All wars are about slaughter and death. While war involves courage and sacrifice and brings out the worst and best in all involved, including the so called "enemy", it is still the result of politicians making decisions in which compassion and wisdom do not exist. War mongering politicians and war advocates of all types constantly display their willingness to destroy the lives and crush the humanity of all involved, while they go on wrapping themselves in false and hypocritical patriotism.

Typical Australian values should involve compassion, generosity, a good sense of humour and a simple and unadulterated love of life and family, the same as every other nation and peoples on the earth. In our world of multiculturalism, "typically Australian" does not and should not exist.

Patrick O'Hara, Isaacs

Bravo, Jenna Price. Anzac Day has grown in my lifetime from a national day of mourning and quiet reflection into a jingofest of faux-patriotism beloved of the scoundrels who take refuge behind it and the businesses that profit from it.

On one day of the year we tell ourselves that the virtues of egalitarianism, mateship and a fair go are national character traits, while on the other 364 we become ever more socially and economically stratified and successive governments vie with each other to impose ever greater acts of bastardry in our name on people who foolishly believe that we mean what we say.

I'll honour Anzac Day by refusing to participate in it. Instead, I'll take the opportunity to reflect on the lessons that it should have taught us but which we so studiously ignore: lessons about participation in foreign conflicts at the behest of Great and Powerful Friends; lessons about the consequences of war-for-profit adventurism; lessons about the lies we tell ourselves to excuse the inexcusable; and lessons about the futile waste of so many lives.

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

Once again with the announcement of the latest kangaroo cull in the ACT Frankie Seymour has written (Letters, April 16) expressing her outrage. Last year I had several letters published in the CT asking Ms Seymour to provide details of studies that have been published in peer reviewed scientific publications so that I, and no doubt others, can make up our own minds concerning the cull. This was met with a stony silence from Ms Seymour and other members of the Animal Liberation community.

Opponents of the cull took their reasons for stopping the cull to a tribunal where their claims were rejected, obviously because the ACT Government has provided what the tribunal considers to be the relevant scientific data.

I again ask Ms Seymour to either put up, or shut up, the relevant details from her side of the argument. Like her, I am also passionate about the environment and want to see all species given a chance. I do strongly reject her comment that the ACT Government wants to eliminate all the ACT's Eastern Grey Kangaroos. It is would be totally impossible to do so, and besides the ACT is a very large area surrounded by areas of NSW where kangaroos are abundant and can emigrate into the ACT.

K. Keevers, Kaleen

I read with interest the editorial "Big culture change needed at the AMC (Times2 April 21, p2). In addition to the failures at AMC highlighted, it seems there are other serious shortcomings that need to be addressed, if we as a community are serious about genuine rehabilitation.

Recently, I had a discussion with a young woman after she had been released from AMC. I asked her about employment opportunities and was surprised to discover that there was no assistance given to detainees to help them find work. She said that it was ok for the men as they could usually get work as builders' labourers. However, many of the women ended up as sex workers and/or dealing drugs as it was too difficult to get other work with a criminal record. In addition, drug and alcohol counselling is woefully inadequate.

Given that most detainees have a drug or alcohol problem which has contributed to their incarceration, wouldn't it be sensible to address this whilst they are at AMC? Surely we can and must do better than this.

Christine Hosking, Hughes

Greens Party member Peter Marshall (Letters, April 18) disingenuously argues that NSW Premier Mike Baird doesn't have a mandate for any policy, because the Liberal/National Coalition won only 46 per cent of the primary vote "...only marginally more than Labor and the Greens combined...". He ignores the reality that Baird won the election!

Any party which takes a clear, unambiguous policy to the electorate, as did the Baird Government in NSW, and ends up forming government on that basis, has a mandate to implement that policy. Mr Marshall's interpretation of what comprises a mandate is simply nonsense and is typical of the Greens Party subversion of fact and reality.

It should be remembered that the current ACT Government cannot claim a mandate for the Gungahlin tram project, because, unlike Baird in NSW and Andrews in Victoria, ACT Labor did not propose the project as a priority at the last ACT election, and won the same number of seats as the Liberal Party. Labor only formed Government through a dodgy deal on the tram with the Greens Party, which had been almost totally decimated at the election. Losing three out of four sitting members hardly forms the basis for claiming a "mandate"!

