Rail a heavy burden

I've been involved in the forecasting and economic and financial feasibility of about 40 different PPP projects – toll-roads and heavy and light rail – in Australia, Korea, China, Japan and other countries, and am capable of a sound independent professional assessment.

Although many PPP projects in Australia have been successful, the facts are that no less than six PPP projects have failed financially, some being sold for half their original cost, some being subject to expensive litigation to recover losses and some having to be refinanced. I have studied all the reasons why they got into trouble and understand the degree to which eager over-optimism, on behalf of governments and consortia members, can lead people into trouble. I presume that Mr Lyon has too and is being adequately cautious.

In this instance, it has been competently shown that the economic business case is undoubtedly flawed and, in consequence, the Liberals announced their intention to stop the project well before any contract was signed so there could be no mistake in their policy.

The Canberra LRT project is even more risky for all shareholders including the public. I am sure the financial market recognises these issues.

I fully understand Mr Lyon's wish to see the LRT project proceed and/or to receive adequate and fair compensation if it is stopped. But I had hoped that, in view of the risk that it will be stopped, he would take proper cautious measures to protect the public interest as well as his own.

R.J. Nairn, Hawker

Brendon Lyon predictably argues that the ACT should honour the light rail contract since his members will profit from its construction. But let us think about a private sector parallel.

A company AGM sacks the board for poor performance, in particular, the fact that it has entered into a major contract that will cost the company heaps and achieve very little. The first thing the new board would do is to tear up the bad contract and set off in a new direction. In the case of the ACT, even if it costs us $100 million to get out of the light rail contract, it will be worthwhile.

It will save us $800 million, probably more.

J.J. Marr, Hawker

Whinging fair comment

David Richards (Letters, June 2) asks that the incessant whinging in the Canberra Times about the light rail be banned.

David appears to have relocated to the lovely south coast and is not affected, whereas some like us who would like to continue to live in Canberra (and others too who can't move for work and other practical reasons) have to continue to fight to keep our rates and taxes affordable and not be burdened long into the future with the light rail debt.

Graham Brady, Hughes

Religion not above law

Mike Hutchinson and Mike Dallwitz (Letters, June 2) are critical of me for seeming to suggest that religious groups are above the law. In my original letter (May 30), I clearly included religious groups as among those who attack our democratic freedoms by claiming absolute authority over us. I said that such claims, whether secular or religious, are contrary to our democratic ideals and should be resisted.

That part of my letter as published was edited to leave out the reference to religious claims.

Perhaps a correction from the Canberra Times would be in order.

Father Robert Willson, Deakin

Context to terrorism

It is quite unclear to me what the federal government is trying to achieve with the "If it doesn't add up, speak up!" advertising campaign. The ad in itself is ludicrous in its superficiality, along the lines of "they are everywhere" and clearly they go around with a big "Check this out: I am a terrorist!" sign around their necks and dustbins.

Terrorism is much more effectively tackled when put in the correct context and terms. How big a threat does it realistically pose to Australians in Australia? It is not the noise made around a threat that makes it more likely to happen.

There are plenty of professionals working on it, a substrate of would-be vigilantes is not required.

Secondly, is the attitude proposed by the ad campaign actually going to help? Would no one have ever thought about reporting anything suspicious, before? When you positively endorse and encourage paranoid behaviour, people may easily lose sight of what is reasonable and you give a powerful voice to the clueless or worse.

I doubt Australian anti-terrorism services have the time and resources to filter a disproportionate amount of non-intelligence and false leads from those who get scared of their shadow or don't like their neighbour's beards.

In the current climate, this can easily lead to other long-term issues much bigger than the threat itself, along more damaging and divisive pathways to separate communities on the basis of ethnic and religious identities.

History is full of examples of the practice of making accusations without proper regard for evidence, all have in common citizens turned informants and large numbers of victims whose crime was to be on the wrong side of an arbitrary line.

If we start manufacturing these divisions through paranoia, we have to ask whether all we are doing is in fact to create the problem from within.

Luca Biason, Latham

Un-Christian hyperbole

The Christian Lobby associating marriage equality with Nazism shows they have gone over the edge. They should reflect on the fact that German Protestants supported Nazism with few exceptions, and the Catholic Church famously came to a concordat with the Hitler regime. And it was gay people in Germany who went into the camps from the very start, from 1933. Marriage equality is the norm in most Western countries and supported by most Australians.

