The letters ran thick and fast this week with subjects ranging from veterinary care for a cat, through homelessness, the kangaroo cull, Canberra Liberals to a sing-a-long poem dedicated to the failings of  MyWay.

Six emergency vet visits in four days showed me just how extraordinary Canberra’s veterinary professionals truly are.

When Eti the cat became critically unwell one Sunday, I was housesitting for owners overseas. Nearly a week of emergency dashes and daily procedures followed, with veterinary teams working tirelessly around the clock to save its life.

At Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service, Curtin Veterinary Clinic, and Canberra Cat Vet, I was deeply moved by the staff’s calm, kindness and expertise. Even after hours, they supported me through a stressful time with remarkable compassion.

As the daughter of a retired veterinary nurse, I know this level of dedication is routine. Vets and nurses care for traumatised animals and distressed owners while coping with compassion fatigue and burnout. Australia needs 4000 more vets, and many are leaving under relentless pressure.

Eti survived because of their care and determination. These professionals deserve more than just thanks, they deserve our patience, understanding, and recognition that they’re not just treating animals, but saving family members.

Next time you visit your vet, thank them. They truly deserve it.

Tahlee Bearham, Canberra 

Why we need a credible self-defence posture

Columnist Robert Macklin’s latest piece (CN July 31) rightly exposes a blind spot in our strategic thinking: the assumption that the RAAF would play a meaningful role in a future conflict with China.

If Australia ever finds itself in a shooting war with Beijing, kangaroo culling won’t be our concern – we’ll be chasing them for rations.

The idea that our F-35s or Super Hornets could fly from Darwin to Taiwan, operate in contested airspace, and make it back home is military fiction.

It’s a nine-hour round trip requiring about seven in-flight refuels. That’s assuming the pilots aren’t bored out of their minds, hallucinating from dehydration or bursting at the seams after hours in the cockpit.

And those refuels? They depend on A330 tanker aircraft – big, slow and defenceless. Refuelling is not an all-weather operation. In combat conditions, they’d be flying targets.

If we’re serious about contributing to regional defence, a handful of nuclear-powered submarines each with about 80 tonnes of ordinance would be far more effective. Subs don’t need refuelling mid-mission, and they don’t light up radar screens like flying fuel trucks.

Why we spent $15-20 billion on jets that can’t reach the likely theatre of conflict without a logistical miracle is a mystery. “Toys for the boys” springs to mind.

China isn’t about to bomb Canberra – or any Australian city. It simply doesn’t have the reach. What we need isn’t a fantasy of long-range strike capability, but a credible self-defence posture. 

A smarter investment would have been a modern, well-paid conscripted national defence force – one that not only prepares us for real-world threats but helps train and educate the next generation along the way.

William Ginn, via email

A sad monument to architectural conservatism

Opposite the Sydney Building, looking south towards City Hill, we’ll see a fine piece of architecture in the form of a new theatre complex.

However, opposite the Melbourne Building, in the same prospect, is planned a collection of very prosaic, high-rise, commercial buildings – uninspiring in this nationally significant gateway location.

They’ll stand as a sad monument to architectural conservatism, neat and tidy, but boring, with off-the-shelf facade systems, repeating the anonymity of the developer’s existing group of commercial buildings at the junction of Constitution Avenue and the City Hill precinct.

If the development has to be of a private commercial nature (and it’d be better if not), then the National Capital Authority must insist on a more architecturally inspiring outcome – look at New Acton for instance.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

Homeless need compassion and support, but… 

I am writing to raise a concern about ongoing activity near the carousel in Civic. 

For some time now, there has been an individual camped (moved all his household belongings) out in the immediate vicinity who appears to be homeless.

While homelessness is an issue that deserves compassion and support, the situation has unfortunately escalated to include behaviour that I believe poses a serious risk to public safety.

There have been repeated instances of alcohol consumption in public, and troubling reports of drug-related activity. This is particularly concerning given the proximity to a space designed for families and children. 

I find it deeply distressing that such behaviour is occurring so openly in what should be a safe and welcoming environment for our community’s youngest members.

I have urged Canberra MP Alicia Payne and the NCA to investigate the matter and take appropriate action to ensure that both the needs of vulnerable individuals and the safety of families are properly balanced. Three weeks have passed with no response. 

