Army drains dollars

Every cent of the money the army has at its disposal comes from tax dollars, which could otherwise have been spent on more economically useful products than army vehicles.

Harry Davis, Campbell

There are parallels between America's deliberate destabilisation of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, replacing the popular, centrist Prince Norodom Sihanouk with the rightist General Lon Nol, and the destabilisation of Syria that resulted from the second Iraq War.

Both opened the door to extreme regimes of disastrous effect: Pol Pot's in Cambodia and Islamic State in Syria.

Fortunately, Pol Pot was overthrown after four years by the Vietnamese.

But I can't see an Iraqi saviour on the horizon for Syria.

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was at pains to emphasise the anguish our Muslim community must feel in the wake of the terrorist attack in western Sydney last week ("PM takes new line on violent extremism", October 5, p1).

Not as much anguish as the loved ones of the victim, I suspect. Religious fanaticism is a wicked problem but weasel words help no one in the long run. Is it too much to ask our politicians, and especially Muslim leaders, to speak out plainly, loudly and unequivocally against this sort of violence?

Oh, and Julie Bishop might start the ball rolling by explaining what she meant when she described the incident as politically motivated.

H. Ronald, Jerrabomberra, NSW

The recent killing of a quite harmless person who had the misfortune to work for the police raises questions.

Anyone who is acquainted with America and its history would be able to correlate present-day Australia with that sad tale. Look at Chicago in the 1930s. Al Capone was at his zenith. Most of the judiciary and probably all of the law enforcement were for sale.

The homicide rate was about 40 per 100,000 of population.

The catalyst for all this was the Great Depression. Twenty to 25 per cent of young people could not get any sort of a job. Whether it was bootleg grog or straight out robbery, it was better than nothing.

We, in Australia, are starting to face the same problem.

We are finding Islamic young people without prospects are attracted to radical causes related to Islam because there is little else on offer.

I think Barack Obama and Julia Gillard had the right reasoning. Spending the educational dollar predominantly in the most needy areas is very cost-effective.

Howard Carew, Isaacs

The National Mental Health Commission was not wrong to conclude "the mental health system can and must get better at catching people before they fall" ("Mental health care an expensive failure, review finds", October 5, p3). Until that level of excellence is achieved, it will be a grave error to withdraw funds from crisis and acute care, that is hospitalisation.

After decades of trying to implement more effective community-based services, the likelihood remains that, at their most effective and expensive, such services will not decrease relapses but, by providing more timely identification of crises, increase the demand for hospitalisation.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

Dear Mark Dwyer (Letters, October 5), please stay in Rankins Springs and keep buying The Telegraph.

Janet Thompson, Garran

Dear Mark Dwyer, thank you for your incisive commentary on The Canberra Times.

I have in the past read The Telegraph and been similarly unimpressed.

My best advice to you is to either seek medical treatment elsewhere or bring your own newspaper if you choose to return.

But please remember to take it with you when you leave.

Penny Farnsworth, Fadden

There seems to be a universal law that states the more biased someone is, the more they complain of bias around them.

Ring any bells, Mark Dwyer?

I seriously doubt anyone truly "forced" you to read The Canberra Times – real first world problem you had there, I feel for you and can understand why you were so upset.

Whatever failings in parochialism and bias The Canberra Times may have, to believe The Telegraph is neither parochial nor biased speaks volumes of your ability Mark Dwyer to identify either of these traits, let alone drivel.

Or is it simply that bias is not to be tolerated, unless it's the same as yours?

David Barratt, Yarralumla

Poor Mark Dwyer. Fancy having to suffer the inferior Canberra Times during his visit.

He clearly suffers withdrawal when he misses out on his daily dose of the Telegraph's journalistly elegant front pages and the intellectual stimulus of columnists such as Miranda Devine and Piers Ackerman.

Maybe he should ask Doctor Rupert to prescribe a takeover of Fairfax.

Eric Hunter, Cook

An article in The Public Sector Informant, "Am I really a workplace bully", by Jennifer Wyborn and Lauren Haywood, lists examples of bullying behaviour (October 6, p9).

