Extract? Promise? Listen? Were these our elected representatives who were promising and listening and throwing some morsels to the rabble?

No, the promisers and listeners were consuls Griffith and Taylor again, representing the unwelcome occupying force from Rome patronising troublesome and querulous plebs in a captured distant province where the "government" and "opposition" had fled the field.

You'd severely punish both parties at the electoral box, but of course it is Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with no prospect of relief for the captives of "self-government".

A. Whiddett, Yarralumla

Giants step too far

The GWS Giants is a Sydney team which plays three matches per season at Manuka because the ratepayers of Canberra give them $2.3 million per year to do so. The appropriate response to the Giants' audacious proposal is for the ACT government to state that expressions of interest will be called for when the redevelopment of Manuka reaches the top of its list for similar projects. Any other response means this government deserves to be booted out at the next election.

David Pederson, O'Connor

Design of the times

Shelley Penn ("Manuka Oval proposal can set a design benchmark", Times2, April 7, p5) seems to imply her former roles as chairwoman of the NCA and president of the Australian Institute of Architects and now the jury chairwoman of a proposed design completion for the Manuka Green development, gives her some authority to write about the redevelopment of the Manuka Oval Precinct.

I remain completely mystified by the aim of her comments. What is the proposal that the Giants and Grocon have adopted to determine the ultimate design proposal for the site?

What role has the AIA played in this decision? Do the residents of Manuka and indeed Canberra have any say?

I get the feeling that the heritage value of the area and its amenity to the ordinary citizens of this city are playing second fiddle to the financial benefits to Grocon and the coffers of the ACT government.

Gavin O'Brien, Gilmore

Don't serve 'em

To my mind, the matter of managing public behaviour late at night cannot be that difficult ("Plan for last drinks at 3am", April 6, p1).

Drink driving regulations set a maximum blood alcohol limit of 0.05. The recent "Plan B" advertising by the NSW government suggests that one shouldn't even attempt walking home with a reading exceeding 0.15. This suggests that one should cease drinking about the 0.1 level.

If it was illegal for any licensed premises, be it nightclub, bar, restaurant, or bottle shop, to serve anyone with a blood alcohol reading exceeding 0.1, then surely alcohol-induced bad behaviour would largely disappear, regardless of the hour.

David Wade, Holt

Light rail proves itself

It's fascinating that the bulk of the arguments advanced against light rail come from economic prognosticators and think tanks of the oxymoronic "economic rationalist" or conventionally moronic neo-liberal bent, whereas support tends to come from people like Professor Peter Newman and our recent guests from Vancouver with proven experience in using public transport as a key lever in the renaissance of real cities.

Remembering John Kenneth Galbraith's wise warning from long experience that "the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable" and noting the successes of Perth and Vancouver – and many other cities that have reaped the rewards of new light rail infrastructure – I know where I'd rather put my money.

Felix MacNeill, Dickson

The Grattan Institute's Marion Terrill ("Investment should benefit the community", Times2, April 4, p5) has condemned the decision to invest in light rail for the Gungahlin Civic route. So Simon Corbell released an old report, provided by Professor Vickerman of the University of Kent, affirming benefits from investment in light rail of 1.2.

However Vickerman's report does nothing to discredit the government's own analysis that bus rapid transit would have far superior benefits from investment (1.98). It is apparent that the government has chosen to develop light rail because of the contentious argument that light rail spurs development better than bus rapid transit.

It has announced that "we will also use light rail as demand-driving infrastructure to help shape the way the city grows with higher density and more compact urban form along light rail corridors" ("Transport Canberra: Light Rail Network; Delivering a modern transport system for a growing city", 2015).

Adopting corridor development for Canberra would be a great tragedy. We have a unique city based on a multi-town form and it has been so successful that there is no reason to abandon that urban form in future development.

The government's focus should be on developing the economy of this multi-town city.

A. Smith, Farrer

Growth v greed

What a revelation was Graham Clews' comment (Letters, April 7) on the lure of economic growth. Not so much for what he said, which was stating the bleeding obvious, but for saying it publicly.

Almost no one in public office seems prepared to accept that maintaining endless economic growth only works if natural resources are infinite.

It's the economists who need convincing that an economy can work in a steady state system.

Maybe the real problem is our innate greed.

Philip Telford, Tarago, NSW

If there were to be a prize for the letter of the decade it must surely be awarded to Graham Clews. While I have had a few short, sharp and not particularly clever comments printed in the Letters page in the past, Clews has expressed brilliantly what I and, I am positive, most other long term residents of Canberra would like to state.

