Existing residents of Northbourne Avenue already have reduced protection of amenity compared to elsewhere in Canberra and this should not be further eroded. Voting for light rail was not voting for developers to have carte blanche.

I support measures to require higher quality development.

If we are not careful Northbourne Avenue will end up like Flemington Road which is hardly inspiring.

Patrick Stein, Turner

David Biles ("Canberra is not ready for a private prison – yet", canberratimes.com.au, December 29) writes "There are people who believe that private prisons are unacceptable under any circumstances ...". Indeed there are. I'm one of them.

I strongly recommend that anyone who thinks that private prisons are a good idea read journalist Shane Bauer's "My four months as a private prison guard": http://tinyurl.com/h8wawfh. I warn you that you'll need a strong stomach for some of it.

"Ah, but that's America," proponents will say, "we do it better." To them I say "please form an orderly queue to make offers on a bridge that I have for sale".

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

Peter Marshall (Letters, December 28) is right. It was on the matter of the backpackers' tax, not the ABCC, that the Greens saved the government's bacon – it has been so hard to remember which political bungle is which recently.

On the other hand, it is a bit of a stretch to claim that an initiative with the word "Green" in its name, dedicated to supporting local landcare groups, is not a landcare program. Our group and many others have had the benefit of their cheerful, energetic help.

If the Greens didn't like the Green Army, they should have insisted that the $350 million be transferred to other landcare projects.

Jenny Andrews, convener, Friends of Aranda Bushland

Next time there is an outbreak of gastroenteritis in your family, check to see if you recently enjoyed a dining out experience at one of Canberra's hip restaurants. At one the new trendy steak places in Braddon I couldn't help notice the predominantly young staff in front of the open kitchen area unable to resist their mobile phones.

Given that mobiles are known to harbour more bacteria that toilet seats, we can only hope that Canberra's restaurant owners insist their staff regularly clean any such touch-sensitive devices.

Especially each time they visit the toilet – the perfect safe zone to update their social status, away from those rude customers always trying to get their attention.

Michael Crowe, Hawker

I cannot endorse too strongly some of the points raised in the article "Bill hang-ups as Medicare drags the chain" (December 27, p4). I have needed to lodge a number of claims for Medicare rebates over the past few months for paid medical accounts which for different reasons, I was unable to claim via other means. The times I had to wait for rebates ranged from three to almost six weeks. During this time, I phoned Medicare several times; the longest time I was placed on hold was 35 minutes.

When I was able to speak to Medicare staff, I found them to be very polite and doing their best to help in what must be a totally stressful work environment.

I can only feel for the most vulnerable members of our society trying to negotiate this unjust bureaucratic minefield.

Therese Townsend, Queanbeyan, NSW

Wow. Nine sets of traffic lights on the Barton Highway/William Slim/Gundaroo Drive roundabout. Barr and Fitzharris never cease to amaze. Not even the vivacious Lara Bingle could sell that one to the tourists.

Having just read various CT letters on this new tourist attraction, where authors find it impossible to describe a safe passage, there is no way I will risk my vehicle going through there.

It's to and fro via Wee Jasper in future for me.

Come and join me in the safe centre space of the roundabout on January 30 when school goes back. I'll be the one with a clown's hat on and in a deck chair on the hill with a coffee and a camera. All welcome!

John Mungoven, Stirling

It is typical for governments of every stripe to regard superannuation payments as nothing more than a cost ("ACT's super-sized bill", December 28, p1). Presumably they would prefer to hang retired workers out to dry and put them on the age pension. That has several implications.

Retired government employees have made contributions to their retirement since they began employment. Howard's vote-buying tied pension increases to average weekly earnings, a much more attractive prospect than super being tied to CPI.

One divisive argument runs that the public purse, ie, taxpayers, are funding more generous entitlements than are available in the private sector. This ignores the fact that private sector workers could have chosen to enter the public service. It also skates around the fact that politicians receive benefits such as air travel long after they have left politics, often into "consultancies". This is a much more egregious issue.

The ACT Auditor-General points out that many workers are due to retire in the next two decades. The baby boomers have nearly all retired by now, and that was alleged to be the largest "problem" of all.

Actuarial studies show that the government makes a profit if a worker's retirement lasts less than 10 years.

I've been retired for 11 years, and intend to be a "drain on the long-suffering taxpayer" for a good while yet.

Bob Gardiner, Isabella Plains

There are constant reminders that Clinton won the popular vote.

A petulant Barack Obama boasts that he could have beaten Trump ("I would have beaten Donald Trump", December 28, p14) while Michelle Obama makes the ludicrous statement that the people have now lost hope, both forgetting that some 70 per cent of Americans thought that the country had lost it way under President Obama.

Hillary Clinton blames the CIA, Russia, the deplorables (otherwise known as the American voters) indeed, anyone but herself for the defeat and even supports a recount of votes in some states only to find that she was beaten fair and square. Of course, we are constantly reminded that Clinton won the popular vote which is like getting a bunch of flowers for turning up.

Some Democrat supporters attempted to shame the electoral college into defying the will of the people and distribute their votes to prevent Trump becoming president. Other supporters, mostly cosseted prats who have never been told no!, make utter fools of themselves by demanding that the result be overturned because Trump is not their president!

