If we need $270 billion for defence "to secure our interests" ASAP in the Pacific then we should be clear about exactly what those interests are.
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Most Australians agree that they would include the guaranteed and ongoing reliable information and debate we get from the ABC.
And yet we hear that $780 million has been withdrawn from it by the Coalition since it came to power. And then there is the threat of the effective defunding of universities and the arts. What is the point of such massive defense expenditure if our civic society is left in tatters?
As Peter Frankopan, an Oxford professor of global history, points out in his recent work The New Silk Roads, the increasingly belligerent and isolationist stance of the US has driven other countries, such as China, Russia, and Iran to collaborate more closely in their economic development.
This new show of Australian defence expenditure may well provoke our possible targets to turn to each other and to others elsewhere to share their resources and development. Wouldn't collaboration be preferable to further defensive posturing?
Jill Sutton, Watson
Zero sum games
Australian War Memorial director Matt Anderson (Letters, 29 June) claims that funding levels for the AWM and the NGA are independent of each other.
He is being disingenuous; as a senior public servant he well knows that funding levels in a context of limited total resources are a matter of priorities. The funding levels show where the Morrison government's priorities lie. The allocation of half a billion dollars to the AWM in this context is disgracefully extravagant.
Oliver Raymond, Mawson
Let the debate begin
Tuesday's editorial "Virus crisis an opportunity for light rail" has a sub-headline "The debate over whether or not to build the light rail is over".
In a sense there never has been one because, once the ALP realized that it would need Green support to form government in 2012, there was no going back.
Since then it has lied, obfuscated, and issued misleading and incomplete information, but it has never really engaged with the community over the project.
There has been a lively debate in the letters to the editor, with letters going more than 2:1 against, but the government doesn't care about that.
There are two statements in your editorial which require clarification.
The first is the assertion that the benefit cost ratio for stage 2A is 0.6. One wonders where this figure came from. The same applies to the assertion that the benefit cost for the whole of stage 2 is 1.2.
Given that the Auditor General assessed the benefit cost ratio of the whole of stage 1 at 0.47 and that the costs of stage 2 will be much higher due, in part, to the cost of a new bridge across the, one has to be extremely doubtful about this figure.
This remains a very bad project and we at least have a right to know, realistically, what its costs and benefits will be. When we know those, debate can begin.
Stan Marks, Hawker
This is ridiculous
I am amazed that there are still many people who feel compelled to hoard toilet paper ("Toilet paper limits back as hoarding returns", June 17, p6).
According to the federal Health Department, diarrhoea is a "rare" symptom of COVID-19: the most common symptoms are fever and coughing ("COVID-19: Identifying the symptoms", health.gov.au). Perhaps those people concerned about diarrhoea should invest in a bidet rather than filling their cupb(h)oards with rolls of toilet paper.
Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin
The humanities scam
Are humanities and the STEM subjects and courses mutually exclusive?
A few years ago the suggestion that STEM teachers could be paid more to redress a shortage in those disciplines was ill-received.
Encouraging an increase in STEM by reducing fees is another approach.
Being taught how to think rather than what to think is critical to all disciplines. Let us have balance and more combined degrees.
Many administrators have humanities degrees.
Is that because there are so many of them and they have convinced the government that they are the best decision makers and that they should be the chiefs and the STEM graduates should be the Indians?
Gail Allen, Pearce
Honour Sheean
The Prime Minister has announced that he has instigated a review of the review that recommended that Teddy Sheean receives a posthumous Victoria Cross.
If he and the Defence Minister had accepted the recommendation of the original review this second review would not be needed. They both have insisted that new and compelling evidence is required of Teddy's heroic action.
How, after over 70 years, can new and compelling evidence be provided? There is only one surviving crew member of the Armidale and he has continued to provide support for the award and Teddy.
The new and compelling evidence that the review should take into account is the overwhelming public support for the award. In these times of uncertainty, the population needs heroes.
If this new review was open to public submissions it would be inundated. As a major part of the review, the chair of the review panel Brendan Nelson should be asking the important question as to why the PM and Defence Minister refused the recommendation of the original review.
Alan Leitch, Austins Ferry, Tas
Light rail confusion
Light Rail route one (LR 1) has proven attractive to commuters principally because of the density of high-rise residential development in close proximity to much of the route. Revenue from land sales, stamp duty, etc, has assisted the funding of the project by the ACT government.
Light rail route two (LR 2A/2B) looks a different and more costly proposition. For a variety of reasons, there do not appear to be many easy pickings for land sales or development on the proposed route to Woden - hindered by the bridge, overpasses, heritage areas, Parliamentary triangle, existing narrow land edges and structures.
