Thanks to all those Australian people and businesses who pay tax, GST, and levies that fund Medicare (understandably reluctantly at times), my life has turned around. I can work again, enjoying walking and dancing, which I previously took for granted.

Please consider this. We enjoy our current rights and privileges – roads, transport networks, free public school education, universities, good hospitals, Medicare, Centrelink and other benefits – because people before us worked, paid taxes and ran businesses. We stand on the shoulders of the generations who went before us, who often went without. The economic system from which we profit is not our creation. We simply take advantage of it.

Cheating the system is taking from your fellow Australians, not some multinational. If everyone gives a little that makes a lot. Give before take.

For everyone's sake, please continue to work, pay taxes, and contribute to the economy in gratitude to those who do and have done the same, especially our pensioners. Give back to your community and nation. That way we can all enjoy the fortunate life this country offers.

Mark Austin, Page

Expanding on Henry Belot's piece "Anti-vaccination debate can't be avoided" (February 7, p6), whilst it is universally claimed that vaccines are completely safe, the most basic of investigations demonstrates this is simply not the case.

The public are unwittingly used as guinea pigs in determining mid to long-term safety of vaccines, adverse reactions go under-reported, recipients are not informed of the full range of potential side effects, and governments and manufacturers dodge their responsibilities in the timely care of those seriously damaged by adverse reactions.

Whilst the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the firewall between us and dangerous medical products, receives funding from these manufacturers, this industry will always arouse suspicion.

Chris Morgan, Evatt

Blindfolded by sexism, Mitchell Browne's satirical call for new sports ("A new game is sorely needed", Forum, February 7, p3) was more infuriating than funny. Having recently attended my first Canberra Capitals game – a stunningly entertaining event that enthralled my two-year-old daughter, left my four-year-old son asking if he could be in the Capitals one day and engaged my husband and me with its skill and pure athleticism (as we would expect from professional athletes) – I commend the domain of elite women's sport (entirely ignored in his article) to Mr Browne.

Australian media's obsession with male-dominated codes deprives us all.

Juxtaposed against Karen Hardy's call for kids to be more active ("Sports skills of couch potato kids are turning to mush", Forum, February 7, p3) this attempt at humour was particularly disappointing.

Emily Follett, Ainslie

A new year, another offering of inspirational concerts given for free to the public at the High Court to great acclaim.

Bravo to Karina Edwards for donning the mantle in 2014 left by Don Aitken and Helen Moore in 2013 (although Helen continues as the able organiser of the Christmas concerts).

Bravo also to the High Court, our acoustic secular cathedral. Their generosity may help transform Canberra into the City of Music, as well as the world's most liveable city. And encore, encore to such talented and passionate performers.

M. J. Brown, Deakin

I must congratulate Jon Stanhope for managing to rise above the Canberra-centric view of the world when it comes to dealing with places like Norfolk Island and Christmas Island, both places with unique backgrounds, and needs and aspirations very different from those of the average Australian elector.

For too long, Norfolk Island's people have been treated by federal bureaucrats and politicians as if they were naive, compliant, and incapable of knowing what was good for them.

Meanwhile, the island's elected government has been dangled like a puppet on a string, and restrained from drawing its strength, direction and authority from the island's own people.

Collaboration and consultation about changes we all agree are needed has been a dismal failure, and any goodwill the people of Norfolk Island may have once felt towards Australia has been steeply eroded.

Australia has laid claim to our seas, is currently trying to wipe away our separate identity, and now plans to strip away our democracy.

Federal politicians maintain their archaic colonial attitudes, yet manage to evade their responsibility to meet the real needs of those over whom they have oversight.

Mary Christian-Bailey, Norfolk Island

David Knoll ("There is no need to change our stance on Palestine", February 9, p5) claims Israel negotiates in good faith, but where's the proof? Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu's party, enshrines the nonexistence of a Palestinian state in its manifesto. David Ben-Gurion (Israel's first prime minister) said: "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel ... There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? We have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"

In 1998, Ariel Sharon, as Israel's foreign minister (later prime minister) said: "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours".

Nothing has changed.

