My 14-year-old son Tom has a profound disability and is an NDIS participant. I liken the NDIS to a "cheating" boyfriend, it looks great initially, offering much needed daily assistance, but when you become involved all is not what it seems. This year, Tom had a femoral osteotomy due to both hips being dislocated. I contacted the NDIS regarding his upcoming surgery and was told that our bathroom modifications would be classified as urgent due to the nature of his surgery and my inability to wash him in a hygienic and safe environment. He has since had further hip surgery to remove plates and screws from both hips. Nine months later and many phone calls to the NDIS – only to be advised that they are a call centre and will email my complaint to a central email address – I am still waiting for a phone call from NDIS.

I am my son's voice. I am tired of fighting for my son's dignity. I am tired of dealing with a deeply flawed system that was implemented to aid the most vulnerable in our society.

Sarah Alcock, Balwyn North

Surely, there are areas that can be relaxed

We are parents of a adult man who is in a care facility along with other adults. We found this facility for him and agreed that he should at last be with adults of his own age and mentality and because it offered him the opportunity to mix with other like people other than us, his aged parents. For some years he has been encouraged to play the piano and it has been found that he has a rare talent for music and music memory.

However over recent years things have changed and he has had to follow other paths where he lives. While he has a lot of fun daily outside his living centre, and his piano has been placed in the house where he lives, he cannot use it in the day, because, as we were told when we asked if he could stay to play the piano one or two days a week, the system at his centre compels residents to do to set "activities" whether they like to or not. Our son would never say "no" as he is very polite and agrees to whatever is presented to him regardless of whether he actually wants to go.

We are wondering if this area of NDIS is the only area in Victoria which has such a system or are there others who are not so rigid.

Names and address supplied

FORUM

Reform rezonings

Yet another headline about questionable rezoning activity ("Labor in rezoning stoush", The Sunday Age, 18/11). Victoria has a long list of dubious rezoning lobbying and decisions from Cranbourne West back to Ventnor and beyond. Rezoning decisions give landowners large windfall profits so it is no wonder that they put significant effort and money into lobbying and donations to individuals and political parties at local and state levels. Windfall gains resulting from a rezoning decision should be taxed at something like 90 per cent and the money used to benefit the community. This should greatly lessen the incentives for corruption and lead to better planning decisions based on what is good for the community. Victorians should demand that all political parties support this reform and that the next government enact it as a priority.

Tony Ralston, Balwyn North

Bats' critical role

The assertion that there are now "30,000 to 50,000" flying foxes at Yarra Bend Park needs qualification ("How Melbourne's bat crazy war was won", The Sunday Age, 18/11). Last winter the number of resident Grey-headed flying foxes was 2000 – the lowest in 15 years. The Grey-headed flying fox species consists of a single dynamic population roughly from Brisbane to Adelaide. Membership of camps change regularly depending on the season and local food resources. Sometimes the Yarra Bend Park colony will reach 30,000 and then reduce as bats disperse to other camps. Such is the bats' critical role in hardwood forest regeneration that Australia's east-coast Grey-headed flying fox species are listed as a conservation "Critical Priority" under the federal Department of Environment and Heritage Protection Back on Track Species Prioritisation Framework.

Lawrence Pope, president, Friends of Bats and Bushcare Inc., North Carlton

Political ignorance

Did the Coalition really think taking away the protection measures for the critically endangered Leadbeater's Possum would be a winner at polling booths? ("Possum protection zones could be chopped in Coalition timber plan", The Sunday Age, 18/11). It wants logging jobs in exchange for seeing an entire species likely go extinct.

Is it serious? Matthew Guy and Peter Walsh's "landscape scale protection" might sound impressive but is simply a euphemism for protecting places that aren't wanted for clearfell logging, and usually where there's no evidence that endangered wildlife actually live.

The ecological and scientific ignorance of political leaders can be staggering. But that's politics.

Jill Redwood, coordinator, Environment East Gippsland Inc.

No benefits

Victoria's animal emblem, the Leadbeater's Possum, is ranked by the Zoological Society of London in the top 10 of the world's mammals in need of protection. It is the seventh most likely Australian mammal to go extinct in the next 20 years. It was selected by the Coalition's Environment Minister Greg Hunt for emergency intervention in 2015.

