It is not about any individual politician, keen as he might be on helping to solve the problem (slow train Canberra to Sydney), it is about the appalling lack of vision of our leaders.

As far as I am aware, over the years (more than 20 years now) there has been announced study after study about the feasibility of a fast train between Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

Nothing has ever come out of these "studies".

If our politicians cannot come to terms with the need to tackle this type of issue seriously, then I don't know what they are there for.

Paying lip service to the popular clamour and inviting "fellow travellers" to "make an appointment to visit my (his) office when Parliament next resumes" is almost an insult to the long-suffering electorate affected by the inaction of our pollies on this and similar infrastructure works so very urgently needed.

What else could we possibly tell him about the issue that hasn't already been said?

John Rodriguez, Florey

Paul E. Bowler (Letters, March 11) should not jump to conclusions about how much western Sydney folk know about rail services into and around Canberra.

I'm old enough to recall travel on the Canberra-Monaro express when the train used to divide at Queanbeyan with half proceeding on to Cooma and the other half to Canberra. I imagine I'm not the only MP who hears from regular travellers who can't see why the rail trip to the national capital can't be sped up a fraction or at least made more comfortable. Standard rail technology, including signalling and track laying techniques, has advanced considerably since the days of steam dealt with at length in Paul E. Bowler's letter.

There, too, are now far more people living along the old Sydney-Canberra-Cooma rail corridor than when disinvestment in rail services became the fashion in the 1950s and 1960s.

In more recent times, both here and in the UK, new rail lines have opened and some formerly abandoned ones have experienced a second life.

When experts, constituents and disinterested enthusiasts say to me it's time to re-evaluate the options, I'm interested.

That's why, my office is meeting this week with Professors Williams and Laird to explore the ideas Clive Williams canvassed in The Canberra Times on March 3.

Dr Mike Freelander, MHR for Macarthur

In the article "Airport hits out at slurs over safety" (March 9, p3) Canberra Airport rejected concerns buildings at the airport impacted on aircraft safety.

There are two buildings that affect landing aircraft. The first is the large maintenance hangar just to the south of the terminal.

This hangar is just to the west of the main runway and wind from the west hits the hangar and creates turbulence on the lee side.

The documentation to pilots published by Airservices Australia states: "During strong westerly winds turbulence may be experienced in the touch down area on runway 35." My experience is that whenever the wind from the west is above 15 knots the control tower warns of turbulence in its information broadcast to pilots.

The area of the runway east of the hangar is on that part of the runway where aircraft flare for landing, so they are not quite flying but not quite taxiing.

The other building that affects aircraft is the office building next to Majura Road. This affects aircraft landing on the shorter runway aligned towards the south-east. The Airservices Australia documentation to pilots states: "Pilots landing on runway 12 in crosswinds should note possible turbulence in northerly and north-easterly wind conditions."

My experience is that the building also creates turbulence for aircraft on their final approach when the wind is from the east.

Wayne Arthur, Narrabundah

I've just gotten a response from TAMS regarding roadworks on Hindmarsh Drive at Eggleston Crescent and Launceston Street. As I suspected, they are installing more lights at both intersections (no doubt without co-ordination with other lights on Hindmarsh Drive).

Clearly whoever makes these decisions does not live in or need to commute to Weston Creek or environs using that road.

It can already take half the trip time from one to the other to get through the unco-ordinated signal bunfight that is the Parkway and Namatjira Drive.

In the morning peak hour it is quicker to travel from Queanbeyan to Woden than it is to get there from Rivett.

Further congesting traffic helps no one. The traffic pile-up this will cause under the Parkway, across Namatjira Drive and back to Melrose Drive in the opposite direction is going to be horrendous.

If the crossings at these two intersections are such an issue then remove the option to turn right from them or into them.

Dumbing down the roads by installing traffic signals is further diminishing the ability of already poor drivers to make appropriate decisions. The ultimate effect is that there will be nearly as many accidents with signals as without them.

Stop catering to the lowest common denominator and increase the expectation of motorists to actually drive appropriately.

It'd be good practice should they venture anywhere else in Australia.

Mark Pepper, Rivett

Lesson Colin Barnett, former WA premier, proof perfect of what happens when you make deals with frightening people who talk but never deliver.

Linus Cole, Palmerston

The sight of John Howard power walking past some CFMEU demonstrators reminds us of the gradually tarnishing reputation of his administration that lasted 11years.

Tony Abbott likes to characterise the Howard/Costello period as a golden era of budget surpluses, industrial peace and certainty before the ALP took power in 2007 and wrecked the joint.

The fact that PM Turnbull is a little more circumspect in his praise could have something to do with the fact that several of the Howard chickens are coming home to roost and presenting the Turnbull government with serious dilemmas.

The Iraq war that Howard followed George W into is still consuming Australian dollars, 14 years after the March 2003 invasion. The need to pursue overpaid Centrelink recipients with such rigour can be traced back to the Howard/Costello decision to massively expand middle-class welfare (and social security expenditure) through the Family Tax Benefit, introduced in 2000.

The looming gas shortage that the government is currently addressing can also be largely sheeted home to the failings of the Howard government. In August 2002, Howard was happy to spruik the latest deal on LNG exports to China as "a gold medal performance" delivering billions of dollars over 25 years.

Pity he didn't think about the future energy needs of Australia. We are now paying the price.

Mike Reddy, Curtin

I had little sympathy for John Howard having a real-world experience when confronted by unionists.

