It has been a valiant attempt to curb motor vehicle addiction. However, it has robbed taxpayers who cannot use public transport in order to subsidise a small minority that reluctantly walk long distances to catch the train.

Even bike trails get more traffic than the rail and some commuters who used to ride their bikes to the rail now ride all the way to work even in snow.

Anyone who needs a car for work drives. Families are not prepared to give up the convenience of a car. Not everyone has the time to wait for a train. Not everyone wants to live in an inner-city apartment and walk everywhere.

The answer to the problem is driverless electric cars that are hired on demand and run door to door. They are cheaper, more efficient, less polluting, more convenient and will not create the cost overruns inevitable with public infrastructure.

Meanwhile, income generating infrastructure like Canberra Airport will attempt to offload the public transport expense it has created onto the taxpayer by demanding its own light rail.

The property developers who made heaps out of subdividing and developing land in outlying areas share none of this cost.

The new light rail is a much bigger problem than simply the removal of trees. The massive cost will rob education, health, welfare and public amenity of funds and it will be obsolete even before it is built.

I predict that eventually fares will be unaffordable and that those who are supposed to use the light rail will resort to other forms of transport while paying the taxes required to keep the light rail running.

It's not too late to reverse this expensive out of date white elephant and embrace technology that is affordable, convenient and more friendly to the environment.

The original vision of Walter Burley Griffin is being destroyed and the Bush Capital will descend into just another Asian or US city created by shortsighted expensive policies that are paid for by taxpayers.

It is time to consider better more technologically advanced solutions than a light rail.

John Kimber, Denver, Colorado

'Dream first' mindset

I have noted with interest the comments of Chris Carder (Letters, November 4) that in relation to Canberra's transportation issues, including light rail, future miracles take time. Looking in a broader world context, strange things appear to be happening and being promoted as totally normal such as governments and individuals suddenly living in massive debt being a totally acceptable economic lifestyle, and many other issues too numerous to cover here but no doubt in the main due to globalisation and massive technology advances.

We can always dream of getting a money printing machine like the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the European bank and the Bank of England who have collectively printed out close to $US20trillion totally unsupported paper money, to implement our dreams and miracles and just keep printing. On that basis we don't have to suck it out of the ratepayers till they financially bleed to death.

The big issue locally appears to be who goes broke first: the ratepayers or the government? If interest rates ever go up we are both financially dead anyhow as we are both wallowing in debt. Current world and local sentiment appears to be if we go out let's live the dream first. That mindset appears to be what got us to where we are now.

Wayne Grant, Swinger Hill

Solid snake advice

I refer to Phil O'Mara's advice (Letters, November 10) concerning snakes in Canberra. Every year from early October, Canberra (the Bush Capital) snakes stir from their winter torpor and seek the sun, food and mating partners. This often brings them into contact with residents, especially in outer suburbs bordering bushland or nature reserves.

For many years during the 1970s and '80s I responded to calls from the ACT Police, Ambulance, Fire Brigade and concerned residents who had come face to face with a snake and off I would go to "rescue" the snake (with the appropriate licence at the time). Ninety-nine per cent were eastern brown snakes with the occasional red-bellied black snake.

As new suburbs pushed out into "snake territory", the ACT government introduced a program of teaching rangers how to handle and relocate snakes, and pressures that were mounting on my time and efforts were relieved.

Basically, the information we are all telling concerned residents is to watch the snake closely, don't try and catch or harm the snake, and it will inevitably leave – they certainly don't want contact with humans!

Should a snake enter a household then I'm sure ACT rangers will come to the rescue.

Keep fences in good condition with no small gaps, avoid flattened articles in backyards and keep compost heaps well-raked and chicken coops clean. Brown snakes are egg-layers and deposit their clutches (10-20 commonly) in December/January. Compost heaps are a favourite site.

There is no parental care and hatchlings appear from end of February until March. They are usually brown like their parents but with a dark brown to black patch on the head followed by a large band posterior to the patch.

Local snakes retire to their winter retreats by the first frosts at the end of April. Be alert, take care if you confront a snake and do not try and kill the snake; all snakes are protected species in the ACT under law.

Ric Longmore, herpetologist (old), Hawker

The European Space Agency and NASA boffins are keen to enlist Australia's help for the projected mission to Mars ("Global Mission to Mars; Australia's help wanted", November 5, p6). The new dish at Tidbinbilla will be vital for communication, but we should also be "part of the program" i.e. provide financial help.

Apparently Mars has only 1 per cent of the atmosphere of Earth, and what there is, is toxic. No way to increase atmospheric gases, which are dependent on the mass of the planet. No oxygen, and conditions for plants so unfavourable that there is no feasible way to produce it.

No magnetic field, so no protection for living organisms against cosmic rays, no ozone layer for protection from ultra-violet radiation from the sun. No readily available water. Temperatures plunge to minus 195 degrees in winter, and minus 100 degrees even in summer nights.

I know of a planet that has plenty of oxygen, vast oceans of water, a strong protective magnetic field, and conditions for life so wonderfully favourable that a visitor would imagine that the planet had been specially designed for life. However, the inhabitants seem bent on degrading and destroying it.

Harry Davis, Campbell

'Good idea' goes bad

The article "Shared services centre 'a failure"' (November 10, p12) reports the failure of the Australian Public Services' Shared Services Centre as recently identified by the Australian National Audit Office.

