“It’s time to call the tramline what it really is: a white elephant on rails, and a symbol of a government that has lost touch with the people it claims to serve,” says letter writer JOHN FRANZE.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Greens former minister Shane Rattenbury like to dismiss critics of their light rail obsession as “Luddites”, but it’s hard to think of a more backward-looking project than the one they’ve forced on Canberra.

In an era of rapid technological change, billions are being sunk into a glorified tram system straight out of the early 20th century – a system that will take decades to crawl its way through the suburbs, if it ever gets that far, and will likely be redundant before it’s finished.

Stage 2A, linking Civic to Commonwealth Park, only began construction in early 2025 – years behind the breathless political announcements. Even this tiny extension won’t be operational until at least 2028. 

And the longer-term Stage 2B extension to Woden? Still without costings, a start date or a clear way to cross Lake Burley Griffin and navigate the parliamentary triangle. It’s vaporware masquerading as policy. Meanwhile, Canberrans continue to sit in traffic.

Worse still, this boondoggle is consuming funds and political energy that could be used to actually modernise the city. 

For example, large swathes of Tuggeranong – among the most urbanised parts of Australia – have suffered for years with some of the country’s worst internet infrastructure. Only now, under pressure and years too late, is NBN Co promising to roll out fibre-to-the-premises in suburbs such as Kambah and Gordon by the end of 2025. But where has the ACT government been? Instead of fighting for decent digital infrastructure, it has been too busy drawing fantasy tramlines on maps.

If the government truly cared about 21st-century transport solutions, it would be investing in the infrastructure needed to support telecommuting and remote work. It would set telecommuting targets for its own departments. It would pressure NBN Co to prioritise the ACT. It would recognise that good internet access does more to reduce congestion and greenhouse emissions than a $2 billion steel-on-steel vanity project.

And let’s talk about real transport innovation. While the light rail plods along with its expensive museum-piece tram, the world is racing ahead with autonomous electric vehicles. These are no longer science fiction. They are on our roads, and within 10 to 20 years will be common in Canberra. Compact, clean and increasingly affordable, smart electric vehicles offer the kind of flexible, decentralised transport network that cities of the future will rely on – not a fixed, inflexible tramline that can’t turn a corner.

The ACT government’s light rail project isn’t visionary. It’s desperate. It’s a political trophy being polished at ratepayer expense. It is about headlines, not outcomes. And it’s only one part of a broader pattern of mismanagement and misplaced priorities. 

Yes, the government deserves some credit for pushing the ACT toward renewable energy targets. But a solar-powered tram is still a bad tram. This government has been in office too long. It has become arrogant, insular, and increasingly contemptuous of serious debate or dissent. Its priorities are skewed. Its vision is stuck in the past. And Canberrans are the ones paying the price – in higher rates, worse services and a future being mortgaged to prop up political egos.

It’s time to call the tramline what it really is: a white elephant on rails, and a symbol of a government that has lost touch with the people it claims to serve.

John Franze, via email

Missing middle’s about property developers

The proposed “missing-middle” residential redevelopment plan (for flats, multiple-occupancies, townhouses permitted everywhere) will offer neither housing affordability, nor optimum living amenity, for families in particular.

Sadly, that’s because the scheme is private property developer focused. It will result in the loss of important trees and gardens, and problems with parking, traffic and utilities. The missing middle campaign is largely about increasing rates revenue, and pressurising existing owners.

What is really needed to accommodate anticipated growth, and deliver housing affordability and amenity, in and around the ACT, are sensitive and sensible, government-planned-and-developed, new suburbs and satellite towns (there are actually locations aplenty for that).

They would offer good-sized, single-dwelling blocks of land, always in good supply, for direct sale only to bona-fide owner-occupiers, at say, the publicly-ascertainable cost to produce, plus a modest margin reflecting the block’s characteristics.

This will precipitate a way overdue housing market correction everywhere, which may require some short-term government financial compensation for some borrowers and lenders (paid for by scrapping many resultant no-longer-needed government assistance programs).

In parallel, we need to totally reform the current land rates revenue system, say, by replacing it with a modest increase in the GST, with distribution extended to local governments. 

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

A simplistic and deceptive narrative

Columnist Michael Moore (CN July 19) is right to call out the Barr government’s urban consolidation propaganda.

It and its Greater Canberra cheer squad hyperbolically promote middle-missing housing as the solution to housing supply and affordability. 

It is a simplistic and deceptive narrative promoted by governments at all levels. It ignores the role of market conditions (eg interest rates and land values) and, most importantly, the fear of political backlash from introducing the taxation reform needed to improve supply and affordability. 

