Letter writer RACHAEL NANO despairs at the takeover of Calvary Public Hospital by the ACT government. 

WE no longer live in a democracy. That the ACT government can forcefully acquire a well-run hospital, without consultation and at lightning speed, with the aid of the court system means that we no longer have rule of law in this country. 

The ACT government just disregarded a contract with 74 years left to run because it suited them. The whole situation is disgraceful. Who is next? Will it be your business? 

This means that our democratic system, where contracts mean something and are upheld by an unbiased court system, no longer exists. It is official. We now live under a totalitarian regime.

Rachael Namo, via email

Avoiding scrutiny erodes public trust

WHEN a government actively avoids scrutiny regarding the takeover of Calvary Hospital, it undermines the principles of transparency, accountability, and democratic rights. 

When a government actively works to avoid this scrutiny, it raises questions about the motives behind the takeover and erodes public trust.

Furthermore, the acquisition of Calvary Hospital, without proper scrutiny, can lead to negative consequences for both the hospital staff and the community it serves. 

It is important to involve all relevant stakeholders, such as healthcare professionals, patients, and local residents, in decision-making processes that affect them directly. 

By avoiding scrutiny, the government denies these individuals the opportunity to voice their concerns, provide valuable input, and hold decision-makers accountable.

The trampling of democratic rights in this scenario highlights a disregard for the principles of participatory democracy and the importance of an informed citizenry. 

When a government actively avoids scrutiny in the takeover of Calvary Hospital, it not only undermines the principles of transparency and accountability, but also infringes upon the democratic rights of its citizens. 

Errol Good, Macgregor

Why no public hospital in Gungahlin?

The Barr/Rattenbury government must think the Canberra population are idiots. Maybe that’s why they foisted the new hospital plans and Calvary takeover on us, so we would not have time to argue. 

The article in “Our CBR” states the new hospital will be built on “the current Calvary Public Hospital site in Bruce”. 

Does this mean the whole of the hospital will be taken out of action while it is being built? The ACT already has the reputation of the worst health system in Australia. Why do they not build it in, say, Gungahlin?

Vi Evans via email

Ten years on and the wood smoke still rises

DAVID Bolton’s story (“David’s war with bureaucracy in battle to breathe”, CN June 8) reminds me of an elderly friend. She lived in the Tuggeranong Valley and suffered a lung condition. 

She regularly used an oxygen bottle and was confined to her home throughout the cooler months of the year because of wood-heater smoke in her neighbourhood. 

If she ventured outside she suffered difficulty breathing and risked being hospitalised. Her only links to the outside world during this period were a mobile phone and a computer. 

A hairdresser would visit occasionally and her groceries were home delivered. If she had enough money, she would escape the Canberra woodsmoke season and spend long months with her family in far-north Queensland. Despite her disability and restrictions she still liked being an active member of our community. 

Ten years ago this month I pushed her in a wheelchair with an oxygen bottle attached into Parliament House so she could relate her story to the Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry into the Impacts on Health of Air Quality in Australia. 

After hearing evidence, the all-party committee made a number of recommendations aimed at reducing wood-heater smoke in populated areas and aimed at protecting people like my elderly friend and Mr Bolton. Unfortunately, the recommendations do not appear to have been acted on by governments. 

My friend, who was brave enough to tell her story, has since passed away. Do we need to wait another decade before politicians take decisive action to protect the most vulnerable people in our community like my friend and Mr Bolton? 

Darryl Johnston, Tuggeranong

The bogong moths could outlast us

VI Evans (Letters, CN June 8) has a distaste for bogong moths. So do I, but our local First Australians of past millennia would hardly agree. 

Vi goes on to assert that without population controls of some sort, the planet could be overrun with bogongs and all sorts of nasty creatures. 

In one sense Vi is right, but she doesn’t mention the creatures that are the cause of even worse problems. 

It’s unchecked human population growth brought about through centuries of religion and survival-inspired multi-childbirths. 

The overall world population is decreasing, but only slightly, too slowly and not everywhere. We’re still suffering the hangover of the “populate or perish” syndrome.

The reality is, unless we urgently develop sustainable global population policies to cover the expected decline of world food production due to the extremes of climate change, we will only accelerate the fast approaching existential threat to all life on earth and humans may be among the first to go. Indeed, the bogong moths could outlast us.

Eric Hunter, Cook

We need a look at land use

LEON Arundell (CN June 15) in suggesting I have overstated the importance of public transport, correctly argues the potential of increasing car occupancy in reducing emissions should be considered. 

It is one of a number of complementary strategies needing assessment as to their effectiveness in reducing car trips. Others include employment dispersal, reducing parking supply, increasing parking charges, additional transit lanes, autonomous cars and improved cycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

What is needed is an independent and comprehensive review of Canberra’s land use and transport strategies including the efficacy of the funds-gobbling light rail.

Mike Quirk, Garran

Ease the loan pain for young people

IT is often said that our future is dependent on our young; our kids and grandkids. So, at a time of high cost-of-living pressures, why are our young being subjected to a 3.9 per cent increase on their HECS-HELP fees (up from 0.6 per cent the previous year) to 7.1 per cent, which also impacts on their ability to get a housing loan, etcetera from the banks?

It is high time the federal government revisited the system, which has been in place for some 34 years and developed by Canberra academic Prof Bruce Chapman. 

Surely there is some way of reducing its impact on our young people in times of financial stress such as indexing the value of the actual loan itself rather than the increased loan resulting from indexation. 

