Bracket creep seems to be a deliberate revenue raiser for Labor government

That the average Australian worker paid $3500 more tax last year than before the Albanese government was elected, and that taxes on individuals will continue to climb as a share of the economy without any official tax hikes, demonstrates the destructiveness of bracket creep on our living standards (“Liberals eye tax cuts, prepare pre-budget blitz on marginal seats”, 17/3).

Yet the Albanese government has no intention of reforming the tax system or of setting a tax-to-GDP cap guardrail because it sees this growing source of revenue as necessary to fund its grandiose, ideologically based schemes such as the economy-wrecking renewables superpower fantasy. In effect, it’s a double loss for consumers. The Albanese government is more concerned about showing itself as a bright light at the UN than it is in lifting our living standards.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Peter Dutton should realise the only game in town is energy. All other issues are affected by this issue. The failed renewables fantasy has delivered increases in cost of living, loss of security, and loss of industry and its experienced workforce, agriculture and tourism. Degraded and destroyed landscapes with mountains of renewables trash are a burden future generations will inherit from this failed experiment.

The solution is simple but you can’t destroy a healthy energy system and revive it without pain. The path is obvious. Promise to lift the nuclear ban, ditch net zero and stop the rollout of renewables and their opaque subsidies. Commit to building coal-fired and nuclear power plants and admit that the latter will be financed and owned by the taxpayer, not to be sold off. Stop all grants to pay for the rebuild and dismantling of the failed renewables fantasy including inevitable litigation and waste disposal of mountains of derelict renewables.

We may find living without identity culture foisted on us can be quite liberating.

Sarah Childs, Lithgow, NSW

Funding renewables

Aidan Morrison rightly highlights that the renewables industry is fighting for future funding, which will not come from power bills but from taxpayers (“ ‘Cheap renewables’ magic tricks reveal no ace up sleeve”, 17/3). This means Australian citizens are not only facing higher electricity costs but also bearing the financial burden of the transition.

The key reason renewables have failed to lower electricity prices is their inability to provide reliable, dispatchable power. As their share of the energy market grows, their intermittency will become only more problematic.

The logical approach would be to halt further expansion of renewables and focus on engineering solutions to ensure a stable and reliable electricity market. However, this is a difficult political sell. It is far easier for politicians to continue expanding renewables while blaming geopolitical events, ageing coal-fired power stations or gas shortages for rising costs and instability.

Ultimately, political decisions may dominate in the short term, but in the end engineering realities will prevail.

Don McMillan, Paddington, Qld

On reading yet another factual well-reasoned letter on energy policy from Jennie George (Letters, 17/3), I asked myself: How much longer can Chris Bowen ignore one of his party’s most respected elders?

Is he so completely impervious to the damage he has wrought that he won’t listen to such voices? Does he actually believe that Australia, alone among all nations, can be powered entirely with renewables? And does he believe that refusing to disclose the cost of his elaborate scheme will somehow make it more acceptable? He alone knows. No one else could possibly work out his motives.

Doug Hurst, Chapman, ACT

Indulgent West

Elica Le Bon is bewildered by the West’s appetite to “sacrifice values on the altar of tolerance”. (“Our tolerance has led to universal moral drought”, 15-16/3). I think she’s being generous. I would suggest that we sacrificed our values on the altar of indulgence. We swapped restraint, duty and self-control for a world of self-love, instant gratification and cheap highs. Duty became old-fashioned. Shame, even after poor behaviour, was considered not just outdated but outrageous. Judgment was (ironically) condemned. We swapped fortitude, tenacity and responsibility for dependence. Restraint for licence. Christianity for crystals. Courtesy, respect and moderation gave way to uninhibited freedom and finally to permissiveness. There was no right or wrong. Everything was relative. Thus we were ripe to be asked to tolerate the intolerable. And we had no grounds to refuse. Because in a world of moral and cultural relativism we can’t declare any one behaviour or any one culture better or worse than another.

But that’s simply not true.

Jane Bieger, Mount Lawley, WA