The key problem with ACT Labor's redesigned rates model is that it hits Canberra's poorer working home owners from the outer suburbs disproportionately harder than Canberra's higher-earning and asset-rich home owners. Let's take homeowners from Kambah as an example. ABS data shows they are generally on lower incomes and have fewer assets than most residents of inner Canberra, but their recent rates increases are a much higher proportion of their annual income. The rates increase for residents is also combined with Kambah's unemployment rate doubling since June 2008 and an incredible 30 per cent increase in the number of Centrelink Newstart recipients since September 2013.

These factors are why ratepayers in Kambah and similar suburbs across Tuggeranong, Weston Creek and west Belconnen are feeling that Mr Barr is taxing them to support his spending in other areas of Canberra, other areas that he believes are the key to winning him and the Greens another election.

Brendan Halloran, Wanniassa

Mixed up his flags

Quite correctly, Christopher Smith (Letters, November 6) suggests that a modern democracy should not adopt a flag with colours that may imply any association with former murderous republics. That is not an unreasonable position.

The examples of former murderous republics he cites are Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany, where he states the flag colours were black, red and yellow (sic). His letter would have benefited from some research. Imperial Germany was, almost by definition, not a republic, it was a monarchy. Its flag was black, white and red, as was Nazi Germany's.

The colours of black, red and gold have been the colours of the Federal Republic of Germany since 1949, and were also the flag colours of the inter-war German Weimar republic – hardly the murderous and failed republics.

Of course his main objection is to the suggestion by Graeme Barrow (Letter, November 3) that the Aboriginal flag (black, gold and red) be a starting point to discuss a possible new Australian flag design. Unfortunately, Mr Smith's research lets him down here as well – he refers to the central disc in the flag as a pointless round yellow blob. Of course, a little research would have revealed to him that the disc represents the sun.

Steve Wallace, Stirling

Reform housing sector

Affordable housing in new suburbs in particular, needs to be the norm. That's not happening. Governments seriously can't continue to simply offer "affordable" (read low-grade) dwellings via subsidies, and so stigmatise them.

Land availability and prices (the latter including excessive subdivision infrastructure), speculative land buying and building, and absentee investment, are the problems. In well-planned places, like Canberra, good new land can continue to be sustainably provided. Uber-like, the current housing "industry" needs to be reformed. It's mostly a speculative, push-marketed, closed-shop, retail delivery "system", with many hangers-on, often producing inefficient, amateurish dwellings. In government subdivisions, all new blocks (decently sized) need to be made available only to owner-occupiers who undertake to live in situ for a specified substantial period (reasonable conditions applying).

Bodies corporate for moderately sized multiple-dwelling projects can be formed before the event, via professional facilitators. Owners could then source design and construction in a variety of better ways. The blocks should be available only at liquidated and ascertainable cost, plus a modest margin. Supply needs to be kept up (by legislation) for obvious reasons, and to free up investment funds for much-needed more productive Australian industries.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

CSO jewel in our crown

Last Thursday night, at the final concert in the CSO's 2015 season, chief conductor and artistic director Nicholas Milton informed the audience that the re-subscription rate for 2016 was 96per cent – an astonishing figure and far above the rates of other orchestras in the nation. The figure did not surprise me.

The concert was another in a series of imaginative, exhilarating performances held during the year. As I left Llewellyn Hall at the end, among the audience who had filled the auditorium on a very wet night, I could not help but reflect that this dynamic orchestra doesn't yet receive the recognition it deserves. In promoting Canberra, the CSO should be paraded proudly alongside our other cultural institutions. It is of a standard befitting the nation's capital and should be recognised as such. I believe it is the jewel in our crown.

Virginia Berger, Barton

Tram patronage data

I rode the Gold Coast tram not long after it opened. It was early afternoon on a week day and fewer than half the seats were occupied. Most passengers appeared to be tourists with the remainder students and a few locals. The experience could be best described as a leisurely tour and far more passenger-friendly than a bus.

This got me thinking about who would ride the City to Gungahlin tram. I assume that very few tourists would want to make the trip. That leaves mainly locals with the mix of work commuters, students and others, depending on the time of day.

