Paul Malone's article ("Innovation doesn't create jobs", August 7, p19) points out the problem with thinking innovation drives jobs. But, it could if it concentrated on innovation to increase jobs rather than decrease the number.
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Malcolm Turnbull understands the difference but he has difficulty persuading the Treasury and his colleagues.
He can get "jobs and growth" if he looks at how the first governor of the Commonwealth Bank addressed the same problem.
Sir Denison Miller spent Australian dollars into existence to build infrastructure and to pay for Australia's contribution to the First World War.
He did this without borrowing from the English.
Malone suggests the federal government could decide to spend billions of dollars on fast trains rather than build submarines.
Much of the money could be spent in South Australia producing rolling stock and rail-lines.
We should make as much as possible in Australia and only buy the expertise.
Building things ourselves increases jobs and if we fund with Australian dollars, it does not put us into debt.
To defend ourselves we could make cheap robot submarine drones.
Making local with Australian dollars will quickly balance the books.
Kevin Cox, Ngunnawal
Paul Malone is spot on when he says the government should pick winners, like a high-speed train between Sydney and Melbourne, rather than waste $50 billion of taxpayers' money on unneeded submarines that will be obsolete by the time they're built.
Pamela Collett, Narrabundah
Streamline poll
The declared Senate outcomes put the lie to a host of alarmist predictions at the time changes were being made to end the racket of interlocking group voting ticket numberings, and allow voters to express their preferences without meeting outlandish formality provisions.
Informal voting was under 4 per cent nationally, much of that deliberate, and much less in the ACT.
Those voting for minor parties saw some of those candidates elected or helped shape who won the last few vacancies in tight contests in several states as large numbers of votes were transferred from those excluded. The ballot paper could be greatly simplified by the removal of party boxes whose presence leads to larger parties not making the most of their strongest support.
Surpluses of elected candidates should be distributed to minimise exhausted votes and allocate the same proportion of each transferable paper's value as contributing to the candidate's quota.
Bogey Musidlak, Proportional Representation Society of Australia (ACT Branch) convener
Marriage expires
Bruce Taggart ("Marriage fairness", Letters, August 7) supports his view with the claim: "Imagine how loudly James would whinge if anyone dared to suggest that heterosexual couples should be content with civil unions."
This is exactly what I suggest! An increasing number of heterosexual couples are already turning their backs on legal marriage and one in two marriages ends in divorce – isn't this sufficient proof that the Marriage Act has outlived its use-by date?
G. Bell, Franklin
Manuka strategy
The cynical reality is that the Chief Minister's sudden embrace of "the community's views on the Manuka precinct is a sign an election is near" ("Manuka backdown a surprise", Editorial, August 7).
Mr Barr's manoeuvre is solely to "ensure the controversial issue is off the agenda until after October 15". His undertaking to seek advice from a panel of community representatives and that development would be subject to a competitive process does not, despite the editorial's hope to the contrary, alter expectations of his intention to completely alter the area.
The situation is reminiscent of the notification of a budget allocation for a major scoping study which later was claimed to have been an announcement that the project, the tramway, would proceed if he was elected.
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor
Token gesture
In regards to bringing the major banks to book by inviting them round once a year for a chat, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison evidently took no notice of the farcical contempt with which Australian and international corporations treated our Senate taxation inquiry this year.
Imagine if we had dealt with institutional child abuse just by having the bishops over to tell us about progress each year.
And how far we'd go with juvenile detention now by giving the same discredited, mendacious NT and federal ministers further opportunities for obfuscation and deception via an informal conversational setting.
To be treated like children by the new federal government, in having serious concerns about banks so casually and artfully dismissed, is just plainly insulting.
Alex Mattea, Kingston
Religion shielded
I was filled with great disappointment as I read news that religion had been afforded further legal protections under recent changes made to the ACT's Discrimination Act.
Much like the sale of indulgences throughout the Middle Ages, taking advantage of the green light to plunder children without fear of prosecution until very recently and the tax-free wealth-hoarding arrangements still enjoyed in most countries around the world are examples of "making hay while the sun shines".
What hope can any society have of freeing itself from the vestiges of these primitive and misogynistic traditions that limit our species in so many ways if religion can't be held up for the ridicule, scorn and contempt it deserves?
Voltaire once famously wrote, "Man will never be free until the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last priest".
James Allan, Narrabundah
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