I recently attended a talk in the research centre on the battle of the Hindenberg Outpost line 100 years after my grandfather fought with the 2nd Machine Gun Company, 1st Machine Gun battalion, 1st Division in that very battle.

I, along with others in attendance, had the privilege to see some of General Monash's own maps from the same battle from the AWM's collection.

The sacrifice of those Australians are in safe hands with the staff of AWM and long may it be so.

Rohan Goyne, Evatt

I have another idea about creation of a new Australian national anthem. Why not combine the second stanza of Dorothea Mackellar's My Country with the chorus of Bruce Woodley's I am Australian?

About 1904 Mackellar recognised that an emerging Australian society already had a self-identification different from that of its parent British society.

Almost a century later Woodley recognised the essence of the mature multicultural society that Australia had become. Both brilliantly expressed their observations. A combination of their compositions, which covers both the modern Australian culture and the love of the Australian natural environment, describes Australians' common identity; it could thus be an excellent anthem.

I offer the following which could be improved upon by professional artists.

"We are one, but we are many

And from all the lands of earth we come

We share a dream and sing with one voice

'I am, you are, we are Australian'.

We love a sunburnt country,

A land of wide brown plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

We love her far horizons,

We love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror,

Her great diversity.

We are one, but we are many

And from all the lands of earth we come

We share a dream and sing with one voice

'I am, you are, we are Australian'.

We are Australian!"

I envisage that all three stanzas would be sung at Australian functions, but only the third would be played at international events such as the Olympic Games.

Bob Salmond, Melba

Electors need to know exactly what would-be local councillors stand for and we need to know before the elections are held.

Of late, many councillors wait until elected to spout their personal political ideas.

Latest is the Byron Council who thought they would change the Australia Day date.

Did they tell the electors before they went to office? I doubt it.

Full marks to our PM for leaving no doubt that January 26 is Australia Day. There is ignorance by some of our history, and there are just plain troublemakers.

The PM is right that a national day of celebration is unifying.

However, some commentators, for whatever reason, use convenient reporting that promotes fragmentation and division. As far as I can discover, Australia has 22 days a year that exclusively celebrate Aboriginal culture yet the Australian nation has only one day, January 26.

To leave no doubt how many of these celebration days there are: February 13, National Apology; March 19, Close the Gap Day; March 21, Harmony Day; May 26, National Sorry Day; May 27-June 3 Reconciliation Week; June 3, Mabo Day; 1st week of July Naidoc Week; August 4, National Children's Day; August 9, International Day of World's Indigenous People and September 5, Indigenous Literary Day.

Marilyn Quirk, Heybridge, Tasmania

The banking royal commission is the closest we will probably ever get to a royal commission on capitalism and surprise, surprise it finds that profit maximisation, growth and greed are driving individual and corporate behaviour and culture.

The commission also finds that the regulators are weak, ineffective and captured by the industry they are meant to regulate. It does not end there, of course, it's not just the regulators that are captured it's governments and arguably democracy here and elsewhere that has been captured by finance capital and capitalism generally.

The failure of the so-called "sensible centre" whether it be of the centre-right or centre-left variety to deal effectively with capitalism and specifically finance and banking capital is just one of the multiple failures of this dominant ideology across just about every area of public policy.

The bottom line of "sensible centre" policies has been that they are invariably "too little, too late" or not at all. The great irony as the 21st century unfolds is that such centrist policies are increasingly exposed as neither effectively civilising capitalism for the many nor are they stabilising capitalism for the few.

Unfortunately it seems unlikely that the current and even the next cohort of political leaders have the capacity and courage to move sufficiently beyond the straitjacket of the sensible centre in regard to finance sector regulation to make a real and sustainable difference because this is not just a banking issue, it is a capitalism issue, and while capitalism, like feudalism and slavery before it, is not forever, neither is it getting cast into the rubbish bin of history any time soon.

Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide, SA

Alex Mattea (Letters, October 1) makes some very valid points about institutional breakdowns and governments' capacity to ignore or even exacerbate them.

The government, however, was not responsible for appointing both Justin Milne and Michelle Guthrie as Alex implies. Milne was a government appointment, but the managing director is appointed by the board and, in Guthrie's case, it also sacked her.

What does require close examination and re-evaluation is how governments select members of all government agencies' boards and not just the ABC's.

The present system is clearly broken and prone to favouritism by the party in power.

The present government is especially guilty because it has chosen to ignore the selection system set up by the last Labor government and, in Milne's case, appointed a person with close ties to the former prime minister.

Eric Hunter, Cook

With the advent of the royal commission into aged care, it is surely time also for Australians to have an adult conversation about dying with dignity.

As an octogenarian retired medical practitioner who has taken a particular interest in this matter, I think everyone should be entitled to a painless dignified death at the time of their choosing.

If we are no longer mentally capable of choosing, the trusted relatives to whom we have assigned the power of attorney should be able to decide what is the kindest thing for us.

We do it for beloved pets, so why not for our beloved humans?

Bob Douglas, Bruce

Graham Downie and Kim Fitzgerald (Letters, September 29) are right re our water situation.

The upper-Cotter-River Corin Dam's water level is very low, but we're OK in the current drought because our overall storage capacity and levels are high (Icon Water even stopped our upper-Murrumbidgee Tantangara Dam allocation).

But we apparently didn't need the new Cotter Dam to be as big as it is to achieve drought security.

In the early 2000s, the Mount Stromlo water treatment works, which treats Cotter water, apparently needed upgrading.

However, its delay apparently caused a big drawdown on our massive back-up dam, Googong, lowering its water level dramatically, just as the 2003 bush fires hit.

