Canberra is water rich, so why should we pay more for it?

It has also been suggested water should be made more expensive [to encourage conservation].

While it is true Canberra's water storages are at 57 per cent this does not take into account what a larger Cotter Dam has meant for our reserves and our ability to ride through drier times.

Its existence is both the reason for increased water prices and why we still have 158 gigalitres of supply, three times annual usage and 77 per cent of the capacity before the new dam.

The concerns expressed by the ACT government reflect a desire to further rip off its water consuming citizens.

My spirits were uplifted when I recently read a Canberra restaurant was taking the establishment next door to court because loud noise was impacting on their patrons' enjoyment.

I was later extremely disappointed to learn the court case had failed. I have a severe hearing loss and rely on hearing aids and lipreading to follow conversations.

I am also desperate to preserve the hearing I still have and avoid loud music and noise where ever possible. Over the years this has become more difficult as, in most cases, "background noise" is no longer in the background.

We live in a democracy and people are free to patronise nightclubs with dangerous noise levels. But that noise must be contained within the walls of the establishment, not allowed to pour out onto the street where it may damage my hearing as I walk past.

I often wonder if those people who promote loud noise in social situations have shares in hearing aid companies!

I congratulate The Canberra Times for including a noise guide in their restaurant reviews each week. This has helped me and many of my friends make the right choice when dining out.

Good food is great but to be able to hear conversation and enjoy good food is even better.

Loud noise can damage your hearing permanently in a very short time. Once hearing is gone it cannot be recovered. Be aware, hearing loss is isolating and permanent.

The groundswell of opinion of your reader's letters over the past year or more appears to generally agree that Canberra needs major updated facilities for sport and the arts, amongst other requirements which include health, education, public housing and a transport system which delivers a service appropriate to the needs of our community.

However, this all takes time and perhaps many billions of dollars which all come from the taxpayers of the territory and are spent by the incumbent government who, in turn, are paid out of the public purse.

I have lived in Canberra since 1968. I remember the National Capital Development Commission, which to the best of my memory, survived on annual funding.

We are the national capital and it is appropriate that the Federal government should take some pride in its being. In the light of the ACT government creating a new organisation entitled Major Projects Canberra is it not time to revisit the likes of the NCDC?

Your editorial ("Labor's gamesmanship is rife with risk", June 25, p18) suggests Labor should accept that the Morrison government has a mandate for implementing all stages of its income tax cuts.

The Coalition's tax plan, however, arises from a budget based on over-optimistic forecasts and projections about Australia's economic performance. Those forecasts and projections have wages growing at annual rates between 2.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent over the coming four years.

If those outcomes were to be realised the proposed changes in the tax brackets would make a great deal of sense. But within days of the budget having been presented, the Reserve Bank was scaling back those forecasts, and subsequent National Accounts figures show that, in terms of per-capita GDP, the economy has gone backwards for the last two quarters.

We're in a recession by some economists' criteria.

Perhaps those forecasts were simply political spin from a government not expecting to be re-elected; perhaps Treasury officials have been caught by surprise. But either way it is irresponsible for the government to hold to a plan based on assumptions that are almost certainly over-optimistic.

Labor is offering a fiscally responsible boost to a sharply deteriorating economy, and pointing out the folly of committing to tax scales five years into the future.

It is a mistake to equate Israel Folau's immaturity with religious freedom, even if he does believe he's on a mission from God and tries to threaten people with hell for their own good.

Unlike online trolls, Elvis, dictators, and zealots of all kinds, grownups understand that freedom comes with responsibility. We probably all have our own secret Folau list, but we mostly choose to keep it between friends because along the way we've gained a realistic sense of our own limited importance.

Archbishop Davies' assertion ("Folau's vilification 'of great concern'", June 26, p12) that "intolerant voices are swamping the quiet faith of many" is a beat-up if ever I heard one.

So is his use of the word "vilification". Worse, to take sides with a deservedly moribund version of Christianity that seeks to control people through the threat of eternal damnation is an own-goal.

