“Whilst I believe that heads must roll, both at government and Housing ACT level, the priority must be for a major refurbishment activity for public housing tenants with a disability, those most in need of help in our community,” says letter writer MICHAEL DOYLE.
The May 28 cover story and accompanying article about the incompetence of (Minister Yvette Berry-led) Housing ACT tells it all.
As an NDIS provider, I can relate to, and unequivocally endorse, the remarks of authors Jon Stanhope and Khalid Ahmed on Housing ACT stock particularly that stock used for tenants with a disability.
I most certainly subscribe to the view that both Minister Berry and Housing ACT are completely out of their depth.
Having about one third of accommodation below one’s own national standards cannot be far short of breaching tenants’ human rights.
Whilst I believe that heads must roll, both at government and Housing ACT level, the priority must be for a major refurbishment activity for Housing ACT tenants with a disability, those most in need of help in our community. The current situation cannot be allowed to continue.
Michael Doyle, Fraser
Now my daughter sleeps in the bath
I am the mother and advocate for my daughter who has lived in her Housing ACT home for nearly 15 years.
She has paid her rent and seldom asked for repairs to be done. We have landscaped the yards and made the interior a wonderfully warm home.
Eighteen months ago, we wrote to Housing ACT because an electrician working in the roof found splintered beams, mouldy insulation, a sagging roofline and serious electrical issues that do not conform with standards. We brought these issues (along with the fact that the shower drains into the hallway… and it rains through the skylight when it storms!) to Housing ACT and have all but been ignored.
They did bring in a building inspector last month, who found little wrong with the house, despite a private building inspector I hired the previous week finding significant structural issues.
Now my daughter sleeps in her bath as it is the only place she feels safe.
I have written to many politicians in the past months, with varying responses. My sincere thanks to those who have responded.
Yet still we wait. Minister Ms Berry, where is the communication? Where is the action? Does someone have to die before issues such as these are seriously addressed?
Lynette Bruce, via email
Don’t do it, David Pocock
Well, that’s a pity. David Pocock is turning into a politician – (Michael Moore, “Will a party of independents fix the frustration?” CN May 28).
“Our political system’s not working for Australians” seems as good a way as any to announce change to his business model.
Perhaps no longer content with being just a voice from the neutral corner, he seems to be contemplating party power – teal party power…
Don’t do it, David Pocock.
Independence is/was (you choose) his greatest asset. He and other independent members have become valuable parts of our political system. Their voices resonate somewhere in the community and temper the decisions of the government.
Party politics is always “party-before-principle” and will inevitably mute those voices. The AEC lists 140-odd de-registered parties. It’s likely most of those seemed perfect solutions at the time. Like a teal party does now.
Dick Bauch, Latham
Nature reserves supposed to conserve wildlife
If the ACT Government is to be a genuine steward of Canberra’s nature reserves, it must manage them with care, respect and accountability.
Stewardship is not simply control over land; it is a responsibility to protect biodiversity, habitat and ecological values for future generations. Decisions should be evidence-based, transparent and focused on the long-term health of ecosystems.
That responsibility is difficult to reconcile with the government’s annual kangaroo and wallaby cull. This year, the ACT Government has authorised the shooting of 3633 adult kangaroos and wallabies, together with their dependent joeys, in nature reserves.
Nature reserves exist to conserve wildlife and ecological communities, yet the government continues to rely on lethal population control within areas established for protection.
A government genuinely committed to stewardship should place conservation, co-existence and careful management at the centre of its approach, particularly in land set aside for nature conservation. Authorising the routine killing of native animals in protected areas risks undermining the very purpose of those reserves and weakening public confidence in the government’s role as their steward.
If stewardship means protecting what is of lasting value, Canberra’s nature reserves should be managed in ways that honour that responsibility and protect all species within those ecosystems.
Natalie Owen, Deakin
Dingoes deserve better than aerial culling
I am deeply concerned to hear suggestions that dingoes in the ACT will be aerially culled.
Dingoes are native animals that play an important ecological role in regulating ecosystems.
