Nor, it appears, does his policy apply to the Territory Variation to enable the Telopea School tennis courts to be included as part of a "land swap" deal for development around Manuka Oval.

In an August 5 press release on the Masterplan for Manuka Oval, Mr Barr (pre-empting any panel deliberation) proclaimed "The panel will have their first meeting by the end of this year with a view to a Territory Plan Variation being initiated by late 2017".

No doubt at no cost to developers GWS/Grocon, waiting in the wings as Barr announces further spending of $3 to $10 million more on upgrades at the oval.

With AFL Commission offering to fund the players change rooms/facilities and Barr saying the media upgrades should come from those billions in media deals, why is the community still paying?

The master plan makes provision for a car park, the siting of which can only be assessed as a gift to developers. The cost to the community of the Masterplan keeps rising.

R. Craig, Narrabundah

Showing your preference

The marking of preferences is simply an instruction about the order in which candidates may benefit from any unused value remaining of our single transferable vote.

ACT Voters who want to make the most of the influence available to them in our Legislative Assembly elections should therefore keep numbering until they find the remaining candidates uniformly intolerable in all possible circumstances, including two from the same party vying for the last available place.

Marking further preferences cannot harm the electoral prospects of those whom they support most strongly.

As only the papers in the last parcel taking a candidate beyond the quota of nearly 16.7per cent are eligible for further transfer at a fractional value, in practice most voters will find the whole of their vote assisting just one candidate to be elected.

Bogey Musidlak, Narrabundah

Boggling values

Modern-day world values boggle the mind!

Not long ago we had Barack Obama awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. We've had months of seemingly unending US presidential race between two of the most unedifying and dysfunctional Leader of The Free world candidates — ever!

Now, we have Bob Dylan awarded a Nobel Prize for — wait for it! — "Literature"! Next year some two-bit rap artist will be awarded the Nobel Prize for "Music"?

Howard Hutchins, Chirnside Pk, Vic.

Club's campaign misguided

I use clubs more than I might ever frequent a casino, but the concerted campaign by Canberra clubs against allowing some poker machines in the casino is misguided.

Clubs should end this campaign and get back to basics by spending the equivalent effort on making their venues places where more people want to go.

There are plenty of spare machines that could be sold off to the immediate financial benefit of the clubs.

Julian Robinson, Narrabundah

Rates or stamp duty - we all pay

The Canberra Liberals have announced at last that stamp duty is here to stay ("Libs make rates vow", October 13, p1). So those who have somewhere to live will pay no more: and those who want to enter the housing market will pay hefty stamp duty, inflating the cost of getting into a home.

Only the ACT took up the advice the Henry review to abolish nuisance taxes. Stamp duty is a "bad" tax, one to get rid of, paid rarely and in large lumps; rates are a much better tax, paid generally and year by year. But getting rid of stamp duty brings no credit, and making up revenue elsewhere brings unpopularity.

Look forward. The ACT Liberals haven't promised that rates will not rise under their silly opportunistic policy. Perhaps rates will stabilise overall. But rates will change with the values on which the rates are calculated.

Over the border, my rates have risen, but I see no reduction or removal of stamp duty. Be careful what you vote for!

Christopher Hood, Queanbeyan, NSW

Arrogance over rates

A more accurate headline for the article "Libs make rates vow" (October 13, p1), would have been 'Libs struggle with rates policy'.

It is breathtakingly arrogant for the Libs to announce (very belatedly) a policy to "freeze rates and revert to stamp duty to fill the revenue gap", and then concede that etheir policy could be 'clearer' and would require some 'tweaks'.

This policy reeks of populism, but, more alarmingly, has the potential to adversely affect the ACT's already narrow tax base.

However, it complements other Liberal policy positions: not only do they oppose the proposed tram service to Gungahlin but probably paying substantial damages as a consequence.

The Libs also have a health policy that supposedly focuses on new hospital(s). Their policy is so vague and incoherent as to be almost non-existent.

Let's hope this community sees beyond the populist slogans and elects representatives who have clear, progressive policies about the future direction of the ACT.

Tom Meredith, Waramanga

Penalised for the past

I have been a resident of Canberra for some 36 years in total.

In that time I have bought four family homes, subsequently selling three of them to finally move to my current home. I have paid substantial stamp duty on each of these family home purchases.

Why should I now face an annual rates bill escalating at double the inflation rate for the rest of my life so that others can be relieved of stamp duty in the future?

Perhaps because Andrew Barr is quoted as saying he doesn't listen to anyone aged over 35 or 45 years old.

John Mellors, Coombs

For years the gay community have made an almighty racket about the importance of marriage to their sense of belonging and acceptance in society, yet when change is within their grasp they declined a perfectly legitimate pathway to success.

Is the gay community so precious that they cannot withstand a challenge to their position in a plebiscite? Or are they really just chalking up another trophy?

If this is the strength of their commitment, do they deserve the considerable shift of firmly held beliefs they are asking of so many Australians?

The gay community have lost more than they have gained by not supporting a plebiscite and now run the risk of eroding public support for their cause by being dragged into a cynical political contest.

H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW

Shorten chases votes

The Christian lobby is either sadly delusional or naive if they believe that Bill Shorten scuppered the plebiscite for altruistic reasons. His actions were based purely on political populism but have left the LGBT community in total limbo.

