Coming to the aid of the party
I REFER to your article “The non-party party” in the “Bites” column (“CityNews”, July 31).
Whilst I acknowledge the somewhat tongue-in-cheek nature of the column, it may be necessary for some clarification of the position of the ACT Democrats. 
The ACT Democrats is the local name for the ACT Division of the Australian
Democrats. The Australian Democrats is a national political party and is registered federally (as well as in most States and Territories). When a person joins the Australian Democrats they join nationally, but they belong to the division in which they reside.
The ACT Democrats was deregistered last September because its numbers dropped below the required number of 100 members required for registration in the ACT.
Under Section 99 of the severely flawed ACT Electoral Act, a deregistered party cannot reregister under the same name (or anything resembling that name) until after the next general election. As the ACT Division of a national political party, changing our name would have created a constitutional dilemma (or at the very least have put us in the farcical situation of having a different name to our national organisation).
To make things more difficult, the Stanhope Government changed Section 115 of the ACT Electoral Act again in May to prevent like-minded candidates from grouping together. This prevented us from grouping as a pseudo-party column, and forced independents to pretend they are a political party by getting 100 of their mates together and writing a constitution.
Not to be outdone, we decided that the only option left to us was to endorse candidates, promote ourselves as the ACT Democrats and contest the election via the Ungrouped column.
The ACT Democrats’ candidates will certainly be contesting the October
Election despite the hurdles put in front of us.
Darren Churchill, president, Australian Democrats (ACT Division) and candidate for Ginninderra

It’s a vicious circle, Jon; stop it!
IT’S all very well the Stanhope Government intending to build a women and children’s hospital; a community health centre at Gungahlin; a secure adult mental health inpatient unit; 16 intensive care beds at Calvary hospital; digital mammography equipment; neurosurgery surgery suite at Canberra Hospital; community health centre upgrades; 16 bed surgical assessment and planning unit; 24 extra beds at the Canberra Hospital; mental health assessment unit; skills development centre; youth mental health unit; phase 1 clinical services redevelopment; project planning and (take a breath) a medical history data base. 
We all know where he intends to bleed Canberrans for the money, but where is he going to get the staff for this great plan?
Why is it that every time we have a Labor Government, either territorially or nationally, we go into the red and the Libs have to get back in and clean it up?  It is a vicious circle, Jon; stop it!
Carol Moore, Latham

What about the batteries?
WHILST all of this brouhaha pertaining to climate change is going on and we are being urged to consider purchasing hybrid cars, there are several factors that I have not been able to have answered to my satisfaction. These are:
1. No battery is eternal, what length of service is anticipated for rechargeable batteries?
2. What would be the cost of renewing this battery pack? I find it ridiculous if renewing the pack cost the owner more than he saved on fuel.
3. What would the warming footprint be by the factory that is constructing the new batteries? Again, it would be ridiculous if manufacturing the batteries caused more pollution than was saved by using them.
4. Finally, these batteries are both toxic and explosive, what pollution would be created by the safe destruction of them? 
Alan P. May, Isabella Plains