Canberra Times Letters to the Editor: Chinese displeasure expected, but others should know better

No amount of huffing and puffing by the Chinese ambassador and his staff will alter this and they are just parroting the party line and the clear intent of their President, and would-be modern emperor Xi Jinping, to use the Chinese diaspora to achieve China's aims.

What is disheartening is the attitudes of the likes of Bob Carr, who should know better from his term in the federal government, to play down the way China is infiltrating our institutions.

And there are others who work for so-called Chinese private companies who suggest this removes those companies from Chinese government influence whereas this is patently untrue.

All organisations in China ultimately operate at the behest of the government and will do its bidding when directed, otherwise they will soon depart the scene on some trumped up charge.

Those interested should read Richard McGregor's book The Party – The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers to understand how China is really run.

Eric Hodge, Pearce

While our MPs are being referred en masse to the High Court over dual citizenship matters, there are several other people whose loyalty I question and who I think should be referred to the Court of the People to judge whether they deserve to remain Australian citizens.

I refer to Wayne Bennett, Eddie Jones and Trevor Bayliss, all Australians and now the respective coaches of the English rugby league, rugby union and cricket teams.

For the Poms no less!

Talk about twisted loyalties and a Judas bag of silver. Off with their heads I say and cancel their Australian citizenship.

Sam Dastyari is a saint by comparison.

John Mungoven, Stirling

Whenever The Canberra Times runs a story on the new security fence around Parliament House you include a photo of the offending fence.

But that photo is always taken at about 45 degrees to the fence, ensuring that it appears to be almost a solid, menacing structure.

If seen from directly in front, the fence has a completely different appearance.

For example, when driving up Commonwealth, Kings or Adelaide avenue, the fence is actually quite difficult to see.

Photos can indeed be deceptive, and your photo angles are obviously chosen to present a very particular view.

Kym MacMillan, O'Malley

The ACT government's light rail organisation lodged a clearly expensive and detailed works approval application to the National Capital Authority for the demolition of the significant Northbourne Avenue landscaped median-strip public spaces in between the Sydney and Melbourne Buildings, and for the installation of a new flat featureless area there called "Northbourne Plaza".

The application describes it as an attractive and permanent improvement.

Clearly it's about clearing the precinct for City-Woden tram infrastructure.

The current City-Gungahlin tram works terminate one block north, and the City-Woden tram scheme has not been decided upon or approved.

The application has now been withdrawn.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

North Korean ballistic missile launches are part of a program to develop a credible nuclear deterrent against a US invasion or attack, and are not intended – as Washington would have us believe – to threaten the world.

Pyongyang's concerns are realistic given the American record of displacing regimes that are not sympathetic to US interests, including democratic ones.

The launches are not intended to intimidate Japan either.

A look at an atlas will show that North Korea's flight options are to launch its missiles into China or Russia, or towards or over Japan for an ocean splashdown.

Clearly from Pyongyang's perspective the latter is the preferable political option, even though it means that missile components may be recovered by Japan and the US for intelligence exploitation.

C. Williams, Forrest

The Labor Party and Senator Katy Gallagher only have themselves to blame for the good senator's referral.

When the then senator, the Hon. Kate Lundy, resigned on March 24, 2015, Gallagher was parachuted in to fill the casual vacancy.

This would have been arranged by factions within the Labor Party months before this was to happen.

There would have been ample time for the senator to fix up any procedural matters that would have concerned Section 44 of the Australian constitution.

Don't you just love the way the politicians on both sides of the Federal Parliament waste taxpayers' money on sorting what should have been done before nominating.

Warwick Priestley, Amaroo

At the same time as Trump is howling his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – its ensuing repercussions bound to play beautifully in Netanyahu's long war of annexation – Gilad Erdan, the security minister worryingly tipped to be Israel's next PM, accuses all dissenting voices of holding anti-Semitic views.

This ace up Israel's sleeve never goes out of fashion, whether or not it is used in context, so big is the political and emotional backlash attached to this label.

To an objective and reasonable person it is a growing struggle to identify the denunciation of Israel's political interference with a sign of hostility or discrimination against Judaism.

No such labels are as immediately available when the object of a similar denunciation is Russia, or China.

Luca Biason, Latham

When one's renounces his or her citizenship magically their assumed divided loyalty becomes absolutely undivided. The presumed disloyalty evaporates overnight. How naive are we?

Mokhles K. Sidden, South Strathfield, NSW

Watch the sheep follow the rampant ram who just decreed a paddock outside his reign is the capital of a disputed area in the Middle East.

Greg Simmons, Lyons

Will Summernats fans miss Miss Summernats? There's a question.

C. Trethowan, Belconnen

I have long held the highest respect for George Williams ("Citizen compliance hard", December 6, p21) but if he thinks ordinary (read non-elite) Australians will pass a referendum which changes Section 44 he is in cloud cuckoo land.

I talk to a wide range of people of all ages about our current citizenship (not constitutional) crisis.

Most just burst into laughter, and then deride the stupidity of our political candidates. Few argue for change of Section 44.

The more thinking folks demand that politicians (and their party machine flunkies) learn how to fill out government forms.

Most then point out the horrendous penalties imposed by government on decent people who have difficulty with a Centrelink form, an ASIC form or an ATO form.

I find it amazing Senator Gallagher has adopted the failed ex-senator Roberts' defence of "I sent off a request, but received no reply from the British authorities" after it was tossed out by the High Court. And so much for Shorten's protestations that "there is nothing to see here — the Labor party is perfect".

The answer is to demand the enrolment declarations are updated and sworn in front of a court registrar, as in the real world. Then add penalties on individuals and parties, and demand costs if the now-elected applicant has to go to the High Court and plead stupidity.

