Morrison deserves praise for standing strongly with Israel

Whilst he can fairly be criticised for failing to have a vision for the future in the dying days of his reign as PM (for example, pushing for nuclear power), he still displayed leadership and principle during our darkest lockdown days in 2020 to 2022.

Our former PM, John Howard, always offers a constructive view on difficult issues, and Tony Abbott has shown his prescience on many occasions.

ScoMo standing for Israel shows conviction on the issue of terrorism against Israel, something most of the Labor government cannot find the fortitude to do. Let's hope in his post-PM life, ScoMo continues to take a stand on issues of importance.

As if the mess in the Middle East is not bad enough, former Australian PM Morrison and former British PM Johnson have decided to put their oars in the mess. These two are the worst PMs either country has had in the past century so why their intervention was considered necessary is a mystery.

Morrison was completely inept in foreign policy, China and France would happily concur, so one can only assume that whatever these two suggest then the opposite would be the best outcome. Surely it is time that Morrison stopped swanning around the world at the taxpayer's expense, pathetically seeking relevance and a new gig, and came home to do the job he is actually being paid for, representing the people of Cook.

So Qantas board member Todd Sampson has narrowly managed to hold on to his job. He claims that now more than ever the brand needs his marketing expertise to "revert Qantas back to its iconic status".

But "marketing" is all about manipulating perceptions, not reality. And the reality for Qantas has included artificially high fares, illegal outsourcing of activities, a scandalously generous remuneration package for its outgoing CEO, and the sale of tickets on non-existent flights.

During all these very real developments Sampson has been on the board cheering them on. He should be replaced with an individual well versed in good and ethical business practice.

ScoMo is apparently in Israel at present with Boris throwing their support behind the Israeli "take no prisoners", exterminatory approach in Gaza. Two failed politicians with no political influence, and who will never be statesmen, visit a war zone to spruik a line of support that opposes that of the Australian government.

Well, every tourist has his own view and should be able to express it. I question the news agencies that give those individual clowns any coverage.

The $13,000 spent on community councils each year does not go to wages, rather admin and things like ACT ACAT submissions. Given the number of Development Applications (DAs) brought to account it's a bargain.

Just one multi-storey building corrected by a community council would save hundreds of thousands and cancels the embarrassment of a failed government planning approval outcome.

We don't hear about the many DAs corrected by us either by lodgement of objections, or ACAT hearings or both. Chief Minister Andrew Barr doesn't get to see the objections, only some of the approved DAs. Barr has complained about the councils being full of old people. By and large they're the only ones able to participate in an unpaid role because most of the younger have families, full-time work and other commitments. With the community council members there can be a collection of different wisdoms, abilities and forgotten past DA failures - not a feature of ACTPLA.

An example of one large DA on Northbourne Ave taken to ACAT was identified by the two hearing senior members was the fire escapes were not to code (that's getting into the detail). If not for that Mr Barr, you would have had a dangerous DA approved. How many non-compliant DAs do we need? Can we please get half the same pay as your staff, and your planning department needs to change first.

One night recently my daughter and I were involved in a two-car collision. The "firies" were the first to arrive and their initial concern was the wellbeing of the people involved. The police also arrived quickly and they were professional, helpful and mindful of the fact that people had just suffered a traumatic event. Very soon after, an ambulance arrived and the two ambos were checking everyone out. I found them to be professionally efficient, effective and able to communicate clearly.

We were transported by ambulance to TCH emergency department and were again impressed by all the staff we had contact with - being triaged, nurses, nurses aides and doctors. We were surprised by how busy the ED was mid-week and can just imagine the pressure that they must face on Friday nights and over weekends. Although we had a pretty long wait before we were tested, treated and discharged it was apparent that others had conditions much more serious than ours.

On behalf of my daughter and myself, I would like to thank every one from the emergency services who handed out blankets, treated wounds, and calmed us down and the ED doctors and nurses who checked us over to ensure that we were fit and able to go to our homes.

On October 9 and 10 the Therapeutic Goods Administration approved new COVID-19 vaccines targeting XBB and its variants. But the new vaccines are not yet available to GPs and pharmacies.

