Letter writer TIM WALSHAW, of Watson, believes the administrators of Canberra Hospital are a very powerful pressure group, and have worn a deep groove between Woden and Civic making representations to take over Calvary.

MANY people suspect that the main motivation for the ACT government to take over the Calvary Hospital is religious – Labor hates Catholics and their opposition to abortion.

However, if you have had any real understanding of behavioural economics, you will realise that if you analyse the most powerful interests in the health industry, here and abroad, it is not the doctors and the nurses, or even the politicians, it is the hospital administrators. 

As has been shown in the US and the UK, hospital administrators control and run health systems for their own interests. They even control the fortunes of the general practitioners. 

In the ACT, the administrators of Canberra Hospital must hate the competition from Calvary. Not only does Calvary show them in a bad light, but also Calvary Public Hospital takes resources from Canberra Hospital that Canberra Hospital feels should be theirs. 

The administrators of Canberra Hospital are a very powerful pressure group, and have worn a deep groove between Woden and Civic making representations. 

Like all pressure groups, they have eventually come to own the minds of their supposed masters, and make their masters make decisions not in their own interests.

Upsetting the status quo by this takeover of Calvary Public Hospital is from the political, administrative and cost point of view plain silly, and ACT Labor has nothing to gain from it. 

But like the tram, now they have started, they will continue onward regardless until they come to a stop, and sanity descends. As for the Canberra Hospital administrators? A large-scale purge is long overdue. In modern management terminology, a re-org.

Tim Walshaw, Watson

Appalled at tired government’s move on planning 

THE ACT government clearly has a short memory. It is reported to have said the planning bill is the most significant change to the territory’s planning system since self-government began in 1989.

In fact, the incoming Labor government launched a major “Planning System Reform Project” in 2004, resulting in the Planning & Development Act 2007 and the Territory Plan 2008. 

These were closely based on the nationally agreed “Leading Practice Model for Development Assessment in Australia” which included that there be “objective rules and tests that are clearly linked to stated policy intentions”. I was there, as a senior executive in ACTPLA up to 2006.

So why change it? Sure the system has been allowed to get over-complicated and the community has a low level of trust in ACTPLA’s decisions. These issues have not been addressed. But the developers complain of being hindered in their desired outcome, which is of course to maximise development. And who does this government listen to?

The solution proposed by ACTPLA? Abandon the “rules and tests” in favour of something called “outcomes-focused” planning. Whose “outcomes”? Obviously, the developers’. The community just gets in the way. 

Labor and the Greens have done their deals and the Planning Act 2023 was passed by the Assembly on June 6, notwithstanding much of the community’s concerns have not been addressed and all the necessary accompanying material has not been presented or properly scrutinised.

As a life fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia, I am appalled by this outcome, presided over by a tired, arrogant and ill-advised government. It will be a disaster.

Richard Johnston, president, 

Kingston & Barton Residents Group Inc

Vassarotti a ‘disgrace’ to Greens movement

MINISTER Vassarotti is failing to protect wildlife and the environment in the ACT. 

The bush capital is being covered in housing. Habitat and natural spaces are disappearing at an alarming rate.

The Grasslands Earless Dragon has had its status upgraded to “critically endangered”.

More than 29,000 kangaroos and 7000-9000 joeys have been killed in inhumane circumstances over 15 years. Ironically, the rationale given for “conservation cull” is the protection of endangered species such as the Grasslands Earless Dragon. 

Clearly, the kangaroos are not to blame. Rather it is the destruction of their habitat which the government is allowing. Two-hundred-and-thirty species of birds are in decline in the ACT.

The nature reserves are badly neglected, overgrown and full of weeds.

Only 3 per cent of the ACT budget is allocated to the environment, the lowest allocation of the portfolios.

Wing has been allowed to undertake many thousands of delivery drone flights over the nature reserves that are ecologically sensitive areas. 

Minister Vassarotti is a disgrace to the Greens movement. She should resign and join the National Party. With her love of killing kangaroos and passion for agriculture, they would welcome her with open arms.

Rebecca Marks, Palmerston 

To single out one soldier is not the answer

The tenor of articles and letters in the local press demand the head of Ben Roberts-Smith.

As a long-standing veterans’ advocate to DVA, I have had the occasion and privilege to listen to some of their stories about the war in Afghanistan. 

From what I have been told of the two combatants, Australia and its allies are the better guys!

I do not condone the actions that Roberts-Smith has found to have committed, but I can understand the mentality that brings them to a head. We must remember, Australia trained him and others in the SAS regiment to be killers.

Soldiers in this cadre group have no idea who is or is not their enemy in the absence of uniforms, especially when mothers have allegedly been known to sacrifice their children to kill “friendly” soldiers.

Afghanistan has been a filthy war and many atrocities have been committed, but to single out one soldier is not the answer. 

Before we condemn, we should think about how we might have acted in the same circumstances and perhaps try to “walk a mile in their shoes.”

Dave Jeffrey, Farrer 

When can we vote for Costigan?

YES, Paul Costigan, this city in the landscape “urgently requires a new form of leadership, being one with professional experience and expertise in landscape, design and urban environment issues” (CN June 1). 

When will we be given the opportunity to vote for you as an ACT Legislative Assembly candidate and hopefully a future minister for planning?