Like a World War I general, he sat in conference rooms and offices in Parliament House and at Kirribilli many kilometres away from the "front", where the effects of a (continuing) policy of destroying organised labour, driving down wages and conditions, and freezing wage growth were remote and were only felt by anonymous people who you had nothing in common with and really didn't want to know.

But you can't be PM forever, and he had to rejoin the real world at some stage. Last week, he found out that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Dallas Stow, O'Connor

Re M.Moore from Bonython (letters, March 11), Labor may have set up the Fair Work Commission, but the LNP stacked it with business people, as they have stacked many public bodies. I suggest you look at the pictures of the event. It was a stunt by Howard shepherded by tame Seven and Nine news people. And unions will never forget WorkChoices! Solidarity forever!

Roseanne Byrne, St Georges Basin, NSW

A recent Auditor-General's report (2016) highlighted minimal tax benefits accruing to Commonwealth Treasury from Australia's LNG exports. These lost tax benefits are at the expense of national economic benefits and budget stabilisation.

Such fiscal irresponsibility is not merely historical but sets the scene for a future period in which the aggregate value of these exports overhauls Qatar to make Australia the leading LNG exporter globally. In sharp contrast to our political masters, policy-makers in that small Arab country, typical of OPEC oil and gas states, know how to maximise such revenue benefits to their national economies. Even the US has been able, especially over the past decade, to use massively increased gas supplies, and consequently low domestic prices, to sharply reduce national carbon emissions from electricity generation while maintaining system stability.

Absence of reasonably priced gas-fired electricity in Australia has meant enhanced risk of costly blackouts within the national electricity system (NEM). Second, it has damaged the nation's ability to meet committed national carbon emission targets. Third, it has blocked achievement of both these key national objectives at least cost.

Thus, free-market dogma, the ruling ideology of both major political parties (in this case as export parity pricing of LNG), is a major obstacle to resolving the "energy policy trilemma" rightly identified by chief scientist Alan Finkel as the key relevant policy challenge facing federal and state governments alike. It's time to focus on the public interest first and to put narrowly commercial private interests well down the list.

Barry Naughten, Farrer

Well, the energy crisis is upon us. Our government now admits there is a problem, but our PM, constrained by his right wing and Nationals, is suggesting fossil-fuel sourced energy to provide the answer and that reliance on renewables has been the problem.

We have plenty of sun and wind potential for our energy needs. An issue with these renewables, standing alone, has been storage necessary to meet peak and uncertain demands.

A Tesla spokesman is proposing battery storage, and with advances in technology and decreasing costs it must be a part of the remedy mix.

There must be enormous potential here, particularly for rooftop solar and battery storage, but probably not on the scale required for a national electricity market.

Recent ANU research concludes that wind and solar, with pumped hydro energy storage, can provide our energy needs, replacing coal and gas with reliability and at a lower cost.

We have no need for fossil fuels. Pump storage requires a bottom pond, top pond, site, pump/generator and a prime minister with Ben Chifley's guts.

Plenty of sites have been identified. We have the know-how to do it.

We have done it before. Two stations can be seen in our region in the Snowy scheme.

We could, with vision and will, have another Snowy-type outfit, building the necessary dams and so on throughout the country, employing thousands and providing cheaper carbon-free power. What a sensible way to reach our emissions target and go beyond.

Don McCallum, Isaacs

Politicians and authorities should urgently implement a plan to ensure reliable and cheap electricity in Australia.

Rod Matthews, Melbourne, Vic

REMEMBERING BILL LEAK

The great Bill Leak dead. Impossible, inconceivable; a monumental loss for common sense and proportionality. I am confident he would attribute (Warning: tongue-in-cheek remark follows for those with no sense of humour) his lamentably early demise to either the Human Rights Commission or the equally inept but more malevolent North Korean regime. It can't be natural causes, surely?

A. Whiddett, Yarralumla

Vale Bill Leak. Love or hate Bill, he was always thought provoking. And a very good artist too.

Graeme Rankin, Holder

Brilliant cartoonist Bill Leak will be sadly missed.

Hounded under 18C by the Human Rights Commission people with all the talent, brains and charisma of elderly oysters, Bill will be welcomed and will set to work cartooning the hosts of Heaven in short order.

Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill

SELF–RIGHTEOUS BISHOP

Catholic Archbishop Christopher Prowse ("Archbishop says (abortion) protests will carry on", March 7, p.9) should concentrate on cleaning up the cesspool of depravity that exists within the ranks of his own organisation before worrying about what people are doing in the comparatively virtuous real world.

James Allan, Narrabundah

STALLING ONE NATION

I am now convinced Mathias Cormann is a genius. Where others have failed he has come up with a way to make One Nation irrelevant. Mind you it comes at a cost. I expect he thinks if Labor also preferences One Nation that should eliminate them forever. This makes me confident Australian finances are in capable hands.

Ed Gaykema, Dickson

Malcolm Turnbull is, as always, wise not to rule out future preference deals between the Liberal Party and One Nation. Such deals appear to be the best way to stall One Nation's momentum.

H. Simon, Watson

The Liberal Party's alliance with One Nation in WA proves that it's better to have a conversation with an intelligent adversary than to have one with one who is ignorant.

Sankar Kumar Chatterjee, Evatt

ONE-TRICK WIKILEAKS

Why is it that the only classified documents that have been released by WikiLeaks and Assange are from democratic countries?

Funny how he has never released any secret documents from authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia.

Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor

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