Government moving mindlessly back to past with light rail plans

The sheer folly of replacing an established successful bus service taking around 15 minutes to get between Civic and Woden with a tram that will take twice the time is mind-boggling.

The cost involved, which will top $1.5 billion, would house many of our homeless in public housing. The idea of a new bridge across Commonwealth Avenue is painful to contemplate and the extra congestion that it will cause along its entire route would be a nightmare for commuters to contemplate.

The inherent difficulty of boarding from the middle of a busy Adelaide Avenue in peak times would also be frightening.

Additionally a new bridge is on the books to carry the tram from Cullen Street, Woden, to Adelaide Avenue.

I am amazed that an ACT Labor Party could close their eyes to the lack of logic involved in the concept. The fact is that it is such a folly that the chances of the federal government and our community supporting it are non-existent.

In China, for example, trams as they are now in Australia are becoming obsolete. They are developing a form of road train without rails and overhead wires. Truly we have an ACT government that is moving mindlessly back to the past.

Howard Carew, Isaacs

Your report on the proposed Woden route for stage 2 of the light rail (‘‘Bridge build part of $1.3b Woden route’’, June 21, p1) said: ‘‘In Woden, it is predicted hundreds of thousands of square metres of land could be opened up for development because of the light rail’’. That’s the real reason for the Woden extension of the tram isn’t it, property development? It’s not really about improved, efficient transport options, especially when a trip from Woden to Civic has apparently been modelled at 25-30 minutes, with multiple stops.

Don Sephton, Greenway

Would it not be prudent to wait until Stage 1 of the Light Rail has been running for a reasonable period and passenger usage been judged before committing to the Woden stage?

The planned route (‘‘Bridge build part of $1.3b Woden route’’, June 21, p1) whilst difficult to read clearly, seems to show very few stops on the way to Woden from the city.

Also, the route appears to run along Constitution Avenue, a busy, narrow road to start with. It will certainly get far more interesting in that bottleneck when the Morris Group commences construction of large blocks of apartments on the car parks near Capital Towers.

Paul O’Connor, Hawker

Nicholas Stuart (‘‘How much to remember the dead?’’, June 13, p23) summed up the debate we are having about the dual role of the AWM as memorial and as museum.

Both roles are valued by the Australian community, but there does seem to be a growing sense that the memorial itself should not be commercialised, but maintain its commemorative symbolism for the nation, free of commercial sponsors.

I was surprised that Stuart claimed that most Aussies today can’t trace their lineage back to a personal connection with the Anzac legend.
I suppose that depends upon how strictly you interpret the phrase ‘‘Anzac legend’’.

The Canberra Times had a report (‘‘A passage to foreign fields’’, Forum, June 16, pp4-5) on the thousands of Australians who travel to France and Belgium to see the 1916-18 battlefields where family members fought and in many cases died.

An uncle, my mother’s only brother, served on the Western Front as a gunner. He did not die there, but was nursed by my mother on his return to Australia where he later died, leaving two children to grow up without a father. One served in the Second World War, and his two sons served in Vietnam. One of them was blown up by a land mine, which left him deaf and permanently injured.

Half a dozen cousins also served Australia in various theatres of war as soldiers, airmen and (one) sailor.

All of these families visit Canberra, and are eager for the knowledge and information they gain from the museum aspects of the AWM.
My mother was a VAD nurse, and I learned a lot from that display.

These halls and displays are expensive to maintain, and unless a charitable foundation can provide millions then commercial sponsorship seems an acceptable compromise for the educational role of the memorial.

Brendan Nelson is in charge of financial decisions regarding sponsorship. Apparently he relies on his own gut feeling about which sponsorships to accept or reject. Some guidelines might help him, and also a hard and fast ruling as to which aspects of the AWM are to be kept free of all commercial sponsorship to highlight the fact that this is a memorial to our war dead.

The AWM has had cuts to its funding, but not as severe as cuts to other cultural institutions which are also repositories of our history and cultural values.

We should not make the AWM the supreme guardian of our national story, but keep it as it was intended. It is a memorial to more than 100,000 service men and women who died, and will never come back.

