Canberra's judicial system is too soft on criminals

Thirty years ago this week our daughter was murdered by an ex-boyfriend. Her murderer served just six years in jail. We were devastated to lose our beautiful girl and the success of the murderer's appeal made the pain so much worse.

One of the appeal judges had sympathy for us and kindly invited me into his chambers to discuss the sentencing. I asked him if he would have been satisfied for that sentence if his daughter was murdered and, of course, he said he wouldn't.

When I asked him what could be done to change the sentencing laws for violent crime in Canberra, he said: "We need to re-educate the judges."

After 30 years, nothing has been changed. Judges still seem to have no sympathy for the victims, as has been shown in this recent case.

Thirty years ago I organised a petition to the ACT Assembly asking for the sentencing laws to reflect the seriousness of violent crime. Thirty years on, young women are being murdered, domestic violence is rife, and still the judges hand out these lenient sentences to criminals.

It seems as though they never ever think of the pain of the families and the community for the loss of so many young women.

Our daughter lost her life at 25. We still mourn her, as do so many others who struggle to understand why our justice system has let us down so badly. And we still await the re-education of the judges and changing of laws for violent crime.

Why does the Voice matter to non-Indigenous Australians? Richard Flanagan seeks some answers in an essay in The Monthly of July 2023. He posits that, as a consequence of dispossessing Aboriginal peoples we are, at heart, inauthentic as Australians.

He suggests this minor, conservative, rejigging of the constitution is a chance to examine what sort of Australia we seek. Further, he considers there to be extraordinary possibilities from saying "yes", but profound costs of saying "no".

I am all for research into road safety and publicising important findings ("How to slow down young drivers", July 23), but it has to be research carried out in a meaningful way and building on past knowledge.

The reported research used driving simulators, biometric data and surveys to obtain information about young drivers' speeding behaviour.

There was no mention of age-group comparisons, so we do not know to what extent the findings are unique to young drivers. What we do know, however, from previous research, is that the information processing and decision-making involved in young people's driving behaviour is influenced by a number of factors, including: brain development (until about age 25, greater reliance on the amygdala, which processes emotions, rather than on the prefrontal cortex, which guides complex cognitive behaviour); age-related risk perception and the desire to take risks; the performance of "masculinity"; and the social contexts in which the driving occurs (with social influences often overpowering rational decision-making).

The findings on personalised driver feedback echoes previous studies. The 2009 AAMI annual young driver index found the most common factors influencing young driver behaviour were overconfidence, overestimation of driving ability and risk-taking, and that driver safety depends on abilities like hazard perception, personal risk perception, and the motivation to make safe choices. It is past time for all of this information to be used to develop effective road safety strategies.

No, Mark Kenny ("Our World Cup of social justice", July 23), sport is not the social, gender, political or diplomatic equaliser you like to think it is. It is money, pure and simple.

I have written previously on the obscenity of amounts paid to players and organisations in all sporting codes, domestic or international (at the professional, elite level).

There is absolutely no equality or "social justice" (in a sporting or community context) when one person, yes one, is paid $100 million for their services as a soccer player.

Having returned from a brief personal foray interstate I find myself reading letters about the Australian War Memorial.

Put simply, the AWM is a place for national reflection - reflection on the efforts and sacrifice of those who stood tall, (and who today continue to stand tall), in the business of the defence of Australia.

I'm thinking that perhaps those who think the aforementioned reflection glorifies war are simply misguided and they probably would be better off not attending the AWM at all.

Perhaps they might simply say "thank you" to those who have served, and those who continue to serve, in this nation's armed forces; arguably the highest calling to which a citizen can aspire.

I seek guidance from either the bureaucrats or politicians responsible for the implementation of the annual kangaroo cull.

What do we tell the children when they ask: "Where are the kangaroos, where have they all gone?"

I do not have an appropriate answer.

Now that the kangaroos have gone from the Red Hill Nature Reserve, perhaps the area should be renamed the St John's Wort Plantation.

Sadly, Australia is following the rest of the world in limiting access to sport to only those who can pay.

