The adage, "if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well" has survived for good reason. It is especially true for the built environment, which affects people's daily lives for generations to come. Why are we cutting corners with Canberra's light rail? If we can't afford to do it properly, let's not do it. I like light rail, but not this one.

Why destroy Northbourne Avenue? The Mort Street alignment, as shown in Griffin's plans for his rail system, is the logical and less disruptive route. Why concrete encase the rail tracks? Grass infill, as in Bilbao and other world-class cities, is far cooler and more environmentally friendly. Why overhead poles and wires? Underground power, as in Bordeaux, for example, is visually cleaner and not downed by falling tree limbs.

Whatever happened to "world's best practice", a phrase which seems to have gradually lost traction in the nation's capital. Did the concept get thrown out the window when government had to reach for its chequebook? Canberra's newest transport system should be as beautiful as Washington DC's underground train system.

If we can't match the design quality of the US capital, then we should hang our heads in shame. There is only one Canberra. Our uniqueness should be celebrated. Northbourne Avenue is "so Canberra" that its proposed destruction can only be seen as an act of national barbarism.

Penleigh Boyd, Reid

Canberra's appalling number of homeless people (reportedly the second highest in Australia) and official environmental vandalism would seem to be linked. A pattern is emerging of the demolition of essential accommodation for the less well-off in our society, which then allows developers to erect buildings which provide higher returns. Is it now policy by the ACT government to allow the gradual deterioration of public housing through lack of maintenance, then blaming the tenants for anti-social behaviour? Is this giving the government an excuse to pull the buildings down because "they are going to cost too much to repair"?

Examples from the recent past are Burnie Court, Lyons, Fraser Court, Kingston, and now the Currong flats in Reid and the Northbourne Avenue precinct are in the firing line. Possibly, there are others. These are massive socio-economic disruptions which further disadvantage those who can least afford to move, almost inevitably to the periphery of Canberra. Where are these tenants to go ?

A superficial external inspection of the Dickson and Lyneham Towers showed no obvious evidence of any structural inadequacies but plenty of administrative negligence, easily resolved. Painting maintenance of external woodwork, broken flyscreens, overflow staining. The landscaping shows long-term neglect. Surely, the remediation bill and more humane administration would cost significantly less than demolition and rebuilding? Or are embarrassment, greed and profit the motivators?

Demolition of sound buildings is a gross waste of time, resources and money – not the actions of a caring, responsible society.

Derek F. Wrigley, Mawson

It is with considerable frustration that I read Ray Edmonson's letter (March 15) in praise of the new light rail system in Reims. He points out that even small European cities are opening new light rail lines.

It is true that Reims has a new 11-kilometre system serving a city of 188,000 (291,000 in the greater urban area) for 45,000 passenger journeys per day. But the critical word is "city". The population of Reims is contained within 49 square kilometres for a population density of 4000 per square kilometre. The population density of urban Canberra is approximately 440 per square kilometre – a 10th that of Reims. Therein lies the problem.

Apparently, we are going to make light rail work with a world-record-low population density. I hesitate to mention that one of the key features driving successful urban transport systems is frequency – which becomes even more of a challenge with a low population density.

Please, no more letters about how well other cities are doing with light rail, unless they are comparable to Canberra's urban spread and population density.

Michael Roche, Yarralumla

Vale Stuart Wagstaff ("Stuart Wagstaff, trouper of the stage and screen, dies in Sydney aged 90", March 12, p3). Not many of us left to remember your Melbourne My Fair Lady performances from 1959, first as "The Hairy Hound from Budapest"' and later as Professor Higgins himself. Performances numbered some 730, I'm told.

I caught both your roles, and in 1964 I took my seven-year-old daughter along, too: now she's grandmother of four handsome lads. Imported "unknown" Bunty Turner played Eliza and Robin Bailey was Higgins. He died in 1999, I see. He got very ill during the long Melbourne season – it was said he came to believe he actually was Higgins.

Frank Duggan, Chisholm

Gwyneth Bray (Letters, March 15) disputes Bill Arnold's claim that the majority of deaths in the recent Gaza actions were Hamas operatives. She wrote: "Of 2151 Palestinians killed, there were at least 577 children, 263 women, 102 elderly, 17 journalists and 23 doctors and paramedics – none of these could be called Hamas operatives. If one takes the blinkered view that no woman or person under the age of 18 could possibly be a Hamas operative, this still leaves 1169 adult men (the majority). Bill Arnold's claim re the majority of deaths being Hamas operatives is quite likely and supported by Ms Bray's own supplied figures.

