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THE POWER SYSTEM

Buying your electricity isn’t a discretionary consumer item
It beggars belief that, after more than 20 years of privatised electricity supply in Australia, the regulator is starting to realise that the regulatory system is not fit for purpose (“We made the energy market too confusing for people”, Comment, 20/10).

The current system is based on an economic model of consumer behaviour that makes so many assumptions that it has produced an unworkable model. Electricity supply is not a discretionary consumer item that one can choose whether or not to buy. Any negotiation with an energy supplier is not being negotiated by two parties with equal bargaining power. All the power and knowledge is with the supplier.

I was recently required to enter into a new contract with my supplier and I had to rely on them telling me which was the best tariff for me. The onus should be on the supplier to ensure that their customers are offered the best tariff.
John Hartnett, Bentleigh East

It’s good for the planet, at the very least
The origin of the saying “May you live in interesting times” is uncertain, so too is the future price of electricity.

Anthony Albanese’s $275 price-cut promise is already proving challenging. Victoria University’s Professor Bruce Mountain, commenting on Thursday’s announcement by the Victorian government that it would revive the publicly owned State Electricity Commission while ramping up its emissions reduction target (“Switch to state hands threatens coal power”, The Age, 21/10), was optimistic but cautious saying, “I don’t think that will take long [for the benefit to be passed on to consumers] … I’m loath to ever put a dollar and a time on these things.”

When considering forecasts, it must be remembered that the price of electricity from fossil fuels in this country is kept artificially and unethically low because unlike many other countries Australia has no price on carbon. Even under the new “climate-friendly government” we are still not considering it.

Time will tell if Thursday’s announcement delivers more affordable energy for Victorians, but one thing is for sure, it will be cleaner, and that’s good for life on Earth.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn

It’s worth considering micro-grids
It is heartening to see the Victorian government initiative to restore the State Electricity Commission and for taxpayers to have 51 per cent ownership for renewable energy projects.
With the federal government promising $20 billion for transmission infrastructure, I wonder how much of that money would be better spent in developing micro-grids. These micro-grids would be community based, linked in with household solar capacity and potentially minimise the extent and length of the transmission infrastructure.

This could have benefits in rural and remote areas where bushfires destroyed long power lines because the micro grids would be like small hubs serving just their community and the transmission wires may not need to be as extensive. Either way the communities would benefit with local, consistent energy supporting their local needs.
Denise Stevens, Healesville

THE FORUM

The benefit of hindsight
The independent review of Australia’s COVID-19 response generally provides commentary heard many times before. What it doesn’t do is recognise that when deciding on required action, authorities were looking into a largely uncertain future, and therefore needed to be somewhat overcautious. The review of course is all hindsight.

The COVID restrictions considered to be over the top were instituted at times when our medical system was at breaking point. How badly would removal of those restrictions have exacerbated that situation? Without that question being answered, the review is not very enlightening.
John Groom, Bentleigh

At odds with the reality
The “independent” inquiry into our COVID responses states that schools should have been open once it was shown that they weren’t places of high transmission.

Really? When we “opened up” and “learnt to live with COVID” earlier this year, classrooms across the state were often only half full due to illness, and so many teachers were ill that the government was trying to coax retired teachers back to the classroom.

This real life experience “on the ground” tends to refute the recommendations and assertions about schools that have been presented in this report and so far seemingly accepted without question.
Graeme Gardner, Reservoir

Wider than gig work
While it’s good that the state government is promising new laws to protect gig economy workers, it’s not just gig economy platforms that provide insecure conditions for workers (“Gig firms face staff terms shake-up”, The Age, 21/10).

I was employed by a major university for more than 20 years. No holiday pay, sick pay or long service leave. Christmas holidays were always very long and frugal. I did get super, for which I suppose I should be grateful.
Claire Cooper, Maldon

Greed is not good
My small rental property in a nearby town, leased at $250 a week and administered by a real estate agency, is occupied by scrupulously attentive tenants who aren’t well off.

I just received an emailed “Property Management Update” in which I was effectively urged to raise the rent. It was emphasised that rental property yields are growing and vacancy rates are at 1.5 per cent, “where we want them.” In addition, I’ve had agency phone calls suggesting that I increase the rent because “the market will bear it”.

Why should I be encouraged to squeeze a few extra dollars from these excellent tenants, especially when I’m not in dire circumstances?

Vacancy rates near 1.5 per cent are great for landlords and real estate businesses, but disastrous for the poor and homeless, whose numbers increase daily; disastrous too for the economy as essential workers can’t live near their workplaces because of higher, unaffordable rents in a climate of wage stagnation, and so they move, exacerbating labour shortages.

No problem for real estate agents. Why care when you’re OK? Everyone needs a roof over their heads.
Murray Hall, Dunolly

More like a loose cannon
Is James Massola right in calling Lidia Thorpe a firebrand (“Bandt’s thorny Thorpe problem is not going away any time soon”, The Age, 21/10)?

