“Go on-line and tell the ACT Government to keep Adelaide Avenue exactly as it is – it doesn’t need ‘re-designing’,” says letter writer PETER CLAUGHTON, of Farrer.

The ACT Government is calling for comments and submissions to their Southern Gateway and Design Framework on the corridor between Parliament House and Mawson encompassing Adelaide Avenue and Athlon Drive.

Adelaide Avenue is beautifully tree-lined, green and tram free – in other words it is perfect.

Come on, Canberrans, go on-line and tell the ACT Government to keep Adelaide Avenue exactly as it is – it doesn’t need “re-designing”.

Peter Claughton, Farrer

If Victoria can do it, so can Canberra

Ron Sait (Letters, CN August 27) says Canberrans would benefit greatly by stopping Light Rail Stage2B at Albert Hall. 

Money saved could be used to reduce debt and prioritise construction of much needed community projects.

Poor financial management in Victoria is akin to what is occurring in the ACT. 

Reality has caught up with them. Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has announced $2bn in cuts to the first leg of the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) as criticism continues over the infrastructure project’s costs.

If Victoria can do it, so can the ACT. Ideology driving the tram project in the ACT has so far been blind to the large financial implications for the ACT budgetary and debt situation.

Murray May, Cook 

Coincidences or cleverly staged?

As a life long political tragic, I have been an habitual viewer of the ABC’s Sunday morning program Insiders since its inception 25 years ago. However, recently I saw something I can’t recall ever having seen before, a “newbie” backbencher, One Nation’s David Farley, occupying the “hot seat”.

Farley spoke enthusiastically about his interactions with Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke, and praised them both for their financial support of the SunRice Mill in Leeton. I’ve not heard a PHON do that before.

There was then a separate photo of each man with Farley taken on the floor of the chamber.

The three men would be acutely aware of the optics that were portrayed.

The PM also knew that Farley was to be appearing on Insiders.

Were these all merely coincidences, or was this cleverly staged managed?

I await the answer.

Ian De Landelles, Murray’s Beach, NSW

Worried parents, take heart

There has been some discussion and concern recently about the NAPLAN results. 

As I am of migrant background, I was a slow reader. I did not see that as a handicap to still tackle all sorts of reading and pushed on regardless. Today, I am an avid reader.

A family member didn’t pay much attention to subjects other than woodwork and metalwork at high school. He ended up top of the class in these subjects at TAFE, went on to do his building certificate and is now doing very well in his chosen career.

Parents who worry about their children’s NAPLAN’s results, take heart. Your children may also end up being high achievers.

Encourage them, keep a watchful eye, support their passions and never lose hope. But perhaps don’t let them read this! 

Herman van de Brug, Holt 

Desperate to build sales?

In its declining years, The Canberra Times seems to be even more desperate to build sales.

Firstly, there was the News Limited-like attack on Mark Parton for a silly misdemeanour, that he fully owns. No reasonable citizen, who is not a political apparatchik, really cares.

The Canberra Times has picked up on another Murdoch mission, to attack the Albanese government on its measures to make housing more affordable for young people, with changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax for new investors purchasing existing property, only.

Grandfathering applies, so no one loses.

The ranting editorial of August 21 is a direct take-off of the post-budget Murdoch print media pile-on, and coincides with a social media campaign being undertaken by the real estate industry, to try and kill off what is a perfectly good piece of public policy, passed with the best intentions, the consequences of which will not be known for probably a decade.

Which begs the question – is The Canberra Times under some pressure from the real estate advertisers?

And by the way, in the interests of accuracy, The Canberra Times might now state that the interpretation of the modelling cited from NAB and Ray White that rents will now increase significantly, have since been debunked by both those organisations, as being significant over-interpretation and simplification by the Coalition.

WA Brown, Holt

Advance pushes against transparency

Having an “informal” role in an activist organisation does not mean it’s an insignificant or ineffective position.

Particularly so when a very socially conservative right-wing former prime minister is welcomed into one by the equally conservative political lobby group Advance to advise on and influence organisational strategies, targets and programs (“Abbott’s ‘very informal’ role in right-wing lobby group “, citynews.com.au August 22). 

Especially also when this organisation’s goals already reflect what a staunch Catholic such as Tony Abbott, his church and other conservative religious bodies and their associated lobby groups want imposed nationally, in order to severely undermine, if not overturn, socially progressive and equitable reforms that support personal decision-making about private life matters.

Advance’s chair, former ACT Assembly Liberal MLA Vicki Dunne and secretary Mark Spencer delivered what seemed quite a cursory and dismissive performance when asked about Advance’s organisational structure, party links, funding and widespread election time activities by the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters at its recent hearings into the 2025 federal election

Consequently, these two very senior representatives ended up taking away a lot of questions on notice.

Hopefully, CityNews can call our attention to their formal replies when they are available, given the ACT’s early warning initiation into the world of Advance’s highly misleading and offensive stunts and dirty tricks in the lead up to the 2022 federal election. 

Sue Dyer, Downer

Cutting off our nose to spite our face

I’m really pleased that Anne O’Hara reads my letters (CN August 20), but I fear she has “drunk the Kool Aid” of believers in intermittent, sunlight and wind-dependent generation.

Relying on politicians with neither technical qualifications nor industrial experience to create a new electricity grid is a failure.

Conventional central generation provides a 24-hour, weather-independent energy source.

Installing nuclear steam-raising at existing central generation sites would have avoided any “emissions”, using no more water than other steam-generation processes, and avoiding the clutter of widely distributed generation sites and technologies, while maintaining a simple, economic, reliable, one-direction, alternating-current grid system.

Satellites have shown that recent additional atmospheric CO2 has been taken up by increased bio-mass, providing additional food for expanding populations in Africa, India and South America. In Australia additional crop growth has increased farm income.

Alternatives are complex and unreliable. Engineering experience shows that multiple, widely distributed, sunlight-and-wind-dependent generation with limited chemical battery and pumped-hydro storage systems are costly to build and complex to run. 

“Snowy 2” is one example. Anne O’Hara, Tomago Smelter and I experienced another outcome in our power bills. Spain and Portugal experienced another when their grid collapsed earlier this year.

I’m surprised that so few homes and other structures have white roofs and light-coloured facings, which increase Earth’s albedo and reduce urban heat-islands.Paint colour is effectively cost-free.

Australia has significant uranium reserves, which 30 other nations use for emission-free generation, but has decided to cut off its nose to spite its face.

Anthony Hordern, Jamison Centre

Board persistently refused an appeal

The government expects light rail stage 2, contrary to Conservation Council policies, to increase car travel and reduce public transport travel. 

In 2023 I argued in CityNews that it would be better to build bus rapid transit. 

The council’s president responded by telling me she had decided to ban me from the council’s premises and from its working groups. 

Her reasons included her incorrect belief that the council supported stage 2. 

The council’s board has persistently refused to allow me to appeal her decision. 

After more than three years, I learned that the president had decided to expel me before my CityNews article. The reason for her decision was that I had told some people that changes to the council’s constitution had made some groups ineligible to remain as council members.

Leon Arundell, Downer 

Written from Sydney

If only we had Clover Moore in Canberra.

John Griffin, via email

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.