While not questioning Tim Hollo's apparent claim ("Greens swamp north in a city of divides", May 23, p6) that the reason for the strong vote achieved by the Greens in the inner north was the dazzling nature of their campaign, there are other possible explanations.
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There has, for instance, been a significant change since the last election in the inner city demographic.
It was engineered by the Greens in collaboration with the Labor Party.
This was the transportation of thousands of public housing tenants, for budgetary reasons, from high value sites in the inner north and south to lower value sites in the outer suburbs and on the city fringe.
These displaced public housing residents, most of whom I suspect are yet to be seduced by the Greens ideology, have, in the main, been replaced in the increasingly gentrified and privileged inner city by young professionals and upwardly mobile white collar workers.
The Greens core constituency, no less.
Jon Stanhope, Bruce
Scrap stage two
With the defeat of Labor at the May 18 election, the Barr government will miss out on the $200 million that had been promised to help fund light rail stage two.
Barr has, nevertheless, vowed to persist with planning and assessment for stage 2 ("Barr won't quit amid light rail setback", May 20, p5), which in March was costed at $1.3 to $1.6 billion. This means that Canberrans can look forward to further big increases in government charges, especially rates.
It would be more practicable and far less costly to use a fleet of electric buses to provide both the fast City-Woden link and the suburban transport network.
This option will become even more advantageous when the ACT energy supply becomes 100 per cent renewable in 2020, and as the cost of renewable energy continues to decrease.
Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin
It's nuclear or coal
The climate change problem is similar to the Australian voting papers in that it is a question of above and below the line.
With climate change, the line is the equator. Of the about 7.3 billion people on the planet, 87.8 per cent (or 6.5 billion) live above the line. About 25 million of the 800 million who live below the line are in Australia.
Therefore, although we must make a strong and sensible attempt to change our ways to reduce this major world problem, we shouldn't ruin our economy to do so.
Some countries above the line, are espousing "coal free" days and so forth. What they don't say is they already have base load electricity from nuclear power stations. We don't have that and probably never will.
We must continue to export our high quality coal to those countries who still need it for base load power. The economic cost to Australia of ceasing that export would be catastrophic, and as the election confirmed, jobs mean everything to people in the mining areas.
The other question relates to new high efficiency (lower emissions?) coal or natural gas power stations in Australia.
Can we chance the wrath of our local South Pacific neighbours? I think we can. We need to provide our country with reliable, efficient base load power for at least the next 30 years until renewable power technology reaches the point when we can do without them.
It is that or build nuclear power stations.
Dave Jeffrey, Farrer
We dodged a bullet
On Saturday, Australia dodged not just a bullet, but a cannon shell.
Class warfare, politics of envy, falsehoods, incredible hubris, all lost, thankfully.
It was nice to see the smugness of the ABC team turn progressively into shock and chastened resignation.
It was sad to see Senator Wong pathetically campaigning on in spite of Labor's loss.
It's hypocritical of Labor to complain about dirty tricks and negative campaigning after what it did in 2016.
On Saturday, Australia dodged not just a bullet, but a cannon shell. Class warfare, politics of envy, falsehoods, incredible hubris, all lost, thankfully.
- M. Silex, Erindale
It was also pleasing to see our younger generations were not conned by what Labor was saying.
GetUp should now be told by Labor to GetOut.
Shorten reaped what he had sown in starting the revolving door of prime ministers.
It must be said that Mr Shorten was very gracious in defeat. Mr Barr, who has lost his $200 million for light rail stage two, should be next.
It was sad to see a strong showing for Labor and the Greens locally in Bean considering the neglect the south gets from ACT Labor.
On the Coalition side, Abbott is gone and rightfully so. He did terrible damage after promising not to.
Labor, and its media camp-followers, thought it was a shoo-in to win and went for broke.
They wanted to take us back to the disastrous Whitlam years.
M. Silex, Erindale, ACT
ABC's role questionable
The Coalition victory underlines the fact PM Morrison and his ministers had constantly to work against a barrage of verbal criticism, arrogance and hostility from the tax-payer funded ABC.
How could we fail to hear and see how on both radio and TV, government ministers were subjected to more intense questioning than the Opposition?
I counted the number of times Fran Kelly, on breakfast Radio National, interrupted the treasurer on one occasion, compared with her generally much more amiable questions to the Opposition.
They were still at it on the morning after the election. Barry Cassidy, on Insiders, allowed Opposition deputy Tanya Plibersek to speak first, and at length on the government's nastiness and deception, without once reminding her of Labor's previous 'Mediscare' campaign.
Treasurer Frydenberg, who followed, was subject to constant interruptions and brusque interrogation.
Australia is now two countries and the ABC serves the affluent, well-educated, inner city demographic.
