The census is scheduled for August 9, and for the first time names and addresses will be stored and linked to survey answers. This appears to have been arranged with little or no consultation with the community.

As someone who was a privacy officer for the Privacy Commission for some years, I have great concerns about the constant chipping away at the privacy of individuals which dates back to attempts to introduce the Australia Card some time ago.

I have absolutely no faith that the information provided will be kept safe or not passed on to other authorities in the future just as our tax information is provided to the Child Support Agency, Human Services, Centrelink, Veteran Affairs, Dept of Education, etc. The Child Support Agency even uses your Tax File Number as a reference number in its general, unsecured correspondence.

In my view, there is strength to the argument that names should not be provided and that perhaps the census should be boycotted if the ABS does not provide strong reasons for the need to provide names and addresses.

Information provided in the census is most useful in designing programs for particular groups of people, etc, but the "Big Brother" approach has developed a life of its own.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

PM has credit to burn

Emeritus Professor of History, Ross Fitzgerald, closes his article "It's a Turnbull turn-off" with "For what it's worth, my tip is that the longer the Turnbull prime ministership lasts, the better the Abbott prime ministership might seem". As tips go, it's a loser.

Has Fitzgerald been asleep these last few years? What about "ditch the witch"? What about "s--- happens"? Or the vow to shirtfront Putin? What about the disinterment of Australian knighthoods, especially the one for Prince Philip? And all the lies before and after the 2013 election about no cuts to health, education and the public broadcasters? What about the 2014 budget?

If that's Fitzgerald's yardstick of good prime ministership, Malcolm has credit to burn.

Bronis Dudek, Calwell

Shorten lies in wait

Ross Fitzgerald is correct once again with his clever diagnosis of Malcolm Turnbull's political dysfunction ("It's a Turnbull turn-off", August 2). For such a supposedly smart man, Turnbull's not showing too many smarts when it comes to running the country.

Everything Fitzgerald has written hits the mark, in fact it indicates that Turnbull is mortally wounded.

How could it possibly ever come to this? A prime minister is removed from office because of unsatisfactory polls and no economic plan, according to Turnbull, and yet, after a disastrous election where the government loses 14 seats, it's considered a win.

The Liberal parliamentary Party has to think about the next election, and soon. They will be decimated unless they change the leader. It must be done, there is no other solution. Turnbull's slogan "This is the term of delivery" will come true. Delivery of government to Bill Shorten who is knocking at The Lodge's front door.

Lesley Beckhouse, Queanbeyan

Life in the old dog yet

That "tired old journalistic outfit", that "decaying forum in terms of readership and interest", which Kirsten Lawson reported Chief Minister Barr as describing the Canberra Times (June 23) has shown there is life in the old dog yet with the article "Limiting the free speech of ACT public servants is draconian and ultimately counterproductive", written by lawyers John Wilson and Kieran Pender, (July 29).

The legislation as drafted reveals the clear intention of Mr Barr and his government: that is to stifle criticism.

It is notable that none of the former ACT Chief Ministers, three Labor, three Liberal, discerned the need to introduce such draconian legislation.

At the ACT Labor Annual Conference on July 23, Chief Minister Barr urged "the return of a progressive Labor government". The foreshadowed legislation is not progressive. It is reactionary.

The nub of the Wilson/Pender article lies in noting, in the first sentence: "It seems trite to highlight the virtues of free speech", and then establishing that it is nothing of the sort. The Explanatory Statement to the legislation asserts "the need to retain public confidence in the public service outweighs any impingement on an individual's right to privacy, freedom of expression or participation in democratic processes".

Rubbish. Public confidence in government and the public service is promoted by open government, not government censorship. The draft legislation is yet another example of an arrogant government displaying contempt for the people of the ACT.

Ken Brazel, Weston

Shady new bail laws

I'm not a constitutional lawyer but it seems to me that the proposed new laws allowing prosecutors to detain people who have been given bail by a court breaks a fundamental tenet of the separation of powers i.e. a public servant (the government) will be effectively overruling the judiciary — it will be a lawyer's picnic if it ever makes it into legislation. How can the decision of a prosecutor, who arguably already has a negatively biased view of the accused as a matter of course, be seen as better able to judge a bail application than an impartial court? History shows that if these sorts of powers are created they are always abused by someone somewhere — I thought preventing these kinds of police-state tactics was one of the reasons we had human rights legislation.

Anthony V. Adams, Reid

Clinton no shoo-in

The nomination of Hillary Clinton as the first woman to run for US president is certainly historic, but Jenna Price's lachrymose response to it is overblown and premature. Clinton's glorious ascendancy?

She hasn't won yet, and her storied failings as a politician and a person that have nothing to do with her gender mean she's no certainty to either, even against an oaf such as Trump. Bernie Sanders is right; she was an urger for the Iraq war, and has cosied up to money her entire political life.

Matt Gately, Rivett

Flight path theory doubts

The Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Darren Chester, has spoken of a newly found wing part as likely being from ill-fated flight MH370.

This may be progress — let's hope so — but we now must, surely, pay heed to where all of the debris is being found. This latest find is especially problematic for the accepted "deep south" crash theory.

I expect that we will again hear from experts that Tanzania is consistent with oceanographic drift modelling, just like we heard that Mozambique and Madagascar were.

Citizen scientists may already have studied the map of ocean currents as previous parts were found, and noted not only the huge intervening (and enthralling) gyre, but also southbound currents either side of Madagascar that, in combination, are more suggestive of a crash site very far to the north of the search zone.

Yes, the chaotic possibilities with currents mean nothing can be ruled out or in, but on the face of it, new debris north of Madagascar should be a punctuation mark in the tired logic.

