The ACT government will buy the houses at yesterday's valuation, but give the original owner the right to buy back their block, or part of it, after remediation and subdivision at the new price at some time in the future.

Anyone who has watched ACT housing prices knows the way developers are making money is by buying blocks within ''The Zone'' and redeveloping them for subdivision. A block with a 50-year-old house in ''The Zone'' can be redeveloped and the developer can make $200,000 to $500,000 on such an enterprise. Most of the profit comes from the subdivision; the developer can cheerfully sell the houses at cost.

The ACT government is just giving itself the right to buy Mr Fluffy houses at one price and then rezone and resell these blocks at a profit. So much for the $300 million cost to the ACT government.

Brian Wilson, Curtin

Real estate agents would love to have house demand from Mr Fluffy's victims drive up house prices (''Warning changes could inflate house prices'', October 29, p3). Because prices here are weakening under the sustained weight of APS sackings/VRs, the promise of no APS recruitment and the ACT government cutting spending as revenues slide.

So they'll talk them up relentlessly.

Mr Fluffy victims reading agents' comments dread having to buy in a higher-priced market than when their old homes were valued/resumed.

But why should ACT house prices rise? Other things equal (the easing trend in house demand), numbers of Mr Fluffy victims looking to buy replacement homes will soon be offset by even more Canberrans selling homes to buy new houses built on the many more ex-Mr Fluffy, subdivided blocks.

After an initial spike, once those new homes on ex-Mr Fluffy blocks start being bought, prices will resume their easing trend. Smart Mr Fluffy victims will rent units for a year or so.

Cuthbert Douglas, Bonython

Congratulations to The Canberra Times for covering the asbestos issue so well on Wednesday. However, Mr Fluffy is just the tip of the iceberg in relation to the deliberate pollution of our society by asbestos manufacturers who put profits first, knowing this substance causes cancer.

I am mystified as to why there isn't a class action against the manufacturers of the asbestos used by Mr Fluffy? Can anyone tell me if Mr Fluffy used asbestos manufactured by Hardies or CSR? Can anyone out there explain?

Elizabeth Thurbon, Narrabundah

So Canberra's Mr Fluffy victims can't have access to the feds' massive national scheme for disaster relief and recovery because ours is a man-made disaster (''Capital's different type of disaster'', October 30, p4). But disasters resulting from all those Queenslanders and their councils deciding to keep building homes, businesses and infrastructure on low-lying land - land they know inevitably floods every time they get a decent fall of tropical rain and costs the rest of Australia billions to fix - isn't a man-made disaster? With climate change ensuring it happens increasingly frequently?

What Senator Abetz's funding refusal really reflects is our Territory not having marginal electorates.

Once again we're discriminated against for chronically voting 60 per cent Labor. Time yet to deliberately vote electoral margins down to 5 per cent?

Manson McGregor, Amaroo

Overcrowding at Canberra Hospital (''Canberra Hospital bursting at the seams'', October 28, p1) is occurring in more places than just the emergency department. Recently I had an appointment at the hospital's skin cancer (''plastic surgery'') outpatient clinic.

When I arrived for my 1pm appointment, the cramped and rather airless waiting room was already almost full. I managed to find a vacant seat, and after about five minutes I was called into a treatment room.

Mine was one of the first appointments - and I soon realised I was one of the lucky ones. When the specialist doctor arrived about 10 minutes later he seemed to be in a great hurry. I was denied the opportunity to ask questions as he proceeded, although I did manage to get one in as he exited the room.

After he had gone, the nurse confided they had 42 patients to see that afternoon. ''That's for two doctors?'' I asked. ''Not really,'' she replied, ''It's just one specialist with an assistant.'' I made a quick calculation and concluded that even if they allowed each patient just 10 minutes (including time spent walking from one room to another) they had some seven hours' work ahead, which would take them to about 8pm. No wonder the doctor was in a hurry!

When I emerged into the waiting room it was absolutely full. There was not a single vacant seat to be had, and at least half a dozen patients, or perhaps relatives, were having to stand alongside a wall.

I had to give myself a pinch to remind myself that I really was in the major hospital of affluent Australia's capital city - and not a hospital in some Third World country. Surely we ought to be able to do better than this!

Peter Trickett, Fraser

It's not difficult to understand the Greens' opposition to the re-indexation of fuel excise, i.e., the hypothecation of the funds for road-building. If the government decided to reintroduce a carbon tax, but promised to spend all the funds raised on developing a nuclear power industry, the Greens would be placed in a similarly invidious position - good tax, bad expenditure.

Governments rarely hypothecate taxes, preferring to have discretion on how they are spent. But it seems there are no lengths the government will not go to to subsidise the fossil fuel industry, arranging for almost $200 million extra profits for oil companies when the Senate rejects the legislation. Perhaps the Abbott government believes they should bypass the Senate because it is unrepresentative. It is not.

