People need informed reporting on influenza
Our Government is doing almost all it must be seen to be doing to reduce the adverse impact of swine flu in Australia.
But while this may slightly delay the epidemic here it certainly won't prevent it.
However, to become a major health threat, a new flu strain not only must be highly infectious person-to-person but also cause severe illness in most of those infected; and present indications are that the large majority of people infected with the Mexican strain of H1N1 flu have been recovering.
The last major epidemic of an H1N1 strain flu in 1977 also caused only mild illness in most of those infected.
But all flu epidemics cause illness and some deaths, so every reasonable effort is needed to advise people on how to reduce their individual chances of getting infected.
This will require better informed assistance by the public media which, I regret to observe, has so far concentrated instead on counter-productive scaremongering.
I hope to see The Canberra Times leading the way.
Ron Wells,
(former Commonwealth Director of Quarantine & Deputy DG), Mawson
BUCCANEERING REWARDS
Somali pirates earned about $50million last year.
The West is preparing to blast them out of the water.
Richard Pratt's cartel fixed prices and ripped $700 million off us as part of building his $5 billion empire.
In death the ruling class lauds him.
The Somalis are in the wrong business.
John Passant,
Kambah
COURAGOUS COMMENTARY
Congratulations, Jack Waterford on your article (Times2, April 30, p2).
Mere mortals of the proletariat, without your resources and knowledge, could not dare make a riposte like yours.
I hope you have had good legal advice prior to your penning the article! No doubt what you've articulated would be seething through the minds of so many of us in whose pockets this individual had his invisible hand over several decades.
His philanthropic gestures pale into insignificance when one attempts to conjecture how much this cartel's activities might have ripped out of the community.
The retinue of notables who were photographed making pilgrimages to his shrine also make an interesting line-up.
Your article goes some way to restoring my faith in the ability of the newspapers to print without fear or favour, no matter how painful the truth or who it might offend.
Albert M. White,
Queanbeyan, NSW
OUTSIDE THE POSTS
I can mostly get a giggle at Pope's cartoons, and frequently a good laugh, but his effort on April 30 (p18) was off the graph.
It was past larrikin and into slander to suggest that God would ''overlook'' dishonesty but care more about mere partisan opinions, and very misleading.
J. Halgren,
Latham
RISKS FOR HOME BUYERS
I strongly support Professor Quentin Grafton's views in his article ''Young buyers slipping into deep cracks of housing market'' (April 30, p19).
I had a letter published in The Canberra Times in December last year saying much the same.
We should not be saddling our young with more debt through new mortgages for housing at a time when over $10 trillion in bailout money is sloshing around in the world economy which will have to result in higher taxes, increased inflation, higher interest rates and distressed home sales.
Ric Hingee,
Duffy
DESCRIPTIVE INGENUITY
Kate Carnell's use of the word ''disingenuous'' with respect to public views on inadequate and misleading nutrition information statements on groceries (''Choice too simple'', Today, April 30, p12) is ironic given her previous, and arguably, present employment.
The skill of disingenuity is of prime importance in a politician's armoury.
Kate was, is, almost certainly always will be, a politician of consummate skill.
It is somewhat disingenuous of her, I would argue, to suggest that the public is being disingenuous about labelling that which is far from simple and serves Kate's current industry well in obfuscation.
Charles Ironside,
Wanniassa
AID TO PNG CHANGING
The visit to Canberra this week by the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, attracted virtually no interest from the Australian media.
It's a great pity because Somare in a speech on Tuesday night announced a major shift in policy on development aid and resource deployment.
He said the time had come for PNG to assert and accept more responsibility for its national development, adding that negotiations were about to begin with Australia on an aid exit strategy to ultimately phase out Australian development aid.
Earlier, at a joint news conference, Kevin Rudd said Australian aid money to PNG had been misspent on consultants rather than teachers and health services. ''Too much has been consumed by consultants and not enough delivered to essential assistance in teaching, in infrastructure, and in health services on the ground in villages across PNG.''
