Canberra Times Letters to the Editor: Australia well positioned to hold measured talks with North Korea

The reality is that the North is probably at least three years away from being able to develop a survivable ICBM with a miniaturised nuclear warhead and guidance system capable of reaching Alaska or Hawaii. During that time, there will be obvious intelligence indicators of its progress. For example, the North would have to conduct one or more flight tests with solid-fuelled ICBM components and a nose cone that undergoes re-entry and is recovered.

Many of its recent shorter-range missile launches have been in reaction to what Pyongyang regards as threatening US and South Korean behaviour – such as joint military exercises near the DMZ. North Korea has few friends and does not trust China, so expecting Beijing to put pressure on the North to change its policies is largely a waste of time.

Australia does, however, have a longstanding and ongoing diplomatic relationship with North Korea. We were one of the first countries to accept a North Korean embassy – in 1974, and our ambassador in South Korea visited the North as recently as last year. Australia is therefore in a much stronger position to talk sense to Pyongyang and provide credible security assurances than most other countries.

By contrast, getting behind Trump's big stick and demanding action from China seem more likely to get us embroiled in just another unnecessary conflict.

Professor Clive Williams, Forrest

Thanks, Julie Bishop, for painting a nuclear target on Australia's back.

The spectre that Bishop's remarks have raised means that North Korea may now start seriously to contemplate a nuclear first strike against Australia as a fresh and inexpensive option for blackmailing the US.

Australia is a soft target, having no means of retaliating. There is no guarantee that the US would retaliate on our behalf, especially if it thought this might lead to escalation. While the US is a friend and ally, their immutable foreign policy is self-interest first. Would they be willing to risk San Francisco for Brisbane? Or Tokyo? Or Seoul?

In the face of such belligerent incompetence Turnbull must at once replace Bishop before she starts a real war.

Julian Cribb, Franklin

The implication in Sue Wareham's letter, (Letters, April 21), that Kim Jong-un is unwise, irrational and as nutty as Donald Trump is incorrect, I believe.

Kim Jong-un showed steely resolve in consolidating his leadership, going so far as to kill his uncle and half-brother. His development of nuclear bombs and missile capability is just common sense defence against a rogue state intent on regime change. As Mike Whitney says in Counterpunch, "North Korea is not the problem, America is the problem".

Kenneth Griffiths, O'Connor

Maybe it's my age but I found reports of last year's Groovin the Moo music festival repulsive ("Security guards accused of mocking sick revellers" April 29, 2016 p6).

If I couldn't persuade my children to do something else I would, at least, want them to return home safely, but the government version of safe messaging is a police presence threatening young people with arrest and panicking them to down handfuls of pills to avoid detection.

The Barr government's decision to block pill testing at this year's festival on May 7 ("Pill testing call stirs frustration", April 22, p22) could well turn a groovin' event into heartbreak.

What will move a politician? Must it be:

A fleet of ambulances such as ferried to hospital 21 people from the Electric Parade music festival at Melbourne in February as could so easily have happened at last year's Groovin the Moo music festival; or

The death at a 2014 music festival in Sydney of 19-year-old Georgina Bartter from a suspected ecstasy overdose; or the death of their own child?

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

Amanda Vanstone ran through the echelons of taxpayers to reach the top line, "the 3 per cent of taxpayers who earn more than $180,000 ... pay a whopping 30 per cent of the [income] tax bill." ("Get facts straight on rich", April 24, p18).

Her point was that the "politics of hate" and envy are invalid, that most of the wealthy are not tax cheats.

The fact is, before the income tax breaks for the wealthy over decades, culminating in John Howard's largesse when the mining boom peaked, the wealthy paid much more income tax revenue.

She provided the really damning statistics that in 2014-15, "Personal income tax made up 51 per cent of revenue, followed by company tax at nearly 20 per cent" but failed to pursue that point.

Ms Vanstone's argument supported the party line (Don't hit the rich or companies.) but her statistics do not.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

I congratulate Amanda Vanstone for her well-researched article ("Get facts straight on rich", April 24, p18). Australians don't hate the rich. All Australians wish to be rich and see that no one is getting rich at the cost of government coffer or ordinary Australians. It's an age-old practice that the rich are supposed to pay more tax simply because they make money through the services provided by ordinary citizens. Ordinary Australians cannot tune themselves to the services of Australia properly if they see that there is a prosperity around them and they are not in it in a meaningful way.

Ms Vanstone missed that point.

Sankar Kumar Chatterjee, Evatt

Your editorial "If Oaks Estate isn't worthy then what is?" (April 24) makes me wonder what on earth the word "heritage" is doing connected to that body.

Oaks Estate is part of the earliest settlement by Europeans on the Limestone Plains with the colourful Timothy Beard having taken a "squattage" there by 1828 with 10 horses and 230 horned cattle. The census of that year lists Beard as the overseer with William Carter as herdsman and my great-great-great grandfather Samuel Hale his dairyman. In 1830 his son Joseph Beard ran "Quimbean" and the property now known as Lanyon. Beard then acquired further property in the "Maneroo" and Sutton Forrest and finished his life as a very significant land owner. He died on 20th December 1848 at the age of 86 and is buried at Liverpool Pioneer Cemetery. His epitaph sums up his life:

An industrious man I have been

Many troubles I have seen

In this world I have done my best

And here I lay my bones to rest.