I am not saying that HECS is not a good loan, but simply that it might be tailored better to suit current circumstances. It would be interesting to know if Prof Chapman still thinks it is fit for purpose under current economic conditions.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

When it comes to chairs, more legs the better!

I WAS not persuaded by Clive Williams’ proposition that three legs are better than four (“Whimsy”, June 8). 

As it happens, we learnt on a tour of the Johnson Wax Works in Racine, Wisconsin, that America’s greatest architect (his own claim), Frank Lloyd Wright, got into trouble for designing three-legged office chairs that notoriously spilled occupants on to the floor. 

He reluctantly came up with a four-legged design. In later years, five legs have become the standard for office chairs. Clearly, the more legs the better!

Richard Johnston, Kingston

Where the hell are you, Elizabeth Lee?

I COULDN’T agree more with Rebecca Henson (Letters, CN June 8) regarding the lack of backbone and policies from the Canberra Liberals.

They seem to be very happy staying in opposition again, instead of fighting hard for the quiet “conservative voters”. Where are you Elizabeth Lee?

Any wonder Canberra has been on a spiralling downfall, since Barr and the woeful Greens have been literally running Canberra into the ground for the last two decades.

Barr and his health minister have a poor track record with our hospitals and the toxic culture that exists within Canberra Hospital, and yet that is not enough failure, now they want to wreck Calvary Public Hospital as well!

What is Barr and his unchallenged, unaccountable, secretive colleagues going to requisition next?

It’s time for a massive change that cannot come soon enough. 

So back to the question Canberrans are asking, where the hell are you, Elizabeth Lee?

Ros Thomas, Gordon

(Editor’s note: To be fair, Ms Lee has been on maternity leave for much of this year.)

Condemned to a perpetual Labor/Greens government

IN respect of the Higgins affair, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has form when it comes to political manoeuvring for the Labor Party. 

At the 2012 ACT election, voters got rid of three of the four Greens MLAs and voted in equal numbers of Liberal and Labor MLAs. 

As the then ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher opted to form a coalition with the one remaining Greens MLA when she did not have to, to stay in government; she could have easily led a minority government. 

The effect of her decision has been to condemn the ACT to a perpetual Labor/Greens government (already in power for 22 years) and, among other things, burdening ACT taxpayers with an extremely wasteful light rail system to which the ACT government has already committed to Stages 1 and 2 at an estimated cost of some $4.5 billion.

Max Flint, Erindale Centre

Canberrans denied full vote in referendum

FOR the Voice referendum to pass, more than half of the national vote must vote “yes”, and more than half of electors in at least four states must also vote “yes”.

This situation is highly inequitable as the ACT and NT are not considered as states for the requirements of a majority of states in the referendum, meaning Canberrans and territorians are denied a full vote. Yet another reason why the Voice should have been legislated instead, and in doing so saving an estimated $82 million of taxpayers’ money. 

Mario Stivala, Belconnen

Whose voice is the right voice?

AFTER reading the government’s letterbox drop “Our Canberra June 2023 Belconnen” it’s hard to refrain from calling our chief minister “Two-bob each-way Andrew” when his politically correct feel-good acknowledges the Ngunnawal peoples as the traditional custodians of the ACT and, with a last thought, also recognises any other people or family with connection to the lands of the ACT and region. 

Just exactly who claims this place? The way it’s published drives a wedge and leaves those contemplating a green-light Voice vote in the up-coming referendum wondering who the hell the Voice will be if it gets up. 

Would the Chief Minister please clarify this in consultation with indigenous leaders and respectable authority because this isn’t going away.

John Lawrence via email

Practice what you preach, Douglas

DR Douglas Mackenzie (Letters, CN June 7) asks me to consider both sides of the story in his usual defence of anything to do with the Labor Party. Judging by his numerous letters in “CityNews” and other local papers where he regularly only considers the Labor side of the story, I am looking forward to when people like him practice what they preach.

Dr Mackenzie criticises Tony Abbott but overlooks the major failings of the Rudd government.

As for me providing both sides of the story; when our taxpayer funded broadcaster, who is meant to show impartiality, and our local daily newspaper provide a balanced and unbiased view rather than the Labor side of the story I will cease my letters as Dr Mackenzie wished, but until then… 

Ian Pilsner, Weston

‘Shameful’ truth about planning reforms

In his article “Government spinners must think we’re stupid” (CN June 15) Paul Costigan wrote: “The so-called planning reforms are not about planning but about wholesale deregulation to favour the development industry”. How shamefully true this is.

One only has to drive along the light rail route between Gungahlin and Civic to see the results. Look at the cover of the March 16 edition of “City News”, which features a map of “relative suitability” ratings of suburbs for development. 

Apart from Belconnen (which may be at the early planning stage), and parts of Tuggeranong and Weston Creek, most of the area slated for (re-)development is concentrated along the light rail route, either existing or planned.

Mr Costigan also wrote of “updating (of the planning system) to deal with the complexities of climate change”. Perhaps these complexities include the problems of soil loss (which can be irreversible in the short to medium term) and the heat-island effect in our crowded newer suburbs.

In such suburbs, aerial photography shows that there is barely room to walk between adjacent oversized houses. There is insufficient space for cool trees, and almost all horizontal surfaces are covered by concrete or paving. The small areas of what could be cooling lawn are artificial and heat-trapping.

The Barr government has a lot to learn about planning and creating the beautiful city that Canberra was and should be again.

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin