We know of at least one other savage dog attack at an ACT Housing property, while an American pit bull roaming loose from another public housing property recently menaced us. Additionally, near neighbours operating a piano studio feel threatened and deeply concerned about risks posed to their junior students by roaming fighting dogs from an ACT Housing property, and the unpleasantness of frequent foul language from that property.

Furthermore, we have encountered numerous instances where ACT Housing has patently failed to enforce its own tenancy agreements, resulting in vile, slum-like conditions. In one such case, after killing 40+ rats emanating from the ACT Housing property next door, we erected a tall Colorbond fence for protection and to screen out the disgraceful view, with the neighbour almost immediately defacing it. And we pay annual rates exceeding $4500 for the privilege of being subjected to this.

This pattern shows some people in Canberra have more rights than others, and it's time serious consideration was given to improving this alarming situation before public housing gets even more out of control. How dare The Canberra Times and its readers so blindly condemn Nicholls residents who have expressed concern about a potential new public housing estate.

Michael and Christine O'Loughlin, Griffith

The present crisis over the light-rail project is a consequence of an appalling failure in planning and control of development. The failure to rein in the development ambitions of the owners of Canberra Airport, and the junking of the development of Tuggeranong, Woden and Belconnen and Gungahlin in favour of centralising development on Civic. The failure to pursue the commitment to develop the rail connection to Melbourne and Sydney that was part of the compact to develop Canberra as the national capital; and the failure to develop a rail transport spine as part of Canberra's Y-Plan or to connect it to Queanbeyan, Yass and Cooma meant and opportunity for better development of the region was lost.

These failures, plus the fussing about over the development of the lake foreshore, are all illustrations of a failure of planning and political imagination.

Although most of these failures led to critical traffic congestion, we cannot solve the transport challenge Canberra is facing by investing in yet more roads.

We must remember most of the failures were the consequence of failure while the ACT was under Commonwealth control. A series of local administrations have compounded the problems, but that is not a reason for the Commonwealth to absolve itself from their solution.

The ACT government must try to lift its game, stop stuffing around over a light rail that cannot resolve the issues, resort to principle and demand that the Commonwealth become engaged in solving the problems it fundamentally created.

Patrick Troy, Reid

Your editorial, "Light rail and the transport challenge" (Times2, July13, p2) contains some silly statements.

The assertion that the Gungahlin Drive extension and other major roadworks don't relieve traffic congestion is just plain silly. They don't eliminate it, of course, but they do relieve it; imagine what Canberra would be like if the road network had not been constantly upgraded over the years and that is the test.

It is also true that new roads quickly fill up, but that merely indicates the level of demand – ie, how much they are needed, not how much they are not needed.

The real solution to Canberra's congestion is a planning one. Thirty years ago, we had the Y-Plan, where development was not going to be concentrated in Civic, but spread around, with the Belconnen and Woden town centres (and potentially others) being developed alongside it. That would have meant many of our major arterial roads would be in use in both directions in both peak hours, making better use of their capacity and dramatically reducing congestion. But the Y-Plan has been abandoned.

One thing that will not solve the problem is spending $1billion on one corridor to install a tram. By all means, upgrade public transport, but in the most cost-effective way possible. The Barr government should look at all the alternatives, but it is fixated on the tram for political reasons.

Stan Marks, Hawker

Veronica Giles (Letters, July13) is not keen on the current monopoly position of our local cabs and sees market nirvana with Uber. Uber is setting out to be the Google of ride-sharing and the things that make Google able to overwhelm its competition is the same thing that makes Uber likely to be a global monopoly of ride-sharing. Scale in this area of technology is everything, and buying out and pushing out all other competition is the likely scenario.

The market "miracle" requires conditions for consumers that are unlikely be met, like having many suppliers of Uber-like products from which to choose.

Uber is not there yet, but when it achieves dominance in the area that we have known to date as taxis, the rights of consumers, drivers and all else will be decided in Uber's interest. Our challenge is to allow the new technologies to serve us without making us Uber's slave.

Philida Sturgiss-Hoy, Downer

As Mr Hingee points out (Letters, July14), The Canberra Times prefers to publish short contributions in the letter columns. And brevity involves its own challenges for the writer in such cases.

