$250m for AIS would be better spent on community facilities

When the elation and tears subside and the precious medals have been put away, what are we left with?

How motivated will the general public be to emulate our high-achieving athletes, knowing that the medal bonanza was largely made possible by the use of sophisticated facilities unavailable to the masses?

If the ultimate aim of the AIS is to genuinely promote a life-long sporting nation for all (rather than the acquisition of ephemeral trophies for a selected few) there may be better uses for $250 million.

The AIS could build a demonstration sports facility that, while leaving aside the advanced technology, is more affordable for poor councils and villages.

There may be more gold in the acronym AIS doubling as All In Sport.

Some media outlets are referring to the AIS windfall as an opportunity to return it to being a "gold medal" factory.

Now I may not be the sportiest of people (though I did win the Belconnen High Swimming carnival's under 14 Division 2, 50m backstroke) but I recognise the value to society of encouraging the population to be active.

The value of winning a gold medal at the Olympics pales into insignificance when considering all the other budgetary pressures we are facing.

Don't get me started on the need for a brand new sports stadium either.

While I welcome the federal government's budget allocation of $300 per household towards electricity costs I am curious as to how people like myself, who have a solar system that generates a credit, are going to benefit.

The allocation is apparently going directly to the electricity company ($75 per quarter) so it seems to me that it is only the electricity company who benefits. These companies will not be prepared to pay out a credit to the customer.

I did not get any contribution from the government to install my solar system so it appears that I, and others like me, totally miss out. Yet people whose income is considerably more than mine get the $300.

My suggestion would be for the government to pay the $300 into my gas account or to send me $300 so that I can convert my gas top stove to electricity.

I understand why the $300 electricity relief in the budget is given to every household.

The bureaucracy to means test the four deductions of $75 off each quarter electricity bill most likely would be significant and costly.

How about those who do not need it donate $300 to local community or food bank services that assist those struggling to pay their bills.

In 1917 the British government made the Balfour Declaration announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.

In 1948, following the 1947-48 civil war in the British mandate territory of Palestine the UN's declaration of the state of Israel sparked the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This resulted in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight from the land that Israel came to control.

Thus Israel was established as though Palestine was terra nullius. No wonder Palestinians were, and remain, resentful. Various conflicts ensued in the Middle East.

Behaviours such as of Israeli settlers in the West Bank exacerbate matters. Israel and Hezbollah continue in conflict. Iran is a provocateur.

Hamas is an insurgency. Its attack last October was rightly condemned world-wide. Israel has not been clever enough to make a counter-insurgency response. Instead, its "conventional warfare" approach has essentially demolished Gaza and killed many civilians.

Consequently Israel, too, has been rightly condemned world-wide; losing the moral high ground. Unsurprisingly, Hamas is undefeated. An insurgency, by its nature, just keeps on bobbing up again.

I am reminded of the failure of the "conventional" response by the United States to the Viet Cong insurgency in Vietnam.

There will be no resolution of conflicts in the Middle East until two separate states - Israel and Palestine - can accept coexistence. As things stand, I regret that there seems no prospect of this.

There is a certain irony in the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations theatrically shredding its charter last week because in law the only legitimacy Israel has derives from that body and it's resolution for partition in1947.

Without it everything else is callous land theft through violent dispossession and relentless oppression that started with the Nakba in 1948.

What shocks me more than anything else is the moral decay that so many of your correspondents and Western governments display in backing the wholesale destruction of Gaza, the slaughter of over 30,000 civilians and the dehumanisation of those who resist the Zionist project of total domination.

Neither the Holocaust nor centuries of European discrimination against Jews justifies the 76 years of the Palestinian nightmare.

If there is no justice and full restitution there will never be peace or security for Israel - short of the extermination or exodus 2.3 million people - and that is unthinkable, isn't it ?

Sunrise on Channel 7 had the gall to run an article on a decision by Albo to sell one of his Sydney investment properties. The tenant has been given notice to leave. Standard fare. The news has been linked by Sunrise to the Albo engagement. How?

