Canberra Times letters: High-bar development approach fanciful

You go on to insist, rightly, that "government must also lead the way in the redevelopment of our gateway precinct by setting a very high bar for the types of projects and the building designs that are eventually approved". It would be comforting to think that such an approach will in fact be developed and insisted upon. Unfortunately there is no evidence that developers will accede to such unusual demands judging by past and current experience.

In the CT report on the sale of a 30,000-square-metre block of land in Dickson ("Mega Dickson site on Northbourne Avenue sells for $40million, September 1, p3) the Knight Frank director of institutional sales, Nic Purdue is quoted as saying that "this is an opportunity for the developer to create a precinct. I think we are to see another New Acton or Kingston Foreshore".

I suspect he is right, and what a disaster that will be. The owners of the Avenue des Champs Elysees need not have any concern that they will be upstaged.

Gordon Shannon, O'Malley

My wife and I have just received our Rates Assessment Notice for 2016-17.

Leaving aside the way our annual rates are escalating way ahead of the rate of inflation we note it includes a "safer families levy" of $30.

The amount as such is trivial. The principle involved is not.

Why should we as home owners pay a levy for this or any other "good cause" inflicted on us by the present ACT government when those renting their homes pay nothing, at least directly?

Especially since, as a broad proposition, tenants of rental properties are more likely to be both the victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.

John Mellors, Coombs

Murray Upton (Letters, September 16) asserted that in relation to the ACT government "we have all witnessed ... the questionable deal with Raiders over the Northbourne Oval development".

To avoid an untruth slipping through uncorrected: There has not been any deal (let alone a questionable one) between the Barr government and the Raiders over any development at Northbourne Oval or elsewhere.

Simon Hawkins, Raiders Group general manager

I was pleased to see your interview with Terry Snow ("Canberra, prepare for boarding", September 17, p17) about preparations being made for the commencement of international flights to Canberra.

The history of Canberra is punctuated by the actions of a rare and very special group of individuals who have as a result of their individual brilliance, vision, hard work or sheer doggedness created a legacy that will be forever recognised as singularly important milestones in the development of Canberra.

The development of Canberra International Airport and the imminent advent of international flights is one such milestone.

Terry Snow deserves full and appropriate recognition and our unqualified gratitude for this great achievement.

Jon Stanhope, Bruce

Terry Snow's new international-look airport with its "state of the art furniture, a duty-free shop, cafe and bar" needs one final touch: the taking down of all the military weapons adverts which are sprinkled around the walls.

Let's have the welcome to Canberra airport free of war related reminders and instead show some of the city's wonderful sites and scenes where our new tourists arriving can really have a wonderful peaceful time.

Glenda James, Narrabundah

Prison guards are not alone in denying evidence. But their overwhelming rejection of a needle-syringe program in the prison cannot nullify reality ("Guards say no to needle plan," September 17, p2).

Syringes already exist in the prison – in virtually every prison in the world.

The only Australian corrections officer who died from an infection arising from a needle stick injury experienced it in a prison where needles were prohibited.

The rejected scheme that would have confined syringes and their use to the prison medical centre would have made the prison far safer.

But let's get really real and admit that a rehabilitative and human rights compliant ACT prison was always a fantasy. Let's stop stuffing our prison with drug users (67 per cent have injected) and those with another mental health condition (70 per cent have undergone a formal psychiatric assessment).

Let's stop treating people who need treatment as criminals. Instead of competing with the US for the highest incarceration rate in the world (it's No.2 at 693 per hundred thousand); let's return our imprisonment rate from the 208 it was in June to the 70 that existed before drug law enforcement took off in the 1960s.

Let's do what Germany (78), Denmark (61), Switzerland (84), and the Netherlands (69) are doing which is treating drug dependency as the health and social problem that it is. Let's see an election competition to slash our burn of taxation dollars on our inherently inefficacious prison.

Bill Bush, vice-president, Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform

The playground saying "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a sound exhortation, but in fact words can hurt. Chris Fotinopoulos ("We're better off responding to differing views as Senate walkouts only strengthen the Hansonites", Comment, September 16, pp20-21) is just wrong to say that "offence is always taken, not given".

Deciding not to be hurt by another's words is something some aren't able to do. The well-established eggshell skull legal principle means you must cop all the consequences of injuring a person even if the injury is because of an abnormal frailty they have. Surely this must apply to psychological as well as physical injury.

