“There is no evidence that infill policy delivers sustainable suburbs or greater affordability. Luxury townhouses and apartments are the go. The environmental outcomes are clearly negative,” says letter writer IAN HUBBARD.

THROUGH their alliance with Labor, the Greens seemed to have lost their mojo. 

Promises, promises. The new Planning Bill denies genuine engagement and consultation with the community. It’s hard to say, but YouSay is simply a wailing wall that absorbs people’s ideas and discontent.

In their wisdom, the planners have already decided to enable the “smash and grab” which is the 70/30 infill policy. 

The greater density and rezoning required to deliver this policy is the Holy Grail that developers have been seeking for decades. 

There is no evidence that infill policy delivers sustainable suburbs or greater affordability. Luxury townhouses and apartments are the go. The environmental outcomes are clearly negative.

The proposed Planning Bill is certainly not protecting the rights of existing residents or the assets of the community. It’s part of the great asset giveaway. We’ve had the Griffin Plan, the Y-Plan and now we’re being offered the Tram Plan. It’s simple, hyper-development around a transport corridor and a kilometre either side. Developers love this type of plan because there’s loads of profitable opportunities and value capture for the government.

Ian Hubbard, via citynews.com.au

Psychiatrists – I have had a different experience

HOW unfortunate that columnist Robert Macklin hasn’t seen his distant friends and relatives return to normal mental health; and how unfortunate it is if his article (“The hard truth is psychiatrist can’t help you”, CN January 12) discourages afflicted people from seeking psychiatric services. 

Using the “distant” word to describe our friends and family is often a reflection of our unease in talking about mental issues. 

Within my close circle of friends and relatives I have had a different experience; some returning to good mental health with no ongoing treatment; a few requiring some further treatment and/or assessment to reach a diagnosis and perhaps to learn how to live with and manage their mental disease. 

While we have come a long way from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” there is, as Mr Macklin says, much more to learn about the workings of the brain particularly now with the pressures of modern living, social media and the effects of recreational drugs on our young people. 

As a young nurse in 1967 I observed ECT shock treatments in surgery and, like many, I had an archaic view of the process.But now with more than 50 years of advances we have a non-traumatic treatment, which is highly effective. 

From my contact with a limited number of people having psychiatric consultations nowadays, I am told their psychiatrist has not wanted to know their life story, just the symptoms and the effects of given medication. 

An appointed psychologist discusses current lifestyle issues and may discuss past histories. It is a hard road for both the psychiatric patients and their family/carers and there is an unmet demand for psychiatric services. 

I cannot end this without a good psychiatric story. A close relative who, when suffering truly distressing medical issues during the stresses of selling and moving from his family home, was told by a geriatrician that he had dementia. 

After eventually receiving a correct diagnosis and treatment for his medical condition, he consulted a psychiatrist who said “Well, Mr… I think that under the circumstances what you have experienced is quite normal and I can’t find anything wrong with you”. 

It was like turning on a light switch – uncertainty no more. The old Mr.. was back! To dispel any criticism of our ACT health services, please know that Mr…lives interstate. 

Sylvia Allen, via email

Set up for more social injustice

ON the Canberra Planning Action Group’s website, Bruin Christensen and I detail the current crisis in social housing in Canberra – a crisis that has already severely disadvantaged numerous needy Canberrans and is setting us up for even more social inequality and injustice in the future. 

We note ACTCOSS’ concern that, despite the ACT Housing Strategy being in place for four years, increasing numbers of Canberrans are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness with a shortfall of more than 3000 social dwellings and 2000 Canberrans experiencing homelessness last year. This is because the share of social housing has declined from 7.6 per cent in 2014 to 6.7 per cent in 2020.

A key factor in this crisis is that the ACT government diverted $1,580,305 from the sale of ACT public housing plus incentive payments from the Commonwealth to fund the Light Rail Stage 1, not the construction and purchase of new public housing.

This trend appears to be ongoing.

The government has since written to some 300 ACT Housing tenants – many of whom were older people, people with chronic health issues and people with disability – informing them that they will need to vacate their properties, an act the ACTCOSS condemned as “heartless”. 

Separately, it has been publicly lobbying the federal government to waive the ACT’s $115 million housing debt, after it agreed to set aside Tasmania’s own state housing debt. 

Will these monies also be diverted to light rail?

