This week’s letter writers talk about Jack Wighton’s emotional exit, neglected nature reserves and EV subsidies.

Jack to hit the road

If you told me at the start of the year that Jack Wighton would sign with Souths, I wouldn’t have believed you; it still feels surreal.

Having been at the club for half his life now, he’s leaving for what we’re told is a change of scenery.

The emotion we saw on the weekend confirmed to me my belief that the move is not a reflection on the club, but a personal decision that must be respected. We know the bond Ricky shares with his playing group and the admiration his senior players have for him, Jack included.

Seeing a club junior leave $1.2 million on the table to move to a glamorous Sydney club is a worst-case scenario for the Raiders and antithetical to the NRL’s ideal of a balanced competition.

While you can’t hold someone against their will, it would have been good to see the NRL step in and offer an ambassadorial top-up payment to keep a club junior and fan favourite in a regional rugby league heartland. We know the Raiders’ huge investment in regional pathways and seeing Jack leave for a hefty pay cut only serves as a disincentive.

This whole saga could prove a blessing in disguise if we can utilise the newfound cap space. There is strong youthful core in Seb Kris, Matt Timoko, Xavier Savage, Corey Horsburgh, and Hudson Young that can be built around.

It’s a dark week for Raiders fans, but an important time to get behind the club. We saw how much the jersey still means to Jack.

• Green Machine Fan (name supplied), Brisbane QLD

Replace keyboards with shovels

Dream on!

My fantasy is that the bureaucrats working for the ACT’s Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate are non-literate thereby replacing their keyboards with shovels and doing some much needed weeding in the totally neglected southside Nature Reserves. At the same time whilst weeding they can also get a more accurate count of the number of kangaroos.

• Julie Lindner, Farrer ACT

Taxpayers fund EV subsidies

Re: Electric vehicles increase by a third in ACT in three months (CW 27 April 2023). Is it really surprising that there has been an increase in sales of EVs. The Barr/Rattenbury government have already decreed that it is their intention to have 90 per cent of vehicles sold in the ACT by 2030 will be EVs. To achieve this goal, they are offering incentives such as free vehicle registration, stamp duty exemptions and interest free loans, all of which all the rate/tax-payers in the ACT are funding/subsidising.

The article claims that registration data shows there is a clear appetite for zero emissions transport in the ACT. I would not consider 1.2 per cent to be clear appetite. Apart from the fact that the government fleet has 250 vehicles already with another 130 on order, this would reduce the 1.2 per cent involves very little private ownership.

A real measure of transition to EVs would have to be how many residences have only EVs.

The batteries in EVs do not last as long and will need replacing more often than in the petrol cars. EV batteries can cost up to $25,000 each; if you buy a used EV you may be up for a new battery sooner rather than later. It has been claimed, the more often the battery is charged the more likely it is to degrade. If your EV battery dies, you could be out in the middle of nowhere. Or the battery could go up in flames, which Lithium-ion batteries have a tendency to do.

• Vi Evans, Macgregor ACT

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