Congestion, noise and pollution inhibits investment in adjacent buildings. The Sydney and Melbourne buildings are in a poor state. City Hill is isolated by Vernon Circle. Only rabbits enjoy its ambience and outlook.

There is a solution. Put Northbourne Ave underground via a tunnel beginning between Barry Drive and Rudd Street (southbound), passing under City Hill and emerging immediately south of London Circuit. Create a grand city plaza between the Sydney and Melbourne buildings and remove Vernon Circle to allow access to an expanded City Hill. This would attract investment and enable the revitalisation and expansion of the Sydney and Melbourne buildings.

With planning under way on extending the tram and raising London Circuit, now is the time to investigate this proposal.

What's the value of heritage listings when governments can exclude critical bits of the place? Official listings have to be based on professional assessments, and to have a high level of integrity and credibility. The degree to which the public will fight for the preservation of a place also needs to be more taken into account.

The Commonwealth's reported exclusion of Attunga Point from the suggested heritage listing of Lake Burley Griffin, would be a case in point ("Serious concerns held over lake heritage list process", March 4, p7). That's clearly to allow the future Prime MInister's Lodge to be built on that north-facing promontory, excluding the public from the foreshore in the process.

The new Lodge lakeland site was originally outside lakeside Alexandrina Drive in Stirling Park (also slated for exclusion from listing), indicating a new preference to ape Kirribilli House, the PM's harbourside residence in Sydney.

If sites like Attunga Point, Commonwealth and Kings Avenue bridges (the former, earmarked for intrusive tramlines), and say, the opportunity to reinstate or install some of Walter Burley Griffin's missing elements, like his shoreline geometry, or the Acton Peninsula and Causeway crossings, are being excluded from, or prevented by the heritage listing of the lake, then it's all a bit of a sham, really, and there'll be significant objections.

I've just received an infringement notice resulting from a "Mobile Licensing Plate Recognition Camera" for my car being parked partially on a infrequently used footpath, in the way that myself and all my neighbours have been doing for 30 years without incident due to the narrow nature of the street.

I always leave enough room for pedestrians but am mindful of the difficulty trucks would have navigating our street if everyone parked on the road.

This heavy-handed automated approach will have perverse outcomes, including safety issues. A warning would have been nice rather than a straight-up fine.

The Morrison government has no option other than to establish an independent inquiry into the claims made against Christian Porter (Editorial: "The Porter rape claims must be tested", March 4, p24).

Porter's glib claims of innocence and his refusal to step aside cannot be permitted to bring the legal system, and the position of attorney-general, into disrepute.

The legal credibility of the Morrison government was already in question through its use of "secret" trials, pursued by Porter. In addition to his obsessive persecution of Bernard Collaery and Witness K, he and his fellow cabinet members supported "robodebt" which destroyed lives and unlawfully victimised the innocent.

The treatment of refugees and blatant disregard to the UNHCR's conventions on the rights of children and people seeking asylum also showed contempt for the rule of law and Parliamentary convention.

The Porter rape claims must be tested.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attachment. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to The Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).