This is because:

■Canberra has a fair proportion of senior and elderly citizens;

■Canberra provides specialist hospital services for a wide area that includes the south coast and Goulburn;

■Removing bulk billing for pathology will hit low-income earners and pensioners hard; and

■An additional co-payment for prescriptions will lead to people being unable to afford what they need.

These short-sighted cuts will lead to more pressure on hospital emergency departments, greater need for ambulance services, and increased hospital admissions.

This will be detrimental to the community as a whole because many of the patients' relatives will also be affected and stressed, personally and financially, as a result.

Lucia Mayo, Waramanga

The ACT government's grudging decision to provide kerbside collections of green waste ("Garden waste bins, at last", May 28, p1) is as belated as it is cynical.

Cynical because the government has chosen to introduce the trial service in Kambah and Weston Creek, where the government is even more on the nose than in other electorates.

Also cynical because, according to Municipal Services Minister Meegan Fitzharris, Labor has changed its position on providing garden waste bins after listening to the people.

The government has certainly not listened to the people, particularly those in south Canberra who do not want to pay for a costly and inefficient tram between Gungahlin and Civic.

And cynical too because before the 2012 election, when it claimed the service would be too expensive, the government rejected a commitment by Canberra Liberals to provide this service to all residents if elected.

Prompted by the forthcoming election, the otherwise profligate government begrudgingly offers a half-baked trial service with no commitment to expand to other suburbs.

The need for a trial is completely unnecessary as information is readily available from numerous NSW councils that have provided this service for years. In particular, all Queanbeyan residents have had the service for about 20 years, paid for in their rates.

Meanwhile, Canberra residents either drive their green waste to collection points or pay commercial operators, the majority of whom include a tip charge, even though there is no tip charge for this material.

As with the introduction of wheelie garbage and recycling bins to Canberra, this city is years behind most NSW regional councils with a green waste service.

Graham Downie, O'Connor

I have just bought via the internet a small object from a shop in Spain. It travelled from the shop to Madrid and reached there last Friday (June 10). The delivery van came to my house with the parcel about 11am on the 14th. I was out but was able to collect it that evening, still fewer than four days, which included our long weekend.

On the carrier's website the parcel's trip is documented in full to the second – no fewer than 21 stages. The shop provided excellent documentation, which no doubt supported very rapid clearance through Spanish and Australian Customs. Even so, this may be a speed record.

Would anyone expect Australia Post to be able to compete?

Perhaps its chief executive, Ahmed Fahour, could be posted (sorry!) for work experience to the carrier in my story. Naturally his salary would be withheld pending improved performance.

Brian Stone, Weetangera

N. Bailey (Letters, June 13) accuses Mike Kelly of cynical vote-buying for promising to provide funds to upgrade the Barton Highway, and not doing so while he was part of a Labor government from 2007-13.

The part that Bailey seems unaware of is that until July 2, 2016, the Barton Highway was in the federal electorate of Hume, which has been held by the LNP Coalition since 1974.

Perhaps his accusations should focus on the LNP because they didn't do anything about the condition of the road because it was in a safe LNP seat and they are only now offering something because from July 2, it will be in the marginal seat of Eden-Monaro.

Roger Brown, Rivett

Why does Road Safety Minister Shane Rattenbury want to build new learn-to-ride facilities ("Learn-to-ride centres the way of the future", June 14, p3) when it would be cheaper to reopen the Belconnen learn-to-ride centre, and more effective to support Bike Ed?

The Belconnen centre ceased operating in 2007 when a report prepared by ARRB (which provides research, consulting, products and information services to the road and transport industry) concluded that ACT Bike Ed on-road practical training was more valuable than off-road learn-to-ride centres that "have little to offer children in the development of bicycle and related road safety skills.

"Such centres may inadvertently encourage students to become overconfident about their ability to cope safely in traffic."

Leon Arundell, Downer

The public release of the redacted contract agreement with the Canberra Metro consortium by Capital Metro Minister Simon Corbell ("Light rail deal puts unions at the wheel", June 10, p1) has at least clarified what underlies the surprisingly low contract price of $939 million previously announced by the minister.

Instead of discounting the future payments committed in the 23-year life of contract using a discount consistent with the maximum inflation rate of 3 per cent that the Reserve Bank has maintained since the mid-1990s, the government has used a discount rate of 7.5 per cent to compute a present value of the contract.

