A league solution?
IT'S OBVIOUSLY ineffective to tell testosterone-fuelled rugby players not to have sex after away games, yet you don't want naive teenagers to be subjected to the New Zealand girl's ordeal.
The answer is salary packaging and outsourcing. Servicing a player's sexual wants after an away game could be part of his salary package. To avoid having to appoint a team pimp, services could be outsourced.
There are any number of competent organisations in the sex industry that could supply working girls under contract. That would ensure that safe sex is practised. The team organisations could even claim the expenses on tax.
Kenneth Griffiths, O'Connor
Step up, players
MATTHEW Johns and his mates let their sporting reputations and fame encourage a young woman into exploitative, no-names sex. She was a young, impressionable waitress. They were sporting gods with the privileges that brings. They should have known better.
But Mark Dixon (Letters, May 15, p12) thinks we shouldn't be concerned by this and should leave Johns alone.
We could do that, but only if rugby league was happy to be known as the code that encourages players to behave like this. If the players and their partners, their children, mothers and sisters, were all able to stand proud while the league overlooked or condoned what those players did, who could argue?
But that's not how it works, is it? Johns and the others kept their ''indiscretion'' hidden for seven years, well aware of the damage it would do to a code that uses images of proud achievement and well-earned respect to recruit young men and their families.
Rugby league wants to be about honour and bravery, not sleazy, mindless, self-indulgent exploitation. Like all professional sports, it succeeds when it embodies the best in human nature.
National Rugby League boss David Gallop said it all: make a choice. If you choose a public life in elite sport you choose to live by the values your sport embodies. No one (male or female) with a brain and a shred of human decency could be proud of the choice those players made in Christchurch.
Penny Oakes, Turner
Just a bystander
FOR MATTHEW Johns, there should be no resurrection, notwithstanding some tacky efforts by his media mates to paint him as the fall guy for the more despicable actions of others.
The young woman initially may have consented to a sexual adventure with him and one other, but there was no consent given to the multitude of gatecrashers. They simply helped themselves.
Johns' apology at the end of her ordeal suggests he well understood the nature of their the latecomers' offence, but where was he while all those big, uninvited, muscly blokes were imposing themselves on her? Did he try to stop them? Did he just stand by and watch? Did he to any extent join in?
He might have a defence if he had taken some action to protect her, but as a passive bystander he would have none.
D.A. Nolan, Nicholls
No leg to stand on
IS THE Kevin Rudd busted frequenting lowbrow establishments in New York the same one who bravely joined the sisterhood and the sanctimonious last week in victimising Matthew Johns? (''Sex scandal prompts Rudd call for respect'', May 15, p3). Why didn't Rudd just say ''no'' at the time, too?
At least Johns fronted up, unlike Rudd.
Chris Smith, Braddon
Scandal casualties
WE NOW hear the Cronulla rugby league club is at the point of financial collapse because of the withdrawal of sponsorship over the Matthew Johns affair. Well done, Four Corners.
Roman Buszynski, Kaleen
An easy solution
WHY DOES the ACT Government resort to the tactic of legislative change when found wanting (''Govt could legislate to prevent legal delays to future kangaroo culls'', May 16, p3).
I do not agree with the delay in the cull and have little time for the various animal-loving groups represented at the cull. However, I believe strongly in the right to freedom of speech, to peacefully protest and to contest in court.
If the Government cannot legally defend its actions, changing the legislation does not make it right.
Joe Murphy, Bonython
A false economy
I AM convinced both federal parties are either incompetent or told what to do by big business. For example, the sale of all our publicly owned assets including the people's Commonwealth Bank that was able to finance World War I at an interest rate of just over half a per cent; to supply funds to state governments at an interest rate far less than what they were paying from the United States.
We now borrow confetti money printed by the US Reserve.
Telstra, an absolute licence to print money, was sold off, as were the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories with its world-leading patents, and many more.
Surely it's ridiculous to sell profitable assets to pay debt. The profits earned since the sales would more than finance the financial mess we are in.
Frank Crichlow, Carrara, QLD
Enough art, thanks
SORRY Chief Minister and Arts Minister Jon Stanhope but we don't want any more ''landmark artworks'' on the Monaro Highway (''Landmark artworks at gateways to capital'', May 16, p11 ) we have enough crappy artwork on the southern approach to the capital.
There's the illegal building dumping site just south of Johnson Drive and, to the north, the paintball playground, the Hume industrial centre, Mugga Lane tip, the disgusting Revolve eyesore, the jail and, coming soon, a gas-fired power station with data centre and possibly a cemetery.
If it is ''important to have signature works at the main gateways to Canberra'', then first clean up what we already have.
John Wiles, Gilmore
No sense in pension
I'M ALL for people working beyond age 65 if that is what they want and are able to do.
However, it is simplistic to change the age pension eligibility age to 67 because life expectancy has increased. (The same change is being mooted for superannuation access.)
Even if our bodies can cope physically with more years of work, who is going to employ older workers? It certainly won't be government agencies such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which is sacking staff because they are not considered capable of undertaking a larger and more demanding role in the new bureau. Paraphrased, they are making way for younger and brighter people, with the tacit approval of the Government.
What is the point of all this economic development and wealth if we are enslaved until 67? We should lower the retirement age.
David Groube, Weetangera
No free ride
AS A CYCLIST who uses ACTION's bikes on buses service daily (and cycles more than 25km), I agree with Ivan Hoy (Letters, May 14, p18) that cyclists should not travel on buses for free.
I suspect few people are taking their bikes on buses solely for the free ride as he suggests, but it is a possibility. Removing free travel for cyclists (but not charging extra for bikes) would increase ACTION's revenue.
This would also remove the possibility of use by those wishing to evade fares, potentially reducing waiting times.
Carl Zimmermann, Kambah
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