Another election coming and another dilemma where neither side seems worthy of support. It seems to be the fate of electors worldwide.
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There isn't much to get excited about with the ACT Liberals, with their significant lack of experience, policy and depth of talent. The bonus is their strong opposition to the expensive and useless light rail project.
Recent performance by ACT Labor is even more concerning. They seem to be following the well-worn path of administrations too long in power. Arrogance, lack of consultation and special deals are too evident. Reference the unholy rush to sign light rail contracts in the face of clear public division, questionable and secretive deals with sporting teams, "land swaps", "sweet" deals with developers and unions, the ridiculously overdone and ugly roo fence (our Great Wall of Wire), the Smyth job and access given to bottom-dwelling spivs and lobbyists. The smell is there and the carcass is rotting.
John Mungoven, Stirling
We won't win 'drug war'
In his article, "Why more drug consumption rooms are a must" (Comment, July 20, p14), Ross Fitzgerald highlights beautifully what is wrong with our current policy approach to illicit drugs.
We are spending massive funds on a falsely labelled "war on drugs" which is really a war on drug users. We have handed the lucrative production and distribution of these psychoactive drugs over to the criminal class.
As Fitzgerald points out, some resources that are being wasted on this misdirected war would be better used in minimising harms and rehabilitating those who have become addicted.
It is incomprehensible that the lessons learned from the Sydney medically supervised injecting room and the drug consumption rooms in Europe have not been acted upon more widely in Australia.
In the words of our PM we cannot "arrest our way to success". We need to turn the "black market" into a "white market". We should do this by treating psychoactive drug use as primarily a health and social issue and beginning to develop government legalisation and regulation of the drugs themselves.
Bob Douglas, Aranda
Silence deafening on donations
NSW has outlawed donations to political parties by property developers. This is not the case in the ACT. The silence of the ACT Labor and Liberal parties on this issue has been deafening.
Because of the potential for such donations to impact on the integrity and transparency of planning processes, the Giralang Residents' Action Group strongly advocates that the ACT should follow the lead of NSW in the interests of public confidence in the quality and integrity of ACT planning decisions.
Ross Calvert, Giralang Residents' Action Group
Light rail rethink needed
The basic premise for Canberra light rail is based upon employment and population growth.
According to the ABS, in 2010 98,500 government employees, federal and local were employed in Canberra, declining to 98,400 in mid-2015.
Even more compelling, there are 10,000 fewer employed than three years ago.
Over the same period, ACT population has grown annually by 1.5 per cent. With an ongoing worldwide trend of smaller government, combined with one of the world's least congested road networks offering few incentives for Canberra commuters to change travel habits, Canberra is building one of Australia's major transport infrastructure projects for a need that does not exist now or into the future.
Perhaps time for a rethink of why Canberra is embarking on this project?
Peter Moore, Long Beach, NSW
Extension welcome
While I personally don't normally vote Labor, I would like to applaud Labor's announcement of possible light rail extensions in the next term of government. The proposed second stages (in particular the one to Woden) has restored my hope that we will have a great public transport system as our city continues to expand. I look forward to this being extended out towards Tuggeranong one day! Genuinely excited.
Leigh Cox, Phillip
Barr not the villain
Delightful as it might be to pile on Andrew Barr over the shortage of home-care workers (Letters, July 20) a sense of fairness urges me to point out that the community agencies in the ACT which provide personal care and domestic assistance are wholly dependent on the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care for their funding (MyAgedCare is the program).
Yes, there are clearly (undesirable) delays in the provision of a range of in-home care and other domiciliary services. Yes, elder abuse is a problem in our society. Restricted access to these services is not a case of elder abuse by the ACT Chief Minister.
The relevant Commonwealth minister sets the subsidy level for daily service costs, which in turn determines the wages/hourly rates paid to the carers by the community agencies that employ them. Local industrial awards will not be the predominant factor in wages structure, although higher minimum wages could have the effect of creating a bigger gap for the caree to self finance beyond the Commonwealth subsidy.
