Letters

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday March 4, 2008

Too soon to let loose with the hose

Perhaps it depends on whether you're a dam-half-full or a dam-half-empty sort of person, but it is not yet time to lift water restrictions ("No excuse now for driving a dirty car", March 3). Warragamba dam is still only at 59.6 per cent capacity. Far too soon for us to feel secure about supply. Despite Barry O'Farrell's call to review restrictions, Sydneysiders have to accept that a shiny, clean car should remain a low priority.

Philip Cooney Wentworth Falls

Is it cynical to suggest that opening the sluices at Warragamba when it is at a measly two-thirds of capacity is less to reward Sydney voters who desperately need to wash the dirt off their four-wheel-drives than it is to defend the indefensible desalination plant, and generate some cash flow for Sydney Water?

Peter Campbell Burwood

It looks as though we are to be rewarded for our success in reducing wasteful water consumption by being allowed to revert to our wasteful behaviour. This is rather like rewarding a reformed alcoholic with a bottle of Scotch. Why not keep to our new high standards? They have united our community around an environmentally significant goal, and been good for our collective and individual karma. Let's keep going until Warragamba overflows.

Francis Buttle St Ives

Spray painters most foul

As Clean Up Australia Day nets 7000 tonnes of rubbish, visual pollution in the rail corridor between Ashfield and Central, in the form of graffiti, has reached new depths of ugliness. Surely, to reduce the damage associated with this destructive behaviour, the State Government should ban the sale of spray-paint cans to all but authorised professional users. Offenders should be made to exercise their creative talents in the restoration of damaged property to its former condition.

Warwick Genner Ashfield

Harry's war

From the interviews I have seen, it appears Prince Harry regards his posting to Afghanistan as a great adventure, straight out of Boy's Own Paper ("Disappointed Harry wants to return to front line", March 3).

I am not sure what the troops in Afghanistan are there for, but I am sure it is not to provide excitement for royals and other assorted relics of the British caste system. If New Idea found out about him, what is to say that the Taliban couldn't? If his presence endangered the other troops, he should not have been sent there in the first place.

Ian Semmel Maleny (Qld)

The official reason given for pulling Prince Harry out of Afghanistan is that he might have been killed if he had remained. If that is the test, why are the other British troops being left there?

Barry Smythe Lithgow

How exactly did Prince Harry expect to be in Afghanistan secretly with what seems to be a camera crew and film unit? Were they also secretly there? Was the whole editorial staff of New Idea also secretly there? Next time, Harry, perhaps get the people following your every move with cameras to at least pinky swear they won't put the footage on MySpace until you are safely back in England.

Deborah Willis Surry Hills

Missed in translation

Israel's Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, did not say that there was going to be a holocaust (Letters, March 3). Reuters mistranslated Vilnai's use of the word "shoah", which means "disaster". The word "HaShoah" means "holocaust". This mistranslation means many people now believe the Israelis are hell-bent on killing all Palestinians, even though the opposite is more accurate. Hamas has vowed to destroy Israel, as evidenced by its continuous rocket attacks from Gaza and its indoctrination of Palestinian children to martyr themselves as suicide bombers.

Philip Ioannou Paddington

I sincerely hope you have misreported Israel's Deputy Defence Minister. I find it hard to believe that any sane person, let alone a prominent Israeli politician, could justify genocide, ethnic cleansing, or another holocaust under any circumstances. People do not bring such a fate "upon themselves". Perpetrators remain so, even if they are Israelis, and victims remain so, even if they are Palestinians.

Ron Saunders Wyoming

Topsy-turvy justice

Why isn't Graeme Reeves in jail (Letters, March 3)? In a land in which domestic assault victims are arrested with increasing frequency and casualties of the equine flu outbreak are being taxed by the Government that caused it, the bigger surprise is that his patients aren't in jail.

Graham Harman Gordon

Margin call required

I teach my postgraduate students that the market needs to be fully informed to be efficient and that the stock exchange and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission require that all listed companies keep the exchange informed of price-sensitive information - that is, information that would move the price if the market knew about it. And further, that insiders - such as directors and senior executives - cannot trade shares in their companies except in certain restricted periods.

Yet it would appear that some directors and executives may have been getting around that and protecting themselves against losses by arranging "margin loans", whereby the lender has the right to sell the stock regardless of any restrictions on the owners, should the price drop below certain trigger points.

The "insider" owners of the stock appear to have taken out insurance against losses, whereas the intention of the rules would appear to be that the owners can sell or buy only within certain periods.

The exchange and the commission should say whether they regard such margin loan sales for insiders as being within or without the rules. If the latter, what do they intend to do about them?

Peter Murray Kenmore (Qld)

Refuge from the regrettable

Good on the doctors who organise pro bono medical care for asylum seekers ("Doctors rally to offer free care for refugees", March 3). Asylum seekers on a Bridging Visa E are forced into destitution because they are denied work rights, Centrelink assistance and Medicare. The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, recently spoke of the "many regrettable immigration matters left unresolved by the Howard government". The bridging visa, introduced in 1997, is not only regrettable, it is senseless and unsustainable. It is salutary that pro bono professionals, asylum seeker support networks, community groups, churches and individuals are filling the gaps by helping bridging visa holders with food and other basic necessities.

Hendry Wan Matraville

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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