But a simpler reason that national carbon trading schemes in general and Australia's tiny one in particular, will be seriously distorting is the things we can do here to reduce carbon in the atmosphere will be more expensive than for most of our trading rivals.

Because we're small and already relatively efficient. And a national scheme here without a Clean Development Mechanism (for credits to be earned cheaply in gross-emitter developing countries) will be expensively inefficient indeed.

Terry O'Shea, Campbell

Sunny room waste

The article ''Assembly puts solar power incentive on slow burner'' (July 3, p9), reminded me of an ACT Government tree-trimming group deciding to trim a bit of the large gum tree due north of our house, because they spotted my solar hot water panel on the roof.

That was years ago.

I said at the time this tree also blocked winter sun from the house for many hours, but that argument held no sway.

No such tree trimming has occurred since and our specially built north-facing ''sunroom'' that can increase house temperature and reduce electrical energy requirements very considerably has this large gum blocking the sun's energy for many hours during the winter sun's most potent heating time.

Paying a high premium for domestic energy supply from solar panels makes no economic sense if solar energy collectors, as with our ''sunroom'', are ignored.

I have not approached the relevant government department to check whether policy has been changed.

If I were to add more solar panels, the tree would need trimming on a regular basis, or be removed; a costly affair, but one that would need to be structured into the proposed solar incentive.

The gum tree is on the nature strip, untouchable by me and therefore not my financial problem.

Meanwhile, my wife and I put on winter woollies and reduce our use of the heating system to a minimum.

John Van de Graaff, Cook

CARDINAL PELL SHOULD ACT NOW

While I accept Cardinal Pell's assertion that neither he nor any member of the World Youth Day church leadership requested the ''annoyance'' regulations, he is the one person who can have them overturned. I urge him to act now to do precisely that. Not to do that would be a cardinal error.

Brian Haill, Frankston, Vic

ACT PRISON WILL BE EMPTY

Given the sentencing record of the courts, the new prison will be a complete waste of money, because there will not be anyone in it.

John Robbins, Farrer

WHY DO WE NEED A PRISON?

Catching up on back newspapers I was both disappointed and puzzled to read criticism of soft sentences (''Protect us from armed bandits, victims plead,'' June 21, p1). Disappointed because there was no published follow-up and, given the soft sentences, puzzled why we need a prison?

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

BARNETT NOT SHORT OR SHARP

David Barnett (''Sanity surfaces on climate madness and N power'', July 3, p19) begins his column with an incomprehensible sentence of 61 words. As a former journalist, he must know that his lead paragraph must be short and sharp, or people won't read on.

Chris Reeves, Cooma, NSW

TISDALL'S MISUSE OF WORDS

Simon Tisdall (''Out of Africa: where despots hold sway'', July 3, p13) writes, ''Publicly defenestrating Zimbabwe's self-declared leader would create an uncomfortable precedent for them and for this reason, among others, was unlikely to happen.'' Indeed.

It would be most unlikely that the other African leaders would throw Robert Mugabe out of a window.

Is this what Simon Tisdall meant?

Ron Lees, Stirling

AFRICANS HAVE SUFFERED

Pity the poor people of Africa they have not been well served by their ''leaders'' (''Out of Africa: where despots hold sway'', July 3, p13 ). Torn apart by tribal strife, sold into slavery, exploited for their resources by colonial powers and now tortured and killed by their own home-grown dictators who use their ''blackness'' as a licence to smother any democratic aspirations of their citizens.

What price cry freedom?

D. Taylor, Kambah

ISRAEL REAPS WHAT IT SOWS

The killing and injuring of innocent people in West Jerusalem is a terrible tragedy. Nothing excuses such acts of terrorism. However, it was probably not an accident that the Palestinian who perpetrated this rampage used a bulldozer. That is the machinery of choice used by the Israeli Government to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes and build its own settlements in their place in the Occupied Territories, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians with nowhere to live.

Gwenyth Bray, Belconnen

Nazis and God

Nazi Germany was far from being an ''atheist'' society, Robert Willson (Letters, July 4).

German soldiers' belt buckles were embossed with the phrase ''Gott Mit Uns'', and the Catholic Church supported Nazi Germany and helped shelter war criminals. Hitler himself claimed to be Christian on more than one occasion; Mein Kampf has many biblical references.

Regardless, that is not the point.

Atheism has no central authority, or code of conduct. No two atheists (or agnostics) will have the same value system or ethical code because they think for themselves.

Atheists are, in fact, under-represented in prisons, demonstrating that they are more than capable of behaving themselves.

History shows that ''evilness'' is not a trait of religion or lack of religion, but simply of the human experience.

Being religious does not protect you from acting ''evilly''.

Being non-religious does not make you act ''evilly'' a priori.

Steven Weinberg said, ''With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.'' The World Trade Centre destruction, the continued support for AIDs in Africa, the Intelligent Design movement and intolerance towards homosexuals are all recent examples of religion acting ''evilly''.

All cause suffering or limit progress.

It is questioning doctrine that allows us to make progress, and that is why Christianity doesn't have the power it once did. We must guard against it, and all religions, getting that kind of power again.

Arved von Brasch, Aranda

Robert Wilson (Letters, July 4) will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that Adolf Schicklgruber aka Hitler was raised as a Catholic and went to a monastery school.

Although he did not practise religion in a church sense, he certainly believed in God and much of his philosophy came from the Bible and from the Christian Social movement.

His anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education.

One of his statements makes this clear: ''Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.''

Hitler was not an atheist but a bible-thumping Christian.

