Proud to attend vigil

I am proud to say I am one of the six to eight people who regularly attend the prayer vigil between 8am and 9am each Friday. Contrary to Minister Rattenbury's misinformation in the article, we stand well away from the main entrance, do not hand out literature and speak to no one unless approached. There is another side entrance which customers of the abortion clinic may access if they wish.

With more than a quarter of pregnancies in Australia ending in abortion it is about time the forces of honesty and decency woke up and rallied to stop the genocide in our midst. Our prayer vigil outside the abortion facility is by way of public witness and will continue until the culture of death is eradicated. It is appalling that a privately owned abortion clinic is allowed to operate inside a government building. As for the emotive nonsense by Marcia Williams of the Women's Centre for Health Matters, I can only say that she and her sisters in that coven should learn to stick to the facts. How pathetic are her gender-based hang-ups, suggesting there is no difference in principle between men having vasectomies and women exercising a fabricated right to take the innocent lives of their own children.

John Popplewell, Hackett

A likely consequence of Shane Rattenbury's proposal is not that the vigils will stop but that they will be criminalised. Legal demonstrations will be replaced by illegal ones, probably with larger, more radical attendances, leading to police intervention, violence,arrests, court cases and potential jailing. The aim is well-meaning but the means need a rethink.

John Robbins, Farrer

Crispin Hull began his column "Australia's witch trials" (Forum, July 18, p2) by accurately criticising the evil people responsible for the 1690s Salem atrocities. Later in the article he showed, by dishonestly denigrating decent people, that he is copying those evil people.

He implied that Australians are demonising, ostracising and jailing innocent people, including children. His "proof" was that 1777 people were in "indefinite detention" on Manus and Nauru. None of these people is in detention: each is free to leave, but none wants to (except to Australia). The truth is these asylum seekers are being given indefinite refuge (in many cases pending proof they are refugees). Australia is generously funding the high cost of that refuge.

Hull dishonestly recommended that these free people be freed. What he meant was these unverified refugees should be given priority for Australian citizenship over many millions of genuine refugees world-wide. Why? He recommended Australia should strike a "sensible arrangement"with Indonesia whereby Australia would accept thousands of "refugees" currently in Indonesia.

He is way too late. I proposed a similar but far more generous scheme years ago – but that was when Australia was causing enormous harm to Indonesia because of our ridiculous policy on asylum seekers – a policy adopted to placate foolish people like Hull, and one which Hull wants reintroduced. Instead of advocating that Australia should accept all asylum-seekers headed towards Australia, Hull should advocate policies to end the generation of refugees. Prevention is better than cure.

Bob Salmond, Melba

Farmer Harry Osborne was the wrong bloke to ask ("Turbines by George beauties in the eye of the landholder", July 18, p1). Of course he finds the sound of his turbine-driven cash-register offsets all others.

The bigger question is whether other Australians, contemplating the many thousands of subsidised wind-turbines planned to be installed across the land, would find sufficient compensation for this intrusive industrial activity dominating the rural landscape forever, as far as the eye can see.

Build them way out at sea.

Manson Macgregor, Amaroo

The talk over which trees should replace the current graceful eucalyptsof the Northbourne Avenue median strip has been a bit far-fetched. For example Eucalyptus mannifera, also E. nicholii, are capable of growing 15-20 metres high with canopies and root systems of widths equal to this. The grey-leaved E. cinerea (argyle apple), can grow to 12 metres. All suitable for the wide grassed strip as it is now.

Add tramlines, trams, accompanying additional infrastructure, plus passengers, and adjacent large eucalypts could never be allowed to reach their full size. Most of the side branches would need to be continually lopped, after which they would acquire that leggy, straggly look, and become more unbalanced. Certainly smaller native trees such as the larger wattles, bottlebrushes and melaleucas, should be more practical.

However, to destroy this median strip as well as the older buildings alongside Northbourne Avenue,the government runs the risk of turning this premier avenue into cement city in the blazing sun.

A. Curtis, Florey

Professor Steve Garlick and Dr Rosemary Austen (Letters, July 20) have, without even meeting me, diagnosed me as a chauvinist and arrogant. Who am I to argue with people who have a Prof and Dr in front of their names when I have a meaningless T.J?