In a nutshell, we are fed up with the greed of large commerce, of the greed of real-estate companies and the greed of builders and developers in general. Normal Canberrans do not want expansion of any form – we love it here because it is not like Sydney or Melbourne. It is time for the members of the political parties who claim that they love this town to prove it!

Jeff Day, Greenway

I feel compelled to write after watching the Brumbies play the Chiefs at Canberra Stadium on April 2. I will not be going again to the stadium, or future Brumbies games, and this is why.

It is not because of the ludicrous and tiresome audio effects (played at full volume) during the game; the ridiculous "Brumby neigh" on each kick-off, or the "thundering drums" when the Brumbies are in their opponents 22. (A noise that seems to distract the Brumby players more than their opponents).

These are embarrassing, unnecessary distractions, and have no place in a top flight game of professional rugby. But they are not the main reason why I will not return to the stadium any time soon with my 12-year-old son.

The reason I will veto future games is because of the appalling pre-game music "play-list" blaring out of the PA system. Someone needs to be made aware that playing explicit rap music, that includes the repeated words "f---ing" and "arsehole", is not suitable for a family audience. It was 19.05pm when the stadium's resident DJ decided to inflict that track on the crowd. If the Brumbies and the stadium wish to encourage parents with children to attend games, I suggest someone ensures that the music played is appropriate for a family audience.

As the ACT government has a significant involvement in the stadium, I would hope that it investigates this matter, and makes plain to the Brumbies club and the stadium's management its concern.

Mike Sweet, O'Connor

Actions the key

The worth of a man is determined not by his words, but by his actions. On that basis, those who continually tell us how to behave, while at the same time ignoring their own preaching, are worthless. So we have David Pocock, rugby player and self-appointed social conscience, rubbed out of the game for several weeks for foul play. Says it all, really.

T. Leslie, Hughes

I support wholeheartedly the sentiments of Peter Hill (Letters, April 6). For Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull even to consider not funding hospitals and public schools, while multi-billions are directed towards maintaining cruel detention centres, subsidising the outdated fossil fuel industry and buying more (at the point of use, outdated) weaponry, smacks of national priorities gone rogue.

But Peter Hill should have included in his list of exclusions the skinning of our national institutions. The cultural vandalism inflicted on these treasure house institutions, by both Labor and Coalition governments in recent years, under the guise of that insulting misnomer, "efficiency dividend", beggars belief. Our elected governments, culpably ignorant, persist in applying this fiction with indifference.

When will we unearth just a few federal politicians of integrity and vision who actually lead the country with a recognition that we must nurture and learn from the past in order to establish a worthy moraland cultural legacy for the future.

David Headon, Melba

Appalling mall vision

I'm not normally a fan of Elizabeth Farrelly's articles, dripping as they usually are with trendoid lefty PC guilt, but her article exposing the dangerous link between the Institute of Public Affairs and corporate money was spot-on ('Libertarians taking liberties', Times2, April 7, p4).

Although the IPA's link with corporate greed is bad enough, I suspect the thing which actually motors the IPA's ideologues like Janet Albrechtsen and Tim Wilson is a profound stupidity. It is patently obvious to most sentient beings that the New World Order agenda they have signed Australia up to is a de-industrialising, culturally alienating disaster for the majority of ordinary Australians, yet Albrechtsen and co continue to believe in it. They are sure of it and they are sure of their intellectual superiority in being sure of it!

Their vision for Australia is essentially of a country which is like a shopping mall – completely internationalised without any trace of cultural uniqueness, a place where nothing is made except for trinkets, and where the local population is dumbed down sufficiently to be grateful for jobs serving tourists and polishing the shoes and nails of the localelites.

The ancient Greeks understood it best: their certainty in spite of the facts is the power of hubris to blind otherwise intelligent people from seeing the truth. The power of being insiders has made them stupid.

Greg Ellis, Murrumbateman, NSW

Unequal pay an issue

Noel Towell ("Two-year PS industrial dispute raising eyebrows", Times2, April 6, p5) may be right about industrial negotiations in the "real world". However, he doesn't mention something that the management of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection appears reluctant to acknowledge, namely, that former Customs staff are now paid substantially more than former Immigration staff at the same APS level, sometimes tens of thousands more, and enjoy a range of conditions denied to former Immigration staff (said to include business class travel, performance pay, parking allowances, permission to drink alcohol at work premises).

