News location:

Canberra Today 21°/25° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Letters / Electioneering as quiet as a cemetery at midnight  

“Those running for public office would be wise not to treat the electorate with contempt or indifference because as individuals we capable of dispatching you to the rubbish bin of history.” Letter writer JOHN LAWRENCE, of Flynn, is holding nothing back.        

THE run up to October’s ACT elections is a miserable disappointment; it’s quiet as a cemetery at midnight.

Do those running for public office honestly believe they can go to ground and expect to win seats by flying low under the radar and relying on voters to blindly vote along party lines and not on issues such as those raised by political columnist Jon Stanhope (CN, June 25)?

Stanhope wrote that over the eight years before the arrival of coronavirus the ACT government has annually spent, on average, around $475 million more than it has earned and has turned its level of net debt from a negative of $736 million to $3.100 billion,  expected to blow out to $4.5 billion in the not too distant future. 

If that’s not a train wreck one wonders what is. Think of $4.5 billion in notes wrapped in pallets spread out across your lounge room floor at chin or eye height and ask yourself: “Do I vote for those responsible for a debt of this magnitude?”.

Those running for public office would be wise not to treat the electorate with contempt or indifference because as individuals we are savage and capable of dispatching you to the rubbish bin of history.  

Its time you all stepped out into the sun and told us something of your background, what you stand for, identified problems within government and the territory, and offered solutions.

Please spare us from a clown election.

John Lawrence, Flynn

Labor’s ‘scaremongering and false’ ads

I MUST say I am surprised by all the money the federal member for Fenner Andrew Leigh has to spend on election ads lately, with his consistent advertisement about how the federal government’s so-called job cuts will be made worse if you vote Liberal in the upcoming ACT local election.  

Irrespective of who wins this year’s local election, they can hardly have any influence on what the federal government does.

To me, these Leigh ads are scaremongering and false, and if the ALP has nothing to offer the local electorate but stoop to this type of behaviour, I’m afraid, Mr. Barr and his cronies don’t deserve to win. Good riddance.

Errol Good, Macgregor

The gospel according to Dr Seuss

RECENTLY, I watched the movie “The Lorax” (again) and it got me thinking. 

So today I read the latest “CityNews” and my copy of Dr Seuss’ “The Lorax”. Dr Seuss is a prophet and philosopher. There are so many important messages in his writings. 

In “The Lorax” his message to the voters of the ACT is: “Unless someone like you cares a whole, awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” 

This isn’t perfect, and I need to borrow from the movie, too, but as I see it, Canberra is Thneedville, Andrew Barr was the young Once-ler chopping down all the trees, and now he is O’Hare selling bottled air (apartments). 

Barr’s developer buddies are O’Hare’s thugs, I think columnist Paul Costigan is the Lorax and colleague Jon Stanhope is the old Once-ler, both pointing out how things have gone horribly wrong. 

Alistair Coe is Ted who hopes to bring back the trees. Perhaps Jeremy Hanson is Grammy who can point Ted in the right direction.

As he claims to be a Green, you would think there would be a place for Shane Rattenbury in all of this, but alas I think that Shane and the rest of the Greens/Labor government are represented by the Once-ler’s family. All they are interested in is “biggering and biggering”.

I only hope that this time the people of the ACT can see the ongoing destruction of the former Bush Capital by this government and on October 17 will sing “Let it grow, let it grow” (of course, there are so many other reasons to get rid of this awful government, too).

Neil Dunn, Fisher

Letters to editor@citynews.com.au

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Share this

One Response to Letters / Electioneering as quiet as a cemetery at midnight  

Gina Jeffrey says: 4 August 2020 at 8:28 am

So good to see comments from other Canberrans who li k e me, want to get rid of “this awful government”

On that note, we have received a pamphlet from a group called the Lake Burley Griffin Gaurdians, asking us to join them in t heir fight against corruption and tge destruction of .our once lovely city.

Perhaps they are owners pf exclusive lakefront properties, but I whoever t h ey are, we should all be with them in defending the foreshore from megalithic blocks of flats, which have been planned and approved for the Action Park jetty area.

T h e whole Aton Park west basin will be under several blocks of flats similar to the old govies ,at Manuka, but more massive and in concrete not brick.it will encroachk n to t h e lake itself, neaning and a large area pf lakefront will be filled in to fatten up the developers bank accounts

Truly ugly and great mo n ey makers for Barrs developer mates.

The truth is that this development is the antithesis of t h e Burley Griffin plan for a beautiful city with lake front access for all its citizens. It must be stopped.

Canberra must not let this dictatorship rife with with bribery and corruption, go on.

ITS TIME.
Call your opposition and greens labour members and COMPLA I N.

DEMAND TRANSPARENCY AND CALL A HALT TO FURTHER DEVELOPMENT.

ITS TIME

Reply

Leave a Reply

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews