Dave Liberts writes: The photo of the dry Murray riverbed in drought from 1914 (23 February, comments) is historically informative but is totally useless in providing “perspective about global warming and climate change”, as David Heckendorf claims. Comparing images of the Murray before and after the construction of the system of locks which are found along the river (mostly constructed in the 1920s but all after 1914) tells us far more about the success of the locks than it does about the magnitude of the current drsought.

Nicole Rich, Director of Policy & Campaigns at the Consumer Action Law Centre, writes: Re. Bank penalty fees. I congratulate Michael Pascoe for raising the issue. As author of the report he refers to, I felt I should respond to posted comments (23 February, comments). To Cordover, calling them “fees” for “services” does not mean the fees are not penalties. The contracts clearly set out that these fees are for customer defaults (eg. paying your credit card bill late; authorising a payment from your account without enough funds to cover it). I note that Wade, a credit union worker, writes in his comments that they are penalties. To Wade, the fact that a fee is disclosed in the contract is largely irrelevant as it is the excessive amount that makes it unlawful, not that it is hidden in some way. And to argue that they help low-income people takes cheek – they impact on them the most! Banks could stop “un-financed debt” by not overdrawing accounts in the first place! The report is here and goes into more detail on these and other issues. I can flag on Crikey that the Consumer Action Law Centre will be pursuing this issue strongly in a campaign with Choice. Stay tuned…

Mark Freeman writes: Crikey, you’ve inspired me to start charging my bank for errors and incorrect debits. C’wealth has been charging me TFN Withholding Tax for a while – 6 months. I thought they’d realise their error and reimburse me. When I went to my branch they told me at first to claim it back from tax office, but reimbursed me when I demanded my money now. I’ve also sent an Administration Fee invoice account to “recover my reasonable costs involved in correcting your error” – $75.00. Seems about right – in fact I reckon it’s cheap considering I had to front in person rather than just sending a computer generated letter. Mind you I did remind them “Please be advised that overdue account charges may apply.” I’ll keep you posted on progress. I’ve done this sort of stuff to various companies and govt agencies (especially councils) over the years. They never pay up, but a train of letters and phone calls manages to cost them quite a bit of time – which is of course money. Maybe more Crikey readers should do the same – especially to their bank.

Brad Ruting writes: Re: “The great buck pass – no-one’s responsible for the less-than-legal bank penalty fees” (23 February, item 5). How strange that the ACCC argues that it doesn’t have responsibility for the fees banks charge consumers. This should be squarely part of their role as regulating consumer matters. The Payments System Board, under the guise of the Reserve Bank, has responsibility for payment systems, so the RBA has (as it should) jurisdiction over the interchange fees banks charge each other in credit card transactions and the like. These aren’t direct charges on consumers and thus should be regulated by the Payments System Board – no inconsistencies there. Also, APRA should be left out of the equation: its responsibility is, legitimately, ensuring the probity of banks and ensuring we don’t have devastating collapses or bank runs. Since bank fees charged directly to consumers are in many respects just like the fees that any other company charges its customers, these should be the domain of the ACCC. As its website states, the “primary responsibility [of the ACCC] is to ensure that individuals and businesses comply with the Commonwealth competition, fair trading and consumer protection laws.” Financial regulation in Australia is robust, efficient and conducive to fair and prosperous markets. The splitting of financial regulation among the RBA, ASIC, APRA and the ACCC was largely a good idea. Michael Pascoe should be criticising the ACCC, not the overarching regulatory structure itself.

Kenneth Cooke writes: Re: “The great buck pass – no-one’s responsible for the less-than-legal bank penalty fees” (23 February, item 5). Michael Pascoe does not mention if he has considered the Australian Banking Industry Ombudsman. I know that they say that: “To complain to the ABIO you must be seeking to recover a loss, either a financial or non-financial, that has arisen as a result of a bank error…” It could be argued that the debiting of a penalty fee is an error since it is not allowed under the law as I think Michael argued in his previous article. An alternative strategy would be for lots of customers to write a letter of complaint to their bank every time they were charged a penalty fee. The extra work involved to reply to these letters may make the fees less profitable for them but I suppose they could easily automate the reply process.

Adam Schwab writes: Credit union employee, James Wade’s (23 February, comments) lame defense of the banks’ indefensible fees proves that bank PR should be left to experts, like Alan Jones. First, Wade argued that the customer agrees to the terms and conditions prior to opening an account. True, but the terms and conditions still need to be legal and enforceable. Many of the banks fees would be deemed “penalty” clauses by a court and therefore, are not enforceable under common law (that is because the courts have rules that any penalty under a contract must be commensurate with the injured party’s loss, and not a profit center). If anybody bothered to enforce the law, pretty much every bank fee would need to drastically reduced. Second, Wade argues that the cost of collection officers justifies the fees. That is so absurd it hardly warrants rebuttal, needless to say, given 99% of charges would simply be electronically added to a statement the cost would be a cent or two to impose a $40.00 over-limit charge.

Chris Kelly writes: I wonder if governments as well as banks may also be illegally charging penalty fees? I recently paid my car registration online one day late. When my sticker arrived its expiry had changed from February to January with a note from Queensland Transport that a “reinstatement fee” had been deducted and the expiry date adjusted accordingly. If that isn’t a penalty I don’t know what is. Is Pandora’s carton coming apart at the seams, or don’t normal legal processes apply to government departments?

