Canberra Times Letters to the Editor: Monash already well recognised

Monash was the general who told his subordinate commanders in 1918 that "casualties do not matter" and who pushed the 1st AIF battalions to exhaustion and multiple mutinies (September 14, 21 and 23, 1918) when pressing for his victories.

Prime Minister Hughes threatened Monash with loss of his command if this was not stopped. It is an insult to those Australian soldiers who perished in those battles, and those who protested against their extravagant use, to argue that promoting the general posthumously would recognise their sacrifices.

Moreover, no serious student of World War I would accept these battles "shortened the war".

The Japanese military attache to the Western Front reported to his government in 1918 that the war was expected to continue into 1919 and even 1920.

That it did not has less to do with battles on the Western Front and more to do with the collapse of German morale in the rear and the mutinies in the German Navy, both caused by the economic hardship and even starvation caused by the relentless Royal Navy blockade of the continent.

The victories the AIF won in late 1918 were over a German Army depleted by four years of fighting on two fronts and composed largely of teenagers who had been called to the colours after four years of privation.

Monash was very adequately recognised for his achievements during his lifetime, at the end of it, and in later years.

This trying to replay history with a better outcome is just puerile.

Stephen Ellis, Weetangera

I believe anyone who has a university, Canberra suburb, a highway and a new museum at Villers-Bretonneux named in their honour has been honoured enough. ("Bill Shorten moves towards posthumously promoting war hero John Monash", canberratimes.com.au, April 19, 2018. Oh, I almost forgot the Monash Forum of "has-been" politicians.

Robyn Lewis, Raglan, NSW

I am just finishing Korea: where the American Century Began by Michael Pembroke. Pembroke remarks "[Washington] seems determined to remain locked in its unresolved 70-year-old war with North Korea, unable to see that a peace treaty, including the removal of its military forces from South Korea, is the price for denuclearisation". What chances are there that someone close to Trump might share this insight with him at the last minute?

Jill Sutton, Watson

I noted with some concern the recent ABC Australian Story which touched on the Department of Veterans Affairs and would, with Anzac Day shortly upon us, write to advise all intending or currently serving soldiers.

Be proud to serve. You are following the footprint of many great men and women.

Hopefully you will serve with distinction and finish your career with honour and uninjured.

However, in my experience and I understand from a number of others, do not get hurt in training.

On the 11th February, 1959, my world came to a shuddering halt. My foot was crushed in training. The Army accepted liability.

It has since been my sad duty to fight the DVA continually and successfully from that day. Almost 21,500 days of argument.

Of the six appeals before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal I have won all but am still stonewalled.

It appears that a great many others also have to continually fight the DVA and unfortunately a great many have just given up hope.

Even widows of our fallen heroes are turfed out of their accommodation almost immediately.

Payments to fiancés can be stopped overnight and are.

I volunteered, I served, I was injured. What did I do wrong?

I volunteered to fight the enemy abroad in Vietnam, not the Australian Public Service. With apologies to Waylon Jennings, Mammas why would you let your babies grow up to be soldiers?

Whatever you do, don't let them be injured in training.

Brian Byrne, Young, NSW

Listening to the commentary on the Coalition government's proposed tax cuts for big business, it strikes me that there are two obvious faults in the government's rhetoric.

If opposition to the cuts is evidence of the opponents' prosecution of "class warfare" as the Coalition and the shock jocks would have it, can't the government's gift to the big end of town be just as justifiably regarded as evidence of the proponents' sally into "class warfare"?

And, if opposition to the big business tax cuts is to be called "the politics of envy", isn't advocacy for the cuts just as legitimately "the politics of greed"? Come on, Malcolm, you promised that we'd be treated as adults and be given reasoned and balanced explanations for government policy. Braying mindless slogans is not what we thought you were offering. Nor, I would imagine, did you.

Bronis Dudek, Calwell

What do dressing up as a dog and the night sky have in common? Upcoming Guinness World Record attempts this May — two separate records — for the most people dressed up as dogs and the most people stargazing simultaneously.

The Guinness Book of Records started after an argument about the fastest bird, in 1951. It resulted in a subsequent session in the pub as to similar quandaries about natural records and where to find a collated catalogue of them – birthing the book we now know.

Although the records nowadays are a reference of both extremities in the natural world and human achievements, are such well-coordinated mass gatherings really about human achievements or shallow attempts at infamy on the part of the participants?.

Hannah Weickhardt, Canberra

We send aid to countries where no reputable government agency exists to oversee how the fruits of our taxpayer dollars are distributed at their destination.

Many aid countries cancel out all benefit from health and food aid because their disenfranchised women can neither stop men from killing one another nor control their exploding fertility rate: as fast as they pop out babies the little mites either starve or are murdered by their very own fathers.

Make foreign aid conditional upon distributional accountability and a birth-control education program.

Percival Vere, Dickson

Your article "Test aims to improve work quality", April 16, p3) outlines a testing regime for builders.

If the objective is to ensure all buildings are built satisfactorily, the strategy will be a miserable failure.

The article indicates that although about 900 builders licences are up for renewal each year only 20 per cent of licence-holders would be tested. Most would be chosen at random.

The other 700 would not be tested. The inept among them would continue doing inept work.

Requiring all people whose licences are due for renewal to be tested could reduce the risk of bad work.

But even that would not guarantee completion of work to a satisfactory standard.

Performance on a test does not guarantee that a person is able to actually apply the knowledge and skills that the test is assessing.

Even being able to put into practice the knowledge and skills required does not guarantee that a builder will do good work and adhere to the approved design.

