Rates rises rampant

I was frankly not surprised to find that my rates assessments have increased by more than 8.5per cent on average since 2000-01. My rates for 2014-15 are 286per cent of my 2000-01 rates.

This compares with the Australian Consumer Price Index which has only increased 53per cent over the same period, and Canberra's CPI increase of 51 per cent. Please remind me again why we voted for self-government. Oh wait ....

Peter Mitchell, Oxley

Kate Burgess's article "Slovenly citizens need to clean up Canberra" (August 29, p6) only addresses a part of the problem.

Canberrans start their littering career in elementary school and refine their skills through high school. One only needs to walk the public paths connecting strip mall fast food outlets to schools and the green areas surrounding schools of all levels to observe that the density of lunch box rubbish, fast food containers and the like abound at a far greater density than 37 items per square kilometre.

Add to this night time partying rubbish in the form of beer bottles, tins of all description and the odd item not suitable for mention, and you get a more complete picture of Canberrans' behaviour.

Keep Australia Beautiful's Peter McLean is living in a dreamworld if he thinks Canberra can ever become litter-free. Certainly not without the installation of public bins (at considerable cost) and other measures.

Here are a few ideas: make schools responsible for keeping their immediate surroundings clean. Picking up rubbish could be made into a compulsory supervised school activity and teach a valuable lesson – institute a surcharge on all fast food items to defray the cost of picking up the discarded bags, dixie cups, burger boxes and like items originated through their sales.

Steve Foldesi, Gowrie

Bouquets to the elderly gentleman and his dog seen regularly collecting roadside litter along Southern Cross and Kingsford Smith Drives in Latham. More like you are needed to curtail the tossers targeted by Peter McLean.

Pam Nicolson, Latham

I wonder if anyone else has drawn a link between the ever-increasing costs of owning and operating a car in Canberra and the proposed introduction of the tram/light rail system ("Parking ramps up price of a night out", August 28, p3)?

The deregulation of third party insurance has not introduced the alleged savings that the ACT Government first spruiked. Vehicle registration in the ACT is amongst the highest in the country. The introduction of paid parking within the Parliamentary triangle has significantly increased the cost of car ownership in the ACT for many motorists. As your article reported, the cost of parking is now being extended to those who do not work in the city but chose to dine out instead. All of these increasing costs make the option of using a tram see more palatable to motorists. I can't help thinking that the ACT Government is deliberately raising vehicle operating costs in order to force commuters to use the white elephant that will be the tram network.

ACT roads are the best in the country, congestion is low and travel times are much lower than other capital cities.

I agree with B. Blackburn (Letters, August 28) that ACT residents must be given the option to vote on the tram before the government proceeds with what will be nothing more than a self-congratulatory promotional tool for an otherwise sub-par administration.

Lee Robinson, Casey

Now we're talking 21st century public transport ("Self-drive cars will best tram, says expert", August 31, p2). Technology is moving faster than we expected when we Canberrans first liked the idea of a fixed-rail tram system. We now have on-demand rides summoned from smartphones, driverless and electric cars. The ACT government has a target of 100per cent renewable energy by 2025. Canberra has the best roads in the country. What potential for a fleet of electric cars and mini-buses – recharging or replacing batteries at depots as needed.

Our favourite routes built into the myAction app – one for travelling with the kids to school before going on to work, another for stopping at the supermarket on the way home. A flexible and scalable public transport system.

David Coombe, Macquarie

Were the headlines simply coincidental? "Roadkill country ... path to snow marsupial minefield" (August 28, p1) and

"Lunatics on our roads" (Gang-gang, August 28, p12).

There is much that can be done to reduce the risk of bashing into wildlife or rear-ending something on our roads.

Years ago there were government-sponsored driver education programs to remind us how drive better and improve our awareness. And perhaps they need to come back. With regards to wildlife on the road – in high risk areas, better signage, fencing and reduced speed limits to improve reaction time might help too.

Philip Machin, Wamboin, NSW

Thank you and well done, Simon Corbell. Your time as a Canberra politician is something you can be really proud of. You have been honest, hard working and prepared to make hard decisions for the future of Canberra. You have left Canberra a better place for us all.

I have found the negative comments on these pages about your tenure to be spiteful and self-serving. Your courage in declaring your personal depression and your ability to push on and contribute to our greater good has been inspiring.

