They should be processed quickly so that refugee trauma exacerbated in long periods of detention does not occur, as any resultant neglect or abuse due to adult trauma impacts on children for many years to come.

Accept the refugees but give them information about the challenges our country faces such as a housing shortage, outer suburban transport and other infrastructure affordability, the increasing dryness of our country.

Ask them how they will help our country. Tell them of the long working hours of many of our salaried working professionals.

Australian citizens could also attempt to reduce the size of our own families a little so we can accommodate some of those in need.

Angela Wall,

Weetangera

It is now very clear that the two boats now in the Indonesian waters with disgruntled Tamil people is a professionally manipulated effort by a ring of human smugglers closely connected with the vanquished Tamil Tigers.

Their appeals presented by Alex the spokesperson of the first boat took the unsuspecting Australians on a big ride. Their insistence on choosing their destination even though they were offered to land in Indonesia to be processed by the UN officials and subsequent news that they were living in Indonesia and Malaysia for some time finally let the cat out of the bag.

We now hear that Alex the spokesperson had been deported by Canada for alleged criminal activities in forcible fund collections and gang fights among the LTTE groups.

While Australia should continue its humane stance it should not allow the unscrupulous and criminals to exploit the country.

In the present case, it looks as if a set of trained LTTE cadres is planning to arrive in Australia along with ''innocent'' children and women under the cover of the Sri Lanka bashing campaign energised by the interested groups.

Ranjith Soysa,

Dandenong, Victoria

When is a refugee not a refugee? What has changed, for example, since the Snowy Mountains Scheme when ''Bloody New Australians' were welcomed by the ocean linerful?

What has changed are migrant attitudes and demands. I was a youngster when we arrived here, from an Eastern European communist regime country, during the mid 1950s .

We came to start anew, grateful for a secure new life and the freedoms offered. We came to become Australians and assume full responsibilities of citizenship.

We certainly didn't come to create a replica of the country left behind or to change the Australian society. And we most certainly did not come to plot terrorist activities! Nowadays many immigrants do not and will not consider themselves Australian.

The sad thing is that this attitude is passed to their Australian-born children children who form gangs to ''bash the Aussies''. They want to force their customs, beliefs and values on the Australian society and sneer at ours! That's what has changed!

I'm an old codger now in my mid 60s proud to be an Australian and I've seen these changes evolve over the past half a century. Like many Australians, I also do not like the emotional blackmail tactics applied by the ''refugees''!

Furthermore, how many extra people can this drought- and bushfire-prone land support? In the end, ordinary Australians became quite wary of refugee claims and demands.

R.Z. Zenon,

Isaacs

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

Beryl Richards (Letters, November 2) says that thundering Monash Drive right through Campbell, as originally planned, so that it helped drain Russell Hill traffic east-of-city, was impossible because there's this little cliff in the way.

So a day's work for a D8 would allow Parliamentary Triangle workers to head home via Campbell?

The real reason that the pivotally important Campbell bit of Monash Drive disappeared from plans with no fuss many years ago (as is now proposed for the remainder) is that the senior military put a stop to that nonsense.

They preferred less, not more, arterial traffic around Russell and through their favoured dormitory suburb just like Hackett/Ainslie residents do.

The big difference is that the brass had quieter, much more effective means of twisting political and planning arms at their disposal.

Tom Waring,

Ainslie

CALVARY CLAIMS

Cardinal George Pell's claim that the ACT Government's motives in the planned purchase of Calvary Public Hospital are driven by an ideological and anti-Christian agenda amounts to a fundamental attack on the democratic principles upon which Australia's system of government is based.

This attack comes on top of a similar accusation made by Archbishop Mark Coleridge, who stated in his own diocesan newsletter that ''there is little evidence a government bureaucracy can run public hospitals better or more efficiently than private providers. If anything, evidence points to the contrary.''

He further argues this is not the time to sell Calvary Hospital when ''there is pressure to drive religion of any kind from the public square into some purely private realm.''

Both these church leaders appear to be driven by their own ideological agenda, in which they see Australia's national system of public health care as being spiritually inferior and at odds with the goals and principles of the Catholic church.

Moreover, they show a complete lack of faith in what fundamentalist Christians universally recognise to be the realm of the secular and profane, as opposed to what they alone determine to be holy and sanctified.

Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin,

Rivett

R. S.Gilbert (Letters, November 1) offers a simple solution to the Calvary public Hospital imbroglio that would satisfy most people, and at a minimum real cost. However, Gilbert asserts, ''I (and probably most Canberrans) don't care whether [the Little Company of Mary] or the Government runs the [Calvary] Hospital''.

Half of the people writing about the proposed sale during the past month have focused on the ownership of assets paid for by the Government, amounting to $77 million Why not show similar concern for the return on investment by the Government in the operation of the two public hospital services ($407 million in 2008-9, of which Calvary accounted for $117 million)?

At the recent public consultation forums Katy Gallagher gave the following comparative statistics on the operations of the two hospitals: in patient episodes, Canberra Hospital 70,000, Calvary 22,000; emergency episodes, Canberra Hospital 54,000, Calvary 48,000. She did not provide the comparative statistics for outpatient episodes.

A significant comparison of the quality of hospital services is clearly stated in the ACT Health Annual Report 2008-9, pages 90-92: rate of unplanned return to the operating theatre, Canberra Hospital 0.96per cent, Calvary 0.35per cent; rate of unplanned hospital re-admission, Canberra Hospital 1.57per cent, Calvary 0.87per cent; rate of post-operative pulmonary embolism, Canberra Hospital 1.1per cent, Calvary 0.47 per cent; hospital-acquired infection rate, Canberra Hospital 0.82 per 1000, Calvary 0.14 per 1000.

I do care about having LCM continue to operate a public hospital service in Canberra, and to have its fair share of Government capital investment restored.

Les Broderick,

Farrer

The debate over whether the Little Company of Mary has to be compensated for the resumption of the Calvary Hospital would seem to have to have a simple solution. If LCM does not accept its terms the Government should simply move to build a new hospital and cut off public payments to LCM and then see what terms it will accept. The real disgrace is, how did this situation arise in the first place when in effect the Catholic Church receives $77 million for something the taxpayer has already funded and why should a public hospital have its fate decided by the Vatican?

John Coochey,

Chisholm

LOST TO THE GREENS

No, Anne Thomas (Letters, October 30), it is precisely because the environment is important that it is no longer possible to vote for the Greens.

When the Government has a secret, unaccountable means to censor any material it deems controversial it will be abused. Political material will be censored, and that could certainly include material pertinent to the environmental debate.

Indeed, the current (non-mandatory) blacklist already includes political material on anti-abortion, euthanasia, and the recent Iranian protests. Given this Government and the Opposition's behaviour on the climate change debate, it is impossible to trust them (or some unknown future government) with censorship powers far beyond anything Australia has ever seen.

Nominating Hamilton suggests the Greens are unconcerned about their future ability to speak on matters that are important to all Australians.

Even Michael Flood, the co-author of the report Hamilton uses to justify his stance, no longer supports censorship.

Censorship suggests the Government thinks you are too feeble minded to make your own decisions and it absolutely will be abused.

It was with disappointment that I resigned from the Greens, as Senator Ludlam has been a lone voice of reason on this matter.

Arved von Brasch,

Bruce