Time to rethink wasting time and money on Census data

(‘‘ABS says it will learn from history’’, January 16, p8).

This is the attitude roundly condemned in the independent review by Alastair MacGibbon.

The real issue is why we spend millions on a five-year census when many countries have abandoned them altogether and the Netherlands does an E census at less than 1 per cent of the capital cost of the Australian Census.

Leaving aside the ABS’s position nearly half of Australians are functionally illiterate, (based on the ABS Literacy survey), how can we depend on people to answer any census correctly?

Officially ABS needs a 94 per cent response rate and achieves about 96. However the elephant in the room is the large, and growing number of dwellings listed (or claiming to be) vacant.

That increased by 14 per cent from the 2011 Census to 11.2 per cent overall.

Is everyone buying holiday homes or simply saying they are not home on Census night? It looks like ABS may not be reaching its own target response rate.

John Coochey, Chisholm

Customer service officers at City Bus Interchange are a vital component of safe and effective travel for thousands who pass daily through the cluster of bus stops on East Row, Alinga, and Marcus Clarke streets.

Over many years I have seen and experienced the criminal and mentally ill induced conduct that threatens patron safety.

The AFP has abrogated its routine policing presence in the city, including the thronging bus areas.

The customer service officers are the de facto police. They do a very good job, without powers or weapons.
Mainly large, uniformed and prominent, they keep the lid on things long enough for the AFP to arrive (usually in about 20 minutes).

It was transport police that first confronted the recent knife wielder in the Melbourne CBD.

I happily pay rates for both transport drivers and security.

And a message to our MLAs. Get out of your funded cars and catch the bus to work.

At least two NSW premiers would catch the train into Macquarie Street. Use the bus for appointments at Woden, Belconnen etc. And buy more Australian made electric buses.

Christopher Ryan, Watson

Scott Morrison wants to force all local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26, also nominating September 17 as a second Australian citizenship day. Why is he being so heavy-handed?

I received my Certificate of Australian Citizenship in Canberra on March 31, 1989 and my spouse received his on December 17, 1975. There seemed to be no problem then about those dates being a lack of respect for Australia. We were proud to become Australian citizens.

Australia has been renowned for being inclusive rather than divisive. We should have respect for Australia Day as well as for the feelings of all Australians, including Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Susan MacDougall, Scullin

George Santayana said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Albert Einstein said that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Yet yesterday (January 17) letters from R Salmond and A Richardson exhort us to continue repeating the egregious mistakes of the past by approaching the drug problem legally and punitively. Prohibition didn’t work, preaching sexual abstinence doesn’t work, and the ‘‘war on drugs’’ has been a defeat comparable to any history.

The idea that the manufacture, control, distribution and sales of drugs is best left in the hands of organised crime, criminals petty or otherwise, bikie gangs and drug users, pushers and addicts, is preposterous beyond imagining.

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

Islamic scholars might disagree with your statement that Islam provides ‘‘... no reason for inciting punishment on anyone for denouncing their faith,’’ Bushra Nasir (Letters, January 16), but what is the somewhat less-ambiguous punishment for someone renouncing their faith?

And this ‘‘complete freedom of conscience’’ you speak of, would it facilitate the mental gymnastics required to justify to oneself the slaughter of innocent men, women and children?

Is it just an unfortunate co-incidence that a significant number of the world’s murderous fanatics claim to follow the teachings of Islam?

James Allan, Narrabundah

ACT Labor-Green’s continuing West-Basin-real-estate-driven inclusion of Commonwealth Avenue in the Civic-Woden tram route remains a basic mistake.

The Commonwealth recently applied valid pressure to exclude King George Terrace and its alternative, King Edward Terrace where foreign-body trams would unacceptably pre-determine future development), and the Barton office precinct, from the ACT’s original route. The ACT’s latest iteration (at least until after the federal election) uses the whole length of Commonwealth Avenue, with massive engineering/urban-design/disruption problems and costs at each end (getting up from London Circuit, and achieving two-way integration with State Circle), and, of course, on the bridge itself.

However, there remains the tram’s wrecking of the heritage, ambience, and arboreal splendour of the main body of Commonwealth Avenue, and the destruction of the important symmetry with Kings Avenue Bridge (also not a tram option for the same reasons).

A politics-free, credible route, gaining in popularity, includes Edinburgh Avenue/New Acton; Lawson Crescent; West Basin west; ANU; Acton Peninsula and its attractions; a fine new Griffin-esque construction-untrammelled curving (horizontally and possibly vertically) tram/bike/pedestrian bridge (avoiding the West Lake sailing course); a shared zone across an expanded and developed-for-people Lennox Gardens, possibly encompassing some lake reclamation (matching Bowen Place) plus the Flynn Place cloverleaf land; Flynn Drive; the State Circle cutting; around that circle; part of Capital Circle; and on to Adelaide Avenue and Woden.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

Since humans are animals it stands to reason that human flesh would taste similar to that of other animals. (‘‘What a cheek’’, Letters, January 18). The only reason we don’t eat humans but eat cows is because our egotistical and conceited species made a law saying it’s illegal to eat us but legal to eat them.

J. Moxham, Monbulk, Vic

Settlement impact is a fact of history that will linger irrespective of Australia Day’s date, says a reader.

Yet again, the issue of the ‘‘best’’ date for Australia Day is being debated.

Certainly, from the perspective of Indigenous people, the date has historical significance, as it heralded the dispossession and continuing impact on Aboriginal culture.

However, changing the date will not alter history; the impact of European settlement on Aboriginal people is a fact of history that will linger irrespective of the date on which Australia Day is marked.