Hamas issues no uniforms, meaning their live fighters are classed as operatives, whilst their dead ones can be portrayed as helpless civilians. Depending on which side one is on, these men were either sitting in their lounge rooms, (perhaps watching the Hamas mortar teams who have a penchant for positioning themselves in hospitals, homes, schools and UN observation posts), or Israel deliberately targets civilians. Israel has no strategic motive to do the latter. Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated it won't stop the rockets, no matter how Israel responds. It doesn't help Israel's public image. And, if their motive is much-vaunted "blind hatred and racism", why does Israel never seem to throw the first punch?

Like Gwyneth's maths, something doesn't add up.

Mike Crowther, Watson

I can empathise with Ron Hamilton regarding the poor state of the ex-services section of Woden Cemetery. ("A breath of life for Woden Cemetery", March 14, p8).

I recently went looking for my maternal grandfather's grave in this very section, having obtained the plot details from cemetery records. After walking each row of graves, I could find no trace of my ancestor. Eventually, I was given the names on each side of my grandfather just to locate the plot. There was not only no headstone remaining but there was no numbering system on the rows of graves. I, too, noticed the bad state of repair to many of the older headstones.

It is a pretty sad situation when our ex-servicemen and women don't even have their final resting place appropriately maintained.

I believe that both local and federal governments should take some responsibility for such maintenance.

Robert Hancock, Jindabyne, NSW

The ACT Library Service has just released its autumn "What's on" program. You could be forgiven for not noticing it's a library. It invites us to take part in sessions on social media, reptiles, pot plants, Windows 8 and even bicycle maintenance! Of the 40-odd activities, only about four relate to actual books – not counting the one that creates art by cutting books up.

Only three sessions involve authors and none invite library users (I presume they don't refer to "readers" any more) to actually engage with the stuff in the books.

Why does the ACT Library Service not champion books and authors for a change?

Bicycle maintenance? Isn't that available through bodies concerned with bikes – or does Pedalpower now run book groups?

As an ACT author, I would be glad to talk to readers – but about books, not social networking.

Peter Stanley, Dickson

Tony Wright's article "Disjointed outfit suffers galloping bulimia" (March 13, p4) rightly asks the question whether Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus might resign from the Senate, having left the organisation that got them elected.

Lambie and Lazarus have been treated sympathetically on, it seems, a ready acceptance of their claims that Clive Palmer is a bully, even a despot. Well, why is that such a surprise? After all, he is the extremely wealthy businessman, used to getting his own way, who organised the funding and campaigning at the last federal election for the party he established and which bears his name.

Doubtless, he was personally involved in the recruitment and selection of PUP candidates, including high-profile people like former rugby league star Lazarus.

Having been the beneficiaries of PUP money and organisational input, candidates who find themselves at odds with Palmer, for whatever reason, need to carefully consider their position. Can they, in conscience, walk away and declare themselves "independent" for the remainder of their six-year Senate term? If the reality is, as I believe, that neither Lambie nor Lazarus would have had a chance of being elected as an independent without PUP support, should their proper response be to resign?

For the nation, this is all the more pressing when, with respect, neither appeals as having wide-ranging, carefully considered policy positions and, as reported, the reasons for their departures from PUP are both personal and peculiar. Lambie's narrow policy fixations on military benefits and Islam do her no credit, and no journalist seems to have probed Lazarus on whether his true reason for leaving PUP is because his wife was sacked.

And, putting aside for now how she came to be employed by PUP in the first place, there seems to be little journalistic interest about whether PUP was justified in its view that her work was directed more towards her husband's interests than PUP's.

It is sometimes said that the people get the government they deserve, but at least there is a chance periodically to sack governments the people think are not up to the task. The media, on the other hand, is rarely punished for its failings.

D. A. Nolan, Nicholls

I fully agree with Professor Amin Saikal ("Bishop's timely jaunt to Iran", Times2, March 13, p1). A rapprochement between the US and Iran offers significant benefits to the Middle East and, by extension, to the broader global community. These benefits could include the development of a more equal power balance between the major Sunni and Shiite countries of the region and the development of a more prosperous and open Iranian state.

Having recently been to Iran, the longing of its people for greater prosperity and openness in the country was palpable.

