Canberra's rabbit plague warrants a stronger govt response

The garden gives me great joy, and it saddens me to see my hard work despoiled by these feral pests. We do not want Campbell to resemble City Hill.

The response from the office of the Minister for City Services, Tara Cheyne MLA, was "once a pest like a rabbit enters private property, it becomes the property owner's responsibility to manage".

Rabbits move around, and if I could eliminate the rabbits in my garden, they will quickly repopulate my garden from their burrows on ACT government land.

Trying to tackle the problem individually is ineffective and hopeless. We need a territory-wide program to control these feral pests.

The vegetable gardeners of Reid and Campbell welcome the news that the National Capital Authority has plans to remove the rabbits. I have only one garden with chicken wire down 15 centimetres into the ground and up to 50 centimetre high which has protected my favourite vegetables.

But others, including the hardy rhubarb, have been eaten to the ground. The parsley plant now lives in the family room.

A speedy action would allow us to plant in the spring.

Dutton's unqualified and cryptic threat to "re-prioritise Canberra-centric" funding might well mean free-wheeling, integrity-compromised, modern-day privateers being granted free access to Treasury vaults once more.

Or, alternatively, we could see "pepper-and-salt" Australia-wide departmental relocations similar to the disastrous Armidale fiasco.

The Canberra Times editorial "Nairn did Canberrans a great service" rightly recognises Mr Nairn's role as a local member and for his responsibility for the inquiry into the 2003 bushfires.

The claim though that Gary was one of only three MPs to hold Eden Monaro for two consecutive terms forgets Dr Mike Kelly (2007-13, 2016-20), Jim Snow (1983-1996) and Allan Fraser (1946-66, 69-72), all outstanding local members.

Further to Eric Hunter's letter (May 29), it is very noble of him to save the planet by driving his sole Korean hatchback. No doubt this vehicle is quite adequate for someone who is retired with perhaps the occasional trip to the local shops for groceries and so on.

But he should realise there are many people who need a large vehicle for towing, to transport large objects and families, and to carry out their businesses, such as tradespeople. If we took all these "utes" off the Australian roads tomorrow it would have no measurable effect on the world's climate.

So Eric and others of the same ilk, please give it a rest. I, and I suspect many others are tired of all the whingeing.

Buried on page 52 on May 31 is the news Delhi reached the mindboggling temperature of 52.3 degrees for a second day.

I have no qualifications to conclude the world leaders are psychopathic or narcissistic or both but I do know they are stupid. Really, really stupid.

The trillions being spent on preparing for the next great war is enough to head off the worst impacts of global heating, the deaths of billions of people and societal collapse.

It's unbelievable that we are being led like lambs to the slaughter with bleats of alarm that basically echo into a void. Homo sapiens? Nah. Not sapient at all.

Much of the recent criticism aimed at the government for it support of gas has been along the rather simplistic lines "fossil fuels are bad, gas is a fossil fuel, therefore gas is bad". Alas good technical solutions to complex problems are seldom that simple.

Certainly any use of gas as a fuel in addition to all the existing uses of fossil fuels would add to the total greenhouse gas emissions and is therefore undesirable.

But gas is a much cleaner fuel than coal, and if gas can be used as a replacement fuel for coal that would yield a useful reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

There is great potential for this by converting coal-fired power stations to gas-fired. Such a conversion is a simple and low cost job. No change is required to the distribution network and there are no potentially contentious land use issues.

It could provide useful transitional relief. Other major coal users such as the steel industry could be similarly adapted.

It is therefore appropriate to encourage the use of gas in this way, not only in Australia but worldwide to help us along the path to net zero.

I talked with a taxi driver in Canberra and another in Sydney. They both came to Australia from India.

I asked why did they come here given all the nasty social problems Australian has. Both of them said, in different ways, that Australia is much better than India, safer and they feel their children are safe returning home from school.

The Sydney driver is far more intellectually gifted than me, yet he was full of praise for a country that often fails to recognise the talents of our "new Aussies".

