Labor is vulnerable to a teal-like challenge at the next election

Their electorates comprised voters who looked at key issues on an individual basis and chose politicians who were prioritising issues of most importance for the future of our world.

In the next federal election it is probable that people standing as independents will target the best of both Liberal and Labor politicians. Labor politicians who could be vulnerable include Tanya Plibersek, who has voted with her party for more coal mines and gas projects, and Senator Penny Wong, who has voted for AUKUS, submarines and, with the US, against China and for Israel.

Senator Katy Gallagher and Andrew Leigh have, like Penny and Tanya, done some excellent things but have still voted for terrible policies because of party solidarity. It is not ethical to compromise to the point of agreeing to a dreadful policy. Yet many politicians vote against their better judgement and beliefs.

These are not the politicians we should vote for. Despite the votes at the Labor conference for Palestine, the government still prioritises Israel. Labor is ignoring its own.

Minority governments with a number of independents and minor parties are the norm in Europe. We had it with Julia Gillard and it worked well.

We need to change the way government operates in this country.

I don't own a dog but on Saturday I picked up six discarded full dog poo bags on Mount Ainslie.

Earlier in the week I had left two firmly worded notes urging the irresponsible dog owners to pick up their dog's poo or, here's an idea, don't bag it.

By Saturday it was apparent that my request had been ignored so I collected them all myself.

Who are these people and why do they engage in such disgusting anti-social behaviour?

It would seem many voters in Dunkley saw through misinformation that was not corrected later ("Voters 'swamped' with misinformation", March 3).

I refer in particular to the asylum seeker who was wrongly detained by Victoria Police and released when the mistake was discovered. Instead of correcting the information, Sussan Ley refused to delete her tweet. Peter Broelman captured that beautifully too (March 4, p27).

It would also seem from the results to date the Morrison factor has been replaced with the Dutton factor: the Liberal Party should've done much better.

We received a parking infringement notice from Access Canberra in early February.

The infringement was incurred by our (mobile) motor mechanic who had charge of the vehicle.

We completed the appropriate paperwork to transfer the infringement notice and forwarded this to Access Canberra. We also advised the mechanic who accepted responsibility for the infringement and agreed to pay.

The mechanic duly paid the fine and received a receipt from Access Canberra.

This week we received advice from Access Canberra that it would not accept the original declaration from us; advising that we needed to obtain a statutory declaration from the mechanic together with proof of payment.

When challenged, Access Canberra advised that the infringement had been paid too quickly and that its system had not been able to transfer responsibility from us to the mechanic before the fine had been paid.

The solution is that Access Canberra will, on completion of more paperwork, refund the mechanic before requiring him to pay again, together with him providing a statutory declaration confirming transfer of the responsibility for the infringement from us to him. Please tell me Monty Python isn't running the ACT government.

The Dunkley byelection has taught us that scare campaigning does not go far.

The Coalition scare-campaigned against Labor's "tax cuts", which is baseless given the present economic situation.

The Coalition scare-campaigned against the "cost of living" issue. They have forgotten that they have presided over the issue before Labor for over a decade.

The Labor tax re-arrangement has addressed the cost-of-living question.

The Coalition had no choice but to accept the Labor proposal. The Coalition policies are in tatters.

Tony May rolls out the usually unchallenged statement that "if private schooling was out of reach it would drive more students into the public system" (Letters, March 4).

However, if private schools opted not to build music theatres, swimming pools or other things that are really just wants rather than needs, they could maintain or lower school fees.

If students do leave a private school that school might find that it is in competition with other private schools that offer lower fees. The onus might then be on providing affordable private schooling.

One thing private school supporters don't mention is that they offer early friendships with other kids from well-off families. These can become networks that might be advantageous in adulthood.

That's not something for which public schools are known as a drawcard. So, I doubt that there would be a flood of students into the private system. If there was, then government funds that would have gone to a private school could be re-directed to struggling public schools.