In addition to planning reforms aimed at widening housing choice and improving the design and construction quality of higher density dwellings in established areas, a wide range of actions are needed from all levels of government. They include the:

• Winding back of negative gearing and the capital gains tax concessions to provide resources for public investment in social housing;

• Increasing the construction workforce by skills training and immigration;

• Development of appropriate greenfields areas to ensure housing choice and to moderate the increase in detached housing prices;

• Increase transport connections and dispersal of activity to sub-centres to improve metropolitan accessibility;

• Restricting investor housing loans to moderate increases in demand from falling interest rates and to fund more productive endeavours;

• Abandoning buyer assistance schemes which only increase demand and prices;

• Reviewing expenditure priorities (e.g. superannuation concessions and transport infrastructure) to divert funds to housing;

• Determining a level of immigration that meets workforce and education sector needs and reduces pressures on infrastructure;

• Build-to-rent schemes and

• Encouraging cost effective building techniques.

The Albanese government should start the politically difficult conversation with the community about the need for taxation reform. Will it have the courage to take it out of the too-hard basket?

Mike Quirk, Garran

Shameful or shameless deaths in custody?

It was distressing to read an article in The Guardian that essentially highlighted the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) maintaining the reputation of being the most poorly performing prison in Australia. Hardly an accolade for the ACT government.

Luke Rich, age 29, died in February 2022 after hanging himself using a ligature point in a management unit cell. The prison authorities were warned that point could be used for that purpose seven years earlier.

Of note, the article stated that up to $4500 (a pittance in the scheme of things) was spent to remove identified ligature point risks, but that was after Luke had needlessly died.

The article also reported that “work to reduce cell ligature points that has been carried out, or is being planned includes, but is not limited to:

• upgrades to cell furniture in the Management Unit, with $3270 spent to repair identified ligature point risks.

• upgrades to cell furniture across various accommodation units, including to reduce potential ligature risks. This work is scheduled to be completed by May 2026, with a total estimated project cost of $174,440.”

It seems that even after avoidable deaths, the response is to do too little too slowly.

In our AMC, deaths in custody seem to be “par for the course”, essentially normalised. Shameful or shameless?

Janine Haskins, prison reform advocate

The erosion of natural justice

The arguments against the ACT government’s annual kangaroo massacre are overwhelming: 

• the inherent cruelty to kangaroos, 

• the trauma to humans who care about them, 

• the paucity of evidence that there has ever been any plausible justification for killing kangaroos, 

• and the degradation of the ACT reserves by, among other things, the removal of kangaroos.

The erosion of democratic institutions and principles of natural justice is rarely mentioned, but very serious indeed.

First, by turning the ACT Kangaroos Management Plan of 2017, along with the deeply flawed desktop “kill calculator”, into legislative instruments, the government has removed all options for the public to seek administrative review of the killing program on any grounds – environmental, animal welfare, probity or any other.

The ACT Ombudsman is also legislatively prevented from investigating the misbehaviour of public servants who are acting on behalf of the territory for the alleged “management” of the environment.

Additionally, the government has legislated horrendous penalties to deter the public from entering reserves to bear witness to the killing. Many people have observed the cruelty but, since the only way to get evidence of it is illegally, by entering a reserve, their evidence would probably be ruled inadmissible in a court of law.

In any case, few would dare come forward to give evidence, for fear of losing their life savings or their freedom.

 Remind you of anything?

Frankie Seymour, Queanbeyan

Stop the kangaroo cull now, Minister Orr

It seems to me that politicians in the ACT have forgotten what their jobs are.

Suzanne Orr is the Minister for the Environment and she has portfolio responsibility for the annual kangaroo “cull”.

Like all Labor members of the Legislative Assembly, Minister Orr distances herself from the kangaroo “cull’’, deflecting questions and ultimate responsibility to the Conservator of the Environment Directorate.

The conservator is a public servant on a short-term appointment who is not an elected official. He is not ultimately accountable to the electorate.

It is Minister Orr who is the elected representative who is supposed to represent her community’s views.

For 17 years animal welfare organisations and concerned community members have raised issues of serious animal cruelty including a male kangaroo who was shot, stabbed and buried alive. These concerns fall on deaf ears.

Slaughtering our national icon in huge numbers is out of step with community sentiment. I call on Minister Orr to listen to her constituents and stop the “cull” NOW!

Rebecca Marks, Palmerston 

North West Shelf gas decision lopsided

In February, the federal Labor government kicked its promised environmental reforms, and the hoped-for stage three reform considerations on the interaction between climate and environment laws, well down the road.

Then in late May, as soon as it had packed away its corflutes for the 2028 election, the government rushed ahead and provisionally approved the North West Shelf gas plant extension, for operation up to 2070.