There are still valid questions over the most appropriate and economic mode of public transport for the southside. The ACT Labor/Greens government is committed to the light rail mode, rather than other options. The government must publish their proposed funding arrangements for the LR 2A/2B project, especially given tough and changed economic circumstances, before the October election.
John Mungoven, Stirling
Scarlett deserves better
Gone with the Wind should be permanently taken down from streaming platforms because you cannot see the burning of Atlanta on anything smaller than the screen for which it was made.
The heart of GWTW is not its racism, the slave-owners' rebellion, or the Klan but that the protagonist is a powerful woman, the unspeakable Scarlett O'Hara. Almost any other Hollywood movie would have had Clark Gable in her place. Moreover, how many others would dare to have their child killed? Margaret Mitchell got 30,000 letters from women saying that GWTW was the story of their lives.
Two sidelights to images of the slaveholder's rebellion are a Confederate Mt Rushmore outside Atlanta, while downtown a panorama has Gable's face on the South's champion.
The heart of GWTW is not its racism, the slave-owners' rebellion, or the Klan but that the protagonist is a powerful woman, the unspeakable Scarlett O'Hara.
- Humphrey McQueen, Griffith
If GWTW deserves a "trigger warning" so does almost every US movie and TV show. Movies set a million miles from chattel-slavery depict Africans as servile when they are not servants; the most active role is that of entertainer. Even in the anti-fascist Casablanca, Sam plays that role again.
Not until In the Heat of the Night (1967) is this pattern broken. Sidney Poitier is a Philadelphia detective sent to investigate a murder in a Mississippi cotton town. When he speaks out of turn, the white planter slaps his face. The Poitier character slaps him right back. The planter turns to the local police office, played by Rod Steiger:
"Did you see that?"
"I saw it," Steiger replies, "but I don't believe it."
He voiced the reaction of movie-goers everywhere at the time and pretty much ever since.
Humphrey McQueen, Griffith
Two-tier jobkeeper
The government has created a rod for its own back ("Workers refusing shifts because of govt support: PM"), June 30, p4. It should have had a two-tier level of JobSeeker subsidy; one for the lower paid workers and one for other workers. It is too generous for many lower paid workers.
I am aware of workers refusing shifts, and of companies keeping earnings down to keep qualifying for JobKeeper.
Companies and workers doing this should be reported to Centrelink.
Herman van de Brug, Kaleen
TO THE POINT
THIS IS A WORRY
We all should be worried when the government, the ombudsman and the police use words like privacy, human rights and "before the courts" to avoid explaining why a pedophile continued to be employed by ACT Health after arrest. Can't the public hear the truth?
Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla
WELL DONE DONALD
The COVID-19 infection rate in the US exceeds 8000 cases per million population. No other country in the western world has such a high rate. Luxembourg is second with 6800 per million. Sweden is a close third on 6700. The UK sits in seventh place with a score of 4600. Trump is keeping his promise to make America great again.
J Lindsay, Curtin
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
I love The Canberra Times "Explainer" page. Offer a page to every government "client service" department and to retailers, the latter to understand consumer rights.
Katy Skinner, Weetangera
STRANGE VIEWS
The white couple coming out on their front lawn to point guns at Black Lives Matter protesters provided a good example of the misconceptions Americans have about their constitutional right to bear arms. I don't think it was meant to be used to threaten peaceful protesters.
Rajend Naidu, Glenfield, NSW
ABUSE OF POWER?
Some leading ABC "personalities" obviously think the relatively small staff cuts being imposed by the national broadcaster are far more newsworthy than the loss of 6000 jobs at Qantas or similar catastrophes elsewhere. They need to get a grip. Aunty's delicate acolytes are much more secure than the overwhelming majority of workers right now.
N Ellis, Belconnen
DECRIMINALISE DRUGS
The release of wastewater data revealing an overall increase in drug use shows the government's illicit drug policies, based on law enforcement and dedicated to reducing/eliminating drug use, are not working.
How about removing criminal sanctions for the use of all drugs?
This would encourage those who need support to seek it.
M McConnell, Giralang
EVIDENCE OF FAILURE
The ACT government's newsletter Our CBR landed in my letterbox on Tuesday. The message from the Chief Minister talked about the freezing of government fees and charges which is on top of "failing" electricity prices. Was this a typographical error or a Freudian slip? Electricity prices have been rising for years and, as a result, failing most of our community?
Michael Lucas, Conder
BY THEIR FRUITS
You can tell a lot about what a government values by what they choose to fund. $500 million to expand the War Memorial. Big cuts in funding to universities. Which one builds social capital?
Judy Aulich, Giralang ACT
A RISKY PLACE
It seems to be back to the future on defence spending right now. Looks like Trump's Pacific deputy has got himself a shopping list. It's either that or he's got delusions that he is the antipodean Winston Churchill.
M Moore, Bonython
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