Last year our young people were asked to make a sacrifice by putting their lives on hold to protect the lives of their grandparents. This year the oldies had the chance to return the favour.
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However, rather than taking the opportunity to protect both themselves and the rest of the community, some chose not to, instead waiting until they could access their "choice" of vaccine.
Now these people are demanding to be vaccinated ahead of young people who have not previously had access to any vaccine and who are either unable to access AstraZeneca or for whom the chances of blood clots are considerably higher than for the over 60s.
I am not sure what appals me more; the selfishness of these individuals, or that governments around the country have caved into them. If other jurisdictions have excess Pfizer vaccines, perhaps they could send them to Canberra so our school children have a chance to be vaccinated before they return to the classroom.
Carol Ey, Weston
Too hot to handle
If, as seems possible, Australia's new submarine is to be based the British Astute class I trust they fix the aircon. Crews reportedly find the boat too hot despite operating in the chilly waters of the North Sea. The one comfort we can take is that at $4 billion per boat they should be a good deal less costly.
Jim Graham, Carwoola
Wheel and deal
So Scott Morrison has announced that Australian will renege on its $90billion submarine deal with France and will instead form an alliance with the US and UK to build at least eight nuclear powered subs at a greater cost and at least two to four years later than the French deal.
Wouldn't it have been easier and quicker for Morrison to see if Singapore, Britain, Poland or a number of other European countries had some spare, or soon to be out-of-date, submarines they could sell us; just like he did with our Pfizer supplies.
Steve Whennan, Richardson
Priorities misplaced
More massive weapon spending with the nuclear sub deal on top of all the rest of our weapon spending.
This completely ignores the paucity of resources going to our biggest national security threat, climate change, along with massive biodiversity loss, and chemical and plastics pollution.
The only bright side is Biden and Johnson may put more pressure on Morrison to do something serious on climate change.
Roderick Holesgrove, Crace
AUKUS is a bridge too far
The AUKUS based alliance is an almost final step in the total subjugation of Australia to US economic, flakey political and hawkish military domination.
Our noble challenge since conquest and colonisation by the British has been to live independently and peacefully with our neighbours in the Asia Pacific region. It is now in tatters.
David Perkins, Reid
Territory rights a bipartisan issue
Northern Territory Senator, Sam McMahon, is reported as having excluded the ACT from her bill to re-instate territorial rights after ACT Senator Zed Seselja declined to support it ("MPs to back ACT's rights", September 13, p.1). Your editorial (September 14) rightly states this is not a trivial issue.
The decision to omit any reference to the ACT should not be based solely on Senator Seselja's response. Surely it would be possible for the ACT's high profile Labor Senator, Katy Gallagher, to co-sponsor the Bill.
Senator Gallagher is a known supporter of territory rights, yet her views appear to have been discounted. I would be interested to know why Senator Gallagher has not been more vocal about the need to include the ACT. Did she offer to support and endorse the Bill? If not, why not? If so, why did Senator McMahon reject the offer? Why does an (unnamed) Labor Senator suggest Labor should now embark on a duplication of the bill, specifically for the ACT?
It appears partisanship is once again overriding good policy and a genuine commitment to the democratic rights of ACT citizens.
