I am delighted to learn that the government has decided to spare the lives of the beautiful peafowl of Red Hill and Narrabundah ("Proposed peacock cull cancelled after 'overwhelming' community outcry", canberratimes.com.au, June 19).
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I am, however, amazed that the reason given is community pressure.
Surely the community pressure to stop the ACT government's annual slaughter of ACT kangaroos is orders of magnitude stronger than the pressure to spare the peafowl.
Could this be something to do with a government expectation that Red Hill and upper Narrabundah residents have more economic clout than residents of other suburbs?
Lydia Steele, Red Hill
Public being misled
The final body count of kangaroos exposes the ACT government's continued sleight-of-hand ("One of Canberra's largest ever culls has finished", canberratimes.com.au, June 21).
Firstly, if, as the government continues to assert, population estimates were completed at every reserve then why are there two reserves where no kangaroos were killed at all? Obviously, there were no kangaroos to begin with.
Secondly the government, yet again, deliberately misled the public into thinking there were large kangaroo populations on Canberra Nature Reserves before the culling commenced with the rationale that more than 3000 were to be killed when clearly half of the dead kangaroos were killed at Googong Foreshore; not a Canberra Nature Reserve.
Further the government declares they are killing on nature reserves when most of the kangaroos are killed on surrounding paddocks.
These paddocks are often where scientists conduct experiments or they are paddocks that run cheek by jowl with new suburban development, or farmland or agistment properties.
So, the killing is to protect these vested interests not the reserves as asserted by the government. And places like Mulligans Flat and Goorooyarroo are but open-air laboratories certainly not the nature reserves we are lead to believe. It's time this sham came to an end.
Carolyn Drew, Page
Service finally pledged
"Where is our age-friendly bus service?" asked Sue Brundenall of Crace (Letters, June 22).
It has moved to the north-west end of Gungahlin Drive, as brand new service 25-26.
The residents of The Grove Retirement Village (now about 180 of us and almost sold out) have been lobbying for more than two years to get a bus service – any service not involving a 1km-plus walk to the nearest stop.
Transport Canberra has finally promised it, linking Gungahlin Town Centre with Casey Shops and Taylor, Moncrieff, Jacka and Amaroo.
Hard work by the Grove residents committee, led by Lisa Beattie, and supported by Grove manager Kate Bower, has paid off. Thanks to Transport Canberra and minister Meegan Fitzharris for listening to our case and acting on it.
Crace residents should be pleased to have any service, even if it is not direct to Belconnen as they have enjoyed up to now.
Geof Murray, Ngunnawal
Planning needs detail
The Canberra Times article "ACT asks for planning feedback but allows only a yes or no response" (canberratimes.com.au, June 19) raises issues about the commitment of the government to undertake a thorough review of the ACT planning strategy.
It is easy to agree with the generalised statements on the issues raised – Canberra's form and density, transport and land use and sustainable city – and still have no idea what the planning strategy for the city could be other than some increase in density at centres and corridors.
The speakers series focusing on car city or clean transport capital, bush capital and global city and garden city or city in the garden, is unlikely to provide much guidance as to where and when development should occur.
The review of the planning strategy needs to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the economic, environmental and social implications of alternative distributions of population and employment.
It needs to address key issues of housing choice and affordability, housing and employment location and transport choice and be accompanied by an infrastructure plan.
There is no evidence that such analysis is being undertaken and it is difficult not to conclude that the government has a predetermined outcome, which is based on a superficial understanding of planning and development issues.
Mike Quirk, Garran
Armchair warriors
Those that have criticised Lt Col Gough are obviously civilians who have never faced the enemy in the field. There is a code that says you can kill the enemy but not murder them, which is fair enough.
I would hate to be a frontline soldier, however, having to second guess themselves every time they were in the field.
Armchair warriors should remember the enemy these days largely does not wear a uniform and does not play by the rules of war. The fact that we do, it seems, is largely an incumberence, not a benefit.
Ian Jannaway, Monash
Scientific method
The editorial, "Pill testing trial results encouraging, but test ahead for ACT Greens" of June 21 suggested "Perhaps a further trial, with greater numbers and data, would help to provide a stronger baseline for such decisions."
