We need to wait for the findings of any investigation and coronial inquiry, because the only reports to emerge so far speak of her being surrounded by five police officers, armed with batons, capsicum sprays, Tasers and guns, and that they had no choice but to shoot her dead. This just cannot be true.

Jack drew some comparison with the Martin Place siege. On that day, Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn assured us she had "the best negotiators in the world" on the job, and that the "patience strategy" would pay off. Sadly, the world's best negotiators failed miserably on that day, and the patience policy left three people dead, several injured and many in trauma.

Senior officers in that force need to focus on the needs of the people under their command who are, on a daily basis, thrown into complex and dangerous situations for which they are ill-prepared.

In a domestic police service, artillery is no substitute for common sense and public respect.

Margaret Owens, Narrabundah

It was with great concern and sorrow that I realised that the girl shot dead by police outside a Hungry Jack's in Sydney had Asperger's syndrome. Although I understand some action was required to remove the kitchen knife from her, it is the type of intervention that I deplore. Shouting and spraying this girl, who had Asperger's syndrome, with capsicum spray would have totally overwhelmed her senses making it impossible for her to listen and follow instructions.

I also fail to understand why the police need to shoot to kill; surely, shooting her in the arm or leg would have been sufficient.

New ACTION bus drivers benefit from a talk by parents of people with disabilities. What training do police cadets receive? I would be very interested to know.

About 10 years ago, Autism Asperger ACT endeavoured to provide some on-the-job training for emergency service workers in the ACT. Only one police station availed itself of this opportunity.

I am sure more talks could be organised if the interest was there.

Gay von Ess, Aranda

Surprise, surprise; ACTION patronage has fallen ("Parking fees fail to boost ACTION patronage", February 12, p4). ACT governments have been dishing up a service for a long time that is out of sync with what potential commuters want - which is why the government will never get them out of their cars.

One only has to look at our "peak hours" to see so many single-driver cars. A more radical approach to delivery of public transport services might help. Granted, there are costs in running a bus service, but looking elsewhere for answers is ridiculous.

Shane Rattenbury needs to talk to the car drivers in each catchment. Forget MY Way data and bus interchanges - the 7 per cent hardly bears thinking about. The government's market is the other 95 per cent. Reach out to them and find out why they are not riding ACTION.

Do whatever it takes to get them on board. Community councils and other groups can help. If Mr Rattenbury doesn't, his intended light rail will become a beautiful but very expensive white elephant, which Joe Public will hate him for.

Russ Morison, Theodore

I suggest D. Zivkovic (Letter, February 12), who disagrees with my (hopefully constructive) critique of a proposed very dense Dickson redevelopment ("Architect slams Dickson 'urban blight"', February 8) that places residences cheek by jowl with two supermarkets' loading docks, etc, read "Higher-density living can make us healthier but not on its own", by Jennifer Kent, Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, in The Conversation.

A key extract is: "Badly constructed or poorly located higher-density housing can also cause problems through poor ventilation and insulation, lack of sunlight, insufficient public and private open space, and exposure to pollutants or intrusive noise."

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

Two of my most important points were left out of my letter on the Independent Remuneration Tribunal, published on February 13. Your readers should be informed that, as far as I am aware, the tribunal has never included senior representatives from bodies such as the Salvos, St Vinnies or Rotary, etc, so the views of ordinary members of the community on pay rises for pollies are not canvassed.

Furthermore, how can the tribunal be regarded as "independent" when its own remuneration is determined by the Chief Minister, who benefits from the largesse provided by the tribunal?

Ric Hingee, Duffy

Whether Kent Fitch (Letters, February 10) is correct in predicting an earlier presence of autonomous vehicles on our roads, or Peter Fuller (Letters, February 13) is correct in quoting "2030 at the very earliest", is immaterial in the context of the light rail debate. Either way, the prospect of autonomous vehicles makes light rail a bad investment for Canberra.

There are autonomous vehicle movement functions (eg, parallel parking) incorporated in vehicles on our roads today. Any transition to fully autonomous vehicles will be incremental. A likely next step will be parking stations in which the movement of vehicles is autonomous. Then there will be traffic lanes restricted to autonomous vehicles - only empty vehicles in the first stage, which will be critical for matching autonomous vehicles, which can be driver controlled, to demand, and preventing accumulation of vehicles at places where there is no current demand.

