A Napoleonic retreat in Egypt

Howard Carew (Letters, August 6) praises the insight and intellectual leadership provided by the Indigenous women and man on The Drum special from Garma.

They so eloquently articulated the call for the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the Voice to Parliament to be instituted. It was in stark contrast to Malcolm Turnbull who continues to pour cold water on any hope that the Uluru Statement might yet be realised.

Turnbull seems to be saying that it's Australian voters' fault because we wouldn't accept a constitutional referendum on the matter.

He also continues to misrepresent the intent of the Voice, claiming it would be regarded as another tier of Parliament, when it is up to government, through legislation, to ensure that it isn't.

No, it's Turnbull's fault because he keeps walking away from his responsibility to develop, with Indigenous consultation, the detail of the constitutional change so that it would be readily accepted by a majority of Australians (that is, if it isn't already).

Turnbull also seems to have forgotten that it was his government that asked Indigenous Australia what they wanted.

At Uluru, they answered with one voice, but without even discussing it, Turnbull rejected their call.

Yet, this is the man who, only a week ago, told us he listens.

Eric Hunter, Cook

Libs have gone astray

I am a Fairfax [electorate] voter and nearing 80.

I first voted while serving in the army, 2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, on overseas service in south-east Asia, Malaysia, in the 1962 federal election.

I ceased voting/supporting the state and federal Liberal MPs in 2015 when I emailed them and Turnbull, stating the Liberal Party was failing to support my standards and values. I have been pondering as to how the federal Liberal parliamentary could support the political assassination of Abbott, knowing that Turnbull was a supporter and an active environmentalist who supported the CO2 tax.

Blind Freddy could foresee his future decision on the Paris Agreement. Turnbull, for me, had not demonstrated political nous or leadership, and I believe history will record him being the second most non-effective prime minister after Fraser (1975-83).

I ask all Liberal MPs "Are you supporting Turnbull because he bought his position by donating a million dollars-plus enabling a possible win by one seat during the 2016 election?"

Robert S. Buick, MM, Mountain Creek, Qld

Population debate need

Your editorial "Australia is far from full" (August 8, p14) does the paper no credit.

A full and frank debate about what a sustainable population for Australia might be is one that every thinking Australian should be keen to have.

The debate must concentrate on exactly what the "carrying capacity" of the country will be and not, at this stage, on how this figure will be attained.

How the Editorial can claim this country is "far from full by the standards of the US and Europe" is incomprehensible.

This country cannot be compared with them. We do not have the fertile soils they possess, we do not have the water resources they enjoy.

Furthermore, what fertile soils we do have are being steadily covered with bricks and concrete, over-grazed, or over-farmed. As for our scarce and dwindling water resources, one only has to look at what has been done to the Murray-Darling Basin to realise the folly of our past practices.

It is clear we are going to have serious problems feeding and watering our current population, let alone the vastly increased population now being forecast.

It is time we had some real leadership shown by our respective governments.

Murray Upton, Belconnen

Scientific view ignored

You say "Australia is far from full" (Editorial, August 8, p14). Of course not.

The whole world's population could be housed in families on quarter-acre blocks in Queensland (a cautionary note on the use of statistics) quoted by the Australian Academy of Science in the mid-1990s.

It was reiterated by Professor Withers at the academy's 1998 Malthus Bicentenary Conference, while tasking Tim Flannery for "frightening the little children" with an assessment that Australia's sustainable population might be as low as 12 million.

The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs commissioned the CSIRO to produce Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's Population, Technology, Resources and Environment (2002). Options provided by science weren't preferred by the department, so have been ignored.

How far have we progressed since Judge Coffinhal's "We have no need for men of science" of 1794?"

Colin Samundsett, Farrer

MacKillop offers an example to all Australians, not just Catholics

On August 8 each year Catholics celebrate the feast day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, who gathered women about her to follow Jesus and teach the children of poor people.

The celebrations will continue, with a new and beautiful focus being the second annual pilgrimage to the NSW coastal town of Eden this Saturday, August 11, feast day of Clare of Assisi.

Mary visited Eden twice, and tragically, her mother Flora was drowned from a shipwreck aboard SS-Ly-ee-Moon at nearby Greencape on May 29, 1886.

The Catholic parish of Pambula has invited pilgrims and admirers of Mary to come to Eden to honour Australia's first canonised saint. The Sisters of St Joseph, her spiritual daughters, have educated generations of Australian children for more than 150 years.

Many people believe – and who can blame them – that the Catholic church will never recover from its betrayal of little children, the very ones Jesus loved so much.

But that's forgetting about the Holy Spirit. And didn't all seem lost after the death of Jesus? Mary MacKillop is an example not just for Catholics but for all Australians.

Misunderstood, she knew the hurt of being denied holy communion but never once spoke against the Bishop who made that judgment.

Now for the first time in history our bishops are asking us – fervent Catholics, those who have walked away in disgust and everyone in between – to pray, and then speak with courage, listen with humility, and share our stories.

The question we are discerning together is: "What do you think God is asking of us in Australia at this time?"

Mary-Lou Pentony, Hackett

Health staff have power

I know people that work in ACT Health and within ACT Hospitals in general.

When I catch up with them, invariably some of my conversation may turn to their work, which usually goes pear-shaped.

This generally just opens up a can of worms in regard to a number of their work conditions, bullying being one of them, although it's not a word that they commonly use, however you know what they mean.

So the Minister Megan Fitzharris dismissed the proposed inquiry as a political stunt? Of course she would.

Imagine if an inquiry were held, who knows what would come out of it.

The inquiry may reveal how dysfunctional, ineffective and myopic some of these ACT ministers are and some of the current batch of MLAs as well.

