Prepare for future slums in Canberra

To this scenario I would add: to build Canberra's future slums ("ACT at risk of developing leaky building syndrome", August 29, p2).

What a vacuous bunch we have in government. They have no appreciation for what is unique and attractive about our city. So their plan for growth is to change the urban form into that of all the other failing metropoles. There is one guideline that needs to be followed to preserve our city. Build the economy of the towns with substantial employment and services. A flow-on effect would be that transport requirements become more manageable.

A. Smith, Farrer

The ACT Greens seem to have embarked on a Letter to the Editor campaign in an attempt to boost flagging support for Canberra light. A letter from Shane Rattenbury staffer, Logan McLennan (Letters, August 17) has been followed by Greens Party stalwart Marcia Denman (Letters, August 30).

Marcia, I doubt whether many other Canberra voters want the ACT government to invest in light rail if it means the government will have to spend twice as much as the cost of rapid bus transit for exactly the same public transport benefits ("Buses beat tram: report", August 30, p1).

Bruce Taggart, Aranda

Gerald Lynch (Letters, August 29) is right to say congestion will increase regardless of the tram. But Capital Metro's senior consultant, Parsons Brinckerhoff, prepared a report that modelled average combined AM and PM peak-period vehicle speed on the road network around the proposed route in 2021 as decreasing from 28km/h without light rail to 23km/h with light rail.

Mr Lynch is also right to ask "what's the solution?" A few months ago, Parsons Brinckerhoff began advising "forward-thinking" British authorities that "autonomous vehicles are coming and they will be transformational", delivering "much safer local roads", "better quality of townscape with more space for pedestrian activity", "less cluttered streets", "enormous potential for land value uplift" and, with a shared fleet of autonomous vehicles, "much reduced congestion and smoother traffic flow", all with "no need for major infrastructure investment" (web search for "Making better places: Autonomous vehicles and future opportunities").

By doubling average vehicle occupancy in peak periods, a shared fleet of autonomous vehicles can eliminate congestion from Canberra's roads. A trial of autonomous taxis in Singapore has already begun, another starts in Pittsburgh within days. The question is when do we stop bickering about least-bad approaches to transport and start planning for universal, egalitarian, on-demand, cheap, safe and green urban transport?

Kent Fitch, Nicholls

Jenna Price ("How the federal government funds fakes", Comment, August 23, p19) is surely on the side of the angels (Gaian or otherwise) by claiming that homeopathy is not science-based but Cathal O'Foghlu (Letters, August 29) is on the side of constitutional untouchables when he implies the British/Australian royals are boosted by such secret medicine.

It is not disrespectful to reflect on the long-lived female royals' love of a gin and tonic (HM and her beloved Queen Mum): do homeopaths claim some magical ingredient from gin's juniper berries?

But to include the queen's male predecessors is a bridge (moat?) too far: Georges V and VI were heavy smokers and died before their time, and as for Edward VIII, he was into everything bad (far from a strict vegetarian like his pin-up boy, Hitler). I'm sorry, Cathal, but to link the royals with the wonders of homeopathy is only to give those Turnbullish republicans another arrow in their quiver.

C. Lendon, Cook

It is most reassuring see "Freight Expectations" prominent on the front page on Monday and to read ("ACT freight depot plans given $1m grant boost", August 29, p3) that the Canberra freight depots are being restored from neglect. It is to be hoped that this is only the start and that the depots at Hume be restored for rail traffic rather than overloading ACT roads with freight.

In particular, as the waste dump at Mugga is filled, the existing rail to Tarago be used to transport waste to Woodlawn, already used for Sydney waste.

The transport advantage in Australia is that the existing rail corridors are preserved and can be used, in contrast to the crowded UK, where routes closed in the 1950s are being re-created at great expense.

While it is no longer to use Kingston as a freight terminal, Fyshwick and Hume are preserved and available to keep B-doubles from crowding our roads.

Jack Palmer, Watson

Chief Minister Andrew Barr's statement that the ACT will fund the Safe Schools Project is disturbing. At school in my teens I saw "different" boys isolated and clinging together for security. It was sad.

Barr would hijack what was intended as a generally targeted anti-bullying program, diverting its taxpayer funding towards filling "normal" kids with doubt at what is in any case a tender age. We need to stress the role a school can and should play towards acceptance of every kind of "differentness". Only teachers can lead that kind of movement, and it costs nothing.

Barrie Smillie, Duffy

So Julie Bishop wants a foreign policy white paper to articulate "a philosophical framework for Australia's (global) engagement", because there has not been one for 13 years. As Daniel Flitten ("Bishop's waste of paper", Comment, August29, p14) points out, there are good reasons why this is so.

There have only been two formal white papers before, both commissioned by Alexander Downer, neither of which had the slightest impact on Australian diplomacy.

This one lacks a philosophical approach, evident in Bishop's otherwise competent performance as foreign minister. But it has been a performance characterised mostly by opportunism and subordinating strategic interests to selfish economic benefits. With its emphasis on showcase events and meetings without outcomes, it is little more than Twitter diplomacy. There are few grand principles involved.

Yet Bishop is the minister who comprehensively trashed Australia's third, potentially most valuable, white paper, Ken Henry's "Asian Century" white paper for which Australian government agencies, universities and non-government experts produced detailed submissions, all of which were secretly expunged from the government's internet pages.

A white paper produced now could have quite specific negative consequences.

It could legitimise and perpetuate the massive cuts to Australian aid that we have witnessed since 2014; it could elevate slogans and the "me too" approach as a substitute for original ideas and innovative policy; and it could further dignify undeserving commercial imperatives with the current catch-all but meaningless phrase, Australia's "economic diplomacy".

