Princely sum wasted

Second, we have just spent the year's entertainment budget on a single visit by the royals. Canberra will have paid a fair share of that, because we featured as a stopover; the Acton tunnel continues in a state of disrepair ("Acton tunnel bill hits $260,000 before repairs even begin", November 15, p12), but we have spent half a royal visit on preliminaries and planning the repair strategy.

Before we start looking at death duties and other tax increases, let's look at the entitlements of dignitaries and politicians and then focus on corporate tax dodgers. Maybe then there will be a bit cash that can be thrown at the tunnel to help get the traffic moving again.

W. Book, Hackett

Disgusting decision

Thanks to The Canberra Times for bringing readers' attention to the ACT government's decision to overhaul pensioners' concessions, namely the probable loss of free car registration ("Pensioners may lose registration concession", November 15, p11) – the reason being the Commonwealth government's reduction of $2.2million in annual funding.

Yet, you further announced that we, the taxpayers, have to foot the bill of approximately $500,000 for the recent five-day visit of Prince Charles and Camilla. Perhaps pensioners and DVA Gold Card holders may wish to express their disgust by contacting their local MLA.

Max Rowe, Hawker

Crossing safety

Congratulations! Our mentally deficient government, and perhaps the bureaucrats advising them, have decided a revenue-raising scheme will protect school crossings from speedsters. (Schools to get mobile speed cams for safety", November 16, p5).

There are numerous small NSW country councils that can afford warning flashing lights, but not our home-grown intelligentsia. Admittedly, our restricted hours are all day, where others flash their lights during peak student movement. In this day and age of electronics, each school could control its own crossing times. Motorists ignoring the flashing lights would then deservedly be fined.

Baden Williams, Lyneham

Reinstate off-ramp

Whilst Bowen Place might look nice (Letters, November 16), the ripping up of the left off-ramp going under the bridge to get to NGA etc is appalling. This safe method of turning right (left and under), designed by the NCDC 50 years ago, has been replaced by a dangerous right turn at traffic lights, where you run the risk of being T-boned by one of Canberra's many red-light runners. The off-ramp should be reinstated immediately before someone is killed at the traffic lights.

David Roberts, Dickson

Smart suggestion

The ACT government will consider bringing Sydney's Opal public transport smartcard system to Canberra ("Sydney's Opal just the ticket for ACT?", November 14, p1). This is welcome news. It would also be good to have the various public transport smartcards used throughout Australia made interoperable. This would allow, for example, someone with an Opal card from Sydney to use it in Melbourne and someone with a Myki card from Melbourne to use it in Sydney. A similar system has already been in place for tollways for several years.

The National Ticketing and Tolling Working Group and Standards Australia were working on an interoperable system for public transport. It put its efforts on hold back in about 2008 while each city implemented its own system.

Isn't it time for public transport enthusiast and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to get these bodies back to work?

John Burge, Curtin

Disconnected

I was asked to fill in an online survey following my attendance at the World Cup soccer match between Australia and Kyrgyzstan at Canberra Stadium 0n November 12.

One irritating question was: "How would you rate the quality of the following at the ground?" One of the issues listed was in relation to phone/Wi-Fi coverage' at the ground. I am dumbfounded that such a question would be asked in a survey relation to my attendance at a live sporting match. How is it relevant?

We are there to watch a sporting event, not to be on our phones talking or checking the internet, which would most certainly annoy other spectators.

I have asked the survey organisers to let me know how the use of mobile phones and checking the internet while attending a live sporting match is relevant and how the results would influence how future live soccer matches might be organised as a result of feedback received. I await their response with interest.

Sebastian Cole, Ngunnawal

Academic backing

P.M.Button (Letters, November 13) makes some very good points when he suggests that federal funding and academic support from experts like Professor Peter Newman would be good indicators for the necessity for light rail.

I'm sure he'll be glad to know the federal government is already funding light rail in Canberra, to the tune of $60million, and that transport economists and planners are strongly supportive of the Gungahlin to Civic line. Specifically, Professor Newman himself has been very supportive of the ACT government's first light-rail project. In an opinion piece in this newspaper on June 2, he said "Canberra's light rail is part of its strategic future to be a nationally significant knowledge economy city where the best of people-intensive urbanism can happen along one corridor, extending out at later dates, whilst maintaining its generally suburban character elsewhere. This is good economic policy and good urban policy."