Gay marriage is offered by many if not most mainline and established churches. As the US courts have exhaustively shown, there is no logic to anti-marriage equality arguments and no negative effects can be found. Which is why right wing Christian groups in Australia are turning in desperation to un-Christian hyperbole. No doubt as intended, this is what the community can look forward to in the run up to the Abbott plebiscite.

Michael Fisher, Lyneham

The knee-jerk reaction of Rex Williams (Letters, June 1) to the Four Corners program on IVF requires a balanced response. I agree with the opinions of Robert Norman and Gab Kovacs but would make these points.

1. The lack of a common protocol among clinics for the investigation and treatment of infertility makes meaningful interpretation of results almost impossible, but it is clear that success rates decline with age, are negligible after age 40 and rapidly decline thereafter.

2. The fact that many patients succeed on treatments easier and cheaper than IVF has been demonstrated by Canberra Fertility Centre for 30 years. However, for patients under 39, a cycle of IVF gives a better live birth rate than any other treatment. The question of whether this justifies treating all patients with IVF remains unresolved.

3. There are, indeed, many bewildering ways in which to express success rates. The live birth rate per started treatment cycle is probably the most honest but I have some concerns about even that.

4. The "snake-oil" treatments referred to by Gab Kovacs are usually expensive additions to IVF treatment which [usually] poorly conducted research suggests may be beneficial. They are seized upon by doctors and patients desperate to improve the chance for a particular patient.

Egg donors and surrogates are rare in this country because the policy of all political parties is to prohibit clinics from financially compensating these women.

Many patients are thus denied the chance of children unless they can afford to travel overseas. This leaves the doctor with two choices: to continue or refuse treatment. Refusing treatment to a desperate patient is never easy and the fact so many in this position have deliberately avoided pregnancy until it's too late makes the situation more distressing but it is not discriminatory to decline to take a patient's [and the taxpayers'] money merely to provide false hope. It's a decision which should probably be made more often.

Martyn Stafford-Bell, Yarralumla

Jenny Goldie (Letters, June 2) talks about climate change, and seems to believe that Australia can make a significant difference.

Time for a maths lesson, and also a reality check. Australia produces 1.3per cent of the world's C02 emissions. If every Australian were to die today, if all commerce and industry ceased today, it wouldn't make the slightest difference, as China alone has a year-on-year increase that exceeds our emissions. So we would be cutting our throats and destroying our economy for no positive return.

Both China and India have over 300million people each with no access to electricity or flushing toilets. They cannot achieve a decent standard of living without cheap electricity – which means coal –which is why China alone is commissioning 50 new coal-fired power stations every year. Why would you want to consign 600 million-plus people to poverty, unable to enjoy the standard of living we enjoy?

As for closing down our coal industry, consider this: China, India and Africa are going to continue to import coal for at least 50 years. If we don't sell it to them, someone else will. And for those who are rusted on to wind turbines, consider this: no coal=no steel industry.

Each wind turbine requires 220 tonnes of coal to create the steel involved. So, no coal=no steel=no wind turbines, which can't provide baseload power anyway. And somehow, some people believe that destroying our coal industry and putting thousands of people out of work will somehow magically save the Great Barrier Reef.

John Burns, Hall

Vote for sustainability

At last weekend's leaders debate, both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten promoted policies to create jobs and growth – Turnbull via trickle down, Shorten via targeted, fairer projects. But both, like Thelma and Louise speeding towards the Grand Canyon, are courting economic and ecological disaster through unrestrained growth.

It seems to me the poles of politics in the 21st century are moving naturally towards amalgamation of the "jobs and growth parties (minus their more progressive thinkers)" vparties striving to establish "ecological sustainability and the existence of healthy humans in a healthy world".

However, checks and balances are still needed to restrain extreme policies on either side. To restrain unsustainable growth, and to restrain overenthusiastic proponents of any questionable sustainability policies. But for now, vote for growth within a sustainable framework to correct the current bias favouring unrestrained growth.

Keith Helyar, Watson

High expectations

After Julie Bishop had a spectacular "gotcha" moment on radio regarding superannuation, D.J. Fraser (Letters, 2) wrote that it was "low" of the readers to expect our leaders to be across all portfolios.

The constant catchcry that something is not in someone's portfolio (particularly by members of the Liberal Party) surely implies laziness or stupidity. Does this mean Teflon Julie is one or the other? Or both? Perhaps Foreign Affairs is just too difficult for her and she should move to a less difficult portfolio, such as Treasury? She tried that once and was a spectacular failure there, too. Oh.

