That leaves Tony Abbott in the company of those other heads of government, such as Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-un, who share his distaste for such United Nations "lecturing". I suspect most Australians are far less sick of the UN than they are of Tony Abbott. Yet while the Mexican standoff over the Coalition's leadership simmers on, we will continue to endure the attack dog that lies just beneath Mr Abbott's new sugar coating. In the meantime he might have the decency to avoid imputing his own views to those of his compatriots.

Ray Edmondson, Kambah

One assumes in the forlorn hope that no one will notice that the policies and the actions complained about by the UN Committee Against Torture, and which have resulted in the gross abuse of asylum seekers and their possible torture, were initiated and implemented by a Labor government. In similar ilk and for the same reasons the ALP is yet to say what it thinks of the recommendations in the recent Human Rights Commission report on the detention of children.

The UN Committee Against Torture, in its remarks on Australia's asylum seeker policies, made a range of recommendations about the sorts of policies that Australia might adopt to ensure compliance with our international obligations.

Almost all of the suggestions are consistent with the ALP's National Platform as it relates to asylum seekers.

The shame of it is that the Leader of the Opposition along, I presume, with the whole of the shadow cabinet and a majority of the caucus have abandoned the Platform in favour of the current inhumane policies, including the indefinite and mandatory detention of children in offshore hellholes. There is, regrettably, no evidence to suggest that the Labor Party has any intention of reverting to the principled position set out in the Platform.

Jon Stanhope, Bruce

Tony Abbott has been wrong in the past, but in the matter of propping up at staggering cost the lifestyle of dispersed peoples whose lifestyle is solely their choice, is certainly not one of them. We will see yet another media circus by the likes of Sarah Hanson-Young, perhaps the most single-minded Senator whose only claim to fame is seeing everything like this as a bandwagon for her biased views. You are right this time, Mr Abbott.

Rhys Stanley, via Hall, NSW

The seemingly on-the-run policy of withdrawing support for remote Indigenous communities can just as easily be extended to asking why the big island continues to support the little island or why taxpayers continue to support other disadvantaged communities. As Noel Pearson said on ABC radio, the Prime Minister's "thought bubble" shows no respect to the communities concerned. I'd go further and say it shows no respect to all Australians. We deserve better.

A broad policy of redistribution has been a part of the Australian landscape for millennia. The Indigenous communities have been sharing since the year dot. Aboriginal communities have a strong sense of sharing from which the latter boat (and plane) arrivals could learn. So I beseech the government for better policy on this matter and on many other policy questions presented as "thought bubbles".

Denis Waters, Nicholls

Perhaps it is a "chosen life style," but these people do what their ancestors did 40,000 years ago - on "their country": they hunt, they fish, they weave, they paint. Why surely, they must be almost self-sustaining?

Let's go on paying to help our Indigenous people go on living their "chosen life style."

Barrie Smillie, Duffy

It makes my blood boil to read letters like Frank Parsons' (Letters, March 11) when I consider my own situation and, I suspect, that of many others.

After working and paying taxes for well over 40 years I recently found out that I am not entitled to a government old age retirement pension, even though my (employer funded) superannuation income is minimal and will soon run out. I am not even entitled to a Seniors Card or any other concession related to old age retirement. The reasons? My wife's income as a teacher!

So, all my working life I have been an individual taxpayer but on turning 65 I suddenly became an appendix to my wife's earnings. On the other hand, those individuals quoted by F. Parsons on $150,000 pensions from their SMSF are free to exploit any loophole they can find in our unfair and deficient, tax system.

I can only repeat the sentiments I have already expressed in a number of letters, "The evils of superannuation are real".

John Rodriguez, Florey

It's a bit rich, isn't it? Our federal members of parliament - who earn a whopping 50 per cent more than their British counterparts' salary of £67,060 - are telling pensioners they must lose ground relative to average wages so we can get the national books back in order.

Specifically, the proposition to erode the basis on which the pension will rise incrementally in future years is coming to us via the tonsils of a prime minister whose salary starts at $507,000 per annum - a hundred grand more than that with his various allowances.

This matches (or exceeds) the pay cheque of the President of the United States.

Oh, for the selfless life of community service of an Australian politician!