Other parties should be quick to scotch this self-serving initiative.

Trevor Wilson, Holder

The weakening, dependent economy of a middling power; an unthinking, unseemly rush to flog off our land and critical, strategic infrastructure to foreigners to bolster our flagging fortunes; the rise of aggressive foreign media interests meddling in our internal affairs to berate, bludgeon and shape public opinion, especially of an existing diaspora; the rude outspokenness of foreign students in our universities where they should be grateful guests; and the criminal penetration, seemingly at will nowadays, of our public and private databases, suggest we are maturing nicely on a number of fronts as a nation ripe for the plucking.

Not now, not in my lifetime, but inevitably, our national interests will surely be overcome by the repeated assaults of an aggressive rising power, which will protect its expansionism by military force if necessary.

This is not xenophobia; this is reality. What is evolving is the gradual paving of the way for the Chinese equivalent of Spetsnaz, or, perhaps, because we are so supine, so gormless, a far less dramatic end without a real or metaphorical shot fired in our defence. We are slowly writing our own epitaph. Our government knows this, won't say this, but Iwill.

A.Whiddett, Yarralumla

Ernst Willheim, whom I know, has probably forgotten more law than I was ever taught, but I have to risk challenging him when he opines (Letters, August28), in effect, that in the context of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, the best judge of whether behaviour was or was not intimidating was the claimed minority group victim of the intimidation and not the man on the Bondi tram.

Mr Willheim writes that this logically follows because the whole point of the Act is to protect the minority group from intimidation. I would suggest that if a member of a minority group, perhaps newly arrived in Australia, feels intimidated by words or actions that in their home culture may produce trepidation but are normal non-aggressive behaviour in ours, then the man on the Bondi tram can hardly be penalised for his cultural ignorance. Surely our laws are drafted with the protection of the general community in mind and not the singular peculiarities of which we may be unaware of other cultures.

Bill Deane,Chapman

Greg Ellis (Letters, August26) claims that, after having commented that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was "sweating bullets", US Middle East envoy Martin Indyk realised he had been deceived, and thus told an Israeli journalist in April 2014 that Netanyahu was the one who had destroyed the peace process. Ellis also claims that Indyk made his "sweating bullets" comment in March2013.

However, Indyk's "sweating bullets" comments referred to events in 2014, and were made in a televised interview in July2014, after the comments cited by Ellis, which in any event were from an anonymous source who may well not have been Indyk.

In addition, Netanyahu had not approved settlements, as Ellis claims; he had approved houses in settlements, and it's a bit much to blame Netanyahu's actions for destroying the peace process when the actions took place after, as Indyk confirms, the Palestinians had already destroyed it. It is not the Israelis who deceived Indyk, it's Ellis who is attempting to deceive your readers.

Alan Shroot, Forrest

I am not really sure what agenda Bernard Davis (Letters, August26) has in attacking the location of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, positioned as it is with other memorials along Anzac Parade. Regardless of the legality of our involvement in the Vietnam War, as a national serviceman along with many Regular Army personnel, I was ordered to go to Vietnam regardless of what moral convictions I might have had about our being there.

The memorial was raised by the donations of many Australians, both Vietnam vets and civilians, to honour the memory of those who served and died as well as those who, who along with their families, are still living the awful legacy of that conflict.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, along with the other memorials, including the War Memorial, should remind our politicians across the lake that there is a huge price to pay when they commit our young people to war. That is why the memorials should remain where they are.

Gavin O'Brien, Gilmore

CAPTIVE OF THE RIGHT

Malcolm Turnbull is a hostage of his extreme right wing, and now Stockholm Syndrome has begun in earnest.

John Passant, Kambah

CHANNELLING ABBOTT

Johann Sheller's comedic flourish (Letters, August 30) was straight from the Abbott script, like a true disciple. But it was missing a key ingredient: The $100 lamb roast.

Robert Bruce, Fadden

COSTLY TERRITORY

The ACT with a population of almost 400,000 supports 25 very expensive politicians of questionable quality. This is indeed an unnecessary impost on all taxpayers. Ponder then for a minute the same number of expensive politicians in an electorate of only 244,000 in the Northern Territory. Now that is a serious aberration.

Rex Williams, Ainslie

MENTAL HEALTH PUZZLE

Is no one else concerned that the ACT can be praised for having the newest and apparently best secure mental health facility in the country while innocent young people with serious mental illness are banished interstate for specialist inpatient treatment? Surely a review is called for!

Sheelah Egan, Hughes

FIT FOR A QUEEN

Cathal O'Foghlu (Letters, August 29) suggested the longevity of royal family members could be due to homeopathy. Good genes, a healthy diet and access to the very best medical care is probably the real reason. And here's a question for you, with thanks to Tim Minchin. What do you call alternative medicine (and homeopathy) that has been scientifically proven to work? Medicine.

Judy Aulich, Giralang

MEMORIAL LOCATION

Bernard Davis's assertion (Letters, August 29) that Anzac Parade is an inappropriate location for the Vietnam memorial is disrespectful of the ADF members who paid the supreme sacrifice in Vietnam. Anzac Parade is the nominated site for war memorials. Additionally, the location of the French Memorial has nothing to do with the location of the Australian Memorial.

Vic Robertson, Page

PLEBISCITE ARGUMENT

Assume we head down the same-sex marriage plebiscite path. Why not add another question on 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act? Halve the plebiscite cost and solve the vege scraps issue once and for all. Dare Senator Bernardi to agree to it. The argument that parliamentarians can vote on one issue without a plebiscite but not do the same with the other is untenable.

Richard Lamb, Farrer

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