The shooting down of a civilian airliner a few days ago, resulting in the death of 298 people, rightly caused outrage around the world.
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During the past week or so, almost 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, yet this has invoked no outrage. In fact, the Australian government is on Israel's side. The dead Palestinian civilians include dozens of children, among them eight young boys playing on the beach and on a rooftop.
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Why is the world indifferent to the loss of a Palestinian life? Why is it all right to kill a Palestinian child, but not an Australian adult?
There is widespread condemnation of Russia, because the surface-to-air missile system used to bring down the Malaysia Airlines plane was manufactured in Russia. The United States supplies billions of dollars of military hardware to the Israelis, yet the world is silent about this too.
Margaret Huddy, Kambah
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 , a terrible air disaster that should never have happened . The culprits responsible for this outrage will in all probability never be found, however Malaysia Airlines and the Russians must share responsibility in this instance: the airline for continuing to use a flight path that was considered hazardous when the majority of other airlines ceased to do so; the Russians for aiding and abetting the separatists.
As an indication of Australia's displeasure, Putin's invitation to the G20 meeting should be withdrawn forthwith.
Mario Stivala, Spence
Sunday CT p7 July 20 ''MH17 Disaster''. Saddened to note how many, ''Other Civilian Planes shot down'', due to military/rebel action are so soon forgotten. Libyan Flight 114 (1973), Israel , Rhodesia Air 825 (1978) and 827 (1979), Rhodesia Rebels and Iran Air 655 (1988), US, many others. All ''unspeakable crimes''.
Fred Fawke, Dunlop
I am not a fan of Tony Abbott. But credit must be given where credit is due. And I give credit to the Australian PM for his forthright response to the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane and the killing of all 298 people on board. He lost no time in putting the blame where the blame belongs: on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Abbott couldn't have put it more succinctly when he said if Putin is not going to do the right thing - by co-operating to ensure complete and independent international expert investigation into the plane attack - then he should not bother to come to Australia for the G20 meeting in November. Now, if the UN and the Commonwealth took such an approach in dealing with rogue leaders, instead of mollycoddling them, the world would not be in the mess it finds itself today.
It's a shame Mr Abbott and before him Julia Gillard did not deal with Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa in like manner - despite the overwhelming evidence of human rights abuse by his government.
Consistency is critically important for credibility as well.
Rajend Naidu, Glenfield, NSW
How do we escape the grief of families all over the world, especially in the Netherlands?
The short answer is we do not. Russia may offer any excuses they may but the truth of the matter is that we all know they encouraged and supplied weapons to the pro-Russian rebels. Basically we are all as one in that cruelty towards any of us is cruelty to all of us.
Howard Carew, Isaacs
The tragedy of MH17 should provoke pause to re-evaluate the huge airport security industry, with its insatiable appetite for public money, and its unquestioned accompanying traveller inconvenience, humiliation, indignity and invasion of privacy. It contributed nothing to preventing this ''terrorist'' disaster.
Albert M. White, Queanbeyan
When people want to know why MH17 was flying up there over Ukraine, they wonder why the aeroplane couldn't have flown closer to Australia.
It's all in the geography of the planet, you can't go in a straight line from east to west.
You have to travel on a Great Circle, which is the fastest way to get from east to west and around the curve of the planet.
The fastest route to the south from Europe goes on the Great Circle over Ukraine. It's also the cheapest way.
Qantas has stopped using that route for some time, so the Flying Kangaroo is still the safest way to fly to the north hemisphere.
Phylli Ives, Torrens
The statement by both President Putin and his ambassador in Australia Vladimir Morozov that the blame for the murderous attack on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was solely the responsibility of Ukraine was among the most callous yet uttered about the catastrophe.
It is to be hoped that the investigation into the attack will involve metallurgists testing the wreckage for traces of explosive material and rocket fragments which will confirm from whence the rocket was manufactured and thus the country of supply.
President Putin has supported the pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine and there is little doubt that all their arms, missiles, ammunition and warfare impedimenta has been supplied from within Russia.
That being the case, President Putin can be considered as an accessory before, during and after this criminal and murderous act.
In all probability the missile controllers responsible for firing this missile were trained in Russia or Russian experts were present when the missile was fired. Either way it would appear that Russia is deeply involved and as such so is President Putin.
N. Bailey, Nicholls
The world could accept, but be saddened, by the destruction of MH17 if it was caused by the accidental pressing of a button or throwing of a switch.