Anti-siphoning laws were introduced by the Keating government to give free-to-air broadcasters the chance to buy the television rights to major events.

The Albanese government is currently reviewing these laws.

Free-to-air TV stations often can't compete with pay TV operators and access is limited.

A perfect example of this is the Women's World Cup, one of the biggest sporting events ever to take place in Australia.

Channel 7 is showing 15 games out of 64, the rest are only available to Optus customers.

Rugby now has one game per week on free-to-air TV, plus Wallabies games.

Sport in Australia is now shown on numerous pay TV and streaming services. You would need to sign up to many different services.

How long will any sport be free and accessible to people who can't afford streaming services? I'm aware that sports need money and multibillion-dollar deals have been signed. But will sport always be available for everyone?

"Experts" have now diagnosed "time blindness" as a genuine thing.

My, this generation do love a label, don't they?

I had my first job at 15. I turned up on time.

At 17 I joined the navy and was instructed to always turn up five minutes early. In the 45 years since then I have never had "time blindness".

I've been to meetings where someone always turns up late, and I think to myself: "Why do you think that you are so self-important that you think it's acceptable to keep everyone waiting?"

It's not time blindness, it's disrespect to your employer and those around you.

What does it take for the Barr government to sack someone? Special Minister of State Chris Steel certainly is special.

A quick audit: $8.78 million for CIT gobbledygook poppycock; $76 million for abandoned HR system; $17 million-plus to fix the existing HR system.

That's over $100 million for nothing. I suggest lessons have not been learned and am waiting for the next fiasco. Could the minister for smelly bins please leave. Falling on your sword would be the best thing for everyone.

Peter Stanley (Letters, July 22) was free to tell the US sailors that AUKUS and ANZUS are not welcome.

But I hope, if he did so, he expressed thanks for the sacrifices of US and Australian service personnel, including the sailors of the original HMAS Canberra (after whom the current USS Canberra is named).

It's their sacrifice which enables him to express this opinion.

I also hope he made it clear that he is speaking for himself only and that he doesn't represent the people of Canberra, or Australia.

With wages going backwards it is disingenuous of the RBA to attribute inflation to workers by treating labour as expendable when at the same time cartels and price-setters receive bonuses and record dividends from obscene profits.

Linda Burney is very wise to decline Jacinta Price's offer to debate the referendum question; her inevitable defeat would help neither the Voice nor her career.

You know, Ed Highley (Letters, July 20), we, the people, have always mostly preferred paradise to the parking lot. But business finds it hard to make money out of paradise. So here we are, and the paving, drilling and blasting continue, to our detriment.

What's Linda Burney so afraid of that she won't debate Jacinta Price on the Voice referendum? Something to hide, perhaps, or no confidence in the push for the 'yes'? I don't think Albanese would be happy for it to go ahead, either, given her past performances.

Might I suggest to Gordon Fyfe (Letters, July 20) and others that if the service they receive from their bank is so atrocious it is time they changed banks.

Spare a thought for those of us who watch television, but who are not interested in soccer. The seemingly wall-to-wall, non-stop coverage of the "Tillies" is relentless.

I don't think Mr Moriarty gets it. ("Moriarty eyes consultant contract shift", July 21.) It is the public servants who usually train the consultants, because they commence contracts with little or no subject matter knowledge. And consultants demonstrably have little concept of "public value".

I have a simple argument in favour of the Voice to Parliament: "If we vote 'no' we will get nothing."

A Sydney woman who embezzled millions of dollars from the NAB has been sentenced to 15 years' jail. Often perpetrators of assaults, rapes and even murder receive a much shorter sentence. This says a lot about the values in our justice system, doesn't it?

The quotes from Patrick Hollingworth in your editorial of July 24 show he has all the skills needed by top management.

The Ashes Test being washed out should come as no surprise given Manchester's reputation for rain. In 1959, my uncle was driving my grandmother from Glasgow to London and took the wrong road. It started to rain. "We must be in Manchester," said my grandmother. They were.