No testing regime will eliminate the need for a sound quality assurance process.

Murray Upton (Letters, April 18) is right in saying there must be regular inspections during a building's construction by a professional government-employed certifier.

Tomas Agostini, Weetangera

The site of the demolished Belconnen Police station in the town centre is now quite an attractive green oasis surrounded by some beautiful eucalyptus trees. At the corner of the site a large hoarding announces that it is reserved for development.

I am probably being stupid to entertain the idea that the government might develop it into a park. The area surrounding the site is quite alienating with major roads, a bus station and one end of the Belconnen mall. It is certainly not pedestrian friendly. A park would be just what is needed there, but no doubt the government would want to use it to support its notion of what they mean by "developing" the town centre.

I share Penelope Upward's concern about what is occurring in Belconnen (Letters, April 18). The breathless announcements of plans for ever higher apartment complexes fail to impress me. What would excite me would be an announcement that more green space was being developed to maintain, or even increase, the human scale of the environment.

Tim Hardy, Florey

The CSIRO has flagged that it will be disposing of its field station located between Owen Dixon Drive and the Barton Highway in north-west Belconnen and that an estimated 10,000 dwellings could be constructed on that land release.

It would seem an ideal time to reserve the land immediately adjacent to the present Palmer Heritage Park in Evatt to increase the size of that park to maybe double in size.

Once the land is sold for development the obvious opportunity will be lost to create a much needed green open space for multiple recreational uses for the approximately additional 40,000 residents. Maybe some of the local MLAs who are backbenchers and the local federal member could be advancing these issues on behalf of their constituents with the CSIRO before the opportunity for green open space is lost to bulldozers and concrete.

Rohan Goyne, Evatt

Chris Swinbank (Letters, April 18) is rightly concerned about the conversion of public use space and assets for private gain, including at the Gold Creek Golf Club.

Elsewhere, the development of high-rise apartments along busy, noisy roads will continue to encroach on nearby space without other public use options being offered for public consultation.

A recent information session about draft plans for rows of multi-storeyed housing developments along the north-western edge of Downer revealed also that similar high-rise on the opposite side, at Yowani Golf Club, may well occur in the future.

Plans for substantial development along this stretch of the Northbourne Avenue/Federal Highway corridor are the main component of the uninspiring vision that Mr Barr and the NCA have for a gateway to the national capital.

Sue Dyer, Downer

John Mungoven (Letters, April 19) asks "Where is the outrage?" about the complete lack of coffee outlets in the Molonglo Valley.

I can assure John that there is plenty of outrage, but the lack of coffee shops is symbolic of the complete lack of any shops anywhere in the Molonglo Valley.

Courtesy of the dead hand of ACT government planning, and the invisible hand of market forces the Molonglo Valley has a white elephant in its midst in the form of Coombs Local Shopping Centre, which is devoid of life and any sign of opening soon.

What options does the community have to resolve this impasse?

This matter was last in the CT back in February, when residents were told that the centre would open "soon".

Since then some building work has continued, but there is still nothing to indicate that any tenants have been found.

John Hutchison, Coombs

I'd just like to say how much I enjoy David Pope's cartoons in The Canberra Times.

David, you always manage the capture of the likenesses, especially of our politicians, their quirks, and expressions.

We enjoy your incisiveness, your skills. The people you portray are always immediately recognisable, unlike the drawings by some other cartoonists.

Each night, before I go to bed, here in Geelong, I always look at The Canberra Times website to view your cartoon for the next day.

My very favourite to date was the cartoon of Barnaby Joyce, as a giant carp, floundering on the bottom of a waterless Murray River.

Thank you so much for your work – I love it!

Jan Laidlaw, Geelong

The ACT government's recently announced plan for transitioning Canberra to electric vehicles is really welcome news.

It's also a really good reminder that its work on renewables is unfinished business.

With the ACT's 100 per cent renewable target (640 MW capacity) fully contracted, and with those generators dispatched fully into the system whenever they are able, any marginal load (the addition of electric vehicles, for example) effectively comes at an emissions intensity factor equivalent to that of the NSW NEM region, which unfortunately is still quite high.

The solution: the ACT must keep building more wind and solar!

Evan Franklin, ANU Research School of Engineering, Hobart, Tas

VANDALISM? MAYBE NOT

Given the appalling revelations of wrong-doing at the banking royal commission, I am wondering if Professor Ross Fitzgerald still thinks that such a commission would be "political opportunism and economic vandalism" or a "threat to our economic wellbeing" as he stated in The Canberra Times on October 15, 2016.

David Roth, Kambah

THINK OF VIEWERS

Cricket Australia has got itself a nice little broadcasting package with Seven and Foxtel worth over $1 billion. However, this deal does not favour those viewers on a budget. All one-day internationals and T20 internationals will only be available on pay TV, Foxtel. Those who cannot afford pay TV will miss out on these games. Hopefully the government regulatory agency that controls TV rights will not allow this blatant attempt at financial discrimination to happen.

Alan Leitch, Austin's Ferry, Tasmania

SHOW SOME INITIATIVE

I guess the next ACT government project is for the relocation of Canberra Hospital to the nearest light rail station ... clever country stymied by a technical problem. Ever heard of a spur line?

Luke Wensing, Evatt

OPTIONAL EXTRAS

Russia expelling 60 US diplomatic personnel in retaliation against the expulsion of the same number by the US, together with the expulsion of another 150staff around the world, proves that a lot of diplomats are really optional extras.

Rajend Naidu, Glenfield, NSW

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