Australians are being failed by the public and private sectors

While the current federal administration certainly illustrates his point, many of us remember a time when our national governments were actually competent and reliable. Indeed, some state governments have served us very well during the current pandemic.

Perhaps the Prime Minister's version of the federal government's role is just a case of self fulfilling ideology?

By contrast to his dismal view of government intervention, the private sector is held up as highly "efficient and effective". But sadly, the recent corporate responses to the pandemic have proved highly disappointing. In addition to being ineffective, some corporates have indulged in price gouging of crucial public testing equipment, elsewhere provided free.

Alas, it appears that Australians are now being failed by both our public and our private sectors.

The potential threat to the integrity of the stone walls surrounding Lake Burley Griffin seems not to have been mentioned in considerations of the proposal to make use of the lake as a landing and take-off location for aircraft.

It was for this reason that speed boats have not been permitted to use the lake, yet it now seems of no consequence when considering the use of planes.

There is already observable need for maintenance of the lake walls. It can be expected that the wash from a daily number of plane landings and take-offs will exacerbate this deterioration resulting in additional costs in maintaining the structural integrity of the lake walls. Has an analyses of the maintenance costs associated with the stone wall maintenance been taken into account when consideration has been given to this proposal?

If not why not? One would hope this is a cost factor to which a proposed operator of the service should be expected to contribute.

Djokovic would have submitted his visa application on the advice his people received from the Immigration Department. If the advice from the medical panel was insufficient then the Immigration Department should have said so before the Visa was granted. The other possibility is the medical panels made a mistake.

After the visa was granted and Djokovic had arrived in Australia border force told him his visa had insufficient details.

Who in immigration or the border force knows anything?

If everyone must have a COVID vaccine in order to enter Australia then this should have been made clear to Djokovic before he applied.

In all circumstances the Department of Immigration is revealed to be incompetent.

Australia through its minister is behaving like we are privileged, entitled and scared little people. Most people do not want this.

The Prime Minister is using his bully voice "he must go!" to try to send Novak Djokovic on his way back to Serbia. The last time we heard the bully tone was was when he cost the CEO of Australia Post her job for rewarding her employees.

That did not turn out well for the PM so perhaps he should have adopted a more neutral stance towards Djokovic before starting a fight with the Victorian government and the Serbian president.

The PM's move to shift the burden for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic from the government to individuals is a desperate attempt to change the narrative from one of continual government bungling to individual responsibility.

The lack of a national system to monitor rapid antigen tests appears designed to reduce the daily case figures.

While media attention has largely been focused on the pandemic and its management (or lack thereof), it is to be hoped that our politicians and advisers are also paying close attention to the impacts and implications of our warming climate.

With each degree of warming bringing around seven per cent more energy into the weather system we are already seeing more violent storms like the one in Belconnen this week. Bushfires are more intense than in years gone by and are occurring more frequently.

The implications for the urban environment are also stark. Have our building codes been upgraded to take account of higher temperatures, higher wind speeds, bigger hailstones and flash flooding? Are we making careful choices about the types of trees to plant around our city (and which ones to remove) or are we inadvertently contributing to more damage and expense in the event of future fires and storms?

Fire historian Stephen J Pyne says that we have entered a new era - the Pyrocene - and that the world is burning. As an inland city surrounded by bush and farmland, and with extensive bush corridors within that framework, Canberra is particularly at risk.

We saw how the 2003 fires came deep into suburbs such as Duffy and Kambah. It is not just the edges that are at risk. It may be time for a significant overhaul of planning arrangements so that Canberra is as well prepared as possible.

The PM, Treasurer and the federal Health Minister are quick to lay down the law and declare the need to step back from "interfering" in the commercial market for rapid antigen tests but how many have they used, courtesy of the taxpayer, since the beginning of December and against what criteria do they and their staff have reliable access to them now? Ditto the Deputy PM and his family since he arrived back in Australia, and continues to recover from COVID-19?

The January 3 report "Nuclear waste a hot topic for Australia" reads as a puff piece for the nuclear industry.

