Small businesses at risk of going under

These are the forgotten people, the small business retailers who are not free to trade on October 16. Your correspondent Jennifer Bradley is happy she can have a haircut, but there will be no "getting goodies from shops" as she anticipates.

They are not allowed to open. These retailers don't want to have six people serving in their shops, for the "click and collect"; they want to be able to open their doors and serve their customers themselves.

There are so many businesses struggling to hold on, they can't wait another month. May I suggest Mr Barr goes for a walk around Kingston and Manuka for instance. They are like ghost towns, like so many other shopping centres, and he is offering nothing except financial ruin.

These people feel helpless, many of them have received none of the financial support that was promised weeks ago.

If we don't look after these people the next time Mr Barr goes for a walk many of these businesses may be gone.

I feel fortunate that I am not in a retail business here in Canberra. I know many people who are. They have worked hard for years to build up their businesses. Please do something to help these people, change the rules and make it fair to everyone in business.

I would like to bring to the general public's attention the hollow promises of the Barr government. I applied for the $20,000 business relief when it was offered. So far nothing.

I have experienced a 60 per cent downturn in business. So far I have had to stand staff members down and put another five on reduced hours. Also, the grant of $20,000 is for one business. If you have more than one shop it is just bad luck. There is no help for the second or more associated businesses.

I am over all the wonderful schemes and promises of help offered by the Barr government. I am withholding my rates and land tax payments until I get paid. They are due early October. I am putting it out there for other small business owners to do the same.

We do not have any other redress mechanisms at our disposal.

I am wondering about the criteria for an individual to score a mention under "birthdays" on the Private Capital page. Besides an understandable focus on Australians (more diversity on that front would be very welcome!), the foreigners are almost exclusively from the United States, Europe and (sometimes) New Zealand.

It is really not that difficult to find interesting historical and contemporary personalities from countries in Africa, Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific (ie the rest of the world).

If a few suggestions would help, I believe the immortal Afghan poet Rumi would have been 814 years old on September 30. We could be reminded of Salah Ben Youssef (October 11), a fascinating Tunisian politician who was deeply involved in the country's struggle for independence some 55 years before the Jasmine Revolution; had he not been assassinated, he might have approved of Australia's two-faced treachery vis-à-vis France in the AUKUS kerfuffle.

Dare one also suggest Liu Yang (October 6), the first female Chinese "taikonaut" to reach outer space?

On November 21 Canberrans could send a birthday lamington to the wonderful Nouhad Wadie' Haddad (better known as Fairouz) who will turn 87 years of age.

Elsewhere in the Levant, there was once a popular bloke from Bethlehem with a beard, born in late December. I forget his name, but I think there is a book about him.

Ken Fraser (Letters, September 29) worries about our obsession with TV crime series. It was ever thus; us oldies can remember flocking to the movies to revel, yes, revel, in the mayhem created by Edward G Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in the endless run of great thrillers such as Key Largo and Little Caesar.

Sad to say perhaps, we still enjoy the genre's television versions, (today's favourite being the UK's Line of Duty, which I'm sure Ken would, despite his concerns, become addicted to).

It's not trite though to feel repugnance with Gordon Ramsay, whose programs are a very sad reflection on our personal values, to which, however, I must add a home-grown series.

I don't understand the ABC's reasoning in producing a program like Hard Quiz, with its main theme of contrived denigration of the contestants (and often of the ABC itself). If Hard Quiz is as "popular" as the ABC claims, there is definitely something awry with our tastes, as well as with the ABC's judgment.

Ken talks about "overkill". I know what I'd like give the first chop to.

When I practised as a business lawyer in drafting agreements, the essence of their outcomes and, if breached, their enforceability, was clarity and certainty. So let me have a go at defining "net zero by 2050" to see if there is "clarity and certainty". The 2016 Paris Agreement is binding on all 196 signatory countries, unless a country does not abide by international law (there are many of them).

It exempts developing countries, so they can do what they like (there are many of them). It gives special favours to some countries (there are many of them - for example woodchip burning to create energy in Europe). It does not treat all causes of pollution with a clear weighting based on need (there are many of them).