If the learned professor and doctor had actually taken the time to read my short submission, it would have been patently obvious that in no way did I suggest kangaroos were unable to suffer psychological trauma. I simply made the observation that treating psychological injurynormally involves talking to the patient. In the case of a kangaroo, very difficult one would imagine. Perhaps even more so with a young joey that cannot talk proper kangaroo yet. Unless, as I pointed out, you are on the set of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. I know of nobody in the world who can talk to kangaroos. If there were, I imagine that they would have walked through the bush reserves prior to the cull telling them to flee. Now, given the rant that my short submission provoked regarding Cambridge Declarations, neuro-science and the like I believe that the professor and the doctor both have a serious case of zealotry.

T.J. Farqahar, Ainslie

It is likely that the GST will either have its rate increased or be levied on all goods and transactions, or perhaps both, despite promises from the federal government that the GST will never be touched.

For people like me, who remember when it was first introduced, the GST was supposed to eliminate the "nine inefficient state taxes", as John Howard said at the time. That worked very well, didn't it? and we are now hearing the same rhetoric from state premiers. Anyone who thinks that politicians can be trusted to keep the promises toreduce other taxes after they get what they want by changing the GST is living in"cloud cuckoo" land.

Norm Johnston , Monash

The Liberal Premier of NSW wants to raise the GST from 10per cent to 15 per cent. He has obviously forgotten who, what and where he is.

This is a tax increase of 50 per cent. It is a big new tax. Itisa tax on a tax. So nope, nope, nope.

G.T.W. Agnew, Coopers Plains, Qld

So, poor Mike Baird claims he is sick of politics in this country and that he has had enough of "point scoring, fear, smear and who wins the daily news cycle" ("Take politics out of tax reform, urge business andcommunity groups", canberratimes.com.au, July21).

While some might feel sympathy for NSW's boy wonder, many are equally fed up with the smooth, self-righteous pretensions adopted by disingenuous politicians, who treat them like mugs as they slyly endeavour to rig public debate by arguing over different brands of the same snake oil to serve their own vested interests.

Only a few months ago, Premier Mike Baird was successful in spruiking the sale of NSW's electricity grid, arguing that the $20 billion inproceeds would not only produce lower electricity prices, but fund "substantially better road, public transport, health and education infrastructure". Now he's back arguing that a 50 per cent increase in the GST is essential to fund NSW's future health and education services.

One doesn't need a pub test or smell test to detect plain, old-fashioned bulls---.

John Richardson, Wallagoot, NSW

The real tragedy of the Bronwyn Bishop helicopter affair is the public's gradual desensitisation towards the inability of many of our elected senior representatives to meet even basic community expectations of adequate behaviour and standards.

Sometimes I wonder if political careers can attract deadbeats with a lack of personal qualities or if some possess a narcissistic character making them prone to an established parliamentary sub-culture of unearned entitlement.

David Hewett-Lacon, Gowrie

Michael Gordon ("Coalition dreaming if it thinks travel benefits system works fine", July 18, p6) suggests that the furore over Bronwyn Bishop's use of public funds for a Liberal Party fundraiser could have been avoided had she followed Tony Abbott's subterfuge of last year. Our Prime Minister, it is reported, concocted a need for a trip to a Melbourne hospital to cover his attendance at a Liberal Party fundraiser in Melbourne.

If Gordon thinks that we are stupid enough to accept that "adult" government means fooling the kiddies into believing that the adults are using the kiddies' pocket money for the kiddies' benefit, then it is he who is dreaming.

The crookedness of Abbott's and Bishop's chicanery should be plain to all. Abbott should be in the dock with Bishop not just for ignoring her fraud, but for conducting his own.

Bronis Dudek, Calwell

Apparently Tony Abbott explained that he was late for aparty meeting because he had flown to Melbourne for a fundraiser the previous night and scheduled a hospital visit the next morning to ensure thetrip was covered by travelentitlements.

Pardon me, but isn't this the wrong way around? Doesn't that sound like an alibi?

OK, all parliamentarians have to milk the cow, but shouldn't that be incidental totheir business, not themain reason for travel? Perhaps "Iwas late because I stayed on for a fundraiser after official business" is the right way around. Party business should never be the driver for performing duties the taxpayer elected them to do.

Peter Edsor, Bungendore, NSW

I appreciated Amanda Vanstone's thoughtful words on how the government could navigate a relational path in regard to the vexed matter of wedlock ("Why I support gay marriage", Times2, July 20, p4). I do feel, however, that shehas overstated several points to suggest a cultural compromise. First, the existence of adultery and divorce does not immediately render the ideal redundant.

