The disparity between householders' contributions to the revenue of the ACT is further increased in this year's budget. That some households contribute an average rate of a little over $1600 while others must find over $5000 should indicate that the rates are inequitable.

No one would support a system where the GST or income tax was not either the same for all or based on annual income.

It is time the ACT government developed a different residential levy employing modern technology to administer it.

Clearly the rates are so out of whack with ability to pay and equity that other methods should be explored.

It is particularly galling when one considers where the money is spent. It certainly isn't in the inner south where footpaths, shopping centres, and schools are in modest condition. And then there's the tram ...

Steve Thomas, Yarralumla

There has been a lot of negativity surrounding drug testing welfare recipients, however, I can see an upside. Business has substance- testing equipment available to them, aiming to reduce accidents and increase efficiency.

These tests may return only a very small percentage of positive results, however, the deterrent effect is far greater.

A downside is that some drugs – including alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine, GHB and opiates – are undetectable after one to two days and are believed to be favoured by persons hoping to avoid testing positive.

Matt Ford, Crookwell, NSW

Peace in our time? When US Secretary of Defence refers to the "most urgent threat", he might well be describing Trump's $US110billion arms "deal", dumping matériel into the powderkeg of the Middle East, where Israel has the bomb and seizes every opportunity to poke the hornet's nest that is Iran ("US warns of 'urgent threat' to security", Sunday CT, June 4, p2).

Making the deal with Saudi Arabia suggests amnesia for the fact that their citizens razed the twin towers! Even Americans with short memories should remember Colin Powell recounting to a hushed United Nations Security Council that Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction", and lo, a ring of deja vu, "most urgent threat"!

Salivating in response to the dog whistle, it was all the way with the US to "increase the cost of North Korea's behaviour", Maurice Payne panted. Sanctions, historically, impose unbearable burdens on populations outside the elite governing clique. Experience from Iraq bears this out.

When challenged about effects of sanctions, in which Australia participated via contributing to the navel blockade, Madeleine Albright said the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children (under 5) was worth it! If the myth that expenditure on arms could bring peace, why is the world cursed by conflicts, with mind-bending sums, including by Australia, being thrown at the chimera of "defence". Malcolm Turnbull, reputedly a brilliant silk turned investment banker, in times of austerity, with the poor funding the lifestyle of the elite, sinks $89billion, with abandon, on naval "assets", coincidentally as two spanking new $1.5billion ships lie crippled

Albert M.White, Queanbeyan

Bravo and thanks to Paul Malone for exposing the negative impact of military spending on job creation ("Defence spending not the answer", Sunday CT, June 4).

Increasingly, weapons projects are sold to us on the basis of jobs, as if we couldn't create more jobs by putting our tens of billions of dollars into health, education, environmental remediation or a host of other essential or neglected services.

Any government that believes that increasing the militarisation of our society is the best way to employ people should at the very least provide evidence to back up their claim; the current government provides none of that.

The evidence that exists from elsewhere indicates that military spending (let's call it that rather than the euphemistic "defence" spending) does very poorly in terms of job creation.

The 2016 Defence White Paper briefing on defence industry indicated that $195billion would be spent over a decade on "defence capability"; all this to fight wars alongside the US against enemies we create by fighting alongside the US whenever and wherever they choose.

Weapons projects have the serious disadvantage of sending negative signals to our neighbours and contributing to regional instability. As we head for the US-decreed arbitrary, illogical, one-size-fits-all figure of 2 per cent GDP to be spent on preparations for endless warfare, we lose the opportunity to genuinely promote peace in our region, quite apart from all the jobs we lose along the way.

Dr Sue Wareham, vice-president, Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), Cook

So "federal police officers still describe with awe" ("Power Play", Sunday CT, June 4, p12) the 2008 busing of 10,000 Chinese students to Canberra "to protect the torch".

Police should instead be hanging their heads in shame over their failure to protect peaceful Canberra demonstrators from that horde.

Instead of tackling the students head on, police told demonstrators to get lost as they would be given no support. Our taxes at work.

Chris Smith, Kingston

Barrie Smillie (letters, June 4) seems to admit that non-belief is a faith and therefore he is religious. I agree that to be an atheist is an act of faith in itself.

It was Woody Allen who said that he would believe in God if only God would give him a clear sign, like a large deposit in a Swiss bank account. Christians believe God gave us a clear sign in Jesus Christ, but following Christ's teaching and example is another matter.

Fr Robert Willson, Deakin