It fails to consider fairness issues (there are many of them, for example the extra needs of people in very cold climates just to survive).

And finally, it fails to consider if extraneous factors, positive or negative, may impact the net zero by 2050 outcome (there are many of them, for example sunspots, climate cycles, and natural climate correction).

All that sure gives clarity and certainty.

Your editorial "ACT govt under pressure to boost business aid" (canberratimes.com.au, October 1) states that "Mr Frydenberg's desire to wean the nation off the government teat is understandable given $291 billion has been spent on direct economic assistance since the pandemic began".

The editors of The Canberra Times would know however, or at least should know, that it is not taxpayers who are funding this money.

The $291 billion has been simply conjured into existence by the federal government out of thin air. And that is as it should be. There has been no evidence of runaway inflation over the last 18 months as a result. And there is no economic need for Frydenberg to stop these payments until we are well and truly over this pandemic.

But, I hear you complain, the federal government can't keep making these payments forever. A little knowledge of modern monetary theory tells us that the federal government could do so for as long as truly needed. Frydenberg does not need to "take his bat and ball and go home".

As we hear of the bodies of executed people being publicly hung from cranes in Afghanistan and educated women and Hazara people hiding in fear for their lives I wonder about our obligations.

We told people that they should have equal rights to think and act as human beings like the rest of us.

As I would like to to believe that the pen is mightier than the sword I want to write to some of those Taliban men who assured the world that this contemporary Taliban would be different.

Let's find out who and where they are, how they receive communication and how we can begin some dialogues.

Of course I passionately agree that we should regularise the citizenship of all Afghans who are here and accept thousands more than Morrison has promised as refugees.

But, at the same time, we can't just leave the millions remaining in Afghanistan to their devastating state of oppression, after the promises our governments made to them.

In the UK more than 67 per cent are fully vaccinated. An additional 10 per cent are otherwise protected as they have already been infected with COVID-19.

That's getting very close to our 80 per cent goal. For the UK herd immunity is still a long way off with 33,500 new COVID-19 infections per day.

In Australia only 56.5 per cent are fully vaccinated. If you add 2.5 per cent for those who have been infected you get to 59 per cent now protected. Perhaps it's time to put the vaccine in the beer.

I agree with Mokhles K Sidden (Letters, October 1) about the pettiness of attacking ScoMo over spending $1600 of taxpayer money on gifts for foreign leaders. May I suggest that next time four Cartier watches would be suitable?

There is every possibility that Malcolm Turnbull, far and away Australia's most disappointing prime minister since John Gorton, will be our most interesting, entertaining, informative and relevant ex-prime minister ever ("Turnbull accuses PM of French double-cross over subs", September 30, p1).

The days of any Australian prime minister been given an open-ended authorisation to go to war are over, more so to any PM who dances in tune to American war drums. We should decide if we go to war, not some armchair soldier of a PM beguiled by the American war drums.

John Sandilands (Letters, September 29) I suspect there would be very little room in "Shark One" for stranded Australians once you allow for ScoMo's entourage and the members of the media that routinely travel with him. If Dutton and Payne and their respective entourages came back with ScoMo it is possible space on the plane was at a premium.

Who knew Peter Dutton was a comedian? When asked about the states sticking to the opening timetable he said he expected the states to "keep the deal they made with the people". Would that be like the deal the Australian government made with the French for submarines?

Bridget McKenzie hasn't seen climate policy and neither have we.

Re "Send Barnaby to Glasgow" (Catherine Moore, Letters October 4). Good gracious me, Catherine.

What is it exactly that you have against the good people of Glasgow?

Barilaro's personal roadmap out of lockdown takes the Monaro Highway exit from Macquarie Street.

What a hide Andrew Barr has ("ACT hospital crises looms without more funding: Barr", canberratimes.com.au, October 3) expecting the Commonwealth to cough up '"millions of dollars" for Canberra's hospitals, when he and Mr Rattenbury are willing to waste billions on a useless tramline to Woden.

Perhaps if Andrew Barr hadn't wasted billions of dollars on the light rail project he wouldn't now be wanting money from the Commonwealth to bale out Canberra's hospitals.