Australia, with its strong friendship with the US, could through a ministerial visit help strengthen US/Iranian relations.

Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor

Your Editorial ("Perplexing path to violent death", Times2, March 13, p2) appears to miss a key component of the tragic death of another young Australian: identifying and providing support to potentially vulnerable people prior to their taking extreme actions in whatever form.

The $18million the Coalition has set aside for deradicalisation programs could be better spent on tackling youth disengagement from education. This should be in addition to engendering a more hopeful and compassionate society – focusing not just on the economy – for young people in Australia.

Your phrase "destructive behaviour is not unknown among young adults" appears to abrogate our shared responsibility to support each other in the Australian community, and then points the finger at IS and their psychological manipulation. Surely, we can look deeper into the prevention of the allure of such violent destruction.

Alison Childs, Cook

I do not wish to minimise the despair of Jake Bilardi's family, and his intentions may well have been his alone. However, I saw red when it was postulated that this dangerous misfit may have interpreted the death of his mother as a (un)reason to murder innocents as an operative of the barbarous IS.

I lost my mother at age 15, but it did not occur to me, ever, to hold someone else responsible. The politically, socially correct among us cast around vainly for explanations for Jake's behaviour, but it has always been the case that a percentage of humanity go to hell in their own way – often taking unwilling others with them – and Jake is just another desperately sad example.

A. M. Whiddett, Yarralumla

Another factory collapse in Bangladesh ("Factory collapses", March 14, p14). I wonder how much the universities in Australia are contributing to appalling building standards in many developing and Third World countries by bestowing degrees in architecture, building, etc, on students who can barely speak English, and who barely even attend classes.

I am personally aware of one architecture student who sends his assignments back home to get done by a professional in the field. Universities insist they are on top of this fraud but they are kidding themselves, and are turning a blind eye because they need the students' money.

I am constantly gob-smacked by foreign students telling me about what degrees they have, or are studying for, yet their English is laughable. I have seen the standard of some written work – primary school standard at best. The current standards in tertiary education are a disgrace.

We are taking the foreign students' money, and sending them home with nothing more than a piece of paper, with nothing to back it up, and they set about working in industries that may result in deaths such as building collapses.

C. Thomas, Deakin

PICK-YOUR-OWN APPLES

Driving back to Batemans Bay from Canberra last week I noticed tonnes of apples ripe on trees by the road (there must have been a lot of apples eaten by families travelling the Kings Highway in the past). We stopped and picked some and they are beautiful apples and not many flies in them. So, without endangering lives by sudden stops, I suggest travellers take advantage of this great crop if they haven't noticed them.

Sue Wray, Batemans Bay, NSW

FRUIT TAKES TIME

I do hope that C.Gilbert's lament (Letters, March 16) about the quality of the stone fruit in our shops will be heeded by the appropriate people, who will leave next summer's fruit on trees and vines a while longer before harvesting them for sale.

Evelyn Bean, Ainslie

ONION EATING

Will that man never learn? Just when Tony Abbott is given some clear air, he goes and eats an onion.

Annie Lang, Kambah

As someone married to a woman who eats raw lemons, skin and all, I find Tony Abbott's penchant for raw onions unremarkable.

H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW

GREECE NEEDS WORKERS

Greece owes over $400 billion to people around the world. The age of retirement in Greece is 55. In Germany and Italy, it is 67. Treasurer Joe Hockey wants to encourage Australians to retire at 75. The Greeks should do the same thing so they start to produce goods to repay their commitments. It is very easy to spend someone else's money.

Renato Cervo, Red Hill

IT'S TOUGH AT THE TOP

Amanda Vanstone ( "Time to think of the children", Times2, March 16, p4), in supporting Tony Abbott's "lifestyle choices" call, suggests remote Indigenous dwellers "deal with life as it is, with the hand we have been dealt". The ex-senator is well versed at making hard lifestyle choices. It must have been tough, for example, having to choose between John Howard's offer of the ambassadorship to Italy or staying at home and subsisting on her lowly ministerial pension.

Eric Hunter, Cook

SPENDING $1 BILLION

It's great to hear about plans for a new teaching hospital as part of Canberra University – certainly a bargain at $100 million.

For the $1 billion the tram's going to cost we could build 10 new teaching hospitals, or nine, and have enough left over to tidy the place up a bit.

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

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