It is always wrong to hurt someone. Perhaps the Parliament should pass an act outlawing psychological hurt by word or deed to make it easier for the judiciary. Perhaps this would make section 18 of the Racial Discrimination Act redundant.

Robin M.G. Brown, Yarralumla

Tony Wright's article "The new outsiders: a dark age descends" (Forum, September 17, pp2-3) attracted my attention immediately and forcefully after having read just a few lines. His story reminds me of many events I experienced in my own life, in wartime Germany. In my north German home town of Oldenburg, I went to primary school from 1937 to 1945.

I was at a Catholic school in 1938 when SS officers collected crucifixes from classrooms. At Easter, the school was closed. I was transferred to a public school where class sizes averages 55-60. At this time of anti-religious movements, the city's population comprised some 70 per cent Lutherans and Protestants, 10 per cent Catholics and 20 per cent others. In my classroom, two of us were Catholics, and we suffered many beatings by teachers as well as by fellow students.

We were teased with loudly shouted slogans such as "Catholic rats carry pisspots round their necks". Once, on the way home from school when I was 11 years old, I was hit on the head with a fist-size rock. I woke up in hospital. Nazi-Germany was no place for Christians, particularly Catholics.

Yes, Tony Wright's story compares closely with my experience. That is why I migrated to Australia in 1954, in search of a better future.

Pauline Hanson's re-appearance is scary. I feel for the many innocent Muslims who have come to Australia for a happy, useful life. I hope that politicians and voters are smart enough to keep her at bay.

Erwin Feeken, Bywong, NSW

Perhaps Heath Aston ("Deaf government lets down gay community", September 16, p6) should finish his apprenticeship before graduating to "comment" columns. It's a sad day when a Fairfax Media political journalist doesn't understand basic parliamentary procedure.

He takes issue with the PM's "first reading speech" (sic). As set out in House of Representatives Practice, the first reading "speech" is made by the clerk of the house, who simply reads the bill's long title. The "second reading speech" is a speech in support of the motion that the bill [ie, its long title] be read a second time, and precedes debate on accepting the bill in principle. The "third reading" [of the bill's long title] follows its consideration in detail, and signifies that the bill has passed the house.

Ian Douglas, Jerrabomberra, NSW

I thank those letter writers who've criticised my claim that in 1907 the High Court regarded the governor-general as our head of state. I wonder what else they think the High Court had in mind when it referred to the governor-general as "the officiating constitutional head of the Commonwealth" in R v Governor of South Australia (1907), the term "head of state" not being in vogue in those days.

David Smith, Mawson

Sir David Smith (Letters, September 9) asserts that "the Governor-General is our head of state" and that the High Court said so in 1907. Neither assertion, in my view, is correct. The case to which Sir David refers (R v Governor of South Australia (1907) 4 CLR 1497), did not require the High Court to decide who the head of state of the Commonwealth is: that issue simply did not arise. The actual decision in the case was that the court could not compel a state governor to do an act in his capacity as governor. However, in the course of its reasons for decision, the court made a passing reference to the governor-general as "the officiating constitutional head of the Commonwealth" (emphasis added). This observation is a classic example of an obiter dictum (something said by the way) which, unlike the actual decision, has no binding effect as a precedent. But even if it did, the qualifying adjective "officiating" (which Sir David fails to mention) puts an entirely different complexion on the description. If the court had intended to designate the governor-general as our head of state in his own right, the qualifying adjective would have been superfluous.

In any event, to describe the governor-general in this way is entirely consistent with the orthodox constitutional opinion in Australia that our head of state is, and always has been, the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, but that it is the monarch's representative, the governor-general, who exercises virtually all the head of state functions on the Monarch's behalf.

Given that, in 1907, Australia was a semi-independent dominion of the British Empire, and that Australians were then British subjects, owing their allegiance to the reigning monarch and head of state of the United Kingdom, it is inconceivable, in my view, that the High Court's dictum was intended to turn constitutional orthodoxy on its head and say that the governor-general, not the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, was then our constitutional head of state in his own right.

That question was not argued before the court and, in my view, there is nothing in the reasons for decision to indicate that the court turned its mind to the question.

It really is time to put the 1907 dictum to bed and move on.

Allan N. Hall, Isaacs

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