Patrick O'Hara, Isaacs

How should the ACT commemorate the fifth anniversary of the ACT Human Rights Commission's greatest triumph over the forces of evil?

Protecting the rights of children to wag school while devouring greasy garbage in a local fast food chain surely merits a Nobel Peace Prize nomination or, even better, a knighthood for Commissioner Helen Watchirs.

Michael Barry, Torrens

All of your protesting correspondents et al concerned about Dyson Heydon's continuance as trade union royal commissioner are merely demonstrating their own bias in doing their juvenile dummy spits. Like bad news one learns that we don't shoot the messenger. Likewise in unwanted trials one knows that we don't shoot the judge. But in playing political games when it comes to royal commissions we don't want, it seems that throwing some mud is OK.

Shame on the union movement. Pity it can't or doesn't want to embrace the commission's agenda. They just might have been able to win back some of their now much jaded reputation for caring about workers had they done so.

P.M. Button, Cook

Some of your recent correspondents have complained about the presence of military themed advertisements at Canberra airport, even to the extent of saying they are offensive, and suggesting that they tell their overseas visitors to avoid Canberra airport (one has to wonder what their visitors think when they are told to drive three hours from Sydney just to avoid seeing a photo of a submarine!).

One can only imagine what these sensitive souls must think when they see someone around town wearing an Australia Defence Force uniform.

If a photo is offensive, then what must they think of someone who actually crews that aircraft or submarine? No doubt they want the freedom and security that Defence provides, and expect assistance during natural disasters. But I can only assume that they really want the ADF to just hide out back of Alice Springs and only appear when they want and need Defence personnel.

I want the ADF to have the best equipment possible – if that means dealing with companies who can offer us the best, then great. And if that means having some photos on an airport wall, then also fair enough. As someone who has worn a uniform, I am also entitled to be offended. If they can find a military photo offensive, then I am certainly justified in being offended by their hypocrisy and petty-mindedness.

Kym MacMillan, O'Malley

It is true that military force has the capability to prevent "untold human suffering", and it is also true that military force has caused untold human suffering. What Neil James (Letters, August 28) and those he describes as having "emotively expressed, historic and one-sided views", who find the ads for military hardware that greet visitors to Canberra disturbing, have in common, is a desire for a peaceful world.

In our time, military force has had a terrible track record. The wars launched by a "coalition of the willing" in Iraq and Afghanistan stand as terrible examples.

The problem posed by the huge ads at the airport is that they are part of the nationalist, militarist tradition that has always resisted ceding power to the United Nations, so that that international body can do the job for which it was created.

Harry Davis, Campbell

Rather than abusing people who oppose all war, perhaps Neil James could have used his limited words to advise readers how many of the weapons manufacturers advertising at Canberra Airport contribute to the Australia Defence Association that pays his salary, and how much they contribute.

Peter Marshall, Captains Flat, NSW

Lyn Kalbar (Letters, August 29) thinks the idea of dropping bombs on Syria is "truly appalling". But is that statement not an oversimplification? Is it not the intention to bomb Islamic State forces that are making their bloody presence felt in much of Syria? Is the intention not to target the monsters who have raped and beheaded even pregnant women and butchered many men? How would doing nothing help our beleaguered brothers and sisters?

Lyn's suggestion that Christians down the ages could testify that the more a movement is "persecuted" the more vigorously it spreads cannot be taken seriously since it is the members of IS who are the persecutors. Europeans were grateful when Allied troops managed to disarm the German Reich, and liberate a string of European countries. Would many Russians and Chinese not have been equally grateful when Stalin and Mao's bloody communist regimes came to an end?

For Australia not to participate in an effort to curtail, or end, IS's bloody reign would be a shameful way of acting towards our suffering fellow human beings in Syria.

Henk Verhoeven, Beacon Hill, NSW

The veil of silence lifted at last ("PM's gusto for air strikes intriguing, Editorial, Times2, August 27, p2) on Australia's homicidal attacks in Iraq, now to be extended into Syria. Congratulations to the CT and Fairfax Media for your moral courage, but why have we heard so little to date? We should ask and be told daily how many bombs we have dropped, how many we killed, how many of these are innocent civilians, how many were "enemies", and how our enemies are identified for slaughter.

