ACT government needs to come clean on status of CIT boss

It is time for ACT Skills Minister Chris Steel to come out of hiding and advise stretched ratepayers and taxpayers how long these pay rises are likely to be delivered to this person across the fortnightly pay system after July 1.

Surely the ACT government must know if and when this person's salary and other benefits package will be terminated and have a sensible plan of action for managing that eventuality without incurring any potentially large court costs.

Perhaps a quiet announcement is planned for late in the day before the ACT budget, at the end of June.

Perhaps, after all, the world is not a bad as it often appears. I am encouraged by Milena Rafic's (Letters, May 7) account of a returned wallet to write about my own recent experience.

In the car just north of Batemans Bay returning from the South Coast a couple of weeks ago the phone rang. It was my daughter advising that my wallet had been found. I didn't think I had lost it and so was suspicious. It turns out I had left it on the boot of the car while packing to leave Bawley Point and it had fallen off on the Princess Highway a little way south of Termeil (after the best part of 10 kilometres of driving).

My good Samaritan saw it on the road, stopped and picked it up (not without some risk on that part of the highway), found my daughter's phone number and rang her.

He was kind enough to leave it at the Termeil Roadhouse for me to collect which we did promptly. I rang and thanked the good Samaritan (a local tradie) and offered to reward him, which he declined. However if I need some work done he'll be the first one I'll call.

There is hope for the world yet.

It was good to see a reference to Griffin's Capitol, to have been on Capital Hill ("Why I'm confused with a Capital C", Panorama, May 11). The foundation stone for that building, laid by the Prince of Wales in 1920, is currently on the terrace at Parliament House.

A further reminder is at Parliament House, but not on display.

It's the Griffin-designed ceremonial mallet and decorative casket made of over 50 native timbers used at the laying of that foundation stone for the Capitol Building.

Through the good offices of Senator Gallagher on February 5, we asked the Senate president and Speaker of the House to display them publicly.

Three months later, there has been no response about these important historical mementoes.

Perhaps the Prime Minister could speed things up.

Displaying them increases awareness of Canberra's place in our national past.

The current ACT government's announcement that Canberrans won't be getting a digital driver's licence is yet another example of ACT Labor/Greens' continuing lack of accountability, transparency, and responsible financial management ("ACT stuck in slow lane on digital licence move", May 12).

Ministers, if not the cabinet, make decisions and should be accountable by putting their name(s) to decisions. Despite this, the announcement was attributed to a spokesperson. Staffer? Public servant? All very convenient if further backpedalling is required.

Regarding transparency, the announcement implied that the cost of a digital driver's licence system exceeds its benefits to our local community. However, despite other jurisdictions introducing it, the announcement provided no evidence to justify the claim.

It is, of course, possible that a separate digital system is not financially justified in the ACT. For example, if the fixed costs were relatively large. However, could the ACT use the same system as another jurisdiction? The local community should not (continue to be) treated as mushrooms.

Lastly, it would be interesting to know how much of our money the current ACT government pays for PR people to spin carefully worded statements, the fortnightly Our CBR (barely concealed political advertising) and the like? I expect most Canberrans would prefer more actual health services, grass mowing and so on.

It does not need to be this way. Let's elect people at October's ACT election who are focused on delivering for our local community, rather than re-electing politicians whose key aim is to serve a political party.

In its determination to support the gas industry in its push to extract more gas and export most of it the Albanese government is demonstrating a shameful lack of planning for the future.

Australia, and every developed and developing country, should be phasing out fossil fuels, including gas, if the world is to avoid the worst of effects of global heating, climate change and more frequent extreme and damaging weather events, and to mitigate the huge financial costs.

Australia is the world's largest exporter of natural gas, and therefore plays a major role in boosting, rather than reducing, global heating. For the sake of the young and future generations, this short-sighted attitude must cease.

Remember the Coalition's "gas-fired recovery" slogan from the COVID era? With their "future gas strategy", Albanese's Labor is now singing from the same songbook.

As one of millions of environmentally-conscious Australians, I feel betrayed. What part of "gas is a fossil fuel driving climate change" do many politicians still not understand?

