Page 2 - Robert Macklin News Today

"Albanese has the chance to cut those union financial ties as a quid pro quo while cracking down on the chief Coalition source to distorting – not to say corrupting – our electoral system, writes columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.

"The ACT government is oblivious of the need to maximise the benefits from limited infrastructure funds, as its cavalier expenditure on the light rail money-pit is a prime example," says letter writer MIKE QUIRK, of Garran.

"Recently I stumbled on an invention that holds the key to our capacity to survive the crisis of climate change and the rising tide of populist nationalism," writes The Gadfly columnist ROBERT MACKLIN. 

Columnist and author ROBERT MACKLIN popped by the Chinese Embassy on Christmas Day on a small goodwill mission.

"The research has astonished me as week by week I have been guided by a multitude of enthusiasts to an exploration of the real, untold story of Canberra’s beginnings," writes columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.  

Poverty amid plenty, environmental destruction, mistrust of institutions, rampant urban spread, employment uncertainty, disaffected youth and financial chaos, welcome to Planet Barr, says letter writer BILL O'CONNELL.

"The most egregious tactics to kill the revelations of corporate wrongdoing have been recently revealed by investigative reporter Adele Ferguson," writes "The Gadfly" columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.

"The anger rises whenever I look back at the hospital starved for funds that could at least have provided treatment for my weeping neighbour in the plastic ED ward, and a bed for myself in the extremis of despair, writes ROBERT MACKLIN. 

Letter writer ERIC HUNTER, of Cook, says his journalistic luck was in coming before today’s "unfettered social media, which allows people anonymously to make claims with no regard for truth or the presumption of innocence". 

Letter writer RON LEICHT says: "We can't get roads fixed, footpaths fixed, hospitals to run efficiently, but we sure need the tree police!" The tree police? We'll let him explain...