I look forward to P.M.Button's supportive letters for light rail now he has been reassured.

Glen Hyde, Latham

Congratulations to David Pope for the brilliant cartoon featuring Camilla, Charles, Malcolm and Lucy, with poor, defeated Tony offside-right (Times2, November 12, p2). However, in view of his Napoleonic pose, ermine-edged robe and laurel-wreath crown, Malcolm should be shouting "Vive l'Empire", not "Vive la Republique".

Of course, the only empires in the world today are: the Russian, Chinese and American, the last-named of which we are the most loyal satrapy.

O Canada, we should join with thee in defying our imperial masters, and not waste our substance on useless, very expensive military aircraft.

Is it not ironic, and passing strange, that we are thinking of abandoning the benign symbolic leadership of the House of Windsor, whilst continuing our subservience in major foreign policy issues and military adventures to whoever the elephant or donkey select to rule the union, no matter how incompetent and/or arrogant, lacking any proper world sense, with no understanding of Lord Acton's dictum on power, that person may be?

Doug Batten, Weetangera

Call for ban unfair

A decade ago, it seemed that every other world-beating US track and field celebrity was being banned for doping.

But I don't recall any crazy calls for banning the US athletics team – let alone the entire nation, all two dozen sports' worth – from the Olympics, as collective punishment. Not so with Russia now.

It is interesting how even the matter of doping in sport is tainted by Cold War hatreds that just simply show no evidence of ever dying away, and which, of course, only perpetuate difficulties with trans-national trust, the fundamental prerequisite in resolving this issue.

Alex Mattea, Kingston

How selective is the coverage of the recent terrorist activity in Paris? "Solidarity", "standing up with the people of Paris" with our own Prime Minister declaring "an attack on our freedom", and on and on.

Isn't it curious how even 60 years of occupation of Palestine, with attendant crimes, just cannot elicit the same media hype. Lebanon, with 40 dead just four days ago, drew no tweets from Malcolm Turnbull, no social media statement from Barack Obama, no live media blogs from Western media – and yet there are around three times as many people of Lebanese descent living in Australia, compared with French nationals.

Double standards indeed.

Rex Williams, Ainslie

Still waiting

In the wake of the carnage perpetrated by Islamic extremists in Paris, the Grand Mufti finally makes an eagerly awaited statement that we hoped would denounce the grotesque carnage as an affront to Islam. Instead, he delivers an utterly insincere statement of condolence to the victims and their families and manages to confirm the distorted arguments of every would-be jihadist in Australia.

H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW

Merits of mobiles

After reading the story of John Leader and his 12-year-old son, Oscar ("Father and son hid as dozens gunned down", November 16, p2), I realised the value of owning a mobile phone.

Father and son survived the shooting in the Bataclan concert hall, but later became separated. John searched and called out for Oscar to no avail till he rang his son's mobile, found he was OK and ran to meet him. A happy ending for them, indeed.

Evelyn Bean, Ainslie

Very long odds

Before we all cancel our travel plans and retire to our bunkers, let's recognise the odds of being one of the unfortunate victims of the recent Paris tragedy – 129 deaths in a French population of 66million represent odds of about one in 500,000. On the other hand, the chance of being killed in a road accident in Australia last year was about one in 21,000. The constant media hype and the temptations of government to turn us into a police state are precisely what the terrorists seek to achieve. Don't succumb. Be cautious, of course, whilst expressing much deserved sympathy. But let's get on with our democratic way of life!

Garth Setchell, Mawson

Ashamed citizen

After nearly 75 years in this wonderful country of freedom, fairness and opportunity, I wish to renounce my Australian citizenship. I no longer wish to be a citizen in a country that is unbelievably inhumane in our treatment of genuine refugees. We have saved some lives by "stopping the boats". But the approach we have taken has undoubtedly condemned many more people to inhumane treatment, torture and often death in their own countries by blocking their attempts to escape such a fate.

For those who make it to Australia, we heap intolerable conditions and interminably long waiting times on top of past traumas, severely penalising those who snap in frustration under the pressure. Our politicians ensure that voters ignore or condone this treatment in our name with a blanket of secrecy and carefully rehearsed obfuscation.

