The Amnesty report By Hook or by Crook: Australia's Abuse of Asylum Seekers at Sea is an evidence-based analysis of a crime. It is not bullying advocacy. Amnesty has an excellent worldwide reputation for honest research and telling the truth as a means of combating repressive regimes.

Australia can have a policy to deter asylum seekers, but it must work within the rule of law. The problem with secrecy over transparency is that things do leak, the pressure builds up and eventually the scandal explodes in a way that is much worse than if it were not covered up.

It appears to me that the Australian government, in one way or another, is guilty of a crime at sea under international law. The Australian government is also complicit in covering up rape, murder and the abuse of children in facilities under its charge.

The secrecy has to go and the government needs to take responsibility for its actions.

Dr Tony Stewart, Hughes

Jack Waterford's excellent article ("Abbott speech dampens nation's standing", Forum, October 31, p1) challenges Tony Abbott to accept that it was the poorly thought-out intervention by the West in Syria and Iraq that has led directly to many thousands of the region's population now searching for a safer country.

Sadly, Abbott seems to be on a different planet, as he continues to argue Western intervention should be intensified.

Has he given any thought to the consequences of such a move, which would undoubtedly lead to even more people knocking on the doors of European countries?

And if it were left to Abbott, these people would end up with no country, and the Islamic State would emerge as the winner – again.

Sam Nona, Burradoo, NSW

Noting its damaging consequences for our national standing, Jack Waterford has taken Tony Abbott to task for his "refugee speech" to a group of British Tories in London last week. In doing so, Waterford has pointed to Abbott's long record in support of ill-advised Middle East policies that are widely considered to have vastly exacerbated the relevant crises, including the many-faceted refugee problem itself. The same may be said of intensifying Islamist fanaticism, including especially the rise of the IS movement in war-torn Iraq and Syria.

Equally damaging to our national standing is ex-PM Abbott's active campaign over many years directed to sabotaging Australia's fair contribution to the global mitigation of human-caused climate change. Consequent scaling up of environmental refugees is widely predicted as just one potential consequence of dangerous climate change over the coming decades.

Indeed, very severe drought and high global food prices in the context of the "Arab Spring" has been implicated amongst the multiple causes of the civil war and human catastrophe in Syria itself.

Barry Naughten, Farrer

The hysteria by Abbott haters over his speech in London, warning of the dangers of unrestrained immigration was typically unhinged.

Having read his unremarkable words, I find it astonishing that the thrust of his sentiments are not accepted wisdom.

How could any sensible person support German Chancellor Angela Merkel's call to all comers? And, as Abbott remarked, how could you blame anyone for accepting such a generous invitation to arguably the richest welfare state on earth?

Merkel's folly has created a torrent of people who have precious little in common with, or tolerance of, European Judaeo-Christian values.

Most of these people, who would never be considered genuine refugees, are now flowing into countries that want no part of Merkel's distorted altruism and the cracks are starting to show.

Spikes in anti-immigration demonstrations, violence towards and within the hordes of migrants, and growing resentment against healthy young men demanding unearned welfare has created a poisoned brew of potential social disharmony that will be very difficult to overcome.

Tony Abbott had the strength of character to bell the cat and Western democracies would do well to heed the warning.

H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW

In recent times, I have become weary of the tiresome haranguing against Tony Abbott and even against John Howard. A recent letter referred to Tony Abbott as reminding them of Adolf Hitler, which was not only in poor taste but a reflection on the author.

I am not sure if all such letter writers are actually aware that Abbott and Howard are no longer prime minister, have no further power in political decision making and neither are remotely ever likely to return to such heights in political terms. This type of continual verbiage is also a reflection on the standard of thinking of such authors.

Perhaps all of them could get together somewhere, build a bridge and get over it.

G. W. Potts, Holder

In response to Murray Upton, it might be interesting to examine who actually controls the world through the lens of Christian theology.

According to theology, the cause of all the suffering in the world is revealed in the story of when Jesus was tested in the desert for 40 days by the devil. During this time, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and offered them to him if Jesus would bow down and worship him.

Now, if the devil didn't own the kingdoms of the world, he wouldn't be able to offer them to Jesus, hence the belief that Christians are awaiting the Kingdom of God on earth to set things right. Regardless of whether one believes in Christianity or not, that's the theory anyway.