These include "intimidation and coercion, threats, humiliation, shouting, sarcasm, singlingout or ostracism, innuendo, rumour-mongering, disrespect and mocking and discrimination".

I imagine these behaviour types are considered to be bullying and harassment when in the playground, in schools and in the workplace, but what about parliamentary question time?

When our students attend question time as a part of their education, how do teachers justify the bullying language from the politicians at the same time educating their students that such language is totally unacceptable in their school environment, or workplace?

M. Miller, Lilli Pilli, NSW

Having recently driven to Crookwell to see the wind farms there and having returned via Lake George, I can say that the wind turbines there are completely inoffensive and, in the case of those at Lake George, quite beautiful.

In order to show the ACT's commitment to renewable energy, I propose that a wind turbine be erected on Mount Ainslie.

This would provide an elegant counterpoint to the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain.

It would be called the Tony Abbott Memorial Turbine.

John May, Lyneham

Murray May need not fear the collapse of the light-rail public-private partnership (Letters, October 5).

As Richard Denniss also explained while warning against this very same PPP, "you pay someone to hide the debt for you. That is what a public-private partnership really is ... Worse, still, is that private 'partners' want more than just the funds to cover the interest costs of holding debt on behalf of the government; they want a profit margin as well." ("If we build it, they will come, and take the profit", June 22, 2013, Comment, p9).

Buried behind the Utopia-worthy fantasy and spin of the Capital Metro business case are forecasts revealing that if the capital contributions and project debt is "unhidden" and priced at commercial rates, each tram journey will cost "someone" $20.

Because no banker would finance such a project on a commercial basis, the ACT government has been told private partners will not accept any patronage risk, and hence will require a guaranteed (risk-free) annual "availability payment", regardless of patronage.

And yes, that "someone" is us, via increased rates and reduced health, education, public transport and community services.

Kent Fitch, Nicholls

So did our public-transport-loving Canberra Times ignore the real bus story deliberately ("$11.8m spent on empty bus runs", October 6)?

In a wide-ranging, front-page article, it focused on Action Buses vehicles running dead, even comparing it with private companies.

A sideshow. Nowhere was total subsidy paid by taxpayers to Action (revenues minus costs) compared with private companies. No business would run a service losing $100 million-plus a year.

Note we don't have a 2014-15 total subsidy figure or average daily patronage, because the article deemed them so uninteresting they were omitted.

But assuming average patronage of about 35,000 (approximate past figure), and an annual subsidy of about $110 million (conservative extrapolation), we're subsidising each bus user by about $3000 a year.

They each averaged $13 a week in cash/MyWay fares in 2014-15, but it cost us $60 a week in subsidies to enable each to do so.

And here comes our (subsidised) tram ...

Manson MacGregor, Amaroo

If construction workers on the Majura Parkway project are being paid an extra $1000 a week under a "peace at any price" deal between the lead contractor and the CFMEU ("$1000 a week for 'peace' on parkway", October 5, p1), it's no wonder UnionsACT is in favour of building light rail ("Light rail is good for pay, jobs and our future", August 3, Comment, p5).

That's one more vested-interest group whose opinion on light rail we can ignore.

David Pederson, O'Connor

It was interesting to read Jon Tuxworth's article arguing that the 1989 grand final win by the Raiders over Balmain was possibly the best grand final win ever, rather than last Saturday's win by the North Queensland Cowboys over the Broncos ("Raiders hero Steve Jackson says 1989 decider still simply the best", October 6, Sport, p23).

I would have agreed initially but after examining both wins I would say they are on par with each other.

Both were unexpectedly thrilling finishes which saw the Raiders and Cowboys win their first premiership.

Yet who can forget the 1999 grand final when the Melbourne Storm, despite the odds, won their first premiership in an equally thrilling finish over St George.

In the 77th minute the Melbourne Storm were granted a penalty try, drawing them level. Matt Geyer was successful in the conversion and the Storm, for the first time in the match, pulled ahead of the Dragons and won 20-18.

Perhaps all three should be rated as the greatest of grand final wins?

Tony Falla, Ngunnawal

Anyone who has read these columns over the past 20 years will know I disagree with this newspaper's support for the harm minimisation approach to illicit drug use.