This failure will remind older hands, human resources practitioners in particular, of the failed Mandata centralised personnel records and payroll system trialled in the late 1970s.

At that time, much was claimed about efficiencies of centralisation and the substantial cost savings that were expected to accrue. Sadly, it is a seemingly good idea that has again faltered. Next time, perhaps!

Martin Devine, Macarthur

'And Others' queue

Alok Sharma, the visiting UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Minister for Asia and Pacific says that "our familial ties" bind Australia and Britain "very closely" together ("Britain open for business: We left the EU not Europe", November 8, p14).

Hence, he notes chummily, the more than a million visa-free Aussie visits to Britain every year. Ahhh, but he fails to mention that the familial ties are not close enough to spare those million visitors the three quarters of an hour it takes to navigate the "And Others" queue at Heathrow's Border Force gates.

Bronis Dudek, Calwell

Royal title truths

Thank you, Anne Willenborg (Letters, November 9), for clarifying the nomenclature for and position of consorts. People may be less willing to accept that "Princess Diana" never had that title. On her marriage she became HRH Diana Princess of Wales.

When she and her husband divorced, HM Queen Elizabeth, Queen of Australia, stripped Diana of her status as a royal highness, and she was to be called Diana, Princess of Wales. She did not ever have the title "Princess Diana".

Unless Australia becomes a republic, we will in due course have King William V of Australia (among other parts of his realm) and his queen will be Catherine Middleton, who will be the wife of Australia's king, and as such be entitled to have the title of queen. And while he will be King of Australia, she will not be Queen of Australia.

J. Evans, Deakin

First past post is best

I congratulate The Canberra Times for having constructed the smuggest non sequitur I have yet read, writing that the US "could do far worse than 'import' Australia's compulsory-voting regime, for a start, which is far more democratic than the disengaged mess the US has become" ("Americans spurn hard won suffrage", Editorial, November 11, p16).

Possibly, but only if they left all the proportional representation bit out. That's what has delivered Australia into its own disengaged mess at present. The US has already tried that rot. It's called the electoral college over there. Democracy is about finding vox populi, the voice of the people, the winner, the one who represents the most people. That's done best with first past the post.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

Shared responsibility

We choose to live in a dangerously trivialised world, and therefore must share the blame for its most grievous faults; such as treating refugees as common felons rather than innocent victims seeking to flee a nightmare we helped to create, or the ludicrous paradox of the most powerful nation on Earth electing as its leader a man of such blustering bigotry, boastful deception and venal perception to threaten the survival of us all in a desperately simplistic bid to comfort a deprived underclass.

We are all responsible for the shameful existence of Donald Trump; a man, if ever there was one, to truly represent the shabbily withered state of our human condition at the dawn of the third Millennium.

Ian McFarlane, Wallaga Lake, NSW

Clinton lacked knack

Hillary Clinton had all the right credentials and attributes to become the first female president of the United States, except for the most important one. She just did not have the knack of winning elections!

Mario Stivala, Spence

Deliberate bias

It seems likely that, in his recent address to the National Press Club, Andrew Denton was locking in support for his views on euthanasia from people like Rob Westcott (Letters October 26) who are already hostile to the Catholic point of view.

Rob goes so far as to question the sanity of the Catholic right and condemns the history of formal religion.

Andrew Denton appeared at first to have researched his subject thoroughly before the address including details of Catholic action concerning euthanasia.

When questioned, however, he admitted he had not consulted leaders of other faiths.

This omission is significant and suggests a deliberate attempt to present an unbalanced picture of community views.

Eric French, Higgins

Knowledgeable slip

It is never wise, Ric Innes (Letters, November 10) to mock the misunderstanding and ignorance of others when your own knowledge is not impeccable.

The Director of Public Prosecutions prosecutes only criminal matters. Those before the Federal Court involving the Human Rights Commission were civil proceedings.

Jennifer Saunders, Canberra City

'Dump Trump' chumps

Those young, mainly white, Americans protesting in Manhattan and elsewhere in the United States at Donald Trump's election ("Altered states", November 11, p1) are obviously part of a generation who have become accustomed to their every whim being granted by their elders: I have news for them: welcome to the real world where wishing for something is just not enough.

Roger Dace, Reid

I have four words for the millennials prowling the streets of major American cities protesting against Donald Trump's election. Get a job, children.

Gerry Murphy, Braddon

Turnbull spots change

Malcolm Turnbull seems confident that Donald Trump can change now that he has the top job. He ought to know.

Terry Werner, Wright

Three down, what next?

Brexit. Light Rail. Trump. What can go wrong next?

John Mungoven, Stirling

Kim for President

Perhaps the best prospect for the first female president of the United States is Kim Kardashian!

Peter Edsor, Bungendore, NSW

It is a big world, media

If the Australian media were to give a small part of the attention they routinely devote to events in America to news and analysis of what is happening elsewhere, we would be much better informed.

China, India and continental Europe get short shrift, and who hears anything of Brazil, South Africa or Japan except when they host the Olympic Games?

David Teather, Reid

Abbott? Logical? Really?

On ABC RN on Friday morning, Tony Abbott decried the failure of Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act to address public statements like "death to the infidel".

I'm delighted he has come around to supporting the amendment of the Act to add religion to "race, colour or national or ethnic origin".

That's the only logical interpretation of what he said, isn't?

Peter Marshall, Captains Flat, NSW

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