Albert Oberdorf, via email

Rolling back the clock to the ‘60s

I HAVE desisted from voicing my dubious opinions to erudite “CityNews” readers for some time, but please allow me a little indulgence regarding the on-going discussion topic of bridges.

Letter writers Alan Morschel and Jack Kershaw don’t like the design of the new Molonglo bridge, Tim Walshaw suggests the Commonwealth Avenue one for Light Rail Stage 2 would have to be made of steel. 

I think Jack was suggesting a steel truss bridge for Molonglo, before getting on his old hobby horse/tram of a new bridge, as proposed by Walter Burley Griffin, from Acton Peninsula. Would that be a nice steel truss one, too, Jack? 

I’m reminded of the semi-serious proposal I made about draining the lake and having horse-drawn trams to provide nutrients for the extensive market gardens that would then be established in the old lake bed. 

Since the government is happily rolling back the clock to the ‘60s by re-raising London Circuit, why not? And, without the need for a another Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, how about rebuilding the old Causeway bridge over the Molonglo for a tram? That would re-establish a missing link in Griffin’s geometry and be very convenient for me, and at least a few other Foreshore residents.

Oh, and thanks Paul Costigan for the little plug he gave my submission on the terrible planning bill.

Richard Johnston, Kingston

Arrogant government stops listening

A BIG thank you to columnist Paul Costigan for keeping us informed about what the ACT government is up to on our behalf. 

In his December 22 column he explains why many of the ACT community have given up responding and giving our input to planning documents. 

Why would anyone spend precious hours writing comments when I wonder whether they are even read. And if read, the views are certainly not taken on board. I

t is very sad that this local government is so arrogant that it has given up listening, especially when the community wants to be involved. 

Penny Moyes, Hughes

Hiding the tram figures doesn’t wash

PAUL Varsanyi (Letters, CN January) makes reference to the fact the ACT government, going into the 2016 election, stated that cancellation of Stage 1 of Light Rail, even before construction commenced, would trigger a penalty clause so large as to make it as expensive to walk away as to proceed.

From memory, Chief Minister Andrew Barr quoted a figure of around $400 million. While in hindsight, this is somewhere in the region of half of the eventual construction and commissioning cost, it is a staggering figure. 

I think it is beyond question that this claim, along with Barr’s assertions that “we can afford light rail” had a material bearing on the outcome of that election.

This has never been challenged. I believe it should be, for two reasons. 

Firstly, it beggars belief that any organisation, be it government, a public company or a private company, would be so naive and stupid as to agree to such a condition. Checks and balances within review processes, along with even a rudimentary understanding of how the real world works, would have identified and killed such a clause dead in its tracks (so to speak).

Secondly, this government and its chief minister cannot claim any entitlement to have statements, particularly where they involve public finances, go unchallenged. Trying to hide behind “commercial-in-confidence” excuses doesn’t wash.

Tom Thompson, Gowrie

Tram canners urged to sign petition

DEPUTY Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson is sponsoring a petition requesting the Assembly to call on the government to stop Light Rail Project 2B.

The petition can be signed on-line (https://jeremyhanson.net/stop-the-tram).

This is an opportunity for those who have canned the tram in letters to “CityNews” and their sympathisers to put some pressure on the government. 

John L Smith, Farrer

ACT Labor has no interest in social justice

A BIG thank you to Beatrice Bodart-Bailey for her expose of Labor’s shonky decision in 2012 to develop light rail (“How Labor betrayed Canberra to stay in power”, CN December 22).

It should convince even the most ardent supporter that ACT Labor has no interest in social justice. Funds wasted on light rail should have been spent on social housing, health and education.

If it were a government of substance it would apologise and abandon any extension of the light rail network and focus on real community needs.

Unfortunately, the simplistic response to the sustainability challenges facing the city will continue to be promoted when more cost-effective alternatives are available.

Mike Quirk, Garran

Appeasing power-hungry Labor

IN her analysis of the history of the ACT’s light rail project, Beatrice Bodart-Bailey (“How Labor betrayed Canberra to stay in power”, CN December 22)” made some very telling points.

At the 2012 ACT election, the lone Greens MLA, Shane Rattenbury, demanded that Labor commit to a light rail connection between Civic and Gungahlin.

In the same year, a feasibility study showed that a rapid-bus service, using easy-access buses (for the disabled or not-so-mobile) would produce twice the cost-benefit of the light rail equivalent.

A rapid-bus service would also involve less than half the capital cost of light rail to establish development stimulus along the mass-transit corridors.