It seems contradictory for the ACT Government to use aerial shooting, on top of traps and baiting, while also expressing a commitment to recognising dingoes as controlled native animals.
As a supposedly environmentally progressive jurisdiction, the ACT should be leading with science-based and ethical wildlife management. Non-lethal approaches – such as improved fencing, guardian animals, better livestock management and targeted responses to problem animals – should be genuinely explored before resorting to lethal control of a native apex predator.
Aerial culling risks unintended ecological consequences and raises significant animal welfare concerns. We can support farmers while also recognising the important place dingoes hold in Australia’s environment.
The ACT has an opportunity to pursue a more balanced and forward-thinking approach.
Whitney Anders Richardson, via email
Demonisation of One Nation is in full swing
All the Lefties including the ABC are now getting nervous with the meteoric rise in popularity of the One Nation party and the demonisation is in full swing that they are racist, denialist, bigots etcetera.
Oh, the indignation that anyone could vote for these people!!
Well, I am afraid that the voting public has finally seen through all the woke, diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense being promoted by the Labor/Green mob, and are opting for commonsense as has been espoused by One Nation (for many years) and the now catching up Coalition under new management.
Pray tell me what is racist about wanting to limit immigration and only to those who share our values, not for example the radical Muslims who are hellbent on trying to change the country to suit their warped way of life, not to mention their antisemetic outlook?
I will tell you something that is racist, and that’s having to sit through a whole special welcome to any Aboriginals who happen to be in the audiences at places such as Llewellyn Hall and The Q at Queanbeyan, prior to performances.
Furthermore, surely the majority of women voters cannot agree with the idiocy of allowing biological men identifying as women to share biological women-only spaces?
And what takes the cake is the so-called sex discrimination commissioner talking about potential pregnancies in biological men identifying as females. You can’t make this sort of rubbish up.
Is it any wonder that One Nation has soared in popularity. Bring on the next federal election.
Rod Smith, Belconnen
Dedicated limerick to Pauline
A little limerick I wrote for Pauline Hanson…
There once was a leader named Pauline
The most popular on the political scene.
Taking her cues from Trump
And with the Liberals in the dump,
Many Aussies were suddenly quite keen!
Joel Pearce, via email
Angry and frustrated voters are defecting
Sue Dyer says in her letter “Angus decides to ignore the promises” (CN June 4) that during the campaign for the Farrer by-election, Angus Taylor ignored his own promises and pleas from well-meaning “unnamed” Liberal stalwarts who had been urging the Liberals to move left to the middle ground.
Dyer says that the Libs should have preferenced the teal ahead of One Nation. In the by-election ON preferenced the Libs/Nats and the Libs/Nats preferenced ON, which is why ON won by a large margin.
Dyer’s expecting Libs/Nats voters to preference a left-wing teal, financed by Climate 200 ahead of ON is difficult to understand. It is like expecting a Labor voter to preference the Libs ahead of the Greens or teals.
It is the Coalition’s lurch to the left (the so-called middle ground) over recent years, which Dyer has been calling for, that has led to the rise of ON, which is filling the void once occupied by the conservative Coalition. Angry and frustrated Coalition and Labor voters are defecting by their millions to the ON juggernaut.
Paul Temby, via email
If Abbott’s the answer, it’s the wrong question
The Liberal Party has created history by electing Rhodes Scholars to head both their political and administrative wings. However, if Tony Abbott is the answer to saving the Liberal Party from extinction, they must be asking the wrong question.
The electors of Warringah got it right in 2019, ending his parliamentary career, and the party’s decision to go further down the One Nation road, as seems to be the intention, then the “experiment” will inevitably end in tears.
Securing the top job unopposed, says much about why the Liberal Party finds itself in such a malaise. There appears to be no clear path for them to return to the government benches, other than to mimic One Nation, and there’s little indication that this strategy will have the desired result.
Liberals I know are saying that Abbott’s role is only “organisational”. While this might be true in normal times, by his own admission, the party is facing an existential threat to its very survival. With his well exposed “Messiah Complex”, there is no way Abbott is going to be satisfied with an organisational role.
