The analysis in the NCA report on the relative cost of alternative settlement was a preliminary and broad-brush assessment undertaken for the 2003 ACT Spatial Plan.

Much has changed since 2003 including a substantially higher housing demand, a higher demand for townhouses and apartments, land supply in Gungahlin has been utilised, there is a greater awareness of environmental issues, including climate change; and changes in travel demand, demography, employment and approaches to infrastructure provision and capacity.

A review would identify the relative priority of alternative development opportunities in greenfields and established areas based on their relative infrastructure, travel and environmental costs and consider what could be done to influence employment location.

The review would provide for widespread community engagement, which would improve community confidence in the competence, integrity and probity of planning in the ACT system. It could reduce the impression the government is arrogant and developer driven.

Whether or not to undertake a review has to be considered by the ACT government this year.

If the government is serious about developing a more sustainable city, the review would be a first-order priority.

If insufficient funds are identified in the budget for the review, the government should be required to explain why.

Mike Quirk, Wanniassa

Andrew Barr's heart may well be in the right place, but the development of Darwinia Park in Chapman is definitely in the wrong place ('Opposition to social housing flats strikes 'very sad' raw nerve', May 6, p.4).

The Chief Minister seems to style himself as some kind of Robin Hood figure. But the sad truth is that a government which does not empower the local community to determine how their 'community land' is best used is more like a 'robber baron' enclosing 'the common' for his own ends. As demonstrated by the recent 16 km 'March on the Assembly' to deliver a petition containing nearly 900 signatures, the overwhelming majority (96 per cent) of residents (including many public housing tenants in neighbouring Rivett) oppose this development.

We simply wish to see this beautiful, accessible, but vulnerable native landscape preserved for future generations to enjoy.

Chris Braddick (Dr), Chapman

Thank you for Paul Malone's excellent column (Sunday Canberra Times). He appropriately mentions Malcolm Fraser's seminal book and the long-term acquiescence of FAs and Defence. For Defence, war is their bread and butter. But FA's squeamishness shows a wider APS malaise about free and fearless advice. Worrying.

May public opinion keep us out of more US-induced worldwide mischief. I'd hate to see us all go up with Pine Gap. But then of course we wouldn't have to worry about climate change or the budget, would we?

Barrie Smillie, Duffy

I am delighted by the bipartisan view the NDIS should be fully funded. However, I disagree with some comments, such as Senator Simon Birmingham on ABC's Q&A, that the NDIS is universal.

People who acquire a disability after age 65 are excluded from the NDIS. The economics of the NDIS are that the money spent is an investment in getting the person back to work, and contributing to the community.

There is an apparent assumption that persons over 65 are not going to get back to work, so the NDIS should not include them. An inability to work is not a criterion to be assisted by the NDIS. There is also a push to encourage people not to retire early, so why is age 65 the cutoff from NDIS assistance? People who enter the NDIS before age 65 are covered for life, receiving assistance long after age 65.

People over 65 have much to contribute to the community, through paid work, volunteer work and family assistance.

The age exclusion sends a strong signal that the community does not value older persons. As the NDIS is rolled out it could also take funds from the schemes assisting aged persons, so the future is not clear for anyone who acquired their disability after age 65.

It would be great for the NDIS to actually be universal.

Eugene Holzapfel, Campbell

Colliss Parrett (letters, May 16) won't listen to anyone who doesn't support the failed "War on Drugs".

Yes, Colliss, drugs and violent crime are connected, but not in the way you think.

By banning certain drugs and restricting their supply, illegal drug trafficking becomes profitable.

Throwing more resources at the problem might catch a few more shipments and reduce the supply even further, but that pushes the price even higher and before you know it the profits are worth killing for. In the meantime recreational users prosecuted under harsh drug possession laws (usually from socially disadvantaged minority groups) are criminalised.

Incarceration gives them a free education in actual crime, violence and anti-social behaviour.

The children of the now single-parent families are themselves much more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour (like using drugs) and to also run foul of the law.

The potentially dangerous contaminants you don't want our ecstasy-consuming youth to be able to test their pills for are only there because the manufacture and distribution of ecstasy has been gold-plated and handed to shady criminal groups with no accountability whatsoever for what happens to their end users.

Ill-conceived prohibitionist policies by ideologues such as yourself are responsible for most of the damage to society that's blamed on drugs, not the drugs themselves.

James Allan, Narrabundah

I presume that the facilities being rolled out in the Treasury and other hotbeds of innovation ("PS push for neutral bathrooms", May 14, p.12) are actually toilets, not bathrooms. Or are all our debates to be conducted hence forth in American euphemisms?

Stephen Brown, Forrest

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