Ross Kelly, Monash

On wrong track

A. Smith (Letters, August 3) twists facts in his latest letter. The type of transport is light rail, not a street tram. The two are different. Light rail trains travel on a dedicated right of way. They get priority over other traffic. Trams share traffic lanes with other vehicles. Light rail systems have a capacity of 20,000+ per hour per lane. If you have the demand, you use more trains.

According to Smith, Northbourne Avenue has 1000 cars per hour per lane. Assuming 1.5 persons per car is 1500 per hour per lane. Compare that to 20,000+.

We could use dedicated bus transit lanes with more buses to achieve the same objective as light rail, but the undiscounted lifetime costs of rail are lower than buses. People prefer travelling on light rail than on buses. Real estate prices are higher around train stations than they are around bus stations.

For the Liberals, having dedicated public transport routes between town centres are important; it is less important what travels on them.

Kevin Cox, Ngunnawal

Nightmare sight

I think I had a bad, bad dream.

I was driving on a Sunday towards Civic on Adelaide Avenue. There were only two vehicle lanes available, the third now empty, being reserved for "southern light rail". I had to stop at a set of traffic lights when one tram passenger got off near Deakin and wanted to cross the road. Suddenly I noticed the ugly poles and wires and rails (not the ones they sell in NSW) but the ones that weren't along Adelaide Avenue when we only had buses. (Remember the buses, the ones running faster than cars, non-stop from Woden to Civic in only 17 minutes even in peak hours). I drove on. Ugly poles and wires and rails all the way, even scarring the formerly fine clean lines of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. My eyes drifted to West Basin. Someone had part-filled the lake and built multistorey unit blocks along the foreshore. The pristine beauty and peace of the Basin and the views of Black Mountain destroyed forever, for the benefit of a few. I woke up. Let us all wake up – it's October 16.

John Mungoven, Stirling

Congestion worry

Denis Robinson (Letters, August 1) seems to accept ACT government claims that light rail will reduce traffic congestion on Northbourne Avenue. Unfortunately, light rail will prove to be a major disappointment for Mr Robinson and many other Canberrans, especially when they realise that bus rapid transit (which the Canberra Liberals have proposed) would have provided the same public transport benefits as light rail but at half the cost.

Although light rail will replace bus services in the Northbourne Avenue corridor, trams won't carry many more passengers than are currently being carried by bus. I'm confident that the government would be well aware that traffic congestion will get worse, not better. That is because, firstly, traffic-light priority for trams will reduce peak period vehicle flows and, secondly, trams won't attract anywhere near enough new public transport users (existing car commuters) to reduce car usage. The vast majority of tram passengers will be existing bus users. If the government really was serious about reducing traffic congestion it would adopt the NRMA's perennial recommendation and introduce a congestion tax to discourage car usage during the morning and evening peak periods. The reality is the government won't be fazed by worsening traffic congestion on Northbourne Avenue because the viability of its proposed Northbourne Avenue plaza depends upon discouraging as many car commuters as possible from using Northbourne Avenue at all.

Bruce Taggart, Aranda

Supping at trough

I see Peter Hendy, the failed federal member for Eden-Monaro, has been given a no doubt lucrative job in the Prime Minister's office (August 3). I know the practice of rewarding failed politicians with ambassadorships, so called adviserships and the like has a long history with both sides of politics in Australia but surely the time has come to end it. The people have decided they don't want Dr Hendy to work for them. That should be enough to remove him from supping at the public trough.

Timothy Walsh, Garran

A way with words

Roger Dace (Letters, August 2) is worried about the ascent of euphemisms such as "troubled youngster" in place of what he sees as the more appropriate "young thug". Of course, such perceived inaccuracies are also applied to distinguished seniors (like Roger and me) when our wise utterances result in us being similarly mislabelled, as in "silly old farts".

Eric Hunter, Cook

To the point

FIGHT TO WIN

Kevin Rudd is decisive in winning or losing. He will live and die like this. Him first, anything else, last.

Mokhles Sidden, South Strathfield, NSW

MIND BENDER

It's nice to know Kevin can also mess with Liberal minds.

Bob Gardiner, Isabella Plains

MULTI-TIME LOSER

Congratulations Mr Turnbull. Who in their right mind could argue Kevin Rudd was the best-qualified candidate for Secretary-General of the United Nations? He ranked way behind Helen Clark, among others, on merit and had no hope at all of winning the position.Why back a multi-time loser?

John Mellors, Coombs

VISION IN SHORT SUPPLY

Most of us are aware our economy has become over-reliant on the need to house and service a rapidly growing population. We know this is economically, environmentally and socially unsustainable. So where are the leaders with the vision to guide us towards a more diverse, resilient and sustainable economy?

Martin Tye, Kaleen

PLEBISCITE A FARCE

The proposed same sex marriage plebiscite has degenerated into farce. It can only lead to bitter attacks on LGBTIQ people by mediaeval bigots. If the UK and NZ can pass legislation after a respectful debate, why can't our Parliament?

Richard Keys, Ainslie

TRANSPORT ROW

A. Smith (Letters, August 3) argues light rail cannot accommodate the transport needs of an enlarged North Canberra population in 2031. While I'm sure a couple of extra trams every half hour would help, the basic problem is population growth, and for that the federal government is largely responsible.

Jenny Goldie, Michelago NSW

INTERACTION LIMITED

Mr Marks says I am illiterate, because I said he was accusing Muslims of being intolerant (Letters, August 2). He was actually suggesting they should "bend", he says.He has drawn his conclusions about Muslims based on an experience with two of them.

John Mason, Latham

TOUGH JOB

Newly appointed ASX CEO Dominic Stevens doubtless will struggle to make ends meet on $2 million remuneration, plus "short-term incentive" of $2-3 million, as he churns billions through Australia's biggest, legalised casino but adds not one iota to overall quality of life.

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan