Comcare fails to report that it also withholds medical and rehabilitation support for genuine claims on the basis of employer statements even when Comcare becomes aware that the employer has made false and/or incorrect statements.

Instead, genuine claims are rejected and injured workers left to finance their own rehabilitation at a time when they may no longer be working. Some injured workers simply walk away, saving Comcare money.

Those injured employees with rejected claims that do take matters to the AAT are further disadvantaged when Comcare at the 11th hour before an AAT hearing requests a further delay in AAT proceedings and uses this as leverage to get injured employees to accept a "closed" settlement to end the case. For the injured employee who has been funding their own rehabilitation cost, it means some cash flow rather than further delays.

This strategy also provides better financial outcomes for Comcare by reducing ongoing liability.

The tactics now used by Comcare to minimise liability suggests that it is complicit in protecting employers who don't get exposed for their wrongdoing (false statements) at AAT hearings because Comcare will settle cases before hearings.

Minimising liability in the case of genuine claims also raises serious concerns about Comcare's functions and responsibilities under the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.

Joyce Noronha-Barrett, Giralang

What kind of alternative fact supports Malcolm Turnbull's award for "maintaining a strong non-discriminatory immigration program while emphasising the importance of integration" ("Political Centre the place to be", July11, p.4) at the very same time as his government introduces legislation to bar people from Australian citizenship on no grounds other than that their literacy skills are too low to get into university?

Figures in a 2013 OECD and ABS study (Literacy in Australia: Understanding the Literacy Levels in Our Community) show that the English test now proposed as a requirement for citizenship would disenfranchise more than a quarter of the overall Australian population.

The proposed English test will discriminate against approximately 65per cent of humanitarian entrants and 70per cent of those admitted in the family reunion program, 63per cent of whom are women.

These groups have English at levels well below the proposed requirement, lack the necessary advanced test-taking skills and probably can't afford the $330-$400 fee to sit and re-sit the test (over and above what they pay to apply for citizenship).

The truth and the English language are certainly debased if this doesn't count as discrimination.

Helen Moore, Cook

The talk of Australia acquiring a missile defence system exposes nuclear deterrence as the dangerous myth it has always been.

For decades, we Australians have been told that US nuclear weapons, and our support for them, are essential to deter a nuclear attack on us. But if deterrence works as we're told, why do we need a horrendously expensive missile defence shield as well? And why all the fuss about North Korea if nuclear deterrence works so well?

In any event, the obvious response to a missile shield is simply to build more missiles to overcome it, which is what China is doing.

Protecting Australia from nuclear attack is not a matter of rocket science. It's a matter of rejecting any role for US nuclear weapons in our own defence, and daring to distinguish our own security from US security.

We could start by signing rather than opposing the recently concluded UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, instead of clinging to the delusional "security" of threatening others with mass destruction. Then we wouldn't need to continue the manifest lie that nuclear weapons keep us safe.

Sue Wareham, Medical Association for Prevention of War, Cook

Unless the Coalition gets its act together, Scott Phillips may well be right (Coal-fired power investors risk being unplugged as renewables rise", July10, p.37).

But he needs to widen his research if he thinks that Elon Musk's big battery in South Australia will solve the problem. Sure, it will make a contribution to the mix of new infrastructure needed to resolve things for South Australia.

According to Musk, the big battery will power 30,000 houses for one hour and 20 minutes. One hour and 20 minutes? What if the wind stops for longer than that? And what about demand from the big manufacturing and commercial users? It will help at times of peak demand, but only briefly. Even Jay Weatherill has recognised that a new baseload plant will be necessary to help meet the reliability and stability needed.

He's going for gas-fired in this instance, but the question of whether coal-fired baseload plants will figure in the future depends on decisions about the low emissions limit, and that is still in the Coalition's hands.

Graham Anderson, Garran

Disappointing that the Heritage Trust can't recognise a 12-storey Californian bungalow designed for a very large family when they see one.

That is what SHL had in mind with their Reid apartments (chimney, tower pop-out and all) wasn't it?

M.Moore, Bonython

We are told that a drop in reported graffiti crime in Canberra means that there is now less graffiti ("Community engagement has worked to reduce illegal graffiti in the ACT", canberratimes.com.au, July 9).

As a regular user of Access Canberra to report graffiti, I have seen no reduction at all; it's far more likely that there is more graffiti than ever, but fewer people are reporting it.

The reason is obvious; citizens who previously took the trouble to report graffiti on ACT government facilities have found that it often takes weeks or even months to remove due to chronic under-resourcing of removal assets, and have given up in despair and disgust.

While facilitating legal murals is welcome, there seems to be no understanding at the political level that the most effective deterrent to graffiti crime is immediate removal.

This deprives the criminals of the satisfaction of their "artworks" being seen. Conversely, an almost guaranteed several weeks of display is an open invitation to create even more graffiti.

This vicious cycle makes penny-pinching of graffiti removal resources a classic case of false economy.

Other Australian cities have given up the fight, while we in Canberra have already accepted permanent disfigurement of ActewAGL installations as the new normal, due to that company's apparent policy of never acting on graffiti removal requests.

Without adequate graffiti removal resources, the rest of our city will eventually look the same.

