Will Steffen and Barbara Norman ("Light rail poll: Liberals' views should not be counted", Times2, June25, p5) have come up with the remarkable conclusion that, if you exclude the people who oppose the light rail proposal from survey results, most people support it. They then suggest that opposition to light rail is politically driven, with those of us who question the project having our thinking done for us by the ACT Liberal Party.
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This is insulting. Everyone I know in the inner north questions the light rail proposal, but, as far as I am aware, none of them vote Liberal. Their common characteristic is simply that they think for themselves.
We could just as well turn this shallow thinking on its head and say that anyone who supports light rail is an ALP/Greens stooge and, therefore, their views don't count.
As far as their comments about a "toxic, adversarial atmosphere", most of what I see in the media are reasoned letters and articles from people who question whether the proposal offers adequate benefits or is the best way to improve public transport across Canberra.
Mr Steffen and Ms Norman imply that they have factual evidence about light rail in comparable cities. If so, bring it forward. But please don't ask us to pipe down: it's our city.
Michael Plummer, Watson
What an amazing intellectual insight from Will Steffen and Barbara Norman. Who would have imagined that you could change the results of a poll just by leaving out parts you don't want? If our politicians had thought of this first, could they also be professors?
P. Clark, Fadden
Will Steffen and Barbara Norman point out that the political stance taken by the Liberal Party on light rail distorts the results of polls. Support for their view comes from a poll on community facilities run by the Gungahlin Community Council in late 2014. Light rail was a part of the survey.
The survey, available on the GCC website, gcc.asn.au, had 1329 responses. Two questions on light rail were: "Would you like to see light rail in Gungahlin?" which had 75per cent support. "Would you use light rail?" had 68per cent support.
Of the 25per cent who opposed light rail, the overwhelming number of comments said people wanted bus rapid transport on the grounds that it was less expensive. The comments showed no opposition to increased public transport.
The people of the ACT want better public transport.
The government's challenge is to show that the increased costs of light rail will be more than covered by the increase in value from better utilisation of land. The challenge to the opponents of light rail is to show that bus rapid transport (or other forms of public transport) will deliver greater net benefits than light rail.
Kevin Cox, Ngunnawal
Why so long?
Why is the excellent Canberra light rail project going to take four years to build – the same amount of time for Sydney's light rail to be built from Circular Quay, through George Street and south? A more difficult and fraught building circumstance for light rail is hard to imagine. But Canberra has one of the very easiest builds imaginable: moving a few services, widening a few streets and putting up the infrastructure.
Why does everything in Canberra seem to take so long?
Robert Henderson, Lyneham
I'm not sure I can wait 20 years for the "grand vision" of replacement trees in Northbourne Avenue, but I would like to know where the traffic along Northbourne Avenue is going to be diverted to during the construction of the light rail and how long the construction going to take.
Sheila Duke, Ainslie
Fair questions
I note in Crispin Hull's article "Tax system is unfair" (Forum, June20, p2) that he uses the word "fair" at least four times.
I would suggest that he has missed a couple. Is it fair that the bottom 50per cent of income earners (read Labor voters) pay no net tax? Is it fair that the bottom 45per cent of income earners pay only 4per cent of income tax? Is if fair that the top 20per cent of income earners (read Liberal voters) pay 60per cent of total income tax?
Perhaps Mr Hull should be reminded of the maxim "no representation without taxation".
Dr Craig James Smee, Dickson
Still warming up
A recent report in Science says: "updated global surface temperature analysis ... reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21stcentury is at least as great as the last half of the 20thcentury.
These results do not support the notion of a "slowdown" in the increase of global surface temperature (DOI:10.1126/science.aaa5632)." Work published in the journal Science is as respectable as it gets. I suppose it is a forlorn hope that we will hear no more about the "hiatus" from deniers such as the Liberals pushing for Australia to shirk its responsibility to commit to substantial emission reductions ("Abbott faces Libs' heat over emissions", June 25, p1).
Peter Campbell, Cook
Ho hum. Another day, another sneering fingerwagging from the ever-inaccurate H.Ronald (Letters, June25) .
Overclaiming poorly grasped past media reporting, while not bothering to check current data, does H.Ronald no favours and does nothing to help wider understanding of climate change.
Meanwhile, global temperatures are still rising. It's the rate of increase that has been rather less in recent years (IPCC AR5 SPM 1.1.1). Sea levels, too, are indeed still rising (IPCC AR5 SPM 1.1.4), while the ice sheets of Greenland, the Arctic and the Antarctic are still reducing (IPCC AR5 SPM 1.1.3).
All freely available to all to think through, in the latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
D. Clark, Latham
At least the H.Ronald Fan Club wouldn't have any trouble finding somewhere to have a meeting. There are so many phone boxes in Canberra.
Ray O'Brien, Wavell Heights, Qld
Reject jihadists
Congratulations to the government for tabling the bill to amend the Citizenship Act to extend revocation powers. I doubt that it will be opposed. The basic issue – we don't want jihadists back here – is difficult to contest.
Hopefully, it also deems that those who leave Australia after having their Australian passport cancelled or rejected have renounced their citizenship.
Gary J. Wilson, MacGregor
British subjects
Contrary to John Simsons' suggestion (Letters, June24), I did not say that the Whitlam government had no effect on the status of British subjects and Australian citizens. I said that removing "British" from Australian passports had no effect on their holders' status as British subjects or Australian citizens.
The Whitlam government did, however, make eligibility for appointment to certain Commonwealth positions dependent upon an applicant being an Australian citizen, thereby disqualifying other British subjects.
I assume that this accounts for Simsons' statement that British "foreigners" had to acquire Australian citizenship in order to join the Australian Defence Force.
Frank Marris, Forrest
Right to speak
Sam de Brito ("The ABC wasn't wrong to have Zaky Mallah on Q&A", canberratimes.com.au, June24) is right when he says Zaky Mallah had every right to be heard.
He had served his "time", he was perfectly well behaved and open about his past, and not at all disruptive, and certainly no threat to the safety of anyone in the audience, judging fom their demeanour.
In his only outburst, at the end, when he said it was parliamentary secretary Steven Ciobo's comments that would encourage some in Australia to join IS, I agreed with him.
Zaky Mallah is actually actively anti-IS, but all Tony Abbott can say is that he is "evil" and that the ABC is guilty of a serious "error of judgment". This is normally called "shooting the messenger", and it normally means the person who made the statement got it entirely wrong.
So, let's call it for what it is, and let the ABC get on with doing their job as robustly and independently as they can.
Trevor Wilson, Holder
We left-leaning oldies were relying on Malcolm Turnbull to be the voice of common sense in this outrageous government. But he has now completely blotted his copybook over the Q&A nonsense.
What was Zaky Mallah going to do? Beat the audience with his cannabis cap?
Janet Thompson, Garran
Waleed Aly's claim that Zaky Mallah's timing was "impeccable" in his Q&A appearance ("Mallah's timing impeccable", Times2, June26, p1) is false and misleading.
Not only his appearance, but the timing of asking his question, was a carefully stage-managed event by the ABC.
For an obviously intelligent and educated man (I refer to Aly, not Mallah) this attribution of political nous to Mr Mallah is either an intentional statement to place blame for this serious lapse of judgment at the feet of an imbecile or a serious misjudgment of the depth of Mallah's intellect.
T. J. Farqahar, Ainslie
The disgusting spectacle of the overpaid, overblown, repetitive, self-righteous Prime Minister railing against a citizen who has the right to put his views across in a free country, which often trumpets its democratic principles, makes me sick to my stomach.
John Laurie, Weston
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