Peter Snowdon, Aranda

J. Halgren (Letters, June 30) in response to Michael Gardiner (Letters, June 22), highlights the ''do-gooders'' such as Mother Teresa, etc, who work to relieve suffering for the sake of Jesus.

For every religious person or organisation doing good, there are non-religious equivalents such as Amnesty International, Save the Children, etc.

I think Gardiner's point is that religions do not have the monopoly on morals or values, and that their particular morals should not be enforced on non-believers.

Kerel Pearce, Bungendore, NSW

Papal protection

I see from the graphic ''Australian Defence Force global operations'' (July3, p4) that our military have been called out to protect the Pope during World Youth day in Operation Testament.

Members of the Light Horse won their right to wear emu feathers for their sterling efforts helping repress the great 1891 shearers' strike in 1891.

What papal dispensation could the Australian military win for their papal efforts in 2008? How many battalions does the Pope have? How many battalions does this Pope need to ''conquer'' Australia?

Steve Padgham, O'Connor

Downer no loss

Alexander Downer is leaving politics. Huzzah! The Australian Parliament, and particularly the people of Mayo, will be all the richer for it.

Does anyone else remember him desperately clinging to the notion of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for years after the rest of the world knew it to be a lie?

Or his puerile schoolboy attempt at humour with his infamous ''things that batter.'' Pope's cartoon (July 2, p12) was right on the money.

This man has been an embarrassment to this country and lowered our standing on the world stage for more than a decade.

The joke is that he is now to be given a professorship and sent to Cyprus to ensure that our peacekeepers can look forward to many more years of patrolling a divided island.

Michael C. Stevenson, Narrabundah

Cheers for Smith

This morning the English language news on Vietnam TV channel 4 (VTV4) opened with a lengthy segment showing the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, in official meetings with high-ranking Vietnamese leaders.

Later Smith was shown at KOTO, the not-for-profit restaurant and vocational training program in Vietnam, with the remarkable Vietnamese-Australian Jimmy Pham.

He was also interviewed by a local reporter for VTV4 and spoke well of the strengthening ties between the two countries and what more could be done to develop the relationship further. In a later segment Smith could be seen standing in the background and applauding after an agreement between the principals of Vietnamese and Australian television companies was signed.

I did not cringe once. Well done, Stephen Smith.

Maureen McInroy, Hue City, Vietnam

Maternity leave

Your editorial of July 1, ''Making sense on maternity leave'', argues that there is a moral case for tightening the eligibility for the baby bonus to pay for universal maternity leave.

That is, you appear to be arguing that the $5000 baby bonus should be taken from some women so that maternity leave can be paid.

Tax concessions for superannuation worth more than $5000 a year go to our higher-income earners, every year.

If there needs to be an argument about where the funds for maternity leave should come from, why is there not a stronger argument that they should come from these citizens?

Large numbers of women do only unpaid work or paid employment that is part-time or in positions below their skill level so that they may care for their families.

This comes at considerable economic cost to women.

Half of all women aged 45 to 59 have $8000 or less in superannuation.

Women already carry higher costs of child-raising than men in our society.

If you are going to make a moral case about who should lose to fund universal maternity leave why not suggest funding from superannuation tax concessions to high-income earners who are overwhelmingly men?

Why can women be too well off to receive a small baby bonus at a time that they cannot earn an income while tax concessions for superannuation are uncapped for even the highest income earner?

Philida Sturgiss-Hoy, Downer

Dawdling over energy connections costs builders dearly

We listen to Jon Stanhope, whose monopoly land release policies created this disaster for our children in the first place, rabbit on about his initiatives to improve home affordability.

Meanwhile, he allows ActewAGL to dawdle over power connection to sites, costing builders $200 a day for generator hire for three months (''Builders powerless as generators raise costs, July3, p3).

That's potentially $18,000 of expense young families pay for. Sure makes the first home-buyers grant look trivial; and Stanhope, hypocritical.

Jim Taylor, Kaleen

Release blocks

The article ''ACT land costs won't stabilise 'for years''' (June 30, p5) reports that ''Home prices had dropped 6.8 per cent in the March quarter ...'', and ''... releasing land too quickly will have a disastrous impact on equity in existing homes''.

That decline hasn't improved housing affordability much because inflation and rising interest rates have swallowed up the gains.

''Negative'' equity (debt exceeds value) becomes a major problem when a borrower defaults and the lender loses on the foreclosure sale.

Borrowers with that problem need to be rescued by governments that over-sold new land.

For other borrowers (and lenders), a major correction is overdue.

Continuing releases by government of more land, directly to bona fide owner-occupiers only, in block sizes offering flexibility and amenity, at dramatically reduced prices (at least 40per cent off) is the only equitable remedy for housing unaffordability across the board, virtually all others being socially discriminatory, destructive of self-reliance and living standards, or displaying protectionism.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would crack down on those who might then try and inflate building costs.

A pro rata tax on all large dwellings could restore government revenue.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

Facts of rezoning

I was bemused by your reporter's concatenation of two separate stories in one paragraph (''$90m affordable homes project'', June 30, p3), making it appear the ACT Government's house-and-land packages were linked to the Village Building Company's application for rezoning in North Watson.

In fact, the OwnPlace scheme is in no way related to the proposed redevelopment of the Australian Heritage Village.

The only package available will be a direct grant of ACT land to the Village Building Company if the Legislative Assembly approves the rezoning.

The article is incorrect in several other facets, for example, the state of the car park and number of tenants.

John Howard, Downer