“Ask yourself: if 63 people were dying on our roads every year, would the ACT government stand by and do nothing? Of course not. There would be immediate action and tough legislation. So why is nothing done when the cause of death is air pollution?” says letter writer DARYL JOHNSTON.

The ACT government’s watering down of its commitment to phase out of wood heaters in suburban Canberra is shameful. 

In 2023, the government committed to phasing out wood heaters. Now, it is trying to weasel out of that promise by claiming it only agreed to the plan “in principle” and by refusing to take concrete steps to progress matters. This is nothing less than an act of political cowardice.

This backflip casts a shadow over the hard work and reputations of two key figures who acted with integrity on this issue, Rebecca Vassarotti, then ACT environment minister and Dr Sophie Lewis, then ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment.

Both took a principled stand based on overwhelming scientific evidence. Their efforts are now being undermined by a government more interested in political convenience than public health.

The dangers of wood heater smoke have been known for decades. As far back as 2003, then chief minister Jon Stanhope warned: “The problem of air pollution caused by wood fires has been ignored for too long.” 

Yet here we are, more than 20 years later, and little has changed. Leading environmental health researchers estimate that up to 63 people die prematurely in Canberra every year from exposure to wood heater smoke. 

Ask yourself: if 63 people were dying on our roads every year, would the ACT government stand by and do nothing? Of course not. There would be immediate action and tough legislation. So why is nothing done when the cause of death is air pollution?

By refusing to act over the decades, ACT politicians of both major parties have ignored the mounting medical and scientific evidence and neglected to protect the most vulnerable in our community – children, older adults, and those with existing health heart and lung conditions. They have shown whose lives matter – and whose don’t. They should be ashamed of themselves. 

In contrast, the Greens and in particular Laura Nuttall MLA are up to speed with the facts and are showing admirable leadership in getting a real plan on the table to phase out wood heaters.

Darryl Johnston JP, Tuggeranong

So many deficits, time for old Andrew to head off?

Andrew Barr turned 52 years of age in April. Considering how he used to mock Canberra’s “older residents” (ie those over 40), isn’t it time for him to stand down after subjecting Canberrans to a decade of deficits?

They’re currently costing us over $386.8 million a year in interest payments which I understand means that 26 per cent of every dollar raised goes towards paying interest that our under-resourced hospitals and aged-care homes would love to get their hands on.

CityNews columnists Jon Stanhope and Khalid Ahmed have written extensively on the negative implications of these constant deficits, which have now resulted in a downgrade in our credit rating.

But it seems that the good folk of the Kurrajong electorate are incapable of understanding economics and continue to vote Barr in, thus subjecting the rest of us to increasing rates and charges, and yet more new levies, to fund his prolific spending obsession.

Considering this, maybe we should think of other ways to circumscribe this ever increasing debt addiction by our local dictator. 

My management studies suggest that people should not occupy positions of power for more than 10 years, so perhaps we should put a 10-year limit on chief ministers and their high-level cronies.

Another possibility is that the rest of Canberra could put a levy on voters in Kurrajong to pay the interest bill each year on the ACT debt rather than forcing other electorates to stump up funds to cover his prolific tendencies.

Or maybe we should make it mandatory for a government to be not allowed to have more than five successive deficits during its term of office.

Be that as it may, and remembering that some of my suggestions are spoken in jest, perhaps others can come up with ways to limit expenditure and debt and prevent the ACT becoming a failed state like the US.

Unlike Mr Barr, I am a born-and-bred Canberran with qualifications in economics, politics and business management from the ANU and the UNSW as well as being part of three generations of a family intimately involved in building Canberra.

It saddens me to see how Canberra has declined over the years, which is perhaps best illustrated by the community of homeless people who bed down in plazas in the middle of Civic, including during the winter months, and which our caring government has recently moved on. As Hanrahan would say, let’s do something before we are all “rooned”.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

Deal done, minister caught out again

The planning minister has been caught out again. The government has done a deal with a developer to redevelop what was once a community facility site.