The other argument may well be that Murray Upton is right and the world is a mere cosmic coincidence; whichever option is truly up to the belief of the individual.

Tom Quinlan, Gordon

If a week in politics is a long time, four years must be an eternity. Here is an idea to lend credibility to the Labor/Greens' light-rail proposal. Presently, we have the situation where the ACT Labor government will let contracts for light rail prior to the next election. If Labor regains government, there will be four years of light rail construction, which may go well, or may go poorly, before the ACT electorate has another chance to show their pleasure, or displeasure, with light rail's implementation.

The Labor government would gain true credibility, and demonstrate, beyond doubt, its commitment to the light-rail pre-planning, if it made a 2016 election pledge to resign government should the light-rail project not live up to its much publicised promise. A simple undertaking to resign government if the Stage 1 project exceeds $1billion would seem reasonable.

Otherwise, four years is just too long to wait.

Penleigh Boyd, Reid

The observation in your excellent editorial "Railroading unlikely to get light rail" (Times2, October 28, p2) that Labor is scrambling to ensure that a new Liberal government will be able to unpick light rail only at great cost and inconvenience will concern many Canberrans, because what it describes is a clear attempt to subvert the democratic process.

The ALP's claim to have a mandate is tenuous enough because, although their intention to build the tram was announced during the last election campaign, the matter was not prominent at the time and people voted on other issues. Furthermore, any mandate they had has evaporated, because it was based on a costing of $614million, not $800million-plus and most people, if they thought about it at all, probably assumed the normal planning processes would apply; that is, the government would not use its call-in powers, a step that also represented an attempt to subvert democracy, because the processes that were bypassed are there specifically to put a brake on shonky projects like this one.

No mandate extends beyond the next election, but this government is trying to stop an incoming government from changing direction. If it thought it could win, it would undoubtedly put the matter to the people. But it probably won't win and so its attempt to force the incoming government's hand is also a subversion of the democratic process. The government's credibility is absolutely shot over this issue, but the party to come out of it the worst are the Greens. They have always claimed to occupy the high moral ground but, by being party to this dirty process, they are showing themselves to be as unethical and amoral as a political party can be.

Stan Marks, Hawker

Now that Minister for Capital Metro Simon Corbell has had his fun by providing an avalanche of completely useless tram project minutiae such as square metres of concrete, tonnes of steel rails and platform lengths ("Light-rail traffic impact revealed", October 29, p1) perhaps he might also like to provide ACT ratepayers with the fundamentally important information they have been desperately crying out for.

How much will the project cost, how will that cost be met and how much are our rates going to have to increase as a result?

Bruce Taggart, Aranda

Next week, the ACT government will be begin an augmentation and signalisation of the regularly congested Barton Highway roundabout. The work will take a year, during which time the capacity of the roundabout will be reduced for a year. This will cause further congestion, yet the works won't deliver a solution with lasting benefits.

Clearly, the government hasn't learnt its lesson from the Gungahlin Drive extension debacle, where it cut corners before completing the job properly at greater taxpayer expense.

Each morning, it takes me 15 minutes to escape my suburb, and 10 minutes to complete my commute.

Grade separation between the Gundaroo Drive, William Slim Drive, and the Barton Highway is doing the job properly. Anything less is putting off the inevitable. I, for one, would rather wait a little longer and have the job done right.

Karl Schaffarczyk, Crace

John Burns and Margaret Tuckwell (Letters, October 31) engage in the infamous cultural cringe when they reckon that Australia and New Zealand having similar flags is OK, because the flags of other countries they name are alike. So what? Why does this great nation often look overseas for leads on how to conduct itself? We should untie mummy's apron strings, dump the present flag and become a republic. As a starting point with the flag design, the brilliant Aboriginal flag should inspire us all. Let's grow up and innovate.

Graeme Barrow, Hackett

The proposed ACT Health (Patient Privacy) Amendment Bill effectively introduces the discriminatory notion that persons holding pro-life beliefs should be denied the rights guaranteed in articles 15 and 16 of ACT Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act affirms "everyone", without exception, is entitled to: the right to peaceful assembly; the right to freedom of association; the right to hold opinions without interference; and the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of borders, whether orally, in writing or in print, by way of art, or in another way chosen by him or her.

All citizens have a right to show their humanitarian concerns for mothers and their unborn children in a safe and respectful way in the public square "regardless of borders". They are not to be confined to the legislative precincts as though their concerns are – as Simon Corbell has notified me in writing – merely "a form of political activism".

This bill has no authority to introduce such discriminatory exceptions to the rights and freedoms that belong to "everyone" without exception.

Rita Joseph, Hackett

So, Fame Game's trainer, Yoshitada Munakata, has announced he may use different riding tactics to those that gave the horse no chance in the Caulfield Cup. The horse should be scratched from the race immediately by stewards, both to avoid confusion among punters, and to send a signal to trainers of future Melbourne Cup imports. Message to chief steward Terry Bailey: don't be intimidated by these overseas syndicates.

John Hogbin, Hackett

The antics of a group of young people who "crashed" the recent mining industry awards event in Sydney gave me a huge chuckle. They set up a "Cash for Coal" game where the goal was to grab the largest share of "taxpayer dollars" in the shortest time. It was redolent of some of the Chaser's earlier work: fun, thought-provoking and sharp with satirical bite.

Apparently, we taxpayers spend four times more on fossil fuel subsidies than we do on childcare. As a grandmother worried about the future if we don't speed up the transition to renewable energy, I applaud the creative way the coal industry was challenged by these young people.

Annie Close, Melba

Some of Australia's finest coal seams are located at a shallow depth under Sydney and the Sydney Harbour. These seams are ideal candidates for fracking, coal-seam gas and underground coal gasification. There is a thirsty market right on the doorstep. If coal is good enough for "safe", fracking and CSG exploitation in Chinchilla, then surely there can be no objections to "safe" fracking and CSG and/or UCG exploitation at North Sydney, Manly and Wentworth?

P. R. Temple, Macquarie

Frank Marris's verdict on "jury" usage seems right, since it's sensible and comes with a tinge of legal authority. His verdict is that the word is either singular or plural, depending on the context.

I'm less sanguine about Patrick Jones's implied assertion (Letters, October 29) that "pedanticism" can't be used interchangeably with "pedantry". The former predates the latter and is now less commonly used, but is as acceptable. Not that I would wish to be pedantic about it.

Philip Telford, Tarago, NSW

TO THE POINT

The Canberra Times wants to hear from you in short bursts. Email views in 50 words or fewer to

letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au.

REV UP THE ECONOMY

Now that the undynamic duo of Abbott and Hockey are gone, is there any chance of resurrecting the Australian car industry – you know, Ford, GM, Toyota, Nissan, etc again building cars in Australia – in the interests of being agile, innovative, flexible, entrepreneurial, opportunistic and energetic?

Helen Bruce, Kambah

BALANCE, PLEASE

Patrick O'Hara (Letters, October 31) has done a two-paragraph detailed expose on the morally bankrupt Liberal Party. I now look forward to his one on the ALP.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

HEAR HEAR ...

One can only say "hear hear" to Jason Clare's observation ("ABC morning shake-up ruffles Coalition MPs", October 30, p3 ) that these MPs were being hypocritical in criticising the ABC's decision to rationalise its regional radio programs considering this mob cut the ABC budget and this in the face of Abbott's election promise not to do so.

T. J. Marks, Holt

A senior member of this philistine government complaining that the ABC has not kept its promises? Now I've heard it all.

Fred Roberts, Hughes

WEST BANK TENSIONS

Is Allan Doobov (Letters, October 30) aware a decade has passed since Israel's 2005 settlement closures? Further West Bank settlement closures would indeed prove me wrong, but would be political death in an environment that makes Ariel Sharon look like a screaming, wild-haired hippie. I take no side in a conflict where logic, morality and basic humanity are long departed, and repeat: settlement closures will happen when pigs fly.

Michael Barry, Torrens

Peter Wise (Letters, November 2) is just the latest in the conga line of Zionist hasbarics repeating the endless lies that the reason there is no peace in the Middle East is the naughty Palestinians who dare to object about the decades-old murderous occupation of their land. It is the occupation, it is the occupation, a million times over, it is the occupation.

Marilyn Shepherd, Angaston, SA

WORTHY OF APPLAUSE

Three cheers for Lucie Litchfield, the former police officer, who would not stand by and let her former colleagues railroad Rickey Caton ("Whistleblower officer speaks out about workplace bullying", November 2, p3). A straight copper, she was hounded out of her job. Three resounding cheers!

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

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