Even if recent outcry protesting snail-paced internet suffered by households forced to join the NBN achieves improved speeds, I suspect the profit imperative of one's chosen Internet Service Provider will still stubbornly displace consumer convenience and preferences.
A frustratingly long call to Telstra BigPond to temporarily suspend or downgrade my monthly cable plan while overseas led nowhere.
I was told that only members of the Australian Defence Force could suspend their internet account so as not incur monthly local charges while away on deployment.
The only cost-effective option available to other BigPond subscribers was to temporarily disconnect their internet service for the time that they are away.
This option seemed promising except that a jet-lagged consumer would have to call BigPond's call centre on their return to Australia to instigate a re-connection that might take about 48 hours to implement.
If resuming services failed one risked many daunting time-consuming calls.
Reconnection could not be arranged ahead of time.
It was tabled as non-negotiable policy.
There is no choice: I elected to pay my monthly unused subscription while away so as not to risk a protracted Internet non-access on my return.
It has come to this – once you are theirs hook line and sinker, the ISP will never let you go without penalty or grave inconvenience.
This dynamic won't change with a streamlined NBN.
Joseph Ting, Carina, Qld
Still off the rails
Your editorial ("Light rail still light on with crucial detail", August 23) asks the key question of the still-vague Stage 2 tram proposal: what's the point if it can't compete with the speed of the existing bus service and "technical constraints" don't let it go where people want?
In the face of unambiguous evidence from the traffic studies in its own Environmental Impact Statement, the government belatedly conceded that Stage 1 is not really about better transport, but about "revitalisation" of Northbourne, which practically speaking, means "moving low-income residents way out of sight and helping property developers construct high-rise".
The tram was merely a smokescreen to distract from the real privatisation agenda: selling-off public land along Northbourne for a one-off budget boost.
With no equivalent privatisation opportunities along the Stage 2 route, why would the government persist with the proposition that slower and less flexible transport will revitalise Woden?
Finally, the quoted Stage 1 cost of $939 million is understated for two reasons.
First, it is the cost of future contract payments discounted at an arbitrary 7.52 per cent rate, not at the expected inflation rate.
Second, it is the cost only of the contract, not of the project. The actual cost in current dollars of the Stage 1 project will be almost half a billion dollars higher.
Kent Fitch, Nicholls
Target war criminals
August marks the third anniversary of ISIS' genocide of the Yazidis of northern Iraq. Significant international advocacy has been undertaken seeking justice for the international crimes perpetrated by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
But governments like Australia are perpetuating impunity by failing to investigate and prosecute their own nationals for the war crimes.
The community continues to call for recognition of the genocide and prosecution of the perpetrators.
But these cries are falling on deaf ears. Parliament has not recognised the genocide and even the foreign fighters who are within the grasp of the government are not being investigated or charged with crimes against humanity and genocide they have perpetrated while fighting with ISIS.
Neil Prakash is being extradited to Victoria to face criminal charges, but he has not even been charged with inciting genocide.
Delaying justice till it is perceived that the war is over only allows evidence to be lost and destroyed.
It is contrary to obligations under international law and allows perpetrators to die as they wish, as martyrs on the battlefield rather than genocidaires and international criminals locked away for life.
Susan Hutchinson, Prosecute; Don't Perpetrate, Lyneham
A sobering thought
As we turn ourselves inside out over section 44 of the constitution — as precise as it reads — for those who just might owe "allegiance" to a country other than Australia, here is a sobering thought.
The more treacherous (aka "unAustralian", so far) in "our" midst, at least from the viewpoint of the so-called Alliance, were all home-grown; they were not suspicious, dark-skinned aliens, but Anglo-Saxon, "us", in their very effective and long-standing treason.
They are the Cambridge Five (English, silver-spoon-in-the-mouth-educated Poms) and Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the latter, respectively, from the CIA and FBI.
There were others, but these traitors were more severely inimical to our interests than the politicians now caught in the unintentional snare of our constitution.
A. Whiddett, Forrest
More thought, please
Your August 21 editorial argued for a referendum to do something about section 44 of the constitution.
Apparently, the issue that wasn't a problem when it involved only two Greens senators is now serious because it threatens the government.
This argument really isn't good enough.
Candidates for Parliament can read the constitution and so should know what qualifications they need.
If we decide to toss out those qualifications, it shouldn't be because our candidates are dim or uninformed.
It should only be because they aren't appropriate qualifications.
And, if that's the case, your editorial should have told us why they aren't appropriate and what appropriate qualifications would look like.
Otherwise, you would be proposing a solution to a short-term issue that might create a long-term problem.
Greg Pinder, Charnwood
Property prestidigitation
The ACT government expressed its intention in the budget, to bring rates for unit title properties into line with stand-alone properties.
They said that any increase would be phased in over two years.
This week I received my rates assessment notice, which reflected an increase of 30 per cent.
One wonders what the second year of this phase-in period has in store. Many of those worst affected are retirees, and many of them have downsized from stand-alone properties to townhouse complexes, in order to reduce their cost of living.
The increase is largely due to the change in calculation of the Valuation Based component of the assessment.
As others have stated in letters to the editor, the total value of the unit complex is now used, instead of the individual property valuation.
Property valuations have not increased, but the sliding scale of marginal rates means that everything over $600,001 in the total unit valuation attracts a rate of 0.6013 per cent instead of 0.2960 per cent for the first $150,000 and 0.4088 per cent for the next $150,000. In my case, the change of valuation calculation results in a 76 per cent increase.
