No one objects to governments legitimately recovering debt but sooling Centrelink onto society's most vulnerable in the callous, automated manner smacks of the totalitarian state.

Welcome to the first Post Script for 2017. Time to sharpen up your pens and deliver your best short, pithy one-liners.

• JANUARY 6

Peter Martin suggests that we follow the journalists' adage "it's a stuff-up, not a conspiracy" to explain the Centrelink debt debacle ("Centrelink's litany of inhuman errors", January 5). While this adage is usually reliable, I have to wonder whether it applies in this case.

• JANUARY 5

Every NSW student should be exposed to water safety lessons at the very least.

It can't be much longer before we see a celebrating century-maker do a Pat Cash and clamber into the stands to hug friends and family ("High Noon: 100 before Lunch", January 4).

• JANUARY 4

Nothing will change with Sydney's housing affordability until owner occupiers are put on an equal footing with investors.

• JANUARY 3

It's hard to believe I share support for the same political party with Amanda Vanstone.

It's heartening to note from your editorial ("The year when outsiders became insiders", December 31) that your glass is half full.

• JANUARY 1

The danger at the impending Trump inauguration is not that no A-lister will agree to perform.

• DECEMBER 31

So the toadying to Donald Trump begins before inauguration.

Sometimes readers love a letter so much they write to tell us and to declare it their letter of the year.

Nostalgia kicked in as I saw the Herald photo of the five-storey units built plumb against the little semi-detached cottage in William Street, Lewisham ("Tower springs up next to semi in Lewisham", October 25).

Bert Candy's first Sydney Morning Herald letter to the editor appeared on June 1, 2013. He has been published regularly since then. Readers nominated him as Letter Writer of the Year 2016. Here is a selection of some of his 2016 contributions.

• DECEMBER 30

It is no surprise that New Zealand stood up to Israel's cowardly threats when New Zealand sponsored the United Nations resolution critical of Israel building further settlements in occupied Palestine

• DECEMBER 29

Peter Wertheim and Alex Ryvchin you have absolutely nothing to worry about – history has shown that successive Israeli governments, which say they want peace, will continue to build all over occupied land and give little heed to what the world may think.

• DECEMBER 28

I am a doctor in training at a public hospital and worked a horrific roster last summer due to understaffing ("Doctor exodus hits summer holiday peak at hospitals", December 27). But I didn't blame my colleagues for needing time off from such a stressful and relentless job, and the patients we saw were well cared for, as always. The core issue is not doctors quitting, but why they quit.

• DECEMBER 27

Letters to the editor

• DECEMBER 26

Malcolm Turnbull has asked us to "reach out to those less fortunate" ("Peace and goodwill as Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten release Christmas messages", December 25).

• DECEMBER 24

The latest court decision, conveniently announced three days before Christmas, will not save the Baird government in the long run.

• DECEMBER 23

No amount of building will ease the housing crisis in Sydney because negative gearing will always give investors the edge over owner-occupiers.

• DECEMBER 22

Over 60 years, just how many good ideas, many of them emanating from costly government enquiries have I seen ditched because some "group", usually a noisy minority protests over the impact to the hip pocket nerve?

• DECEMBER 21

Moody's, S&P; and their ilk truly are the cockroaches of the economic world. Having survived the fallout of their contribution to the nuclear holocaust of the GFC, they continue to thrive.

• COMMENT

Senator Rod Culleton's resignation from One Nation raises some interesting questions.

• DECEMBER 19

It is a cop-out for Malcolm Turnbull to say now is not the right time and that more work is needed – by others, not him.

• December 18

Daily the surrogate's heart beat is what a gestating child hears, until that connection is ruptured.

• DECEMBER 17

Peter Dutton would have some credibility if he freed the captives on Nauru and Manus Island.

• DECEMBER 16

Two stories in yesterday's Herald struck me as a stark reflection of why Australian justice, as it is mandated by our political representatives today, is so confusing to the general public.

• DECEMBER 15

It would seem that the interests of Australia would be far better served if the federal government accepted the dire warnings of climate science.

• DECEMBER 14

Whoever you think is responsible for the falling educational standards in Australia, it's not the students.