Support services, mental health outreach and relocation assistance may be necessary – and I fully endorse a compassionate approach that respects human dignity while safeguarding public spaces.

Sharon Castano, via email

Vinnies should address its own crisis

The letter from Mark Gaetani, national president of the St Vincent de Paul Society (CN August 7) promising“millions of potential winners” and “improving outcomes for lower and middle-income households” certainly belongs in the political sphere.

With its tradition of Christian charity in a secular society that boasts the most generous and multi-faceted social welfare and yet is afflicted with unprecedented levels of violence, abuse, loneliness and mental suffering, often concerning single-parent families, I expected a different appeal from the Society.

Instead of economic modelling and taxation proposals, the Society should address its own crisis, which concerns the need of its members and the real need of most of the people who call for help. These are not satisfied by delivering more of the same social welfare in the form of transaction cards, clothing vouchers and whitegoods.

Fortunately, there are still some members and employees who see the need for an appeal to our humanity. That is to understand the difference between providing a meal to the hungry and sharing a meal with the hungry.

The more we satisfy our need to love our neighbour the more the loved one will come to realise the dignity and richness of being human.

John L Smith, Farrer

Anthony was indeed a very lucky boy

Anthony Albanese likes to present himself to the public as the boy who grew up in public housing with a single, disabled mother. 

Today it would seem fair to say that he was indeed a very lucky boy. The wait times for public housing make it seem almost as likely as winning the lottery. 

A quick search of the wait times for public housing in the ACT indicate that it will take about nine months for priority housing or up to four years for a new applicant and even longer if you have special needs.

These wait times are totally unacceptable under any government, but even more so under a Labor government that has been in office so long that it has forgotten about the people it is supposed to represent. 

I don’t feel there is a lot of support for increased public housing because, due to lack of proper management, many public housing properties fall into disrepair. 

The latest ACT budget cutbacks will see reduced inspections of public housing properties with perhaps one inspection every two years. This will lead to further deterioration of the already very poor standard of many public housing properties in Canberra. 

Rental for a public housing property is based on the income of the tenant. If the occupancy of the property changes and a child becomes an employed adult, or someone else moves in or out, the rental is adjusted to reflect those changes. How will the government know who is living in the properties if they never go there? 

I know one public housing tenant who has lived in their house for more than 23 years and in that time there has only been one maintenance visit, which was to replace the gas hot water system with an electric one. 

We pay our taxes whether they be directly to the federal government or through rates and an increasing number of levies and the money should be spent to ensure that the vulnerable in society are taken care of. 

Public housing has been overlooked, underfunded and neglected in the ACT for far too long. 

It should go without saying that regular maintenance of the homes and regular rental inspections should just be a normal part of life. 

Write a letter to your local member, get people talking, take an interest in what’s happening in your suburb. 

Mary Holmes, via email

Exposing what they don’t want us to see 

Thank you, Michael Moore, for your article in City News (“Independent exposes Steel’s shonky budget ruses”, July 31).

It highlights the independent MLA for Murrumbidgee Fiona Carrick’s analysis of the ACT budget and exposes the missing information the ACT government doesn’t want us to see. 

This further emphasises the need for good independents like Fiona.

I do wonder why the federal government is hellbent on propping up the Labor ACT government and its lack of accountability to the ACT community.

Penny Moyes, via email

Halve the benefits and double the costs

Reading the excellent articles in City News of July 31 by Richard Johnston and Michael Moore leads me to suggest that whenever the ACT government makes a prediction, we should halve the so-called “benefits” and double the time frame and costs! 

Reading further into the magazine though, I thought the comic strip Keeping Up the ACT was just plain nasty. 

Lynne Bliss, Swinger Hill

Support the light rail business battlers

I was reading the dining column by Wendy Johnson that referred to the effect light rail construction is having on businesses in Civic, in particular the Chinese restaurant Little Steamer (CN July 31).

Little Steamer’s chef Wei He and wife Kim Zhang deserve honorable mention as “Little Aussie Battlers” especially during very trying times of this blasted construction of light rail on their doorstep.

No doubt other businesses have also been massively affected with little foot traffic and having to use alternate routes amongst building materials/ footpath obstructions. But they battle on!

