Bravo to Simon Corbell for bringing forward Canberra's transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity ("Farewell to dirty energy by 2020", April 29, p1), and for providing an excellent example of how it can be done.
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However, his claim that the extra annual household costs of $300 are "manageable" is arrogant and demonstrates ignorance of budget realities for Canberra families with below-average or fixed incomes.
This $300 increase comes on the back of Actew's daily supply charge and normal kwH rate rising by 70 per cent and 40 per cent respectively since 2008. Surely this extra regressive impost should be subsidised for low-income households. Where would the money come for that?
As it happens, the upfront capital down-payment and 20 years of hire-purchase payments for the Gungahlin-Civic tram will amount to at least $1.6 billion. The ABS estimates the ACT will have 194,000 households by 2029. Hence the average annual cost per household over 20 years will be at least $412.
Adding annual operational costs estimated at a further $113 per household give a total cost of around $525 per household per year for a single tram line.
Rather than subjecting every household to this 20-year burden, how about instead raising $300 extra each year from the most affluent to subsidise the transition to renewables for the least affluent?
All would benefit from lower costs, a cleaner conscience or both, and as a bonus, the unrepayable green-house debt caused by the tram's construction would be avoided.
Kent Fitch, Nicholls
The ACT government has claimed its commitment to renewable energy will result in Canberra being fully powered by renewable energy in four (?) years.
While the government lists a number of current and proposed solar and wind farms to achieve this target, to date it has not listed the associate costs and capacity of power storage units (batteries) required as backup for when the sun does not shine and/or the wind does not blow.
Obviously it would be unrealistic for the proposed 2020 renewable system to be required to have zero probability for its wind/solar/battery systems output to fall short of demand, this would require an infinite battery capacity plus the ability of the solar/wind farms to recharge the batteries.
This leaves the question as to what probability of brownout has the government built into its proposed renewable system and the associated mean time of occurrence of brownouts.
Of course the connection of coal fired generators to the Canberra power grid post 2020 to prevent brownouts would cost mega bucks per annum.
Ed Dobson, Hughes
Light rail truth
Shane Rattenbury ("What type of Canberra do we want beyond 10 years?", Forum, April 30, p5) has let the cat out of the bag and confirmed that the fiscally irresponsible light rail project is really a Trojan horse for "higher density development".
In blithely accepting Canberra's high immigration-fuelled rapid population growth, Mr Rattenbury has not only abandoned a fundamental sustainability principle, he has confirmed that he addresses symptoms rather than root causes.
Canberrans concerned about overloading our hospitals and schools and green spaces know that a sustainable Canberra will be one that is better, not bigger.
William Bourke, Wollstonecraft, NSW
Developers have been seeking a light rail for Canberra since 1991, dating back to their 1991 "Sustainable Canberra" report.
They will profit mightily if the light rail goes ahead. Now Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury has confirmed that the fiscally irresponsible light rail project is really a Trojan horse for "higher density development". We don't need to accept Canberra's high immigration-fuelled rapid population growth.
Canberrans concerned about overloading our roads, hospitals, schools and green spaces know that a sustainable Canberra is one that is better, not bigger.
John Haydon, Lyneham
Manuka protests insult
The ACT Labor-Greens government must read/reread Jack Waterford's excellent assessment, ("Ministers need frank, fearless advice", Forum, April 16, p1) that "even by low ACT government standards, the processes and incestuous appearances of the Manuka proposal [are] appalling".
Protestation by anyone involved in the apparent mismanagement of public land in relation to the Manuka area including: the Services Club, the proposed move of Mocca Child Care Centre, the transfer of the Flinders Way concessional land to the Brumbies for sale, and the GWS Giants/Gro-con so-called Manuka 'Green', are an insult to good governance.
The community is entitled to open, accurate, transparent and audited information from government to avoid the perception, or the reality, of corrupt administration.
N.L. Scherger, Red Hill
Counting on the paths
Stan Marks and John Mason (Letters, April 21 and 27) should stop arguing and count the number of people who use the Marcus Clarke Street section of the City Cycle Loop. I counted 93 between 7am and 9am. This compares with 45 who use a section of widened footpath near the Bus Depot Markets, and 55 who use the footpath between Simpson and Knox Streets in Watson. The footpaths cost about $100,000 each. The Marcus Clarke Street cycle lanes cost $2.7 million. I leave it to readers to decide which offered better value for money.
Leon Arundell, Downer
Widening imperative
The Liberal and Labor parties appear to be in a bidding war for road duplications ahead of the up-coming Legislative Assembly elections ("Liberals vow duplication of Horse Park Drive", May 2, p3). And at the same time you are reporting on some of the many sections of narrow unsafe shared paths ("Narrow paths have cyclists and pedestrians fuming", May 2, p2).
