Electric heating just leaves me cold compared to gas

On a frosty morning, I really enjoy the radiant heat as I eat my breakfast and read The Canberra Times, with no need to heat the whole room. But with the RC heating, I have no choice but to turn the unit on before I get up, and heat the entire room, using vastly more energy.

And for those that use non-reverse-cycle electric heating, the huge amount of electrical energy used is truly sinful. Then there is the thorny question of whether all of the ACT's power really is renewably produced. Literally speaking it is not, and comes mostly from nearby coal-fired generators.

In principle this is matched by power bought by the ACT, and fed into the grid far away such as in South Australia. In practice, these renewable generators suffer from intermittency, and thus the grid is often supported by non-renewable generation.

Overall, the ACT is doing a good job sourcing renewable electricity, and electric heating will often be better for the environment than gas, but intelligent use of a gas heater still has its place, and the pleasure of gas-fired radiant heat simply cannot be beaten.

This afternoon I had reason to shop at my local Woolworths Metro as the product I required was not available at the Kippax store.

The product was advertised in the catalogue at $12.50. The shelf advertised this price, however, the product scanned at $18.16. When I queried the difference I was told the per kg price and the weight brought the product to that price.

I referred an assistant to the catalogue advertised price. The response was this is Metro and we are always dearer! The product ended up costing me $14.19.

The sooner Craig Emerson's recommendations are implemented, the better.

I think David Pocock and Kylea Tink's proposed bill "that aims for a human rights approach to housing" ("Australia to take Canada's lead with housing proposal", June 24) could spark the kind of change of attitude we need as we work for a responsible and national provision of housing.

It helps me dream of an Australian prize for architects and builders who efficiently manufacture the most adaptable modular house, or for the best tiny house that meets most council regulations, or for the most pleasant bathroom and kitchen facilities that can be shared by neighboring households.

Or for a new profession of qualified people who help renovate and administer large houses so they attractively accommodate several families, or for a landscaped network of paths for bikes and walkers which connect such dwellings with health, shopping and recreational facilities.

I recall that the main thing to remember when buying a house is "position, position, position".

What good does it to us if we live in an enormous drafty two-storey house in a desert of roads, a house which might even seek to be gated with a group of similar houses for protection, protection from the homeless whom we have abandoned and left to survive on our streets or in abandoned spaces?

I would be proud to live in a country which actually decided to legislate housing as a human right.

Isn't it incredibly stupid that while I'm hearing gunshots every night, and the screaming of cockatoos, parrots, gang-gangs, and other wildlife obviously terrified by the noise and the killing of kangaroos on the Red Hill reserve, that all around rabbits in their thousands and tens of thousands continue to run free. Eating the same grasses in the same reserves.

The same ones threatened by our native kangaroos, apparently. But it is the kangaroos that must die.

Yet the rabbits get a free kick. This is just astonishingly stupid, horrible and incomprehensible. Can Andrew Barr and the ACT government please explain why?