Ken Wyatt is the assistant minister to whom appeals about funds available to attract sufficient workers should be directed. I feel sure Mr Barr is a dutiful son who would wish to do the best for his mother beyond any Commonwealth-funded provision.
Marie Coleman, Watson
A fuss about nothing
John XXIII College head Geoff Johnston has clearly led a sheltered existence. Only in March did he discover that young men take a deplorable interest in women's breasts ("ANU college expels students", July 21, p1).
The photographs taken appear to have been of body parts that were, presumably deliberately, already on display. Very possibly, if consent had been sought, some of the subjects would have been happy to comply.
"Canberra commentator" Ms Melinda Tankard Reist said the incident was the "equivalent of upskirting"; an exceedingly curious remark. What a very silly fuss about nothing.
Alan N. Cowan, Yarralumla
Smyth move raises questions
The manner in which the Barr government removed Brendan Smyth from the opposition benches, and perhaps the real motive for that move ("Ex-Labor minister blasts Smyth appointment", canberratimes.
com.au, July 20) mirrors the Greiner government's appointment of Terry Metherell to a position in the NSW public service. The Greiner government wanted to secure Metherell's resignation from the NSW Legislative Assembly to shore up its minority position in the Assembly. The major difference is that the Metherell affair attracted the attention of NSW's Independent Commission Against Corruption. If the ACT had such a body, the Smyth appointment might never have happened.
Tony Harris, Narrabundah
Grubby politics on show
Your editorial "Opportunism calculated but clever" (July 19, p16) talks about "clever" politics by Barr in the appointment of Smyth to a well-paid job at taxpayers' expense. It is nothing of the sort. It is grubby politics shortly ahead of an election (like signing contracts on light rail) and reflects badly on both of them.
I hope Jeremy Hanson abolishes the position if he is voted into power.
Ric Hingee, Duffy
Dob in your colleagues? Just what are our leaders trying to hide?
Regulations that prohibited public comment by public servants appeared in the NSW service no later than 1904, and were taken up by the Commonwealth service as it emerged. So they are not new, and, even in their initial form, were wide enough to prevent comment on social media had it then existed.
They were, in part, a manifestation of the implicit trade-off whereby the worker, having excellent job security, must leave all comment to the minister, who did not. That rationale may have weakened in more recent times. In addition, there is now a constitutional freedom of comment on political matters, so restrictions could not be applied in respect of matters falling within the constitutional protection.
However, the proposed "dob in" requirements ("Dob in your colleagues", July 21, p1) are something else, and seem to have no precedent here.
Greg McCarry, Epping, NSW
The proposed legislation to stop ACT public servants from criticising the government ("Dob in your colleagues", July 21, p1) is more what you'd expect in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War than in a liberal democracy like ours. The date of effect, just before the forthcoming election, cannot be coincidental.
It follows a string of attempts by the current government to stop the public getting hold of information on its more crazy projects, eg, the use of the call-in powers to stop a proper review of the tram project, the refusal to release full financial information on the various options for the city to lake project and others.
A government that is so terrified of the public getting to know the facts about what it is up to deserves the boot
Stan Marks, Hawker
Mass hysteria a worry
The mood generated by New Jersey governor Chris Christie at the Republican convention in Cleveland was reminiscent of that of the Salem witch trials. Governor Christie put Hillary Clinton on 'trial' before 'a jury' formed by the enormous crowd. As he worked the delegates into a frenzy, deafening shouts of "guilty" and "lock her up" created a storm. Whatever the strengths of Christie's accusations, such ranting, almost mass hysteria, is frightening in a party that aims to make "America Great Again".
Jill Waterhouse, Reid
Cynicism off-putting
On the one hand, we hear that greyhound racing generally is a tough, competitive industry whose operators are lean. On the other, each individual operator is supposedly a dog-loving fool who puts caring above winning. Who do they think they're kidding?
I don't hold candles for racing, gambling or dogs, and I don't particularly care whether the industry survives or dies. But I must say that the depth of cynicism behind the bullshit coming from industry voices is off-putting, to put it mildly.
