I was shocked to read all the unself-critical letter-writers parroting the same old tired arguments we have all heard 50 times and are sick of. If helmets reduce the risk of serious injury, why don't we force car drivers and passengers to wear them? Why don't we make them compulsory for pedestrians too, for good measure? Has anybody actually taken a poll in Australia recently to find out how many potential cyclists this law is keeping off the road? And if the number is large, does it matter? If the helmet lobby is so convinced it is right can it please start addressing these, and other, obvious criticisms of the policy?

Samuel McMahon, Parkville

Watch out on Gardiners Creek speedway

Wayne Robinson (Letters, 3/11) ought to try the Gardiners Creek speedway. The athletes who are trying to break the trip record to the city for work do not carry bells and give no warning of their approach. I have formed the habit of walking so I can see the oncoming cyclists and have often been abused for walking on the "wrong" side. Women and children usually carry bells and politely warn of their approach.

Michael Nolan, Capel Sound

Work has shown the reasons why

It is incredible that Bicycle Network can be recommending riding with no helmet.

Obviously their CEO has not observed the number of bike riders who have fallen and hit their heads and avoided serious and life-threatening brain injury because they were wearing a helmet. I personally have seen, heard of, and attended to many over many years both while riding with my bike club and when working in hospitals.

If this goes ahead I will definitely have to reconsider my membership of Bicycle Network.

Dr Geoff Dreher, Abbotsford

Using a bell wouldn't go astray

Inattentive pedestrians? How about cyclists too "cool" to fit their super-expensive bikes with a $5 bell and then actually use it?

Bernd Rieve, Brighton

Let commonsense prevail on use

The article ("No helmet plan may put brakes on footpath bid", The Age, 2/11) confuses two issues.

Riding bikes on roads with cars present, increases the risk of serious head injury and, as trauma surgeon Rodney Judson said, this was the commonest cause of mortality following cycling accidents.

To reduce this risk (and further one's enjoyment) one can often choose to ride predominantly on cycle trails. But,as anybody regularly using these knows, they often drop out for some distance, necessitating use of the road or footpath.

The sensible option would be to allow, as other states have, cyclists access to the footpath rather than risk the road option. Commonsense needs to prevail – these footpaths could be marked as multi-use and cyclists should slow and give way to pedestrians.

Injuries to cyclists from accidents with motorised vehicles is a grief-inducing, expensive problem. To help curtail this, footpath cycling should be allowed where necessary.

Paul Heenan, Point Lonsdale

FORUM

Land rights

According to Bill Mathew (Letters, 5/11), we dare not offend Indonesia because it is a rising economic powerhouse.

How does that explain our strong advocacy for, and subsequent military intervention following, the 1999 referendum, that freed Timor-Leste from Indonesian rule?

Mathew declared that "no doubt we can live without Israel". Why are the East Timorese entitled to self-determination in their ancestral lands – to the chagrin of the Indonesians – but Jews are not?

Kate Ashmor, Caulfield North

Solidarity where?

Bill Mathew writes, "Indonesian Muslims are deeply religious and stand in solidarity with the Palestinians". If this is the only reason for their hatred of Israel and any nation which shows any support for that country, then where is their solidarity with the Muslim Uighurs, forced by China to live in a horrific police state and with one million imprisoned in "re-education" camps?

James Kennard, St Kilda East

A trite plan

At time when veterans need real support on issues such as mental health, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has again shown he is Mr Superficiality with his involvement in Virgin's plans to salute veterans on its flights and offer them priority boarding ("Qantas under pressure to salute veterans on flights", The Age, 5/11).

The plan is trite when so much of substance needs to be done for veterans. And if Virgin was fair dinkum about its support for veterans it would put its money where its mouth is and offer them discount airfares.

Good call by Qantas to reject being part of this nonsense.

Rod Scott, Trevallyn, Tas

Virgin on stupid

Is Virgin serious in its move to give veterans priority boarding and then expect fellow passengers to applaud them once on board? What about other workers who give great service such as firefighters, police, emergency workers, teachers and nurses? What about members of Doctors without Borders who work in dangerous combat zones to treat wounded and injured people? What about guards at jails who work constantly in an aggressive and dangerous situation?

These days war is a divisive issue. What if some passengers choose to boo or catcall the veterans as they board. This piece of jingoistic US culture should be sent to the scrap heap or should I say "put in the trash" along with parliamentarians who choose to put their hand on their heart during the national anthem.

My late father, who was a Rat of Tobruk, would see this move as "bloody bullshit" and he'd be right.

Tony Devereux, Nunawading

The right support

I don't think my dad would have cared if an airline put him on the plane first, and I suspect he would have thought saluting him was just stupid. What he might have appreciated is a federal government deciding not to put him through three years of denials, lost files, complications and tricky rules before it finally gave him the pension and health benefits it had promised him when he signed up for WWII the age of 16.

PJ Bear, Mitcham

Recognise resistance

Within the $500 million upgrade to the Australian War Memorial could there be a small room or even a cupboard commemorating those Aborigines who resisted the European settlement of their country. We have to start the recognition process somewhere.

Peter McCarthy, Mentone

Fuel pollution

So Coles has lost 107 million litres of fuel through leakage or evaporation. How can it get away with this significant pollution of our soils and air? The $40 million tax it claims to have paid in fuel excise is small compensation to the community for this reckless incompetency.

Jim Holdsworth, Port Melbourne

Stop running

I would rather see the PM stay in his office and work on policies for our future, rather than running around the country electioneering.

The crazy 24/7 news cycle bedazzles our politicians and sees them continually "selling" rather than doing the solid groundwork of policy development for our long-term future.

There are big economic, social, Indigenous recognition, health, energy and environmental issues to name a few that need serious attention.

