The ACT government needs to develop more large housing blocks

The number of these blocks has not nearly kept pace with the population growth. This is because of international town planning fashions and the warped policies resulting from the Greens having the balance of power in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

I say "warped" because a full cost-benefit analysis, including increases in crime rates, increases in urban temperature, increases in travel times and decreases in life expectancy would show that these policies are not environmentally responsible; especially now with the expected increase in electric cars.

This shortage of family home-sized building blocks is causing the price of the existing ones to go up, the unnecessary demolition of reasonably good houses and the general reduction of the number of trees and gardens by allowing dual occupancy, large extensions, and urban infill. The solution is simple; more freeways to new greenfield sites with a mixture of building block sizes, wide streets for plenty of parking, bike tracks and green space - just as the NCDC did in the first place.

When I went to school one of the syllabus reading requirements was John Wyndham's Day of The Triffids. For years after reading that novel, I imagined plants with long tentacles, sitting by the road just waiting for unsuspecting individuals to come by.

Well, just like the cameras on Northbourne and Barry, Canberrans can now add the "mobile detection cameras" to their fears.

Good work, ACT government. Under the guise of public safety you have craftily inserted another income-generating stream to your coffers.

The government is collecting money to pay for our progressive "world-leading' innovations", such as light rail.

Those supporting the "Yes" case for the Voice ignore the fact if it does get up it won't do a single thing to improve the lives of the average Australian of Aboriginal descent.

As Warren Mundine, a former federal president of the ALP and eminent Australian Aboriginal himself, has put it: "The loudest demands for the Voice come from a minority of Indigenous elites from organisations that already advise governments and have been amply funded to deliver improvements for years with little to show for it."

Those who disagree with this statement purely because they want to have a warm fuzzy feeling for how they've "done something" risk repeating past mistakes where money is directed to the loud minority in capital cities at the direct expense of those who need the most help.

I was sad to hear of the death of John Kerin, Australia's best and most reforming agriculture minister. He was a leader under PM Hawke of Australia's world-leading national ecological sustainable development policy (unlike the then-environment minster Graham Richardson).

He initiated the national Resource Assessment Commission that undertook comprehensive cost benefit assessments of major projects. The Albanese Labor government would be well-served if it revised these arrangements.

As I recall he was an ACT Labor member for many years. He was one of our greatest Canberrans. My condolences to John's many friends and family.

Russia has launched a supersonic anti-ship missile capable of travelling at three times the speed of sound at a target in the Sea of Japan. It is beyond impressive. As a former Navy member I consider it to be a chilling weapon. The Russians are also reportedly close to finishing a prototype torpedo that can reach 1500km/h underwater. If you want a game-changer, that's a game-changer.

Thanks for the cartoon showing the whole continent of Oz as red (for Labor). I noted that the Apple Isle had dropped off.

It is one of my more pleasant recollections of being in a ministerial council when all nine jurisdictions were Labor.

Don't know how many times this has been the case but I look forward to Tassie making it another.

As someone who grew up in the 1970s I'd like to point out to Ian Jannaway (Letters, March 30) that on the rare occasions I encountered a sabre tooth tiger I never once felt confident about killing it. This was despite me having no known allergies to wheat.

I also suggest that trigger warnings were abundant at this time. For example, The Sound of Music and Herbie Rides Again - General Exhibition, The Man With The Golden Gun - Not Recommended for Children, The Dirty Dozen - Mature Audiences Only, and the well-loved classic The Erotic Adventures of Vice Squad Women - Restricted to audiences aged over 18 (The Canberra Times, Saturday, January 25, 1975).

Some of the more detailed "trigger warnings" served a secondary purpose of encouraging patronage i.e. "Sexual Freedom In Denmark was billed as a sex education film and does impress as having been produced with honest intentions. But its frankness will clearly appeal to patrons with more basic interests" (ibid).

I wonder if Ian found those warnings useful.

Whether disingenuity or demagogy are behind Messrs Albanese, Marles and Wong's claim AUKUS and the nuclear submarine do not commit Australia to participation in any adventurous hegemonic US conflict with China only history will tell.