Describing European bankers as "dumb", however, should not be the consequence of the search for brevity (Letters, July7). Dumb, to me is a lazy, arrogant word, when used to describe anyone's intellectual capacity, even that of European bankers. I believe it tells the reader more about the user of the word than anything else. I am sure it doesn't appear in too many economic textbooks.

I would also point out to Mr Hingee that his constant referring to all things Irish when replying to my letters is a huge and impertinent assumption. I am proud of my ancestry and my name, but really they should have nothing to do with the content of my letters to the editor.

Patrick O'Hara, Isaacs

I am an inner-south resident and read the article on the Telopea tennis courts ("Griffith opposition to land-swap plan grows", July10, p1), and your article on Manuka Oval usage ("International games for Manuka Oval", Sport July10, p32). I am sick of reading of community groups from the inner south complaining about tennis courts that are never used or extended use of the Manuka Oval lights. Why are they not fighting for important issues, like the continual demolition of original red brick houses to be replaced by McMansions.

Half a dozen beautiful houses have just been demolished for units at the top end of Leichhardt Street and another is being demolished in Stuart Street. Let's fight the cause, as soon there will be no beautiful red brickies left and no Canberra history .

Richard Taplin, Kingston

Democracy has been the subject of press comment recently. Then I read the Canberra Times editorial, "Let's build our own play spaces" (Forum, July11, p5). There is even a non-profit organisation founded in the United States that will tell us how build public playgrounds ourselves, independent of any government.

Civic entitlement is becoming a "do-it-yourself" exercise. Children's playgrounds, education facilities, hospitals, medical research facilities, military personnel debriefing and support, acts of god, etc, all clamour for more money, for charity, to supplement the taxes we pay the government to provide these services.

Perhaps we could rephrase "small government" as "DIY democracy".

Gary J. Wilson, MacGregor

More loans for Greece. More debt for Greece. More austerity for Greece. Higher taxes for Greece. More capital controls for Greece. Less sovereignty for Greece.

Given Greece' s massive fiscal debts, insolvent banking system and contracting economy, why did the Greek government make post-referendum concessions to the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank for the privilege of staying in the eurozone?

The cowardly Greek government would rather consign the Greek people to permanent debt servitude and subservience to the troika than default on its debts and nationalise its banking system.

Repeated financial bailouts create enormous moral hazard and extirpate all remnants of financial and fiscal discipline. Incredibly, after Greece's bailout deal, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker boasted, "I say to all those who bet against Greece and against Europe: You lost and Greece won. You lost and Europe won."

Victor Diskordia, McKelllar

It is clear from the latest "rescue package" that the European financial troika is out to kill the Greek people's hope and to destroy democracy in Greece and around the world. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would do well to reject it and to tell his people the same thing legendary Spanish leader "La Pasionaria" told Spaniards defending Madrid during the Spanish Civil War: "It is preferable to die on your feet than to live on your knees."

John Rodriguez, Florey

It is reported that the Vatican's first (first?!), suspiciously long-overdue sex abuse trial closed after a mere six minutes – an infinitesimal fraction of time in the rolling decades of the sexual abuse of children by a conga line of priests – owing to the very convenient indisposition of one Jozef Wesolowski, 66, a former archbishop inflicted on the Dominican Republic, who, it is alleged, made it his business, serially, to sexually abuse under-age boys.

He is in intensive care in hospital, apparently; unlike his victims, whose care would have been non-existent or grudging, and certainly not intensive. It will be very instructive to see how this self-styled "reformist" pontiff contrives to explain this latest evasion of justice.

A.M.Whiddett, Yarralumla

Since the visual beauty of the wind farms is so distressing to Tony Abbott and company, we should consider options other than banning them all together. We could try painting them sky blue. That way, they should be invisible to all and sundry, like planes, birds and politicians.

Or perhaps we could throw a blanket over them and deny the reality of the climate situation. But my favourite idea is that we should attach LEDs to the blades and as they spin, they can spell out words of wisdom in the night sky. I'll let the reader decide what might be appropriate.

Joe Murphy, Bonython

So, our forward-thinking PM wants to encourage large-scale renewable energy projects. Well, Tony, here's the one to kick off your brave new world: Port Augusta. Get on the blower to the South Australia Premier and together kick off the replacement of the two polluting, cancer-producing coal-fired belchers there with an all-singing, all-dancing solar thermal plant. The private mob that bought the belchers from the SA public now wants to close them, anyway.