K L Calvert, Downer

Thank you Peter Dark (Letters, June 19). As a returned serviceman, I visited the AWM some 12 months ago, and was very agreeably surprised at the quality of the displays, as well as the kindness and consideration of staff. When about to enter the light and sound display, I was warned it might bring back unpleasant memories.

Additionally, as an ex-member of 3 RAR, I was offered a look at the as-yet incomplete display for one of our very few Aboriginal officers, Captain Reg Saunders, who served with 3 RAR in Korea. Though I had no time for the AWM head, Brendon Nelson, during his time as a politician, I felt he had more than redeemed himself in his current job.

However, the ‘‘Hamel adventure game’’ has led me to believe that the earlier good impression was an aberration, and that he has returned to his former role, pushing the LNP line. How sad, and what an insult to the AWM and all former service personnel.

Ian Usman Lewis, Kentucky, NSW

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is right to say that we all are entitled to aspire to get a better job. But where are the jobs? Unfortunately, his own government has exported a lot of jobs to overseas call centres. I shall be thrilled if his government brings some of those jobs back to Australia.

Sankar Kumar Chatterjee, Evatt

It’s increasingly clear that the bureaucrats responsible for managing ACTION bus service timetables don’t use buses.

The proposal to limit school bus services must alarm many parents and grandparents who view this as a retrograde step, which means that school children, including very young children, will have to use buses that are not designated school buses, leaving them vulnerable to predatory adults, particularly during winter.

As a Canberra resident of over 35 years, I – and many others – remember the case of a schoolgirl forced into an unpleasant situation by a bus driver on – if memory serves – a lonely stretch of Red Hill.

If this new rule comes into force, more parents will drive their children to school, leading to more congestion on roads. Bus users are also wondering why it is necessary to replace a perfectly sensible ‘‘through’’ ride, across Canberra, Tuggeranong to Belconnen via Woden, with changes in Civic and it sounds suspiciously like a ‘‘pay more’’ proposition than a user-friendly measure.

It’s high time the Barr government realised mean and tricky measures upset voters and we’ll soon have a chance to demonstrate this.

Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill

Where is our age-friendly bus service?

Transport Canberra’s proposal to abandon the Route 54 service from Crace to Belconnen is ill-considered and uncaring. Despite 17 per cent (the third-highest) of all respondents to the TC survey being 65-plus, thus indicating the importance of the bus system to this age group, those in Crace are being left with few options for travel to Belconnen.

At present, the residents of the Goodwin Crace retirement village have a direct service, Route 54, which travels between Gungahlin Town Centre and Belconnen Town Centre via Crace. The proposed new plan will allow us to travel only to Gungahlin from Crace. Once there, we can wait around to catch another bus, back in the direction we’ve just come from, to get to Belconnen.

Alternatively we, (the mostly 65-plus group) can walk more than a kilometre to a bus stop on Gundaroo Drive (in all weathers) to hail the new fast bus to Belconnen. And do the same long trip on return, laden with shopping.

And the so-called flexible bus service is of no use, as that will only take those of us who are eligible to Gungahlin as well.

If this is the new age-friendly service, then let us keep the unfriendly one.

Sue Brudenall, Crace

I refer to the article ‘‘Safety fears as students travel on public buses’’ (June 20, p9), and I note the information from Transport Canberra that a number of existing school services were underutilised by schools. In 2014 Shane Rattenbury cancelled 40per cent of the then morning school services in Belconnen and Weston Creek on public advice that the routes cancelled had 21 or fewer passengers.

My daughter’s morning route 445 was one of those. I FOI’d the then ACTION figures for route 445 to test the accuracy of the public statements only to discover that the average boardings for Route 445 was actually 28, hence above the publicly stated cut-off figure.

I would naturally question the transparency of the current decisions based on the history outlined above and I would encourage the ACT P&C; to question Transport Canberra extensively.

Transport Canberra has also announced it wants students to travel on an alternative current route bus, in my daughter’s case, the Rapid Service from Evatt down Northbourne Avenue to the city will also be cancelled from January 2019 because of the tram and the downgrading of Northbourne Avenue from an arterial road.

What if the $795 million for the tram had been spent on the existing bus network instead? I suggest Transport Canberra may be better advised to buy more buses and employ more drivers.

