Patrick O'Hara,

Farrer

In answer to S. Thomas (Letters, May 14), the woman in question accompanied Matthew Johns and another player to their hotel room. She had no knowledge that 12 other players would later come to the room.

Apparently, on the night, Johns had apologised to the woman for ''the other guys'' after the ordeal had taken place.

People have voiced their curiosity as to why she didn't leave the room; possibly 12 beefed-up league players may have something to do with keeping her there.

Whatever the details of this particular scenario, it cannot detract from the acknowledged practice of ''group sex'' to be used as a team-building exercise for league players.

Any sport that condones this type of activity, and the associated attitudes, must need investigating and require education about common decency expected within our society.

If these players are continued to be overpaid and seen as role models, is it too much to ask to expect some responsibility on their part?

S. Brook,

Watson

Matthew Johns's life is in tatters. How could he have done it? How could his wife stand it? Why did the girl do it? When did she change her mind?

Can we make public sense of sexual whims? Should only virgins cast stones?

Given it was no crime, was his treatment a crime? Does sex degrade women unless they're on top?

The answer, fortunately, was on page 19 (''No such thing as certainty in life'', May 14, p19).

''There is a complexity to human affairs before which science and analysis simply stands mute.''

Tom Waring,

Ainslie

The intelligent population of the ACT is utterly sick and tired of the media, and in particular The Canberra Times, for giving those irresponsible, oversexed and overpaid idiot football players who are nothing but a bunch of hoodlums so much publicity.

Wake up and stop boring us with your sensational and totally stupid stories about those football hoodlums.

H. Gordon,

Greenway

APPLAUSE FOR PROTESTERS

I'm not usually a fan of civil disobedience, but it looks increasingly as though it is needed to get this Government to tackle climate change.

So I applaud the brave people who disrupted Parliament on Wednesday (''Swan ignores protesters, avoids sombre numbers'', May 14, p5).

Imagine there's a tsunami coming, and the experts tell us it will be 5m high when it hits shore, but it will take 10 years to get here.

The Government says it will be too expensive to build a 5m-high wall along the coast, so they'll make it only 1m high.

That's where we are today with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

We should all be angry. And brave.

Derek Bolton,

Birchgrove, NSW

TURNBULL'S SAD SPACE

Having endured Malcolm Turnbull's incessant chiding of the Government for its apparently outlandish profligacy, I watched his budget reply speech on television with great anticipation.

Surely Turnbull would provide us with his grand vision for economic redemption ?

Sadly, his solution was the fiscal equivalent of the old test pattern; nothing but vacuous noise filling an otherwise empty space.

How sad.

Mark Slater,

Melba

COSTLY JOB CREATION

We have been told that economic stimuli costing us $80 billion to date have put us into debt for the next decade has been all about ''jobs creation''. Costly jobs, I say. I'd like to know more. Where are they? Are they skilled, unskilled or professional positions?

Maybe the Government is not really about ''jobs creation'' but rather ''jobs retention''. After all, that $80billion hasn't been invested in any new infrastructure has it?

P.M. Button,

Cook

RECKLESS CASH SPLASHES

If Kevin Rudd was serious about stimulating the economy with his reckless cash splashes, one would have thought he would have directed these taxpayers' funds to those who would be most likely to spend it.

The recipients of the second of these cash handouts were the relatively well off. My two daughters and son are prime examples. Between them they received about $11,000. All this money is sitting in their savings accounts. Neither the first, nor the second so-called stimulus packages provided any relief for the unemployed.

Rudd further rubbed salt into the wounds of unemployed battlers by giving them absolutely nothing in the recent budget. Over the next 12 months Rudd and Wayne Swan will have created 800,000 jobless.

These people, through no fault of their own, will be expected to live on $100 a week less than the single pensioner. I do not begrudge the pensioners receiving an increase in their benefits, in fact in this regard I think the Rudd Government got it about right, albeit a little less than what the Opposition was calling for.

I should point out if it hadn't been for the Opposition putting pressure on the Rudd Government, the pensioners would have also received nothing.

Tom Griffin,

Pambula, NSW

SINGLE PENSIONERS' MISERY

Single pensioners will now get a miserable $30 per week rise, while our prosperous pollies get an extra $80 a week. As single pensioners have been struggling to exist on a handout below the poverty line, $30 is a drop in the bucket.

What wonders can they do with it?

Maybe they could eat the occasional edible steak (once a fortnight), break the loneliness by going out to lunch with mates now and then, even, dare I say, go to the movies? The rising price of petrol will no doubt stop some of these dreams from coming true. Wouldn't it be great if the aged could actually enjoy the years left to them?

Marie Gordon,

Palmerston

WRITER OF WIT AND SKILL

Readers of and contributors to the Letters page should be aware that one of our most popular and regular contributors has died.

Dr Jack Lonergan had ''85 good years'', as his death notice expressed in The Canberra Times.

Lonergan was a class act; he wrote with flair, mastered the English language far better than most, and could come up with expressions and arguments that few others could match. He had wit and was wonderfully mischievous.

Many readers will know this, and so I dare not mention the many regular correspondents who have come under his scrutiny, and often the wrath. I had bouts with him, and enjoyed them.

Vale Dr Jack Lonergan.

Greg Jackson,

Kambah

WHITE PHOSPHOROUS

So, the United States has accused the Taliban of using white phosphorus as a weapon (''Taliban 'using white phosphorus''', May 13, p7). When Robert Gates finds the white phosphorous shells, he should check the invoices. He might find Israeli export certificates attached.

As an ex-artilleryman, I am fully conversant of the ''rules'' on the use of white phosphorous. It is not designated as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention but many countries ''restrict'' its use for target marking and indication, and not as an anti-personnel weapon.

But I also know a major coalition partner that has a variety of ammunition filled with red phosphorus to circumvent these rules.

During the ''Iraqi Revolt against colonialism'' in 1920, the British used white phosphorus bombs against Kurdish villages and also in Al-Anbar province. Saddam Hussein had good teachers.

Warren Feakes,

Wanniassa

WRONG TO HALT ROO CULL

Animal rights groups oppose kangaroo culls on cruelty grounds. Do they find it is kinder to let the kangaroos, and other threatened animals and species, starve to death slowly?

They cannot simply stand back, say ''it's not right'', wave banners, wear roo masks and congratulate themselveson doing a good job by going to court and stopping the cull.

What then? When we learn these groups will provide the cost of the food to prevent the animals starving, and to arrange for their ''careful and kind removal'' to a less crowded area, then we can say they are really doing something for the animals.

Helen Vaughan-Roberts,

Kambah