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No question about it, Malcolm Turnbull is a pretty bright fellow, and therefore a welcome addition to a government not overburdened with them. He should certainly be smart enough to work out that his big job of saving water is being made so much the harder by substantial increases each year in the number of

Rosslyn Beeby ("We need brighter ideas", February 21, p2) is right to call Malcolm Turnbull’s ban on incandescent light bulbs a "micro-step". Mr Turnbull estimates that by 2015, the ban will save 4 million tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere annually. What he doesn’t say is that by the same year, about another

I agree with Don Jordan (Letters, 12/3) in questioning Melbourne’s population growth but is it any more practical to move people to rural centres? You really wonder what political intelligence is at work when you see new estates going up in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong, where there is no water. Nobody wants to question our

Sir Nicholas Stern insists Australia must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Labor agrees. That means that by 2050 each one of us will have to adjust our lifestyles so that we individually produce just 40 per cent of the emissions we are responsible for today. Doesn’t it? Well, not

Peter Martin makes some telling points about the shortcomings of the latest Intergenerational Report in his critique ("Sir Humphrey could not have said it better", CT Opinion. 3 April). He is right on the money when he cans the report for attempting to forecast the unforecastable in one area (medical spending) but not in another

It is much easier to purify sewage than to attempt to desalinate seawater. There is no stream of highly salty water to corrode the plant and be got rid of. In either case there are the pumping costs for coastal cities to return the clean water to the dams. Far better to reduce demand. Whats

Parking at Canberra’s hospitals (private as well as public) is a headache, no two ways about it.   And, if the ACT Government had deliberately set out to pick the least suitable solution well, top marks, chaps.   A decent parking system, or keeping the odd school open; which would you choose?   But it

I have been listening to Peter Costello delivering his budget speech. I have also listened to commentators praising and criticising his presentation. Maybe I am only a lone voice but the Treasurer talks about growth, he talks about subsidies for water tanks and solar energy – very commendable. When can we please have a reasonable

I refer to the article "Don’t you worry about that" (C-M June 29) in which Premier Peter Beattie comments on the impact of Queensland’s population growth on infrastructure. I certainly worry about the premier’s judgment about population growth. Just as he believed Queensland’s health and water supply had no problems, so he blandly states his

It is a considerable pity that none of our political leaders are likely to read, let alone ponder, your thoughtful editorial of 29 June, "Getting a fix on the population debate". For both major parties, it would seem, population policy is simply a matter of the more, the better. Peter Costello has led the way