To use an illustration from sport: we indeed grieve the fact of drug violations among athletes, yet this does not change the purity and beauty of the ideals of the Olympics. So, too, with the upheld notion of one man and one woman becoming one unique social and sexual unit for life.

Second, while marriage has often been linked with religion, at least from a Protestant perspective, it is not necessarily a spiritual act orasacrament. It is, in fact, a grace, that allows people from all backgrounds to experience the highest and most intimate covenant that exists between men and women.

The problem with the proposal of splitting it into twospheres – a sacred and asecular union – is that, ultimately, the laws of the state and the laws of a church will be in conflict over the meaning ofthe most significant social institution. It will lead to legal confusion, restrictions on liberty and litigation. The right way forward, is for a bipartisan championing of an alternative descriptor for gay unions that describes their fundamental biological differences.

This will give due relational recognition, while not retrospectively declaring asacrosanct social pillar tobeinvalid and inferior.

Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn, Vic

I think I distrust governments ever bit as much as Desmond Manderson ("Citizenship bill dangerous", Times2, July20, p1). But when Manderson says he knows dual citizens who come from countries with a long history of corrupt legal processes under repressive regimes and for whom the proposed laws hangs over them like the sword of Damocles, I thinking he is making things up.

Why on earth would anyone who truly feared their homeland government remain citizens of that country once they had been granted Australian citizenship? Surely, someone who held such fears would renounce their citizenship once granted Australian citizenship? The Rohingyas in Myanmar who Manderson proffers as an example of people under threat of statelessness are not a valid comparator for dual citizens in Australia. Unlike the Rohingya, who are being denied citizenship of their only homeland, Tony Abbott's laws threaten people who have chosen to retain a questionable multiplicity of citizenship allegiances. Once holding Australian citizenship and no other, the Australian government cannot make Manderson's friends stateless.

The only thing threatening their newly won Australian citizenship is thus a stubborn and illogical attachment to the citizenship of a country whose government he tells us they fear. Manderson should stop pandering to their fears and tell them straight to accept the gift of Australian citizenship for the great honour it is and renounce their former allegiance. Australian citizenship should not be treated as if it were some cheap trinket.

Chris Williams, Griffith

SHAME BISHOP TO GO

Naughty Bronnie, indulging her sybaritic proclivities! However, the headmaster has it all under control. No word about whether or not she was caned or given a detention, but she is "on probation". Unfortunately, it seems, no House arrest at the moment.

Leora Kirwan, Kambah

I move that the Speaker no longer be heard.

Annie Lang, Kambah

The only way Bishop B. will go is to be shamed out of the job. The opposition should not turn up to Parliament until there is a new Speaker. It is out of order but it will work.

Ray Armstrong, Tweed Heads South, NSW

COMPELLING RHETORIC

The delightfully witty heading "Turbines by George beauties in the eye of the landholder" (July 18, p1) drew my attention, and I was not disappointed by the article. It presents a succinct and intelligent counter argument to Joe Hockey's nonsensical, yet dangerous, opinion of wind farms. The farmer's rhetoric is definitely more compelling than the buffoon's.

Maria Degabriele, O'Connor

TRAFFIC LIGHT DANGERS

Bravo, Leon Arundell (Letters, July 17) for regressing to 1965 to draw attention to dumb, uncaring traffic lights which give preference to speeding heavy metal over pedestrians. As a threshold septuagenarian I find now that I have to be an elite athlete to cross our roads on the green. Perhaps it is the ACT government's way of hastening natural selection.

A.M.Whiddett, Yarralumla

TOMIC'S CONSOLATION

So Tennis Australia upset Bernard Tomic by not paying his court fees? How fortunate he could console himself following this outrage by renting a $9400 a night penthouse suite in Miami.

Angela Douglass, Kambah

Like Bruce Kennedy (Letters, July 21) I'm old enough to remember Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall. We were proud of them. How could any Australian be enthused to follow spoilt brats Kyrgios and Tomic?

Frank Duggan, Chisholm

FANNING ADMIRABLE

Mick Fanning is an athlete Australia can really be proud of, not like those whiny tennis brats.

Gaynor Morgan, Braddon

SALUTE OF THE TIMES

When I was at school in 1939-45 we often walked round giving Nazi salutes. So young Elizabeth was doing what people did in those days.

Ian Reynolds, Chifley

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