ACT sexual assault case management inquiry welcome

The rate of attrition in these cases has been of serious concern decades. Most victims of sexual assault never report the crime to police. Of those who do report, only a minority of cases ever get to court. This study will go some way to explaining why cases aren't proceeded with and at what stages they were closed.

ACT Policing doesn't welcome the study though. Neil Gaughan, the ACT's former chief police officer, has come out of retirement to suggest that it will be hard to get volunteers for the sexual assault and child abuse team (SACAT) team if any greater scrutiny (aka public accountability) is imposed as a result of the outcomes of the study.

He also says that the Sofronoff inquiry, which was tasked with looking into the system's responses during the Lehrmann trial for sexual assault, has already caused some police officers "significant stress and indeed psychological damage", and that reputations were "irreversibly damaged".

As far as I am aware the reputations that were damaged were not within ACT Policing and the stress and psychological damage can't have been caused by that inquiry's recommendations because they basically focus on tidying up ACT Policing paperwork.

There were no recommendations about the lack of investigative and sexual assault training for officers in the SACAT team, which was revealed during the inquiry. Perhaps if ACT Policing provides the SACAT team with the appropriate support and comprehensive training required they might retain officers and have no fear of scrutiny.

Federal government minister Mark Butler said Australia would not back down from the demand, issued by the eSafety Commissioner, that Elon Musk's X should remove footage of the Wakeley stabbing.

The footage wasn't taken by the perpetrator. I think it is a dangerous path to go down if we let politicians dictate what is acceptable on social media.

After all, we see equally appalling and confronting images on the television news all the time, so why this fuss over X.

Canberra is the nation's capital. As the capital city of our nation it follows that government is based in Canberra. This is similar to just about every other country in the world.

The pork-barrelling involved in moving the APVMA to Armidale was outrageous and time has shown it should not have occurred and relocation was not successful.

As for public servants believing they have an "entitlement" to live in Canberra, well ... given that the national government is based in Canberra it seems a legitimate belief.

Just because you live around Armidale doesn't mean the government should move to Armidale.

Jog on Barnaby.

Remarkably we must recognise Anzac Day has grown so popular during recent decades that it eclipses Australia Day as the national commemorative event.

Anzac Day lacks the controversy surrounding January 26 and it unites people around a shared narrative concerning the nation's coming of age.

We ceremoniously highlight Australia Day by granting Order of Australia awards to a handful of people, and we hold citizenship events involving only a tiny fraction of the nation. But Anzac Day brims with profound ceremony involving multitudes of Australians who are impelled to participate.

However, if I were a gambler, I'd forget two-up and invest on whether anyone can say and spell correctly the words abbreviated by the ANZAC acronym. Lest we forget.

Would someone please remind all those speaking at Anzac Day services (or teaching about Anzac Day in schools) to mention the civilians who suffer in war?

Children especially, but also women (and men) in the war zone are so often innocent victims of conflict.

While most servicemen and women bravely choose to go and fight, too often the civilians who were killed, or injured and or traumatised for life are forgotten.

John Hutka of Gungahlin (Letters, April 13) writes: "I only use my bike for recreational purposes. For anything else I use my car". Alas, the days when I made lovely recreational rides out to Gundaroo and Tidbinbilla are passed. These days my recreational activities mainly involve walking.

The bike is used more often to get to Kippax, where it is placed in a well-maintained bike cage. I can then take an express bus to most places in the city.

The public transport network needs a lot of improvement but as our city grows towards half a million people we will need to turn it into a concrete mess like Los Angeles if people continue to rely on cars.

Buses and light rail, not automobiles, are our transport solutions. I do not want to live in Los Angeles.

This year the greatest number of people in human history (4 billion or over 40 per cent of the population) will be voting in elections in 2024.

Last year 2023 was the hottest year in human history in an ongoing trend to a climate catastrophe.

But not one of the leading electoral candidates around the world has made climate action a major part of their platform.

How can one be optimistic in this situation?