Somare was obviously disappointed by media coverage in Australia. He said, ''PNG and Australia are true friends. Our partnership has withstood the test of time. Over the years this partnership has grown and matured. But of particular interest and importance to me is the warmth of the relationship an aspect very often overshadowed by negative reporting in the (Australian) media.'' How true.
Full transcripts of Somare's speech and the joint news conference can be found on the website in the newsletter PNG Attitude.
Don Hook,
Kingston
ON THE WRONG TRACK
The Canberra Times loves the proposed trial of frequent express bus services between town centres at peak hour (''Bus on right track'', April 30, p18).
No discussion of the fact that buying big, new buses to meet peak demand will, by definition, see many more buses sitting idle, costing us millions in interest for the remaining 21 hours of each day.
The subsidy we ratepayers hand over to a bus service we ignore in droves used to be around $70 million a year.
This initiative will boost it towards $90 million a year.
The interest on a loan of $1.8billion.
That would buy an awful lot of hospital beds, mental-health services, low-cost housing, etc.
Or build overpasses to eliminate pinch-point traffic lights and new multistorey car parks for our (future) electric cars.
And complete key ring-roads like the Monaro Highway-Majura Road extension.
Tom Waring,
Ainslie
CHEW OVER THE REPUBLIC
Unlike Robert Willson (Letters, April 24) I don't believe the question of the republic was ever settled at the last referendum.
As a committed direct election republican, I voted no against the referendum's model where the president would have been the prime minister's puppet.
Australians want a say in electing their president, otherwise what's the point of changing the system?
A former United States president, Lyndon B. Johnson, famously said that one can walk and talk and chew gum at the same time.
Surely the Australian Government can manage the local effects of the financial crisis, the local impacts of global warming and work on getting the republic up.
Michal Kowalik,
Deakin
WHY AFGHANISTAN?
In announcing a modest boost to the Australian troops in Afghanistan the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, inexplicably added that this is likely to become an increasingly unpopular war (''Boost to troops our exit strategy'', April 30, p1).
How on Earth can one derive any comfort from such a statement?
What is the purpose of sending more troops when the leader of the nation expresses so little hope in the values of a mission that has brought no benefits to Afghanistan, and even less peace of mind to the US and the coalition in the post-9/11 world?
Afghanistan is either the right and necessary war to fight, or it is not. By expressing his doubts, Rudd is merely repeating John Howard's policy on Iraq: that Australia's involvement in Afghanistan is purely out of our loyalty to America.
Sam Nona,
Burradoo, NSW
PREMIUM FOR DEFENCE
People wanting less spent on defence outnumber those wanting more, and 82 per cent oppose tax increases for defence purposes (''PM under pressure to spend less on defence'', April 29, p1).
That's not surprising. Having a defence force is a kind of insurance, and the money spent is essentially an insurance premium like a house insurance premium, money spent that gives you peace of mind but, more often than not, nothing else.
And in hard economic times, when people are looking for ways to save money, it's not surprising that they cut down on their insurance.
R. S. Gilbert,
Braddon
EATING MEAT IS APPLES
I have never read a science article describing an Adam and Eve Diet such as that described by Vivienne Ortega (Letters, April 30).
In view of this I shall continue to use my teeth to eat a full range of food varieties, including meat.
My teeth (and everyone else's too) have evolved through many generations over many aeons and obviously match an omnivorous diet.
We should not be trying to discourage people from eating meat, as there are many benefits to this consumption.
Rather, like most things in life, we should be encouraging moderation both for our personal health and and the environment.
A reduced and sustainable level of meat eating would also be closer to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who likely subsisted primarily from gathered food and much less so from hunted food.
Tim Lewis,
Palmerston
RIGHT TO KEEP LEFT
An emphatic ''No, you are wrong'' to correspondent Shane Marsh (Letters, May 1).
I am pleased that your very experienced bike commuter friend is able to step off the path when a bike is coming.
Does he do the same for oncoming pedestrians who are correctly walking on the left-hand side of the path?
Stay left, stay alert, leave space on the right and enjoy your walk.
Joe Murphy,
Bonython
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