Controlled burns play an essential role in fire mitigation

Recent arguments (Zylstra and Lindenmayer, Opinion May 17) that broadscale prescribed burning should cease because it increases forest flammability and creates the need for a cycle of repeated burning are simplistic. Even in long-unburnt forests fuel loads are sufficiently high to drive high intensity wildfires.

The reality is that much of our native forest is in a highly flammable state not because of prior prescribed burning, but because of rapid regrowth after the extensive "black summer" fires of 2019-20. In the ACT more than 80,000 hectares - about 80 per cent - of Namadgi burned. Above average rainfall since then has created thick regrowth. A similar situation exists across much of south east Australia where about six million hectares of forest was burnt in 2019-20.

Coupled with a worsening fire climate, how should we manage this significant fire risk? Clearly, it is unrealistic to just sit back and "let the bush recover" as advocated by Zylstra (Letters, May 24). Managing very high fire risks into the future will require increased resourcing and active, systematic and landscape-specific fuel reduction programmes. Improved fire detection systems and rapid early fire suppression capacity will also be critical.

I found your recent article on female suicide both interesting and distressing but remain puzzled and perplexed that you ignore male suicides which run at three times the female rate ("But more FV victims die another way", May 29).

Many male suicides are related to family break ups. Indeed since 2003 females in Australia suicided at rates of four to six per hundred thousand. Men suicided at the rate of 10 to 30 per 100,000.

The figures speak for themselves.

It puzzles me why we keep re-electing this parsimonious ACT Greens-Labor mob. I plead guilty, but no longer.

Their priorities are all skewed. We have a Minister for Health who chastises a charity providing services to arthritis sufferers for "doing too much", for the sake of a few measly miserable dollars. Yet that same minister can spend $1.2 million on a new fancy departmental logo, and pay $1.8 million for art on the new Critical Services Building at Woden. I like public art, but that price is obscene.

That $3 million could have opened a few more beds to relieve pressure on the accident and emergency department. This minister also appears to have authorised a full page fuzzy-feeling advert in Saturday's The Canberra Times and ads on Facebook and other digital media. Blatant electioneering.

Schools are starved of resources, teachers are under pressure, yet somehow the Education Minister does not blink when she (eventually) finds out that her own agency head, funded by the taxpayer, is suing the ACT Integrity Commission enquiry into the Campbell Primary matter. The long-standing principle is that we, the taxpayers, should only pay employee legal costs when a government employee is joined by outside litigants to a government in litigation. The Wilkinson/Channel 10 principle if you like.

A visiting Queenslander, back after 30 years, said it all on Friday: "Canberra's roads are now more damaged than the roads in rural Queensland". Makes you proud to be a Canberran.

Meanwhile our rates continue to be raised exponentially. We've got to pay for that tram somehow.

And the duplication of William Hovell Drive is about to be re-announced for the third election.

They really do take us for mugs.

Why has the National Capital Authority proposed that a national memorial for victim-survivors of institutional child sexual abuse be located at Acton Peninsula on the back service road of the National Museum of Australia while a proposed national police museum is to be located in a prominent position next to the museum.

Given the recent rejection of the chosen memorial design, the question to be asked is was the select memorial advisory group, referred to as the jury who chose the location and design, adequately briefed and qualified to make this decision on behalf of many victim-survivors?

As the project has been delayed by finding of asbestos due to inadequate analysis of the chosen site a new site needs to be considered.

A more appropriate place for the memorial would be near Commonwealth Park and other memorials. A smaller scale memorial than the original design chosen would therefore be appropriate. The money saved could be used to assist victim survivors.

The Conservation Council ACT Region is concerned by the recently published advertisements from the Australian Home Heating Association. It is disappointing to see The Canberra Times accepting and publishing this misinformation. Burning wood for energy is not "sustainable" and is not going to "save future generations".

The ACT government's decision to phase out wood heaters last year was in response to investigations by the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. Those investigations showed that smoke from wood heaters in the ACT are a significant source of air pollution. Extensive research has demonstrated that there is no safe level of exposure to particulate matter in air pollution.