If the Reserve Bank's inflation limit figure is applied, the net present value of the contracted payments is about $1.3 billion. Then, to get a realistic project cost, the $100 million budgeted to Capital Metro since 2013 must be added, as well as the $50 million expected to be spent directly on the project by Capital Metro until 2019.

Thus a realistic project cost for the Gungahlin-Civic light rail is about $1.45 billion in 2016 dollars, not $939 million.

A. Smith, Farrer

Jessica Irvine's article "It's not the economy stupid" (BusinessDay, June 13, p9) points out that markets, not governments, run the economy.

The government's role is to provide the enabling environment that allows markets to function efficiently.

Irvine cites several examples of such enabling action – floating the dollar, deregulating the financial sector, decentralising wage bargaining and slashing tariffs.

All Labor initiatives.

Having swept away its leadership and buried its debt and deficit emergency rhetoric due to an embarrassing lack of progress, the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is now selling tax cuts to top income earners and companies as his economicplan.

Many economic commentators have pointed out its high cost and limited benefit – in short, trickle-down economics rests on shaky ground.

Far from being better economic managers than Labor, the Liberals record is one of largely squandering the benefits of the cyclical resources boom through vote buying, structural tax cuts and failing to use an historic opportunity to establish a sovereign wealth fund, which could drive infrastructure investment and the nation's productive capacity for generations to come. Jobs and growth indeed!

Bill Dejong, Merimbula, NSW

Matt Wade's article "Our billionaires in the fast lane" (Times2, June 15, p4)speaks volumes about the prevailing values of our society and itsgovernment.

Our Beloved Leader's oft repeated mantra "jobs and growth" does not appear to include the unpaid work of women in childrearing, housekeeping, and care of the aged, sick and dying, or the essential jobs of community volunteers, without whose help society could not function.

"Growth" seems exclusively to mean growth in economic productivity, population and popularity, not in environmental protection, altruism, understanding, wellbeing, creativity and wisdom.

Over two millennia ago, Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics described a hierarchy of values, giving a less myopic view of society than does the PM. At the top of the scale are what Aristotle referred to as spiritual values, such as altruism, making a useful contribution to society, and development of the arts. His lowest values included the accumulation of wealth and property, similar to their dismissal by St Francis of Assisi.

Billionaires might gain mental profit from reading the scripture of Mr Wade's Biblical namesake (Matthew 16.26): "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and forfeit his own soul".

Bryan Furnass, Hughes

With all the debate lately about gun laws in the USA, and the constitutions "right to bear arms" it seems to me that Americans want the "right" but don't really "bear arms" all too often.

Take the recent shooting at the gay night club in Florida as an example. Of the 50 people shot dead, and another 53 injured and who knows how many escaped without injury; it would seem no one had a gun with them to defend themselves with. Otherwise, surely someone would have shot this killer before he caused as much carnage as he did.

Hans Zandbergen, Kingston

One aspect of your editorial ("Cool heads needed after Orlando", Times2, June 14, p2) was expected. A causative link between a tragedy that involves firearms and gun laws is uttered every time by a predictable chorus, especially when it's American.

So logically, you disarm law-abiding citizens, and magically, such crime will cease. How did that work out for Parisians who have very strict gun laws?

Gerry Murphy, Braddon

The media is full of the activities of the leaders of the major parties, reporting on their promises which are really no more permanent than water poured into a colander. I consider that the major parties have failed miserably in carrying out their responsibilities to the people and the nation and that is praising them too highly. So I will be voting for the minor parties in desperation. However the latter seem to have little publicity so could The Times please put together an article listing the minor candidates, their bios and what their parties hope to achieve.

That would be most helpful.

Roger Smith, Scullin

It is interesting listening to the rants of the two major parties about where they will allocate their preferences for the Greens Party and the Nick Xenophon Party.

All it's doing is showing their uncertainty on their ability to end up either first or second in the ballot count. The point is, during the count for the lower house, preferences are not allocated until a candidate's count is exhausted. The preferences for the two final candidates are never allocated.

What will decide the race in divisions where the count is close is where voters who votefor minor parties allocate their preferences.

