English realities

True to Liberal pretensions, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, defends the government's proposal to toughen English language standards required for citizenship, on the basis that "the ability to communicate properly with others is critical to successful migration and a multicultural society".

Perhaps the good senator should clean up her own workplace before seeking to trash the wider world?

As Annabel Crabb so helpfully reminded us in the Sunday Canberra Times, a number of the senator's colleagues would doubtless fail the proposed higher test ... Senator Hanson commenting on the test said: "It's a start in the right direction"; another colleague, Jacqui Lambie, gave us the wonderful legal dictum "anus of proof", while Finance Minister Mathias Cormann delivered the fabulous "rose of crowns".

But if we ever needed reminding that it just might be better for all of us if fewer people attempted to speak English, nothing could surpass the effort of former prime minister Tony Abbott who gifted our nation with "the suppository of all wisdom".

John Richardson, Wallagoot, NSW

If it is so important that new arrivals should attain a university level of English and have a good knowledge of Australian values ("Pollies fail the basic English test", CT, June 25, p20) before becoming citizens, why should not every native-born 18-year-old have to meet the same criteria before attaining citizenship or, at least, before being granted a passport and going abroad as an "ambassador" for the country?

John Rogers, Cook

In reply to Ian Warden's question in Sunday's Canberra Times (June 25, p19) "Can Anyone help save Civic"? I think the answer is sadly no.

The ACT government is ploughing ahead with its plans under the guise of the City to the Lake project with the emphasis on the Lake at West Basin. Where is the mention of revitalising Civic – the national capital's town centre?

Instead, in the very near future, $38 million of taxpayers' money will be spent on filling in part of West Basin. Why? So there will be enough land to sell to developers for private housing. This money would be better spent rejuvenating Civic which, as Warden says, is "depressingly decaying and dilapidated and looks like a condemned precinct awaiting the wreckers".

Visitors to Canberra have asked why I don't show them the centre of Canberra. Why would I? It is too embarrassing!

Penny Moyes, Hughes

Results from the national 2016 census have prompted speculation that the ACT might be eligible for a third federal member of the House of Representatives in due course, centred around Gungahlin and Belconnen.

I cannot imagine why this would give any pleasure to residents of the ACT. It will simply provide an additional passage for one lucky member of the ALP's ACT apparatchiks to parachute into an additional federally funded sinecure after loyal service to the ACT Labor machine. If Andrew Barr is not first in line because he would prefer a safe Senate seat when Katy Gallagher vacates hers, then who is next, I wonder?

Residents of the ACT almost invariably vote majority Labor (with or without Greens support) in the ACT Assembly and the federal House of Representatives, year after year. No wonder both sides of federal politics ignore the ACT. Its Labor vote in the House of Representatives is almost always utterly predictable and one more Labor seat will make no difference federally. No wonder ACT federal representatives have never made the slightest difference in living memory on any national issue or any issue directly affecting the ACT.

It's said that people get the governments they deserve. That is certainly true of ACT voters as they see their fees, taxes and charges rising way ahead of inflation while their municipal and other services decline; their city increasingly beholden to developers in cahoots with a less-than-transparent ACT administration; and their poorest public housing tenants along Northbourne Avenue scattered to outer suburbs in order to create "wealth" via land sales along Northbourne Avenue. Mostly all in an attempt to fund the financial folly of the light rail.

If ACT voters cared to look

more closely they might see a self-selected bunch of ACT politi-

cians and their apparatchiks salivating at the prospect of a further federally funded political teat to suck on.

John Mellors, Coombs

Hooray for Derek Wrigley and Graham Clews (Letters, June 30). The high population growth revealed by the census is no cause for exultation. Indeed it is the principal contributor to our declining disposable incomes and to our failure to keep up the infrastructure expected in a First World welfare state.

Also, the footprint of our 24-plus million population is damaging our fragile ecosystems and, if we grow too much more, will lead to a reduced agricultural trade balance.

We are governed by a consortium of developers, businesspeople and politicians who seemingly ignore the principle of diminishing returns and who seem to be unacquainted with Verhulst's law of population growth and its implications.

Nick Ware, O'Connor

You have to feel sorry for Director of Public Prosecutions Jon White.

On one hand he's finally got a review of funding after telling an assembly committee last year that the DPP and the Supreme Court's workloads had doubled in recent years and Canberra's growing population had led to more-complex serious criminal cases requiring prosecution.

Meanwhile, he has to proceed with David Eastman's prosecution with the recent ACT budget allocating another $7.4million for the retrial, bringing the total spend to a projected $30million. I imagine Jon relaxing in the bath with a glass of red dreaming of what else he could do with $7.4million. And I can imagine many school principals, hospital administrators, etc, doing the same.

I'm guessing that some of the junior counsel now coming into the DPP's office weren't born when Winchester was murdered, and the reality is that the public interest aspect – and the public's support for continued funding – actually evaporated some time ago. It's almost like some vested interests around town had their noses put out of joint by the cocked-up first trial and are now determined to get Eastman this time, whatever the cost.

Dallas Stow, O'Connor

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