On behalf of the Leukaemia Foundation, I would like to say a big thank-you to readers for their incredible support of World's Greatest Shave this year.
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The extraordinary people who shaved or coloured and their generous sponsors have now raised an incredible $490,000 in ACT alone, helping to fund projects that will make a genuine difference to local families facing blood cancer.
The money will now be used to provide safe and comfortable accommodation in the city for families living in regional NSW so they can more easily access life-saving treatment. It also means we can offer free transport, counselling, information and practical support to the 60,000 Australians living with a blood cancer.
Meanwhile, researchers funded by our supporters are working tirelessly to discover safer and more effective treatments.
Although their critical research is improving survival rates, sadly an Australian still loses their life to blood cancer every two hours.
But thanks to those taking part in World's Greatest Shave, the Leukaemia Foundation will be able to help more Australians with leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma and related disorders survive and live a better quality of life. There is still time for people to make a donation at worldsgreatestshave.com.au
Bill Petch, Leukaemia Foundation
No penalties
Jan Libick ("A win by any numbers", May 11, p.22) said an association football (or soccer) game decided by penalty shoot-out is a cruel lottery outcome.
It doesn't provide a team contest which is what the game is all about.
It puts extreme pressure on individual penalty takers while team mates stand helplessly looking on.
Always at the back of the players' minds is that if they do not concede a goal they might score one and if they don't there is always the penalty shoot-out to fall back on.
It doesn't provide a team contest to the end.
An alternative to the penalty shoot-out and to involve the whole team would be after a tie in regulation time (90 minutes) for each team to rest four players making it a seven-a-side contest for the 30-minute extra time to follow a tie.
At the 15-minute mark each team would substitute the four rested players. The extra space of the seven-a-side game will increase greatly the probability of a goal(s) being scored in extra time and encourage attacking and attractive football to watch.
In the now more unlikely event of a tie at the end of extra time the " golden goal " first to score winner would kick in and a loss for the team conceding the goal. In this event, a loss would be shared by the whole team and not the player who missed the 12-yard kick.
Graham Brady, Hughes
Beware the costs
The "too big to fail" concept has caught on in a big way. The idea that "big players (banks) should not have to pay their debts" has morphed into "big players (BHP, Leighton, Tenix) should not have to face criminal charges and penalties when caught for bribery" ("Bribery laws a threat to investment"', May 18, p22).
The concept has long existed in criminal law. Plea bargaining is common parlance in crime show soapies on television.
The concept of "cheaper for the criminal justice system" has morphed into "cheaper for the economy".
Overseas in the UK and the US corporate giants, convinced that nations lacked the power to enforce their laws, have parlayed investigations into "deferred prosecution agreements".
The miscreants avoid the full weight of possible fines and completely avoid being barred from contracting with certain governments and banks in return for admitting the facts and promising not to do it again.
Australia is considering adopting such a scheme. It has hidden costs.
Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor
The police state
Police state Australia has a long history but it is not true that Australians don't congregate in public spaces.
Many Australians who are homeless have little choice but to use public spaces for shelter.
Police state Australia has overturned the abolition of (NSW) vagrancy laws by the Wran government by using local government as a pseudo implementer of public control and dissemination.
Just as we have seen local government used as a proxy for the collecting of personal information through public CCTV; so laws like alcohol-free zones, loitering regulations and so on are increasingly being used to prevent the poor and disadvantaged from soiling our pathetic middle-class facades.
Such laws, like our drug laws, only incite violence and prevent diversity in the use of public space.
Public space is a misnomer because increasingly its use by humans must be temporal in order to comply with police state dictates.
Adam Bonner, Brogo, NSW
US, here's how to vote
US party leaders must start planning now for a presidential reconstruction, following Trump's impeachment.
The fate of the US body politic is of global importance. Effective international action to manage inevitable global crises requires the US playing its part.
This train-wreck administration built around a narcissistic fantasist "business man" is inflicting much damage on the American people.
To restore democracy and public probity, US political leaders must swallow their pride and learn from successful parliamentary democracies.
Their archaic electoral college system must go to prevent another Trump-tastrophe. We could offer our electoral expertise to help Americans build an effective federal "secret ballot' system.
Some US states use our system, termed the "Australian ballot". Our public funding should replace the absurdly costly US approach of "superPACs" and other vote buying which costs hundreds of millions — money better spent on rehabilitating their exorbitant, but ineffectual, health system.
As we do, Americans must be legally required to fulfil their civic duty, by attending a polling place on election day.
Rod Olsen, Flynn
Wall nasty and misleading
If the ACT Liberals are still scratching their collective heads and trying to work out how they lost the 2016 election, they need look no further than Andrew Wall's opinion piece "Streets that turn left", May18.
It is so ill-informed and poorly reasoned, a generous conclusion would be that it is deliberately trying to mislead.
This is no "off the cuff" remark from some newbie, but theoretically a researched and reasoned article from an experienced MLA who has in some quarters been somewhat laughably touted as a future chief minister. It is poorly researched, petty, plays politics instead of presenting facts and has that Duttonesque nastiness that currently pervades the Liberal Party.
Mr Wall makes no mention that it is the public who nominate individuals to have streets named after them and cites no examples where people from "his" side of politics have been denied recognition.
He makes no mention of the independent Place Names Committee, comprising some of our most highly regarded citizens, that vets and approves suggestions and makes recommendations to government.
Mr Wall seems to think feminists are over-represented in the street names used in Denman, completely missing the point Lady Denman was a feminist activist herself.
