​Slipway white elephant

Why are ACT taxpayers footing the bill for a slipway? Beyond the three (or now two?) ferries that have tolerated the past 30 years without a bespoke slipway, who is going to use it? It has the hallmarks of a white elephant and I fear will be joined by light rail – infrastructure that will cost us dearly and be less used than an Action bus.

Coming in the same week as a yet again increased rates bill, this is enough to sway my vote.

Andrew Kelly, McKellar

I do not know where Mr Boscawen of Banks has been for the past two years ("Tell ACT voters more", Sunday Times, September 11), but he evidently has not done any research into the light rail argument before writing his letter.

So for his edification, the government's case rests squarely on three basic documents. The first is the ACT Government submission to Infrastructure Australia in August 2012, in which the submission compared a Bus Rapid System (BRT) with a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system. The BRT was assessed at about half the cost and at twice the cost-effectiveness of the LRT. Yet the Labor/Green government later opted for the LRT option anyway.

The second is the Parliamentary Agreement in November 2012, under which Mr Rattenbury forced the Labor Party to commit to start construction of Stage1 (Gungahlin-Civic) sometime in 2016. Except for this document, there would be no light rail in Canberra.

The third is the government's Full Business Case for Stage 1, published October 31, 2014, coincidentally with the government decision to pursue the light rail project. That business case has been severely criticised by opponents as being thoroughly inadequate for the government to have based a decision to commit $1.78billion to this first stage of the project.

The Auditor-General's report, on June 16, 2016, also severely criticised most aspects of the project.

As for the case against the tram, one need only check out the technical papers on canthetram.org, the various surveys done over the past two years and the preponderance of letters to the editor that are against the tram.

M.Flint, Erindale

So Opposition leader Bill Shorten is going to miss a few days of Parliament to meet, among others, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. ("Shorten to skip Parliament for date with dynamic Trudeau", Sunday Times, September 11.) It says much about today's Labor Party that its leader is off to visit a liberal charlatan like Trudeau rather than a socialist and Labour leader like Jeremy Corby in Britain.

John Passant, Kambah

So it looks like the plan is now half complete as the Giralang shops debacle creeps towards a new phase.

Now Woolies has pulled out, if Aldi doesn't take it up then it's a forgone conclusion. It's easy to see the plan includes development where units take precedence over shops. The ACT government want this and the contempt shown to questions from local residents has been sustained and shameful.

I have spoken with Andrew Barr who previously stated his support for the approved DA. That changed to a statement that he and the ACT government support a compromise solution, which residents have no knowledge about.

My repeated attempts to get mainstream media interest failed. Letters, emails and calls to ACT government ministers take on average three months to get a reply.

It looks like Giralang residents need to get active again or we may end up with a compromise DA for 80 flats and no shops.

Andrew Zed, Giralang

We need to be circumspect comparing Foy Group's Berkeley Vale refinery with the one proposed for Hume ("Proposed fuel factory sparks emission fears from residents", Sunday Times, September 11, p4). The Berkeley Vale facility is one quarter the size of the refinery proposed for Hume and its fuel holding tanks a fraction of the size of the 1.8million litres also proposed for Hume.

Berkeley Vale does not operate 24/7, nor does it burn plastics as proposed for Hume but rather ingests mixed fuels and refines them into re-sellable fuel (which the Hume facility could do as well). It may also be only 700 metres from residences, however, those residences are all to the east towards the coast and the prevailing sea breezes across Lake Tuggerah disperse the noise and pollutants to the west over industrial areas and bushland. This won't be the case in Hume where prevailing winds will disperse pollutants through ridges and valleys over Eastern Tuggeranong, Southern Woden and Jerrabomberra, not to mention Tralee.

Readers may care to check 15 Apprentice Drive Berkeley Vale on Google maps.

G. Downing, Macarthur

As anyone who regularly drives to work during Canberra's version of peak-hour will find, their average speed is already down to 40km/h. Perhaps, those road safety bureaucrats that Mark Francis complains about ("Speed limits too low", Letters, September 11), are just trying to stamp out any "rat-runs" developing through those faster 50km/h suburban speed zones?

Michael Crowe, Hawker

John Rodriguez says that in pointing out "the commies were the real bad guys" in my critique of Mark Kenny's article ("Politics a fertile field for beat-ups", Sunday Focus, p19) that I "ignored the many Australian and Russian lives lost fighting Goebbels' Nazi army" (Letters, September 11).

Rodriguez's historical focus underscores my main point: while much attention is focused on the war against Hitler, there is only historical blindness when it comes to confronting the real causes of fascism's rise in Germany.

Mark Kenny was contributing to that blindness by portraying it as nothing more than the agitation of one devious man. And he was doing this to make a facile point about Donald Trump, Brexit and some anti-Muslim protesters. Whether Rodriguez – or any of the other mavens of political correctness out there – likes it or not, more Russians (and Ukrainians) died fighting and fleeing the communists than died at the hands of the Nazis.

This toll and the brutality of the Red Terror on Germany's doorstep explains the rise of Nazism. Not Goebbels' devious cleverness, as Kenny would have us believe.

Greg Ellis, Murrumbateman, NSW

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