That is the scientific method. Its essence is that the indicator, the proof, of a hypothesis or theory is repeatable.
Just how many times, in how many places in the world, is such a replication needed before it supplants moral preconceptions? How many young lives must be sacrificed to the avarice of irresponsible criminals before rational risk minimalisation prevails?
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor
Telstra a lesson
The Coalition's sale of Telstra should be a lesson to all. There have been two large scale redundancies since the sale. The other sale of a profit making entity was the Commonwealth Bank. Charges for money laundering followed in its wake. Plainly, the taxpayers have been conned by the Coalition. We mustn't forget the NBN; another flop. Why haven't the money-grabbing politicians been held responsible for these failures?
We could learn from European countries that have twice the speed of our broadband. Their mountainous countries even have 5G phones and soon to be 6G.
Poland put a bill through parliament to reduce politicians' pay by 10 per cent. How does that compare to our politicians, who recently wanted a 2 per cent pay rise?
Jay Nauss, Glen Aplin, Qld
Better uses for money
So the ACT government is persisting with its light rail folly ("Bridge built part of $1.3b Woden route", Canberra Times, June 21, p1).
Its dismissal of cost-benefit analysis as "simple" is economic illiteracy. Promotion of light rail as opening up land for development is misleading – these development opportunities and their values are not dependent on light rail.
Vague concepts such as "urban realm benefits", let alone this government's "vision for Canberra" are unhelpful – especially if they are code for even more high-rise and the landscape pollution of ugly overhead wires.
Light rail will be less frequent, slower, and less flexible than optimised bus services. There can be little through service from Gungahlin to Woden, because the Stage 1 trams from Gungahlin cannot run "wire free" south of Civic.
Yes, well-located light rail in appropriate urban forms can enhance corridor land values. But, despite ministerial junkets to better projects, that experience does not translate to the badly conceived Canberra model, or indeed to Canberra's low-density dispersed multi-nodal urban structure.
With a properly assessed benefit/cost ratio likely to be well below 0.5 – and possibly even negative – the economics are akin to a public bonfire of at least a further $650 million in used notes. There are far better, more pressing, more worthwhile uses for this money.
Mike Hutchinson, Reid
Stage 2 rethink needed
Transport Canberra's current proposal for stage 2 of Canberra's light rail needs to be drastically rethought. To almost double the current travel time by bus between Woden and Civic is absurd – all to provide a limited service to the Parkes-Barton office area. Surely Parkes and Barton, plus Kingston and Manuka (if light rail is really meant to substitute for buses), deserve a proper connecting loop service off the main Woden-Civic route – even if this has to be Stage 2B or 3.
The obvious route between Woden and Civic is to divert from Adelaide Avenue onto Flynn Drive, across the lake by a new light rail/pedestrian bridge to Hospital Point and then via Liversidge Drive, McCoy Circuit, London Circuit, etc, to the Civic station.
Such a route provides service to the ANU, Llewellyn Hall and all of West Civic, whereas the City Hill/Commonwealth Avenue proposal provides service to virtually nobody and great visual destruction.
An interchange in Flynn Drive, between the rear of the Hyatt and Lennox Gardens would permit connection with a light rail route providing much greater usefulness. Such a loop could operate both as an exclusive loop or as an adjunct to specific non-direct services between Civic and Woden or vice versa.
Garth Setchell, Mawson
Asylum seeker benefits
An exhaustive study of 14 countries over 30 years has shown that, far from being a burden on their host countries, asylum seekers bring benefits ("Asylum seekers boost economies: report", June 22, p19).
The study showed that asylum seekers increased GDP, boosted tax revenue, marginally reduced unemployment rates, and had a "near-zero" effect on public finances of their adopted countries.
These findings lead me to wonder why Australian governments, both Coalition and Labor, are so hostile towards asylum seekers – especially when it has been shown that these desperate people are mostly the "cream" of the societies in the countries from which they have fled. We should be welcoming them.
Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin
Don't blame developer
As an old Canberran I was deeply disappointed to read Elisabeth Thurbon's letter "Threat to Manuka" (June 21) responding to the highly inaccurate and misleading article "Protected Manuka tree could stand in hotel's way" (June 18, p10).