The locals are on board. Investors are lining up to help. So, Tony, how about some positive action and not mere political platitudes.

Anthony Stuart, Chapman

I recall that in 2013 Tony Abbott said he would lead a "responsible", "adult" government that would be "transparent and open".

So, Mr Abbott, what's responsible about cutting funding to renewable energy; what's responsible about disregarding our environment in favour of coal mining; what's adult about depriving disadvantaged people of welfare; what's responsible about turning back people who are applying for sanctuary; what's transparent about hasty legislation around border protection, security and the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations; what's responsible or transparent about the possible incarceration of health professionals who dare to report on abuses within detention centres.

The only thing this government is responsible for is damaging Australia's future. Its narrow-minded ideology is beyond belief and dangerous. It will be judged harshly in history.

Barbara Godfrey, Lyneham

Does the immigrant Tony Abbott realise the damage Bex powders did to a generation of Australians, especially women, who followed the advice of the advertisers to have a Bex and a lie-down to get through the stresses of daily life?

It was banned from sale in the 1970s because of the permanent damage to kidneys caused by this combination of drugs. Many people listening to Mr Abbott would have lost a close relative to kidney failure. Is he so insensitive that he just doesn't care, or is he ignorant of this painful episode in Australia's cultural history?

K.L.Calvert, Downer

The revelation Labor leader Bill Shorten received a $60,000 electoral contribution from Unibilt while the Australian Workers Union was negotiating an agreement with the company shows him to be an opportunist unfit to lead the Labor Party.

Rather than Shorten spending his life "supporting working families", as he claims, the evidence seems to point the other way round. Australian working families, in this case AWU members, have very generously given up pay and conditions in the interests of Shorten's ambitions and political career.

Al Harris, Braidwood , NSW

The undiplomatic response from the Australian government in rejecting visas for members of the Russian satellite team who were to visit Brisbane for three days is a petty act of Cold War tantrums, obviously dictated by the US. This is just another example of Australia's lack of independence.

Alan McNeil, Weetangera

COALITION APT TITLE

I wonder about the Abbott government's passion for coal in a world that is turning to renewable energy. Is the government being controlled by the mining lobby, or have they come up with the "coal is good for humanity" slogan all by themselves. No wonder they're called the COALition.

Barbara Godfrey, Lyneham

LACKING APPRECIATION

It would appear Tony Abbott has just realised some people will use the accelerated asset depreciation scheme he gave them to start businesses in areas he doesn't like, ie, renewable energy. Can't they take a hint, the ingrates?

S.W.Davey, Torrens

BLOWN THEIR CHANCES

Apparently, on the evidence available to the public, the wind power industry (that designs, constructs, and maintains electricity-producing wind turbines) has not donated sufficient money to the Liberal Party.

John Widdup, Lyneham

CLASH OF GOALS

Bill Shorten is accused of being unable to reconcile a conflict involving his union duties and his political ambitions. The Liberal Party cogently understands such a problem. Liberal Party politicians seem unable to reconcile their political ambitions with democracy.

Brian Hungerford, Curtin

PALTRY CONTRIBUTION

Dave Jeffrey (Letters, July1) observes that Australia, with only 0.003per cent of the world's population, is insignificant in any contribution to climate-change mitigation and so we shouldn't bother trying. As I only contribute a minuscule 0.000000012per cent to the government's tax revenue, I can only conclude that, as it makes next to no difference to total government funding, it is just plain dumb for me to keep paying it.

Tim Herne, Calwell

I think the headline on Dave Jeffrey's letter ("Energy targets futile") was misleading. He did not successfully make that case, but he did make a case for doing nothing because "I'm all right Jack".

John F. Simmons, Kambah

STILL WAITING

I recently signed up to ActewAGL's "downlight upgrade scheme" to replace my halogen downlights with LED bulbs. On the specified time and date, the installer failed to arrive. He rang three hours later to say he would be another hour. That was four weeks ago, and he hasn't shown up yet. Ever the optimist, I'm sure he'll be here soon, but we're going to run out of food if we don't go out soon.

Terry Levings, Curtin

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attached file. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

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