If the British had not arrived in Australia, other nations would have done so in time, perhaps not bringing the democratic political system that we enjoy today.

Can we not agree to look on it as a day when all Australians, irrespective of their original home countries, come together to celebrate living in a free, multicultural society, with a strong economy, an efficient healthcare system, first class education opportunities, a temperate climate, and numerous job opportunities?

Rosemary Crossland, Ngunnawal

Your editorial of January 17, ‘‘Bipartisan stance makes sense’’, was disappointing. Firstly it was very much ‘‘poll-driven’’ and ‘‘pragmatic’’, as is Bill Shorten’s stance, with details of community, Liberal and Labor percentages, all overwhelmingly against any change. Even-handedness should have required reference to a poll of Indigenous people, which would probably have shown 90 per cent plus in favour of another date.

Secondly, it arrogantly and inaccurately maintained that a change of date would require a ‘‘rejection of the legacy of European colonisation’’, the Anzac sacrifices and postwar immigration.

Similarly, the editorial maintains there is no credible alternative date – which is true only if one looks for an event in our political, economic or social history which we all – Indigenous, British and immigrant — can come together around. The Indigenous people will never accept January 26.

Wattle Day, September 1, proclaimed by the Australian Government in 1992, is a strong candidate. It reflects ideas and ideals about ‘‘the sunburnt country’’, ‘‘the wide, brown land’’, and the ‘‘vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended’’ – the land of opportunity and refuge for those getting away from oppression and conflict.

Finally, celebrating all good things Australian on National Day, September 1, we don’t have to disavow or reject elements of our varied and sometimes controversial past.

Let’s drink to that!

John Brummell, Duffy

No doubt, climate change deniers will soon be asserting that the current heatwave is nothing special, that we have always had them, and that it is no indication of a continuing change in the climate. By itself, I agree that this heatwave could be so construed.

However, it is far more difficult for the deniers to dismiss the report of accelerated heating of the world’s oceans (‘‘Oceans heating up at accelerating rate’’, January 12, p.23).

It is indisputable that the oceans are a critical heat sink, absorbing a massive amount of atmospheric heat. Therefore I find the report of rapid increases in the oceans’ temperature particularly alarming, as even commonsense suggests this will have a great impact on weather patterns and overall atmospheric warming.

But then climate change deniers, if confronted with such evidence, can always resort to their conspiracy theories, suggesting the report has been concocted by scientists for their own special interests. My understanding, however, is that climate research scientists are fervently hoping that their predictions are wrong.

Dr Tim Hardy, Florey

What on earth is the point of the Times re-publishing a story written on February 2, 1968 on Canberra’s hottest day on record recorded on February 1, 1968 (‘‘Canberra’s hottest day’’, canberratimes.com.au, January 16).

It has zero relevance to the state of the climate today.

If the Times happened to look at the Bureau of Meteorology Annual Climate Statement 2018 published on 10 January 2019, they would see that 2018 was Australia’s third hottest year on record and that the 11-year mean annual temperature for 2008 – 2018 was the hottest on record.

Publishing an article on the 1 February 1968 weather event actually does a disservice as it lulls people into thinking that as it was so hot on that day there is nothing to know, understand, or care about the evidence the Earth is warming at an alarming rate.

Rod Holesgrove, O’Connor, ACT

The British parliament has a tough decision to make on Brexit, one that will have long-term consequences for the prosperity of the nation.

Perhaps lessons will be learned from past mistakes. Going back a bit, the British parliament once decided to send the redcoats across the Atlantic to make war on its own colony, a calamitous decision that cost the nation hundreds of millions of pounds to lose a most profitable colony, the United States of America. More recently, the British parliament cracked down brutally on the suffragettes, passing a law to enable the torture of force feeding to imprisoned women refusing food, and for many years was on the wrong side of history of votes for women.

More recently still, the British parliament voted to accompany the United States in a war in Iraq, a decision now generally regarded as a terrible blunder. All this shakes confidence that parliament will get it right this time.

A way out of the dilemma would be to pass the buck back to the British people.

A second referendum, with the issues honestly set out this time, would make the will of the British people plain, something Teresa May says she wants to know.

Then the way forward will become more plainly indicated.

Harry Davis, Campbell

It would seem that a simple second referendum in Britain with compulsory preferential voting would achieve a definite result preferred by a majority of the voter population. The three options are: Brexit deal as negotiated, no deal and full independence, or remain in the EU.

The option receiving the least voter support would be eliminated in counting the new referendum and their wish allocated by their second preference to the two remaining; the one with the clear majority could win the day.

What happened in the last referendum, with voluntary voting, was that the young did not vote because it was thought to be a shoo-in for the remain in the EU.

If they had voted the result would have been a majority support to remain.

Every eligible voter should now contribute to a new result so that a proper preferred result can be established.

The consequences of the decision, to Brexit in one of two ways or to Remain In, are now known and can be reappraised by the voter.

It would determine a definite preference.

This could then be a legitimacy for action by Parliament, so solving the British dilemma.

Geoff Henkel, Farrer

Gail McAlpine (Letters, January 10) asks that the time limit on parking near the Palace cinema be increased beyond the current two hours.

Be careful what you wish for.

While a three-hour limit might enable those who find a park to see a film, it would almost guarantee that none of the sought after spots would be vacant.

To park at the Palace you need to cough up for the expensive underground parking or take Felicity Chivas’s advice (Letters, January 4) and look further afield.

John Hutchison, Coombs

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