I am impressed with the restraint shown by Chief Minister Andrew Barr in response to the asinine and ignorant comments of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in which she appears to suggest that smaller jurisdictions, such as the ACT, should be excluded from Ministerial Councils, including COAG.
While one assumes that Gladys also believes that Tasmania and South Australia, along, of course, with the Northern Territory, should also be excluded from national forums because of their smaller populations, her rant raises worrying questions about her understanding of the Australian Federation and basic tenets of our democracy.
It would also be interesting to hear Gladys expound on her understanding of what constitutes "Australian values".
While, as I say, I admire Andrew Barr for his polite, restrained response to the NSW Premier's nonsense I would also have applauded if he had said what I am sure he, and all of Canberra, really thinks.
Jon Stanhope, Bruce
Thatcher in reply
Audrey Guy (Letters, May 3) asked: "What a very different Australia we would have if the success of a prime minister was measured by the drop in the gap between the income of the top 10 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent during their term in office."
Audrey is nothing if not unoriginal. In 1990, a socialist asked the great Margaret Thatcher how she could defend policies that resulted in the gap between richest 10 per cent and poorest 10 per cent widening.
Her reply was one of the most devastating political smackdowns of all time:
"All levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. But what the honourable member is saying is that he would rather the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich. That way you will never create the wealth for better social services as we have. And what a policy. Yes. He would rather have the poor poorer provided the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal [British socialists] policy. Yes, it came out. He didn't intend it to, but it did."
D. Zivkovic, Aranda
Who's responsible?
Katie Burgess' article on the future of self-drive vehicles ("Could self-drive cars be the death knell", May 4, p.2) raises many questions of law and about responsibilities.
Who is the legal driver; the vehicle, the owner, or the passengers?
Is the vehicle a licensed driver or does the passenger need to be licensed?
As suggested would the passenger be permitted to text, watch movies, email or use a phone when they are not actually driving?
If the passenger is to be licensed what is the legal position if they are affected by alcohol or drugs?
How would police pull over a vehicle not under control of the passenger?
If in an accident who would be held responsible for dangerous driving, driving without due care, or culpable driving?
These are a few of the many issues that would need to be addressed.
I'm sure the legal profession will have their "snout in the trough" on these.
Jack Wiles, Gilmore
Ode to lovely pines
It would be indecent of me not to publicly mourn the passing of a venerable avenue of pine trees which stretched alongside Watson and Downer.
I think of the farmers who planted them so long ago, the communities of birds and insects who adapted their existence in their dark shadows and I give thanks for their tallness.
To walk beneath them on the soft carpet of their needles and to follow their branches pointing to our glorious skies was a privilege for which I am deeply grateful.
Jill Sutton, Watson
Planning at the gallop
The ACT government's continual planning ad hocery is becoming unbelievable. A recent Development Application [201731383] regarding the University of Canberra Public Hospital at Bruce proposes a new road connecting the hospital precinct with Pantowora Street.
This is not only in direct contradiction to the statements in the original planning documents that there would be no such connection due to the likely through-traffic it would create, but it also completely negates the many Traffic Impact Assessments and Traffic Management Reports on which the current hospital roads infrastructure is based.
Furthermore, Michael Day, Manager Traffic Signals, Roads ACT writes in the attached Traffic Report that Roads ACT considers the new road "beneficial to the local road network and not detrimental to the operation of the surrounding road network".
To add to the likely havoc, a further Development Application [201731437] that proposes a multistorey, 407 car-space car park for the above hospital states it also relied on the now negated Traffic Impact Assessments for its traffic studies.
There is need for change in Canberra's overall planning structures.
Murray Upton, Belconnen
Tipping point nears
M. Flint (Letters, May 4) comments that property rates will increase by an average of $500 per year to pay for Stage 1 of light rail alone.
Add to this increases in rates as a result of the reorientation of charges away from stamp duty towards rates.
I am wondering when the tipping point on rates and levies will come for ratepayers (on top of any increases in electricity, gas and water charges).
The community doesn't get continuing proportional income rises sufficient to fund the rates increases.
The warnings came at the last ACT election, but the reality will surely begin to bite by the next election.
Murray May, Cook
Test against harm
Ross Fitzgerald is right ("ACT's drug-testing trial could help end decades of backward policing", May 1, pp14-15).
The federal government should support the evidence-based trial of pill testing as a harm-minimisation strategy to help our kids and grandkids survive their teenage youthful excesses so that they can become wiser adults.
Let's hope that our politicians, who at least had the sense to listen to the evidence and make crash helmets compulsory for cycle and motorbike riders along with safety belts in cars, get the message.
Dr Peter Smith, Lake Illawarra, NSW
Iraq misguided, not illegal
Re the comment article by Toni Hassan ("Why does the War Memorial display the booty from an illegal war?", canberratimes.com.au, May 3) the Iraq war may have been fought for dubious reasons but no one has declared the war "illegal".
Having served in that area of operations I am annoyed the author and her source, an ex-worker in the Australian War Memorial can politicise the AWM. To me, the gold-plated Tabuk (not an AK-47) is an example of how the regime operated. Let's not also forget this is the same regime that wilfully gassed the Kurds in the north of Iraq while the West did nothing (look now at Syria and how we now pay attention).
To me that rifle in the AWM represents a time where the ADF shifted its focus from jungle operations of Vietnam and East Timor and focused on operations in a totally different area of operations that we have not fought in since World War II.
