In their article on Sunday in the Canberra Times "What about poverty, inequality?" Frances Crimmins and Jeremy Halcrow (co-chairs of Anti-Poverty Week ACT), tell us it is also Anti-Poverty Week.

This was established in Australia as an expansion of the UN's annual International Anti-Poverty Day on October 17 which begins on October 15, the same day as our ACT Legislative Assembly Election.

Canberra has the second highest rate of homelessness in Australia, after the Northern Territory. The authors estimate there are at least 2000 people in Canberra who are homeless.

My thought is the ACT Labor Party's proposed $14 billion whole of life expenditure estimated by former Treasury official Khalid Ahmed, (Canberra Times Forum 8/10/16 p. 4) on the white elephant light rail project would be far better spent on building accommodation for these 2000 homeless Canberrans.

A whole suburb could be built with that money!

As homelessness and mental health are inextricably linked, Mental Health Week and Anti-Poverty Week seem like the perfect opportunity for political parties to get their priorities right.

Robyn McIntyre, Bonython

One lesson reinforced by the parliamentary inquiry into banks is the sheer futility of an inquiry.

The biggest mistake any Australian government has made is the sale of the Commonwealth Bank.

Mistakes can be redeemed and if we reconstituted that bank with perhaps the Australian Bank as a title we would have five large banks and genuine competition. The bank could be funded by the Futures Fund.

The new bank would have to run on commercial principles and its charter would be to operate in a fair way with dividends of at least eight per cent payable to the Future Fund.

Anyone with any experience of the Telecom Ombudsman who is funded by the telecom industry would know how self-serving an arrangement that is.

Setting up a self-regulation Ombudsman for the banks would have a similar result.

Howard Carew, Isaacs

Maria Greene (Canberra Times, October 7) asks about possible nut-free independent candidates she can vote for. As a former rusted-on Labor voter who was contemplating voting Liberal for the first time, can I suggest any member of the Canberra Community Voters team? This is an umbrella group whose members have disparate interests but have made a commitment to evidence-based policies/programs and open and accountable government, with a corruption commission monitoring the process.

Even one elected member would be a powerful and positive force in ridding us of the spivs and spin-meisters who have made the Legislative Assembly their home.

Wayne Ralph, Hawker

I am deeply flattered that Justin McCarthy, (letters October 6, page 15) is able to quote from my letter of February 21, more than six months ago.

I checked my letter and I clearly quoted Einstein's words while I did not claim that he himself was a believer in God. To clear up any confusion in a further letter of March 13 I stated: "I agree that Einstein was not a religious believer in the conventional sense but he had a profound awareness of the mystery at the heart of the universe and sometimes used religious terms to describe it."

Father Robert Willson, Deakin

I recently read an opinion poll relating to the next federal election, which is a few years away.

I have seen polls relating to the WA election in March next year. Opinion polls have been a prominent part of election campaigns for many years.

Where then are the polls on the ACT election due next Saturday?

Peter Stubbs, Gungahlin

The Curtin Master Plan certainly needs finalising (Master Plan, Canberra Times, Letters, October 9). This should be in the interests of the residents' concerns already strongly expressed, especially concerning private over-shadowing in our well-used public square.

There are presently significant concerns about planning decisions in the ACT and private profit should not replace good public design.

Peter Graves, Curtin

Observing the ACT through the lens of online Canberra Times letters, I feel like Gandalf viewing the Shire from afar. The dark clouds are gathering and the Hobbits are peacefully bickering.

Wake up Canberra! When Hillary gets in, she is going to start a war with Russia. Australia needs to disassociate itself from the Destroyer of Nations.

We should call in Ambassador Berry to inform him in no uncertain terms that Australia will not follow the US into war again.

We should withdraw our war making apparatus in Syria and Iraq; withdraw from Five Eyes; decommission existing assets tied to US global surveillance; and most of all re-assess ANZUS.

Kenneth Griffiths, Java, Indonesia

The kudos, bombast, designer uniforms, aura, arms, insignia, (fiction of) border impregnability and a grossly over-remunerated administration devaluing its staff renders immigration a parody (Last stand before Commission steps in, CT, 8 October, p.10).

Border protection could be outsourced to the People's Liberation Army!

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan

Less than a week out from the ACT Election which will decide who will lead us for the next four years, and set the strategic direction for the next generation, I am not even close to deciding how I will vote.

