Letter writer VALERIE SCOTT came home from Brisbane awestruck by its municipal beauty to the vista of Canberra’s weeds and poorly mown grass. 

Recently I was in Brisbane and was awestruck by the beautification of city footpaths. 

Everywhere I went there were masses of low-maintenance plantings along footpaths and common areas.

The public lawns were like carefully manicured carpets and so inviting just to go and sit! 

Unfortunately, I came home to a vista of weeds sprouting from concrete and poorly mown grasses in Canberra’s many public parks.

Come now, Mr Barr, do I need to remind you Canberra is our national capital? It needs a good makeover!

Valerie Scott, via email

But why do we lead in locking up Aboriginals?

Columnist Jon Stanhope often writes about the Aboriginals in the ACT being locked up more than anywhere else. 

It would be helpful if we were told why we lead the way in locking up Aboriginals. 

Is it because they commit more crimes, because they get caught more often, because the courts are tougher in the ACT on Aboriginals, because the courts are tougher in general? I do not believe they are just picking on Aboriginals, so what is the reason? Until we know this, how are we expected to fix the problem? 

This being said, we have seen on the news that there are a lot of Aboriginal kids committing crimes in NT and Queensland and keep getting out on bail. Maybe this is why the figures are higher in the ACT, they are not getting bail as much?

Vi Evans via email

Why have rates risen 100 per cent?

Julian and Karna O’Dea, of Aranda, wanted to know why their rates had risen 100 per cent (Letters, January 30). Rates have risen because the proportion of the elected representatives which determines what happens, has said they need more money to pay for what that negotiated dictatorship says the people need.

In a market economy, one might expect that the amount charged for a service would relate to the service provided. In the case of some charges such as income tax and rates, it doesn’t.

The rates charged on properties in Aranda and elsewhere might be different if the actual cost of the services provided had to be the basis for the amounts charged. The additional expenses which the elected representatives say need to be recovered from the community, if collected under a democratic or even market economy model, should be different. Fee for service is not uncommon throughout our society – it just doesn’t arise in taxing matters. 

Additional revenue-raising in a democratic model might be handled by providing the people making the payments with an opportunity to direct where their payments should go. 

There would not seem to be any basis in such a model for ratepayers in Red Hill making any greater payments for the government services they receive, than property owners in the outer suburbs of Tuggeranong, Belconnen or Gungahlin. 

A schedule of the areas of proposed government expenditure, if provided to ratepayers with their rates notices, might deliver a different set of expenditure priorities from what currently emerges.

A similar concept applied to personal income tax payments might also deliver a different and more directly democratic set of indicators for the taxing agency. Perhaps too much bother for some, but it could be empowering for those who are genuinely interested in how the public purse is distributed.

Lawrie Nock, Sutton

Here’s one parasite we don’t need

Euan Ritchie’s article “Why we need parasites as much as they need us” (CN, February 6) mentions the leeches that bring feelings ranging from disgust to terror in those to whom they become attached. 

This reminds me of my time as a field geologist in Papua New Guinea between 1968 and 1972.

On one occasion, after wading along creeks and trudging through damp undergrowth, I noticed a strange squelching sound coming from my right-side boot. 

On looking down, I saw a trickle of blood running from just below my knee then under my ankle gaiter. An engorged leech must have dropped off only a few minutes earlier. I removed my boot and poured out what must have been about 150ml of blood. Luckily, there was no subsequent infection.

On another occasion, one of my Papua New Guinean assistants complained of a sore eye. On inspecting his eye, I noticed a leech, less than a centimetre long, attached to the eye. 

We had been walking through dense undergrowth, and the leech was apparently lurking on a leaf of a bush or sapling about 1.5 metres above ground. As the assistant brushed by, an opportunist leech latched on to the most vulnerable and tastiest target it could detect: a human eye.

I immediately thought of a solution to a perilous situation. Gently holding the tail end of the leech, while repeatedly dousing it with the saline solution in my medical kit, it finally released its hold. Fortunately there was no bleeding from (or in) the eye.

There is at least one parasite that is definitely not needed by humans!

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin