I Kolak's fears about Canberra being transformed into the drone capital, destroying the unique bush capital's quality of life and suburban ambience are well-founded (Letters, March 4).
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Coles has obviously been taken in by the marketing spin from Wing, and not considered the damage to its corporate image.
An earlier report done for Wing by economists at the AlphaBeta consultancy estimated by 2030 there would be 5.6 million deliveries a year by drone in the ACT. That's more than 10,000 drone flights daily.
The ACT Legislative Assembly inquiry into household delivery drones found that noise from drones was the "single largest source of negative feedback" during the Bonython trial. The bulk of submissions to the inquiry were strongly against, and included groups concerned with the impact of drone noise on dogs and horses. The evidence is already in.
Wing appear to be masters of spin. They push all manner of trendy sounding ideas such as Canberrans' reputation as early adopters of new technology.
However, Canberrans also appreciate the relatively quiet suburban existence of Canberra and the presence of wildlife, including birdlife. Screeching drone deliveries for Coles by Wing will be anathema for many in Canberra.
Murray May, Cook
What about Beijing's aggression?
It's very encouraging to see the (almost) global response of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I hope we'd see a similar response should China invade Taiwan.
No doubt China's watching the Russian situation closely, crunching the numbers to see how they'd apply.
But I fear it would be too much to ask for something similar for the US's next invasion.
Fred Pilcher, Kaleen
Vanstone is far from balanced
I'm wondering what exactly was the point of Amanda Vanstone's opinion piece "How do we judge 'brilliant jerks'?" (canberratimes.com.au, March 3) in which she denounced Bob Hawke's well-known adulterous ways, quite savagely I thought.
It seemed quite irrelevant to anything politically current, other than to suggest (in the last few paragraphs) that some within the Labor Party haven't changed their ways.
So much for the balanced articles she promised us a few short months ago.
Janet Cossart, Stirling
All casualties matter
As a pacifist, I find it incredible that so many of the world's conflicts in which there is death and destruction on a major scale barely rate a mention.
For instance, various reports have put the death toll from the conflict in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine since 2014 at more than 14,000 [on both sides]. This has been accompanied by infrastructure destruction and immense human suffering.
War is a terrible and ugly thing which no one wants to see or experience. But if one is to be selective in their condemnation of wars, then they risk being labelled morally bankrupt, hypocritical or worse.
After viewing this letter, readers might like to take the opportunity to find a quiet space and listen to all the outrage that has ever been expressed by the media, governments, organisations, celebrities (and so the list goes on) over what has been happening to the people caught up in the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk. Or doesn't their suffering count somehow? Readers will find the silence deafening.
David Cummins, Kambah
The legacy of 1972
Roderick Holesgrove is right to draw attention to the massive suite of environmental legislation in the days of the Whitlam government with Moss Cass as environment minister (Letters, March 3).
Moss Cass was a dedicated minister. Those of us who worked with ministers on the development of Australia's first environmental legislation will remember that the inspiration for much of this important legislation came from Attorney-General Lionel Murphy who also worked tirelessly on the detail. Perhaps because Murphy was not the portfolio minister, Murphy's massive contribution to environmental law has not been sufficiently recognised.