Oaks Estate therefore is an integral part of the history not just of Canberra and Queanbeyan but in the development of the whole of what is now south-eastern NSW.

Gail Tregear, Canberra City

Public service decentralisation is seat shuffling, its architects pork barrelling aficionados. The move of APVMA to Barnaby Joyce's electorate is the tip of a disastrous fiscal iceberg. Joyce's mates in Armidale are licking their lips, but rather than creating real jobs, services to the bush will be reduced to pay dislocated Canberrans.

Matt Ford, Crookwell

Regional Development Minister Fiona Nash claims relocating public servants from cities to regional areas will create "more career opportunities for our children to enable them to stay in the communities they grew up in".

It is a shame then that the so-called outspoken champion of regional Australia and resident of Young in country NSW doesn't practise what she preaches, sending her sons to boarding school in Canberra when Young and other nearby towns have their own high schools. How many other Nationals are happy to rely on the votes of regional Australia but choose to educate their children in the cities?

Mary-Anne Ellis, Bruce

Oh how the wheel goes round and back to where it started. For years federal governments have cut, cut and cut again departments, agencies and NGO funding for so-called efficiency savings. To achieve these savings Centrelink, Medicare, ATO, ABC, Telstra, post offices and other agencies have closed regional offices, staff offered redeployment or redundancy and functions centralised in major cities or head office Canberra. The current government has been no different in demanding even more savings to "balance the budget". Private enterprise are also implicit with major service providers not only closing regional offices but also suburban facilities; for example, just look at the banks.

Now Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce and his colleagues are hell bent on moving as many agencies/departments or parts thereof to regional centres either held by the National Party or those that were lost by them at the last election. Pork barrelling that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to either build or rent new offices, relocate staff, new communication and infrastructures, travel and ongoing rental of contracted but vacated offices. The LNP government claims that they are economic managers, however, they are no better at managing expenditure and I doubt I will ever see a balanced budget happening in my life time, especially by LNP governments.

Jack Wiles, Gilmore

Many of the numerous letters in The Canberra Times protesting about the targeting of Canberra for relocation of public servants to "regional and rural" centres have mentioned pork barrelling by the National Party.

Are the protesting letter writers also aware the national capital is allegedly referred to often in Coalition circles as "The Socialist Republic of Canberra"? Says it all, really.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

Bob Douglas (Letters, April 24) is far too pessimistic in suggesting that humans will be extinct by 2100. Climate change will only destroy human civilisation. There will certainly be pockets of hunter-gatherers that will survive, and expand out of the tropics and temperate zones towards the poles.

Bruce A. Peterson, Kambah

The letter of Rita Joseph (Letters, April 21) regarding "rights balancing process" as guaranteed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was indeed enlightening and instructional. I felt a bit sorry for women though as – according to the quote – "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." "His life"? What about women?

Geoff Barker, Flynn

Since last Friday evening, as is customary at this time of year, Canberra has been deserted by droves of people heading to the coast or elsewhere for the Anzac "long weekend". Hopefully, they will attend a dawn or other commemorative service on Tuesday to honour our dead; but, regrettably, I suspect most won't.

Anzac Day should not be a public holiday. Those who have served should be granted a day off by their employers on request; and, those who wish to genuinely commemorate the occasion could demonstrate their sincerity by applying for a day's recreation leave. The rest, who couldn't care less, should just go about their business as usual.

D.N. Callaghan, Kingston

HARDLY SURPRISING

Starting World War III is just the sort of thing we have come to expect from this government.

Matt Ford, Crookwell

CARNAGE NEVER AGAIN

Anzac: Fill your heart with the wonderful sacrifice, but fill your mind with the resolve that carnage never again ...

Barrie Smillie, Duffy

NOT BEING HEARD

Zed Seselja's inability to adequately represent us is getting ever more dire. He needs to lose his job before we all lose ours.

Erin Cook, Waramanga

VALUE JUDGMENT

Given that many politicians like to rort the system and tell lies, are these some of the "Australian values" to which we should all aspire?

Felicity Chivas, Scullin

PUTTING COUNTRY FIRST

Given Barnaby Joyce's enthusiasm for getting jobs for country towns, may we assume he is pressing Amazon and other immigrant companies not to settle in Melbourne or Sydney?

John Rogers, Cook

POLICY ON THE HOP

So, we kill off the grass-eating kangaroos and then carry out extensive back burning to keep the grass down. Fascinating public policy.

Philip Machin, Wamboin, NSW

NO ASSUMPTIONS

I'm sorry Robert Rowe (Letters, April 17) but science rejecting a metaphysical assumption does not make the rejection itself a metaphysical assumption. Look up Bertrand Russell's Teapot and stop wasting everybody's time.

James Allan, Narrabundah

HERE'S A QUESTION

Does the banning of the song by an ANU college mean that the question, "What should you do if Daddy Cool's Eagle Rock gets played", will or will not be on the Prime Minister's new citizen test?

Brendan Dobson, Macgregor

A CAPITAL IDEA

I see that the visit to Australia by the Vice-President of the United States of America started and finished in Sydney. Now there's a worthwhile decentralisation mission for Barnaby Joyce: move Australia's capital from Sydney to Canberra.

Bronis Dudek, Calwell

'NO GOOD GUYS IN WAR'

Given recent events in Syria and the upcoming memorial of war, it should be remembered that there are no "good guys" in war. The British, French and American forces used chemical weapons in World War I as well as the Germans.

Gary Frances, Bexley, NSW

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