He will no doubt attempt to remedy the situation by having a private member's bill introduced in parliament to alter the Marriage Act whereby homosexual couples will be permitted to marry.

Christian weddings in a church may not always be available depending on the beliefs of the relevant minister.

However, any change to the Marriage ACT permitting same-sex marriage ill be an absolute gold mine for most marriage celebrants.

N. Bailey, Nicholls

Unproven Israel links

Alan Shroot (Letters, October 13) is wrong to claim 'there is a 4000-year unbroken link between Israel and the Jewish people".

Eminent Israeli archaeologists such as Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have been unable to find such a link.

They have also failed to find early evidence of a Jewish archaeological footprint from anything remotely like that long ago.

What there is evidence of is that Palestine has been a hotly contested piece of property for thousands of years.

There's now even more telling evidence to call on from ancient written sources.

The very eminent Irving Finkel has confirmed from his decipherment of cuneiform tablets that the creation and flood myths are not Jewish in origin at all, but probably stories borrowed from much more ancient sources by Jewish people during their Babylonian captivity.

Roy Darling, Florey

Alan Shroot's claim mainstream Zionism acknowledged that Palestine would have to be shared with its Arab inhabitants is laughable.

The Zionist settlers from Eastern Europe had no interest in sharing.

In 1919 the King-Crane Commission, sent by US President Woodrow Wilson stated: "The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase."

The "non-Jewish inhabitants", the Palestinian Arabs, were 90 per cent of the population.

Paul Dixon, Fraser

Sad state of conflict

It is sad that, as Geoff Barker writes (Letters, October 10) the people of Palestine have become severely oppressed in their own land. Many Jews around the world regret the plight of the Palestinians. My late parents came to Australia as refugees from Nazi Europe. They too would not have wished such a fate for the early occupants of Palestine.

Let us hope that this terrible conflict can still be resolved.

C. Neurath, Flynn

Trump won't give in

Your editorial "Momentum is now firmly with Clinton" (October 11, p14) is an excellent assessment of the US presidential campaign at this point. But four weeks from the finishing line it would be unwise to assume that it's all over bar the shouting.

We can anticipate that some more Trump skeletons might tumble out of the cupboard (or the locker room) as the countdown continues . This won't matter to his rusted-on base who will believe in him no matter what.

And although some of his financial supporters are said to be deserting him, he has his own reputed tax-free billions to fall back on.

His outsize ego won't allow him to quit or be genuinely contrite.

He will stay on the attack.

The media opposition and the sinking polls will only further confirm his self-belief: proof to him and his followers that the political system is rigged and he is the only one who can remake it.

Whether Hillary Clinton can land a killer blow in the final presidential debate remains to be seen. The next few weeks may be the toughest she will ever experience.

Ray Edmondson, Kambah

Republicans stirred

Sadly it took Republican women, apparently, to stir finally their male colleagues to condemn Donald Trump, without qualification, for his serially outrageous and offensive utterances.

I have long held the view that Trump never really wanted to be president. That either he was just a showman mischievously exploiting and preening himself in the limelight shone by countless disgruntled interests in the US, of which there are many, or, less charitably, he was borderline insane. Either way, if his tilt at the presidency fails, he will try to save face and claim "he wuz robbed" – by any number of handy conspirators.

Abraham Lincoln, if he could rotate in his grave, would be incapable of fathoming, as with the rest of us, how his founding party has become so thoroughly corrupted. Worse, that someone such as Trump is now poised to be the "leader of the free world".

A. Whiddett, Yarralumla

Insult to decent men

Jenna Price's article "Women, to the locker room" (Comment, October 11, p16) has shredded her credibility completely.

To write "Toxic masculinity makes it sound like there is some other kind" is to claim that all masculinity is toxic. I do not understand how an "educated" woman can write such unfounded nonsense. She insults millions of decent men.

Jenny Wright, Karabar, NSW

BAIRD'S PRINCIPLES

Mike Baird's greyhound back-flip – and coming encore performance on lockout laws – show he is a follower of Groucho Marx, who once said: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them ... well, I have others."

Thos Puckett, Ashgrove, Qld

'HATESPEAK' TO BEGIN

It is ironic that those seeking to stop the same-sex marriage plebiscite on the grounds of "hatespeak" , even though there has been none in the last year or so, may now condemn us to years of debate as a result of their actions.

Jevon Kinder, Murrumbateman, NSW

TWIGGY TERRIFIC

I was lucky enough to see Twiggy Forrest's address at the National Press Club on television on Wednesday. What an inspiration!

It should be compulsory viewing for all Australians, particularly Federal and State MPs and bureaucrats. Bring on the healthy welfare card.

Andrew Gordon, Tuross Head, NSW

JUSTICE DELIVERED

So Winx won a three-horse race the other day. Justice has just won such a race too. The High Court panel of stewards has declared, after review, the Pure Greed Stakes result. Yes, Justice has been given the nod while Self Interest and Sense of Entitlement, both owned by former MPs, have been disqualified. Mug punters (taxpayers) are celebrating a rare win.

V.R. Condon, Narrabundah

The four former federal MPs who went to the High Court seeking to extend their superannuation and entitlement benefits are just representative of many more who appear to want to suckle on the public teat until death finally acts as the ultimate leveller. No wonder politicians are on the nose.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

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