For the safety, convenience and enjoyment of the couple of hundred thousand Canberrans who walk and ride on the shared paths for transport, fitness (health) and recreation, it is imperative that the heavily trafficked sections are widened – particularly around Lake Burley Griffin and in North Canberra. At the same time the missing links in the path network need removing.
Let's get some balance into the transport infrastructure improvement bids – most of us do not use our cars for all our transport needs. And every bike trip is one less car in the on-road congestion.
John Widdup, Lyneham
Turnbull misses opportunities
Two recent prime ministerial decisions leave me wondering about the real nature of Malcolm Turnbull. We are to get 12 submarines ( we only have six now) at a cost of $50 billion, or about $4.5 billion each, and now $1.2 billion more for school education ("Cash splash for schools", May 1, p1).
Surely the national interest would be served just as well, or better, by having one less submarine and allocating $4.5 billion to fund the Gonski education reforms? All major government and non-government education authorities and most state governments came out in support of the Gonski reforms, as did the Labor Party, the Greens and a number of Independents. So is the Prime Minister's motive in not funding Gonski just another act of political bastardry?
Secondly, many economists and reputable "think tanks" have pointed to the detrimental impact of negative gearing policy on affordable housing, and even the Treasurer a few weeks ago pointed to the need to "curb excessive use of negative gearing". Recently however the Prime Minister, after unwittingly publicising a family who felt it necessary to enter into negative gearing to ensure their one-year-old daughter would have a home in the future, flatly decided there would be no changes to negative gearing policy.
This occurred about the same time the Parliamentary Library found ("Coalition has 80 of top 100 negative gearing postcodes", May 1, p13) in regard to negative gearing that "Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's neighbours in the 2027 postcode – covering the exclusive harbourside suburbs of Point Piper and Darling Point – benefit more than anyone else in the country, claiming the highest average net rental loss".
Yet again Mr Turnbull's decision looks blatantly political rather than one made in the national interest. Is he just another "one-trick pony" politician, or the statesman-like leader governing fairly for all in the national interest he claimed to be when he became prime minister?
Bill Bowron, Farrer
Dispelling the myths
Refreshing to read David Biles ("Black death myths abound", Times2, May 2, p1) on myths associated with aboriginal deaths in custody and earlier (Letters, April 30) by Chris Roberts on myths surrounding Sir John Monash.
It is not healthy for a society to delude itself, but we Australians are masters of the phenomenon. Can we continue this theme and perhaps challenge orthodox thinking on other sacred cows such as the stolen generations. Were people really stolen to breed out their aboriginality as stated, or was it a well-intentioned attempt to protect children from harm? Are wind and solar farms really making a difference to climate change or are we wasting billions of dollars to make us feel better? Is there really a 17.5 per cent gap in male and female wages or are we accepting false comparisons? Does section 18c of the Racial Vilification Act really protect people from a torrent of verbal abuse or has it become a refuge for bigots and the intolerant? Just a start.
H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW
Don't thank the Judge
Gerry Murphy (Letters, April 30) might be interested to know that Judge Phantly Roy Bean died on March 16, 1903 – well before Texan women got the vote in 1919. His mis-quotation comes from the character Tector Crites in the movie The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean: "While our boys was overseas fighting the Kaiser, the women got Prohibition put in. Drinking and gambling and whoring were declared unlawful."
Attributing something said by a fictional character to someone long dead may not be a hanging offence but it is most mischievous. Gai Brodtmann was correct in extolling the virtues of the National Library's online resource, Trove. It is a gateway to historical truths. Its death sentence by starvation of funds is much more cruel than the hanging orders made by Judge Bean. But then, the real Judge Bean only sentenced two to hang, and one of those escaped.
May Trove also live long and prosper.
Peter Snowdon, Aranda
CSIRO cut to the bone
The alternatives to job cuts in CSIRO ("CSIRO set to offer job-cut alternatives", April 25, p1) are no alternative at all.
The proposed Climate Change Research Centre to be located in Hobart with 40 jobs from the CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Division is just a disruptive pea and thimble trick.
I attended the Senate inquiry into the cuts last Wednesday where Dr Marshall indicated that the overall cuts to the Oceans and Atmosphere Division could still be around 70 positions and 275 across the whole of CSIRO.
So moving scientists from their jobs at one location in Hobart to another doesn't make sense. Simon McKeon, former CEO of CSIRO, said in December 2014 on ABC's 7.30 program: "The reality is that over the last couple of years, not just one year, we've had to, I would argue, cut into the bone."