And yet the Coalition's Peter Walsh clearly considers it a nuisance. Ironically it was the Coalition government that established the minimal 200 metre buffers around confirmed possum sightings in 2014. According to VicForests, each 12 hectare buffer contains, on average, only 2.8 hectares of "harvestable ash". Halving the diameter of the buffers to 100 metres would reduce the protected area by 75 per cent, to three hectares, so that their conservation value would be cut to zero. The benefit, if any, to the logging and paper industry would be negligible.

Steve Meacher, Toolangi

Let's pause here

Shouldn't there be a lot more public discussion before we go all the way with Mike Pence in PNG? ("Joining forces in PNG", The Sunday Age, 18/11).

The Vice-President made the announcement about the joint US-Australia naval base on Manus Island with US hawk John Bolton. Then Prime Minister Scott Morrison said details were yet to be confirmed. Was this another pre-election thought bubble by Morrison, like the Wentworth byelection Jerusalem embassy move?

In matters of national security, the Prime Minister is proving to be far from a statesmanlike safe pair of hands.

Ross Crawford, Frankston

A renewable future

Research by the Australia Institute's climate and energy program has found that, around the world, no targets for carbon capture and storage CCS have been met for either the number of projects in operation or the amount of carbon dioxide stored each year ("Labor set to recharge energy plan", The Sunday Age, 18/11).

It is to be hoped then, that Labor, while using the NEG as a base for its new energy plan, does not propose CCS as a way to reduce emissions. "Clean coal", which slightly reduces coal burning emissions, should not be mentioned in Labor's plan either. Renewables are the only way to an emissions-free electricity supply. With some imagination, Australia could become a leading player in both manufacturing and assembling solar, wind and battery components.

Jill Dumsday, Ashburton

What's to thank?

President Trump's betrayal of the American Revolution is just about complete. On Thanksgiving, what can America give thanks for? In the two years of his presidency, Donald Trump has turned Founding Father Thomas Jefferson's threefold "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" trilogy on its head. Instead, America today is a nation beset by "death, fear and the pursuit of nationalism". Death stalks America from gun violence, fear of the next jihadist attack deliberately stoked by Trump kills any sense of liberty and freedom in America, and ultra-nationalist white supremacists know they have a friend in the White House. Authors of the American Constitution from July 1776 like Jefferson, Franklin and Adams would be turning in their graves.

Nick Toovey, Beaumaris

Gender riddle

If Tasmanians are genderless, how will the Tasmanian government implement its policy of equal representation of males and females on government boards? I presume that it will be illegal to ask applicants what their gender is?

James Hearne, Kew

Not so rapt

Aeons ago (well, 50 years) newspapers were delivered to a letterbox usually by a child on a bike. Tempus fugit and now they are tastefully hurled from a moving vehicle to land somewhere on the subscriber's property. I frequently search the rosemary bush if I miss the tell-tale thud at 5.45am. When the delivery driver masters the hurling of an unwrapped paper, we can then dispose of the cling film and not much sooner than then.

Ian Field, Williamstown

Driving lessons

I can, to a certain extent, understand why some older drivers should give up their driving licences. However, I am sure that there are much worse drivers in other age groups. I see them every day. I do not know any older drivers who drive when drunk or drugged.

I learned to drive in the 1960s and I was taught that a) you do not own the road b) your licence is a privilege not a right c) treat other drivers with courtesy and d) it is better to be 20 minutes late in this life than 20 years early in the next.

Chris Rhodes, Gisborne

Population posers

The debate about population seems only to be about increased economic growth, ie. migration versus built infrastructure. We also need to consider environmental infrastructure. In the face of climate change we need to ask particularly, if we have enough water for domestic use and agriculture, and also when to stop building on arable land. Larger cities also need bigger emergency plans in case of natural disasters. The scope of any inquiry needs to consider these things, too.

Helen Pereira, Heidelberg Heights

Going backwards

We recently connected to the NBN and have found the performance to be far worse than that of our original cable connection from 20 years ago. I am astounded that a new system could be introduced that sends us backwards.

Paul Mahony, Black Rock

Polls apart

At the food stall at the polling place I asked for a lobster, but all I got was a sausage.

John McLean, Camberwell