His attack on Julia Trubridge-Freebury is quite bizarre. He fails to mention she ran as a Democrat, not for the ALP.
He also fails to mention she ran against the now disgraced former Queensland politician Russ Hinze, making her claim of "10 stone lighter and lots, lots brighter" pretty much on the money.
Rob Ey, Weston
I thank Brindabella MLA Andrew Wall for drawing our attention to the "contentious" naming of a street in Denman Prospect after the feminist and social activist Julia Trubridge-Freebury.
In naming the street Freebury, local government does appear to have inadvertently commemorated the husband from whom she was divorced in her 30s, and I agree that this is unfortunate.
Despite Mr Wall's misgivings, naming a Canberra street after a woman who campaigned for abortion law reform, nuclear disarmament and voluntary euthanasia does not alarm me.
I have lived in Canberra streets named after various explorers, military men and some "contentious" colonial administrators, and feel the Denman Prospect names are as interesting, diverse and appropriate.
Ms Trubridge-Freebury's slogan ("10 stone lighter and lots, lots brighter") when running against the Queensland minister for roads, police and racing also appears relatively restrained in hindsight, drawing attention to Mr Hinze's weight and intelligence rather than the corrupt activities later alleged against him during the Fitzgerald inquiry.
A. Rowell, Ainslie
Icon Water failure
During the past few months, several letters were published highlighting the shemozzle that seems to characterise Icon Water billing. Here is another.
My water and sewerage bill, issued on May 8, was the highest in 27 years.
A daily "water usage" graph indicated nearly twice as much water was used during May (i.e., in winter) than last January.
The absurdity of this should have raised alarms in an organisation that supposedly monitors water usage; Icon Water must be the exception.
On checking my water meter it became obvious that it was "misread" by approximately 48kL.
When contacted, an Icon Water representative (after checking with his superior) advised that a new bill will be issued reflecting my reading of their meter.
Icon's job was once again performed by their client.
Class action, anyone?
R. S. Baczynski, Isaacs
Myopic politicians
A scarcely disputable fact is that this current set of circumstances never happened before in both mankind's and the planet's history: I refer to the combined rates of population growth, resource depletion, pollution, the economies of waste, the food production chain in all its stages, and so on.
The consequences from the resulting umbrella of knock-on effects in the mid- and long-term is a huge unknown (and that's a fact too), if anything because there is no precedent to refer to.
Whatever arguments are chosen to believe or deny the state of the planet, I trust that a smarter mentality shift for us all as a species heading to uncertainty would be towards complying with the duties of the responsible tenant, and stop exploiting the misplaced politics of the myopic landlord.
Luca Biason, Latham
Code breached
Public servants said initially there were no shots, and then only a few shots into the air, at the Manus camp.
These falsehoods were breaches of the Code of Conduct. But the code is only applied by departmental management: so no action will be taken.
Public servants said the legal advice on disclosing individual information under the social security law was protected by litigation privilege.
Neither the long-standing Solicitor General advice, nor the "robodebt" advice, were given for the dominant purpose of advising on litigation. Clearly no privilege applies to either or is capable of doing so.
These falsehoods were breaches of the Code of Conduct. But the code is only applied by departmental management: so no action will be taken.
Why do we bother with a Code, or with a Public Service Commissioner, if there is to be no disinterested application of rules?
Christopher Hood, Queanbeyan, NSW
TO THE POINT
KAMBAH HUMBUG
I have always thought that the state of the local shops are a good barometer of that community.
As a fairly recent arrival to Kambah it would appear the ACT government, Woolworths and the owners of the Kambah village shopping centre have locals pegged as somewhere between an inner-city ghetto and a Third World country.
Don Maye, Kambah
TIME TO GO DONALD
If we really needed proof that Donald Trump is the world's most dangerous man, surely the pathetic, self-serving spectacle of his lame attempt to play victim was enough ("No politician treated worse' complains Trump", canberratimes.com.au, May 18). Way past time to go mate.
John Richardson, Wallagoot
NEW PRIORITIES
Now that the Federal government has found $165 million in missing taxes ("ATO Tax Fraud scandal", May 19, p.1) is it possible for them to lay off the unemployed, the poor, the aged and the young? Just asking.
Gillian Kimball, Nicholls
GOING GOING GONSKI
I know why they called it Gonski 2.0, because they are expecting more of them, precisely Gonski 2.(1 to n), then 3 to n, then 3. (1 to n) and so on (where n is a positive integer).
Mokhles K Sidden, Sydney, NSW
HEIRS APPARENT
Formal marriage is not about gender difference (Letters, May 18). It's about inheritance for the wealthy and their estates going to their heirs and remaining intact, not being split between bastards.
Susan MacDougall, Scullin
FATAL NON-CHOICE
Life is not fair. Is it not strange, all those who are in favour of abortion, are already born. Abortion always proves fatal to the unborn child.
Richard Ryan, Summerland Point, NSW
ADANI RIDDLE
Why would the federal government approve the Adani coal mine when it makes no sense environmentally, economically or politically?
George Kozakos, Barton
TREE JEERS FOR SHANE
Now that the Greens member, Shane Rattenbury, has left his indelible mark upon Northbourne Ave by causing all trees to be removed from the median, perhaps it should be (formally) renamed to "Nullabor Avenue".
Robert Nelson, Kambah
TRUMP THAT
Trump treated worst? What about Tiberius Gracchus? Another populist who was clubbed to death with 300 of his supporters.
M. Moore, Bonython
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