Running around the country will not increase our trust in politicians, but solid visionary work will.

Graham Reynolds, Wendouree

Hospital needs

It is unjust that the Premier Daniel Andrews is promising vast amounts of money to hospitals, gardens and sporting organisations while the fast-growing area of West Gippsland, in desperate need of new hospital facilities, is being totally ignored. It's our money too, Premier, that you are so generously splashing around among the swinging seats.

Judy Symons, Drouin

Racing's divide

It appears that Sam Duncan (Comment, 5/11) has little knowledge of the racing industry if he believes that it, including the Melbourne Cup carnival, was an exemplar of Australian egalitarianism. As one who has bred and raced horses for many years, I can assure him that racing has always been the province of class distinction. The Victoria Racing Club was founded and dominated by pillars of the local establishment, knights of the realm sporting socially prominent names – Manifold, Chirnside, Clarke and the like. They made the rules and they owned most of the horses. They ensured that the lesser classes could enjoy and gamble on free areas inside their tracks. They also painted white lines beyond which women could not cross.

While it is depressing that the Cup is dominated by a group of international mega-stables or by Lloyd Williams who buys proven European stayers like coats off the rack, let's not hearken to a false history. There's nothing egalitarian about the Cup, but there never has been.

Kevin Summers, Bentleigh

Cricket's plateau

Far worse than Australia losing the 1st ODI to South Africa is the fact that no one cares. No one watched, no one attended the ground, no one even noticed. Professional cricket today is so completely boring it's hard to see a future. T20 tipetty-run bash and giggle is even more boring. It's not even cricket and makes baseball appear subtle and complex. It has to be hyped up with loud music, fireworks and clown suits to get a crowd. And it only exists for gamblers.

Real cricket, the five-day Test, used to be seen as a philosophical and intellectual challenge for players and spectators, where a result, while fought hard for, was not necessarily the raison d'etre of the game. But the dumbing down and anti-intellectual propaganda of the past 30 years means many people now have an extremely limited attention span and will only accept simplistic "win or lose" propositions. Who today doesn't sneer when they hear the word "philosophical"? Down at your local sports ground on the weekend however, real cricket continues to thrive, where it's not about money, just love of the game.

John Laurie, Newport

Power plays

I respectfully disagree with Patricia Wiltshire (Letters, 5/5). Jenna Price accurately articulates my experience in a supposedly professional workplace, illuminating the secondary damage a woman faces when trying to get even flagrant sexual harassment and bullying stopped.

It is a "game" of power and this is the point. The perpetrator only needs bystanders to remain silent and he/she can offer lucrative rewards, like tenure and promotion. The target asks for a great deal more: courage, integrity and truth-telling, with the risk of being next.

Every person who does not speak up is indeed "as bad as the person offending" as, without their silence, it could not occur.

The other "game" in town is of unethical employers defending the powerful perpetrator(s) and hanging the scapegoat out to dry: expedient, brutally unjust and highly effective in shutting down other staff complaints.

Only rare voices of integrity, like Jenna Price's, penetrate the masks of deceit and collusive denial that enable abuse to occur with impunity in Australian workplaces.

Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn

Takes the bacon

There is a touch of irony in the Victorian Labor Party's wooing of voters in marginal seats with its $35 million promise to create more open space, seemingly attempting to out-green the Greens.

Many councils have been selling off small parcels of land that were once informal, de facto open spaces or buying up old government school sites for development, generally taking open space off people.

In some cases public open space in the CBD has been privatised and corporatised so that you can be moved on if you are deemed "undesirable". This is bare-faced pork-barrelling at its finest and should not even be an election issue.

David Legat, South Morang

Calling 8000

How can Telstra possibly axe 8000 jobs and still give proper service? Are there 8000 people not actually doing anything?

Ann Young, Chirnside Park

Terrifying gangs

Personally, I am much more fearful of gangs of white, middle-aged men (and some women) roaming the corridors of power in Canberra than of "African gangs" roaming the streets of Melbourne.

Eric Kennelly, Ballarat Central

Holidays galore

Here's a suggestion – how about a new public holiday on the day before Melbourne Cup day?

Garry Meller, Bentleigh

AND ANOTHER THING

Racing

Turnbull's been scratched and Morrison finds it difficult not to stray to the right. Shorten really needs to keep his head down and avoid any potholes.

John Bye, Elwood

Can we please move horse racing out of the sport pages and into the business and/or finance and/or social and/or fashion pages where it really belongs?

Chris Wilson, Poowong

When you watch the races today, take note of the jockeys and how they use their whips. Then ask yourself if horse racing involves cruelty to animals.

Miranda Jones, Drummond

Cricket

I'm so over Cricket Australia. New ball, please.

Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale

Channel 7's coverage of Australian cricket? First ball duck.

Jon Smith, Leongatha

It's much easier to support a losing cricket team of which I can be proud than a triumphant one of which I'm ashamed.

David Olive, Kensington

Furthermore

Instead of a boarding announcement will Virgin now play a bugle call?

Thos Puckett, Ashgrove

Why waste $500 million upgrading the Australian War Memorial, when it could be spent to buy 25 per cent of a new submarine?

Greg Lee, Red Hill

Malaysian Air Flight 370, who shot JFK, and American women who voted for Trump. The three great mysteries of our time.

Stuart McArthur, Fitzroy North

Midterm elections: the Earth is holding its breath.

Ralph Bohmer, St Kilda West

To win votes, Donald Trump wants to take Peter Dutton's treatment of refugees to another level.

Phil Lipshut, Elsternwick

Guns and roses: America shoots and votes, Australia watches the horses parade at Flemington.

Greg Curtin, Blackburn South