Religion is important to many people, but I wonder how many of those quiet believers the Archbishop is so concerned about actually approve of Folau's stubbornly confrontational way of expressing his "deep conscience and concern", or see the response to it as some kind of concerted attack on religion.

I would like to think that most of them are more concerned about the plight of the sick, the lonely, and the homeless than about who's going to hell.

There are indeed things going on that "smack of a new and ugly Australia" but the response to Israel Folau's stupid behaviour isn't one of them.

Bruce Peterson (Letters, June 25) need not fear about his Bible being confiscated.

Perhaps he should be worried about being ruled by paranoid semi-hysteria. There is no attack on freedom of religion in Australia.

As for Folau; if I was famous and my interpretation of my religion "told me" to vilify Aborigines, Jews, Muslims, Asians or Christians, would that be okay? I would be expected to keep my hateful bigotry to myself.

Mr. Folau should welcome his sacking by Rugby Australia because he can now become a full time missionary and preacher and fund his activities with monies donated by his supporters.

I would've asked Fred Bennett (Letters, June 26) to cry me a river, and gone on to explain to him that David Pope was freely expressing an opinion, and that Israel Folau's freedom to express his thoughtlessness had not been curtailed in any way.

But then Mr Bennett's letter deftly transitioned from what I realised was up until that point mock-confected outrage to outright mockery and his comic genius was revealed.

Mr Bennett's caricature of a Christian being offended at something someone else has said about Christians, whilst defending the right of a fellow Christian to say things deeply offensive to others because it's somehow Christian was a little overdone, but it brilliantly illustrated the absurd hypocrisy of those taking Folau's side.

For the $459 million the ACT Government paid the tram consortium in April ("Light rail boosts corridor housing", June 22, p8) they could have replaced all their diesel buses with a modern green and electric fleet and built the required charging infrastructure.

For the cost of their stage one and stage two tram "studies", they could have expanded transit lanes, increased the this new electric bus fleet by 25 per cent, and for the less than the consequent fuel and maintenance savings and the annual repayments of between $55 and $79 million to the consortium over the next 20 years, could have made the service fare-free.

Stage one is now a sunk cost, but thankfully, stage two is still only partly submerged.

Rugby Australia claims to be inclusive, but sacks a devout Christian, Israel Folau, for expressing his beliefs by quoting the bible.

His wife, who plays for Netball Australia, reposted her husband's donation appeal. Netball Australia said no action was required. How did Rugby Australia get it so wrong?

Spare a thought for the visually impaired when deliberating on allowing e-scooters on our pedestrian precincts. Incidentally, they're already cruising our streets, legally or not. Life is already difficult enough for us.

I think the Americans made it acceptable to vote for a fool president; Mr Trump. The British, it seems, will soon follow a suit and choose a clown for the top job.

It's not surprising that your correspondents expressed disgust at David Pope's adaptation of the Biblical cleansing of the temple portraying a 21st century translation (Cartoon, June 25). It did little to assist in reasoned debate of a very divisive topic.

Enough already. Not a day goes by without the media giving column inches and airtime to the latest development in the tawdry Israel Folau saga. I'm over it.

Any employer who reduces employees penalty rates next Monday is a bum.

Folau's legal claim hangs on his statement the words he used in the alleged hate speech were the absolute words of God, not Folau's. Their true origin can be proved and is not reliant on faith. I'm sure the court would find in his favour.

Re: concerns about "silent" e-scooters coming up at 25 km/h behind pedestrians on footpaths. What about the lycra set hooning around on push bikes at breakneck speeds. What would be worse? Being collected by a scooter or a bike?

Kenneth Griffiths (Letters, June 25) claims "America is not a country it's a cancer". Is that the same cancer that killed off Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union?

Imagine if Australians knew the names of our female champions. The mainstream media would do everyone a service if it replaced the pages devoted to our two male tennis brats, by choosing to focus on our real heroes.

Is it wise to drive Iran into a corner? Won't it just make her more desperate and dangerous?

The expensive, taxpayer-funded ads about infrastructure and the like have disappeared from television. They have served their purpose. They had nothing to do with the election of course.

Forget about the trade war. It's the looming stoush between the US and Iran that is keeping me awake at night.

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