XBB and its variants (especially EG.5) make up nearly 90 per cent of current cases. There are zero current cases of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5 (targeted by the vaccines currently available). It's critical that older age groups and other vulnerable people receive boosters that will give them the best protection, but there seems to be no sense of urgency from suppliers or governments to speed things up.

In light of discussion about war crimes on all sides in the Palestine/Israel conflict, it is worth casting our minds back to two Amnesty International reports.

The first is on a previous conflict between Israel and Hamas, "Operation Cast Lead" from 2008-09. This report makes clear the only actor who used civilians as human shields in that conflict was the Israeli Defence Forces. It notes that Israeli forces "repeatedly took over Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they used the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position - effectively using the families, both adults and children, as 'human shields' and putting them at risk."

Further, in several cases Israeli forces made Palestinian civilians, including children "walk in front of armed soldiers; go into buildings to check for booby traps or gunmen; and inspect suspicious objects for explosives."

The second Amnesty report worth noting is on Israel as an apartheid state: "Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis [and is] prohibited in international law."

It is unlikely there will ever be peace without all parties abiding by international law and addressing the wrongs of the Israeli apartheid system.

In encouraging us to listen to Hillary Clinton (Letters, November 6) Jane O'Neill states that we cannot trust Hamas, a terrorist organisation.

I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, and I certainly did not trust the IRA, INLA, UDA or UVF. But I also didn't trust the British government, nor its soldiers and police operating in Northern Ireland, rightly so as numerous investigations and inquiries have demonstrated.

Despite the rosy picture painted by the director general, all is not well at the National Library.

For a start the library is not honouring its mandate as stated in the Library Act of 1960 to collect foreign books as a first priority (it gets Australian books by copyright). For instance the library has zero books in the Indian language Telegu, a major world language.

The library should be collecting for all the over 300 ethnic groups even if the above is not done. Either way it should be collecting foreign books as a first priority.

The computers in the Main Reading Room are on their last legs and need replacing - just one of the things not working in the library. The library has no name, the National Library comes from the legislation. It should be called the World Library.

Tony May (Letters, November 7), I don't think Canberra police will be doing any shuddering when it comes to Jack's future birthdays. He is unlikely to be seen again in Canberra as he is now a resident of Sydney.

Rita Cor (Letters, November 2) seems to think that EVs are more expensive to recharge, presumably versus buying a tank of petrol. I don't know where she's buying her electricity or her petrol, but my experience is that driving an EV is usually less than half the cost of the equivalent distance driven by petrol. At home it's even cheaper than that, and if you charge off your solar panels it's free. Rita can let me know by return post when she gets free petrol at home.

The Canberra Liberals' $100 million suburb fund fails from first principles because it does not deal with the ACT government's legislative obligations to make all suburbs accessible for people with disabilities. The current Labor/Greens government also fails disabled Canberrans with a pathetic two or three suburb a year compliance commitment. So within a decade only 30 suburbs may be made partly accessible.

Is it possible to make the Greens absence from the Senate a permanent thing? They offer Australia little at the best of times and absolutely nothing during a Middle East crisis.

Cricket tragic, the late Michael Parkinson, once said "Australians are good losers, but they're notoriously poor winners". Judging from the Letters pages since October 14, the same might apply to some of the "no" voters. They might also note that while they won the referendum battle, for Indigenous Australians the war for long-overdue recognition is far from over. The weapons though should be reason, truth and above all, mutual courtesy and respect.

Former prime minister John Howard doesn't believe in multiculturalism in Australia. Does this mean his English cultural heritage should be wiped out and replaced by an indigenous culture Australia wide? Good on you Mr Howard. At last you have seen the light. Or have you? I don't think double-speak is recognisable by any of our multi-cultures. We are richer for all of our cultures - Italian, Greek, Indian , Chinese, all of Europe and Asia. But most emphatically our Indigenous cultures.

Unlike Rosemary Walters (Letters, November 5), I think electric buses are superior to trams. There is no reason why electric buses couldn't have their own special lanes so that there would be no disruption to traffic when stopping. Unlike trams there is no need for special tracks and overhead wires as well.

Rosemary Walters (Letters, November 5) highlights another advantage of bus rapid transit. Because BRT operates on dedicated roadways, its buses don't disrupt peak hour traffic when they pause at stops.

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