taken the required action to prevent this. They need to start planning for these heatwaves.
We know governments can make plans for 2040 and beyond, as they have recently ordered replacement submarines due to gradually enter service from late 2030.
But what plans are being made for these coming 50-degree days?
Do we need to build heatwave shelters across south-eastern Australia, how many and how large should they be?
How will the sick and elderly be transported to these shelters, and will they be able to take their pets?
Does airconditioning need to be considered an essential service for all dwellings, and how will this be provided and maintained for those who don't have it?
How will the electricity grid cope?
How will our crops fare? What will we eat after widespread crop failures?
How will farm animals cope?
What economic impact will this have on farmers?
How do we deal with worsening bushfires, and will we need to change the way we tackle them?
And lastly, how will we tell the young that this generation has failed to prevent 50-degree days, and they will just need to bear all the consequences?
Stuart Walkley, Lyneham
A Nick cuts deep
In 1996 Pauline Hanson did not know the meaning of xenophobia. She has claimed about 90 to 95 per cent of the public (in particular her own Queensland supporters, I assume) didn't know what that word meant.
Of course, they do now.
But moves by Senator Nick Xenophon to leave the Senate and stand for a seat in the SA state government have given the word a new meaning at the other end of our great nation.
Both the Liberal-National Coalition and Labor Party in South Australia have suddenly been grasped by a paranoiac fear of the honourable senator, which could well be described as "Xenophonophobia" as far as South Australia is concerned.
Adrian van Leest, Campbell
Scoring top Marx
I voted "yes" before J. Halgren (Letters, October 10) revealed the "heaving, conniving can of worms" behind the innocent-looking question: oppression and Marxism.
This means John Shortis' letter on the same page suggesting we can enjoy the lyrics of both Hammerstein and Macklemore is either a thinly veiled threat to pack us off to the gulag or an attempt to seize the means of production.
Peter Robinson, Ainslie
Hard facts to face
Protesters at the refugee rally in Canberra on Sunday conveyed the message that Rajeev Rajendran "committed suicide on Manus Island after experiencing mental illness as an asylum seeker". Presumably it wouldn't suit the needs of the protesters to recognise that Rajendran was facing charges of raping a local woman.
Roger Dace, Reid
TO THE POINT
AXE NUCLEAR WEAPONS
I call on all people to support a nuclear weapons-free world, and to increase peace initiatives. The sale of weapons, and the reconstruction work needed following their use, is pitiful commerce in need of correcting. Discarding weaponry could be the ultimate achievement.
Weapons of mass destruction stalking humanity, handled by lunatics, is unacceptable and an insult to enlightenment.
Matt Ford, Crookwell, NSW
NCA STANDS FOR ...
I can add another acronym to Dennis Fitzgerald's list (Letters, September10): NCA – Not Caring Anymore.
Judith Erskine, Belconnen
EVERGREEN OAKS
The street in which I live is lined with mature oak trees. It is about one kilometre long. This year, about a dozen of the oaks retained a significant number of the leaves in their lower canopy until the new leaves sprouted. It seems to me that more and more of the oaks do this each year, with more leaves persisting.
This phenomenon is consistent with global warming. Can we therefore expect that at least some oak trees will become evergreen? I'm sure someone out there can put me straight on this.
Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin
SUPERIOR SCEPTIC
Good on you Tony.
The captain of the Aussie Climate Sceptics Team has shown that the Aussies are just as good, if not better, than the Pommy Sceptics. What he doesn't know is worth knowing.
Alan Parker, Gordon
CANADIAN CIVILITY
In Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine, he puts the blame largely on guns themselves, but in one section of the film he makes a quick study of a twin town on the border of Canada and the US. Both had the same amount of guns, and yet gun casualties in the US part of the border town were way higher. This was put down to a more civil society on the Canadian side. Nuff said.
Gary Frances, Bexley, NSW
CHILD PRISONERS
Locking up 10-year-olds without trial for 14 days, eh Australia? This country already locks up children, including newborns, on Manus Island and Nauru indefinitely. First they came for the refugees ...
John Passant, Kambah
FANTASTIC FLORIADE
Congratulations Floriade. In our tense world, it was heartwarming to join a cosmopolitan crowd of all ages last Friday quietly absorbing the fragile beauty of massed flowers in a lakeside setting. This event is irreplaceable. Long may it continue.
Elizabeth Teather, Reid
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