Letters over the past week about Shane Rattenbury’s mathematics issues, political correctness and discrimination in schools.

Rattenbury’s figures don’t add up

Minister for Emissions Reduction Shane Rattenbury (Shane of the Antarctic, CW 5 March) seems to have difficulty with some of his mathematics.

A previous article (‘Globally ambitious’: ACT first to calculate indirect greenhouse emissions,” 11 November 2021) reported that the ACT had calculated the community’s indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the goods and services that it buys. In 2018, those ‘Scope 3’ emissions came to 11 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) – or 27 tonnes per capita – per year. The government has not estimated Scope 3 emissions for other years.

The ACT Government’s only policy to address those emissions is to “work in partnership with state, territory and national governments to discuss initiatives to reduce Scope 3 emissions across jurisdictions”.

Adding the ACT’s Scope 1 direct emissions, plus indirect Scope 2 emissions from electricity generation, brought the ACT’s annual total to 14 million tonnes, or 35 tonnes per person. Compared with the global annual average of seven tonnes per person, that unfortunately does make Canberra a “global leader in climate action”.

ACT Greenhouse Gas Inventories show that the ACT’s emissions from electricity generation fell from two million tonnes in 1990 to zero in 2022. The government achieved the 2022 figure mainly by acquiring and then surrendering thousands of Large Scale Generation Certificates.

Inventories also show that emissions produced directly in the ACT increased from 1.1 million tonnes in 1990 to 1.6 million tonnes in 2022.

The combined impact of those changes in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions was a reduction of 1.5 million tonnes. That is a reduction of only about 10 per cent, compared with the ACT’s 2018 total of 14 million tonnes. Yet Mr Rattenbury claims that “the ACT reduced emissions to 46 per cent below 1990 levels.

• L Arundell, Downer ACT

Political correctness

Successive gutless governments of all political persuasions by pandering to minority groups for crass political purposes, has led to “political correctness” taking over from common sense. This disgraceful state of affairs has been very aptly described as “when intelligent people are being silenced, so that stupid people won’t be offended”. When and where will it all end?

– M Stivala, Belconnen ACT

School discrimination?

Can the government please allow religious schools to openly discriminate against staff students, parents and others on their religious grounds but then discriminate against the schools by removing all government funding? It would be interesting to see how long the moral outrage lasts when the government funding is cut.

– D Steley, Heyfield VIC

Voice format requires revision

Pro Voice advocates believe that nobody is going to lose anything or be hurt by voting “yes”. They appear to have lost the plot; many may be losers and many more hurt, as legal experts disagree on the interpretation of the Voice documentation which leaves the door wide open to probable ongoing judicial intervention. By voting “yes” to a poorly documented Voice would be a recipe for disaster. The Voice was initially meant to advise parliament and executive government purely on Indigenous affairs, which does not appear to be the case under the current documentation. The Government should provide voters with a watertight, concise and readily understandable Voice criteria to enable them to make an informed decision on their vote, instead it is trying to shame and appeal to the public’s emotions and goodwill to get it over the line.   Regrettably, although the Voice proposal is well meaning, unless the documentation is changed, in all probability it is doomed to failure. In the unlikely event it succeeds, it may result in a plethora of litigation and open a veritable Pandora’s box. 

The current Voice format is unacceptable, however it should not be written off; it should instead be comprehensively revised prior to going to a referendum. Voters should be made aware that once the Voice is entrenched into the constitution it will not be possible to be changed, other than by holding another referendum. If you are unsure or just don’t know, vote “no”. 

• M Stivala, Belconnen

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