In July 2020 the ACT government 's application for funding from the Commonwealth 's Disaster Recovery Fund to help restore the fire ravaged Namadgi National Park was turned down by the Morrison government because it didn't meet the guidelines. There has been been no real apology from Defence or the Commonwealth and no compensation from the federal government to help restore a significant natural part of the ACT and there has been little public outcry.

I am at a loss to understand the lack of remorse from the Morrison government.

The Brereton report is only just a report. No one has been convicted by a court and may not be. As Alan Jones has said, Angus Campbell received a medal for his command and leadership, yet Brereton finds he was too remote from the field to have had sufficient command and control.

If that be so, Campbell must be stripped of his award; we cannot have it both ways.

The Brereton report appears another "stuff-up" like the Royal Commission findings against George Pell; the courts threw them out as unsustainable. Brereton's appears no different.

What an embarrassing joke, the PM and Angus Campbell apologising for something yet to be proven correct. They both appear contemptuous of our legal system. No convictions and yet big-noting themselves by apologising to the Afghanistan PM.

Military personnel need to send a "No confidence in Angus Campbell" petition to the Governor-General demanding he be stripped of his award and sacked. The PM should resign for his blatant contempt of law.

The alleged war crimes by the Australian special forces in Afghanistan beg the question of how much compensation to Afghan civilian families of victims may eventuate.

To give this context, examine the proposed demolition and subsequent expansion of the annex to the Australian War Memorial, estimated to cost around half a billion dollars.

One cost is open to public scrutiny. Let's hope the other is neither redacted nor withheld from our purview.

As the proud custodian of my grandfather's (Gallipoli) and my father's (Middle East and New Guinea) service medals I felt compelled to respond to R S Baczynski (Letters, December 1).

The recommendation of Justice Brereton to remove the SOTG meritorious service citation followed an exhaustive investigation and sober analysis. That recommendation, like the report itself, will cause heartache. The failure was the vacuum into which the report was released following a preceding softening up by politicians.

The recommendation, however, is not a "knee-jerk reaction". To characterise it as such is misleading, as is the assertion that the conduct reviewed was that of a few individuals. The informed commentator speaks to culture and the collective not solely individual actions.

Baczynski also conflates the payment of compensation to Afghan families with an alleged refusal by Afghan authorities to apologise for green-on-blue attacks. This form of emotive jingoism highlights why atrocities will occur so long as we have armed conflicts and why justice for breaches of international laws will be difficult to secure.

Medals are not the only reminder of war service. I still have my grandfather's military issue walking stick which supported him after his time on Gallipoli.

I need to reply to the letter from P A Marshall (Letters, November 30). The animals that lived around the big willow near Duntroon were not platypuses. They were native water rats.

But P A is so right. They were beautiful. They would swim along, with just the head out of water, and then sit on the roots of the willow to preen. There were yabbies in the mud, and birds in the trees. Then the willow was gone. With it all the life was gone.

Have you noticed blue-green algae has appeared since willows were removed?

Fred Bennett (Letters, November 30) states, in relation to allegations against SAS personnel, that the presumption of innocence until proven guilty was "one of the vital foundations of our democracy that our soldiers in Afghanistan were fighting to preserve".

Really? Why then was the response to the crimes committed on September 11, 2001, an invasion of Afghanistan rather than the capture and trial of the suspect Osama Bin Laden? Millions of Afghan people have paid the price for this failure to uphold the role of the legal system in prosecuting terrorist crimes.

Bennett is of course right that people should not be condemned on the basis of allegations, but please spare us the fabrications about why Australians were fighting in Afghanistan.

I have three trivial concerns and I wish someone could address them:

1.The grass mowing of public places in the ACT is leaving heaps of decaying grass covering footpaths. This can be dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists and cosy for snakes and other obstacles.

2. The pothole road repairs in the ACT are cheap, temporary, uneven, poorly installed and often miss infilling some holes in the same section of road. This may be all a part of the Labor/Green coalition's war on cars. I just hope that the members of the Legislative Assembly can show us the way and take the lead on the assault by only ever using public transport.