Has the author not paid attention to the World War I "trophy" German tank that Queensland infantry captured, and now is the only example in the world.
There are numerous other examples of "booty" from the Nazis, the Japanese and the VC and North Vietnamese on display, all from repressive regimes, but noticeably the AWM worker has only resigned in regards to the assault rifle.
I'd rather see the rifle in the AWM to remind my of my service, and to remind Australians of the oppressive nature of the regime in question.
Simon Mead, Canberra
Travesty in the memorial
Thank you to Toni Hassan for highlighting the inappropriateness of displaying a gold-plated rifle from Saddam Hussein's troops in the Australian War Memorial ("Booty from illegal war", May 4, p.16).
AWM former volunteer guide Patrick O'Hara is quite correct that Iraq is still a mess, 14 years after the illegal invasion.
The AWM has other offerings that appear grotesquely at odds with its mission of presenting the Australian experience of war. For example, according to the AWM website, Anzac Hall offers "a truly unique dining experience where you can wine and dine among historic items ... suitable for large gala diners (sic; perhaps only the obese are allowed), presentations, cocktail functions, or smaller boutique functions."
To remind us of what it was like in the rat and lice-infested trenches, knee-deep in mud, with a tin of bully beef, the stench of death and the shriek of shells overhead perhaps?
What has become of our commemoration of wars' tragedies, when our pre-eminent national memorial is used for such crass commercialisation and entertainment?
Sue Wareham, Vice-President, Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), Canberra
Reality check on history
On Radio National this morning [Friday], the leader of the Greens said that we have followed the Americans into every conflict since World War I.
This is another Green mantra which is in fact a lie.
In both of the world wars, we followed the British. It was the Americans who followed us into those conflicts.
In the Malayan Emergency and Confrontation, America was simply not involved. The American establishment was so ashamed of its failure to be part of these Western victories in the Cold War that in the early 1960s, the advice of the British mission to South Vietnam was totally ignored and the mission was forced to leave.
Today, nobody in the US even mentions Malaya and Confrontation as parts of the Cold War at all.
G. T. W. Agnew, Coopers Plains, Qld
Sport is not war
Every death in war is a tragedy, including that of Corporal Cameron Baird VC ("More than a game," May 4, p.1).
And we should wish Corporal Baird's charity, Cam's Cause, every success.
That said, it is inappropriate in the extreme for the best player in the Anzac Test to receive a miniature statue of an armed Corporal Baird. Sport is not war and war is not sport. It was always wrong for the NRL to attach the "Anzac" label to a football match; Corporal Baird's motto, "Aspire to inspire", should be powerful enough without having to be clothed in khaki.
The Anzac Test should pass unlamented into history. On the other hand, the likelihood of wars going the same way is slim.
Facing the further story about Corporal Baird ("The statue that shows why the Anzac Test matters," May 4, p.6) there is a full-page advertisement for the defence industries of Victoria.
We might yearn for an end to war – because war chews up young men like Corporal Baird – but arms manufacturers and the eager buyers of arms in the military and in government will always be working in the opposite direction.
Wars are the best testing grounds for new military kit and they are the prime source of profits for arms manufacturers.
David Stephens, Bruce
More than meets the eye
Ashwin Swaminathan (Letters, May 3) in commenting about Singapore Airline staff on arriving in Canberra and asking, "What are we going to do here?" reminded me of a conversation I had on a plane a few years ago.
I was chatting to the flight attendant in transit from Hong Kong to Sydney and she asked me where I was from. When I replied, "Canberra," her response was to say, "But there's nothing there. My friends went up a lookout tower on a mountain and all they saw were trees."
Incidentally there were lots of posters and screens advertising events in Canberra at Christmas time.
It would be interesting to know why this has not continued. Is it the airport or the businesses or both that are not promoting all there is to offer?
Janet Reynolds, Greenleigh, NSW
What's in a name?
I recently saw a reference to the "Barr-Rattenbury Government". In view of the role of the Greens, wouldn't it be more realistic to refer to it as the Rattenbury-Barr Government?
John Milne, Chapman
TO THE POINT
PATHS IN DISREPAIR
Repairing the footpaths in older suburbs has been a fragmented, inadequate process since self-government.
Contractors only repair what is specified in the contract and ignore obvious areas in the immediate vicinity that also need repair. There are so many sections needing repair that reporting them all would cause the Fix My Street website to collapse.
R. I. Boxall, Hawker
POINT-SCORING
Education should be quarantined against political point scoring. It looks like Tony Abbott wants to muddy the water before Parliament sits again by taking up the Catholic cause. No doubt other special interest groups will make every effort to denude public schooling funding. This is why the country is going backwards.
D. J. Fraser, Currumbin, Qld
PRIORITIES PLEASE
University fees are to be increased.
In the meantime, Iraq is to get an extra $110 million; Yemen $10 million; Afghanistan a whopping $240 million; $1.71 million to build a new education system for Myanmar; $40 million to the Philippines for the autonomous region of Mindanao.
Who gives a Gonski indeed?
Poor fellow, my country.
Mario Moldoveanu, Frankston, Vic
FUNDING FAILURE
I agree with David Stephens (letters, May 5). Huge government expenditure (on the Monash centre) at Villers-Bretonneux at the expense of veteran health concerns is a misallocation of funds and priorities.
Napoleon once said that if you give men some coloured ribbon, they'll follow you anywhere. Do you think autocrats and politicians think first of wounded veterans? You'd be naive.
Gerry Murphy, Braddon
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