Re: "What? A convicted felon for POTUS" (Editorial, June 1).

There is no equivalence between Donald Trump and the four-year-older President Biden, who is not "reportedly cognitively challenged" unless the "report" appeared in partisan right-wing media such as Fox News.

The statement that, "Not since ...Woodrow Wilson have there been such serious concerns about the competence of an elected president" is absurd.

Biden has been an extremely competent and effective president, despite stonewalling and obstruction by an opposition with 151 election-deniers, 70 per cent of the party's caucus in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Compare this to a man most historians regard as the worst US president ever.

Shane Rattenbury does not understand the meaning of the word "genocide". The Hamas attack on Israel killing 1200 civilians and a promise to destroy Israel is genocide. Israel defending itself against this attack is not genocide. Despite the UN and international court rulings, Israel obeys the laws of war more than any other country. Hamas figures quoted in the press are often inaccurate.

In the case of the Gaza War, the number of civilians killed roughly equals the number of combatants. In Iraq and Afghanistan these figures were around six civilians for each combatant killed by the allies (including Australia).

Is the ACT government deliberately under-staffing the ACT Integrity Commission?

Taking two years to determine why CIT entered into a $4,999,990 contract with Think Garden seems excessively prolonged.

The over $700,000 paid to the stood-down CIT CEO could have been better spent providing the Integrity Commission with sufficient staff to complete their investigation promptly.

The ABS says the number of new home approvals has fallen just weeks out from the start of the housing targets. Only Albo and his Minister for Housing believe that the numbers will somehow add up just by a miracle.

The Super Rugby finals system needs to change. The current system where eight of 12 teams make the finals rewards poor performances. The bottom three finalists this year have all won less than 50 per cent of their games. How is it possible that the eighth-placed Rebels, having won five of 14 games are playing finals. Sixth and seventh-placed Fiji and Highlanders have only won six.

All finals games being knockout does not reward performance throughout the season. While unlikely, a Rebels win over the Hurricanes would seem not reflective of the Hurricanes' performance this year.

I would suggest Super Rugby move to the McIntyre final five system. That would provide a tangible benefit of the double chance to the top 3 teams, and a week off benefit for the top finishing side.

Shame on Kevin Rudd for launching Scott Morrison's debut memoir at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC. Rudd allowed himself to be used by Morrison. It bestowed on the book a grandeur it doesn't deserve. I assume the Australian taxpayer picked up the tab.

Trump is the first US president to be convicted. His dance move is also the first of its kind for a US president. What a rare specimen this remarkable individual turned out to be.

Nobody is talking about the huge amount of electricity the data processing centres for AI require just when we should be reducing consumption. Welcome to the world of The Matrix where humans generate power for their robot masters. We just make better traps for ourselves.

The letters editor has a wry sense of humour. Lucille Rogers (Letters, June 1) wrote that she attended free Palestine demos at ANU and that "No one was ... masked". Opposite her letter was a photograph of pro-Palestinian protesters at ANU wearing masks.

Hands up anyone who wants Taiwan to be destroyed? Nobody. So would the Americans, Chinese, and our own camp followers please stop the nonsense in the South China Sea. Surely the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are adequate lessons.

Re the WRT Highgate apartment defects. Wouldn't the private certifier and inspector be at least partially liable along with the builder?

The Canberra Times has been a tad zealous in its coverage of Donald Trump's criminal conviction and likely aftermath; five pages in Saturday's edition. The man does not deserve it. Nor will the verdict have much effect on his supporters or on the presidential campaign, unfortunately.

A question for America in the light of the jury's verdict: are you really going to vote in the Norwegian Blue? (With apologies to Monty Python).

American right-wingers say Trump's conviction is a dark day for America. I say it is akin to the end of a dark age. But this is America where a convicted felon can't vote in elections but can still stand as a presidential candidate. Oh God.

It's been nearly 12 months since the NACC was established but there hasn't been one peep regarding investigations either underway or completed. How squeaky clean must Australian politics be for this to be the case? The other option is that it is a utopian work place because you don't have to do much.