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Canberra Today 13°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Letters / Contempt for our sacred place

AS we approach 100 years since Anzac Day, this year will be a day of huge importance for Australia. Commemorations will be held from cities to the smallest town in the bush.

quillCentral to this is the commemoration at the Australian War Memorial on November 11.

The most sacred place at the Australian War Memorial is the Hall of Memories where the Unknown Soldier is interred to commemorate the sacrifice of those soldiers killed in World War I.

It is with deep sadness I see on visits the contempt that many visitors and, even more so, overseas visitors hold for this sacred place in Australia’s history. Especially when bus groups at busy times jossle to get a better position. I refer to the constant taking of photos with a never ending barrage of flashes. It is time that this practice was discontinued with very definite signs saying: “No photography of any description in the Hall of Memories” and staff policing this rule.

It is also relative to me as my uncle was killed in the Battle of Albert in France in 1918 just a few weeks before the end of the war and is buried in France. His father, my grandfather, would have been visibly upset to witness this show of disrespect for the dead, especially in the Hall of Memories.

Cedric Bryant, Watson

Joy Burch was wrong

IT would appear that Robert Macklin hasn’t been following the Joy Burch story very closely at all (Seven Days, CN, February 26).

No-one, no-one, is criticising Joy Burch for wanting to help her son. The complaint is that Joy used her official position to influence the difficult situation that her son was in, an influence denied to every other parent in the ACT community.

Wearing her ACT Government minister hat, she made inappropriate contacts to secure a good outcome, something that ordinary Canberrans are not able to do. That’s the criticism, not the fact that she wanted to help her son, as we all do.

Geoff McLaren, Scullin

Peter did say thanks

I USUALLY ignore what Robert Macklin says, but I cannot let his paragraph on Peter Greste go (Seven Days, CN, February 12).

He says Peter did not thank the Government.

On the contrary, Peter said several times his thanks to the government, Julie Bishop and all the embassy staff in Egypt and for the support his family had received from the PM.  He even suggested they all get a knighthood, including the driver Mohammed.

So come on Robert, get over the Labor bias and report/comment what actually happened.

Geoff Harding, Mawson

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