Most rational Australians will disagree with it, object to it and be alarmed by it. Do they think they're kidding?

I have been voting Labor at federal level ever since arriving in this country in the mid-1970s.

Morally, the AUKUS submarine deal leaves me with no option but to repudiate my party faith for the rest of my voting days.

Andrew Barr has been reported as thinking "Mr Fluffy" block controls can deliver affordable 100- to 150-square-metre homes.

Unfortunately, experience to date with Mr Fluffy blocks is that the new owners want to, and are allowed to, maximise the redevelopment potential of those blocks.

The total floor area permitted where both dwellings face a street is 350 square metres in two storeys on a minimum-sized, 700-square-metre block. Each resultant new dwelling could therefore be up to 175 square metres floor area (plus basement parking).

For larger blocks, say 1000 square metres, each dwelling could be 250 square metres floor area, in two storeys.

There is no way such large new dwellings in desirable locations are going to be "affordable", nor could the redevelopment process be described as the government's "gentle transformation".

I am both disheartened and appalled at the lackadaisical attitude of both the authorities and the general public towards the COVID pandemic.

Three years have now lapsed since the start of the pandemic. An estimated 7 million have died worldwide (about 20,000 in Australia). Another 69 million are afflicted with long COVID.

Yet the general attitude appears to be that COVID has been and gone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Australia's death rate per capita is among the lowest in the world that is no reason for complacency.

Authorities should "come clean" by publicising the distressing facts and encouraging people to take basic precautions by practising distancing, wearing masks in crowded enclosed spaces (particularly public transport), getting vaccinated and increasing natural ventilation whenever possible.

Thomas Jefferson said "the measure of society is how it treats the weakest members". Robert Menzies saw support for dignified living standards as a right: "The time has gone when social justice should even appear to take the form of social charity."

How is it that in Australia, on some measures the wealthiest country in the world, a recent ACOSS report shows that 3 million of us - including 750,000 children - still live below the poverty line?

Many have questioned the level of subsidy working taxpayers provide to wealthy retirees. We should limit this subsidisation to superannuation earnings on $1.9 million, as advocated by Senator David Pocock.

I am sure the average taxpayer would much prefer the funds liberated go to the least fortunate of us and give them the dignity that is their right rather than the most fortunate.

So Donald Trump is to be indicted. Will we now see him seeking refuge in a foreign embassy - maybe the Russian? Maybe the Ecuadorian?

Now the Greens have come to the party on the climate legislation and the safeguard mechanism, let's just get on with the job of saving the planet.

"ACT funds football clubs. Why not a theatre company, asks Barr" read the headline (canberratimes.com.au, March 19). I would ask: "If the ACT doesn't fund a theatre company; why does it fund football clubs?"

On a road trip through central western NSW I listened to a syndicated talkback host on a country AM station. The Voice vote is in serious trouble in the bush. "I'm not a racist but ..." alarmists are fanning the flames.

Employer groups predict gloom and doom if the minimum wage is raised in line with inflation. "Now is not the time". Can they tell us the last "right time" they supported a rise in the minimum wage? Oh that's right, never happened.

I'm from a generation where if you were stupid people told you. Nowadays if you are stupid and can't do something no one says you are stupid; they try to support you, which is so much meaner.

Diversity and inclusion are essential. We must support every drongo without exception.

The endless claptrap from the political class about the need for Australia to help the US project power against our largest trading partner reminds me of a quote attributed to an American academic. He said: "America doesn't have allies; it has hostages: and very, very few escape."

Reading Keith Hill (Letters, March 31) about the problems of the current Liberal Party I realised if you substituted a few names and Labor and left in his comments he could have been writing about the ALP in the 1950s and 60s.

Thank you, Warwick Williams (Letters, March 27 and March 30) for expanding on the unintended consequences of the proposed Voice to Parliament and the potential for a third chamber. What happens next when a Voice recommendation is rejected by Parliament?

I object to light rail proceeding any further. It is a waste of public money that I would like spent on other more important priorities and projects such as our hospital, our parks and playground infrastructure, police, teachers and our schools.