Karina Morris, via email

Overstating the importance of public transport

MIKE Quirk (“Why the bus offers the best lift to the future”, CN June 1) makes some good points, but overstates the importance of public transport.

Quirk cites public transport mode shares of 9.9 per cent in 1991, 7.1 per cent in 2016 and 6 per cent in 2021. Those figures apply only to journeys to work. The 2017 ACT and Queanbeyan-Palerang Household Travel Survey showed that public transport provided only 5.4 per cent of total distance travelled. Cars provided 89 per cent.

The Climate Council’s “Switching Gear” report recommends that all public transport operate on renewable electricity, and that the public transport increase by 250 per cent. That would reduce local transport emissions by about 19 per cent.

In 2004 the ACT government set a target to increase the public transport journey to work mode share to 16 per cent by 2026. Following several transport plans, Quirk reports that by 2021 it achieved only 6 per cent. The ACT government seems to be incapable of achieving even a 50 per cent increase in public transport.

The Climate Council’s “Switching Gear” report recommends that 20 per cent of car trips be made by cars running on renewable electricity. That would reduce local transport emissions by about 18 per cent.

Neither Quirk nor the Climate Council consider the emissions reductions potential of increasing car occupancy. Increasing average car occupancy to one and two thirds people, from its current level of one and a third, would also reduce local transport emissions by about 18 per cent.

Leon Arundell, Downer

City heads north as the tram goes south

IF, as the ACT government claims, Canberra’s centre of gravity is moving northwards, a justification for a replacement hospital to Calvary, why spend billions on a southbound tram to Woden?

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

Macklin needs to engage with the main game

ROBERT Macklin’s article “Step up, Albo and do what a PM does” is a drawn out quibble. Noel Pearson is a serious lawyer with a good understanding of and respect for the Australian Constitution. 

Mr Macklin needs to engage with Mr Pearson’s substantive ideas, rather than critique his choice of words regarding Mr Gooda. 

Mr Grant’s travails have little to do directly with the Voice. It seems Mr Macklin sees Mr Grant as bringing his problems on his own head. Regardless, this is just a diversion from the main game. Mr Macklin needs to engage with that main game, not these side issues. 

By the way, respectfully I suggest that the words “and the Executive Government” are necessary.

Andrew Morris, Kingston 

Albo is not up to the job of being PM

COLUMNIST Robert Macklin (CN June 1) wants Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to step up to the plate, so to speak. I hate to be the one to burst his bubble, but Albo has shown time and time again he is not up to the task of being PM. 

In opposition his only contribution to the pandemic lockdown was to throw $6 billion of taxpayers’ money to get people to get the jab and to extend Jobkeeper payments, but when in power his government stopped them. 

He did nothing about the alleged bullying of the late Labor senator Kimberley Kitching by his “mean girls”, but was quick to call out anything on the opposition side.

He promised to reduce electricity prices, bring 24-hour nurses to aged care, not touch our superannuation and have a clear and transparent parliament. 

He has refused to call out any bad behaviour from his own side of politics and done nothing about perennial pest Lidia Thorpe. 

He gets rid of the cashless debit card that was working so well in the NT, which leads to more violence in outback towns such as Alice Springs. 

He then reluctantly flies into the outback, spends a few hours there, then flies out to the Australian Open tennis to spend a few days hobnobbing from private box to private box and attends the wedding of shock jock Kyle Sandilands, whose best man was a convicted drug smuggler. Albo claims he did not know who was on the guest list. Really.

Amazingly this all seems to escape the mainstream media and people like Robert Macklin, who keep wanting to blame ScoMo for Australia’s present-day woes.

Ian Pilsner, Weston

We’re too disorderly to be troubled by AI

WILL artificial intelligence (AI) wipe us out? 

Nah, we’re too disorderly.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

Planning pathway already cemented

JUNE 6 saw Labor tabling 106 amendments to the draft planning bill in the Assembly, with the Greens having already agreed to these unpublicised changes and tabling 19 more of their own. 

The “debate” process was designed to give Labor and the Greens an opportunity to showcase claims of responsiveness to some of last year’s feedback on the legislative foundation for its still contentious swag of complex new planning reforms. 

But when and how will the wider public be given an informative and honest analysis and assessment about how substantively these changes will, singly and collectively, address the considerable community concerns that have been expressed frequently over a long time now?

How exactly will the amendments change the current draft Territory Plan and nine draft district strategies? 

Much more plain English documentation, substantial public forum or “town hall” style communication, and genuine consultation opportunities are still required. 

What many perceive as a long-running charade needs to be turned into a credible, comprehensible and positive planning denouement that satisfies many more than just the ACT treasurer, the planning, housing and light rail ministers, the development sector, all their internal political and financial agendas, and their largely single-issue-focused cheer squads.

Sue Dyer, Downer 

Garlic ‘breakthrough’ was in a dish

TARA Cosoleto reports on a finding that garlic extracts can dramatically reduce the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 and influenza type A viruses (“Garlic could ward off covid and flu”, CN June 8). 

The research was conducted by the well-known Doherty Institute.

However, the research took place in a laboratory using in vitro (Petri dish) techniques, and was commissioned by Australian Garlic Producers. It seems to me that this apparent breakthrough by an organisation highly regarded by medical science must be treated with caution until and when human trials are completed successfully.

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin