Hope for best online
Wonky on power
I THINK I can answer Peter Boyer’s question (Talking Point, November 28). Minister Frydenberg isn’t saying the Government is making a real positive difference, only that it is making a real difference. It is doing a jolly good job of the job it wants to do: keeping the energy industry problematic and profitable. Years ago, when the energy industry worked reasonably well, hardly anyone could make a whopping great profit.
From time to time, a few workers would go on strike for a few extra bucks, but opportunities for big profits for wealthy investors were scarce. Now, thanks to a lot of brilliant decisions by various governments, it is a huge mess, and opportunities abound. Is an efficient power industry one that generates a lot of power for little cost, or one that generates a lot of profit from a trickle of watts? We aren’t just on the wrong side of a looking glass, we are on the wrong side of one of those wonkylooking glasses we see at amusement parks. seventh the population, can drop the disgraceful number of bottles, cans, fast-food cartons, discarded garments, plastic bags, cigarette packets, cigarette butts, takeaway cups, dog faeces … and this in a city that provides litter bins on the streets. I did not see bins in Kyoto. It must be that the citizens are civilised enough to take their rubbish home. Why can’t we do that? Perhaps our councillors should lower their gaze from high-rise and take a look at the rubbish on the ground. MY limited experience with online shopping suggests that most products sold that way are things one would not buy if one saw them, and were able to handle them and assess their quality and size. Being an island state, there are some things which are not available in local stores, in which case my recommendation is to ensure a hard copy is made of the online offer, as it is very easy for a trader to alter the offer after the order is placed and the money paid.
Once that has happened, there is very little one can do but hope for the best. With the advances in parking-meter technology, one can see fewer people bothering to shop and these tech-savvy people instead going online, with fewer people in the CBD, except for students, who will also be shopping online.