The moral of story is Bishops must not live like kings
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It's hard to escape the irony in Bronwyn Bishop being able to access 10 free domestic return flights a year when she retires from Parliament ("Bishop would get $255,000 pension", August 6, p4).
I know teachers who have worked over 40 years in the classroom; who have paid for their own professional development over the years and waited until they could reclaim what they could through their tax returns; who have attended conferences at their own expense; who have spent thousands over the years on resources that benefit their students.
I don't know of any one of them who will have their retirement package topped up to 75 per cent of the highest-paying education office held or will receive a life gold pass as a reward for length of service.
It is time to end the age of entitlement for our politicians.
W. Book, Hackett
A slavish follower
The Productivity Commission's proposal for a two-tiered penalty rates system missed an opportunity to bring industrial relations regulations into line with industry practice.
Under the plan, "essential services would retain existing Sunday rates but others would slip back" ("Labor slams idea of enterprise contracts", August 5, p4).
There is an opportunity to set pay levels for non-residents such as those on student, working holiday and 457 visas at (say) 70 per cent of award.
Concurrently, resident aliens' remuneration could also be pegged at (say) 80 per cent.
Australia simply cannot compete in the international productivity economy without a dedicated slave class. Seriously! This is particularly relevant with the emerging Australia Post disclosures.
There is no need for such expensive investigations and litigation.
Gary J. Wilson, MacGregor
Success is relative
Sally Young's opinion piece ("Abbott's regime ineffective", August 5, Times2, p1) about the relative success of the Abbott government in passing legislation and comparing it with past governments is both superficial and misleading.
One should expect better from the University of Melbourne.
Since the 2013 election, the Parliament has passed significant reform legislation, including abolition of the carbon and mining taxes, protecting Australia's borders, and tackling the economic malaise we inherited from the Rudd and Gillard governments.
These achievements are in spite of a steady decline in the time that the Senate allocates to deal with government legislation.
Figures I obtained from Senate officers, and which are freely available on the Senate website, including to academics, show that in the 39th Parliament (1998-2001) about 52 per cent of business time in the Senate was devoted to government bills. In the current 44th Parliament to date, it has declined to just over 39per cent.
In fact, in the spring sittings in 2013, only a quarter of the Senate's time was spent on government bills.
This statistical truth, which Young ignored for reasons best known to herself, provides the real reason, and exposes the superficiality of her analysis.
Eric Abetz, Leader of the government in the Senate
Sally Young and Robin Fitzsimons ("New speaker, and new approach, needed", August 5, Times2, p5) have made two convincing cases.
The first, by Young, is that William McMahon is not "Australia's worst prime minister".
The second, by Fitzsimons, that the degree of independence displayed by former House of Representatives speaker Bronwyn Bishop has been such as to require an inquiry into the role of the speaker, "the principal defender of the powers of Parliament, and therefore the defender of our democracy".
The implication is that Australia has experienced the worst of both worlds. Between them, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Bishop have trashed Australia's parliamentary system, and compromised public respect for those institutions and Australian democracy itself.
Ken Brazel, Weston
Creative figures
I fully support the letters by Manson MacGregor and Michael J. Adler (Letters, August 5) about the tram.
Any review of the claimed "independent" report commissioned by UnionsACT to support its campaign claiming that Capital Metro Stage1 would create 3500 jobs would find it miserably wanting.
In summary, the report cannot be taken seriously.
It essentially restates the government's and UnionsACT's contention that the project will "create" 3500 jobs when even the government's own reports give much lower figures.
As a report that was supposed review all relevant material in the public domain, it falls far short of having done so.
It would fail any peer review as an academic paper and is essentially no more than a political document to support this UnionsACT campaign.
M. Silex, Erindale
It would be interesting to know how the light-rail program will result, as claimed, in floods of new businesses, employers and employees coming to Canberra. The reasons given to date have been questionable at best.
Floods of tourists coming to Canberra to ride on the trams, and generating more tourist support industries – surely this is a joke?
Employers and employees coming to Canberra so they can enjoy commuting to work by tram?
More rapid commuting?
The same commute times could be achieved with bus lanes rather than trams, and those who live outside the bus-lane corridors would, in most cases, not need to transfer to other busses on reaching the bus corridors.
In addition, trams and tram corridors would cost more to develop and operate than would busses and bus corridors.
We are told employers and employees will flood into Canberra to occupy the high-rise buildings proposed for the light-rail corridor. Yet these high-rise buildings could be built in either tram or bus corridors.