The disappointing campaign has seen the major parties seeking to neutralise the other's positions rather than have a real conversation about their vision for the future.

While the Land Development Agency shenanigans are concerning, one also has to ask about the quality of the opposition.

Have they been asleep for the last 15 years, and what else have they missed?

Three items concern me. Is the Territory's longer term (say 20-year financial outlook) sustainable or parlous? Does the approach towards zero carbon emissions involve too many uncontrolled risks? Why have both parties seemingly ignored road safety, leading to the suggestion they believe the current death and injury toll is optimised? All I hear is we will build light rail, or we will not build the tram.

At this stage all I can say is that I will not be lodging a vote for a sitting member.

Bill Gemmell, Holder

On a recent trip to Europe I learnt how another culture, not markedly different from our own, has dealt with building a light rail system.

Bergen, Norway, a growing city similar in size to Canberra and facing much higher construction costs because of its terrain, commenced construction of a light rail system in 2007 with the first stage operating from 2010.

Stage 3 to the airport is finished and almost ready to open. There is now talk about the route of the next stage (north of the city; the first three stages were south).

The main driving factors were to better manage congestion and air pollution, as well as help drive urban development.

The debate seemed to be more about the route and speed, and less about cost.

I was told an additional and unexpected benefit is a new pride among residents, even those who do not use it. Light rail is evidence of a modern and international city. Bergen wants to be seen as such.

I am sure we want to be seen as, and feel that we too are, a modern, forward thinking and international city.

Can we move on and celebrate what Canberra can become?

Peter Ottesen, Curtin

A recent trip through the northern and western suburbs of Sydney highlighted to me just how lucky Canberrans are to have a Territory government with sufficient foresight and bravery to start now on a public infrastructure project of the scale of the light rail network.

Much of Sydney is now suffering from expensive, disruptive road and rail projects.

Those projects were necessitated by a crisis in transport that has resulted in three- to four-hour daily commutes for many working families.

Each of the road and rail projects in Sydney is occurring as a response to a current congestion crisis and each is happening at least 30 years after it should have commenced.

The cost of these projects, in terms of lost productivity, property acquisitions and mitigation works, is many times greater than if the NSW state government had started work on a solution before there was a crisis.

Instead, it chose a Band-Aid approach by tinkering with the existing road network and adding to congestion by putting more buses on the roads.

The ACT government, at apparently significant political cost, has done the right thing and prepared for the future growth of Australia's Capital.

Tony Judge, Woolgoolga.

I note in Monday's Canberra Times that another 17 trees on Northbourne are to face the chop on the basis that they're deemed unsafe due to the long spell of wet weather.

Who provided this advice? Colliers? Going by Kirsten Lawson's editorial in Saturday's Canberra Times it would appear that Colliers have been requested by Labor to provide advice, "valuations" and training on all things property. Just wondering whether they also have an arborist in their midst.

Here comes the tram! Here comes the tram! The tram is coming!

Peter Toscan, Amaroo

Timing is the chief reason why political bean counters roll their eyes when it is put to them that it makes far better financial sense to head off with programs in the community, the risk factors that propel people into the damaging criminal justice system.

Addressing the social determinants of health and wellbeing will take years; certainly beyond the horizon of politicians.

Justice reinvestment is fine in theory but crime has to be dealt with now, not after a generation grows up with better education, housing, health and the like.

It's a brave politician who, in our short electoral cycle, champions the case, though the NSW Liberals are taking it on, if only in regional areas like Moree.

Unlike almost any other social intervention, the return on drug law reform is virtually immediate. Within six months of the introduction of heroin prescription in Switzerland there was a 98 per cent reduction among participants in serious property crime and a 92 per cent reduction in drug trafficking.

Yes, minister, or aspiring minister, you can be confident that at least one courageous decision will bring a reward by the next election.

Bill Bush, Turner

Does anyone know if the Do Not Call Register is effective or not?

What does it cost to run per year?

How many staff are employed?

Even though my number is registered with this government body, I still keep getting calls.

The caller is adamant they have a right to phone me because they are calling from outside the country.

Reporting the details of the calls is a waste of time as I am told there is nothing can be done about them.

Save some money, Malcolm, and disband this waste of taxpayers' donations.

V. Lauf, Bungendore

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