Terry George, Kingston

I was shocked to read Daniel Burdon's article "Sudden death support service cut" (canberratimes.com.au, July 6).

Apparently the ACT Government believes we do not need Supportlink ACT because of funding provided for free counselling from Relationships Australia, which provides a useful but distinctly different type of service.

The morning of March 15 2016 the police visited me. My son had committed suicide, incinerated in a horrendous car crash a kilometre or so from my home.

I am a widow, in my 80s with no family members living in Canberra.

When faced with such information one is in shock, numb, disoriented, overwhelmed and yet, as next of kin, there are tasks to be done.

Within an hour of that visit Supportlink was on the phone arranging a home visit.

That immediate response and professional support provided at that time of crisis was invaluable, and I was able to cope with the difficulties ahead. Free counselling with RA is still an option for me as I await the Coroner's decisions, but it was Supportlinks' presence on the day which kept me functional through the actual crisis.

The ACT Government talks of making the city vibrant. They have succeeded with me — I'm vibrant with anger at this cut to such a vital service.

Maureen Pitman, Reid

Ever wonder what a dictatorship looks like?

How about a government that refuses to engage with a constituent community that represents 70 per cent of an important industry; a government with a MOU with the union movement to give the latter an effective veto over any contract let by the government; a government beholden to the union movement, the peak body of which is reported to be robo-calling to bully the constituents of an elected member of the ACT Assembly; a government that has budgeted $500,000 per year to push the interests of one minority diversity group?

Is this what Labor voters put this government back into power to do? Hardly democratic.

M. Silex, Erindale

The High Speed Train was the subject of two letters on Monday, July 10.

One was a classic example of fuzzy thinking.

In short, it said go ahead and build it. Worry about paying for it later. The second letter was far wiser.

As with light rail in Canberra that attitude of forget the cost is truly disastrous.

Japan has a need and a population for the high speed train. Three companies have tried to run their system at a profit. Two have given it back to the Japanese Government and the third consortium is struggling.

In Melbourne a similar experience has been undergone by the Victorian Government with their trams.

They are now on their third try to get private enterprise to run them at a profit. With the web it is easy to learn from the mistakes of others.

Howard Carew, Isaacs

Michael Lane (letters, July 11) is very short-sighted if he thinks fast rail is a waste of taxpayers' money.

In fact, the continual delays are where taxpayers' money is being wasted. Certainly initial costs are high, and become higher every day the start date is delayed, but once established fast rail will save taxpayers' many millions of dollars.

The maintenance of rail tracks is minuscule compared with repairing the highways used by heavy trucks.

Take this into account together with the increased efficiency and road safety factors and the answer is clear (except to decision-makers influenced by the trucking lobby).

Bruce Boyd, Bruce

David Roberts (Letters, July 12) makes a good point concerning Morocco's building a high-speed TGV (train à grande vitesse) link between Tangiers and Casablanca.

I have heard the criticism that the rail link between Canberra and Sydney is of a Third World standard. Why are we not upgrading such infrastructure?

Interest rates are not going to stay so low forever.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

Anyone confused by the current impasse in remuneration negotiations for Australian cricketers only has to remember one thing: the recently-appointed leaders of Cricket Australia are union-busting zealots.

They live by a divide-and-conquer credo and don't care who they trample to implement their benighted ideology, be they players or the cricket-loving public.

It doesn't bode well.

David Jenkins, Casey

If the Liberal Left faction feels so strongly about Left-leaning Labor policies, such as same-sex marriage, that they wish to dominate the Right faction, then they should quit the oddly-called Liberal, or conservative party, and leave the Right faction to govern for the silent majority of conservative Australians.

Claude Wiltshire, Queanbeyan

The PM is right (or is that Left) when he said Sir Robert Menzies was a progressive and the Liberal Party was not meant to be a conservative party. The conservatives in that party should retire or join another party like the DLP, One Nation or Cory Barnard's new party. Conservative political values only retard progress.

Adrian Jackson, Middle Park, Vic

Malcolm Turnbull a liberal? No gay marriage, locking up refugees in concentration camps, cutting wages and penalty rates, $4 internships, privatising public services, cutting welfare spending and on and on. He is undoing the last of the Keynesian legacy Menzies left.

John Passant, Kambah

After Abbott's five-point plan to revitalise the Liberals, I await his 11-point plan for crime control: count your toes and ring the police.

Thos Puckett, Ashgrove

I daresay Barnaby Joyce would like to think that his opponents see him as the devil incarnate, when in fact he is a bull in a china shop.

S. W. Davey, Torrens

I support Yassmin Abdel-Magied.

Imagine if Yassmin had said the "stolen generation" is all a myth. Andrew Bolt said that.

Imagine if Yassmin had said the war in Iraq is won and over. Andrew Bolt said that. "Lest we forget".

Richard Ryan, Summerland Point, NSW

Did Bill Deane (letters, July 12) get the job? His resume seems outdated, and there wasn't much to suggest independent thought.

Brave move to put the Australian as a reference. But there was enough self-confidence to warrant a part-time gig, perhaps, as the sensible correspondent from the suburbs. He'd cut through our complacency like a dose of salts.

Matt Gately, Rivett

With all the renewable electricity in South Australia it now has the most expensive energy prices in the world. Can't wait for our turn.

Jayson Taylor, Monash

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