The Howard government approved the Griffin Legacy Plan, but it was rejected by the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital. Mostly a blueprint for the insensitive value maximisation of ACT land in the central national area, it should be rescinded. It excludes the following key Griffin elements, that, if appropriately interpreted and implemented now, could be more commercially and aesthetically beneficial for the ACT and Australia:
A holistic, traffic-calmed municipal complex at City Hill (with legislative, administrative, cultural, visitor-accommodation, recreational and public transport facilities).
Calm carriageway/promenades making East and West Basins circular.
A gentle arced Central Basin north edge, (humanising the lake width, and yielding more north side parkland).
Fine lofty buildings accentuating second-tier Mt Pleasant, and its obverse, Acton Peninsula.
Markets and commerce at Russell, extending, with residences (new ASIO headquarters out), along Constitution Avenue.
The Causeway and East Lake (with interstitial wetlands).
The East Lake inter-town centre (Utilising airport land and buildings, functionally moved to our hinterland and linked to Canberra and Sydney by fast rail, freeing up Majura-Tralee city growth).
The Acton-Lennox bridge, elevated, glazed, and elegant, on the projected circumference of West Basin. (It and the Causeway carrying an inner-city light rail loop, pedestrians and bikes.)
Jack Kershaw, Kambah
A West Asian union
Whether or not the countries of West Asia join the proposed Asia-Pacific Union, it would do them good to form a union of their own. West Asia comprises 25 countries: 14 in the Middle East; Pakistan and Afghanistan; eight former Soviet republics, including three in the Caucasus; and Turkey. But the latter four straddle the Asia-Europe boundary, and would cease to be part of the region if they joined the European Union.
The remaining 21 countries have 450million people, comparable with the EU, with more than half living in Pakistan and Iran. Most of the people are Muslim, which would provide some basis for cultural and political union.
There would be a need for arrangements and institutions that secured the rights of the smaller or poorer countries and avoided hegemony by the larger or richer, as well as hegemony by external powers such as the United States, whose attitudes and behaviour towards the region have only ever been completely self-centred. As in the EU, and in accordance with the teachings of Islam, the richer countries would need to share their wealth with the poorer. Such a union would be more resistant to the depredations of the developed world, and able to deal with it and other regions on a far more equal basis. It would develop its own personality and dignity, and its people would prosper.
Michael McCarthy, Deakin
ACCC and Woolies
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has stopped Woolworths from buying a supermarket in Queanbeyan, claiming it would substantially lessen competition in the ''local'' retail grocery market. That decision is questionable. As shopping in Canberra is a viable alternative to shopping in Queanbeyan for Queanbeyan people, the geographical market can be defined as Canberra/Queanbeyan; and given competition between Woolworths, Coles, Franklins, and other supermarkets in the area is quite intense, it defies logic to say competition would be affected ''substantially'' by the acquisition of one relatively small supermarket in Queanbeyan. And if the ''local'' market is regarded as only Queanbeyan, then it's highly questionable the acquisition would be illegal. That's because the Trade Practices Act only prohibits acquisitions that would substantially lessen competition in a substantial market and it's hard to see a Queanbeyan retail grocery market as substantial. The ACCC has said its intervention in such cases is rare. Perhaps because, in previous similar cases, it has recognised the acquisition as outside the Trade Practices Act.
It will be interesting to see whether Woolworths accepts the ACCC view, or would prefer a Court ruling.
R.S.Gilbert, Braddon
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