There are better uses for the racecourse than extra housing

Canberra needs an innovation precinct that would attract the researchers leading Australian and international companies need for their R&D.

A precinct that would enhance our universities and local innovative firms on a site that is bigger in area than the ANU.

An innovation and entertainment precinct that could also be a site for the enclosed stadium paid for not by ratepayers, but by the uplift in land value an innovation and entertainment precinct would provide.

A new equestrian precinct and EPIC should be built adjacent to the Majura Parkway.

Greens MLA Jo Clay is at it again. Let's get rid of ACT Racing Club and acquire the land for housing. What a great political idea. Sure to gain some votes.

She is probably not aware that the NCDC back in the 70s, planning for the ACT, said for the population to be sustainable it should not exceed 500,000.

Population growth is already on a path that will surpass that figure. Her plans for the racecourse will contribute to this growth. The Greens should stick to what they're good at: green bins, legalisation of drug use, etc. They have already managed to ban circuses with animals and greyhound racing. What next? Pigeon racing?

If Clay wishes to be considered a serious political player then she should table the business case with the financials for the Greens-initiated tram project. Then we will all know the huge financial burden to be borne by Canberrans over the coming years, thanks to the Greens.

Anyone contemplating voting Greens in the upcoming election is taking a risk on their next ideologically-driven project. Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who is regarded by many as a safe pair of hands, must have sleepless nights wondering what the Greens have dreamt up overnight.

Jenna Price asks "Is there too much government?" (Canberra Times, Opinion, June 28). I believe the answer is a definite "yes".

With 15 chambers of Parliament, Australia is over-governed and suffers from a plague of politicians. It would be great if we could abolish the states and only have the Federal Parliament and 20 to 25 big regional councils.

Sadly, despite the billions that would be saved by ending the duplication, inefficiency, waste and other anomalies, the constitutional change required would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve.

A more intermediate, practical and achievable goal would be a campaign against the enormously wasteful anachronism of state upper houses.

These highly costly, lavish clubs for, in the most part, trusted party hacks and self-interested minority groups, should have been consigned to the garbage heap of history long ago. (Indeed, in 2021, in WA we witnessed the lunacy of a candidate for the Daylight Saving Party gaining a miniscule number of votes and now supposedly representing an area of the state that is totally opposed to daylight saving!).

With all their faults, our far-sighted Kiwi cousins abolished their upper house in 1951 and Queensland got rid of theirs way back in 1922. It's high time the remaining states did the same thing.

Watch for a glaring but predictable omission now in the commentary enumerating all the "unsubstantiated claims" and straight-out lies presented by both US presidential candidates in their "debate". Naturally, the one twice repeated by Biden that, after Ukraine's east and pre-Yeltsin always-Russian Crimea, Russia would want to invade Poland. And Russia-sympathetic Hungary, apparently! He even seemed to throw Russian ally Belarus in there as a next target, too. And why not - it's all just grist to the mill of US hegemonic scaremongering, and like so many other Western propagandists since February 2022 he could equally have included Australia, Japan and Canada.

How curious that despite the eternal, specific and well-documented historical and strategic reasons for Russia, without safe access to the Black Sea, feeling militarily weakened and threatened by an ever Dr Strangelove-ish West, such absurd ideological propaganda about Russian invasion of the rest of the world is forever allowed free passage without scrutiny. Repetition makes anything true - is that right, Joe?

It's a bit rich for Simon Birmingham, from the party which authored robodebt and unleashed it on Australia, to criticise Albo for welcoming Julian Assange home because his actions may have endangered some people.

It's possible that Peter Dutton will win the next election, but nobody believes he will have a majority in the senate.

That means he will be unable to overturn the Howard-era prohibition on nuclear power in Australia.

But Mr Dutton would hinder the rollout of renewable energy and establish a Nuclear Energy Coordinating Authority.

The Liberals have made it clear that more fossil gas generation will fill the gap until nuclear eventually comes on line. New gas is more expensive than new renewables, that is solar and wind backed up by pumped hydro and batteries.

Peter's plan would then give us both higher prices and more carbon emissions. The kids would pay and pay for Peter's plan, with more climate chaos and higher electricity prices.

For any chance of a safe and prosperous future, Australia needs to continue the path to renewable energy and phase out fossil fuels.

