As repeated Treasury analyses have confirmed, Australia would never have recorded its world-beating 28 years of consecutive growth without the stimulus. Instead of losing financial institutions, or going into recession like anybody else, we came out the other side with one of the lowest debt-to GDP and deficit-to GDP ratios in the developed world.

This strategy included our $16.2 billion school modernisation program which, despite overhyped criticism in the media, was praised by auditors for achieving value for money while supporting 120,000 construction jobs. We also built or refurbished almost 100,000 social housing units and backed the retail sector by supporting households.

Our successful stimulus was praised by the OECD and International Monetary Fund for saving Australian jobs. The World Bank's former chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, no less than a Nobel laureate, says it was "one of the best-designed Keynesian stimulus packages of any country".

I watch with interest as Cormann now softens his tone on fiscal flexibility as the economic outlook worsens. A paper surplus is not worth recession, large scale unemployment and small businesses unnecessarily going to the wall.

What will 2010s Canberra be remembered for? Allegations of political and administrative malpractice? Outlandish, yet pitifully naive, experimentation with mind-control propaganda, straight out of Animal Farm or Brave New World?

A stark example of the latter is on Northbourne Avenue in Turner, where a park has been preemptively fenced off and sports a bizarre "Future Urban Renewal Site" sign. An urban park needing renewal into non-parkness? It's bad enough to turn desperately needed, and above all solidly built, regardless of how deliberately poorly maintained, public housing into more new building nightmares for negative gearers to rent to yuppy-wannabees.

But to insinuate semantically that an inner city park is crying out to be refreshed, improved and updated into some more groovy shonky apartments is genuinely fraudulent.

Had the trees been consulted; not to mention the immediate neighbourhood, the wider locality and Canberra as a whole, there would have been no support for such Orwellian tactics. The cry would have been for an "urban re-olding" of the park to make it the best it could be.

If you think the ACT housing crisis is bad now it is only going to continue to get worse due to the overriding forces of capitalism which seem to have overtaken democracy as the key economic/social driver of governments.

ACT housing and apartment rent increases continue to lead the nation. A key is the compounding increase in ACT rates charges which are way above inflation and wages increases and go straight onto the rental price.

This squeezes the financially stressed out of the market. It is a classic example of privatising gains and socialising losses and does not represent a redistribution of income from the haves to the have nots. That would be acceptable.

Under the new ACT rates policy direction, instigated over eight years ago and with more increases to come, we now not only purchase an abode in the ACT but we also rent it off the ACT government at the same time.

It's very much like an aged care housing facility where, after you buy in, you are bled white by maintenance fees.

There is quite a lot of misleading information about cannabis. One instance is the claim legalisation will virtually remove blackmarket in the drug in much the same way as with tobacco.

However, on March 9, 2019, The Financial Review reported "Illegal tobacco sales are flourishing in suburban and rural shopping centres, outraging retailers and frustrating renewed government efforts to crack down on a trade estimated to cost taxpayers up to $3.8 billion a year".

More recent news on cannabis laws is that the ACT government held a view that circumvention of the Federal law may be possible because it contains a defence for anyone charged with possessing cannabis, if it conflicted with state law. The Federal Attorney-General has now announced that he has legal advice that this defence does not apply. He is reported as (1) having written to the ACT Attorney-General telling him of this and (2) that Commonwealth intervention to overturn ACT laws is not needed and (3) that he expected ACT police to "continue to enforce ACT and Commonwealth drug laws".

This development coincided with a report shadow attorney-general, Jeremy Hanson, if elected to government next year, would reverse the "dog's breakfast of a bill".

Rajend Naidu (Letters, October 23) writes that Howard Brady believes climate change is a natural phenomenon. This was not what Brady said.

Further, he made the particularly strange comment that "scientists and academics come in all sorts". Does this mean vanilla, Neapolitan and so forth?

Scientists and academics are not necessarily two distinct and separate classes of people. Dr. Howard Brady is both, as am I. People in glass-houses should not throw stones.

I have strong and well-informed views on climate change, in no way contrary to what Howard has written.

My credentials suggest that, like Howard, I am no fool, although my golfing mates may contest this. Rajend, climate change is real of course, almost as obvious as the fact the Raiders were robbed, but the issue is very complex, and in particular one where its short and very much longer time dependencies are not appreciated, or indeed, firmly established as fact.

Eric Hunter (Letters, October 31) in his critical response to my comment that developing nations need to industrialize to improve the wellbeing of their population, is influenced by the privileged position of western industrialized countries benefiting from two hundred years of advancement based on fossil fuel.

What is needed is for these well developed nations to radically reduce their carbon dioxide output by adopting alternative emission practices so others have an opportunity to catch up economically.

Energy production is only part of the problem. There must be equality in life-style opportunity. As I said, put it in perspective. The evidence-based conclusion of every reputable climate-change organisation in the world is that a two degree temperature increase may be necessary for equality and can be lived with.

However what is the maximum optimal increase in temperature is subject to bitter debate between the climate deniers and the climate panickers. Significant increased temperatures will improve some countries, but will have a profound negative impact elsewhere. Eric is a privileged beneficiary of the status quo, not a supporter for equality in living standards throughout the world.

The rapid and insidious spread of fake news, both deliberate and inadvertent, is major concern to professional communicators such as those represented by the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA).

Even the term "fake news" sets off warnings among communicators. Yet in our regular two-way professional relationships with journalists, while sometimes tense, communicators almost always find reporters who simply want to know what is happening, or to seek a relevant comment on a current issue.

This week UNESCO sponsored Global Media and Information Literacy Week. PRIA commits to maintaining vigilance against purveyors of disinformation, whether our own members or by others.

PRIA members observe a Code of Ethics which includes: "Members shall not knowingly disseminate false or misleading information and shall take care to avoid doing so inadvertently". PRIA appreciates that much fake news is not spread by professional communicators; its members have years of experience in identifying what is false and developing ways to counter such material.

The fight against fake news requires widespread public education. Expert, trained public communicators can, and will, play a role.

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