What are the issues in these multilateral civil wars and whose side are we on? If our government cannot answer these questions frankly, clearly and without shame, or if we are not interested in these questions, we run the danger of becoming mindless murderers – the Janissaries, the Cossacks, and the Sardaukar for any empire in the world that wants to assert its power. More power to Tanya Plibersek for advocating dropping food and medicines on those tragic populations instead of bombs.

A. Moore Melba

Amin Saikal ("More bombs fuel for IS fire", Times2, September 1, p1) is becoming almost a caricature of himself. Sunni and Shiite Muslims killing each other in Iraq and Syria? Blame Israel and the West. I do hope his students get a better analysis than the reflexive, undergraduate Israel and US-bashing he so regularly provides to readers.

An examination of, say, the divisive, incendiary and central role played by Iran in all of this would make a pleasant change.

It is, after all, the real cause of the Sunni blowback.

Bill Arnold, Chifley

CSIRO's vacating its Barton Highway farm ("Selling the CSIRO farm", August 20, p1) offers the ACT a choice: bulldoze 700 hectares of our best soil into landfill and build houses ... or develop a foodbowl enhancing Canberra's food security threatened by climate change, population growth and peak oil.

The Food Security Roundtable of 40 stakeholders convened by Minister Shane Rattenbury in May 2014 recognised food security as an important issue nationally and for Canberrans. It suggested zoning good agricultural land for that purpose and setting land aside for intensive food production in hydroponic and aquaponics glasshouses. Coincidentally it was said that 700 hectares could produce food for a third of the ACT's population. Employing 10,000-12,000 people, a food production industry would diversify the ACT economy. Political and climate change refugees could supply labour, capital and entrepreneurial skill.

In 2000 the West Sydney Basin produced 30per cent of Sydney's fresh food. History will condemn state Labor and Coalition governments which since 2000 have approved urban sprawl which means virtually no food will come out of that area by 2020.

The ACT community and political parties should not be seduced by the one-off benefit of – say – $1billion or $2billion from land sales rather than the continuing benefits of Canberra growing say $1billion of food a year, year after year, in a food-challenged world.

Hopefully Minister Shane Rattenbury will reconvene the Food Security Roundtable to advise on how to use the CSIRO farm.

John Brummell, Fusion Australia, Duffy

NO MONEY FOR ROAD

We can spend $10 million on Border Force uniforms and branding, $40million to Cambodia for four refugees, $60 million on a royal commission and $100 million on a war memorial in France. Why, then, can't we find the money to duplicate the Barton Highway, one of Australia's most dangerous roads?

Ken Helm, Murrumbateman, NSW

EX PARTE UNFAIR

The article about eBay/Westpac and Ms Joab's plight ("Single mum learns loyalty means little", BusinessDay, August 29, p7) shows once again how corporations run the world, and hence, our lives.

It also shows how unfair the ex parte procedures are. If we had a bill of rights, ex parte would be considered illegal. It's time our legislatures get rid of this outdated procedure.

M. Pietersen, Kambah

IN DISAGREEMENT

Re Neil James' missive (Letters, August 28). Bollocks.

Martyn Hearle, Narrabundah

SAFE TRAFFIC

Road clover-leafs provide smooth, safe, efficient traffic flow with few stoppages. That must be why the NCA have removed the one at King's Avenue bridge (but installed a bike one on the other side).

Good news is the ACT government haven't yet removed the ones in the city. More traffic lights and accidents are not needed.

D.K. House Monash

RULES OF TERRORISM

If I understand Alan Shroot (Letters, August 31) correctly, "the Jewish fighters" (terrorists) who successfully "targeted British soldiers and Arab fighters" to create Israel for "Jewish Holocaust refugees" were totally different to the Palestinian terrorists of today who indiscriminately target any citizen of Israel.

I had never before realised the degrees of restraint and ethical standards which guide the terrorist world.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

DYSON HEYDON

In the unlikely event of the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, acceding to the request of the Senate to dismiss royal commissioner Dyson Heydon, I would offer one piece of advice; do not notify him by email.

John Whitty, Hawker

SMOKING IN PRISONS

Banning smoking in prisons as supported by David Biles ("Banning tobacco in prison", Times2, August 31, p1) might have one useful outcome: a drop in rates of recidivism.

Philip Telford, Tarago, NSW

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