Evidence Abbott has not yet given up his desire to be back at the centre of politics, is the recent floating of the suggestion that he was actively looking to re-enter parliament. Interestingly, Warringah was not one of the seats under consideration.
Ian De Landelles, Murrays Beach, NSW
Shut the door on three blinkered men
New Liberal Party president, Tony Abbott, fantasises about the party leg-roping around 200,000 more members to help make the Liberals a “patriot party” (“Abbott’s rallying call to the ‘patriot party’”, citynews.com.au, May 30).
This additional number would be four times the number of members now, based on the party’s reborn preacher using an assessment of 50,000 current members that he did admit is most likely a bit optimistic.
At any other time, this starry-eyed vision could be an argument for “lock up your wives and daughters” lest they be snaffled as part of the party’s crusading drive to counter the president’s beliefs about our “spiritual malaise”.
But this proselytiser has already proved that he has little respect for or interest in the intelligence, needs, and expectations of women in modern Australia.
Consequently, armed with knowledge of Abbott’s previous nationalistic “Team Australia” exhortations, broken promises, policy mishaps and regular gender faux pas, women have the strength and fortitude to shut the door on the three blinkered men now at the top of the Liberal pile – Abbott, Taylor and Downer.
This trio is guaranteed to huff and puff while floundering around and delivering more misleading lectures about the virtues of what Abbott has also trumpeted as the country’s only “freedom party” and source of “better government”.
Yet more rightist Liberal values, rehashing the party’s old divisive culture wars and maintaining glaringly obvious policy oversights and biases now appear as key ingredients in the Liberals’ recipe for reinvigoration.
This latest “do-or-die” mission should attract more hard-right Liberal candidates and create more voter turn off, especially if future party activations incorporate more zealotry and tedious media jousting.
The loud posturing so far also suggests that the new president and the rest of the Liberal hierarchy are making themselves more subservient to the conservative directions and messaging of the well-heeled lobbying contingent at Advance, and the MAGA devotees who currently reside in the Coalition’s parliamentary ranks and party membership.
Sue Dyer, Downer
A word from your captain, touch nothing
Good morning crew, this is your captain speaking and welcome to your new RAN vessel, the USS Codfish.
Well, maybe not new but pre-loved and not, repeat not, second hand, which reminds me that naturally we are repulsed by someone else’s germs but as you settle in that’s no reason to go mad with the Glen 20 around sophisticated equipment that might have seen better days but can still wipe out a nation state in the blink of an eye.
Nuclear-power propulsion is quiet so, to help those of you transitioning from the Collins Class line of submersibles, random bangs and clatters will be transmitted on the PA system at all times of the day.
As you have probably already gathered, our American cousins love their chewing gum. Do not remove any gum from bulkheads without the express permission of our executive officer in case they are plugging holes in the hull.
I am already aware of considerable discontent in the ranks and have acted quickly to ensure the same executive officer always carries a supply of dimes so you can use any of the 214 vending machines on board.
The lettering/symbols on most of the press buttons on the vessel’s electronic consoles have been well worn away. Do not, repeat not, press any of them until you, in consultation with the executive officer and the chief systems engineer, have consulted the 845-volume manual.
Noting there are 57 convenience coffee stations all over the boat, do not, repeat not, consume coffee anywhere near said manual.
Finally, until the very day of the RAN’s Unconditional Acceptance of and Assumption of Full Responsibility for the USS Codfish, it remains strict protocol for all passing crew members to salute the wooden framed picture in the wardroom of the Codfish’s Inaugural Captain, Bob Newhart, and the gilt inlay framed portrait in oils of US President For Life Trump located in the heads.
Vince Condon, Kingston
Cancel the attack subs for defence ones
All three nuclear submarines are now second hand ones: accept or not?
That is the wrong question! The question is: if both parties agreed that the best defence of Australia is attack, then accept these attack submarines. End of story.
