In a call to action to the nation's leaders and the ACT's political representatives, Canberrans have picked climate as the defining issue of this year's federal election.
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In a more stark result than any other area in Australia, 51.95 per cent of readers of The Canberra Times who took part in a national reader's survey conducted by ACM returned "environment and climate change" as the top issue in determining votes at the 2022 federal election.
ACM is the publisher of 140 newspaper titles across every state and territory. On Monday, the survey of more than 7200 readers reported that 43 per cent picked "environment and climate change" as the most important issue ahead of "health", "leadership" and political integrity under the guise of the "Federal corruption commission."
Asked about making life better in the ACT, readers were climate heavy in advising the leaders Prime Minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese.
"Address climate change - I work in agriculture. Human impact on climate is unequivocal. Fearmongering and poor policy isn't good enough," a reader advised.
"Combat climate change and its disastrous impact on regional and rural communities," wrote another.
"Create jobs in regions via renewable energy infrastructure," pleaded another.
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The Canberra Times results in the survey focus on climate ahead of "federal corruption commission" in second place (33.24 per cent) and "leadership" third (27.70 per cent).
It is a wake up call for all parties in the hotly contested ACT Senate race.
There are only two seats available and major party incumbents Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher and Liberal minister Zed Seselja are being challenged by Greens senate candidate Tjanara Goreng Goreng and independents David Pocock and Kim Rubenstein.
All the three challengers have election platforms focusing on climate and integrity and have accused the major parties of not doing enough to address the planet's climate emergency.
Canberrans who took part in the survey also picked "honest and trustworthy" as the top quality (55.40 per cent) they want in an Australian prime minister. That's just ahead of being an "accountable and responsible" prime minister (52.76 per cent) while likeability (1.72 per cent) and open-mindedness (5.28 per cent) do not factor.