The article stated that the low-level waste destined for the recently-confirmed (but challenged) SA site will need monitoring for 300 years. But where was the questioning of the implications of that?

This means a need for political stability and the maintenance of technical capacity at a remote location for 300 years. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. Assuming everything will be fine over coming centuries, when even coming decades are looking uncertain, is grossly irresponsible.

This is an unacceptable imposition on future generations.

Even when Australia is faced with a nuclear waste problem that has no satisfactory solution, there are plans to massively increase the production of isotopes at the Lucas Heights reactor for export purposes. This will increase our burden of intermediate level waste (ILW) which needs to be isolated from the environment for more than 10,000 years.

The plan is to temporarily store this ILW at the SA site too, while someone works out what to do with it. The intergenerational imposition is absurd.

The nuclear waste facility was dishonestly and shamefully promoted with fearmongering about people dying of cancer without it. An honest process would see a very different outcome.

To Ian Pearson and Ian Jannaway (Letters, January 1) and Ian Douglas and John Coochey (Letters, January 3) a quick retort, if I might. Yes, McMahon did start the withdrawal of our forces from Vietnam, but it was Gough Whitlam who ended conscription in December 1972, almost immediately after the Labor party was elected, as he had promised. For that I have always thanked him.

Now that Scott Morrison, Dominic Perrottet, and the medical wing of the Liberal Party seem to have declared victory over COVID-19, it's time to plan for the next pandemic.

It will arrive at a time when there will be insufficient government funding to build quarantine stations, obtain timely vaccines, and buy protective and testing equipment.

This will arise from the impact of unmitigated climate change; low or, better still, optional taxation; the practice of transferring billions in public money to corporations to encourage the political donations so vital to a vibrant democracy; good-natured public tolerance of government rorts; and a deep-seated belief in that old Australian saying: "we can't just make everything free".

The way out of the next pandemic is clear: politically - keep governments out of people's lives; economically - keep retail and restaurants open; psychologically - ensure sport continues; and medically - have a law that prevents a person being in another's company for longer than four hours.

By all means detain and deport Novak Djokovic but in a civil manner and whilst maintaining our good international reputation.

Novak joins Pistol and Boo. What a farce.

What a spoilt brat Novak Djokovic is by putting his spot in the Australian Open ahead of the health of the Australian people. ScoMo was right in pointing out that "rules are rules". The Federal Court, if it does the right thing, will put him on the first plane back to his own country. Australians don't want him here.

First national cabinet redefined "close contact". Then it redefined "hospitalisation". I'm guessing that next it will redefine "dead".

Gerry Gillespie (Letters, January 3) says "regardless of party political or independent candidates, vote for a woman". I have two words for you Gerry; Pauline Hanson.

RAT kits aren't free according to the Prime Minister because they're tests, not medicine. So, I wonder what happened to the bill for my wife's mammogram or both our bowel cancer screening kits?

Thank you for Amanda Vanstone's article "Be grateful for our vaccine rollout" (canberratimes.com.au, January 6). At last a balanced article on the government's response to the pandemic. What a refreshing change from the carping journos and whingeing letter writers who line up every day to bash the federal government in The Canberra Times.

It is important that our media balanced and publish a range of views. I accept that some will welcome the inclusion of Amanda Vanstone's opinions in The Canberra Times. However, I have read a few of her articles in the past and they are not balanced. She is one eyed and I will choose to ignore them

Last Wednesday's very clever Broelman cartoon of the Oz-like face reminding people that we "can't get things for free" would have been even more powerful with a nod toward the original Wizard of Oz (as David Pope always does). It would have become a genuine "life imitates art" moment.

Scott Morrison wants to rename Aspen Island to Queen Elizabeth II Island in honour of the 70th anniversary of the Queen ascending to the throne. Can't he just continue in Tony Abbott's footsteps (as he usually does) and give the Queen an Australian knighthood?

Inefficient governments are the really deadly disease. Stop voting with your purses and wallets.