Seriously, we need to take note that nuclear energy may be one of the clean ones, but it it is a gross user of water, more so than any other form of energy supplier.

A nuclear reactor can be expected to use 1.7-2.8 million litres of water per minute, drawing water from rivers, lakes, dams or the sea.

This may be OK in countries with plentiful sources of water but not in Australia which is the driest continent on Earth.

We have enough water problems with our Murray River!

M Flint of Erindale (Letters, June 27) gets stuck into Times columnist Crispin Hull for his very sensible suggestion for Albo to call an election now (Opinion, June 25). As Crispin says, the longer we wait for an election the more damage Dutton will do to Australia. Not only in achieving net zero carbon emissions but in many other areas. Dutton is a pure opportunist following the Trump playbook.

Bring on an election now so we can get rid of the Dutton sovereign risk!

Surprise! Surprise! Rudd was the mastermind and genius behind the plea deal.

So Julian Assange is home free. Not so Evan Gershkovich, a journalist with the Wall Street Journal, who is in jail in Russia facing trumped up charges of espionage.

This is the same Russia that Assange described as a "bulwark against Western imperialism". Tell that to the Ukrainians!

Having lost its AAA credit rating some years ago the Barr ACT "development company" has now racked up billions in debt with nowhere to go except to continue fleecing its customers. It's well beyond time that the liquidators were called in to put a stop to this marauding "company". Its long-suffering ACT customers have to ensure that this happens this coming October.

The real question coming out of the CIT scandal is not how Patrick Hollingworth and the Think Garden were selected and financed, but how did Leanne Cover get and keep her job?

The report "Loggers more active inside koala park than out, conservation groups claim" (June 29, p26) begs the following question. Why can government agencies, such as the NSW Forestry Corporation and VicForests, persist with ecologically damaging logging increasingly scarce and valuable native forests when logging by business and timber removal by individuals are strictly forbidden?

America's Got Talent may well be true in the entertainment industry but it is certainly not true for their politics. What a tragedy for the world that its strongest democracy cannot offer better presidential candidates than the two senile buffoons who bumbled their way through that recent "debate".

To the point

Now that Mr Assange is safely back in Australia, it is timely for his many and varied high-profile supporters (professional, political and otherwise) to take a leaf from the book of high-profile supporters of the Voice "yes" vote. Quit the public eye. Leave Mr Assange to live out the next few weeks, months and years of his newly found Oz life, in private, with his family and his chosen mix of people. No more "spokesperson" for. We have no further interest in your faces on our screens and in our newspapers. Most importantly, do not be dragging Mr Assange "back to get his hat".

Firstly , we have 4 per cent inflation; the UK had 2 per cent. I know the country is ruined but something must be working. Secondly, we have too many immigrants which fuels the housing crisis and wastes taxpayers' money. Replace Border Force with GP receptionists, then let's see who gets in!

If Mike Quirk (letters, June 26) is such a believer in climate change, why is he such a nuclear denier? After all, according to the climate alarmists, carbon dioxide levels are warming our planet leading to climate change. It is a well-known fact that nuclear energy doesn't produce any carbon dioxide levels, so why wouldn't you invest in a clean, safe, baseload source of energy that we have in abundance here in Australia? Also, scientists all round the world have told us it is impossible to get to net zero using predominantly renewables. Why are we not producing nuclear energy as soon as possible?

Mahatma Gandhi is reported to have said "if there is an idiot in power, it means those who elected him are well-represented". Perhaps the 63 per cent of Canberrans who habitually return the Barr government to power, but complain regularly about the appalling waste of public funds, the outrageous deficit and public debt and about the atrocious maintenance of our city, might take note of the Mahatma's statement.

Wall Street Journal journalist and US citizen Evan Gershkovich is facing trial on a trumped-up espionage charge in Russia. One suspects this is a classic Soviet-era show trial and possibly used as a bargaining chip to punish the United States because the US is helping Ukraine defend itself against UN-indicted war criminal Putin's unjustified invasion of Ukraine by his pathetic army of marauding orcs. We can confidently predict that the not-so-independent judges will do exactly what dictator Putin wants.

To the literary pedants out there, I think the majority of readers have well and truly gotten over it, and might I suggest you give us all a break.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr's plea for Canberrans to spend their income tax cuts locally to drive growth seems to overlook the fact that after his budget's proposed increases in rates and government charges, there's not much left to spend on "treats".