Norm Johnston, Monash

Greg Ellis (Letters, June 14) accuses Gerry Murphy of rewriting history, which is ironic considering Ellis's whole letter is a pathetic attempt to rewrite Israel's history to fit his narrative. The Palestinian mandate, which had been the homeland of the Jews and had a substantial Jewish population for thousands of years, was divided in 1948 into Jewish and Arab areas, according to which had the majority population in each area. No one was forced out until, unlike the Jews, the Arabs declared war.

Most Arabs who did leave did so at the urging of their leaders, or to escape the war zone, rather than being forced out. Israel's attacks against what Ellis calls high-rise apartments have only ever been to target rockets or other military infrastructure.

Israel has roughly 1.5 million Arab citizens while the Palestinian leadership insists that any Palestinian state must be free of Jews, yet Ellis falsely accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing. Ellis also claims Israel has repeatedly rejected a two-state solution, when Israel has actually made three generous offers of a Palestinian state, and the Palestinian leadership has rejected them all.

Bill Arnold, Chifley

I recently received an account for nearly $250 for my quarterly natural gas bill. As I had been overseas for all except one week of the quarterly period I was surprised how large it was. My comparable accounts for the equivalent period in previous years (when I was here) were around $80 (including the very large administration fee). The account was sent by email and did not include any information on usage.

When I queried the amount I was told it was an "estimate".

I asked what the meter reading had been at the end of the billing period and was informed that they do not have enough people to read meters. However their charter says they have to send a bill.

I read out the current "reading" and was told my figure bore no relation to the one theyhad based the estimate onandthat a new bill would besent.

Frankly, I think their action is totally dishonest and indefensible. For many people the difference between the real figure and the estimate could be the difference between keeping warm or eating.

Roger Allnutt, Deakin

M. Aken (Letters, June 14) says Australia has the third highest population growth of 40 OECD countries, after only Israel and Luxembourg, and that net immigration is contributing significantly to that growth. If so, this is ridiculous and immigration should be drastically reduced. This proposal has nothing to do with xenophobia or racism – it is simply common sense as exercised by almost all other countries.

The major political parties are neck and neck in the election race, and both are keeping quiet about immigration because it is beneficial to big business, and therefore to big donations. However, big business is not voting in the election. If one of the parties announced that it would immediately reduce net immigration to less than 100,000 a year (still extremely high by global standards), it would win the election.

Robert James, Melba

HEALTH FREEZING UP

The Coalition government is promising to extend the Medicare rebate freeze, cut pathology bulk-billing and increase co-payments on prescription medicines.

I am worried that most of my fellowseniors, who are already feeling the pinch, will be left much worseoff by these uncaring promises.

Ian Paterson, Kambah

Canberra Hospital has long struggled to service both the ACT and a significant surrounding area of NSW. The Coalition's cuts to primary health care concern us all. Labor's commitment to uphold Medicare and restore hospital funding is to be applauded.

Lois Wishart, Hughes

LATE OR EARLY

Today I saw a blowie. Last one of autumn or first one of spring?

S.W. Davey, Torrens

MORE LIKE A GUSH

Max Foster (Letters, June 14) is absolutely right. Over many years I have observed that the purported trickle-down effect is, in fact, a gush-upwards effect. The term trickle-down is best described, in Richard Denniss's word, as econobabble.

Warwick Budd, Nicholls

DRAWING A BLANK

Gerry Murphy fired a blank with his claim (Letters, June 15) that automatic weapons are illegal in the United States. In at least 37 states, the ownership of fully-automatic weapons including machine guns with a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives permit is legal.

David J. Richards, Moruya NSW

TAKE AWAY CYCLE PATHS

Martin Miller (Letters, June 15) says cyclists are at risk because there's "no physical separation from ... motor traffic" on busy roads. The obvious solution is to stop providing cycle paths on busy roads.

R.S. Gilbert, Braddon

AMY NOT AT FAULT

Amy Gillett died when an oncoming motorist in Germany crossed to the wrong side of the road and lost control of the car.

Amy Gillett's fellow athletes suffered grievous injuries.

The driver was tried and sanctioned in the German judicial system. The assertion by Robert James (Letters, June 15) that Amy Gillett's death was due to riding in a group is deeply erroneous.

Peter Chesworth, Red Hill

WHERE'S MY CARD?

Further to recent letters about Zed Seselja's birthday solicitations, the senator obviously thinks I am a Labor supporter – I received no card for my birthday this week.

John Turner, Kambah

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