Have the planners considered all the possible data in their patronage modelling? The traditional data sources are surveys, censuses and patronage of existing public transport systems. Another potential data source is mobile phones. I understand it is possible to calculate the approximate location of a mobile phone from its automatic communications with nearby cell towers.

GPS accurate positioning (which this is not) would raise legitimate concerns about privacy. However, I understand that the accuracy is sufficient to keep track of a phone travelling, say, from somewhere around Nicholls to somewhere around Russell five days a week and on the return trip, with a detour via Woden two days a week. Gaining access to this travel information would be difficult, but the benefits might be considerable.

Gordon Calcino, Lyons

Michael Lee's opinion on coeducational high schools ("Co-ed or otherwise: it's about a good school isn't it", Times2, November 5, p5) differs from mine markedly.

I had to change schools to do the last two years of my high school, and I wanted to do physics and chemistry, although I had not had the opportunity to do them in my previous school. The new school allowed me, with strong reservations, but I was determined, and worked hard to make up for lost time. Although the school was coeducational, the classes (at least in those last two years) were segregated, so there were no boys in my science classes. All my classmates were very tolerant and supportive of my efforts to catch up, and I eventually passed both subjects with B grades.

My daughter was in a co-ed class all through her high school years, and was not brilliant at maths, so she had to endure the groans of derision from the boys whenever she tried to clarify a point of uncertainty in class.

She soon learned to shut up and keep her "ignorance" to herself. She failed maths.

My limited experience, along with my reading on the subject, tells me that coeducation is very good for boys, but not nearly so good for girls.

Margaret Lee, Hawker

Nauru awaits Dutton

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has visited a refugee camp in Jordan and found the experience to be one that will remain with him ("Dutton visits refugee camp: 'I think it's a scene that stays with you", November 4, p4). Would that he were to follow up that event with a visit to a refugee camp nearer to home – on Nauru. Who knows, he might again conclude "it's a scene that stays with you".

Tim Hardy, Florey

An interesting juxtaposition of headlines occurred in The Canberra Times last week: "Tax man to hit SMEs, individuals with random audits as $3b gap revealed" (adjacent to) "GST rise tougher on low-income households' (November 5, p4).

We know that corporate tax evasion is rife across the nation and yet this government is intent on taxing those in the community least likely to evade their taxation responsibilities. There may be a bit of, probably inadvertent, avoidance but most of those to be targeted in the ATO's latest push have neither the wherewithal nor the will to avoid their responsibilities.

We understand the purpose of taxation and the need to fund education, health and social services. Instead of increasing the GST (which will also target those least able to afford it) and blowing resources on random audits of the "little guys", may I suggest a tax on super profits, a significant tax on corporate incomes, and severe penalties for corporate tax evaders. The $3 billion gap will be closed within the first quarter if the corporate "leaners" begin paying their way.

W. Book, Hackett

I admit to having no economic credentials, so I have to believe what the government tells me, albeit with a grain of salt. But now I am totally confused. For two years we have been told by various government ministers, including both treasurers, that we do not have a revenue problem, but we do have a spending problem.

Now, in the guise of tax reform, we are told that an increase in the GST should be considered to improve revenue collection. How can such a sudden change in circumstances come about?

Alan Parkinson, Weetangera

Many back jihadists

In the last financial year AUSTRAC identified $53 millions of transactions relating to terrorism which moved through Australian financial institutions ("Credit-card jihadists warning", November 5, p1).

I doubt that much of that money was destined for Nepalese Maoists. I assume those millions were for jihadist rebels.

Estimating the Muslim community at 2 per cent of the population, or 480,000, $53 million represents $110.42 per head for every man, woman and child in that community.

Can somebody tell me again how jihadists are a minuscule and unrepresentative part of the Islamic community in Australia? Perhaps they can also explain how a disproportionate 32.56 per cent of those selecting my LinkedIn profile bear Arabic names. It's not as though I'm a Reclaim extremist.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

Israeli ideology awful

Like most apologists for Israel, Alex Doobov (Letters, November 5) thinks the reason for the ongoing violence in Palestine is the failure of Arabs to accept Israel's right to exist. Perhaps Doobov and others seeking to blame the Palestinians for their fate may care to contemplate the views of Arnon Soffer, professor of geostrategy at the University of Haifa, who has been highly influential in Israeli government strategy.