Additionally, what will these new businesses do in Canberra?
We are also told land within the tram's corridor and near to it will attract higher market value and rates.
Given the chaos that will occur during the four-plus years of constructing the light rail and high-rise dwellings, the reverse will probably occur.
Ed Dobson, Hughes
Abuse of truth
Bob Salmond (Letters, August 6), with zero experience with refugees, seems to think William Maley (Letters, August 3), with decades of experience, doesn't know what he is talking about.
Salmond needs to read more: google Woomera and its abuses, or Nauru or Manus, or I could send him the 10,000 pages documenting abuses contained in the Woomera files, which outline beaten kids, kids injured and untreated, kids trying to kill themselves, kids drinking shampoo in despair, men swallowing insecticide and slashing up or storing up pills.
Marilyn Shepherd, Angaston, SA
Bill's good matters
Ian De Landelles (Letters, August 5) makes some good points about manner and matter, and obviously both are important.
But I would agree with Gertrude, who urged Polonius to provide "more matter with less art".
Tony Abbott has always had a good manner, but has been unable to deliver much in the way of matter.
Bill Shorten's manner may be an acquired taste (and my comparing him to Ted Heath was perhaps unfortunate), but the speed and thoroughness with which, for example, he developed sound disability insurance policy and laid the groundwork for its implementation in the last government, and the moderate but ambitious program he is developing in opposition, promise well for the effectiveness of a government he leads.
Soothing words will take us only so far; eventually effective action is essential.
Michael McCarthy, Deakin
Ian De Landelles wants to teach Bill Shorten a lesson on what he calls "gravitas".
Well, De Landelles ought to think carefully about giving unqualified lessons to Labor leaders when he and Mary Porter have for years benefited well from the party Bill Shorten leads and hopes one day to govern the country.
De Landelles will call it his democratic right; I call it unnecessary, disruptive and disloyal.
John Whitty, Hawker
Solar schmozzle
The ACT government recently legislated that the 172 applicants enrolled in the small and medium solar feed-in tariff schemes who hadn't installed their system had until the end of 2016 to do so.
An extra 10 megawatts of panels (28 per cent of the schemes) can possibly be installed at tariffs that are higher than appropriate.
The schemes closed in July 2011, when solar costs were far higher.
Some of the ground-based projects, each of several megawatts, will receive $350 per megawatt-hour as a feed-in tariff and about $40/MWh from the RET scheme, twice the $186/MWh tariff needed to commission the solar farm at Royalla.
This situation is only a small part of the ACT solar schmozzle.
In Sunrise, Sundown – How Australia can finally get solar power right, a 2015 report by the Gratton Institute, the authors explained: "By the time the subsidies finally run out, households and businesses that have not installed solar PV will have spent more than $14 billion subsidising households that have. Australia could have reduced emissions for much less money. Governments have created a policy mess that should never be repeated."
Minister Simon Corbell, who boasts about the high tariffs given to ACT solar, might bear this in mind if he has a role in the introduction of home battery storage in Canberra.
John Bromhead, Rivett
To the point
HEAVENLY FATHER
Since when has Philip Ruddock been "father of the House"? Is this really a tradition – a title automatically awarded to the oldest MP – or has Ruddock done something else to deserve it? Who was the previous father? Can we look forward to the day Bronwyn Bishop is "mother of the House"? Father of the House indeed. "Antique of tweak" would be more like it.
S. W. Davey, Torrens
TOO MUCH LION
The collective noun for fallen parliamentary speakers (à la Bronwyn Bishop and Peter Slipper): pride.
M. F. Horton, Adelaide, SA
CARRYING A BIG LOAD
The definition of a "lifter" is the Australian taxpayer. A "leaner" is a politician of either sex representing any political party.
Caroline Coombes, MacGregor
OUT FOR A DUCK
Take heart: that first innings was really just a metaphor for the Abbott government.
John Passant, Kambah
TEMPORARY DEVALUATION
In the not too distant past, the ACT government legislated to legalise same-sex marriage. Within days, about a dozen couples availed themselves of this option to cement their love. Within a week, the Abbott government appealed to the High Court to disallow the legislation. This it did. During that "temporary period of legality", how many of the other 23 million Australians were in any way adversely affected? So why the persistent objection by a vocal minority?
Michael J. Adler, Gungahlin
LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
On a minus 7 morning, lots of chaps find their telomeres shortening ("DNA risk areas for melanoma revealed", August 4, p3).
Barrie Smillie, Duffy
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