S.W. Davey, Torrens
Ticking the boxes
Next month, Australians will again be confronted by the national census. I understand that in the optional religion question there will be a column of alternative boxes to tick. For the first time the list will begin with "no religion". It has been suggested that this change will increase the number of people choosing the "no religion" option.
The Latin word "census" should remind Christians that even the parents of Jesus Christ were forced to return to Bethlehem by a Roman census, as the Gospels tell us. If the 2016 census gives a more realistic number of practising Christians, and other religions, in our society, then it will be a good thing. It will challenge Christians to expose and overcome abuse in church-run institutions, and to be ready to justify our faith in a more sceptical world.
Robert Willson, Deakin
Editorial flawed
Your editorial "Sunny days turn cloudy for renewables" (July 20, p14) seeks to blame renewable energy for higher electricity prices in South Australia. It goes on to claim the ACT may experience a similar result due to our 100 per cent renewable energy target. Nothing could be further from the case. South Australia's recent high wholesale electricity prices were largely driven by higher gas pricing following the closure of its coal-fired Northern Power Station and curtailed electricity import capacity from Victoria.
The high prices actually mean lower feed-in tariff payments by the ACT – that is, if the wholesale price exceeds the feed-in tariff price, the generator pays the ACT. Just last week, consultants pitt&sherry and the Australia Institute reported the ACT is "protected from having to pay for extremely high wholesale prices because of the hedging provided by the renewable electricity contracts". For example, high wholesale prices in Victoria in June, should result in payments being made by the Coonooer Bridge Wind Farm to the territory. This means the ACT electricity consumer has effectively received this renewable electricity for free.
Major reforms of the National Energy Market are required as more renewable energy enters the grid. This is why, in 2015, the ACT led the COAG Energy Council to commission a review of carbon reduction policies and interaction with National Electricity Market rules. This will ensure market systems are able to deliver affordable, reliable supply while the market shifts to renewable energy.
The most retrograde position is to deny the need to transition to renewable energy. The reform of energy laws should ensure affordable, reliable and low-carbon electricity supply for consumers.
Simon Corbell, ACT Minister for the Environment and Climate Change
Your editorial ended with a welcome hint of reality, saying that it's vital the ACT "government's occasionally blithe thinking on renewables be tempered by economic realities such as those which have touched SA". It is not just economic realities, that is costs, which have given clean, green SA a slap on the back of the head. It is peak loading. A mothballed gas turbine at Pelican Point was brought back into production to avoid blackouts.
The description of our town council's power planning as "occasionally blithe thinking" elevated moderation to an artform.
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor
TO THE POINT
DISAPPEARING ACT
So the world's best environment minister declares "his job is done". Yes, a great achievement; Greg Hunt has succeeded in making the Department of the Environment disappear.
Robert Bruce, Fadden
WORK OF THE DEVIL
That young men would even think about women's breasts is an outrage ("ANU college expels students", July 21, p1).
What next? Young women telling some bloke he has a nice butt, nice abs or, heaven forbid, is well hung. The work of the devil, no less.
H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW
IS IT ANY WONDER
Just one week after declaring victory, Malcolm Turnbull has just authorised more Australians to go to Iraq. Is it any wonder Australians are disillusioned and cynical with politicians of both parties. Why were voters not informed of this plan before the general election?
Johanna Owens, Kingston
A RIGHT TO KNOW
How dare Barnaby Joyce and Malcolm Turnbull have a "private" arrangement over the Coalition agreement! They are not running a private company. We, the voting public, have a right to know the arrangements between political parties, especially about those in government.
E.R. Moffat, Weston
DEGREE OF TRUTH
The Bureau of Meteorology is making much of the balmy weather, no doubt to make people believe the end is nigh ("Capital records warmest July night", July 21, p3). According to the bureau, "Other than in 2014 ... the last time a July night had warmed up to double figures was in 1988." It seems the BOM does not want to talk about July 17, 1921, when the minimum was 10 degrees.
Brian Hatch, Berrima, NSW
Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attached file. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.
Keep your letter to 250 words or less. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).