“It would not be inappropriate to sanction the Israeli Defence Force, its political masters together with their global aiders and abettors who, speaking with forked tongues of concern for the communal distress they create, willingly supply their weapons of mass destruction,” says letter writer JOHN MURRAY, of Fadden.

I concur with Robert Macklin’s remarks (CN, October 24) on the ABC acceding to the antiseptic presentation of news reports while refraining to blame or censure those responsible for the deaths and homelessness of non-combatant civilians dismissed as impersonal collateral damage.

The faceless white shrouds display what is judged to be the publicly accepted standard of appalling events. In no way does it illustrate the effect of dropping 1000lb bombs on or near schools, hospitals, places of prayer, refuge or residence.

Such an explosion vaporises those in the immediate vicinity while the concussion ruptures internal organs, bursts eardrums, turns brains to jelly and results in every orifice being afflicted by fatal external haemorrhage. 

While not making delicate family reading, this has been a primary cause of the many thousands killed in the retributive search for those responsible for last year’s atrocity perpetrated by Hamas. 

Financial and travel sanctions have been imposed by many nations, including Australia, on such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and its personnel for, inter alia, facilitating the supply and firing of ballistic missiles towards Israel and the danger to life that these pose.

Surely, to show a measure of balance, it would not be inappropriate to similarly sanction the Israeli Defence Force, its political masters together with their global aiders and abettors who, speaking with forked tongues of concern for the communal distress they create, willingly supply their weapons of mass destruction without which the carnage and indiscriminate carpet-bombing couldn’t continue. 

If it is determined that Israeli forces are genuinely acting within the proportionality parameters afforded by the Laws of War as formulated and blended over centuries by such as Augustine, Abu Bakr, Grotius, von Clausewitz and the United Nations, then, paraphrasing Dickens’ Mr Bumble in “Oliver Twist”, the law is indeed an ass.

John Murray, Fadden

Hare-Clark rewards the hard working MLAs

Columnist Michael Moore’s analysis of the Hare-Clark with Robson rotation (CN, October 31) is spot on. It certainly gives much more power to the electors, while also diminishing that of the parties, and rewards hard-working MLAs.

This was demonstrated by the large primary vote to Mark Parton and Tara Chayne, both of whom acknowledge and follow the same work ethic as Mary Porter, my wife, who received more primary votes than any Labor candidate, other than Katy Gallagher, in the 2012 election.

While Michael’s assessment that the American election system is easy to understand is correct, the process is not.

Not having the equivalent of the Australian Electoral Commission, the US elections are conducted by individual state, and in some cases county, elections authorities and, in many instances, those running the elections are elected.

This system resulted in Donald Trump attempting to coerce elected Republicans, in several jurisdictions, to alter the outcome in his favour.

While many may not like the outcomes of elections in Australia, no one can doubt they are conducted scrupulously and beyond reproach, and the result is the result.

Ian De Landelles, Murrays Beach, NSW

Dead wildlife would have concerned the King

King Charles is a keen conservationist who would have been concerned if he had travelled from Canberra just a short distance by car and seen the dead bodies of wombats and kangaroos lying on the sides of the road. 

Some wombat bodies may have been blue crossed for removal, but what is being done to prevent such cruel accidents from happening again?

More effective road signage and strict follow-up of those motorists exceeding the speed limits are needed to help save lives.

Susan Cruttenden, via email

Koala love, but what about the rest?

The government-funded Conservation Council ACT Region has called for a halt to further development of Jacka after a lone koala strayed into the new suburb. 

The koala is one of the world’s millions of species. Five per cent of those species are estimated to be at risk of climate-related extinction.

Canberrans contribute disproportionately to the emissions that are driving those extinctions. Our per capita carbon footprint is four times that of the rest of the world. Our so-called “net zero emissions by 2045” policy applies to only six per cent of our carbon footprint. 

The government is doing nothing to address the remaining 94 per cent except, “working in partnership across state, territory and national governments and will discuss scope 3 emissions through existing arrangements and sub-national policy forums”.

The Conservation Council says that the ACT led the nation in achieving 100 per cent renewable electricity, legislating targets of net-zero emissions and phasing out fossil gas by 2045.

I commend the Conservation Council for its concern about the survival of koalas. I look forward to it showing similar concern for the hundreds of local species that are at risk of climate-related extinction.

Leon Arundell, Downer

Ceremonies have become ‘meaningless’

Welcome to Country – I fear this mystic hangover has become meaningless, no longer attracts much support and needs removal. 

There will be financial strain on some indigenous people who earn anywhere between $350 and $1000+ for performing the welcome and smoking ceremonies. Their scale of fees, conditions and supplementary payments for miscellaneous inconveniences are clearly articulated on the internet.

John Lawrence via email

The uncertainties that lie ahead

When the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) chief executive Daniel Westerman told a Senate inquiry recently that he “can’t guarantee” power bills will fall under the integrated system plan for a renewable grid, he was only being truthful about the uncertainties that lie ahead.

AEMO speaks of its “current technical understanding of what is needed to achieve power system security”. It is mainly referring to how a secure synchronous power supply can be developed without a substantial presence of 500MW steam turbine generators. There is no ready replacement for the inertia of a 250-tonne Australian Energy Market Operator turbine spinning at 3000rpm!

AEMO is active in pursuit of an answer to this problem, assuming because most nations committed to the Paris Agreement are facing the same problem then it can and will be solved.

Researchers, engineers and manufacturers around the world are focusing on rapid response software algorithms for the control of the inverters that interface every wind, solar and battery energy source to the grid. This implies the deployment of a computer-based management system in every inverter.

What national security pitfalls will there be in this new technology? Will ASIO spring another Huawei-style ban on all Chinese inverter manufacturers?

John L Smith, Farrer

LEST WE FORGET 

Mary Samara-Wickrama, of Weston, has written an Armistice Day poem. 

November the eleventh, we remember

Those who have gone before

Across the seas to foreign lands

To fight in the Great War.

Millions lost their lives or were wounded, 

Damaged to their very core.

And families mourned for dear ones,

Gone for evermore,

 A “war to end all wars”

Was what we were all told.

But wars still break out around the world

For human hearts have grown cold.

We wear red poppies today to remember

That we are in their debt. 

But we,alive,must always strive

For peace on earth, lest we forget.

Lest We Forget.