Ross Kelly, Monash

The sale of Canberra City Bowling Club by the Ainslie Group has been threatening since before the club was fighting to retain bowlers' access in 2010 ("Club members fear land sale", March 10, p1). Access had been blocked by removal of all three- and four-hour parking zones and creation of 'No Stopping' zones in Elder and Farrer streets, Braddon (Letters, Jan 21).

The issue is a land grab, just as it was for the Braddon club, the old Leagues Club. "Community heavyweight" and bowls club member John McKay dismissed the Braddon as "just pokies and booze" but it was much more before it was run into the ground and "developed" by an absentee landlord. It had a large sports oval, a heritage listed keeper's cottage, a beer garden which extended into a grove of mature, shady pine trees, a TAB, a popular restaurant and extensive parking.

The underlying issue is the change of use allowed to absentee landlords who profit from the sale of a resource granted to a local community with no return to that community. Recent beneficiaries are the Brumbies, the Raiders and the Catholic Church.

Gary J. Wilson, MacGregor

Good on John Mackay ( "Club members fear land sale", March 10, p1) for going in to bat for the Canberra City Bowling Club retaining its presence in Braddon, at least for some time.

It's a pity though that Mackay didn't take up the cudgels for the Braddon Club. The Raiders, of which he is a board member, have turned it into a dusty unsightly, indeed ugly rubbish strewn car park.

And it has been like that for some time waiting for the Raiders to cash in on redeveloping the site as a commercial/ residential complex. It is another example where land set aside for community purposes is disappearing from the inner North.

Rob Palfreyman, Braddon

The answer's obvious: if a club wants to redevelop its concessional land, it repays the concession.

Bob Gardiner, Kambah

I must admit to wondering if there was a hidden pun in the surname of intrepid correspondent Peter Trickett (Letters, March 11). It seemed beyond belief to compare the vile razing of Assyrian artefacts and culture by Daesh thugs with the planned demolition of Third World housing complexes on Northbourne Avenue. I rarely concur with much of what our Chief Minister has to say. On this issue I am 100 per cent behind him.

These vile concrete boxes are an eyesore. A miserable place that reeks of desperation. It is well past the time where they should have been demolished and replaced with suitable housing for both public and private tenants.

T.J. Farqahar, Ainslie

The Northbourne Avenue flats debate has intrigued me. I am in favour of keeping some of them. Heritage is not merely related to the grand, exotic, and famous architects. It is a way to remember the past in a tangible fashion.

Buildings with no style, or architectural merit are already preserved. Think of Blundell's cottage, a building with no merit architecturally or aesthetically; the surveyor's hut on State Circle, barely worthy as a garden tool shed; the school house at St John's in Reid, all the architectural merit of a suburban garage; Calthorpe's house, which is distinguished as a bland suburban home owned by a real estate agent; Manning Clarke house, which is only preserved because Clarke lived there; Beaufort house in Ainslie, with all the charm of a Sydney western suburbs fibro of the 1950s; the area around Ainslie shops, which has dull little red brick houses of no architectural merit which were adequate for a labourer's family in the 1930s; the woolshed at the airport, which is a box painted white. As we love big things, like the big banana, we could market it as the big tissue box.

Melbourne boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. It lost many amazing buildings in the CBD and inner suburbs, mostly due to them being old fashioned. Hobart languished at the same time and the little slums, such as on Arthur Circus, remained. The Circus is now world renowned as an almost perfect Georgian streetscape. Sydney's Paddington was nasty little slums which if the land had been worth anything in the 1950s would have been bulldozed. The smallest, nastiest slums now start at $1m.

Canberra has the chance to remember where it began.

Brian Hatch, Red Hill

As ACT Heritage Council chairman David Flannery (Letters, March 10) says legislation lays down the criteria the Council must follow in making heritage decisions. However, they are so broad and vague as to be capable of different interpretations by different people. But the most serious defect is that they don't include what many people would regard as the most important criterion of all - the cost of heritage listing, including reductions in the value of the land involved, is sometimes quite dramatic. And the classic case is the current proposal to heritage-list the Northbourne Avenue public flats. I very much doubt that the Council could, in all conscience, heritage-list them if it was required to have regard to that criterion.

R.S. Gilbert, Braddon

Jenna Price ("Women in hospitals: put upon and harassed", Times2, March 10, p5) rightly defends the comments by Dr Gabrielle McMullin highlighting the apparently high levels of sexual harassment among surgeons.