If, as most people understand, defending is just that – defending and it is different from attacking – cancel this expensive order of second hand attack submarines, which need depth and cannot operate in Australia’s inshore coastal waters and defend us.
Order the many times cheaper compact defence submarines that can. For the cost of one nuclear attack submarine we can get four compact defence submarines that can fire torpedoes and do all other things except fire ICBMs – and in the process run a chance of being discovered and depth-charged.
Nick Standish, Macquarie
Not much has happened since 1887!
The recent announcements of Commonwealth funding for improvements to the Canberra-Sydney passenger train service are much overdue.
The railway from Goulburn to Queanbeyan opened on September 8 1887. Minimal improvements have been effected since then, although all can be thankful for some new concrete bridges and sleepers, also electric signalling installed recently.
Primitive construction methods dictated that tracks follow contours of the hills and riverbanks, which nowadays limits speed of existing rolling stock and increases travel times.
Some curve easing and reconstruction along the Molonglo Gorge will assist the goal of sustained fast running and achieve improved services.
William J Fraser, Holder
Smoke and mirror power pricing
ACT power prices are to rise 2.7 per cent from July 1. Got this email from ActewAGL: “Your ActewAGL energy plan is changing. Current benefit: 16% less than the electricity reference price.
“The new plan will be 12% less than the electricity reference price as of 1 July.”
So the new price will actually go up by 6.7 per cent.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen frequently uses the catchphrase “The sun doesn’t send a bill, the wind doesn’t send a bill” to argue that investing in renewable energy sources like solar and wind power will naturally drive down wholesale electricity prices.
It’s just smoke and mirrors.
Gordon Buckley, via email
Harbinger of the dog’s breakfast to come
The threats posed by the radical RZ1 reforms for new housing developments in the ACT are well discussed in the June 4 CityNews issue.
Ron Edgecombe’s lead letter flags likely substantial rises in home owners’ rates, and the destruction of suburban streetscapes.
This latter issue is explored in more detail in Richard Johnston’s article “Heaven help our cherished ‘Garden City’”. The incongruous mixture of housing types shown in the drawing taken from the Missing Middle Housing Design Guide is a harbinger of the dog’s breakfast to come.
The implications for residents’ quality of life are significant indeed. Think about the additional noise pollution arising from cheek-by-jowl development, more cars packed into the streetscape, light pollution, loss of solar access, and loss of green vegetation spaces that are vital from a visual perspective and for preventing urban heat islands.
With Planning Minister Chris Steel already having form on issues such as the failed rollout of the MyWay+ public transport system, assurances from the ACT Government on addressing the above issues can be taken with a grain of salt.
Murray May, Cook
Batteries are not a negative technology
Thanks to Anthony Hordern for reminding us of CSIRO’s leading work in decarbonising the economy and adding value to Australia’s resources (“Batteries ‘essential’ piece of puzzle”, CN June 4).
CSIRO is actively researching green iron and green steel pathways, including hydrogen-based direct reduction, electric smelting, biomass substitution for coal, ore beneficiation and renewable energy integration, with the aim of positioning Australia as a major exporter of low-emissions iron and steel.
A practical pathway is already emerging through electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking powered by renewable electricity, supported by large-scale battery storage to firm variable wind and solar generation.
In South Australia, the GFG Alliance’s Whyalla Steelworks is also pursuing an EAF-based transition, increasingly reliant on renewable electricity as blast furnace operations are phased down.
The state now has around 10-15 grid-scale battery projects operating or commissioning, making it Australia’s most battery-intensive grid relative to size. Current battery capacity is already equivalent to roughly one-third of SA’s peak demand, with planned additions lifting this toward three-quarters.
Nationally, Australia has become the world’s third-largest utility-scale battery market, behind only China and the US, and leads on a per-capita basis. This rapid expansion is delivering the firming capacity required for high-renewable grids and energy-intensive industries such as green steel.
Batteries are now an essential enabling technology for 21st-century industrial decarbonisation. They are not the negative technology Mr Hordern suggests.
Chris Cook, Essendon, Victoria
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