It's time to end Canberra's absurd 'endless growth' policy

Unfortunately that is hard to reconcile with current planning direction: growth forever and the ever increasing rate of consumption and numbers of human consumers in Canberra and the rest of the country.

I arrived here in January 1960 and could write a similar length opinion piece to that of Clive's on Canberra's change and heritage from a different perspective.

It is enough to note the current path of growth for growth's sake forever will totally destroy the very things which, in the past and presently, have made Canberra a special place to live.

In amongst the plethora of election promises I am surprised and disappointed not to see one proposing the construction of a new kiosk, café, or pub at the Cotter. Before the fires, it was a valued part of the locale and a social gathering place all of itself.

The area now seems a bit forlorn without one. Do we need to wait until 2024, or is the risk of people enjoying themselves any further just too great for it to be contemplated?

Your business pages have regularly lambasted Rio Tinto's employees for the debacle at Juukan Gorge - even though what the board did, was quite lawful. The public servants, appointed and paid to prevent such destruction of Aboriginal heritage examined, and then authorised, the proposed action.

Nowhere is anything being said about the authorising authority, or how to prevent such misdeeds occurring again.

Perhaps some day somebody will get a quiet slap on the wrist.

While I heartily agree with Ian Warden's judgement that socially interacting with the likes of Zed Seselja and Eric Abetz is the stuff of nightmares ("This nightmare was authorised by ...", September 27, p14), he has overlooked some other politicians infected with "ugly arch-conservatism" who are deserving candidates for "nightmarishness".

The names of Tony Abbott (albeit now haunting the UK), Angus Taylor, and Matt Canavan spring to mind. Craig Kelly and Keith Pitt are also candidates for social nightmarism.

The NSW planning commission's announcement of a "phased approval" for the Santos gas project in Narrabri is another concession to the greed of shareholders at the expense of the environment and agriculture.

News stories on this potentially dangerous $3.6 billion fracking development in the Pilliga State Forest, and the agricultural land beyond, speak of the project supplying 50 per cent of the state's gas needs in coming years. They rarely mention the threat to water assets and food production.

We have been promised endless gas supplies at cheap rates in the past and they never eventuate. The more of our own cheap gas we extract the higher the price has become for Australians and the cheaper for overseas markets.

At best this gas project will create a few hundred long-term jobs and a fortune for shareholders. The risks are not worth it.

During and after World War I the government of Turkey murdered 1.5 million Armenians and incorporated the emptied Armenian lands into Turkey. The genocide only stopped when Soviet forces entered the last fragment of Armenia.

When ordering his own genocide in World War II Hitler reminded his generals that nobody remembered the Armenians.

Today the forces of Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, and with embedded "advisors" from Turkey, are advancing with the intent to erase the Armenian people who's ancestors have lived in Nagorno-Karabach for millennia.

Those who say nothing, and do nothing, are complicit in this crime.

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