I strongly recommend that the ACT government consider using a new slogan proclaiming ‘‘Canberra: the Drone Capital’’.
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In considering this one should not just think about the modern aerial drone, but also the traditional meanings of drone: a bee that does not work, talking monotonously, and the general concept of a fairly ineffectual person.
The aerial drones have their pluses and minuses, depending partly on one’s point of view, as observation platforms, as military weapons and as delivery platforms.
Military drones can observe and kill cheaply and remotely, a perceived benefit if they’re on your side.
Observation drones can help in many ways, but in the wrong hands can close airports and hinder firefighters.
Drones can noisily and intrusively deliver pizzas and other goodies to consumers in competition with less annoying established methods.
The drone delivery area is where our ACT government stands out as being an innovative world leader, bravely pushing ahead despite the disapproval of the bulk of its citizens, and this is my main reason for suggesting the new slogan.
A secondary reason is that Canberra could be considered to have more than its fair share of human drones, for example some of our politicians.
Some fly in to drone on about the needs of our nation without actually providing realistic solutions.
Then there are those home-grown politicians who drone on about local politics, often supporting counter-intuitive local policies and priorities.
I rest my case for putting the new slogan before the world, perhaps with an initial emphasis on number plates.
Neville Exon, Chapman
Heritage integrity
The community consultation in Hall completed in February 2018 identified four alternative sites for the proposed bike track and resolved to refer heritage matters to the Heritage Council for a decision.
The Heritage Council ruled against the proposed site in October 2018 and suggested the community explore one of the four alternative sites.
Those who still wish that the bike track be constructed in the Aboriginal Protected Zone have been trying to discredit the Heritage Council and besmirch local heritage experts Dr Ken Heffernan and Dr Jan Klaver.
Ken’s integrity remains intact since he removed himself years ago from any decisions of the Heritage Council concerning Hall.
Many of us are grateful that we have people of such integrity as Jan and Ken in our community.
Robert Yallop, Hall
Unfair energy offer
I believe that the ActewAGL offer on electricity and gas is unfair.
Their offer is a 20 per cent reduction in usage charges if one has a direct debit and emailed accounts.
However, if one continues to require a posted account ActewAGL’s offer removes 6 per cent of that reduction.
For me that would be about $150 a year and for others it could be much more.
I have had direct debit for many years but wish to retain posted paper copies of my accounts. I have a rickety computer and uncertain computer skills which are likely to get worse.
$150 is way, way, way above the cost of providing that bill. This is grossly unfair and unreasonable.
Philida Sturgiss-Hoy, Downer
Flagging an issue
R Salmond (January 24) raises an issue with the Australian flag. This wisdom from the Chronicles of Dunnyguru is pertinent.
Pilgrim: What flag would you prefer, Dunnyguru?
D: If flag there must be, I would prefer one of plastic clear.
P: Why so?
D: If the sky be clear then those that look at the flag would ponder and say ‘‘This flag reminds me of home when the summer sun scorches the earth’’, and if the sky be dark with clouds those that gazed upon the flag would ponder and say ‘‘This flag reminds me of home when the sky promises rain after a long drought’’.
P: But the Cross is so much of our heritage.
D: At night you would see the stars. A flag of plastic clear would remind us all, Pilgrim, that we are but one race that live under but one sky and that we should not be divided one against one.
Peter Snowdon, Aranda
Dead trees a hazard
Do ACT government politicians get around with their eyes closed?
For months now I have asked the ACT government to cut down the dead pine trees on City Hill. Since I began telling them, more and more trees have died so the top of City Hill is just one mass of dead trees and no doubt will all be dead soon. Doesn’t the government know there is a bush fire warning raging at present? The soil on the top of the hill must be getting dryer and dryer. Fortunately, the pencil cypress do not seem to be affected.
I wrote to NCA just before Christmas and complained about their negligence in ignoring a huge, dead pine tree next to the Albert Hall leaning over the road with the potential to crush a family car. Another pine nearby had fallen, fortunately not across the road. All this in spite of the fact NCA makes $46,000 a day in parking fees in the Parliamentary Triangle. When our government gets back to work members should go around the ACT, including Haig Park, check the dead and dying trees, do something about it, and heed their own bushfire warnings.
Penelope Upward, O’Connor
Figures in focus
According to the ACT government’s OUR CBR newsletter (Tuggeranong edition, Jan/Feb 2019), the Tuggeranong Walk-in Centre – which is open from 7.30am to 10pm every day – is treating more than 60 Tuggeranong residents a day for minor injuries and illness.
Superficially, that number sounds good, but the reality is that the centre is woefully underutilised. Let’s say that ‘‘more than 60’’ is a generous 63. For the 14.5 hours per day the centre is open, that’s an average of less than 4.5 patients per hour.
If only one nurse is on duty at a time, that could be considered a reasonable throughput, though most GPs would see six patients per hour. If there are two nurses on duty all the time, the average patient throughput is barely more than two patients per hour. And remember the centre treats only minor injuries and illness.
I think the ACT government needs to have a good hard look at the utilisation of these walk-in centres. Yes, they take a (very small) load off Canberra’s emergency department and GPs, but the patient numbers hardly justify the considerable costs of setting up and running these centres. Better marketing is needed.
Don Sephton, Greenway
Wintour a wonder
Anna Wintour criticises Margaret Court’s views on LGBTIQ people and makes my Grandma’s curtains fashionable again all in one day. Outstanding.
Mark Sproat, Lyons
The ‘wonders’ of our birth
It’s time Australians stopped believing in the wonders of our birth as a ‘‘Penal Colony.’’ Australia was established in a desperate attempt to try and compete with Spanish control of the north Pacific.
It was even a Spaniard, Pedro Fernandez De Quiros, who named this country Australia [Austrialia del Espiritu Santo in May, 1606].
