I'm here on a holiday from the UK, and reading about a guy who doesn't want to be called a hero.

I give him full credit for his love for his fellow man and in organising truck loads of hay to farmers in dire need in outback NSW and Queensland. As he says, “you don't have to be a millionaire to help someone, you just get off your arse and do it”.

Some of these farmers are in such a diabolical financial situation that Brendan said, “young children have to go with their dad to make sure he comes home”.

If this True Blue Australian can organise literally hundreds of hay trucks to help and assist  farmers that are on their knees, my question is, what is the Australian Government doing to assist these farmers?

It's about time the Australian Government got of its arse and started helping these farmers .

I write in response to the aged care related articles in The Border Mail (February 11) which largely painted the system in a negative and frightening way.

I would like to point out that aged care is a highly regulated and scrutinised industry with aged care providers balancing community, resident, government and family expectations and requirements in a regulated financial environment.

The vast majority of providers – certainly in this part of the world – provide good care and are safe and ethical and do not tolerate elder abuse.

Unfortunately there are inevitably one or two unsatisfactory providers but they are in my opinion the exception and residents and their families should complain and expose individual poor providers if they fail them – not blacken the whole industry.

As a not for profit, along with other not for profits in the region, we try hard to provide the best care possible within resources for a very vulnerable group of people who deserve and need our help.

Often their circumstances leave them no choice but to seek care.

Whilst prospective residents, clients and their families should exercise careful due diligence with their care provider selection they should not be made to feel frightened or fearful of entering aged care.

I have complete sympathy for the Australian Energy Market Operator.

With base-load electricity, if they calculate we need 1000 units of power on a given day, they can instruct power generators to produce 1100 units of power, which gives a margin for error. Generally speaking they can rely on this production.

With a growing proportion of renewables the AEMO cannot accurately predict/request a level of production to meet the same scenario.

A look at the weather on the day I write this letter reveals that the forecast and the wind predictions are 10 to 25km/hr, gusting to 35km/hr.

Similarly the cloud cover is predicted to be increasing with 20 per cent chance of rain. From my observations these predictions are guesses at best, renewable energy production under this scenario would be extremely variable.

As the AEMO is required to minimise the use of base-load power, which is rapidly diminishing, I believe that the current management guidelines for electricity production will see power blackouts become the norm.

This has been the subject of numerous submissions by the AEMO and the power industry. To claim that this is not caused by the rapid uptake of renewables, without proper assessment of the ramifications, it delusional.