However, the firing of the missile which destroyed MH17 can only result from a series of decisions and actions made by the crew of the missile launcher, ranging from locking the radar on MH17, activating the missile pad to adjust its direction and elevation, selecting and arming the missiles to be launched, through to firing the missiles.
What appears to be lacking in this instance is the verification by the launch crew as to the nature of the target; whether it was military or commercial.
Firing of the missiles without determining the province of the targeted aircraft can only be judged as a criminal or terrorist act. In fact, whoever supplied the undisciplined missile crew with the launcher must be judged in court alongside the crew.
Ed Dobson, Hughes
Australia doesn't need carbon tax
Mark Kenny and Lisa Cox (''Carbon tax gone but Abbot won't rule out pricing policy'', July 18, p1) seem to be unaware Australia sequesters much more CO2 than Australians emit. The greenhouse gases-observing satellite IBUKI (GOSAT), developed jointly by the Ministry of the Environment Japan, the National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is the world's first satellite designed for monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from space.
According to data of global CO2 fluxes on a monthly and regional basis between June 2009 and May 2010 it appears Australia is a net sequester of CO2 and not a net emitter as many claim. These flux values were estimated from ground-based CO2 monitoring data and improved GOSAT-based CO2 concentration data. This shows there is no need for the carbon tax, mandatory renewable energy target or the government organisations involved in CO2 emissions reductions in Australia.
No need to waste money at all, so let's concentrate on our economy.
J. McKerral, Batemans Bay, NSW
In the midst of the appalling abuse of children revealed in the ongoing hearings of the Royal Commission we are now witnessing another assault on the economic wellbeing and health of future generations of children by a government concerned only with short-term popularity.
The passing of legislation through the Australian Parliament to remove a price from carbon for the substantial benefit of the fossil fuel industry is just such an assault.
I hope that everyone who voted for this attack on the health of future generations lives long enough to experience the embarrassment of having to try to publicly explain and justify their moral failure.
Doug Hynd, Stirling
Israeli response justified
Gwynne Dyer's theory about why Israel is conducting its operation in Gaza (''Gaza War suits both sides'', Times2, July 17, p4) really doesn't make sense. Israel had endured intense rocket fire from Gaza for three weeks, and while it had responded directly to those attacks, it had also been urging Hamas to cease firing the rockets, promising calm would be met with calm. It was only when Israel was subjected to 80 rockets in one day that it hit back hard.
No country would just allow itself to be continually struck without acting to stop the rockets, and that is all Israel is doing.
Dyer claims Netanyahu is opposed to making a peace deal, but he didn't sabotage the Oslo Accords between 1996 and 1999, as Dyer claims. He continued to advance them, signing the Hebron Accord and the Wye River Memorandum, which, among other things, entailed further Israeli deployments out of areas of the West Bank.
In his current prime ministership, Netanyahu has implemented a nine-month freeze on building of houses in settlements, and the release of Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands to try to encourage negotiations. The problem, as always, has been Palestinian intransigence.
Alan Shroot, Forrest
The killing by an Israeli shell last week of four Palestinian children playing soccer on a Gaza beach should finally put paid to the Israeli government myth that it protects civilians and that all civilian deaths are the result of ''Hamas hiding behind civilians''.
These boys were playing on a beach in full sight of international media and were, by all appearances, deliberately targeted by the Israelis who killed them.
Every death of a child is a tragedy and these most recent hostilities have led to the deaths of dozens of Palestinians and three Israeli children.
It is time the world stood up to demand the end of the illegal occupation of millions of stateless Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ultimately all the tragic deaths in the ongoing Middle East conflict result from the occupation and the severe repression of Palestinian rights.
Al Harris, Braidwood, NSW
Danger in Sri Lanka
When I left the ACT Legislative Assembly, I promised that I would not be one of those old codgers who cannot let go and must write to the letters page as though they had never left their previous professions.
For two years I have been faithful to that vow but now I can't hold back.
In the course of my job as a minister or a committee member, I went to Britain, the US, Kenya, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand and a couple of other places.
The only place I felt threatened and unsafe was Sri Lanka. The presence of armed soldiers on our buses, the presence of armed soldiers ringing our hotels, the pervasive mist of violence in the presence of President Mahinda Rajapaksa frightened me a lot.
As an ACT minister I had a couple of death threats but I don't think they felt as real as the fear I felt in Colombo.
Sri Lanka reeks of violence. It is infused with racial and religious hatred. I couldn't wait to get out of there.
If I felt that way and I was a guest as part of a Commonwealth parliamentary delegation, how do the Tamils feel if they are returned to Sri Lanka having fled to India, by our Australian government?
My heart goes out to those prisoners on Australian vessels in the Indian Ocean. Why can't we just take them to our bosoms and give them succour?
John Hargreaves, former ACT Minister for Multicultural Affairs
Get priorities right
There is one aspect to the people coming by smugglers or by plane into Australia never mentioned: overpopulation and population pressures.
Sri Lanka, which has a population of 21 million, is smaller than Tasmania. How can this country possibly provide a job and home for everyone? People claiming to be refugees or asylum seekers are often just trying to get a job or home. In the case of one recently reported ''asylum seeker'', four homes in New Zealand.
Australia is enormous even though 75 per cent desert. In our country there are more than 100,000 homeless and thousands unemployed. The needs of these people and the Aborigines should have priority.
Penelope Upward, O'Connor
Dual planning system is running off course
Noel Towell's report (''Triangle facilities a private matter'', July 12, p1) raises important issues about the governance of Canberra as the national capital and the role of the private sector. The article covered the government response to the parliamentary joint standing committee's report on the provision of amenities in the central national area, including the Parliamentary Triangle, and the allocation of land to diplomatic missions.
In addition to endorsing pay parking and the upgrading of public transport, the government directed the National Capital Authority to prepare a strategy for the provision of retail services in the central national area. Paul Costigan (Letters, July 15) responded by proposing the Commonwealth should ''hand back'' to the ACT its responsibilities for national areas. The main reason given is cost effectiveness in place of duplication of resources.
Problems with Canberra's dual planning system are yet to be resolved. Long-running negotiations between the two governments over control of national land seem likely to result in a crude division of lands and powers, rather than a jointly representative, inter-governmental, integrated planning and management system.
An inauspicious sign of the ACT government's national land pretensions are the recent artists' images of high-rise buildings on Commonwealth Avenue, while the NCA has a separate discussion paper on renewal of Commonwealth and Kings avenues.
The federal government's response on the embassies estate noted the shortage of national land to accommodate future demand for diplomatic missions, requiring quite different land allocation guidelines to those applied by the Territory government.
The notion that the Commonwealth should simply vacate the central national area risks altogether the integrity and prospects of this great national capital.
Brett Odgers, Swinger Hill
TO THE POINT
EVERYTHING BUT TILES
I confess to Steven Hurren (Letters, July 18) I no longer replace tiles as our roof is iron, but I do clean gutters (and occasionally install them), plus do housekeeping, garbage, mowing, weeding, irrigation, arbour, pool and animal maintenance, including crutching sheep. I know my percentage. And, yes, I'm a married female.
Willy Stanford, Murrumbateman, NSW
UNREPRESENTATIVE
Could someone please tell me how many of our elected (upper and lower house) representatives are not ex-party/union/lobbyist hacks? How many have ever run a business/farm/enterprise or held a real job?
D. C. Mildern, Murrumbateman, NSW
ONLY A SHORT-TERM FIX
The Israeli government and Hamas agree on a six-hour humanitarian ceasefire that allows Palestinians to return to their homes (if they are still there). How extraordinary that they can pause the shelling for a few hours so the population can collect their remaining possessions, but cannot agree on a lasting truce that would stop the tit-for-tat bombing in Israel and Gaza.
Bart Meehan, Calwell
FORGIVE US OUR SINS
In alluding to differing theologies, David Wilson (Letters, July 17) brings to mind a sentence from The Devil's Advocate, which read, if my memory serves me correctly: ''Leave theology to the theologians; all the ordinary people wish to know is that their sins have ben forgiven.''
Ken McPhan, Spence
NICKEL AND DIMES
With the scrapping of the carbon tax, Australian households might save a few hundred dollars a year but, based on last year's figures, Clive Palmer will save around $8 million on his Queensland Nickel company alone. Onya Clive!
Patricia Saunders, Chapman
WHAT OF OUR FREEDOM?
We will be told constantly in the next four years that World War I Diggers ''died for our freedom'' and that Australian soldiers since have died for the same cause. Is this freedom compatible with the increased powers being given to ASIO, ASIS and police forces, and the further powers these organisations seek? (''ASIO anxiety rises over returned jihadists'', July 17, p4.)
David Stephens, Bruce
FINDING FATTEST CAT
The person ranting in Parliament House and quoted by D. A. Nicholls (Letters, July 18) is undoubtedly the fattest cat in Canberra, morbidly so.
Patricia Saunders, Chapman
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