Too bad that many recently optimistic voters now feel dudded and left in the dark about the specific public benefits of such decision-making.

But no doubt Bean MP David Smith is breathing a huge sigh of relief over the timing of this post-election fancy footwork, given that his 2022 election margin of 12.9 per cent was reduced significantly this time to 0.3 per cent by a community-backed independent candidate. 

Surely our ACT federal government representatives appreciate how lopsided and out of touch the North West Shelf decision appears to their electorates. Saying nothing does not help.

Already Labor appears to be leaving many behind as it focuses on currying favour with Woodside Energy Group and helping it leap ahead for an inexplicable number of decades. 

Given ACT voters‘ rejection of the Coalition’s fantastical nuclear energy policies, and the increased support shown for pro-climate action independent candidates on May 3, will the MPs for Bean and Canberra now stand up with some of their many backbench colleagues and at least query the pros and cons of any future plans to increase fossil fuel production and emissions release from existing and new production sites? 

Our local federal representatives do have a clear role to play in helping constituents understand when we will become, and benefit from, being a global renewable energy powerhouse, and how we can operate as an honest, reliable and trustworthy climate change mitigation leader and neighbour.

Sue Dyer, Downer

Wood burning the most expensive form of heating

Letters defending wood heaters, such as those by Ian Pilsner and Vi Evans (CN June 19), demonstrate that the ACT government has failed to educate the community about wood-heater pollution and that these heaters should be banned as, even when confronted by irrefutable evidence about the harm they are causing, some people will double down.

Despite the incontrovertible evidence that wood heater pollution is a public health emergency, a small minority would rather bury their heads in the sand than face up to what their wood burning causes – lifelong chronic illness and, in some cases, death. 

Ian Pilsner claims that he burns wood to save money, but wood burning is the most expensive form of heating unless the burner illegally scavenges for wood or purposefully cuts down trees for fuel. 

This damages the environment we all share and, when the wood is burned, creates 450 times as much pollution as a house using gas central heating, according to England’s Chief Medical Officer. If a resident is genuinely struggling, there are ACT government programs they can turn to to install a reverse-cycle system, the cheapest and safest form of heating. 

Finally, the argument that we have occasional bushfires so wood burning is acceptable doesn’t hold water. Wood heaters poison our air for significant parts of the year, creating chronic levels of pollution where we live that, as citizen scientists have demonstrated, often eclipse levels found in Beijing during Canberra’s colder months. 

It seems ridiculous that you can’t smoke a single cigarette near a public building, yet a small minority of Canberrans are legally allowed to create a poisonous cocktail of toxins, spread it across their neighbourhood and fill their neighbours’ homes with it. 

I, for one, am fed up with having my child wake in the middle of the night, coughing, crying and asking for his inhaler as our house fills with smoke because a small minority prioritise their comfort over the community’s basic right to safe air.

Calum Paterson, via email

So, Ian, how many people freeze to death?

Could Ian Pilsner (letters, CN June 19) please advise how many people freeze to death in Canberra every winter? 

I am sorry, but I have not heard of any. I have only heard about as many as 63 people die prematurely in Canberra from exposure to residential wood heater pollution as found in a study by Prof Sotiris Vardoulakis, director of the Environmental Public Health Centre at the University of Canberra, and people, such as Fraser resident David Bolton, whose case CityNews highlighted in June 2023.

Can Mr Pilsner also advise where this free firewood is located. Is he referring to the collection of firewood from our parks and reserves? We are constantly warned by ACT government authorities and conservationists that illegal activity damages the environment by robbing our small native fauna and reptiles of homes and shelter from larger predators.

I agree with Mr Pilsner that smoke from bushfires can also be harmful, but these are mostly rare events, usually at a distance, and may burn for a day or several days at the most. However, when a bushfire or hazard reduction burning occurs, we can be given advance warning enabling us to take steps to protect ourselves from the impact of that type of smoke.

On the other hand, smoke from a wood heater can be generated within close proximity to us. It can be next door or across the road. The smoke is concentrated, and can be continuous as the wood heater is left to smolder. It can also be prolonged, lasting for days, weeks and even months with the smoke seeping into our homes. There is little we can do to protect ourselves from being exposed to smoke from a neighbouring wood heater and its health impacts.

Mr. Pilsner says bushfire smoke smells different from wood heater smoke. So does tobacco smoke! Does he wish to bring back smoking in the workplace? I think not. 

We are more educated and informed today about the health damage from smoking and second-hand tobacco smoke just as we are about the environmental health impacts from wood heater smoke filling our neighbourhoods and homes. 

Darryl Johnston, Tuggeranong