He declared that: "We will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed and houses will be destroyed ... when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will be even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful.

"It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to reman alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day , every day." (ref: Max Blumenthal, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, p4-5).

This is the true nature of the Israeli state which Palestinians are fighting. We are repeatedly told that Nazi Germany forfeited its right to exist in having such ideology at its core. Why should Israel be different?

Chris Williams, Griffith

No partner for peace

Marilyn Shepherd (Letters, November 3) claims Palestinian violence is all about the "occupation ... a million times over". If that's the case, what was it about prior to 1967 when there was no occupation on the West Bank?

It seems that Israel's very existence is "occupation" to some, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who recently complained Palestinians had been living under occupation for 70 years. Actually, Marilyn, it's all about genuine negotiations. And no, Michael Barry (Letters, November 3), 11,000 rockets aimed at Israeli citizens from Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005, not to mention the construction of terror tunnels designed to capture or kill civilians, would seem to indicate that unilateral withdrawals do not work and that peace can come only through negotiations.

Israel has clearly demonstrated over the years that it is prepared to accept a two-state solution, with internationally recognised and guaranteed borders. Under such circumstances, Israel would coexist peacefully with a Palestinian state.

Repeated attempted invasions, gross anti-Semitic vilification in Palestinian and Arab media and continued terror clearly demonstrates that Israel still does not yet have a partner for peace.

Let's hope that one day Israel is accepted as a legitimate state, with a tiny percentage of the overall Middle East area, living in prosperity and peace with its neighbours. The Arab world would have much to gain by such an outcome.

Robert Cussel, Yarralumla

Titles don't count

Peter Waterhouse (Letters, November 5) draws a very tenuous link between Downton Abbey's characters and Tony Abbott's knights and dames in suggesting the latter as a "needed example of cultural etiquette ...".

I need hardly remind him that there have been a number of polite and courteous aristocrats in Downton Abbey who turned out to be downright villains. Equally, in real life, over the years a few of our knights and dames (as well as some British recipients) have been less than exemplary, both in their behaviour and in the manner in which they obtained their titles.

In essence, grand titles don't determine what we are. I would also hope that simply being decent human beings is both incentive and reward enough.

Eric Hunter, Cook

PRESSURE TO USE TRAMS

The ACT government is trying to force Canberrans on to trams. The often quoted Lincoln description of democratic government being "Of the people, by the people, force the people" reads a little bit differently to that.

Jamie Geysen, Aranda

GIVING QUANDARY

If I have something that I cannot give to every one, but which I can give to someone, should I just give it to anyone?

Trevor McPherson, Aranda

PEACE DEALS REJECTED

Allan Doobov (Letters, November 5) claims that the Arab states refused to make peace with Israel after 1948. This is incorrect. Israeli historian Simha Flapan states in The Birth of Israel: Myths and realities that between 1947 and 1952, Israel turned down successive proposals made by Arab states and by neutral mediators that may have brought about an accommodation.

Paul Dixon, Fraser

COLOURS REVEALED

Ric Hingee's assumptions have again let him down (Letters, November 3).

I was at a football match once and I was cheering both sides and this bloke next to me said, "Come on mate, none of this two bob each way stuff. Pick a team, and stick to it." I am a Greens supporter.

Patrick O'Hara, Isaacs

NO-COST OPINIONS

Peter Marshall is a supporter of light rail for Canberra as well as a fan of modern trains (Letters, November 4). Like Sarah Hanson-Young, who supported an appeal against the Commonwealth on marriage equality in the ACT, neither appear to be ACT taxpayers, the ones who will have to bear the cost.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

FOLLOW CANADA

Malcolm Turnbull should follow his scrapping of knights and dames with something really useful. Follow new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's lead and scrap the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Imagine what $24billion could buy in health, education, disability services, restoration of ABC and SBS funding – money for all the services that Abbott and Hockey defunded. Good on you Canada for taking that stance.

Barbara Godfrey, Lyneham

INNOCUOUS HAZE

The picture accompanying the article "Paris conference may leave us feeling the heat" ( Times2, November 5, p5) makes the mistake of showing innocuous condensed water vapour obscuring the noxious emanations from the power station's smokestacks.

Ken McPhan, Spence

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