Rohan Goyne, Evatt

In his article ‘‘Ducking climate change an insult to voters’’ (June 21, p19), John Hewson laments the two main sides of federal politics have not been able to work together on a number of issues, including strategies to tackle climate change.

Part of the reason for this lack of bipartisanship is that Malcolm Turnbull is being constrained by the relatively small but apparently very powerful far-right of the Coalition, led by Tony Abbott.

From my point of view as a scientist, climate change is not a political issue. Rather, it is a phenomenon, scientifically proven beyond all reasonable doubt (and I stress ‘‘reasonable’’), that threatens the welfare of us all, and perhaps, if we do not soon get really serious about tackling it, our very existence.

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

John Hewson suggests that there is a need for an independent climate change change body like the Reserve Bank. Good idea – but it has been done before by the Rudd Labor government with its Climate Change Council and Climate Change Authority.

However the ‘‘enlightened’’ Abbott government abolished the former and emasculated the latter which the ‘‘innovation’’ Turnbull government has failed to reverse.

But John Hewson is right – while an independent monetary body is important it is more critical to have an independent climate body (and I would add other responsibilities dealing with the environmental health of our country, such as biodiversity and water).

Rod Holesgrove, O’Connor

Peter Day (Letters, June 20) argues that paedophiles do not confess.

Setting aside what this implies for the credibility of the doctrines of the confessional, among the significant proportions of paedophiles among his priestly peers, trained, ordained and mandated to uphold those doctrines, and ignoring the recent criminal conviction of a senior Catholic office holder for serious concealment of paedophilia, so what?

No one has ever confessed a crime to me. I do not expect that to happen.

But nor do I look for immunity from the reporting obligation if it were to happen. Mr Day’s chosen, if credulous, membership of his religious sect should convey no such immunity either.

Mike Hutchinson, Reid

PICKY PICKY

As the founder of Pedantry Australia, let me reassure Roy Bray (Letters, June 19) that the increasing use of ‘‘pled’’ ain’t so bad. It’s clear what is meant and it takes only four keystrokes compared with the seven required for the traditional ‘‘pleaded’’.

On the other hand, had Roy been fulminating about the now ubiquitous use of the ugly ‘‘snuck’’ in place of the smooth, almost onomatopoeic, past tense ‘‘sneaked’’, I would have been in raging agreement with him.

Eric Hunter, Cook

ALL PAIN, NO GAIN

To prevent the planet overheating, our politicians, state and federal, have created policies that doubled costs and seriously reduced energy reliability.

Yet none of them can tell us what impact this huge sacrifice has had on the climate. Without such figures, we must conclude it has been all pain, for no gain.

Doug Hurst, Chapman

JOYCE’S FAILINGS

Barnaby Joyce keeps saying publicly that he is sorry for hurting his wife and four daughters – while continuing to hurt them.

Roslyn Phillips, Tea Tree Gully, SA

THE REAL DEAL

The ODI cricket results are poor but an honest loss is much better than a dishonest win.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Box Hill, Vic

TREES RAILROADED

Hasn’t the government learnt anything from stage one of the light rail?
What Canberrans don’t want is much-loved trees to be removed and that’s what’s planned again for stage two to Woden – this time being the old European trees opposite Albert Hall and the Hyatt Hotel.

The route needs to be diverted away from Commonwealth Avenue as soon as the tram crosses the lake so that these majestic trees (and hence Canberra’s garden character) can remain.

John Savin, Curtin

DRAWING A LINE

David Murray says there is no such thing as a right or wrong culture, but concedes that mafia culture is ‘‘inappropriate’’ (‘‘The Mob rules when it comes to corporate culture, says David Murray’’, June 21).

But what does he mean by right and wrong, if he doesn’t mean appropriate and inappropriate?

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

HOPING FOR BETTER

Who are the most aspirational people? Those this government locks up in their concentration camps on Manus Island and Nauru.

John Passant, Kambah

TELSTRA CUTS

The day after Telstra’s Andy Penn announces 8000 job losses at Telstra I pick up The Canberra Times with a four-page advertising wrap-around from a telco called Pennytel (June 21).

Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook, NSW

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