R McCallum (Letters, March 3) is concerned about large SUVs obscuring his view of other vehicles and looming too large in his car's rear-vision mirror. I drive a 20-year-old Subaru SUV which looks diminutive alongside the current model.

All SUVs are significantly larger than they were 20 years - or even 10 years - ago, and block more of the view of other vehicles. Most cars are also larger than 10 years ago.

The same applies to today's utes (for example the Ford Ranger), but the present trend to enormous American "pick-up trucks" makes the Ranger look small.

It seems to me vehicles are being designed to use unnecessarily large amounts of fuel and produce proportionately large volumes of emissions. Are vehicle builders in thrall to the petroleum industry?

In the March edition of Our CBR mention is made of the National Arboretum's green track prototype which "will help counter the urban heat island effect, ....and help reduce noise and glare".

On the front page is a picture of the Acton Waterfront redevelopment with a concrete boardwalk and not a tree overshadowing it.

It will be very hot and glary for much of the year. Why doesn't the ACT government consider the urban heat island effect on the waterfront?

We are living in a climate crisis. The ACT government declared a climate emergency in 2019 and the federal government committed to zero extinctions in 2022. Urgent action is needed to protect our environment. Governments, at all levels, need to demonstrate these commitments.

Affordable housing is absolutely needed but not on areas where the environmental impact will cause devastating, irreparable losses.

It is highly inappropriate for minister Steel to use call-in powers that are no longer permitted for the very reason that the environment must be prioritised and safeguarded.

As reported in Friday's The Canberra Times we can look forward to nine to 10 years of chaos from Civic to Woden whilst our Labor-Greens alliance sticks to rolling out their beloved tram.

Not only that, they're going to wipe out the habitat of a variety of parrots that live in the corridor.

But why should they worry? Our government already wipes out hundreds of urban kangaroos each year.

What are a few birds going to matter?

But they're not taking into account the thousands of Canberra residents' bank accounts that will be decimated with ever-increasing rates, land taxes and rents to pay for their "dream" light rail.

It's time for ACT voters to remove Labor and the Greens at the next election.

Australia is hosting ASEAN leaders and will talk about maritime security. Have we no shame? The RAN can barely put a canoe on the water and we are asking our neighbours to join with us in blue water trade route activity.

The three rules of espionage: They all spy on us. We spy on all of them. Our spying is better than theirs.

More than 100 were reported killed in the crowd that rushed a Gaza aid convoy. There are conflicting reports on how many Palestinians were shot by Israeli forces or run over by aid lorries. Whatever the case, Gaza has clearly become a "killing field". In the last five months more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. We need a ceasefire for humanity's sake.

It must be a sign of the general decline in our society. Someone over the weekend has stolen our street library "Sharwood Bibliotech" (part of Street Libraries Australia). The clearly labelled, deactivated bar fridge and books just disappeared. It would have taken at least two clowns to lift it onto a trailer.

I notice that my Telstra bills have increased by 34 per cent since this time last year. I hope that's going into infrastructure investment and is not simple price gouging.

Any attempt to negotiate a ceasefire will be shot down for sure.

Three cheers to Messrs Andrew Barr and Shane Rattenbury for doing their bit to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis. By ensuring the transport ticketing system doesn't work after the decommissioning of the 3G network they are giving Canberrans free public transport.

It seems clear the Israeli government regards Gazans and Hamas as one and the same. If they can't wipe out one, they'll simply wipe out the other. Yet again the United Nations is exposed as nothing more than a toothless tiger and a plaything of the superpowers.

Zoe Wundenberg ("Toxic boss behaviour not limited by gender", March 5) has written a timely reminder that all genders are capable of using power imbalances to abuse others. These messages are important in challenging the prevailing narrative that all violence against women is "gender based".

My workmates in Sydney in the late '60s and '70s would have abhorred this modern idea of working from home. You would not be able to race over to the pub at lunchtime, down four schooners, come back to work, and, as a former boss said, solve all the problems that seemed insurmountable in the morning.