W. A. Brown, Holt

The interim report of the Financial Services Inquiry in 2014 floated two options to make Australian banks safer:

Both these options disappeared. They would have had significant cost/profit implications for the banks/shareholders.

Internationally, the Bank of England Prudential Regulatory Authority is requiring all British banks with more than £25 billion in deposits to "ring fence" their operations by 2019.

It appears unlikely the royal commission will address these critical structural issues.

Regrettably the APRA reforms are no guarantee of bank immunity from any catastrophic financial crisis.

Without political will Australia is stuck with a bail-out model for the 120+ deposit-taking institutions in Australia and a guarantee of bank deposits up to $250,000, one of the highest in the world.

Geoff Mannall, O'Connor

I visited Canberra this week and attended Parliament House question time.

My question without notice to PM Turnbull is when are you going to actually do something positive for the people of Australia and especially regional Australia.

The hour of squabbling I witnessed and the attack by the government on Dastyari's position on the South China Sea in my view was a complete diversion from the important issues and a waste of time and of our money.

After all, history records the Chinese exploring the Indian and Pacific oceans, let alone the South China Sea, in massive ships hundreds of years prior to the more well-known European explorers.

With the opinion polls edging towards the magic negative 30 for the government, looks like we may have a new PM early in the new year.

Matt Dyason, Innisfail

The recent appearance of a sparkling maintenance structure on the crown of Capital Hill shows that the Parliament House building need not have been subterranean.

Although it is widely popular to deride our politicians, does it really help to emphasise the low esteem in which they are held by housing them underground?

A beautiful building on the hilltop could have been truly inspirational. Disparagement of our politicians may be an amusing pastime but, in reality, don't we want a nation in which our politicians hold some community respect?

To be "looked up to" is one of the Gestalt principles of perception. To be "looked down on" or "walked over" will never amount to greatness.

Can anyone imagine an Australian Camelot arising out of our Parliament House?

Penleigh Boyd, Reid

No wonder Australian-based retailers are worried about Amazon — if recent experience in trying to buy presents online is anything to go by.

In dealing with a major car company online website the price at checkout came up at over twice the price on the "in your basket" page. Fortunately their online chat service was able to remedy the problem (after 15-20 minutes of wasted time).

If this is normal for Australian on-line retailers then they will struggle and have nobody to blame if Amazon does in fact cannibalise their markets.

Malcolm Paterson, Greenleigh, NSW

Re: "Bushwalkers may be unwittingly helping the spread of devastating rust fungus" (December 6, p2).

Cyclists and vehicles are at least as likely to carry spores as bushwalkers.

But the immediate cause may be easier to find than that.

As little as one part per billion of Roundup can disable the Mycorrhizal fungus that protects trees from harmful fungi like Myrtle Rust. The Canadian government has found the link between Roundup use and devastating fungal disease.

If the workshop on myrtle rust being held in Canberra fails to address this widely available data, they are wasting their time.

Roundup can be found in streams and soils throughout Australia.

Jenny Hobson, Spence

Malcolm Turnbull was quick to claim credit for legislating marriage equality but the Coalition did everything to prevent Thursday's outcome. Ironically, the vehicle it constructed to carry inevitable change, the wasteful plebiscite, negotiated the roadblocks of conservative prejudice because the Australian people took the wheel.

Whenever people are proactively engaged in their democracy, timid and fearful politicians are forced to respond.

Mark Slater, Melba

WE ALL CAN PLAY AT THIS

Why not let religious organisations and those of faith refuse service to those they disapprove of? In return, let the rest of us refuse to pay the proportion of our taxes that provide subsidised premises for their churches.

And – for example – let the non-religious taxi drivers refuse to carry worshippers to church. In Bible times they used donkeys for such journeys.

John Walker, Queanbeyan, NSW

NAMING NAMES

I invite the 10 highest-ranking bosses at the Australian Taxation Office's Enterprise Solutions and Technology Group to identify their own worst performer, in order to demonstrate that they genuinely believe that identifying the worst-performing 10 per cent of their workers would improve their work ("ATO kills plan to name 'bottom' 10% tech staff, December 6, p14).

Leon Arundell, Downer

HIDING OUT

Why did Milo Yiannopoulos need to hide behind those big dark glasses during his appearance at Parliament House?

John Rodriguez, Florey

FURORE DEMEANING

The current political football about Australian citizenship is demeaning and belittling to all of us who have proudly been through the Australian citizenship ceremony, swearing allegiance to Australia.

It's now just a cynical way of trying to change the number of politicians on the other side in order to push legislation through.

Susan MacDougall, Scullin

WHAT A COINCIDENCE

I had to re-read a paragraph in the article "Angry Beijing accuses Australia of bias, racism" (December 7, p6) and do a quick Google search to make sure I had it right: The name (Professor) Bates Gill wasn't an accidental (?) spoonerism of the name of Microsoft mogul, Bill Gates.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

ANOTHER SWEET DEAL

It may seem extraordinary that former Coalition trade minister Andrew Robb has managed to negotiate a service agreement with the Chinese company Landbridge that will see him getting paid, evenif he does nothing ("Andrew Robb's secret China contract: money for nothing", December 6, p4).

But isn't that the same kind of deal that Australians have with most of their politicians?

John Richardson, Wallagoot, NSW

THANKS FOR MY WALLET

At lunch time on Thursday, December 7, I got a phone call from Coles in Curtin that my wallet had been handed in.

When I got it back it was intact.

No cards missing, all my cash was there.

There are honest people in Canberra. Deep thanks to person who handed it in.

Ian Reynolds, Chifley

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