Our forebears had the wisdom and strength and determination to bring it all together as one nation: Australia.

It was decided to make a new capital: Canberra.

In the late 1950s the Prime Minister, R. G. Menzies, said "We are stuck with Canberra, whether we like it or not, so we might as well do it properly".

He was determined to make Canberra a capital city of which all Australians could be proud. That included bringing government departments not already there to the capital.

Sure, the people involved came kicking and screaming, but they could understand and appreciate that it was practical and necessary to have the relevant people in the same city. There is no doubt it has helped to create good government.

Ministers need to be able to see and speak to their departmental officers, and those in different departments need to know each other.

It fills me with horror to think of present day public servants being forced to move away from Canberra.

It is harder now than it was 50 or 60 years ago.

Today both spouses are usually in paid employment. Of course, children have to change school and university, and houses have to be bought and sold and rented. These are human beings, not "mere public servants".

Recently I heard Barnaby Joyce say "There is a chemistry when people meet face to face".

Exactly so.

Modern communications are brilliant, but real personal contact remains vital.

Why are we taking this retrograde step, scattering our government?

Why are we spending millions to become less efficient?

All right, I confess. My father was (R. G.) Menzies.

Heather Henderson, Yarralumla

Bill Deane (letters, May 20) defends Prince Philip's joke about British students in China getting slitty eyes as an attempt to put people at ease but I doubt that Chinese people enjoyed that remark.

Joking at the expense of others has gone out of fashion, as has the idea that the eldest child should be forced into the same career as his/her parents.

Unexpectedly some believe that the Queen is pushing her grandson, William, towards the role of monarch instead of Charles and his unpopular wife.

However in a democracy why can't it be the people who choose their monarch?

And why not allow anyone to nominate?

The elected monarch could then be trained in diplomacy but only face, say, a five-year term instead of a life sentence.

Rosemary Walters, Palmerston

Perhaps it's time to stop comparing the 1500 mine jobs with 70,000 Barrier Reef jobs.

The reef and those jobs are gone.

With the locked-in warming over the next 25 years, and the inept and token efforts to reduce other destructive factors, the GBR as a whole is finished.

There will be a few isolated lucky spots which may regenerate somewhat over the next 50 years, which the vandals' polemical sock puppets like Miranda Devine will point at and claim it's still perfectly all right.

I'd just like the coal lovers to tell the others face to face why one coal job is better than 50 reef jobs.

But if I had my say, I don't think I could do better than to quote David Bowie: "the wrong words make you listen in this criminal world".

S. W. Davey, Torrens

I thought there could be nothing more irresponsible than Australian governments funding the Adani Carmichael coal mine.

Then I heard that the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, an Australian government agency, is considering a multimillion-dollar loan for a South African coal mine that would be in direct competition with the Adani Carmichael coal mine.

Both of those mines would undermine existing Australian coal mines and their associated jobs and take carbon emissions to dangerous levels.

Encouraging any new coal mine anywhere is madness.

Peter Campbell, Cook

Google Maps tells me it is 3920km from San Antonio, Texas to Quito, Ecuador and 7500km from New York to Moscow.

If CIA snatch squads are not already stationed all over South America, including Ecuador, a CIA team could be in Quito in a few hours.

Russia has kept Edward Snowden out of harm's way since 2013. So if Julian Assange ever gets safe passage, I would advise him to go straight to Russia and give South America a miss.

Kenneth Griffiths, O'Connor

As Kevin Rudd's NBN vision for the country sinks further and further into a sick joke little if anything ends at Malcolm Turnbull's door for the mess.

After all it was his side of politics that came up with the foolhardy idea of having a mix of fibre and copper to the home to save Treasury funds.

Turnbull was given this impossible mess to put the square peg in the round hole.

And we are now more than aware this exercise has been an incredibly costly failure that Turnbull is now attempting to tell us that this mess is taking us forward when in fact we are being taken backwards.

Australians have been sold a costly mess that will at some point in the future have to be fixed and not one of the architects of this mess will ever be held to account for the mess they created.

D. J. Fraser, Currumbin, Qld

I only changed from Dial Up to ADSL five years ago and the latter works fine.

We are told the original ALP plan for NBN was too expensive but the Liberal plan does not work property with internet speeds slower at times.

I can do everything on ADSL from email to You Tube.

As an average Australian I don't need a faster internet nor my copper wire replaced.

Copper is strategically important as a back-up to electronic communication if they are interrupted by hackers, war or dodgy government like what happens overseas.

Adrian Jackson, Melbourne, Vic

I assume it was a coincidence that Chief Minister Andrew Barr launched the new government-friendly CFMEU Clubs Association on the day that submissions to the Legislative Assembly select committee inquiry into the establishment of an independent integrity commission closed.

I don't know if it is just me but the Chief Minister's Trump-like response to Clubs ACT daring to oppose the government over the decision to give the casino poker machines does seem, at best, a tad petulant.

Residents and community organisations are entitled to disagree with and to oppose the actions of government. It's called democracy.

As an aside, I vividly recall it was my colleague Wayne Berry, now a director of the Labor Club, who convinced me that under no circumstances should the casino ever have poker machines. A view I continue to hold.

My fundamental concern about the ACT government's declaration that it will in future only deal with the CFMEU Clubs Association and not Clubs ACT, which represents the overwhelming majority of clubs, is the gross conflict of interest it represents.

The CFMEU is not just affiliated with the ACT branch of the Labor Party, it is the most powerful and influential organ of the party.