Over some years I have had the pleasure to dine at Little Steamer and may I say the food and service are both beyond reproach… just a tad more in cost, but the best in Chinese cuisine Canberra has to offer!

This family business and others along this stretch of construction works are doing it tough, so come on, Canberra, give them some support.

Ross E. Smith OAM, JP, via email

Time Liberals stopped the navel gazing

In Canberra, two experienced Liberal MLAs are effectively serving their community as independents, playing no role in developing and selling party policies.

The Liberal Party was founded by Sir Robert Menzies at a Non-Labor Unity Conference on October 16, 1944. In his memoirs, Afternoon Light, he wrote: “We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a Progressive Party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary, but believing in the individual, his rights, and his enterprise and rejecting the Socialist Panacea.”

I hope that this necessary navel-gazing ends quickly as democracies demand effective oppositions.

I also hope that the Liberal Party opts for the real world as its founder would want, not some unicorn alternative universe where nuclear power plants produce pixie dust and climate science is dismissed with a quick wave of the wand.

Noel Baxendell, Holt

Emissions target won’t send us broke

Anthony Hordern (Letters, CN August 7) need not worry that meeting the ACT’s emissions target might send us broke.

The target applies only to 6 per cent of our carbon footprint, and it doesn’t apply until 2045.

Leon Arundell, Downer

What if the ‘roos don’t always come back?

Those people who think kangaroos will always survive in this country, no matter how many are slaughtered, by the meat industry, farmers or governments like the ACT constantly “culling” them from nature reserves, could not be more wrong.

The same was said about the koalas, which were slaughtered in their millions, now on the brink of extinction due to disease and habitat loss.

It is a well known fact that genetic decline can play a major role in species inability to survive and genetic decline is inevitable as populations are mass slaughtered and populations fractured.

So should we not be seriously concerned when we hear of millions of kangaroos in western NSW dying in 2018 from an unidentifiable disease, leading to a crash of some five million in the overall population of red and grey kangaroos? And that was just one of several mass mortalities in recent decades, with starvation and commercial culling ruled out by experts.

So the ACT Conservator, in telling me that despite the mass shooting on our reserves every year the kangaroos will always come back, seems to me to be on rather shaky scientific grounds.

Jennifer Macdougall, via email

Fix blimp and the problem goes away

Kangaroo culling procedures need an overhaul – as does the direction of our tag-team of letter writers on this subject, stunning all with tales of sorrow and tragedy.

If a shooter with excellent equipment cannot cross-hair the skull of the animal through a quality scope and with the correct ammunition in the chamber squeeze the trigger, he’s useless and should be sent packing.

It’s all about quality control and the lack of it on the part of the shooter. Fix this blimp and the problem goes away. 

John Lawrence via email

Doing it MyWay

Peter French (aka Peter from Rouge Mountain), wrote this and says it can be sung “with a bit of effort” to the same tune as the famous Frank Sinatra hit My Way.

So now my friends, my trip is near,

It’s time to go back home to Curtin.

My friends, I’ll say it clear,

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

There’s no light rail to get me there,

Whenever I travel, on any day!

Without a car, or bike to borrow,

Taking a bus is the only way.

It’s a simple trip, along a street,

That can be a potholed roadway.

But I’m really worried, I have no choice,

To take a bus, I have to use MyWay!

Regrets, I had a few,

My business in Civic is slowly failing.

But sadly, I’m not the only one,

Other proprietors are also wailing!

We’re all slowly going broke,

Customers are nowhere to be seen.

But our pollies don’t really care,

And it’s all the fault of the Greens!

Burley-Griffin had a vision,

A bush capital, beyond compare.

But ‘gifted’ amateurs fiddled the plan,

His dream has become a nightmare.

Civic’s now a wasteland,

And we all know what’s to blame.

We have our very own white elephant,

It’s called the Gungahlin train.

So, with your heart in your mouth,

You tap your card, hoping it just might play.

But once again, Chris, it’s another flop,

Just walk home, try another day!

So, you can plan each charted course,

Each step along the byway.

But in the end, it’s just hit or miss,

especially when you use MyWay!

And when you thought it couldn’t be worse,

I have some bad news for you.

It’ll make you worry, it’ll make you cuss!

Around the corner is MyWay Plus!