However, I do agree with The Canberra Times' editorial on October 5 that opioids continue to be a huge threat.

It is argued by some that methadone helps to save lives but rarely is it mentioned that, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, methadone was the underlying cause of death in 957 cases between 1997 to 2005.

Methadone is intended as a safeguard or step back from opiate dependency. Vehicle safety belts act to prevent injury or death in crashes.

The difference between the examples is that safety belts in no way act to maintain a driver's speeding habit, whereas methadone, being a synthetic opiate, known by some as liquid handcuffs, can and does increase the risk of physical breakdown – and even death as mentioned above.

The National Opioid Pharmacotherapy Statistics (2013) reported 2355 methadone dosing points in Australia. But there was not one long-term residential drug rehabilitation clinic fully funded by the Commonwealth and dedicated to restore drug-free lives.

Until we have a solid drug focus fully supporting law enforcement's primary prevention achievements in that context (drug seizures), the number of first-time users across the illicit drug spectrum won't reduce.

Colliss Parrett, Barton

The destruction of an MSF hospital in Afghanistan was an abomination ("US admits blame for hospital bombing", CT October 5, page 7).

Perhaps the United States Defence Department will do the dead and injured civilians and medical aid workers the courtesy of publishing their names, rather than tossing them on the anonymous pile known as "collateral damage".

Why are reliable estimates of civilian dead and injured from recent wars so hard, or outright impossible, to find on Australian or US government websites?

Either civilian deaths are not counted, or they aren't sufficiently important, or the estimates are so horrifying that they – like the victims themselves – must be buried.

The Costs of War project at Brown University in the US estimates that, up to January 2015, more than 26,000 civilians died violent deaths as a result of the war in Afghanistan; and that many with war wounds cannot travel safely to even get to hospital.

The projected and actual civilian effects of wars should be the subject of mandatory regular reporting to Parliament and the Australian people for any government that wants to take our country to war or to prolong ADF involvement overseas.

The fact that, as we all know, truth is the first casualty of war, makes a requirement for the government of the day to report to Parliament on civilian deaths all the more essential.

Our wars are after all sold to us with the highest moral rhetoric.

We deserve to be told what really happens.

Dr Sue Wareham, vice-president, Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), Cook

Transparency call galls

Gai Brodtmann (our local member of Parliament) writes with alacrity on transparency and accountability ("The metrics of government performance", October 6, Public Sector Informant, p14). Yet she sat on the joint standing committee that stitched up Norfolk Island and ensured the end of our self-government in a blatantly biased political process. She treated us like errant schoolchildren.

Brett Sanderson, Norfolk Island

Prescriptions overdose

After all these years, it now seems we may need a prescription for future doses of codeine as too much of it may kill us ("Codeine in mix as more people die by overdose", October 5, p5). Too much alcohol will also kill. In fact, perhaps more people have died from alcohol abuse than codeine abuse. Will I ultimately need a doctor's prescription to have a beer?

C. J. Johnston, Duffy

Hospital bombing outrage

The United States bombing a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital ("US admits blame for hospital bombing", October 5, p7)! How outrageous can this war get?

Bob Gardiner, Isabella Plains

Dividing the workforce

Motivated by avarice, (petite) bourgeoisie, supported by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, propagate mythology that penalty rates impede job creation ("Penalty rates protect the weekend", October 5, Business Day, p10). Equally reprehensible is the intent to divide workers into those deserving of penalties and those lesser, undeserving beings. Beware mission creep!

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW

Hope for the highway

Kim Fischer ("After 25 years of 'autonomy', Feds still rule", October 5, Comment, p5), with her talk of "designated areas" and main approach routes to Canberra, gives opponents of the white elephant light rail some hope of having the Commonwealth declare federal highway as "national land", thus scuppering the ACT government's plans.

Ken McPhan, Spence

Pedant membership

May I join your Pedants Society, Fergus Thomson (Letters, October 3)? I'm feeling rather lonely as president and sole member of the Canberra Hair-Splitters Society.

Frank Marris, Forrest

England's royal tanking

Isn't it just great how "our" royal family always support the English in sporting contests against us? Oh boo-hoo for them this week.

Michael F. Buggy, Torrens

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