Her insult to Liberal Hollie Hughes, her position on the Voice and a republic referendum, her reported verbal abuse of Geraldine Atkinson, her disregard for parliament and her undermining of Adam Bandt demonstrate she is more like a loose cannon.

She wants “Truth Telling”, which is positive but could be her Achilles heel.
Adrian Tabor, Point Lonsdale

A long-standing problem
I have no doubt that it is only a very small percentage of doctors who are rorting the system and the entire profession should not be tarred with that brush, and also that Medicare payment rates likely need review, which is a separate matter (“Revealed: $8 billion Medicare rorts scandal”, The Age, 17/10).

But the rorts have been going on for a long, long time and that adds up to a lot of money.

I worked in the Department of Veterans Affairs medical accounts section more than 30 years ago and double-billing – where some doctors erroneously or otherwise claimed payments from both Veterans Affairs and the Health Department – was a regular occurrence, as was the submission of bulk nursing home visit claims, where some patients were deceased or not present on the day of the claimed visit.
Name withheld by request

A lose-lose situation
Giving heart to Palestinian terrorist groups and their sponsors – namely, Iran – who aim to wipe Israel off the map, and with another Israeli election coming up, the federal government’s clumsy and ill-timed handling of the so-called West Jerusalem issue will also give Israel’s intransigent far right a boost, putting any prospect of peace even further out of reach.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East

A peripheral exercise
The call for a pandemic royal commission, this time for even more detailed analysis of the positives and negatives of our response to the crisis, is worthy but peripheral for the general population.

We have all had our personal experiences during that fraught time and with new variants hovering and long COVID lingering, the pandemic is still rumbling in the background.

Such a commission would resemble the pink batts inquiry, largely confirming what we know already, and become a forum for political point-scoring and bitterness.

For most of us it would be an expensive exercise to be met with an eye roll and shoulder shrug.
Peter Barry, Marysville

There is a precedent
Further to the letter “Let the citizens decide” (The Age, 18/10), we urge the federal government to follow the precedent set by Bob Hawke in 1989. He granted amnesty to the Chinese students in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

Surely current asylum seekers, even if they arrived by boat, who have lived law-abiding lives in Australia for 10 or more years have earned the same. It’s time.
Margaret Watters, Glen Iris

They’re not gods
I hope the fall of Liz Truss is also the fall of that long-lasting economic policy, economic rationalism, championed by her heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

It basically adorned businesses as gods who would transform the world into riches and jobs. Yes, those businesses that can’t protect our personal information; that complain every time the minimum wage goes up more than it “should”; that are effectively small cartels operating to each get their bit of profit (hello banks); that provide wealth to their shareholders and peanuts to their customers and employees. Businesses that want to sell every bit of coal and gas before the world comes to a standstill through climate change.

Governments must rid themselves of their addiction to businesses and get used to ruling us, all of us, properly and fairly.
John Rome, Mount Lawley, WA

A fair go? Hardly
It says all you need to know about privatisation of essential services when the chair of the Australian Energy Regulator says she struggled with the concept of fairness (“We made the energy market too confusing for people”, Comment, 20/10).

To rub salt into the wound, she admits she struggled to find the best deal in the system she is in charge of. It would be funny if it were not so serious, having a detrimental effect on the lives of the most vulnerable.
Multiply that across all essential services. No wonder the gap between rich and poor gets ever wider.

Privatisation was and is only about competing for profits and shareholder dividends, both of which can only ever drive prices up, never down. Australia is “not” the land of the fair go.
Margaret Callinan, Hawthorn

AND ANOTHER THING

British politics
Has Boris Johnson been talking to Kevin Rudd?
Heather Barker, Albert Park

Credit:

As a person of English birth, I feel despair at the Tory government’s dearth of leadership, intelligence and political maturity.
Jon Smith, Leongatha

Seems ironic that Liz Truss received no support.
Steve Melzer, Hughesdale

Please, can we cease following the Westminster system?
Ron Burnstein, Heidelberg

The Brits have given the world Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, the Goons, Monty Python, et al, and now they have given the world the Conservative Party and Liz Truss, who have added sadness of decline to their comedy routine.
Barrie Bales, Woorinen North

Politics
The sooner Anthony Albanese scraps tax cuts for the wealthy, the sooner the embarrassment for Labor on this issue will be removed.
Malcolm McDonald, Burwood

I voted for Lidia Thorpe. Can I have my vote again?
David Cayzer, Clifton Hill

Foreign relations
With the UK in turmoil and recent chaotic decisions by the US, is it in Australia’s best interests to depend on them for any defence alliance?
Peter Carlin, Frankston South

Cybersecurity
I opted out of registering for My Health Record, distrusting the system to keep information secure. I am not rethinking.
Rob Hocart, Tyabb

Furthermore
The SEC rises from the ashes of coal. Thank you, Daniel Andrews, a brilliant idea.
Ralph Frank, Malvern East

Why do we even need someone’s face on our money?
Angus McLeod, Cremorne

Finally
If Ross Lyon coaches St Kilda again will it be like when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton remarried each other?
Alistair Davies, Thornbury

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