The current "facts on the ground" (the expanding settlements, the wall – declared illegal by the International Court of Justice – the occupation, the deadly attacks on Gaza, and so on) and the recent statements of several Israeli cabinet ministers opposing Palestine's existence, all demonstrate Israel remains determined to "take it all".

Contrary to Knoll's opinion, more and more Australians want their government to change its stance on Palestine and support a just peace.

Gwenyth Bray, Belconnen

The Liberal Party seems unable to see the irony in Tony Abbott suggesting that he deserves to stay as Prime Minister because otherwise the government will look "chaotic and dysfunctional like the Labor Party". This is spoken with a straight face, already in the middle of what is the most, or second most, chaotic and dysfunctional shambles of a government since federation. Only Kevin Rudd's special fiasco can rival what is already occurring around Abbott.

Julia Gillard's government was far more productive, even at its lowest point.

Much media commentary promotes the view that recent Australian political instability is a result of a social media-oriented 24/7 news cycle, but the reality is more simple and the correct message needs to be received.

The unfortunate real reason for our troubles is that Australia has had the misfortune to be recently led not by one but two wreckers (Rudd and Abbott), two leaders exceptionally good at winning power for their parties but incapable of subsequently leading an effective government. Both men are entirely unsuited to government, partly because they put themselves and their desire to stay in power ahead of other considerations, including the national interest.

Both would do anything – discard any policy, dream up any new policy on the run, renege on any agreement, or favour any vested interest – if it were seen as necessary to stay in power. People with this view are absolutely not suited to govern and we should not allow them to. Abbott says, disingenuously, that he wants to do only what is best for the country. If so, he would resign immediately and allow a more constant, better directed, socially responsive and responsible person to take his place.

Julian Robinson, Narrrabundah

The decision by Liberal MPs against declaring the party's leadership positions vacant hasn't solved anything. All it has done is defer a final decision on a change of leadership.

Now that Tony Abbott is staying on as leader for the present, there will be even further stuff-ups on his part that that will – with time – inevitably continue the calls for him to stand aside.

Malcolm Turnbull has no need to be in a hurry about being leader. If he bides his time and keeps conducting himself as he has been doing, the leadership will simply fall into his lap in the not-too-distant future without there being any sense of him having stabbed Tony in the back.

Don Sephton, Greenway

It saddens me to think that my "one-vote captain" may not be leading Team Australia soon. I am not saddened because I will lose an outstanding, naturally inspirational leader (one who puts Australia first with astute policy judgments) but because I will miss my occasional dose of good medicine. Put simply, I will no longer have easy access to a good laugh. Whenever I felt "down", I would have a sure-fire cure to put a smile back on my face: that was to catch-up with the latest Tony Abbott announcement.

However, I might have a back-up cure if my captain must stand down. I can always rely on everybody's good mate, the very likeable Treasurer, who, of course, is not an average Joe but a very special Joe. With his jolly demeanour and wise musings, I am sure to keep smiling, even in the face of bleak economic news and a budget crisis.

George Thompson, Narrabundah

It's reassuring to know that the Prime Minister and H.Ronald (Letters, February 7) are still of one mind. Tony Abbott isn't in strife because the Coalition's policies are duds, but because the Australian people have "lost the plot" and are too dense/selfish/absent-minded/stupid – take your pick – to realise that the conservative way is the one, true path to the future. Democracy is such a bothersome system – it takes into account the will of the people, even when they change their minds once they understand that they've been sold a pup. Authoritarianism is so much easier: we all just accept whatever our betters tell us, consume, be silent and die.

Steve Ellis, Hackett

With the current madness that permeates the country's political environment, perhaps it is time to seek out some alternative form of government. A benign dictatorship, perhaps with Prince Philip at the helm, is the obvious choice to lead us out of the current political mire.

Perhaps a good old military coup? A Pacific neighbour could provide detailed advice on this strategy.

If only personal egos could give way to common sense and politicians realise why they have been elected and who elected them.

Paul Platt, O'Connor

Paul Fitzwarryne's credibility as a source on Afghan history is not helped by his latest contribution (Letters, February 9). Virtually every date he states is wrong. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan took place in 1979, not 1969; the Soviet military was there from 1979-1989, not 1969-1979; there were no UN negotiations in train from 1972-1974.

