Canberra's light rail offers a better outcome.

Construction of Stage one of light rail caused an estimated 60,854 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent of emissions.

The Chief Minister confirmed that bus travel displaced by light rail would be reallocated "to provide more buses, on more routes".

Emissions reductions will come from reduced car travel rather than from reduced bus emissions.

After allowing for population growth, Canberrans made 1.3 million more public transport journeys in the first six months of light rail operation with normal fares.

Canberra's average car trip is 8.1 kilometres. Average car occupancy is 1.46.

Assuming that 90 per cent of the extra public transport trips replace car trips, and that cars emit 200 grams carbon dioxide equivalent per kilometre, then Stage one of light rail is reducing annual emissions by 2,596 tonnes (carbon dioxide equivalent).

At the current rate it will be twenty-three years before light rail's emissions reductions exceed its construction emissions.

By the end of its 30 year economic lifetime in 2049 it will have provided 17,000 tonnes of net carbon dioxide equivalent emissions reductions.

I calculate that as an average annual reduction of 0.05 per cent of Canberra's current transport emissions.

The Grattan Institute ( "Bullet train dream too costly and without environmental benefits: says think tank," canberrratimes.com.au, May 25) questions the proposed upgrades to the rail system linking Canberra and eastern state capitals, first with the comment that "construction would take nearly 50 years".

Next there is the assertion that construction would be "enormously emissions intensive".

In the mid 19th century engineering giants such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel installed a railway network in the UK in 20 years using largely manual labour. Today's construction methods could update our existing lines in a fraction of this time. "Emissions to climate" would be negligible compared with the ongoing emissions of road transport, quite apart from that incurred by continual upgrading of highways.

Australian intercity railways continue to decline as expensive and, it has to be admitted, inconvenient, air travel carries passengers from the edges of one city to another.

The abrupt demise of Virgin is just one factor that may jolt the government to wake up to the realisation that there is an almost as rapid, cheap and efficient way of linking our cities.

On reading Jack Waterford's article ("Shooting ourselves in the boot again over China", 23 May, p21) I couldn't help but wonder at the hypocrisy displayed by our governments.

The Australian government wants an inquiry into the reasons behind the spread of the COVID-19.

As Jack says "...(China) initially dithered about what to do, but in the meantime focused on secrecy, cover-up and intimidation of those in the know, losing precious time that might have led to a successful intervention and prevented the virus travelling abroad and killing hundreds of thousands of people".

This led me to think of how our federal and local governments have handled asbestos insulation that was allowed to be installed in the roofs of over 1000 homes in the ACT. This, even though the advice of the health authorities at the time was not to allow its installation. The federal and local governments have continually refused an inquiry into this matter. It was refused again recently when the ACT government's response to the Mr Fluffy Legacy Project, that had recommended a board of inquiry be established to document the chronology of decisions and policy response, was to brush it aside.

The rate of males diagnosed with mesothelioma in the ACT from 2015-2018 was among the highest of all states and territories. And between 700 - 800 people in Australia continue to be diagnosed each year and will inevitably die from the disease.

Is it simply "do as I say not as I do"? This is political hypocrisy.

The Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, has been singularly absent during the fires, floods, and storms and now the COVID-19, problems, all of which one would think are Home Affairs.

His most recent contribution is to play petty party politics in Queensland. Is this his understanding of the extent of the role of a federal minister for Home Affairs?

With its $60 billion saving on the JobKeeper scheme, the government could support some of the groups who missed out on the JobSeeker payment.

They include the Australian students, international students, disability support workers, people with disabilities, arts sector workers and temporary visa workers, aptly summarised by Alicia Payne MP in her recent adjournment speech in Parliament.

Even a three-month JobSeeker payment would be of benefit to these groups. There would also be flow-on benefits to Australia as a result of doing this. The order in which these groups are listed could establish a priority basis of who should be paid the benefit.

