And the analysis overlooked a major source of additional benefit increased land sale prices and rates revenue that would flow from having a public transport route that some visionless government could not rip the rug out from under, as happened with ACTION here a couple of years ago.

No one is suggesting it all be built at once starting with the legs that are mostly self-funding is recommended.

Rather than asking how can the Government afford it, we should be asking how can the Government afford NOT to do it?

To not install light rail is the height of fiscal irresponsibility. The Government's own report says so the report that Stanhope refuses to acknowledge, and the local media continues to not prosecute him on.

Alan Kerlin

Harrison

APPLY LAWS THAT MATTER

I read with interest the apparent vigorous application by the ACT Government of existing laws pertaining to stands outside shops in public areas.

I do not agree with this targeted campaign that appears to have happened overnight, and one does wonder what has caused this knee-jerk reaction after decades of such stands on the sidewalk.

I would, however, suggest that if there is a burst of energy within the various ACT Government departments with regulatory control obligations, this energy be harnessed and focused on things that actually matter to the general public and will have a positive impact on daily life: such as actively enforcing the existing laws introduced in 1997 stopping semi-trailers and other large trucks parking in residential areas.

This issue is a still major problem in Kaleen 12 years after the legislation was introduced and has a major impact on the daily home lives of many families, in particular through night-time noise and filthy diesel fumes.

Roger Alexander

Kaleen

The ACT bureaucracy's banning of racks of merchandise outside shops is another step in this country's dumbing down of the acquisition of knowledge.

How can I now rummage through tables of remaindered books while eating an ice cream?

Bill Deane

Chapman

I agree with the ACT Government keeping footpaths clear of goods for sale and advertising boards.

On rainy days, footpath clutter makes walking hazardous under narrow Civic verandas.

The worst part is when hucksters use loudspeakers to drive pedestrians crazy.

Converting Civic into a Third World bazaar won't cure the recession.

Nor will it stop shopping malls from getting bigger.

Graham Macafee

Latham

BARR AVOIDING THE ISSUE

After three weeks of public consultation, ACT Planning Minister Andrew Barr has used the ACT Government's call-in powers to fast-track the $200million Cotter Dam project, describing it as the ACT's ''second largest project after the new Parliament House'' (ABC television news, August 26).

How could he possibly have overlooked the monstrous $600million ASIO building project currently being fast-tracked with minimal public consultation on Lake Burley Griffin?

Are comparisons invidious?

Ros Gordon

Campbell

NATIONAL APPROACH NEEDED

It seems that the ACT's precious Macquarie perch has been holding Andrew Barr to ransom (''Call-in powers used for Cotter'', August 27, p1).

Before Canberra's citizens get their blood pressure up, may I suggest they check on the Department of the Environment, Water and Heritage website (www.environment.gov.au) where they will find the fish is alive and merely threatened over a large area of adjacent NSW.

To adopt a states and territories approach to defining threatened species is ridiculous.

Basil Johnson

Weston

MEDICARE REBATE IS THE KEY

Your editorial (''Fees a bitter pill'', August 28, p24) implies that access to a GP will be harder now that Primary Health Centres have decided to charge a fee.

The assumption is that all of those who wait two hours in our waiting rooms really need to see a GP.

Unfortunately this is not always the case.

This is a waste of taxpayers' money and GP resources.

It is a direct result of having no price signal just a bulk-billing form to sign.

The rebate for a visit has been out of touch with the real cost of a consultation for many years and is the reason very few GPs in Canberra universally bulk-bill.

Primary Health Care has been able to absorb this discrepancy with economies of scale and efficiency and should be commended for this.

However, the end result of this is a tendency for rapid throughput and waiting rooms that look like Heathrow Airport. The hope now is that waiting times are much less, that GPs will have more time to provide quality care and it is far easier to access the doctor of choice.

Remember that pensioners and children under 16 will continue to be bulk-billed.

GPs and Primary Health Care should not be expected to subsidise a failed Medicare system.

If the Government is concerned about crowded emergency rooms and providing ''free'' medicine to all, the paltry level of the rebate is the key.

If Primary can't continue bulk-billing, nobody can.

Dr Philip Barraclough, medical director, Ginninderra Medical and Dental Centre

HOPE LIVES ON FOR CRICKET

Congratulations to Ricky Ponting on his decision to seek a return in 2013 to England to retain the Ashes (he will by then have won them back 5-nil in 2011 in Australia but no one will notice).

''The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.''

I wish the same could be said for the Bledisloe Cup.

Greg Ellis

Griffith

FIREWORKS BAN IS PETTY

The ban put on fireworks in Canberra has proved that our city is not a community, but that everyone is out for themselves.

It would seem that a large number of people cannot cope with the fact that they live in close proximity with others, and do not realise that as a community we sometimes need to accept the behaviour of others that we may find annoying.

In the past I have tolerated things in this city on the grounds that they bring others joy.

Barking dogs in the middle of the night, the hundreds of dog attacks in Canberra every year, the vicious animals that throw themselves against fences as I walk past.

But now I think I will have to do everything in my power to get these dangerous and loud creatures banned.

Petty? You bet it is.

Thomas Rowell

O'Connor

SCIENCE WILL WIN THE DAY

There have been such a diversity of views about the nature of our ever- changing climate.

Moreover, there are as many views about the key cause of the supposed adverse effects rising global temperatures, sea level rises, increased ocean acidity and so on. Is the human race responsible, or is it a natural series of events?

I would like to suggest a serious consideration that appears to have been overlooked in the debate over all of these issues.

Science has always advanced, and the advance is not linear in time; it escalates more rapidly than time itself.

All that is talked about now that might befall societies down the track is, naturally, based upon what we know now.

This knowledge base will change rapidly, and so also will the projections.

History tells us that this is so.

What concerns me is which is going to win adverse climate change, whether anthropogenically driven or otherwise, or the ability of the advancing science to deal with either.

I have the conviction of the latter.

Professor Greg Jackson

Kambah