Adam Rope writes: Re. “Local councils’ development clampdown intensifies rental squeeze” (yesterday, item 24). There seems to be a swathe of subscribers complaining about Crikey’s reporting quality these days, so can I join in the fun? Adam Schwab’s spray in Friday’s edition contained some many excellent examples of “truthiness” that it almost belied belief. Now he is writing about Melbourne, and I live in Sydney, but even so his pro-development, anti-green rant needs some mild rebuttal. “Most councils are now dominated by anti-development Green councillors”, really Adam, got any proof, or is that just gut conjecture? The same response applies to “anti-development attitude of suburban councils and their voters”, it’s simply supposition. Oh, and while we on the subject Adam, why shouldn’t “voters” – i.e. residents who live there – have slightly more say than developers in the “development” of their local area? Councils are not “trying to curtail the rich” they are trying to prevent potential unplanned overdevelopment of their area which may well result in future infrastructure, and social, problems. The local council next to mine was sacked by the NSW Government a few years back because pro-development councillors, with strong links to building and real estate interests, had corrupted the system almost beyond repair.

Matt Hardin writes: Thank goodness for Greens in council. I have heard many developers complain about the infrastructure costs of development and hence their refusal to develop housing. Paying this infrastructure cost is essential. Replacing one family on a block of land with 3-4 families increases demand on water, roads, public transport, health services etc. by 3-4. The current philosophy of balanced budgets and low taxes means that these services are not improved in the same proportion as the increase in number of new residents. Without the Greens rents might be lower but rates would be higher and/or amenity in the inner suburbs degraded.

Cameron Bray writes: Re. “Could France opt for the centre?” (23 February, item 14). Charles Richardson writes in the context of the French Presidential election: “A run-off election is like an extended preferential vote.” A run off election is NOT like an extended preferential vote in the slightest. The French model is just two first-past-the post elections nailed together. In 2002, none of the sixteen Presidential candidates scored more than 20% of the vote in the first round. Jacques Chirac polled 19.88%, while Le Pen came in second at 16.86%, pipping the Socialist candidate by 0.7%. All the rest of the candidates then became a complete irrelevance, with the slate being cleared for the second round straight fight between Chirac and Le Pen. In any proper preferential vote, the lower-ranked candidates would have been redistributed, with the votes from the long tail of leftist parties that polled almost 30% between them flowing to the Socialists. this would have left them within sight of a plurality, needing only the smallest of flows from centrist parties like the UDF to ensure a victory. Certainly Le Pen, loathed by all and with no chance of any preferences, would stand no chance at all of coming second. As it was, the artificial elimination of all but the top two candidates instead led to the infamous second round between Chirac and Le Pen, where the socialist faithful had to trudge to the polls under the slogan “Vote for the crook not the fascist”. Incidentally, here in the UK, the fallacious equation of run-off elections with preferential voting (and the 2002 French debacle in particular) has been used by conservatives to defend Britain’s ludicrously Cretaceous (and cretinous) first-past-the post system.

Tony Kevin, author of “A Certain Maritime Incident” writes: Re. “Unseaworthy vessels – straightforward unless they’re full of boat people” (23 February, item 8). On Rachel Baird’s interesting piece, the experience of the Operation Relex border security crisis (in September-December 2001, especially in its latter weeks as Australian border security authorities became more confident that they could tow asylum-seeker boats back to Indonesia without risk of triggering adverse Indonesian government reactions), was that the ADF was under firm instructions from Canberra. RAN ships were to try to make intercepted (“rescued”) boats marginally and temporarily seaworthy and to keep the people on board them as long as possible (though women and children were in one case taken on board the intercepting RAN vessel as a rare act of chivalry, while the men were locked down in the hold of the “rescued” vessel as it was towed back at high speed – rendering the boat totally unseaworthy at the end – and left at the edge of Indonesian waters for the people to try to struggle ashore as best they might. A few people drowned at this last stage but it was no longer Australia’s problem). Such true stories and many more like them are told in Marr and Wilkinson’s Dark Victory. These were never rescues at sea: they were ruthless border interdiction operations that breached the boundaries of maritime safety law (SOLAS). I wonder, who were the “people smugglers” who encouraged this latest venture, and why at this particular time? It would not have anything to do with Indonesian irritation at the current Australian coronial inquest into the Balibo Five, would it?

Willem Schultink writes: Re. “NZ debates violence against children – and MPs” (23 February, item 12). Charles Richardson reckons “there’s something deeply disturbing about people who come out as passionate defenders of corporal punishment”. Why? Not everyone who gives their children a smack on the backside bashes the crap out of their children. Proper corporal punishment is an effective an humane way of teaching children right from wrong. And just to make sure that I am not misunderstood, let it be known that I am firmly against all forms of child abuse. Beating your – or anyone else’s – children so that you cause them damage is not on and should be prosecuted. But that is not in the same category as a firm smack on the backside. Charles does nobody any service by confusing the two. It is quite possible to be firmly opposed to child abuse while being in favour of proper corporal punishment.

James Perkins writes: Re. “Nanny sports administrators are turning our larrikins into milk sops” (23 February, item 20). Well said, Charles Happell. I was at the Gabba for the first Ashes Test and while I had fun, I also could not help but feel like a criminal as I was watched by numerous police officers and close circuit TV cameras, no doubt. I felt those eyes fall on me a number of times as I cheered at exciting points of the game. A shirtless man was evicted from the ground for overzealous cheering, which I felt was extremely harsh. It was ironic seeing TVs in the stadium’s innards playing “classic” Gabba moments, one of which was the Botham Pig incident of ’82, ’83; publicly glorifying a misbehaving crowd on the one hand, while threatening the current crowd with eviction for starting a Mexican wave. It is also interesting that the Ashes crack down came following one of the most well regarded Ashes series ever (’05) in terms of crowd behaviour and participation.

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