E.R. Moffat, Weston

Deplorable timing

Jane Timbrell (Letters, July 2) seems to have a strange understanding of statistics in her attack on the Master Builders Association for threatening to sue UnionsACT over a factually incorrect radio advertising campaign. While it would be far better if there were fewer claims than the 19 admitted, overstating the number of claims by 125per cent is misleading – and, if it implies that the employers are totally responsible, is defamatory. She should understand that many industrial accidents happen despite the best efforts of the employer; "horseplay" and worse is a frequent cause.

The attempt by UnionsACT to mislead the public is deplorable under any circumstances, but is contemptible during an election campaign either the current federal election or the forthcoming ACT election. It is aimed at getting a political advantage but makes real politicians look virtuous.

Michael Lane, St Ives, NSW

Iran deal a sham

Clearly Ross Kelly believes that anyone who supports positions contrary to his own can only do so because they are "venal", rather than motivated by principle or informed analysis (Letters, June 2). Not a week passes without news reports showing that Colin Rubenstein, among others, is correct to warn that the Obama administration's much ballyhooed deal to curtail Iran's nuclear weapons program and moderate its politics is a sham.

Since the deal's implementation, Iran has ratcheted up its anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric. It's just elected the hardest of hardliners to head the important Assembly of Experts. It runs Holocaust denial cartoon contests.

And in March, Iranian TV broadcast a test of a ballistic missile with the words "Israel must be wiped out" on its side. Unlike Israel, which has never threatened to destroy another country, Iran has made the Jewish state's elimination an ideological touchstone.

Since the Iran deal, a host of Iran's Arab neighbours have announced plans to establish nuclear research programs in what is no doubt the first step in a nuclear weapons race.

Israel never sparked such a race – because its neighbours do not fear it in the same way. Indeed, a 2008 Wikileaks cable shows Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah urged the United States to "cut off the head of the snake" and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Israel was not mentioned.

Alan Shroot, Forrest

Brassed off?

The musical denizens of Canberra missed a rare treat in brass when the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Brass Ensemble played to an almost empty Llewellyn Hall last Thursday evening. A display of exquisite musicianship, including solos by the CSO's Rainer Saville, featured works modern and ancient, loud and reverential, and concluded with the utter delight of Bernstein's West Side Story suite.

I hope the loud applause of the few is enough to bring them back again.

Joanne Blackburn, McKellar

STOP THE WHINGEING

I concur with David J. Richards' plea (Letters, June 2). Even an election offers no guarantee that this "incessant whingeing" will stop. I support the introduction of a light rail-free Canberra Times.

Rebecca Clark, Red Hill

NOT DRY HERE

We're told Canberra had a warm, relatively dry autumn ("Hot, dry autumn sets records for capital", June 2, p1). At the airport and Tuggeranong, perhaps. Out west in Belconnen, I had 150.75mm.

Bruce Glossop, Holt

ROADS COULD LIFT VOTE

Now the boundaries of the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro encircle the ACT, I am surprised the major political parties have not focused more on the state of roads into and out of the electorate. If one party promised to upgrade the Barton Highway to dual carriageway, they would definitely get my vote, together with a couple more thousand, I am sure.

Anthony Reid, Springrange, NSW

POVERTY IGNORED

Unemployment and homelessness, not to mention the widening gap between the rich and the poor, will never be solved by either the ALP or Liberal Party as they are happy to maintain the status quo – or are at the very least, unwilling to apply practical measures to solve these real problems.

Thomas Quinlan, Gordon

VISAS OUT OF LINE

The Immigration Department demonstrated dereliction of duty in failing to demand pizza franchisees categorically prove "market testing" had failed to locate Australian citizens/permanent residents possessing appropriate skills to labour for a pittance, so necessitating employment of 457 visa holders ("Pizza delivery driver settles dismissal case", June 2, p6).

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW

EGG ON ONE'S FACE

Ian Warden ("College crew recall days in sun", Gang-Gang, June 2, p8) states "during the 2000 Sunrace, crew members were 'laying' on the grass in front of Questacon [to catch the late sun on the solar panels of the solar vehicle]". I'm very sure no eggs were laid during this event! Cluck! Cluck!

Pamela Fawke, Dunlop

CLARIFICATION

Jenny Goldie's letter (June 2) mistakenly claimed that "scientists like Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg say 400ppm is the upper limit for avoiding coral reef bleaching". The correct figure is 320ppm. This was a production error.

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