Rex Simmons (Letters, April 18) raises Simon Corbell's unconscionable actions in making it punitively expensive for any future Liberal Government to overturn the Light Rail project. However, any Liberal Government elected at the 2016 election will have a mandate to do just that and will be expected by the electorate to do so.

Peter Cummins, Monash

Sorry to see you go, Jack ("End of an era as Wateford leaves Canberra Times", April 23, p1) – but looking forward to your weekly columns. All the best.

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

I am stunned that the Committee for Economic Development of Australia is amazed to find one to 1.5 million being in poverty, "with little to no hope of getting out of that situation" ("A million Australians living in poverty", April 21, p1).

From my time in the old Commonwealth Employment Service, CEDA's recommendations will have little or no effect on solving the problem. Only being honest about the real unemployment figures mentioned in the ABS survey "Persons not in the labour force", 2 million unemployed or one vacancy for every 20 unemployed, will lead to real solutions not Micky Mouse ones such as training people for non-existent jobs or slave labour 'Work for the Dole'.

If we had the real unemployment figures accepted by both sides in Parliament and a guaranteed minimum income, paid via the Australian Tax Office, huge, expensive, employment, education and training empires would collapse or be greatly reduced with massive savings and we must then do what we did in the past. Introduce a shorter working week for all at no loss of income financed by the current cost of unemployment, which is massive.

Remember, at every stage in history, when we have reduced the working hours, doomsayers proclaimed that the end of the world would happen. Precisely the opposite happened. An age where we all have some work to do rather than some doing all the work, eventuated.

Marcus L'Estrange, St Kilda West, Vic

Jesuit Social Services commends the Committee for Economic Development of Australia on its research bringing attention to the disturbing finding that between 1 and 1.5 million Australians are classed as being in poverty, and we reiterate Committee Chief Executive Stephen Martin's assertion that this is as much an economic crisis as it is a social one. To break the cycle of poverty we must begin by providing access to basics many of us take for granted, like safe and secure housing, and then relentlessly target the disadvantage, at community level, that leads to poverty. Only when we provide people with the tools they need to build better lives and tackle locational disadvantage can we truly address these shameful statistics.

Julie Edwards CEO, Jesuit Social Services, Richmond, Vic

So the endless pursuit of "economic growth" (an ever "bigger" economy) driven by asset sales and unprecedented population growth has failed to deliver a net jobs benefit and created "A million Australians living in poverty" (April 21, p1). Given that it has also delivered a massive infrastructure deficit and failed to produce any 'quality of life' or environmental benefits, why does the concept remain challenged?

Will these negatives continue being amplified as we march towards a 'bigger' economy of 40 million by mid-century? It's time to ask ourselves; "who is benefiting?" and, "is it time to challenge our obsession with economic 'growth' and redefine what it really means to 'grow'?

Martin Tye, Broulee, NSW

Crispin Hull's characterisation of people with concerns about vaccination as 'crackpots' and 'conspiracy theorists' ("The nature of the beast", Forum, April 18, p2) does nothing to advance debate. My wife and I have had no contact whatsoever with any 'internet pseudoscience' but had to contemplate hard whether to vaccinate subsequent children after our eldest son suffered the onset of epilepsy which the leading specialist at the time (February 1994) explained as encephalitis following his Year 1 vaccination.

No doubt our son became a statistics inside the percentage recognised as suffering a serious side-effect to the relevant vaccination combination (one subsequently withdrawn in Australia), but over the next 20 years my wife and I could never fathom why doctors and specialists seeking to manage our son's condition (which involves about 1000 seizures a year) would virtually cover their ears and mouth whenever we mention the early diagnosis.

How can we get the best individual treatment, best epidemiological data and best public health outcomes in future if we let a fear draw a cloak of silence?

Indeed, perhaps more effective in improving participation in vaccination campaigns might be the confidence building that comes with honestly alerting consumers to side-effect risks and signs to look for and having adequate ways to support for people who suffer serious-side effects.

Dr John Gardiner-Garden, Yarralumla

Now that Tony Abbott has made it virtually compulsory for all children to be vaccinated in Australia, when will he introduce a compensation scheme for those children who are significantly and permanently disabled by these vaccines?

The Therapeutic Good Administration records details of some of these adverse reactions but admits that, because reporting is voluntary, the records may be as low as 10 per cent of actual adverse reactions.