The English navy needed a reliable port, safe from Spanish warships, populated by strong men and women who could produce food and repairs for English shipping.
Officials in Westminster were opposed to any offloading of prisoners. For one thing, it cost three times as much money to maintain a prisoner in Botany Bay as it did in England.
In the end the navy won the day and helped select healthy young prisoners, and as many free settlers as they could persuade to join the adventure, and under the Portuguese-English-captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet, left for Botany Bay.
Among the motley lot of Spaniards, French, Indians and what not, almost half the prisoners were Irish rebels. This mix was to cement an ongoing distrust of British overlords.
Please let us forget our oddly strung-together Australia Day. Let Australians decide on a suitable day to commemorate whatever they might value from the tiny European addition to our history.
Brian Hungerford, Curtin
Day for everyone
January 26 1788 was one of the more important dates in the history of Australia.
It was the day Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove to mark the establishment of the new penal colony, starting profound change across this land.
The first convicts arrived on that day, forcibly removed from their land and family, spending time in chains and compelled to supply hard labour.
That day was the beginning of modern Australia, which has since greeted millions of immigrants from around the world, who are either looking for a better life or fleeing a terrible life.
January 26 is also the day of protest against the arrival of the British, starting with the boycott of Anniversary Day celebrations in 1888, the Day of Morning march in Sydney in 1938, and the large protests at the Bicentenary.
These annual Invasion Day or Survival Day protests would lose meaning if the date were moved.
Today there are well over 1 million descendants of those 1030 colonists, about five million descendants of the 160,000 convicts [who followed], and about 800,000 Indigenous Australians.
January 26 is Australia Day for everyone, regardless of skin colour or heritage, to remember that Australia is a great place to live, to accept mistakes have been made over the past 231 years, and to acknowledge improvements are still required.
Stuart Walkley, Lyneham
Jan 1 sounds good
Former premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, was right when he said on radio Australia Day should be on January 1, the date the six states federated into the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.
Capt Phillip’s landing at Port Jackson in 1788 is a Sydney event while the Eureka rebellion in Ballarat, as suggested by a caller, is a local provincial incident not a national event.
Some talk about republics every year at this time, but we voted on that 20 years ago, and remember the two oldest modern republics, the USA and France, are political basket cases as are many other republics.
We have a pointless holiday on 1 January already so let’s make it relevant and keep most Australians happy.
Still some Australians will not be happy that our peaceful transition to a federation was approved by royal assent of Queen Victoria.
Perhaps some would have preferred a bloody revolution like in those two political basket case republics.
Adrian Jackson, Melbourne, Vic
Welcome Endeavour 2
As a former volunteer at the truly wonderful Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, I rejoice that many more Australians will have the chance to experience the second Endeavour, a copy of the mighty little ship that sailed up Australia’s east coast, captained by one of the age’s best navigators, James Cook.
The original Endeavour was the 17th century’s equivalent of a rocket to the moon, taking its captain and crew into unknown waters, uncharted by Europeans (the earlier voyage of the Dutch ship, the Dufken Little Dove, was first to voyage into Australian waters) and reveal a new world.
Australians should welcome this opportunity to view the second Endeavour – children are particularly fascinated by the crew hammocks slung in lines below the main deck and the fact that toilet breaks were managed hanging over the ship’s side – it was anything but a luxury cruise.
So welcome Endeavour 2 – the symbol of maritime skill and daring.
Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill, Canberra
A Liberal indeed
There has been a lot spoken and written in recent days about Warren Mundine, who was recently parachuted by Scott Morrison into the Gilmore electorate as his preferred candidate.
Roger Dace (Letters, January 24) wrote ‘‘Warren Mundine is without doubt a competent person, but a Liberal he isn’t.’’
However, Mr Mundine has himself cast serious doubt on Mr Dace’s description of him.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph on January 24, Mr Mundine attacked ‘‘Green activists’’ for being ‘‘at war with regional Australia.’’
He argued that Woodside abandoned its James Price Point LNG hub project in 2013 after a ‘‘relentless activist campaign’’ and decried the effect this had on regional Aboriginal communities.
In fact, local Aboriginal people, along with conservationists, saved James Price Point from destruction by pointing out that it was home to numerous historic and priceless artefacts.
These include dinosaur tracks, ancient middens, intertidal fish-traps and other sites that are sacred to the local Goolarabooloo people, who regard James Price Point as being their ‘‘classroom’’. Mr Mundine also attacked ‘‘Green activists’’ for the closure in 2011 of Gunns woodchip mill at Triabunna, Tasmania.
In fact, Gunns sold the Triabunna mill, and other assets, because of a declining market for the company’s products, notably woodchips.
These facts clearly show that Mr Mundine is not particularly competent, is certainly anti-conservation (a prominent Liberal trait), and is pro-business – also a Liberal principle – even if it damages the heritage and interests of his own Aboriginal people.
Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin
Unstable UK
The Brexit debacle continues with no real solutions.
Theresa May has taken on the mess left by David Cameron who made the decision to have the referendum.
I was in the UK during the campaign and for the day of voting.
Very little has been made known of the impact of Nigel Farage and UKIP in influencing many to vote against immigration. The racism vote was huge with posters often quite offensive supporting UKIP. Most of those voting on racist grounds were not aware of the impact leaving the EU would have on business.
My daughter is the managing editor of a large publishing company in London. Immigrants who can speak several languages are needed when dealing with European countries and also Africa. The supply chain is vital and being a part of the EU makes this possible.
UKIP supporters do not realise foreign workers will do jobs the English will not do or the jobs the English cannot do.
No wonder David Cameron left the role of PM in haste leaving behind a very divided and unstable UK.
Robyn Lewis, Raglan, NSW
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