The attempt to imply at recent senate estimates hearings that the discrepancy is attributable to differing skill levels is not substantiated by reputable analysis.

Unless a measure of "real world" transparency is demonstrated by DIBP management, and a visible start made on a path to a semblance of equity in valuing and remunerating staff, the morale of that agency appears unlikely to peak soon.

Chris Whyte, Higgins

It's all about parties

Ian Morison (Letters, April 7) disparagingly dismissed Bill Shorten as nothing more than a "union hack", while describing Malcolm Turnbull as an "urbane and thoughtful" PM. What Ian should have made clearer in his letter is his overt political allegiance, as he has previously unsuccessfully sought pre-selection as a Liberal candidate for the ACT Assembly, and actually stood as a candidate for the Liberal party in the 1998 federal election in the seat of Canberra. To put the contrary view. The election is about parties and policies, and not specifically Shorten and Turnbull. There is a stark choice in this election.

One party is a united, cohesive and progressive party which has done the hard yards on policy development, has got its act together, and which will seek to govern for all Australians and not just for the very wealthy and the big end of town. The other party is a lazy and divided party of the extreme right, "flexible" with the truth, divisive, financially illiterate, incapable of taking any responsibility for its own actions, living in the past, a policy-free zone prone to kowtowing to the big end of town and the wealthiest 1 per cent of the population.

For the record, I have never been a member of any political party or union, and have helped vote both the LNP and ALP in, and out.

Rob King, Melba

Don't cut research

The public good and long-term research undertaken by CSIRO is indeed something to be extended, not cut, as outlined by Will Steffen ("Research cuts hurt all of us", Times2, April 4, p 1). CSIRO management's aim to get rid of "science for science sake" and "public good" research is hard to believe.

This ideological plan would see climate science, land and water research and other areas which depend on public funding being tossed out. Even if they are only interested in the money, it doesn't make sense, as Professor Will Steffen points out: "Public investment research on average pays off at least five to one in terms of the public good over a decade or so, event discounted to present value."

The appointment of Dr Larry Marshall to do Tony Abbott's dirty work of decimating CSIRO must not be allowed to succeed.

He and other management who support this narrow, destructive plan should resign and let others who understand science get on with making CSIRO a positive and productive organisation for the benefit of all Australians.

Kathryn Kelly, Chifley

MIGHT OF THE WEALTHY

An unregulated plunder being necessary to a state free of taxation: the right of the wealthy to keep and bear politicians shall not be infringed.

Michael Barry, Torrens

SNAIL MAIL

On Wednesday, I received an envelope which had been posted in Griffith on March 17. Even allowing for the fact it was sent to my previous address, also in Macquarie (I have mail redirection in place), I'd like to think that this is a record for postal delay. Can anyone top this?

Anne Waight, Macquarie

POLITICAL SOLUTION

Ross Fitzgerald ("Failure to heed Labor lessons", Times2, April 6, p4) appears to have lost all hope. Surely last week Malcolm Turnbull was close to an answer: dissolve the Commonwealth and leave it up to the States.

Sophia Yates, Parkville, Vic

CSIRO PRIVATISATION

Further to your editorial "Emails suggest a conflicted CSIRO" (Times2, April 6, p2), I think Larry Marshall is preparing the CSIRO for "privatisation" and ultimately floating on the ASX. The Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, now just CSL, provides an example. Don't expect anyone who knows to admit it.

John F. Simmons, Kambah

NEWSPAPER GIVES HOPE

The Canberra Times thundered on Thursday on behalf of those residents who oppose the bid by Grocon and the Giants to privatise public land in and around Manuka Oval. What a joy it was to read its balanced editorial coverage and Letters to the Editor page. The Canberra Times gives us a voice when we need to be heard and not lectured. Is it too late for the ACT government to listen and learn?

Sally Begg, Barton

ROOM TO MOVE

It is patently evident that this ACT government is more concerned about giving chickens room to move than it is about cramming the local population into ghettos like battery hens. By the way, doesn't GWS stand for Greater Western Sydney – they and their backers should take their grandiose schemes, their carpetbags and develop their ghettos in Western Sydney, not Manuka.

David Hall, Kingston

LEFT-WING ABUSE

It seems a bit rich for Jan Gulliver to express outrage at T. Leslie's sentiments (Letters, April 7) regarding Bob Ellis's death. After all, Jan and her left-wing mates have been subjecting Tony Abbott to the most vile, nauseating and defamatory abuse and false accusations for years now.

A. Pavelic, Queanbeyan, NSW

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