3. Banks and other businesses providing "services" have started using new terminology in their call-centres. Now the trend is to answer all calls with something like: "We are experiencing an unusually large number of calls. We value your call and will get someone to answer your call as soon as we can." This euphemism is used to "camouflage" their permanent inadequate number of call centre staff. It does not seem to matter what time or what day you call there is always "an unusually large number of calls".

Australia is appealing to the WTO over Chinese tariffs on our exports. How many Australians are aware that Australia has repeatedly used anti-dumping measures, having initiated 84 actions in six years; a third of them against China?

Despite the rhetoric supporting free trade it seems we like to "have our cake and eat it", retaining the option of seeking protective measures when our industries ask for it.

Then we complain when others use the same tactics. It is time for our leaders to seek more comprehensive negotiations with China that lead to a more long-term relationship based on respect and dialogue.

I am a year 6 student at Forrest Primary School. I am writing to express concern about the lack of diversity among judges in Australian courts. Our judges do not reflect the diversity of the broader community. It is clear that the majority of our judges come from a particular demographic.

The statistics behind the problem reveal how significant this issue is, and help to define what actions are required to solve it.

Firstly, there are very few judges from minority backgrounds in all courts across Australia. Out of the 927 judges around the country, only two are of an Indigenous background, two are openly gay, none have a disability and 17 are Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu.

The majority grew up speaking English. Seventy-two per cent of judges in the Federal Court, 73 per cent in the Supreme Court of Victoria and 76 per cent in the Supreme Court of New South Wales are male.

While this doesn't itself prove bias, it does show that our judges are assessing people of diverse backgrounds when the majority of them fall into one category. That means defendants from diverse groups in society may be disadvantaged because judges might not empathise with them in the way they would with someone more like them.

Urgent action is needed to combat these problems. Measures should be implemented to ensure the demographic of judges better reflects the Australian community. Options might include recruiting judges from diverse backgrounds and pairing up judges to ensure a range of views to generate fairer outcomes in court.

The Iranian government has accused Israeli agents of killing Iran's top nuclear scientist. It's time to stock up on the toilet paper.

The article "A day in the life of a garbo" (November 27, page 2) didn't mention another very important role. If I am minding a grandchild on collection day and we go down the drive to watch the big truck emptying our bin the driver will always wave. The kids love it. Thank you garbos.

When the Chinese government publishes a "Brereton Inquiry" into the activities of its security forces in Xinjiang Province, it will be able to tweet with much enhanced moral authority.

One picture may be worth a thousand words but David Pope's cartoon on Tuesday (December 1) was worth millions. David Pope for PM.

Pope's "Tit for Tat" cartoon (December 1) reflects the real-life soap opera we've been cast in. Working titles include: Dynasty, The Bold and the Beautiful, Home and Away, Days of Our Lives, or As the World Turns.

I guess the two ships Tit and Tat were becalmed on a sea of discontent located near some disputed territory (Editorial cartoon, December 1).

As our relationship with China appears to be going down the gurgler, the one unfair aspect that has always bothered me is the fact that Chinese nationals can buy Australian real estate but there is no reciprocity for us to buy in China. And let's not forget who now owns Darwin Harbour.

The Chinese picture of one of our troops threatening the life of an Afghan is not exaggerated. Some of our troops allegedly did worse than that: they murdered and tortured - and two of their victims were reportedly children.

SOTG members accused of murder and torture in Afghanistan should be relieved that we have moved on from the penalty we meted out for war crimes in World War II.

Who is going to oversee the dedicated agency, COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, which will supposedly oversee all elements of the state's quarantine program?

My money is on Dan giving the job to the same mob that caused the original stuff up.

The Russians say Australia's credibility has been tarnished by the Brereton Inquiry report.

Russia should remember its own track record is far from clean. Australia is brave enough to investigate this and to act. Would Russia do the same?

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