Like coal, fossil gas is polluting our planet, damaging local environments and detrimentally impacting our health.

Global temperatures over the past year have been, on average, 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels and we're heading for over 2.5 degrees this century. That's catastrophic.

If we care about a prosperous future for our children there can be no future for gas. With abundant clean energy sources available to us, the Albanese government should know and do better.

The government's Future Gas Strategy would see Australia opening massive new gas fields and continuing to burn and export the fossil fuel well beyond 2050.

Resembling the Morrison government's "gas-fired recovery" this strategy punishes the millions of Australians who voted in the Albanese government on the strength of their commitment to climate action.

It also flies in the face of their own Future Made in Australia vision to help regions that have traditionally relied on fossil fuel production transition to clean energy.

To replace one highly polluting fossil fuel with another is neither the clean energy transition nor the climate leadership we need.

I fully agree with The Canberra Times editorial concerning the hopeless performance of ACT Housing.

I think we would all be better off if they no longer existed. There must be better ways.

Our rates payments finance their existence. I have just paid my latest rates instalment and it angers me that my hard-earned money (and others) is simply being wasted. There has to be accountability and productivity.

The next ACT election is probably the only opportunity for ACT ratepayers to have their say. Think carefully.

K Kelly claims that Israel is to blame for the situation in the Middle East (Letters, May 13).

She should therefore explain why the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected proposals for a Palestinian state.

For example, Ehud Barak offered 96 per cent of the West Bank and the Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem in exchange for a peace guarantee.

Arafat rejected the proposal. President Clinton later made it clear that he blamed Arafat for the failure to reach agreement.

So the Chinese government runs operatives in Australia to keep Chinese-born dissidents here in line. It should learn how to do it properly, with no media outrage and Australian government backing.

All it has to do is to ask the US government how it simply obtained automatic jailing here 18 months ago and pending deportation of US-born Australian citizen Daniel Duggan, the former US Marine Corps pilot being show-trial-crucified as a warning to others, for having a later advisory career in China supposedly against US military interests.

Regarding the shared path debate. Do all the fast runners have to ding a bell as well?

I hear that to help preserve the oceans, we should stop eating seafood. Cattle and sheep hasten global heating while destroying our soil. Piggeries are petri dishes ideally suited to incubate disease threats. Chickens, too, probably. We really should make a concerted effort to eat kangaroos.

Congratulations to Ricky on securing a long-term contract extension with the Raiders. What bothers me in Dennis Richardson's grand plan of investing almost solely in our young and very talented upcoming players is that once they they develop at our expense they will be poached by Sydney and Queensland clubs, leaving us high and dry.

Your correspondent (Letters, May 15) tries to counter the "banshees going bananas over a NSW council's banning of a children's book" with an unspecified and syntactically confusing swipe at "woke censorship" and its "mad ideas". Could it be that since "woke" means "awake" (to discrimination), its opposite might be "asleep"?

Several polls suggest that Trump could win the next American election. I'm starting to think that Trump is an enigma similar to the Sphinx of Egypt. Historians will forever debate how this lunatic managed to be a president first of all and then how he managed to get nominated again after all the illegal stuff he has allegedly done.

Rob Wilson's (Letters, May 15) disgusting rationalisation of Israel's campaign in Gaza conjures up an image of a domestic abuser standing over their victim saying "look what you made me do". Mr Wilson's sense of morality would be more at home in 1024, not 2024.

I am astounded to learn that the AFL has only just issued the complete draw for the 2024 season ("One's fixture trash is another's treasure", May 16). How are people supposed to organise weddings?

Israel controls Gaza's borders, its skies and its streets. It is a wealthy country with highly advanced technologies. What then is the reason it lets Gazan children, on its watch, suffer and die from starvation and treatable injuries?

Australian households would save electricity if they used sensor lamps at the front and back doors. It would also lessen pollution.

I was bemused to read cocaine impairment will be added to roadside testing next year. Is such testing still a thing? Last time I saw an RBT unit in the ACT there was a person with a red flag walking in front of my car.