The Senate's current composition is much more representative than the House of Representatives of how people voted in September 2013, with some over-representation of the Greens (reflecting the larger vote for The Greens in 2010), but also of the Coalition and substantial under-representation of ''Others''. In contrast, the composition of the House of Representatives grossly over-represents the Coalition while massively under-representing the Greens and Others.

By rights, the government should be a minority government, required to negotiate its policies through the Lower as well as the Upper House. They have no mandate for any policy that wasn't bipartisan, and they should accept that and seek consensus rather than ''wins''. Pendulum politics serves egos, not Australia.

Peter Marshall, Captains Flat, NSW

Any increase in fuel prices snowballs by increasing transport costs, which, in turn, increases retail costs, so revenue from GST will also increase. As a result of the Abbott government's fuel excise increase, the average family may only pay 40 cents (+4¢ GST) a week extra for fuel, but their overall increased costs could be considerably higher. If flow-on was properly applied, could a moderate decrease in fuel prices boost the economy by reducing living costs, increase spending and increasing employment?

Alan Blake, Duffy

I agree with Ian Yates' views (''Age pension changes risk entrenching disadvantage'', Times2, October 30, p5). Indexation of the age pension by the CPI would mean the age pension would only increase in line with price inflation, typically less than the actual increase in the cost of living, so the standard of living of age pensioners would continually decline, increasing the incidence of poverty and hardship among age pensioners.

Australia no longer has a true cost of living index, but the present method of indexation of the age pension (the higher of the CPI and the Pensioner and Beneficiary Cost of Living Index , benchmarked to Male Total Average Weekly Earnings) is a better approximation than the CPI alone. If the age pension were indexed by the CPI alone, it is quite conceivable that in the future there would be six-month periods in which the CPI did not rise at all (that has happened in the past).

However, in his recent letter to age pensioners, Tony Abbott promised ''the pension will continue to rise in March and September every year''. Does he have the gift of prophecy?

Annette Barbetti, federal president, Superannuated Commonwealth Officers' Association

Adam Rustowski's summation of the historical events in Ukraine (Letters, October 29) was very accurate indeed. Sadly, with Australia being America's No. 1 lap-dog, this Coalition government takes little notice. Indeed our Foreign Minister is doing all she can to paint Russia as a black spirit.

Vladimir Putin has a better scorecard as a peacemaker than anyone in the US administration for 20 years, and then some. The fact Mr Rustowski's letter was even printed does show there is one responsible media group left in Australia. May it continue.

Alan McNeil, Weetangera

Thank you Adam Rustowski (Letters, October 29) for providing us with the latest propaganda from 78 Canberra Avenue on the invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea by Russia and Russian-backed terrorists. It is disturbing that the mass killing of the Tartars in Crimea is dismissed so offhandedly by the propaganda machine as ''Crimea fell into his lap (Putin)''. But that's Moscow for you.

It is hardly a ''coup d'etat'' when thousands of the population take umbrage at and demonstrate for the removal of a president who embezzled billions of dollars from the country's treasury and orchestrated the mass murder of the country's innocent citizens. Having been to Ukraine a few times and speaking at length with extended family still in the country, I can assure Adam the propaganda machine is way off the mark.

L. Christie, Canberra City

IT COULD ALWAYS BE WORSE

With Greg Hunt as Environment Minister, maybe we should be thankful we don't have a science minister.

Maria Greene, Curtin

BEST DAY OF THE WEEK

I do love Thursdays. All the pollies leave town and the IQ of this city goes up.

J. Nesbitt, Page

SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE

In the days of miles per hour a rule of thumb for keeping a safe distance was one car length for every 10mph. A few discreet marks on the speedo will solve tailgating.

Eric Lindemann, Greenway

RIGHT TO FREE CHOICE

Quite right, G.C. Allen! (Letters, October 29) If H. Ronald chooses to be a right-wing Colonel Blimp that is entirely his or her prerogative.

Ian McFarlane, Wallaga Lake, NSW

AFRICAN TAX EVASION

If being beset by ebola was not bad enough, West African countries are having to deal with resource companies there trying to evade their tax obligations (''Australian subsidiaries caught up in US company bribe case'', BusinessDay, October 29, p8). So much for their efforts to try to develop health infrastructure to cope with this epidemic.

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW

DRINK-DRIVING LIMIT

I don't believe the CT journalist did get it wrong, David Fuller (Letters, October 30), in describing .282 as being almost six times over the limit, because the limit is not .05. The AFP website says, interalia ''drivers must not drive or ride a motor vehicle if they have a concentration of alcohol in their blood or breath of 0.05 grams or more''. Therefore 0.05 is not zero it is one time over the limit and .282 is almost six times over the limit.

Bruce Glossop, Holt

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