Celebrate the gold or other medals we win by all means. Might I suggest, however, that we also should take satisfaction, even pride, that we participate and enjoy considerable success in almost every Olympic sport. Coming in fourth or sixth, even qualifying for an Olympic final in any event is something we should all be proud of.

Finally, it has long been my belief that all Olympic finalists deserve official recognition – a different sort of medal perhaps but at least an appropriate certificate.

Bob Budd, Curtin

Unnecessary pressure

"Act in haste, repent at leisure" comes to mind when looking at some of our Olympic team performances. As a past competitive sportsman in a number of different sports it seemed obvious that many of our team sports athletes did not have the patience to hold on to possession and take the time to suss out who was not being closely marked and then pass accurately to a team mate who wasn't.

Both the pressure to perform and the expectation of medals that media placed on our elite athletes led to hurried decisions and numerous errors. It will be interesting to see the results of inquiries into what happened and how unnecessary pressure can be taken off our athletes in the future. And each time one of our favourites fails, more pressure and stress is put on remaining ones yet to compete.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

'Old boy' network

In a bid to improve Australia's results on the rowing lake at future Olympics, former Olympic rower Sarah Cook has called for the adoption of a lottery funding system, similar to what they have in Britain ("Brennan's former partner urges athlete funding overhaul", August 16, p45). This funding model has been credited with Britain's dominant performance in sports such as rowing over the last few Olympiads.

The problem with a lottery funding model, particularly when applied to a sport like rowing, is that it is grossly unfair. Lottery revenue is always disproportionally sourced from low income households.

In contrast, Australia's Olympic rowers are generally sourced from anything but low income households. They are almost always from affluent backgrounds and are graduates of Australia's elite private schools. Do we want a situation where pensioners buying lottery tickets are funding the Olympic dreams of the sons and daughters of the economic elite? If Australian rowing has a funding problem it would do well to look internally, to the vast sums of wealth it has in its own community and expansive "old boy" network, rather than looking to the generous hand of Australia's punters.

Zac Cleaver, Richmond, Vic

Uncontained argument

I was intrigued to read of Sue Pittman's concerns (Letters, August 17) about the appearance of shipping containers in suburban front yards in Kambah – despite apparently stringent ACT planning rules governing such eyesores. Your correspondent might be amused to learn of our experience when a 40-foot container appeared in the front yard opposite our home, perpendicular to the street and only 2 metres or so from the front boundary. We wrote to the Environment and Planning Directorate to query whether this was approved. We were told (by way of reference to legislation) that our inquiry was frivolous. When we sought a review of the decision not to consider the matter the decision was upheld and we were further informed that the Directorate did not have the resources to investigate such things. Copies of these responses are available for your amusement. Meanwhile, the container remains in place.

In this election year, The Canberra Times might have more luck than a mere citizen in persuading the Directorate or Mick Gentleman to comment on why containers are permitted, if only by omission.

Ian Warfield,Giralang

Taxpayer subsidy

The 400 hours community service (and get-out-of-jail-free card) awarded to the former public servant who defrauded the Australian Tax Office of $521,719 between April 2008 to July 2010 ( "Embezzler 'motivated by greed"', August 17, p2) equates to a tax-payer subsidy of: (1) $1,304.30 per community hour to be worked or (2) a top-up of $18,632.82 per month to his public service income for the period.

An intriguing decision given the continuing and costly legal vendetta against David Eastman who has already served 19 years behind bars.

M. Macphail, Aranda

Indigenous wildlife

The answer to Mike Dallwitz's question (Letters, August 8) to my original letter as to why kangaroos will continue to be slaughtered every year by the ACT government is all around him.

Nobody could fail to notice the "infill" of Canberra's green spaces. As a Canberra resident of 40 years, I am saddened by the loss of habitat and the disappearance of kangaroos from my local parkland. Canberrans might not be aware that the nature reserves which surround their suburbs is unleased government land, which can be rezoned for commercial development at any time.

The ACT government ecologist admitted during the 2013 ACT Civil Administrative Tribunal hearing that the government's assertions that kangaroo grazing is a danger to threatened species was just "PR". It is clear the government is using this "PR" to lie to Canberrans in order to hide their real motive behind killing these innocent and beautiful animals, so essential to the survival of Australian ecosystems.

That's why I will be voting for the Animal Justice Party in this year's ACT election. Its platform is to protect an environment that supports the needs of people as well as our indigenous wildlife.

Robyn Soxsmith, Animal Protectors Alliance

According to Community and Public Sector Union deputy national president Rupert Evans ("Immigration jobs to go", August 17, p1), a proposed cut of between 300 and 800 staff "is a bitter blow to these workers, who have families to support and who deserve better" and "the government's budget cuts are forcing DIBP to sack workers".

Evans used the word "sack" very loosely because as soon as the cuts were announced, Immigration and Border Protection department employees starting conducting a mini-Olympics to determine who will have a chance to win one of the coveted voluntary redundancies, which to many people are a $100,000 tax-free retirement present.

By all means, show concern for the staff who don't win a prize, and will have to carry an increased workload.

But let's not pretend anyone will be sacked and have to resort to begging in the street to feed their family.

As any public servant could tell you, that's not the way the VR lottery works.

D.Zivkovic, Aranda

No inquiry necessary

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has called for a Senate inquiry into allegations of abuse in Australia's refugee detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru. Perhaps he not aware that Senate committees have already published reports on Manus Island in 2014 and Nauru in 2015.