Jenna is also surely correct to point out that stamping this out in a high-achieving workplace, where females comprise only 10 per cent of surgeons, requires profound change to the professional culture and seeming institutional denial involved.

Part of Jenna's proposed solution is, understandably, to eradicate career-path obstacles that discourage female participation and increase the number of female surgeons to parity with male ones.

While agreeing with Jenna's thrust, I note that journalism is a trade with such parity and much fewer career obstacles, yet one still subject to levels of recent sexual harassment 2-3 times the community average - as measured in surveys by the journalist's own union (54 per cent) and two university studies (50-60 per cent). I am therefore puzzled why the media rarely, if ever, covers this serious situation when researching it requires no travel, little effort and a superb professional challenge.

Perhaps the practice and institutional denial concerning it is too culturally embedded?

Neil James, executive director, Australia Defence Association

On a brief overnight visit to Cradle Mountain in Tasmania recently I was impressed by the large number of people parking their vehicles at the visitor centre outside the World Heritage Area and taking shuttle buses to Dove Lake where several walks begin. Some were like me, not walkers but day visitors just having a look and not venturing far.

This experience led me to think about Namadgi National Park, which occupies almost half of the ACT, and how it could be promoted to enable more people to see its marvels. Perhaps a grand path linking the more prominent mountains - for example, Sentry Box, Gudgenby, Kelly, Burbidge, Namadgi, Yankee Hat - could be devised and promoted as the Namadgi Mountains Track. It could start/end at the old Boboyan Homestead site and require little construction work, if any. But there would have to be track markers, easily visible and well maintained.

If the walk took three or four days well-equipped huts could be built at strategic locations for guided walkers and camping facilities provided for those who prefer to rough it.

As at Cradle, shuttle buses at the Namadgi Visitor Centre could take walkers to the start point and bring them back once the walk was completed. Outdoor experiences could be devised for those who want to have a look without engaging in the demanding track walk.

Given Namadgi's huge size it would not be difficult to devise similar tracks in other parts of its vast expanse thus encouraging more visitors. I think such a proposal would be better than promoting Namadgi as one enormous entity with many values, as at present.

It would complement the outstanding Canberra Centenary Trail marking the city's first 100 years.

Graeme Barrow, Hackett

IT'S CRIMINAL

The Liberal Party plans to raise "tens of millions" from US donors (Letters, March 9). If an American politician tried the same here, they would be committing a federal crime under US law. Does that seem right?

Michael Barry, Torrens

WHAT SNARED JULIA

Stephanie Peatling ("Julie and Julia: How Julie Bishop appears to have avoided the traps that snared Julia Gillard", canberratimes.com.au, March 10) misses the point. Very simply, Julie Bishop has competently handled her job without all the fanfare the community were subjected to by Julia Gillard. Ms Gillard suffered from a chronic case of "The Peter Principle" which left her exposed to constructive criticism from fair-minded voters.

Brendan Ryan, Mawson

HOW ABOUT AN AUSSIE?

I fully support the initiative by The Canberra Times to publish ANZAC Day Tributes, but I do wonder if your notice (March 10, p2) wouldn't be much better if you used the photo of an Australian soldier rather than the American GI currently used in the illustration.

Kym MacMillan, O'Malley

LIFESTYLE CHOICES

If it is a "lifestyle choice" for some Aboriginal people to want to continue to live on their ancestral land and therefore too expensive to maintain them - Tony Abbott's description - then it is also a lifestyle choice to be a Catholic or a member of any other church? So why is the government giving tax concessions to churches?

Mary Virr, Kambah

Lifestyle choices, my foot! What a despicable man. To help with the eradication of foot 'n mouth disease in Australia, is it time we put the PM in quarantine?

Peter Dahler, Calwell

A FAIR GO FOR ALL

Given that both the Commonwealth government and the Opposition loudly proclaim their absolute support for a "fair go" for all Australians, we can assume that both will keenly support a motion to index their Parliamentary pensions at the same rate as ordinary pensioners.

Digby Habel, Cook

JORDAN NOT A DEPUTY

My letter on the neoliberal capture of the Australian Tax Office (March 7) was edited to give the impression that Chris Jordan was a deputy commissioner before coming commissioner. He has never been a deputy commissioner of taxation. The Labor government in 2013 appointed him from the ranks of the tax-avoidance industry (KPMG via the Board of Tax).

John Passant, Kambah

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