Commemorating who?
KATE LUNDY thinks the 7000 people who've paid to have their names put on the Immigration Bridge ''have shown support for the bridge'' (''Report outlines bridges to be crossed'', May 30, p1). Does that mean the millions of migrants who haven't oppose the bridge?
The reality is that people sign up, and pay, for things for a variety of reasons: because they're intimidated by the seller; because, in a case like this, their ego prompts them to pay to have their name put on anything public; or because their donation is tax deductible (I wonder if these donations to the bridge are?).
The method of raising money to pay for the bridge is offensive it commemorates only those who've paid to have their name put on the bridge, not immigrants generally.
The whole project is ridiculous.
R.S.Gilbert, Braddon
Stimulating times
WHO EXPECTED them to lead by example?
Media coverage concerning the fact that Rudd Government ministerial advisers flew first class (at $14,729 each) to the G20 meeting to discuss the global financial crisis seems to suggest an expectation of better judgement.
Given the Government's recent payments to the dead, foreigners and prisoners, and for new toilet blocks for schools about to close, why is anyone surprised?
As for aircraft travel, the ALP is leading by example, from the front of the aircraft, that is, and stimulating the global aviation industry.
M. Gordon, Flynn
Talking down Telstra
LIKE MOST people, I am angry at the way Sol Trujillo and the board of Telstra have plundered the Australian taxpayer.
However, I now have a cold and intense hatred for the man and the dysfunctional organisation he has fled.
My frail 86-year-old mother moved from Sydney to a retirement village in Canberra two weeks ago. She told me she was prepared to put up with all the inconveniences such a move entailed but that I must ensure she would have phone access as soon as possible.
Two weeks later Telstra and its contractors have not been able to install a functioning phone in her room.
To treat an elderly person who has spent a lifetime caring for others in this manner is reprehensible.
Timothy Walsh, Garran
Just get over it
I CERTAINLY hope medicos who diagnose active cases of influenza A(H1N1) place themselves immediately in quarantine.
But, oh, does that mean potentially all medicos will no longer be available? What will we do then? Lock down the whole country for a week? No services, no food, no nothing?
Get real! Help those who really need it. Let the virus rip through the rest of the population and get it over with. There have been more serious threats to us without all this over-reaction.
Bruce Kennedy, Melba
A likely story
THE DEFENCE bureaucracy has announced that its own inquiry into spying on their Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, has revealed no-one from Defence was involved.
Oh really! Do you mind if I wait until the Inspector-General of Intelligence finalises his report?
Vic Adams, Reid
Try for yourself
HOORAY for Graham Downie's article in the Sunday Canberra Times about the irrationalities of the ACTION bus network. He speaks with the authority of a regular user the frustration seeps through every paragraph.
Those of us who use them every day are fed up with buses that run late, buses that run early, and buses that don't run or, when they do, mostly infrequently and along unintelligible routes. But we feel powerless to make a difference.
I find that every user has his or her pet hate, and here's mine: early buses. You arrive at the interchange on your late bus to see your connecting bus disappearing around the corner, having departed five minutes early. Meanwhile, it's an hour's wait until the next connecting bus.
I do feel a large part of the problem is that the people who make decisions about the network are not themselves users. I'd like to see all MLAs (especially the Greens) and all ACTION management make a commitment to using only public transport for six months. Only someone who's experienced a missed early bus can understand how devilishly annoying it is.
I could go on for hours. But thank you Graham Downie don't think your article went unnoticed or unappreciated.
Karen van den Broek, Dickson
No room for racism
INDIGENOUS rugby league player Greg Inglis asks the question of the on-field racist slur by Cronulla player Paul Gallen ''what if one of us calls a white player a 'white c---'?''
I'm not sure what the answer would be on the footy field, but I know the answer when I was verballed with the same vicious racist slur in a sports administration workplace in 1990.
Absolutely nothing.
No one took any action for three years until a Human Rights Commissioner by the name of Ron Castan QC awarded me $10,000 damages against one of my antagonists and $2500 against the other in the race discrimination case Bell v. ATSIC, Gray, and Brandy.
Sad to say, I never received a cent of it, or an apology from either.
In fact I went into huge financial debt and suffered permanent career and racial reputation damage as a consequence of my efforts to get a handshake apology from my antagonists.
I had wonderful support from Aboriginal friends during my futile struggle for an apology, and after it is all said and done life is too short to hold permanent grudges against recalcitrant individual racists.
It is good to see footy authorities act so swiftly and decisively to send on-field racism to the sin bin, regardless of race, colour, ethnic or national background.
However, I do object most strongly to a human rights justice system in Australia beyond the footy field that drops the ball and is too slow to defend the line when the colour of your skin is not politically correct.
John Bell, Lyneham
The cost of feel-good
THE WAY Graham Downie sees it (''Visionary emissions target no good without an end point'', May17, p28), Canberra residents are being asked to participate in feel-good schemes ''with no realistic benefit of combating greenhouse emissions''.
He mentions a report to the Federal Government indicating solar electricity is one of the least effective and most expensive ways of tackling climate change.
Considering its extra price and the Renewable Energy Credits generated, ActewAGL's Green Energy reduces carbon dioxide emissions at $120 per tonne.
Each credit, currently worth $48, is paid for by electricity consumers.
The ACT feed-in tariff's premium price for small solar PV electricity generators costs, on its own, electricity consumers $430 for every tonne of emissions saved.
Under the Solar Credits Scheme starting in July, the renewable credits added include five times the number of credits for the first 1.5kW of generator.
Assuming PV generators in Canberra produce 1700kWh per KW per year, the total cost per tonne is $590 using generators of 1.5kW, dropping to $490 for those of 5kW.
Lasting for 20 years.
Carbon at a premium price and hundreds of dollars a tonne of feel good.
John Bromhead, Rivett
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