The USA has a compensation scheme that pays out many millions of dollars each year for affected children so why doesn't Australia? Is Mr Abbott waiting until individuals sue him and the Government for their disability? He might find he needs the $26 million set aside for coercion to vaccinate, for compensation!

David Hobson, Spence

The article "Learn how to shoot like a sniper" (April 23, p8) is a horrifying report of a Melbourne gym which "teaches Israeli army combat techniques to ... civilians ... to use firearms as snipers". This is on Australian soil not somewhere in the Middle East, and worthy of the horror we give to the more prominently reported IS activities on page 4 of the same edition. Why do we need civilians to be trained in "Krag Maga, a form of combat used by the Israeli army"? We need to know more about this local group and what forms of control are being imposed on them.

Marguerite Castello, Griffith

The ACT government has a new policy where, if you see mushrooms growing, you ring them and they come out and destroy them, as a way of protecting the ignorant. On Monday, I went to an area where I have been collecting mushrooms since I was a child in the early 1960s but was just too late. Fortunately, the mower had been set on high, so the buttons were left behind, and I collected lots.

Instead of encroaching on our quality of life, why not erect temporary signs saying "Many mushrooms are deadly. If you are not familiar with the mushrooms growing in this region do not pick and eat wild mushrooms." Given recent fatalities, these signs could be written in several languages.

Toxic plants such as oleander, cotoneaster, whiter cedar and rhus are common in public areas and many were available on the ACT Free Plants Scheme. Will the next step be to destroy these? (and by the way, the death caps on Scrivener Street and Suttor Street were looking really pretty today).

Dave Rowell, O'Connor

Do federal government ministers have any idea what they are doing to their skilled senior bureaucrats? Happily, I am not one of them but my ear has become tuned to the personal evidence of a number of high- placed women public servants who have disappeared from my life (and that of others) as valuable friends because their weeks have become a relentless six to seven 12-hour days' grind of meticulous work for their minister's incessant demands. Challenged to think laterally (as their skills require) in states of sustained exhaustion, some of these dedicated bureaucrats have chosen to resign. Others appear too fearful to resist.

Is it no longer possible at Commonwealth level to have a civilised civil service?

Ann Moyal, Bruce

WRECKING DELIGHT

I was delighted to read tenders have been called to topple Currong flats and there was no heritage shield for Allawah and Bega units ("Wrecking ball poised to swing", April 17, p1). I have been living in my unit close to the ABC flats for over 20 years and can't wait to see the end of the them.

Anne Prendergast, Reid

THAT'S ENOUGH

How offensive, when resources are dwindling, habitats and eco-systems are failing, and extinctions are multiplying that Giulia Jones should be "celebrating" the arrival of progeny No.5 ("Jones takes arrival of baby No5 in her stride", April 21, p3).

One wonders if self-obsessed human beings will wake up to the reality that enough is enough, and that belief in growth-based economics needs to be rethought.

Stephen O'Neill, Page

NO MORE WARS

This week, as we commemorate the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli, spare a thought for serving members of the Australian Defence Force. As a Vietnam veteran, I suggest we show our respect for these men and women by never sending them, or their successors, to be killed, maimed, or otherwise brutalised in unnecessary wars.

Peter Grabosky, Forrest

APOLOGIES, ANGUS

Oh my God; did I malign the wrong Angus? Seeing as I'm not a professional pundit like, for example,

Andrew Bolt, I'll just say "So Sorry" to Angus Houston and to the letter readers.

S.W. Davey, Torrens

SECRET DEBATES

Is "sovereign risk" ("Canberra Liberals on wrong side of light rail debate", Times2, April 20, p5) part of the business lexicon to "commercial in confidence" and "privacy considerations" – phrases used so all facts cannot become public, thus leading to voiding threats because of secrecy?

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

ABBOTT TO BLAME

By now we are all aware that Tony Abbott is responsible for the non-existent global warming, obesity, Ebola and every other real or imagined blight affecting us. And now, according to Graham Macafee (Letters, April 22) he is also the cause of radicalised Australian jihadists. What next?

Owen Reid, Dunlop

GET IT RIGHT

Ric Hingee (Letters, April 22) berates William Maley for calling refugee detention centres "abuse factories".

I agree. Call them what they really are – concentration camps.

John Passant, Kambah

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