Mr McKeon warned that any future cuts would reduce the organisation's ability to continue delivering breakthroughs like polymer notes and wi-fi, and I'd add, internationally recognised climate science.
It's a pity Dr Marshall is not defending CSIRO as Mr McKeon did. These cuts must not be allowed to happen if we want to count CSIRO in the future as an international-class research organisation.
Friends of CSIRO (ACT) will be meeting at 6pm on Wednesday, May 4 in Room 6 of the Griffin Centre to discuss future strategies, including for nearby marginal electorates, aiming to reverse these cuts.
Kathryn Kelly, convenor, ACT Friends of CSIRO
Simple home truths
Two simple questions for our PM and Treasurer: why should ordinary taxpayers, many of whom cannot afford to buy their own first home, be required to subsidise a millionaire's beach house and/or ski lodge?
Second: is it not true that most people who sell their house do so to upgrade, move away, downsize etc, so if the price of housing falls, whatever they buy will also be cheaper?
They will save on agent's commission and stamp duty, but nothing else will change.
James Gralton, Garran
Sand in the eyes for keepers of heritage
In 1981, the Willandra Lakes region of western NSW was entered on the World Heritage Register.
It was globally exceptional because it met several criteria for listing both as a natural environmental fossil landscape of the last Ice Age, and for its cultural significance as evidence for early human creativity.
At the former Lake Mungo Dr Jim Bowler's discoveries over the 1969-74 period yielded insights into the spiritual and ritual life of Homo sapiens (ancestral Aborigines) some 42,000 years ago.
These included the world's earliest known human cremation (Mungo Lady) and a male burial whose corpse was sprinkled with red ochre, carried there from perhaps 200 km distant. These excavations established that Aboriginal colonisers reached here some 40 times longer ago than the time separating William the Conqueror in 1066 from ourselves.
As a World Heritage property, Australia is obliged to care for it. A management committee was appointed representing stakeholders – Aborigines, farmers, scientists, government. That committee lapsed almost three years ago – so much for Australia's obligations.
This important location for humankind's creativity surely merits an expert overseeing committee, together with a national memorial – a vault or keeping-place for human remains, under Aboriginal control, but a shrine to ancestral imagination and a storehouse for future knowledge. In 1984 the management committee requested $300,000.
Nothing eventuated. In 2014 Bowler and I expressed our concerns in letters to Prime Minister Abbott and relevant federal and state ministers, stressing the urgency of these matters, but we failed to alert action. Around the same time, millions of dollars were pledged for yet another war memorial in France. We require a 20th of that amount.
John Mulvaney, Yarralumla
TO THE POINT
SPINNING A LINE
With rebellion on Norfolk Island and hundreds of bona fide refugees on Manus Island, the answer is clear. The Christian response of the Fletcher variety by Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will ensure those on Manus don't get to the mainland but do get to Australia. Spin doctors, do your work.
Gerald Buchanan, Braddon
WAFFLING ON
Jeremy in the "Zits" cartoon strip (Panorama, April 30, p29) asked "Do you see any waffles?" Happily he need look no further than the article "What type of Canberra do we want beyond 10 years?" (Forum, April 30, p5). Shane Rattenbury contributed a quarter-page about the tram, full of assertions and happy words but without a single solid argument. Waffle.
Brian Stone, Weetangera
THREAT JUST NOT ON
The cowardly and disgraceful threat to a political candidate's dog ("Toxic message has candidate seeing red", May 2, p5) must rank as a new low point in ACT politics. Let's hope that the person who posted the note is apprehended. Our right to be politically active must never be curtailed by threats of violence.
Fred Pilcher, Kaleen
DISCORDANT NOTE
If the ANU Music School now has 67 students, and needs 200 to survive, that's about a 200 per cent increase needed, not 300 per cent, Andrew Podger ("ANU School of Music 'poorly managed"', May 2, p1).
Ian Morison, Forrest
CONCESSIONS QUERY
Michael Lane (Letters, May 2) would have us believe that negative gearing property and its partner capital gains tax concessions are not profitable, which means that all those participating must be doing it, out of the goodness of their hearts, to house those who can't afford a home. Codswallop.
Max Jensen, Chifley
TAX DOWNSIDE
The proposal to reduce company tax to 28.5 per cent is effectively a tax increase for every shareholder in Australia, as the consequence is that the current 30 per cent imputation credit will in future also drop to 28.5per cent.
Michael Adler, Gungahlin
WHAT, NO WINE?
J.P.H.Trinder (Letters, May 2) refers to problems concerning design changes to the Australian-built HMAS Success from the French plans. Once again the French DCNS submarine design has been changed for Australian conditions by deleting the wine facility on board!
Robert Irwin, Queanbeyan, NSW
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