The Cotter dams became ash-polluted. A treatment plant went in at Googong, and we came to rely on it for regular supply. It's our biggest dam, and is currently about 70 per cent full, with Cotter Dam about 96 per cent.

Upper-Cotter Bendora Dam is 73 per cent full, but tiny.

As reported in "Restrictions not in pipeline despite low level at Corin" (September 26, p6), Corin has been drawn down a lot because, unlike the Cotter Dam, Corin cheaply gravity feeds the Mount Stromlo works.

Clearly, the new Cotter Dam is too big, and Icon's cryptic commercial arrangements make it difficult to find out why, and why we still have water restrictions ("Icon Water stays mum on deal details", also September 26, p6).

Anyhow, we should be recycling our beautifully cleaned sewage water (Gundagai consumes it).

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

As we now have a considerable number of members of Parliament intending to retire at the next election I was wondering if we could ask them to take a few risks of unpopularity before their term ends.

Could they, for example, risk initiating a few reasonable and courteous discussions of our future on behalf of most of us who can never hope to occupy the privileged positions of power they now hold?

As Geoff Davies has suggested in his recently published book, Desperately Seeking the Fair Go, "a more generous spirit" in our Parliament could make a considerable difference to the outcomes.

Instead of what Davies calls "third-rate slanging matches, sloganeering and fearmongering" I would like to hear a representative say something like, "It's interesting that you should say that. I'd like to hear you expand your point of view and to hear what others think about it" or, how it would gladden my heart if someone would say "I can't decide what to think on this issue. There are points to be made on either side and I'd like protagonists of both positions to be invited to put their case to us and to the public."

Better still, I would like to hear a representative change his or her point of view as a result of discussion in the house without fear of shame or ridicule.

In other words, I believe our elected representatives should be our mentors in respectable conversation and I would like to suggest, to those who insist that our crass parliamentary behaviour is the only way to go, that the ABC TV program The Drum would offer them a useful example of a style that many of us would prefer. It is surely not too late for our retiring MPs to bequeath us a more generous spirit in our Parliament.

Jill Sutton, Watson

The reluctance of the ACT to take effective action to increase bus patronage is bewildering given its commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions by targeting the transport sector.

The analysis by Brendan Halloran indicating only 36 per cent of Canberrans would be within 800 metres of a light rail or rapid bus stop under the proposed bus network, highlights the inadequacy of the coverage of the bus network, which is a product of the under-resourcing of bus-based public transport.

The new bus network is unlikely to increase patronage as it does not deliver an attractive alternative to the car.

If the government is serious it would:

(a) Abandon light rail stage 2 and use the funds to increase the frequency, comfort and coverage of the bus network.

(b) Investigate the feasibility of the trackless tram (a high-capacity electric bus) on the high-volume inter-town bus routes (why is the government silent on this technology?).

(c) Consider reducing parking supply and increasing parking charges at major employment centres.

(d) In the context of the community's housing preferences, investigate the impact of alternative residential and employment distributions on the use of public transport.

This would involve consideration of residential density, the level of employment at centres and strategies to implement an optimal distribution including the provision of incentives to attract employment to the town centres.

This analysis should be a key component of the review of the ACT planning strategy.

Mike Quirk, Garran

It appears that somewhere between 50 and 150 million Facebook account access tokens have been hacked.

This seems to mean that your privacy settings may have been affected.

But surely most Facebook users want to be seen by as many people as much as possible.

They should be happy, even more people can see their wisdom, their lovely children and their deeply thought out views.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Vic

THE VIRTUES OF THE ABC

Free-to-air-television now has too much repetitive commercial rubbish, especially if you're an insomniac watching late at night or in the early morning.

Does anyone watch those channels without quickly switching away, looking for something more interesting? At least the ABC still has a few worthwhile programs running – even if they are repetitive too. Long live the ABC.

Susan MacDougall, Scullin

CRUEL PUNISHMENT

Regardless of the sins of their ancestors, the Bounty mutineers, the current denizens of Norfolk Island have done nothing so terrible that it should be punished by handing their welfare over to the ACT government. Cruel and unusual indeed.

M. Moore, Bonython

HERE'S AN IDEA

And is that likely to include a light rail through the main street of the island's Kingston ("The ACT government could deliver Norfolk Island services", canberratimes.com.au, September 29)?

Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook, NSW

IF THE CAP FITS

I nominate Scott Morrison to be chair of the ABC board.

Leon Arundell, Downer

SHOWING INDEPENDENCE

Where supposedly independent ABC management appointees are concerned, can anyone be truly independent of their own life experiences, prejudices, philosophy and beliefs?

Rod Matthews, Melbourne, Vic

RAIL FIASCO TESTING

So the light rail is being tested. We, the citizens of Canberra, are being sorely tested by the whole fiasco.

F. Chivas, Scullin

ATTITUDE CONTRADICTORY

The ACT government holds a binary environmental position, on one hand ramming through development to the detriment of fauna while claiming to be "responsible" in achieving carbon neutrality by 2020 (Push for new road without impact report, CT, 29 September, p2). More development profits equals more carbon pollution, equals less environment.

A. White, Queanbeyan, NSW

ROHINGYA ISSUE

There have been reports China has urged the Rohingya issue should not be "internationalised".

The reality is that the international community, led by United Nations agencies (such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR) has already been directly engaged in providing assistance to Rohingya for many decades.

T. Wilson, Chifley

GOING PLACES

What used to be Gone with the Wind is now Gone with the Jetstream.

Chris Klootwijk, Macarthur

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