There’s money to be made by replacing a pool with high-density residential towers. We all know that. But the community is poorer for the loss.

This is happening across Canberra. The government is greenlighting redevelopment of important community sites without an impact or needs analysis.

The fact that the Woden community would like to keep their 50-metre pool and that the government might look at spending their money on making it a “fantastic aquatic facility going forward” doesn’t seem an option.

In Canberra, planning is a deal done between developers and the independent ACT Planning Authority. No needs assessment required. The community will be told what planning and development will occur in the area where they live.

What is frustrating is the minister’s efforts to justify the deal. The non-existent “needs assessment” demonstrates that the Woden community doesn’t need a pool. That public pools aren’t viable, well neither are schools but we still need them.

Don’t mention the increased population argument or that the tram to Woden might improve viability.

It is shameful that when the details of the deal are sought and the justification looks thin that the minister will resort to denigration and name calling. 

The community simply wants to be represented and determine the development that occurs where they live. Because they care.

Ian Hubbard, via email

Council silent on western expansion

The somewhat secretive Conservation Council demands no urban expansion west of the Murrumbidgee corridor, despite properly put together government plans for that.

The planners provided for sustainable, family friendly, affordable housing of various types, as well as associated public facilities, transport links, and employment centres.

The development, if de-privatised (and it must be), would be replete with fine tree-studded suburbs and generous open spaces, all continuing our original successful, healthy, de-centralised town planning arrangement. Placing Tuggeranong Town Centre on the west side of the valley, near the river, fitted with that sustainable western expansion; and we need similar suburban growth into Kowen and an expanded ACT to the north. 

The alternative, “densification”, in various forms, mostly low-grade high-rise and profit-driven new suburbs with tiny overpriced blocks, practically no trees, and soil profiles destroyed, has been handed over to coercively controlling private developers and landlords, and is sending us backwards. The Con Council seems happy with that. Thank heavens it wasn’t around when the site of the capital was chosen, and its Y Plan instigated.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah 

There’s no target for Scope 3 emissions

If the people of the world continue to cause greenhouse emissions at our current rate, then from 1990 to 2045 we will average seven tonnes of annual greenhouse emissions per capita. 

Scope 1 emissions are emissions in the ACT. We are on track to average almost three tonnes of annual per capita Scope 1 emissions from 1990 to 2045.

Scope 2 emissions are emissions outside the ACT from generating electricity. Much of our electricity comes from non-renewable sources. We are on track to average almost four tonnes of annual per capita Scope 2 emissions from 1990 to 2045.

Scope 3 emissions are all other emissions that we cause outside the ACT. From 2009 to 2018 we averaged 29 tonnes of annual per capita Scope 3 emissions. The government has no target for Scope 3 emissions.

All it is doing to address our Scope 3 emissions is “working in partnership across state, territory and national governments and will discuss Scope 3 emissions through existing arrangements and sub-national policy forums.”

The ACT government should, as a minimum, bring the ACT’s per capita emissions since 1990 to below the world average.

My views do not represent those of the Conservation Council ACT Region, which says: “Canberrans are proud we are leaders when it comes to climate action.”

Leon Arundell (former Conservation Council board member), Downer

Lot at stake as we plan emissions’ future

Letter writer Anthony Horden talks a lot of science (CN September 4), but the simple fact is that human activity has pushed our atmosphere’s CO2 concentration back up to 420 parts per million, a level not seen for many millions of years, when it was declining from even higher levels.

The decline continued until about 2.5 million years ago, when it plateaued at around 280 ppm. And it was in that level of greenhouse gas that humans evolved, developed agriculture and thrived. 

After a couple of centuries burning fossil fuels we are now, dangerously, 50 per cent above that Goldilocks level, with levels still rising. 

To broaden the range of opinions on global warming beyond the science, it is worth noting that in March, Gunther Thallinger, CEO of Allianz SE, the world’s largest insurance company and Europe’s largest financial organisation, predicted failure to control rising emissions and temperatures will mean the insurance industry fails. 

