This week, letter writers discuss ED’s being for emergencies, the campaign to stop kangaroo culling, Robodebt and plenty more.

ED for emergencies

Bill Stefaniak (CW 13 July) relates the tale of a person who gave up and went home after waiting eight hours in the emergency department of (ex) Calvary Hospital. It makes me wonder if they should have been there in the first place. I thought emergency departments were for emergencies – heart attacks, strokes, broken bones, babies and children with worrying symptoms, etc. If someone is in a position to give up waiting and go home, you have to ask if their situation really was an emergency. Perhaps a visit to the GP would have been a much better option. 

• Deb Edwards, Weston

Culling is the lesser of two evils

The Save Our Kangaroos folk have really ramped up their media campaign this year. This includes one-page ads, a bombardment of letters to the editor and international correspondents. If only there were more facts and a bit more balance. The endorsement of the medical profession puzzles me as I thought their area expertise was people, not kangaroos.

If we accept the numbers quoted, over 10,000 are culled and kangaroos are nearly bludgeoned to extinction each year. It therefore seems odd that we can still manage to find 10,000 to cull the next year and thousands more are involved in road accidents.

Opponents of the cull focus on the actual cost of the cull and avoid talking about the real costs to taxpayers because of their overpopulation. Incidents in Australia’s roadkill capital involving kangaroos are estimated to be around 4,000 each year. This cost to the ACT, if you add insurance premiums, no claims excess, and vehicle repairs, exceeds $10 million each year. Surely the number of accidents is related to the number of kangaroos.

To suggest that numbers are reducing is laughable when a visit to most green areas in the ACT shows there are still plenty there.

Opponents of the cull use highly emotive language to talk about the cruelty and trauma of the cull. Where’s the talk about the suffering of the kangaroos being killed on our roads each day and the agonies of those who hop away to die? Canberrans do care about the welfare of our kangaroos but are not taken in by all the emotive language and hyperbole around the cull.

Of course there are solutions, but denying there is a problem will not allow a proper discussion.

– Terry Mowle, Bruce

Government waste

Thank you Errol Good and Vi Evans for responding (CW 13 July) to Bill Stefaniak’s op-ed lamenting government waste and pondering how elected officials can trash $76 million of ratepayers’ funds without much flinch. The only way a hammer can drop is at general election if registered voters are astute enough to vote along efficiency and performance lines and avoid lightweight personality razzamatazz voting like the plague. Sadly, our current local government seems to resemble a bird enclosure, with low flying, wing flapping, noisy galahs, as numerous as kangaroos, flying blindly into the mesh in the dust storm they have created. Don’t panic because culling is approaching, then we can refresh with another crop and hopefully find better traction, intelligence, performance and efficiency. In the meantime though, and tragically, we have no option but to exercise perseverance and patience. Our time, though, is approaching and the inefficient are on notice that their numbers are coming up and day of reckoning will be shortly upon them.

• John Lawrence, Flynn

Re: Robodebt, and the Voice

Re: No Robodebt for Corporations, and Abbott and Advance Australia (Letters, CW 13 July). I would like to correct Doug Steley’s comments about the Morrison Government and Robodebt. It was originally announced by the Gillard Government and her team back on 29 June 2011. Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten all pushed for the Centrelink debts to be claimed back, in 2010, and Bowen claimed it was a weapon in their armoury to claim the money back.

It may have been implemented by the Libs, but Labor was also talking about it. Kathryn Campbell, who was Secretary for the Human Services department at the time, admitted she was responsible and has admitted the Morrison Government were not given all the details, so why is Morrison being blamed?

Tony Abbott may represent the No vote, but that does not mean he is against helping the Aboriginals.

As for trying something new, ATSIC did not work and the 3521 Aboriginal corporations and the NIAA plus various other community committees have not helped and they were getting suggestions from the Indigenous, so what makes the Voice any different. Unless of course Doug is talking about what some of the Voice committee have in mind, like Teela Reid or Thomas Mayo who have stated publicly, the Voice will take charge and charge Australians rent and claim reparations. Given $30 billion are given to the Aboriginals every year, where is the money going? Because the poor people in the rural towns are certainly not getting much, if any.

• Vi Evans, Macgregor

Get a grip

Thank you, Editor (CW 13 July), for your timely “get a grip” to hopefully put haters on notice. I must say, for at least half of my professional life, I have ignored these brave emails or messages, essentially anonymous, because these haters are, often, simply that. Anonymous, or too gutless to name names. Even their own. I guess they’re not keen on drawing invariable fire, like outing a bully in class, only to get your head kicked in once the bell goes.

Disgustingly, as an active poet, filmmaker, and artist, but also elder Canberra citizen, giving to the creative and wider communities, I and many others of all differing age groups seem to have been targeted by some professional haters. Writers, fellow performers, and even publishers who seem to celebrate cowardice or, worse still, positively encourage the haters!

In the same way that political rhetoric will never ever be poetry, the veil of some in curatory power of influence is to grind their axes. I concede that this may be mildly cathartic for these sorry professional souls who carry chips on their shoulders.

But, as you rightly point out: “Get a grip – and look in the mirror!”

– Chris Simon, Pearce

Want to share your opinion?

Email [email protected] with ‘To the editor’ in the subject field; include your full name, phone number, street address (NFP) and suburb. Keep letters to 250 words maximum. Note, letters may be shortened if space restrictions dictate.