Inconsolable, the mainstream media confirm their bias. Oh, and of all those vacuous celebrities who threatened they would leave for other lands if Trump won, not one had the guts to follow through.

Am I the only one who is sick of these pathetic whingers both in the US and abroad who cannot grasp the reality that Trump won the presidency?

Of course, how he performs remains to be seen.

H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW

US Secretary of State John Kerry says "friends need to tell each other the hard truths and friendships require mutual respect" ("Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu trade friendly tweets as US tells Israel the 'hard truth", canberratimes.com.au, December 29). He should try that line with the families of the 34 US naval servicemen deliberately murdered by Israel in a premeditated attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, which then US President Lyndon Johnson cruelly and deceitfully decided should be treated as an "accident".

The real problem with the US is that the world has come to view it like some kind of unfunny Groucho Marx – always ready to adopt new "principles" if the current lot don't serve its interests.

That Barack Obama would wait until the dying days of his presidency to "call-out" Israel's criminal behaviour in the occupied territories says nothing about Israel but everything about Obama and the hypocritical expediency of US foreign policy.

John Richardson, Wallagoot, NSW

Jenna Price's article "Want to dump Dutton? Here's how" (December 27, p17) advises us to join political parties and get involved in the preselection process and in this way we (the people) can control the political agenda. Not right.

Party policies seem to be controlled by their ideologies which attract donors. Donors then control the party.

Parties always then refocus from their ideals to the obscene obsession with re-election. Wedge non-partisan political processes then follow. We and all other democracies will have to put up with this pseudo-democracy until we vote independent.

A government made up of independents logically will be centrist and would consider each piece of legislation after healthy, respectful debate. Many other benefits would then follow.

Max Jensen, Chifley

Gary J. Wilson (Letters, December 28) sees negative gearing as consistent with the fair policy of allowing tax deductions for income-earning expenses, including interest payments. However, he disagrees with the present taxation treatment of capital gains, where only half the nominal gain is taxed. But this policy could also be seen as fair, because it is a gesture towards linking the tax to real, as opposed to nominal, capital gains.

As such, it has some similarity with the occasional upward adjustment of income tax thresholds as a tardy response to the forces of inflation. The point is, we should look to the practical consequences of these policies.

Without denying the contributory influence of other factors, it is clear that the combined effects of negative gearing and the current tax treatment of capital gains are awful. They enable and encourage high borrowing by property investors, particularly those in upper tax brackets, to bid up the price of housing for speculative gain.

With high borrowing enforced on home buyers, household borrowing is now the dominant component of this country's sizeable international debt. Housing ownership in our largest capital cities is now out of reach for a large proportion of young families.

Finally, the opportunity cost of these policies is to forgo the chance for government to use tax concessions to encourage less risky and more inclusive pathways for household wealth-building, and to encourage investment in beneficial directions such as social housing and scientific research.

Paul Feldman, Macquarie

It is a national embarrassment that Australia's spending on foreign aid is at an eight-year low ("Foreign aid at lowest level in eight years", December 29, p5). Reducing aid by billions of dollars is unfairly balancing our budget on the backs of the world's poor.

In 2013, 767 million people lived on less than $US1.90 a day. Our aid helps those poorest of the poor to access basic services such as health care, education and financial services.

Progress on ending world poverty is possible. A Millennium Development Goal in 2000 to "eradicate extreme poverty and hunger" was achieved five years early in 2010. Australia's aid is at a 60-year low of 0.22 per cent of our national income. More please.

Peter Graves, Curtin

Bravo, Tim Costello, for bringing to our attention the appallingly low level of Australia's foreign aid. A cut of $224 million in the 2016-17 aid budget is unconscionable, and this on top of a billion dollar cut the previous financial year. Such cuts are embarrassing, particularly in light of 22 of the 28 OECD countries increasing their aid budgets this year.

Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

FISHER FUSS FLAWED

I know the Star Wars empire was built on spin, but the lather of cant after the death of Carrie Fisher, a pretty ordinary talent picked from the ruck only because of her connections (that goes double for her books), really puts the hype in hyperdrive.

Matt Gately, Rivettt

ON THE VIRTUES OF VEGIES

I thank Mike O'Shaughnessy (Letters, December 29) once again for his doctrinaire advice on how to civilise my feckless food habits! To quote from the great spinach-muncher Popeye, "I's needs to gets meself an edufacation". It's just a shame I have to kill a kitten in order to achieve enlightenment. Still, every faith has its puzzling rituals, I suppose.

Simon Cobcroft, Lyneham

Our very own out and proud vegan, Mike O'Shaughnessy, should not be allowed to eat pudding.

That's because you cannot have any dessert if you don't eat your meat and veg first!

Roger Brown, Rivett

WARS NO ANSWER

Ian Jannaway (Letters, December 29) seems to think that fighting wars is all that keeps nations free. He's forgetting the many conflicts that have had the opposite intention and outcome – and are still doing so. I greatly respect returned servicemen and women. Sadly, the state of our world today points clearly towards the futility of their efforts.

Eric Hunter, Cook

BOUQUET FOR MEDICARE

I too have had an experience with Medicare similar to Barry ("Bill hang-ups as Medicare drags the chain", December 27, p4). However after the initial frustration, Medicare found a solution to my problem.

While Medicare gets lots of brickbats, it deserves a bouquet on this occasion.

James Crane, Monash

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