Fazel Chegeni ("Death that lead to island riot", Forum, November 14, p1) was terrorised, imprisoned and tortured in Iran, terrorised, imprisoned and subject to mental torture in Australia. No wonder he was able to scale a high fence, rip through rolls of razor wire and finally end his suffering.

Current policies may work in the short term, if we can continue to ignore the cruel realities and the growing condemnation of other countries. In the long term, they contribute to increased global hostility, unrest and terrorism, which will, in turn, impact on us. I can't explain these events to my grandchildren, who will pay the price in the future. Neither can I ignore them. There is a better way.

Margaret Clough, Ainslie

What a shameful catalogue of mistreatment is the story of Fazel Chegeni, which we only know of because of its particularly tragic outcome. How unsurprising to read that he was transferred to Christmas Island for "operational requirements", the phrase that can be used to justify anything.

Fazel himself made the most damning comment on the whole affair, and what we are doing to people: "I thought it was only in Iran that injustices were done."

G. Burgess, Kaleen

Nuclear waste dump

I am saddened to read that Australia will become a dump for nuclear waste ("Six sites revealed on list for nation's first nuclear dump", November 13, p5). When will they ever learn? Construction of Finland's nuclear waste storage facility began in 2004 and is expected to begin taking nuclear waste this year. The storage area was bored out of solid granite rock, over half a kilometre underground. The nuclear waste will go into boron steel canisters, encased in copper capsules, and packed in bentonite clay. The estimated cost is more than €800million.

Trust the Australian government to make a proper job of it? How deep will we bury nuclear waste in Australia?

Bruce A. Peterson, Kambah

Citizenship bill

Professor Kim Rubenstein's argument against the Australian Citizenship (Allegiance to Australia) Amendment Bill appears cogent ("How will this bill really protect Australia?", Times2, November 13, p5). She wrote: "It will mean that two Australian citizens can do exactly the same thing and only one of them, the dual citizen, risks losing their citizenship."

Yes! The greatest "legal" fallacy is that all people are equal before the law. The bill does mean some nasty people aren't our problem and we can be rid of them. It is much the same for residents without citizenship. Two residents can do exactly the same thing and only one of them, the non-citizen, faces risk of deportation.

It is much the same for insane citizens. Two citizens can do exactly the same thing and only one risks being convicted.

The possible retrospectivity of the proposed law, which Rubenstein raises, is another matter. Retrospectivity should never be countenanced.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

COWS INSTEAD OF ROOS

The ACT government has some explaining to do. An annual kangaroo kill takes place on the basis these animals allegedly overgraze and damage the ecosystems that support threatened species. At Gungaderra Nature Reserve, where the kangaroo cull takes place, cows have deliberately been introduced "to reduce plant material and improve habitat for threatened species".

Chris Doyle, Gordon

SEEING DOLLAR SIGNS

It was only a matter of time before the ACT government recognised the revenue potential of its overhead road signs. Now IKEA has finally opened, I look forward to the next sponsored advisory notice. However, I will miss the whimsical road-safety messages.

L. Jones, Kambah

IKEA'S SECRETIVE TRUST

As thousands rush headlong to IKEA, few will contemplate its corporate structure – a secretive Swedish charitable family trust – which pays minimal tax (anywhere) to create or maintain the infrastructure which facilitates its profitability ("Thousands set to flock to IKEA", November 16, p6).

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW

HERE'S A QUICK FIX

All mobile phones have positional software. Why can't the providers stop a phone working if it goes over 30-40km/h. It would stop people using their phones automatically while driving a car, unless it attached to a hands-free device. I am sure the technology is there to do this.

Peter Hengst, Higgins

STILL BRITISH

Sorry, Peter Snowden (Letters, November 16), those folk living or born in Australia after federation were not "deemed" to be Australian at federation. They were British citizens. Australian citizenship came into existence in 1948 with the enactment of the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948.

Marguerite Castello, Griffith

OUT OF ORDER

One could forgive your cartoonist Bruce Petty for missing the acute accent in the French word for liberty/freedom (Times2, November 16, p1), but he should have got the colours right. It's blue (nearest the flagpole), white, red; not red, white, blue as is commonly spoken.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

PENSIONERS HIT AGAIN

Looks like pensioners are to be targeted yet again ("Pensioners may lose registration concession", November 15, p11). Surely this news (and the discussion paper) deserved more than a Sunday release?

Jane Craig, Holt

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attached file. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

Keep your letter to 250 words or less. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).