I now know why our son and his friends drink at home before they go out. We used to do the same years ago for similar reasons but now it seems a necessity. How on earth can these young people afford to buy drinks at these inflated prices and especially when they go from venue to venue and drink prices fluctuate.

To give you an example, to buy a " XXXX " mid strength beer at a club costs $4.50, but to buy the same product at a venue around 6.30pm on Saturday afternoon, which is an established venue which has been around for 20 years plus, cost is $8.50.

Most of the young blokes seem to drink "Corona with a slice of lemon " and the cost is around $9.00. They must be on huge wages to afford drinks at these prices.

The biggest problem surrounding these drinks is that the prices vary from place to place, so a person can pay anything from $4.50 at a club, $7.50 at the pub and $9.00 at a bar and grill. If there was a price control on these products we might see a change in young attitudes towards drinking and then we might have a chance to start to control their habits, ie "binge drinking".

This might also inadvertently start to affect the incidence of young people getting drunk before they go out to save money and with heightened education, turn attitudes around.

_T Dunn, West Wollongong

Lang Waker the billionaire property developer, the same person funding the $2 billion property venture in Sydney’s Parramatta, was lamenting that no buyers had been forthcoming for his Melbourne’s Collins Square project, a project where he hopes to realise a profit of 5 per cent.

However, he has been advised that market speculation centres on Chinese insurance companies and offshore wealth managers like Singapore-Malaysia CIMB Capital Trust.

Here we have a typical example of conservative politics: infrastructure as a capital growth product for the rich with no thought of the average Australian.

_John Macleod, Berry

Bronwyn Bishop’s parliamentary career is over after she lost preselection in her Sydney seat of Mackellar.

What is Bronwyn’s greatest achievement:  her appointment of Speaker on November 12, 2013 to her last sitting day in June, Bronwyn Bishop has sent out 400 politicians under Standing Order 94a. Of those booted out, 393 (or 98.25 per cent) were Labor politicians, and seven were Coalition MPs.

Bronwyn Bishop: neither, came, saw or conquered. Bronwyn’s mind is united in her own importance. Goodbye Bronwyn, a partisan of party politics, an acolyte of unwavering conservative values.

I will not wish her farewell, except to say, Bronwyn Bishop is the epitome of nobody’s politician.

_John Macleod, Berry

When developing a budget it is always important to consider both income and expenditure. Cutting your spending will not solve your budget  problem if you refuse to make the people who owe you money pay you. No home business (OR COUNTRY) can survive when more money is being stolen or embezzled from the budget than is needed to pay the bills.

No amount of cost savings will repair the damage if most of your income is being taken by those who refuse to pay their debts.

The Australian budget does not have a spending problem it has an income problem, those who owe vast amounts of money are simply not paying their debts to our country.

_Doug Steley, Heyfield