In a recent interview with Leigh Sales regarding the Australian government's newly announced technology road map, Energy Minister Angus Taylor indicated he had the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, in his corner on hydrogen as a fuel.

This is far from the truth. Mr Taylor wants brown coal to be used to produce hydrogen; a road map leading nowhere. What Dr Finkel advocates is deriving hydrogen from electrolysis of water using our abundant renewable energy resources. This is a genuine road to greenhouse gas reduction and a means by which Australia can provide energy for the manufacturing industries and for transport, as well as developing a valuable export trade.

The minister and his colleagues must remove their fossil fuel blinkers and help us achieve the targets we need to meet under the Paris agreement.

Industry Minister Karen Andrews is sending mixed messages on the Morrison government's plans for the future of Australia's manufacturing industry.

She insists planned cuts to the industry research and development tax incentive scheme will go ahead ("No reprieve on research and development cuts" May 21, p5). In the next breath she says "It's a newer, richer and more highly developed (manufacturing) industry that we're cultivating".

Ms Andrews also said government would look at reducing the cost of energy for manufacturers. Given the repeated calls from Energy Minister Angus Taylor for government support for new coal-fired power, this suggests the fossil fuel industry, which already receives about $12 billion a year in subsidies from the federal government, may be treated even more generously - with taxpayers' money.

Doctor Sue Wareham draws attention to the existential threat of nuclear weapons ("As we wait for a vaccine, there's another threat to confront", May 26, page 16).

She mentions that the American president has withdrawn from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Michael Gorbachev in 1987, which banned all intermediate range nuclear weapons such as Cruise and Pershing.

Such is the power of an American president that he can personally tear up a long-standing and hard-won treaty, without even reference to Congress. The ability to do so casts doubt on the value of international treaties.

Mr. Dutton is being urged to mount a High Court challenge to the closure of the Queensland border (Letters, May 25). Save your money, Peter. The High Court unanimously decided in May 1988 the words "absolutely free" in Section 92 of the Constitution did not guarantee freedom from restrictions.

They referred to freedom in the economic sense. The case was about under-sized Tasmanian lobsters.

Conservative governments here and in the UK are ushering in social assistance reforms not seen since World War II.

In Australia the LNP's foothold on austerity, small government, low taxes and favouring friends is slipping away from their feudal philosophies.

And it's not over yet.

Queensland: fenced wisely one day, bordering on the ridiculous the next.

Coming to a parkland, oval or vacant land near you: multi story high rise apartments courtesy of the Barr/Greens/construction alliance party. Concerned citizens need not apply.

Talk about classical gas. Now we have a Taylor-made solution certain to put the wind up anyone struggling in the post-COVID-19 climate (Editorial cartoon, May 22).

I wish people would pronounce Queanbeyan correctly, instead of saying, "I am going to Green Bin".

We may never know the details of the $60 billion error in the JobKeeper program, but there's one thing we can be absolutely certain of - it wasn't Josh Frydenberg's fault.

JobKeeper, JobSeeker and now JobMaker! Please, enough of the "jobbie" slogans from marketing.

Reg Naulty (Letters, May 27) disputes Bob Salmond's call for zero population growth because two thirds of the country only has three million people in it. Has he ever flown over that part of the continent? There's very little water, certainly not enough to grow food. The Sahara Desert only has two million people for the same reason.

Considering how keen the Queensland tourist industry is to make a buck, and how essentially synonymous it is with the Great Barrier Reef, you'd think some of its corporate emotions could publicly be shifted from the pandemic-reopening issue to the agricultural runoff, coal port sediments and global warming causes of the vast and accelerating death of the Reef. Just a thought.

I'm with James Mahoney (Letters, May 28). I don't think we are ready to give up hard, cold, cash just yet. That said, I'm not sure we need to revive the copper coinage at this point.

Australians have been using the Chinese as bogeymen since before there was an Australia. It's pretty obvious nothing has changed since the 19th century riots at Lambing Flat and in the Buckland Valley.

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