What is also of great concern is that the full amount of any future increase in the valuation of a unit complex will, unlike stand-alone properties, attract the top rate, currently 0.6013 per cent.
How is that equitable or even legal? My body corporate will lodge an objection to this ripoff but without any great hope of a just outcome.
Rod Macleod, Isaacs
First home buyers and downsizing retirees will suffer most and are the ones who can least afford the massive rate rises in the medium/high density housing sector.
The Owners Corporation Network has done an initial analysis of the 2017-18 rates increases. A representative two-bedroom apartment has had a rates rise of 102 per cent, while a representative one-bedroom apartment increased by 119 per cent. In the medium density (townhouse) sector a three-bedroom dwelling had an increase of 85 per cent.
The simple trick used by the government involved moving almost all properties in the sector to the highest rate category by basing the valuation component of the rates on the value of the whole land component of a complex rather than on each individual lot's proportion.
The long existing proposal by government to make better use of existing infrastructure near town centres and along transport corridors should be creating a reduction in government spending and this should be passed to the lower income strata buyers by reduced rates and hence more affordable housing.
The government cost reductions could be in both initial capital outlay by reducing green-fields development and in ongoing maintenance of extra infrastructure.
We could also ask what new services has the government provided in the past 12 months to justify this increase in revenue collection?
Gary Petherbridge, Owners Corporation Network, Barton
The ACT government rates notice for my townhouse unit shows that my rates for next year have increased from $2157 to $2666 compared with last year, an increase of 24 per cent.
This increase was due to a change in the formula for the calculation of the Valuation Based Charge (VBC) for units, resulting in my VBC increasing from $1110 to $1705, an increase of 54per cent. No information was provided before or with my rates notice to explain or justify these massive increases. The rates notice merely included an unclear summary of the new formula, forwhich I obtained some clarification from the ACT Revenue Office.
The new formula is unjust and inequitable. It discriminates against unit owners compared with owners of individual blocks. The VBC formula change will result in large rate increases for unit owners.
The government has not explained the justification for these large increases.
David Langford, Braddon
Jury is not out
The Canberra Times editorial "ACT needs consultation, not abdication" (August 25, p14) is a disappointing misrepresentation of Citizens Juries.
The ACT government always consults. They spend money on advice from the public service, experts, auditors, consultants, and statutory bodies like the ICRC.
Citizens Juries will bring variety and the freshness of those most affected by government decisions, the citizens of the ACT.
The findings of a Citizen Jury is non-binding, as the Legislative Assembly still makes the decisions.
There is no abdication of responsibility, and the approach extends consultation.
Kevin Cox, Ngunnawal
Entitlement missed
The implication of Perter Martin's article ("Our obsession with making claims on tax deductions is something peculiarly Australian ... and pointless", August 24, pp16,17) is that the government is using the tax returns system to rip off the multitudes of small earners.
Actuarial calculations can approximate the deductions due for individual occupations with surprising accuracy.
The great majority of workers simply fail to claim their entitlements.
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor
Redress the blokes
Dammit, chaps, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, I say! Good Lords – all named after Pommies . Can't have that! All men, too. Not a gal among them, by Jove. Probably had mistresses too! For a start, how's about calling Sydney Iora Town? Permission granted?
Barrie Smillie, Duffy
TO THE POINT
BURNING ISSUE
Capital Recycling Solutions and their partner ActewAGL on Thursday night provided a half-hearted argument in support of their proposed waste to energy incinerator at Fyshwick. Why did the consortium not try to seriously address the high level of concern about dioxins and other persistent, bio-accumulative toxins generated by waste incinerators?
Is this another done deal?
Theresa Gordon, Kingston
ROYAL PLEA
D. Perry (Letters, August 24) states that in "God save our gracious Queen", he is unclear of what the Queen is being saved from. It is asking God to keep Her Majesty the Queen safe from harm.
John Milne, Chapman
RATES SHOCK
Our house is one of seven separate dwellings under a units plan. We have just received our rates notice for 2017-18, which shows an increase of 51per cent over that for last year, 64 per cent if the one-off rebate for residential units had not been deducted.
The other mob was pooh-poohed last year when it predicted rates would double between 2011 and 2021.
Ed Highley, Kambah
CBA'S LIABILITY
Perhaps CBA executives who lost their big bonuses could also bring a class action against CBA for their loss of bonuses? CBA, as employer, is vicariously liable at law for the consequences of any incompetence by its employees.
Ian Morison, Forrest
VIEW FROM LEFT
While Mathias Cormann tries to stir up the "conservative troops", aka Australia's alt-right, about "socialist revisionism" let's never forget how he and Joe Hockey sat out the back of their offices smoking celebratory cigars on the night of the infamous and unfair Hockey/Abbot budget of 2014.
Cormann needs to get revisionist about his understanding of the words "unfair" and "greed".
E. R. Moffat, Weston
ON CAPTAIN COOK
The solution to the inscription on Captain Cook's statue is simple. Just add "Re-" in front of "discovered" and you have a white man "re-discovering" a land settled by humans millennia before.
Would that satisfy our ego?
John Rodriguez, Florey
DOUBTERS ECLIPSED
If anyone is looking for further proof of the existence of the great Flying Spaghetti Monster how else can you explain that the size of the Moon, plus the distance from which it rotates around the Earth, manages to almost perfectly cover the sun during an eclipse?
Kim Fitzgerald, Deakin
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