It seems clear to me that ACT residents have effectively been coerced into supporting, and voting for, an inferior and much more disruptive and costly “mass” transport system. All to appease a power-hungry Labor government.

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

The farce of ‘community consultation’

YOU really have to wonder why the ACT government goes through the Development Application process, allowing for “community consultation” when we all know in advance that the big developers will get the tick of approval even when their DAs are metres over the maximum allowable height, overshadowing a neighbour’s house and so on.

The development at 6 Darrell Place, Chapman, is a perfect illustration of this farcical process.

Jane Hyden, via email

Greenslabor, dictators with poor judgements

PAUL Costigan’s column “Precious Moments in Cedric’s garden” (CN January 5) was one of the his best and, as true as the sun rises in the east, the Greenslabor era in Canberra will be remembered for the monies that were fritted away on pet ideological stupid projects. 

They will not be remembered for cherishing good design, biodiversity and aesthetics – and for looking after those in need. 

He should have added they will be remembered as dictators with poor judgements, self-importance and no regards for the community of the ACT, and both party’s members’ legacies will be awarded the wooden spoon for stupidity. 

Errol Good, Macgregor

Pandering to the chief minister

AFTER watching the WIN Canberra news the other night, I was wondering where all the real journalists had gone. 

The display of pandering to the chief minister was the worst I have ever seen. A so-called sit down with the chief minister for a chat on the 2022 year

was nothing more than the chief minister rambling on about things that didn’t have anything to do with the running of the ACT government. Was he asked about the billions of dollars of debt they have got us into over the 19th century tram or the filling in of the beautiful London Circuit, that will disrupt the traffic in the city for four years or the hospital system that is the worst in the country, and the list could have filled “CityNews”, but this disgusting display of journalistic pandering was allowed to be aired.

Athol O’Hare, Kambah

Review lacked personal insight

I READ with disgust Nick Overall’s so-called review of the Harry and Meghan show. It seemed to me he hadn’t watched a minute of the series and added no valuable commentary or personal insight.

Personally, I can’t help but feel that if he really wanted to provide feedback with real depth, the simple solution would be to just watch the series himself. Otherwise that column is better left unread.

Jenny Tysar, Hackett

Gough was one of the greats

I WRITE in response to Christopher Ryan’s letter (“Whitlam’s lot knew about toilets”, CN January 5) to correct the record. 

December 2, 2022, was NOT the 40th anniversary of the election of the Whitlam Labor government, but the 50th.

The election of the Whitlam Labor government in 1972 marked the end of 23 years of Coalition rule and heralded a short-lived but very significant period of social and economic reform in Australia. 

Even though the Whitlam government came to power 16 years before I was born, I still owe many of the privileges I enjoy today to its commitment to ambitious social-policy reform. 

Rest in peace PM Whitlam, you were one of the greats.

Joel Pearce, Queanbeyan

Voice referendum seems doomed

THE Albanese government is trying hard to con the public by making them feel guilty about the Voice and accepting it in its current unclear format, which appears to enshrine racial divisions into our Constitution. 

The indigenous community is divided on the issue , the Nationals have already said “No”, yet the PM wants us to believe that the proposal is gaining momentum!

He also encourages Australians to consider the “generous and gracious request ” from the First 

Nations people, what does that mean? 

Historically, referendums have a poor success rate of 18 per cent under favourable conditions, yet the 

government is willing to waste more than $82 million of taxpayers’ money by persisting on holding the referendum when its chances of succeeding now appear to be minimal at best.

Mario Stivala, Belconnen

I want letters from other people

JOHN Lawrence (Letters, CN December 22) accuses me of bemoaning “the poor standard of ‘CityNews’ letters to the editor”. 

Not so. Most of them are well written. Their writers have had plenty of practice. They write to the editor so often. What I want is to see letters from people whose names I am not familiar with. Maybe even on topics that have not occurred to me.

Russel Wenholz, Holt

‘Offenders’ should pay Brittany’s compensation

I AM awaiting the final instalment of the Brittany Higgins saga.

It has been established she was subjected to such severe harassment and bullying that considerable compensation was in order.

The miscreants, however, who were guilty of this heinous behaviour and who must have been identified (otherwise how could a finding have been made) have, to date, not been named and shamed. More alarmingly, they have not been charged and made to pay damages.

Is it too much to expect that these “offenders” should foot the bill, not the taxpayer?

Frank Lamb, Lyons