There have also been numerous other reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Australian Human Rights Commission, former Integrity Commissioner Philip Moss, medical officers, staff of Save the Children and the Salvation Army, and many more.

All of these reports have condemned the institutionalised abuse which occurs in the detention centres.

Earlier this year Madeline Gleeson published a 500-page book titled Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru which draws together all of these reports into one volume. We don't need yet another inquiry which will ensure that nothing happens for at least 12months.

We need immediate action to close the detention centres and treat the inmates with thecompassion and respect which are the right of every human being.

Charles Body, Kaleen

A cross to bear

Simon Tatz ("We must retain legal standard on what's acceptable when it comes to insults, abuse", Comment, August 17, pp20-21) confounds religion with race and ethnicity in defending Section 18C. Any statutory limits on freedom of speech should be minimal. Offering serious offence – or worse – based only on a person's unavoidable inherent characteristics is so reprehensible that recourse to law, rather than common decency alone, may be warranted.

But religion is different. It is a matter of choice. Debate on it should not be stifled.

Yes, people of Jewish ancestry should not have to suffer anti-Semitism. But those who now espouse a Jewish – or Islamic, or Rastafarian, or indeed any – religious faith must accept that their voluntary beliefs and practices may validly be subject to criticism that they may find "offensive".

After all, many find religiously-inspired (or indeed, any) genital mutilation – of any gender – to be offensive. Is it anti-Semitic to say so?

Religiously mandated dietary practices are often risible in contemporary society, let alone the associated anachronistic superstitions. May we not say so? If 18C is to be claimed to suppress expressions of opinion on matters of religious choice, then the case for retention is weakened.

Mike Hutchinson, Reid

When meat is murder

Rex Williams (Letters, August 17) quite rightly says that killing valuable milk-producing cows for meat is a public disgrace and we should be absolutely ashamed. But should we be ashamed only because of their value for producing milk for human consumption?

Most Aussies abhor animal cruelty, so should our shame extend further?

Just as slow greyhounds are "waste" in that industry, so too are male calves termed "waste" in the dairy industry.

The 1.75 million dairy cows in Australia must, like all mammals, produce babies to produce milk. Statistically, half those babies will be male. Males are of no use for milk production. So they are quickly taken from their mothers and either slaughtered on the farm or, when only days old, loaded into trucks for the abattoir.

Some female calves will be kept to replace the mothers too old to produce the requisite amount of milk to earn their keep (who, in turn, are sent to slaughter), but many meet the same fate as their brothers. What are the numbers of "waste" calves slaughtered annually in Australia so we can drink milk? Most recent industry figures put the figure at about 400,000. Fragile, baby animals. Shameful indeed.

Jan Darby, Isabella Plains

Schooling Xenophon

Although he is a politician, I quite like Nick Xenophon. He is mostly forthright and, prima facie, has honestly held views – apart, of course, from his misguided and mischievous census intervention.

However, he is not old enough to experience, as I have, the character-building and very warm and often curdled, magpie pre-sampled milk delivered to school children back in the age he evokes.

Doubtless he will now follow-up with a call to schools to restore the quaint, long-lost tradition of children saluting the Australian flag on arrival at school and the singing whatever uninspiring, insipid, back-of-the-cereal packet anthem is currently in vogue since the not unexpected demise of God Save the Queen.

A.Whiddett, Yarralumla

Unwelcome visitors

The Australian veterans who expected a welcome in a country they helped trash on behalf of another nation should note that Germans have never felt entitled to hold commemorative services in Stalingrad. Yes, the parallel stands up to scrutiny more than adequately once you set your politics aside.

They could expect more in Vietnam were they also to visit formally from time to time to grieve for a land disfigured by bomb craters, and a people still traumatised by unexploded ordnance, the use of napalm, and ongoing war chemicals-related cancers and birth defects. Not everyone abroad finds no fault anywhere over anything that Australians have ever done.

(Dr) Alex Mattea, Kingston

MEMORIAL SHOULD BE USED

It is definitely a matter for Vietnam "to decide what commemorations are held in its country". After all, one does not organise some private party at the neighbours' place to celebrate the day they were helped during a tragedy. Long Tan commemorations should stay at the Australian War Memorial.

Noelle Roux, Chifley

FRENCH TRIBUTE EXISTS

Bernard Davis (Letters, August 19) claims there are no memorials in France to commemorate that country's war in Indochina. The good people of Frejus, near Toulin, will be sorry to hear that the national memorial in their town, to honour French losses in Indochina, does not exist.

David J. Richards, Moruya, NSW

BARE ALL, BEAR THE BRUNT

If you publish a naked photograph of yourself, you can hardly complain about the consequences ("Porn ring targets five schools in the ACT", August 18, p1).

Alan N. Cowan, Yarralumla

A question for all this city's digital-savvy citizens: how come hactivists can shut down our census website yet we can't shut down an overseas porn website targeting Australian school children?

John Howarth, Weston

One can only imagine what the parents of the schoolgirls who took photos of themselves naked, were doing at the time. Or not.

C. Clarke, Tuggeranong

DAIRY COWS OVER PROFIT

I agree wholeheartedly with Rex Williams (Letters, August 17) about the slaughter of beautiful milking cows. I made a decision a long time ago not to buy $1 milk. Dividends to investors should not be the highest priority for corporations involved in animal husbandry.

Helen O'Brien, Evatt

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