In addition to health implications, wood heaters contribute to negative environmental outcomes including climate change and the loss of forests and biodiversity.

Wood heaters have no place in Canberra's all-electric, 100 per cent renewable energy future. Burning wood for energy in wood-burning heaters increases climate emissions, risks the health of our community and destroys our precious native forests to source firewood.

My daughter is currently looking for a new apartment and my wife has been helping out by checking apartments and registering my daughter's interest.

They have noted on three occasions at different apartments that the real estate agents have said to interested parties who wished to offer more than the listed price that "whilst I can't tell you to do this you might include that information on your application. It will be considered".

I was under the impression that rent bidding is now illegal in the ACT. Silly me.

I read with disappointment that a single person has won the $150 million Powerball jackpot. A lot of money to spend, partying big time, for life.

But in a world craving more equity, would it not be better for 150 people to have won $1 million each? $1 million would go a long way to making life better for these 150 people, such as paying off the mortgage, paying the kids' HECS debts, a new campervan, or renovations to the home. In terms of marketing, Powerball promising so many more millionaires might be quite an edge.

Roger Terry (Letters, May 27) is playing party politics and is attacking the man, not the ball. My letter made it abundantly clear that "absurd decisions" was applicable to all governments, not exclusively to the ALP. He wants to know what I think about Scomo's handouts during COVID-19? "Two wrongs don't make a right".

It is perplexing and troubling to witness students protesting against Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas in Gaza, while there is a deafening silence regarding Russia's brutal actions against Ukrainians. This selective outrage highlights a disturbing double standard and raises questions about the motivations behind these protests.

Israel's defensive measures against Hamas are often framed as aggressive. This ignores the constant threat and attacks faced by Israeli civilians. Meanwhile, the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine - including indiscriminate bombings, civilian massacres, and forced displacements - receive far less attention and condemnation.

The disparity in reactions suggests a biased narrative that unfairly vilifies Israel while downplaying or ignoring equally, if not more, egregious violations of human rights elsewhere.

It is crucial for those who advocate for justice and human rights to apply their principles consistently, irrespective of the parties involved.

True advocacy should not be selective.

The Department of Parliamentary Services is exempt from the FOI Act. If it wasn't how many hits would there have been on Brittany Higgins and Linda Reynolds in recent times?

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has criticised Laura Tingle for saying Australia is a racist country. I prefer the term "colourphobe". We may or may not be racist but we have plenty of "colourphobes".

May I use your columns to thank the kind gentleman who, in a crowded Kambah service station, swiftly and quietly solved the argument I was having with a credit card that declined to pay for my petrol. I want him to know I have donated $100 to Deaf Children Australia.

From Aristotle we got the concept that "nature abhors a vacuum", the idea being that unfilled spaces need to be filled. Canberra drivers have certainly taken this to heart. Leave a safe space between you and the car in front and it's a certainty that another driver will cut in and fill that space.

Albert White (Letters, May 27), when Israeli Defence Minister Gallant said "we are fighting human animals" he was clearly referring only to the Hamas terrorists who committed their orgy of killing, torture, rape and kidnapping on October 7. Do you have a better description?

We hear much about "Australian values", usually in the context of actions such as those referenced by Greg Adamson (Letters, May 29) seen as contrary to those values. But what are Australian values? Just a nebulous, undefined concept? We need to specify, understand, agree on and adhere to the principles that define us as a nation.

If Australia is racist why have people of all different nationalities and skin colour been accepted as migrants? There are people sitting in our parliaments from many different cultural backgrounds. Many Indians and Chinese are employed as doctors here. Aboriginal artists and politicians are supported in Australia. It's time for some honesty on this subject.

Re Laura Tingle's racism comment. How could this perfect, God-like, Labor-leaning snob, whose lofty kind hasn't been anywhere near a working-class person in years, possibly know if Australians are racist or not?

Crispin Hull displays his prejudices when he says that the "idiocy of nuclear is so obvious .." (May 28). What's obvious is his dodgy analysis. He omits to mention that a full costing of renewables should include the cost of backup when the sun does not shine or the wind blow. He says nuclear is bad for the environment. Are thousands of kilometres of transmission lines good for the environment?