Should it be made, at least in part, to pay its own way?
Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill
AEC decision disappoints
The Australian Electoral Commission has acknowledged it will not be taking any action with respect to alleged electoral rorting by the Liberal Party in the Victorian seat of Chisholm which has a significant number of voters whose first language is Mandarin.
The Liberals produced corflutes in the same purple colour scheme as official AEC polling booth banners.
The corflutes, which were erected right next to official AEC banners, purported to "explain" in Mandarin that the "correct" way to vote was to put a "1" in the box next to the Liberal candidate.
The AEC has declined to take action because the Liberal Party's 'authorisation' appears in very tiny print at the bottom of the corflutes.
The AEC is a toothless tiger.
Bruce Taggart, Aranda
It's the worst of times
Welcome to the return of Prime Minster Scott Morrison. Farewell to the Great Barrier Reef.
Welcome to more frequent cyclones and nationwide devastating drought, flood and fire.
That was always going to happen anyway but we are now collectively guilty of not even trying to avoid the consequence of climate change.
Welcome to permanent future negative election campaigns with all the misinformation, sensationalism and personal attacks involved.
Welcome to future elections being held within eight weeks of budget night. Welcome to real estate investment and farewell to housing equity.
The dollar is king, truth is the victim and the next recession marches closer.
Kym Pearce, Macarthur
Barr needs to abandon tram
Andrew Barr predicted a federal ALP win with up to 15 additional seats. $200 million had been committed by the federal ALP for stage 2 light rail.
Given the poor state of the ACT budget and under spending on important areas such as health, how can the ACT government still support continuing with the stage 2 light rail funding nightmare?
Murray May, Cook
Experts miss mark
One fact that stands out for me in the election was the lack of real policy debate.
It is widely acknowledged Shorten had the better of Scomo in the televised debates. In the Keating vs Hewson election, when most of us were glued to the debates and the worm was tracking audience reaction, this would have been a killer blow for the victor.
In 2019 not many people even bothered to tune in. Most were watching Married at First Sight, streaming off the web, or glued to their mobile phones.
Such short attention spans are fertile ground for scare campaigns about death taxes and wall to wall Clive Palmer advertising.
The media have played along by eschewing serious analysis.
Mike Reddy, Curtin
TO THE POINT
MUSIC TO MY EARS
I love the sound of Labor supporters grinding their teeth and vociferously complaining about a scare campaign while conveniently forgetting about their own "Mediscare", the mother of all scare campaigns.
Mario Stivala, Spence
END IS NOT NIGH
Even after the election the climate doomsayers say we have just 12 years left to save the planet. Mother Shipton, an English soothsayer of the 16th century, predicted the world would end in 1881. It didn't.
P Wilson, Gold Coast, Qld
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Maybe May may quit in May.
Chris Klootwijk, Macarthur
NO INTERFERENCE NEEDED
D Shirley and Bob Judd (May 23) speculate on the possibility of foreign interference. The polls were simply wrong. People may have been reticent to admit their intentions to pollsters because they don't like blanket accusations of personal greed and fear (W Book, Letters, May 23).
Zlatko Spralja
THE NEW RECORD
If you voted for Scomo, you got Scomo. You also got the first broken promise just 72 hours after his coronation. Sounds like a repeat of a former Liberal PM. Doesn't anyone ever learn from history?
V Lauf, Bungendore, NSW
WHY THEY LOST
The ALP are wringing their hands and looking for excuses why they lost the election. They lost the blue collar vote years ago and the rot continues. Bill Shorten said religious freedom is not under threat. What nonsense!
John Popplewell, Hackett
THE ABUSE CHAMPIONS
I'm against abuse in all forms, and I think demonising or ridiculing one's political opposites makes politics worse. But I'll start worrying about Twitter abuse being a problem when I stop seeing the right wing media abusing anyone they disagree with. They seem to have a much louder megaphone.
Paul Wayper, Cook
LET'S WAIT AND SEE
Sassoon Grigorian (Letters, 22 May) says Labor must be fiscally responsible to win government. Given its long-running love affair with tax breaks, loopholes, and other such generosities, the Coalition must consider itself incredibly lucky that it does not suffer under this heavy burden.
Nick Banks, Kambah
A SIMPLE SOLUTION
Woden need not wait until 2025 for rapid public transport. Adelaide Avenue's transit lanes can be extended to make real improvements in peak hour travel times quickly and at a cost of only tens of millions of dollars.
Leon Arundell, Downer.
TIME TO TAKE A STAND
So Trump may pardon some US military accused of war crimes. If this happens Australia should refuse to contribute forces alongside the US.
Hugh Smith, Deakin
SCOMO'S HEARTBREAK
Scomo must be gutted Chris Bowen has decided to sit this one out.
M Moore, Bonython
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