Then, he says: “The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.” 

So, there’s quite a lot at stake as we plan our emissions’ future.

Lesley Walker, Northcote, Victoria 

Appointees are not independent from issues

Michael Moore’s criticisms (CN, September 4) of what he describes as the government’s “knee-jerk and disproportionate” responses to recent events is but one of the many faults arising from this seemingly eternal geopolitical/sectarian turmoil.

Just as inappropriate to enquire into combatting anything designated as antisemitism and/or Islamophobia was the appointment of individuals in no way independent or at arm’s length from the issues under consideration.

Should there arise a dispute during a football game as to whether the Raiders or their opposition had played dirty tricks in the scrum or elsewhere, those adjudicating would exclude anyone from either side or associated in any way with the teams, just as judges recuse themselves from a case where even a scintilla of doubt exists as to their impartiality. But naming persons so closely identified as leading personalities from each community, carrying the burdens of their personal experiences and pressured expectations from those they represent, was a move guaranteed to interdict the likelihood that any conclusive decisions or proposals reached by them would be either unprejudiced or decontrolled.

Surely there is an abundant number of unbiased individuals whose reputations for forensically intelligent thought should have been canvassed for the roles allocated to Ms Segal and Mr Malik.

John Murray, Fadden

Hamas gave Israel no option but to fight

Michael Moore’s column questioning the levels of antisemitism in Australia since Hamas’ October 7 massacre and apportioning most of it to Iran is not supported empirically nor anecdotally.

Was Iran responsible for the mob chanting “Fxxx the Jews” and “Where are the Jews” at the Sydney Opera House? Did Iran pay to have slurs of “Dirty Jews” hurled at identifiably Jewish students on a school excursion to Melbourne Museum? 

Of course not. Iran merely exploited an atmosphere already rife with hundreds of incidents of antisemitism that have been well documented.

Michael also seems to uncritically accept any anti-Israel accusation. He minimises the savagery of October 7, the death toll, and ignores the 250 people taken hostage into Gaza. 

Despite Palestinian leaders rejecting Israeli peace offers for decades, he implies October 7 was Israel’s fault. Meanwhile, Hamas – which launched the war, embedded itself among civilians, and stole humanitarian aid – escapes any criticism for the suffering in Gaza.

Hamas gave Israel no option but to fight, and its vow to repeat October 7 “again and again” until the Jewish state is destroyed proves the need to ensure it never can.

Alan Shroot, Forrest

Tedious to list sound arguments against nuclear

We can acknowledge that other countries have nuclear power but do the sums and realise it is not appropriate for Australia (“Are we that stupid to ignore smart countries”, letters, CN September 11).

It would be tedious to list all the sound arguments against nuclear for Australia. The Coalition put nuclear energy at the centre of their energy policy at the last election, and by the end of their campaign hardly mentioned it. 

However, since letter writer Ian Pilsner quotes Alan Finkel and his theoretical support for nuclear, it is important to understand the bigger picture that Finkel and others paint. 

Dr Finkel says nuclear is not a solution to decarbonising our power system for the next few decades, and that “going direct from coal to nuclear is effectively a call to delay decarbonisation of our electricity system by 20 years”.

By the 2040s our energy system will be almost entirely renewable. Our Future Gas Strategy sees gas continuing beyond 2050. In other countries, nuclear may play a small part, but the International Energy Agency reports investment in solar PV, globally, now surpasses all other generation technologies combined.

Fiona Colin, Malvern East, Victoria

Oh that we should be so lucky!

No-one in the ACT can escape noticing the infrastructure spend this place is managing. 

We need to be thankful we have an economically astute Legislative Assembly focusing on this. 

I’m so overcome with joy I feel we should adopt Liverpool FC’s You’ll Never Walk Alone anthem and teach it to the kiddies, with an enhanced acceptance of our light-rail treasured gift from the heavens. We should be so lucky!

John Lawrence via email