Ms Thurbon has again proffered that the developer (Mrs Liangis) was the one and same developer who demolished the original Capitol Theatre in Manuka.
She further proceeds to weave a creative tapestry of claims Mrs Liangis supposedly made about the heritage value of the original theatre and snidely refers to the existing building as an example of this developer's (Mrs Liangis) work.
This is not the first time Ms Thurbon has made aspersions about the developer (Mrs Liangis).
Ms Thurbon has made similar comments (Letters, May 10, 2012) to which I responded (Letters, May 14, 2012) to put to rest once and for all, the assumption, that the developer (Mrs Liangis) had anything to do with the demolition or redevelopment of the Old Capitol theatre. It seems that the message did not get through, for whatever reason, to Ms Thurbon and many other Canberrans, that Mrs Liangis did not tear down the old classic Capitol Theatre.
Mrs Liangis did not own the old classic Capitol Theatre, had nothing to do with its demolition and did not construct its (ugly) replacement.
Mrs Liangis bought the replaced Capitol Cinema (new building) many years after the travesty of the knocking down of the old Capitol occurred.
Regarding the tree; if people, including Ms Thurbon, were aware of the true facts concerning this tree and its registration, they would be furious that such an abuse of the tree act can occur.
John Liangis, ex-Capitol Theatre manager, O'Malley
Supermarkets at fault
The major supermarkets are bleating about losing a billion dollars a year in revenue due to theft from self-service checkouts. We love them because they never employed enough check out staff in the first place so the queues were too long.
And that a red capsicum magically turns into a carrot.
So let's say you spent $100million a year around the country actually using the same amount of humans, creating jobs for young and disadvantaged people along the way and save $900 million a year on your bottom line.
You have very little sympathy from anyone who knows how you've treated farmers, other producers and the general public in your chase for the greatest profit.
Craig Martin, Bywong
TO THE POINT
HISTORY REPEATS
History repeating itself: Amsterdam had its tulip fever, London the South Sea bubble, now Canberra moves to Light Rail Mark II ...? Hmm, just asking.
Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla
OH, FOR THE OLD DAYS
Seemingly constant discordant tones from Telstra bring to mind that "Postmaster-General" had a reliable ring.
M. F. Horton, Adelaide, SA
TAXING TIME
Taxation relief of $144 billion – a gross amount!
Peter Baskett, Murrumbateman
HYPOCRITES ALL
Correct me if I am wrong, but did not the current LNP government laugh at the Labor opponents about using the term "aspiration" in lieu of "target" regarding budget surplusses? Alas politician, thy name is hypocrite.
Greg Simmons, Lyons
CUP OF HOPE
I didn't like the headline "Odds of shock shorten as the old favourites lose their grip" (Canberra Times, June 22, p54), but I was much happier once I realised it was about the World Cup not politics.
John Howarth, Weston
GIRLS HAVE GOT GAME
Isobel Kelly, ya play like a girl! Wow. There's one phrase that's never going to have the same meaning again. Any rugby league fan who missed Friday night's women's rugby league State of Origin; you missed an absolute cracker of a game.
Rien Wiersma, Holt
DUTTON TRUMPED
It would appear, on the face of it, that Donald Trump has more heart than Peter Dutton. There's a sobering thought.
S W Davey, Torrens
SAME OLD SONG
"Coalition for Inequality" are a dogged lot. Having only recently claimed victory over a "debt and deficit disaster", the legacy of Howard and Costello, they have devised a similar excuse for fiscal rectitude, especially of the have-nots, in seven years time.
Adrian Gibbs, Yarralumla
CREDIBILITY AT STAKE
The debate about the ABC partly revolves around credibility. That is, who do you find more credible? The ABC or the NSW Young Liberals?
Dallas Stow, O'Connor
POLLIES ON PARADE
Clearly the ABC has it in for politicians: it broadcasts Question Time.
Mike Dallwitz, Giralang
ALL ON THE ONE SIDE
The ACT Chief Minister supports an LGBTIQ museum in the parliamentary triangle (June 23), implying that LGBTIQ people are separate from the general citizenry.
RI Boxall, Hawker
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