I would imagine that at least half, if not more, of the Labor members of the ACT Legislative Assembly owe their preselection to the CFMEU.

I think it inevitable that the Assembly select committee into the establishment of an independent integrity commission will recommend such a commission be established. If so, I can see, particularly in light of the position adopted by the government in relation to Clubs ACT, that the first inquiry it undertakes will be into the relationship between the ACT government and the Labor Party and CFMEU group of clubs.

If the Labor Party was smart it would sell the clubs before it comes to that.

Jon Stanhope, Bruce

It was with great sadness that I read in tributes.canberratimes.com.au on May 20 of the passing of renowned Canberra author Graeme Barrow, having collected several of his walking books over the years.

I never met him but thought of him fondly always.

Graeme gave our family the courage and motivation to discover, appreciate and enjoy the wonderful landscape that surrounds us.

Over the years the books have taken us on many walks both short and long.

We have had lots of fun comparing our walk times to those in the books, while enjoying his descriptions of the scenery along the routes.

While Graeme has departed, his books live on in this family.

Commiserations to the Barrow family.

Janet Reynolds, Greenleigh, NSW

I sympathise with R.S. Baczynski ("Icon Water Failure", letters, May 22).

My latest bill from Icon Water showed a doubling of the water supply charge and two sewerage supply charges. The response to my telephone call querying the bill was that "a new bill has been sent to you".

Two weeks later, I'm still waiting to receive the amended bill.

ACTEW/AGL/Icon's accounting system appears to be a shambles. Last month I was informed that my Even Pay gas amount was to be tripled. When I queried this I was told there had been a mistake made in the system and the Even Pay amount was reduced considerably.

I urge all consumers to carefully check all their accounts from this utilities company.

M. Burns, Phillip

Queanbeyan East Public School principal Fiona Senior-Conroy says the spinning toys are welcome in her classrooms. "We allow them in classrooms for children who need the sensory item as a learning tool" ("Ex-pastor selling fidget spinners", May 20, p.25). Has the principal directly observed the impact of these toys around highly distracted children? These fidget spinners promote more fidgeting and more distraction. They are toys and not learning tools, there are other approved occupational therapy solutions for children that need assistance in class.

V. Scipione, Monash

The Chief Minister is correct in his consultation Comments piece (May 20, p.11) in saying, "The first thing we'll do is involve experts [good] ... deliberative democracy and citizens juries [good] ..."

And, "These processes are expensive [correct]."

Case in point: the Foy inquiry panel engaged experts and got a good outcome but likely cost the ACT north of $300,000.

The Planning and Development Act allows for the recovery of inquiry panel costs (s 233). One has to ask, why did the government not recover this cost?

G. Downing, Macarthur

As a visitor to golden autumnal Canberra last week, I could not find a 50-metre public swimming pool for a dip.

Tuggeranong had 32 lanes – with a single swimmer in each.

Apparently abandoned forever is the standard layout of four lanes (slow, medium, fast and free play) with two way traffic in each. I wonder if this slicing and dicing is a symptom of the false premise that if you divide something in half you can fit in twice as many people.

Or (is it) another symptom of the age of individualism?

John Synnott, Enmore, NSW

Love this city. Best autumn in 20years in my opinion. Glorious autumn colours. How lucky are we? How's the serenity.

John Mungoven, Stirling

NO HOME TO GO TO

Re: Bob Salmond "Refugees free to go", letters, May 20.

Refugees cannot go home, that is why they are refugees. Why do the ignorant keep up the fiction that kidnapping, trafficking, jailing and torturing refugees for years is "housing" them and that all they wanted was food and water?

Marilyn Shepherd, Angaston, SA

ASSANGE JAILED HIMSELF

Julian Assange should have handed himself to US authorities five years ago, received a long sentence, and then probably would have been pardoned after 10 years. As it is, he's "imprisoned" in the London Ecuadorean embassy, and the US will chase him for life.

Rod Matthews, Melbourne, Vic

SAVING A FAST BUCK

I express my appreciation to those voluntarily contributing to the ACT's budget bottom line through traffic fines.

The vast majority of drivers who do not pay fines therefore need to pay less tax, and I am sure they and all who don't drive are grateful for that benefit.

Steve Blume, Chapman

GUNNING FOR PEACE

The Trump-Saudi $350 billion arms deal will only lead to more weapons being funnelled to the Saudi-backed IS in Syria and the anti-Houthi al-Qaeda forces in Yemen. What a great first step to peace in the Middle East.

Khizar Rana, Walkerville, SA

What a shame Donald Trump's shopping trolley in his whistle stop to Saudi Arabia wasn't full of those things that represented peace instead of more weapons of war for the region.

D.J.Fraser, Currumbin, Qld

TRAIN OF THOUGHT

John Gray (Letters, May 19) muses what the Chief Minister was thinking about on his recent train ride to Sydney.

If Mr Barr had waited until next Friday (May 26) the Vivid Festival is starting in Sydney, and he would see the light.

Peter Baskett, Murrumbateman, NSW

NO LONGER A LEADER

While Islam may have been a leader in women's rights in the distant past, Khizar Rana (Letters, May 20), sadly it has not maintained that position in the modern world.

Patricia Saunders, Chapman

POLICY IMPERFECTIONS

The problem with voting for major political parties is that people vote "warts and all", and more often than not it is the warts that float to the top of the pile.

Mario Moldoveanu, Frankston, Vic

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