Once city dwellers realise you can have all the mobility advantages of a car, without owning one, the profile of urban traffic will change rapidly. Public transport will be truly based on the motor car. As for trams, well, there was a cardboard replica!

A. Smith, Farrer

Irrespective of how often it's used, and regardless of the evolving nature of the English language, the word "irregardless" will always be a solecism. (Janet Thomas, Letters, February 16).

C. McKenzie, Lyneham

If recent experience is anything to go by, the issue of concussion and brain injury is well worth highlighting, especially in the ACT ("Putting lives on the line", Forum, February 14, p1).

A family member recently experienced a head injury – not on the football field, but at work. Symptoms, including painful headache and dizziness, did not occur immediately, but three days later. (Apparently this is not uncommon.)

There were consultations with numerous GPs and an emergency department doctor, all of whom assessed the patient against "textbook case" criteria and all of whom seemed to have limited confidence in discussing or responding to symptoms that did not conform entirely to this model. Only the persistence of the patient and his family resulted in a referral for a scan nearly two weeks after the onset of symptoms.

Five weeks after initial medical advice had been sought, a GP provided a diagnosis of post-concussion syndrome, together with a sketchily worded referral to a neurologist. The take-home messages from this experience are, first, doctors (due to either medical training or time pressures) cannot be counted on to look for the cause of persistent and disabling symptoms, especially those that do not fit the "textbook" model; second, patients need to be as informed as possible and to ask questions; third, front-line medical staff must be given up-to-date information about diagnosing and responding to head injuries; and, fourth, any pressure on doctors to avoid "overservicing" needs to be weighed against the risks of failing to refer patients for precautionary investigations.

M. Saunders, Weetangera

I read with dismay your report ("Feds eye Triangle sell-off", February 14, p1) that the federal government was considering selling buildings in the Parliamentary Triangle to the private sector. The report goes on to quote Senator Mathias Cormann: "Ownership options will be considered in the context of the 2015-16 budget."

It is one thing for a government to manage the immediate budget; it is another for it to sell assets for a short-term financial gain when successive governments and, ultimately, taxpayers will pay the price in leasing buildings back from the private sector. Where is the long-term consideration of government?

It is no surprise that Catherine Carter, of the ACT Property Council, would welcome such a move and encourage selling of further government buildings. Clearly, she understands the long-term cash flow to ACT office property owners as a result of such moves.

It is heartening that Queenslanders have understood these economics and have sent a clear message to their outgoing government that they don't support the short-term fix of asset sales. It is time that the economic performance of successive governments is measured, not only on their ability (or inability) to balance the budget, but whether or not they have been able to do so without the need for asset stripping.

Martin Grimm Curtin

If Joe Hockey is genuinely worried about the latest figures for unemployment (6.4per cent), may I suggest he have a chat to his colleague Peter Dutton, the Minister for Immigration ("Treasurer Joe Hockey hangs tough despite jobs slump", February 14).

Journalist Tim Colebatch pointed out last month that, in the three years to December 2014, Australia's working-age population grew by a million but jobs grew by a mere 385,000, an annual shortfall of 205,000 new jobs. Net overseas migration for the year to June 2014 was 212,700 people. Unless Minister Dutton can make a sound case that immigrants create new jobs, it would seem that cutting immigration significantly would go a long way towards balancing new jobs with growth in the working-age population.

Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

Tony Abbott's commission of a rapid-fire volley of errors, after having declared last Monday that "good government starts today", must be the drawn-out climax of any tragic comedy. The march of the phalanx of Coalition tribunes into the party room on Monday should have been accompanied by Respighi's Pines of Rome". The symbolism would have been more complete.

Come Thursday, there was an attack on the Human Rights Commission for releasing the report on children suffering in immigration detention, labelling it a "blatantly partisan politicised exercise".

It would have been more on point to see if the report was otherwise accurate. If the PM wanted the scope of the report to be broadened to cover the period of an earlier government, then a royal commission would have been a way of achieving that "balance" .