More seriously, he contrives to misrepresent the views of the late Louis Dupree, an eminent American scholar of Afghan affairs. On the circumstance surrounding the Soviet invasion, he claims that the best introduction is an article by Ruslan Nadezhdin, evidence from which allegedly shows "the USSR did not invade Afghanistan", and which "cites authors as diverse as the American Louis Dupree".

The implication is clearly that Dupree's views provided support for Nadezhdin's claims. Yet, on the page of Dupree's book that Nadezhdin cites, Dupree opens with the question "Why did the Russians choose to invade Afghanistan and establish a puppet regime?" Fitzwarryne also claims the demographer Dr Noor Khalidi was one of my students. He was not. It is poor scholarly practice to make up such claims.

(Dr) William Maley, Reid

Shane Rattenbury, the new Minister Assisting on Transport Reform, has provided us with his vision for the future of transport in the ACT ("Transport challenges will shape our future", Times2, February 9, p5). While I support the broad thrust of his thinking, I am puzzled by the minister's lack of recognition of the role electric vehicles can play in minimising the ACT's carbon footprint.

Not surprisingly, the minister sees ACTION buses as a critical component of our future public transport system. However, he gives no acknowledgement to the fact battery electric buses are now being widely introduced around the world – the life-cycle costs of these vehicles are reportedly significantly lower than those of equivalent diesel buses. Why are electric buses not on the government's agenda?

I would love to live in a world with no privately owned cars, but we must be realistic. Canberra's dispersed urban layout means the private car will almost certainly be the dominant mode of transport in the ACT for years to come. Electric cars offer a potentially sustainable transport compromise.

I have owned an EV for just over a year – a joy to drive, very convenient and it is saving me money.

The ACT government is making great strides in the adoption of renewable energy. We must build on these initiatives and electrify our transport as the next step to a carbon-neutral ACT.

Dave Southgate, Bruce

We, the public, do not know what is being traded in negotiations regarding the Trans Pacific Partnership – and to whose advantage. We expect governments to act in our best interests, but how can it be in our interests to give multinational corporations unprecedented power in Australia?

Barbara Godfrey, Lyneham

TWITTER POLITICS

How have we become so critical of our leadership that we cannot even let them complete one term without calling for a change, even when there is no hint of corruption or gross mismanagement? Is "twitter politics" here to stay, and if so, how do we manage it? Shorter terms?

Claude Wiltshire, Queanbeyan, NSW

HISTORY LESSONS

Paul Fitzwarryne's evasion (Letters, February 9) of Professor Bill Maley's detailed criticism is simply bizarre.

Even excluding Paul's spurious "facts", every one of the seven dates cited is wrong by at least a decade.

The claim that the USSR did not somehow invade Afghanistan in 1979 surely mirrors the gullibility that credited Soviet propaganda claims about the UN using "germ warfare" in the Korean War.

Neil James, executive director, Australia Defence Association

YELLOW STREAKS

To those brave backbenchers in the government who, after saying they would support a vote for a spill for the leadership, and then chose not to do so: please discard the sycophantic old boy school blue tie for a yellow one. That way we can see what you are made of from both front and back.

Greg Simmons, Lyons

LUCKY REPRIEVE

The one good thing for Tony Abbott out of Monday's temporary reprieve is he has bought the six weeks he needs before he qualifies for his Newstart allowance.

Linus Cole, Palmerston

ANOTHER SPECIES

The economy going to pieces? Death row for two Aussie boys? Never mind, let's have a leadership ballot. Emile Mercier had the right words years ago: "Politicians aren't people. They try to be, but no one believes them."

Roy Darling, Florey

LEADER IRRELEVANT

The excellent opinion piece by Waleed Aly ("Backbench flap belies denial", Times2, February 6, p1) was spot on. It is irrelevant as to who the prime minister is if the Coalition's policies don't change.

J. Wyburn, Narrabundah

ONE AND THE SAME?

I presume that David D. Knoll, author of the article "What does Palestinian membership of the International Criminal Court mean for Australia?" (Times2, February 9, p5) is the same David D. Knoll who was the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies? If correct, is there some reason the editor of The Canberra Times couldn't let us know that was the case when the article was printed?

Peter Harris, Evatt

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au

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