But then Sunrise has to interview the tenant and seek an emotional response. "How do you feel?"

Seven, the folks who brought you Bruce, continues its slide to the bottom of the pit of tasteless and meaningless media beat-ups on Labor politicians.

Here in Canberra, where most pollies have investment properties, this is an everyday happening. But Sunrise focuses only on Albo's investment property. Why not on Dutton's?

I couldn't agree more with Peter Still (Letters, May 15) our current legal system is outdated and needs to be revised.

The Lehrmann defamation court case is a classic example of that.

To find someone guilty on the balance of probabilities of a very serious crime is highly inequitable. Why do we have to have two "grades" of judgement, the civil and the criminal?

Beyond reasonable doubt is the standard that should apply to all cases, and the sooner the better.

It may cost more and take longer but justice would prevail.

The ACT Parks rangers are currently undertaking "prescribed" burns to control the undergrowth (one could argue that if they stopped shooting the kangaroos the undergrowth may not be as high).

I assume that any ground dwelling small animal or lizard in the prescribed burn area is potentially scorched as well as the weeds and grasses.

The ACT government blames the kangaroos for the imminent extinction of the earless dragon (even though the two species have co-existed for thousands of years prior to humans arriving in the area) and uses this as a justification for their annual brutal slaughter (aka "conservation cull") of our national icon.

I would suggest more earless dragons are burnt alive than are stomped on or starved to death by kangaroo grazing. The more obvious threat to both the kangaroos and the dragons is never-ending development.

I am horrified by federal government's Future Gas Strategy, which is a plan for new gas developments to 2050 and beyond.

If we are to have any chance of a livable climate in the future we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not increase them. Here in Canberra the Labor/Green government has banned new gas connections because gas is a fossil fuel and burning it produces greenhouse gases.

Could our local elected federal ALP representatives follow the lead of the ACT assembly? The government justifies the increasing gas use as needed for Australian economic prosperity. Renewable energy is increasingly cost effective and reliable. There are no jobs on a dead planet.

I do not need $300 from the budget so I will be giving my $300 to the Salvation Army for those in need and would encourage others to do the same.

Annie Lang (Letters, May 16) likens the budget on television to Antiques Roadshow and New Tricks. At exactly the same time as the budget on Tuesday one could watch Would I Lie To You? on channel 22.

For decades we were told that Australia could not hope to sustain a competitive motor vehicle industry so we got rid of it. Now we are told we can sustain a massive military-industrial complex, including technologies such as nuclear we have never implemented before. Isn't it wonderful? Oops - sorry - wonder inducing?

This is a damn good budget by a damn good Labor government. It is as fair as anyone could reasonably expect or want. Critics should just recognise how much Albo and Jim are doing for all Australians. Go Jim.

There is a substantial cohort of folk who do not know the difference between a reduction in energy costs and a government (tax payer funded) subsidy.

There must have been two budgets delivered on Tuesday: one early in the evening which was described by many as responsible and measured. The second must have occurred after lights with reporting by all and sundry that there is nothing but doom and gloom and a sense of "we'll all be ruined". I missed the second one.

David McBride's sentence is a travesty of justice. He revealed war crimes committed by Australian forces. Rather than a prison sentence he should be nominated for an Order of Australia. How has the Department of Defence's cover up actually worked? The only person charged has been McBride.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. After a decade of advocating to save Canberra's kangaroos I've failed. The Greens have supported this policy since 2008. I can no longer remain a member.

According to Scott Morrison Donald Trump "warmly" embraced AUKUS. It is hardly surprising given that Australian taxpayers will provide about $3 billion in the first four years to expand American shipbuilding capacity.

The stretch of the southbound lane of the Tuggeranong Parkway at the crest of the hill between the Cotter Road and Hindmarsh Drive beggars belief. This is an arterial road servicing more than 100,000 people in an advanced Western country.