I find it exceedingly weird that some correspondents are critical of Sam Mostyn's nomination as governor-general on the unsubtle but unspecified grounds that she'll be no more than a Labor apparatchik.

Ian Jannaway, for instance, is "sure ... a Labor PM would never go for [a G-G] who didn't tick all the politically correct boxes" (Letters, April 22).

Would Ian please enlighten us as to what boxes have to be ticked before a Liberal PM chooses their nominee? I suspect one box stands out above all others: it can't be a woman.

I refer to the latest reports that the ACT waiting lists are the worst in the country.

I waited over 500 days for a category 2 listed operation against a clinical guideline of 90 days. As a result my clinical outcomes were compromised and I'll live with the legacy for the rest of my life.

After 23 years any government which is incapable of managing basic matters such as hospital waiting lists needs to be sent to the opposition benches.

A struggling health minister should have been dismissed years ago but the stark lack of talent within the government means that was not possible. We are all the poorer for it.

Ian Warden seems to have been entranced by Justice Lee's lengthy judgment re Bruce Lehrmann's defamation case ("It was guilty pleasure viewing", April 20). But I think that the judge has just made yet another catastrophe in this farce.

Whilst I agree the judge devoted an enormous effort to explaining his judgement I still don't understand why he feels that he has the right, in the absence of a criminal court verdict, to pronounce Mr Lehrmann guilty of a serious crime (rape).

It seems to be another case of ignoring the concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

Albo set housing target that all professionals see impossible to achieve. Albo then set an immigration target that even the Department of Immigration sees as impossible to achieve. Shorten set an electric cars target that was also impossible to achieve. Kevin Rudd set a target of a laptop for every primary school pupil. That was never achieved. The list goes on. I think Labour leaders live in la la land, not the land down under.

For goodness sake can newsreaders and others who speak regularly to the public please use another phrase than the archaic "under the knife".

This emotive statement creates a picture of sweating, bleeding victims with nothing but a slug of whiskey and a strip of leather between their teeth having their limbs sawn off in a shack.

"Operation" or "procedure" is a far more acceptable modern term conveying as it does the calm, anaesthetised, expert management our society expects and receives when interventions are necessary.

Presumably Iran also has the right to defend itself - or is it a right that only Israel can own?

Regardless the billions gratuitously "donated" from Treasury to slake the insatiable appetites of braided generals' (and politicians') penchant for war, somehow it is never "enough", and while such resources inexorably flow off-shore community services go begging and infrastructure progressively crumbles.

Kangaroos? An invasive species? Just when I had concluded that Barr, his officialdom, and their cronies from the phony Greens had got as brainless as they could possibly get, now this.

I found the articles by Dana Daniel and Mark Kenny on misogynistic violence interesting. I wonder what their views on women in combat are? The first three unarmed responders to the mall tragedy were men, one of whom gave his life to protect others.

Woke may amuse some but while they laugh and groan over the name of a building the looming concerns over climate, pollution and resource depletion are forgotten. The Atlas Network is doing their job.

To take Gary Fan's (Letters, April 22) response to Des Parkyn (Letters, April 11) a step further: "The [great white shark] is a native" which occasionally attacks an invasive species in its territory (ie: humans).

A new CDF and more letters on our woefully inadequate RAN. As a taxpayer, I hope the Army and RAAF do not endure similar losses in capability.

There seems to be a dichotomy between the Chinese Foreign Minister's recent statement that no country should treat the island countries as its own backyard and China's own obsession with Taiwan and the South China Sea. I appreciate there are other factors at play in relation to Taiwan but my point still stands.

Australia's Olyroos non-progression to the Olympic Games in Paris ("Irankunda snub to form part of review", April 23) probably has nothing to do with the closure of the football centre of excellence program at the AIS in 2017. Or does it?

The mention of the initial filling Lake Burley Griffin in Times Past in Tuesday's The Canberra Times (Page 2, April 23) reminded me that at the time I was working in the Administration Building and at lunch time on the days it was filling I would go down and check on progress. The flood was bringing down all sorts of junk. I counted 50 tennis balls.