The facts surrounding the Gallipoli campaign and the role played in it by the Anzacs are well documented. There is quite clearly no chance of these being forgotten.

 This then begs the question, What are we being asked to “not forget?” For most of us there will be common ground with qualities such as bravery, heroism and mateship well to the fore, as it should be.

 For me, however, I will also certainly not forget the spurious reasons given by politicians to persuade our young men to volunteer for this disaster, the heartless disregard the military decision makers had for the lives of these brave young men, the abysmal planning that led to their sacrifice, the tragic loss of young lives on both sides of the conflict and the futility of wars in general. Lest we forget.

John Martin, Woonona 

Two recent stories on Wollongong City Council financial management raise serious concerns of how well the infrastructure budgets are being managed.

 The first was the general manager’s refusal to provide a report on the infrastructure costs for West Dapto on the grounds they would not be accurate. Should this be interpreted to mean council has no idea of the  overall budget and consequently no project management in place for the works?

 The second was on the repairs to Austinmer rock pool. The infrastructure and works director reports that council underestimated the scope and complexity in doing the work. He also reported the costs will far exceed the original $700,000.

If these costs had been known at the beginning, would the repairs have been approved? Probably not. With a potential cost to patch/repair the sea walls being in the order of $1 million, the question needs to be asked how far would that money have gone to building a  new pool.

Has the council endorsed this substantial variation to the budget, if so at what expense to other budgeted items or are the ratepayers going to be asked to pay even higher rates?

 The impression is WCC has written a blank cheque for both these projects without councillors’ endorsement. It  gives the impression of poor corporate management, particularly for an organisation with a $270 million budget.

Ian Young, East Corrimal

Recently there have been some complaints about the length of time taken up by referring decisions to the video referee.

Maybe they should stop charging a multinational company thousands of dollars to sponsor them.

Congratulations to the Dragons. After 2 games of unimpressive football the half-time talk at the Canberra game must have been a beauty.

John Gartside, Kanahooka

It is difficult to imagine what, if anything, goes on between the ears of those heartless vandals that would vandalise a sacred site as they did to the Corrimal RSL memorial. I can understand the need to report these senseless acts but right now I would expect they would be celebrating.

 The publicity and notoriety they have received with two days of photographic displays of their desecration, would no doubt inflate their twisted egos. Words are surely sufficient to report such  acts but please don’t encourage them with photographic displays.

Barry Hartley, Shell Cove