Still on Thursday, there was the phrase, "holocaust of jobs" (which he retracted, and for which he apologised) followed by the privileged indulgence of publishing evidence that is not yet before a properly constituted court, thereby risking the due administration of justice in an alleged terrorist plot case. This is not to say that the prosecution's case is unavoidably destroyed – it is not, but the gaff will serve as an unwelcome distraction – a bit like the demotion of a prince to a knight.

Since he is so prone to raising eyebrows so soon after the start of "good government", he should ask himself before speaking, "What would Malcolm say?" Better still, he should think of the good of the country and let Malcolm do the speaking.

George Brzostowski, Adjunct Professor, Melba

Apparently the good news is the latest Reserve Bank rate cut and another on the way. What about self-funded retirees? This large section of Australia's population is seemingly invisible to the government, the RBA and the media. As the rates have been driven lower and lower, so have the returns on the hard-earned savings of many retirees. Term deposits now realise less than inflation rates. Whilst this seems of little concern to mainstream Australia, perhaps the ramifications should be considered?

Not only does Australia have an overall reduction in accumulated savings (which fund house loans, car loans etc for others), but a class of individuals who have few options, yet dramatically declining incomes.

Kathryn Spurling, Chifley

Joe Hockey keeps telling us that we will all be doomed unless we accept his austerity measures, then we have people such as Barnaby Joyce and other conservatives claiming that if expenditure is not reduced, "where is the money going to come from to maintain services?" This exaggerated rhetoric just doesn't cut the mustard with thinking people.

Australia enjoys a lower debt ratio than most developed countries. Also, the Coalition includes outgoings, which clearly are not expenditure (eg, education is not expenditure, it is investment in our future intellectual capital). The Abbott government's intention to dumb down the population with its proposed policies to make education the prerogative of the wealthy will cause a disastrous deterioration of our way of life.

If the Abbott government needs to increase revenue rather than cutting expenditure, there are mountains of money waiting to be legitimately taxed by a government with the backbone to go and get it. One reads about cuts to the pensions and other allowances, then turns the page and find a report about an international corporation that made $80billion in Australia upon which it paid no tax. This is only the tip of what could be available, instead creating misery for those already struggling to survive.

John Vincent, Wanniassa

STOP BRAGGING

Voters were led to believe the abolition of the carbon tax was going to solve Australia's economic problems. It is now obvious ("Jobless rate highest in 13 years as leaders bicker over strategy", February 13, p5) axing the carbon tax has had no impact on jobs or consumer confidence. Time for the Coalition to stop bragging about its abolition.

Robyn Lewis, Raglan, NSW

SYDNEY SIEGE

Bravo Mario Stivala for his balanced and appropriate support for the NSW Police in their handling of the Lindt massacre in Sydney (Letters, February 12). When tragic results occur, the armchair critics are always vocal on issues of which they have no real knowledge or understanding.

Janne Blunden, Hughes

IDENTIFY ABUSERS

The Australian Human Rights Commission has criticised the long-term detention of children in off-shore centres and has highlighted cases of assault and sexual abuse. Why, then, has it not identified the abusers, who would appear to be the so-called asylum seekers themselves?

F. Lamb, Lyons

QUESTION OF GENDER

If Gillian Triggs' name was spelt

G-i-l-b-e-r-t instead of Gillian, would our new "good government" Prime Minister have attacked her in the same demeaning and bullying way.

Robyn Stanhope, Bruce

FAR FROM HUMBLE

Is there anything more banal and cliched than a politician who has just won power announcing that he or she is humbled by it. Give us a break; we know they are over the moon and being humble is the last thing on their mind.

Norman Lee, Weston

WORD HAS WIDER USE

Please Judith Ireland ("Foot-in-mouth still remains scourge for Abbott", Forum, February 14, p7) etal, I don't believe the word "holocaust" (lower case) is trademarked by the Jewish people any more than "genocide" (lower case) is for say, Armenians.

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

NO NEED FOR APOLOGY

In my copy of the 1976 edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary the definition of the word "holocaust" is "wholly burnt offering; wholesale sacrifice (fig.) or destruction especially by fire". Why should Tony Abbott, or anyone else, need to apologise for its use? Let us hope that, in using it to describe a forecast increase in unemployment, Mr Abbott was guilty of exaggeration; but did its use require an apology? Certainly not!

Henry Lawrence, Belconnen

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