One thing I would say to health workers, there are a lot of you, you all have family and friends who also know people and remember the ACT election is coming up.

I read the Canberra Times daily. I don't recall ever reading the Times of late where the ACT government has not had some sort of adverse comment or criticism levied against them.

J. Bodsworth, Phillip

Planning skills ignored

I had several exchanges with Professor Patrick Troy over the past year prior to his recent passing.

His depth of knowledge on urban planning and ecology went right back to his strong influence on the Whitlam government through his being Deputy Secretary of the Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD) at that time.

It is ironic indeed that a man with such strong connections to the ALP considered the current state of play in Canberra as a "tragedy" with professional knowledge of planning overshadowed by an ACT government beholden to developer interests.

Moreover, the ACT government continues to ignore important research on water and energy issues that shows that increasing density provides no advantage in either regard.

Further, he said "we could have had a much greener public transport system", which "would have spared us the experience we've had in trying to insert the silly tram 'thing' into our city". (His email of July 13, 2018).

Murray May, Cook

ACCC building empires

Bruce Gordon's critique of the ACCC ("East coast gas killed by ACCC", canberratimes.com.au, August 7) is incomplete.

Not only has the ACCC facilitated anti-competitive horizontal integration in the upstream gas industry, it also facilitated it in the pipeline industry in the 2012 acquisition of EPIC Energy by APA.

This followed the ACCC's authorisation of competition-reducing acquisitions in the privatisation of NSW electricity retailers.

These, and other examples, reveal the true agenda of the ACCC's empire-building bureaucracy: enhancing its own status and promoting its regulatory reach in dictating market structures and pricing.

So follows its campaign to regulate gas pipeline pricing in the face of a market structure it engineered. So follows its strident, if ineffective, voice in electricity markets in the face of its own engineering of market structures; and so too its campaign to regulate airports' pricing of car parks by defining "monopoly" very narrowly.

As bureaucracies are wont to do, the ACCC misunderstands, and is suspicious of, bona fide commercial market forces and sees market failure everywhere and the dead hand of regulatory failure – especially its own – nowhere.

Disclosure: I am a former non-executive director of Epic Energy and of managed funds that invested in Australian airports, and a former chairman of Infigen Energy).

Mike Hutchinson, Reid

Labor ignoring costs

Labor's climate and energy spokesman, Mark Butler, keeps telling us that the government's renewable energy targets are too low, trumpeting Labor's 50 per cent RET instead, despite the engineering and cost barriers to this policy.

A friend suggests this makes him the second RET Butler in our lifetime, and like the first one he will most likely be best remembered for his Gone with the Wind performance.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn how he and his ridiculous policy meet their demise, so long as they do so soon and ignominiously.

Doug Hurst, Chapman

Time to co-ordinate

Greg Cornwell (Letters, August 6) points out homelessness is a state issue and that ACT Labor hasn't provided enough housing for our homeless.

The federal government also has responsibilities.

Labor's plans to reform negative gearing and introduce a vacant property tax would result in fewer empty properties.

Labor also plans to re-establish the National Housing Supply Council. Just as energy policy needs to be nationally co-ordinated.

Rosemary Walters, Palmerston

Wait for Husar inquiry

It would appear as if Ms Husar jumped before she was pushed under Bill's election bus. I'm looking forward to the inquiry report.

M. Moore, Bonython

TO THE POINT

JOYCE PRESSED FOR TIME

Sue Dyer has a good point (Letters, August 8). When did Barnaby have the time to pen his self-flagellating tome? On his own admission when he was in Canberra he spent his time sitting in the Parliament (at least some of the time), carousing, boozing and musing with a big rock on Red Hill. I can hardly wait to line up to buy one of the first copies of this important contribution to Australian literature from the bargain bin at my local Angus and Robertson's.

John Galvin, Weston

GROWING PAINS

These days 25 million is just a city.

Rod Matthews, Fairfield, Vic

HOW ABOUT A HUG HERE?

Gordon Fyfe (Letters, August 8) writes of his wishes not to be hugged by the Prime Minister. The Opposition Leader continues to trail the PM in the polls as preferred PM, indicating that his hugs are even less welcome. Perhaps the answer for Gordon is to join the Brumbies, or a local rugby club, where he can hug a rugger bugger.

P. Baskett, Murrumbateman, NSW

DRIVING US CRAZY

Anyone who catches an ACTION bus should check the proposed changes, they may be surprised to learn that long-established suburban routes will no longer exist. And a reasonably short walk to catch a bus is now beyond the capabilities of some patrons especially the elderly.

D. Murphy, Canberra

ACT OF INFANTICIDE

I support Father Peter Day on abortion (Letters, August 8). Before my mother knew she was pregnant with me I had started my long life in the security of her womb. I am genetically the same person now as I was then, but much older. A procured abortion is an act of infanticide – the murder of the most innocent and defenceless of all human beings.

Philip Robinson, Bruce

SMART GO MISSING

According to Gore Vidal "The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country - and we haven't seen them since".

Matt Ford, Crookwell

THANKS DUE

Thank you Dr Maxine Cooper for your dedicated service which has given us valuable insights into and clear information about key ACT government operations and processes ("Auditor- General farewelled after consistent seven- year stint", canberratimes.com.au, August 7). May your successor be equally resilient and determined.

Sue Dyer, Downer

LIVING IN HOPE

Farmers who can't feed their lambs are being forced to sell them for rock-bottom prices. Other farmers who have feed are buying them cheap to fatten up. Having helped out the victims of this drought, can we expect to see some cheap lamb later on?

S. W. Davey, Torrens