Re: Rod Holesgrove (Letters, February 7) on the current water restrictions which have been placed on irrigators from the lake.
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We produce food for human consumption at Pialligo and have had major restrictions on our water use by the NCA.
This means we have had to stop watering some of our crop and consequently stop producing.
Surely food is more important than golf.
We should be allowed to extract enough water to continue producing our crops.
Roy Priest, Pialligo
See the lights ...
Signs have re-appeared on Southern Cross Drive near Starke Street announcing that traffic signals are to be installed at the Starke/Southern Cross Dive intersection.
I say "re-appeared" because the first signs disappeared a few days after installation. Community protest?
Are these lights needed? Does the government understand there are another set of lights 200 metres to the east at the Florey Drive intersection?
This is insanity. Traffic going west from a stationary position at Florey Drive will barely make second gear, only to be stopped at a red light 200 metres further on.
As usual with Roads ACT there will be no synchronisation of traffic lights. Where is Minister Rattenbury preaching against the waste of petrol and screeching of tyres when drivers try to make both sets of lights on green. Will there be a red-light camera?
Where is the evidence that there is a need? Where is the local member?
The Barr Government does not care about West Belconnen.
They take us for granted. We deserve what we get.
W. A. Brown, Holt
Criticism unfair
I think it unfair that Minister Steel has often been criticised for poor performance in the transport portfolio.
It is not his fault he was promoted to a station beyond his capabilities.
As he does not have the ability to make an exception to the Territory's tree legislation and approve the removal of a single dangerous tree how could one possibly imagine he could manage a complex transport system?
Jim Coats, Fadden
Just how it is
I live on the south west edge of Canberra. If I was a member of the Coalition, or a Cabinet minister, or the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, I could arrange for grants to provide me with my own firefighting protection.
After all, isn't fighting fires a good enough cause for spending random sums of public money? And if I was a public servant I could not write this letter.
Sue Edmondson, Kambah
Fund the firies
I heard the Prime Minister talking about a Royal Commission (for better or worse) into the "Black Summer" of bushfires.
He rightly talks about how much we owe to those who fought those fires. I would like him to consider this when he sets the terms of reference.
I never again want to see our brave firies having to sell sausages outside Bunnings or rattle the donation boxes in car parks to raise the funds to protect us.
They deserve much better. Many are volunteers who give up their own time in training then, when the time comes, rush towards the danger. Shouldn't they be fully funded and fully resourced?
Dr Peter Dowling, Wanniassa
Lucky Labor
What would Labor have done to prevent the current bushfire crisis if Shorten had led them to victory?
Does anyone really think the situation would be any different?
We read and hear on a daily basis the government was "woefully unprepared".
What about the state governments? Only one of these is not Labor. Shouldn't they bear some of the blame?
Morrison's error of judgement in taking a holiday in Hawaii during the crisis was the perfect excuse for the haters to put the boot in.
Notwithstanding this lapse, he is now handling the situation as well as can be expected. Decent rainfall is the only thing that will stop the fires.
What would Labor have done to prevent the current bushfire crisis if Shorten had led them to victory? Does anyone really think things would be any different?
- Alex Wallensky, Broulee
If you've got nothing positive to contribute give Morrison, and the rest of us, a break.
Alex Wallensky, Broulee
It's simple, really
From the time the industrial revolution began, about 200 years ago, people around the world have increasingly burned coal, oil and gas. Australia is the driest inhabited continent.
Though Aboriginal people learnt over tens of thousands of years how to manage fire properly, the rest of us have wrecked their system as this summer's still ongoing horror has shown us.
We now have the technology to switch to renewables and reduce burning coal, oil and gas to zero by 2050.
Australia faces the worst danger if the world fails in this project.
All parties must work together on a 10-year program to end coal mining (domestic and export), reduce gas supply to the minimum for household and industrial use until replaced by electricity, and regulate oil use until it is limited to non-burnable uses (eg for lubrication).
We must take the lead in global negotiations to manage change by taking up the plan in the Garnaut report (of 2008) to establish an export renewable electricity supply industry.
As I approach 80 I hope to see, before I die, that my teenage grandson will have a reasonable chance of continuing to live in Australia.
Frank McKone, Holt
A lesser charge
Bridget McKenzie has resigned from her ministerial position because of an oversight in not disclosing her membership of a gun club. Effectively she has been found guilty on a lesser charge.
So who will take responsibility for the "sports rorts" affair? Government members are still arguing that all grant recipients were eligible and nothing illegal happened.
Is McKenzie solely responsible for this disgrace?
How can we trust McKenzie's colleagues who seem unable to identify and call out serious and obvious malpractice and unethical behaviour?
We should already have a federal ICAC with teeth.
Harry Samios, O'Connor
Heartening sight
Watching Boris Johnson sit beside David Attenborough and announce that Britain would ban sales of internal combustion engines by 2035 was both heartening and disappointing.
Heartening because it showed there is at least one conservative PM who has the courage to take bold action to address climate change. Disappointing because it underlines how pathetic Australia's response is.
Australian Federal government action on climate change reached its high point when the Gillard Carbon Tax came into effect on 1 July 2012.
It has been going backwards ever since Tony Abbott repealed that in July 2014.
As an emboldened National Party (that, incidentally, attracts less votes than the Greens) presses ScoMo to build more coal-fired power stations and mine more of the Galilee Basin, Australia will be leading the charge to boil the planet whilst others like Britain frantically try to cool it.
Mike Reddy, Curtin
Transport mystery
Would the ACT's transport minister care to explain how the new bus network (to commence 28 April) is better for me as someone who lives in southern Gordon and works in Barton?
The previous change resulted in an extra 30-50 minutes travel to work for me each day. The new network doesn't have timings yet but I now can swap buses at the Albert Hall (yay getting across Commonwealth Ave - no, I'm not using the underpass as I don't want to get mugged) and walk to the National Library stop or continue into town as I'm doing now and swap buses there.
Minister, I would appreciate your insight as to how this improves my situation. Bring back the Expresso buses (route 775 etc) or bring on the election. Rant over.
Louisa Murphy, Gordon.
Give govt credit
I've always firmly believed that a mark of a good leader is the ability to recruit good staff and then trust them to do their job.
It might have escaped Doug Hodgson's notice (Letters, February 5) that Georgeina Whelan was appointed as full-time chief officer of the ACT Emergency Services Agency by the minister responsible Mick Gentleman in October 2017.
Given his admiration for her performance surely Mr Hodgson should credit the chief minister (and his government) for the significant foresight in appointing Ms Whelan in the first place instead of churlishly dismissing the chief minister as a mere "insignificant distraction".
Not only did the Barr government appoint her, it then gave her space to do the job. What more does Mr Hodgson want?
Keith Hill, Isaacs
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