One of Western Australia's favourite sons, Governor James Stirling, set the example by leading a party of men in 1835 who hunted and killed a large group of Aborigines, essentially to discourage Indigenous resistance to European theft and plunder. The wealth we enjoy today is built on the back of Aboriginal suffering. Since then, habitat destruction, stolen children, mandatory sentencing and other serious impositions on the lives of our Indigenous people have compounded the difficulties they face.

Yet when Tony Abbott sees remnants of these proud communities struggling to maintain connections with their traditional homelands and culture, he condemns it as a lifestyle choice not worthy of supporting.

Perhaps he thinks the demolition job on Indigenous culture still has a way to go. He either forgets or ignores the debt that he and the rest of us owe to our Indigenous people and, in doing so, raises further barriers to honest acknowledgment of our past and to genuine reconciliation.

Andrew Adzic, Ainslie

I have waited patiently for the Prime Minister to deliver his promise of good government after his near-death experience in the Liberal National Party caucus room. There is not much doubt that the first year in government was a long way short of exemplary, so you would expect it would not be too hard to know where you shouldn't go, but alas, not so.

It's just been one gaffe after the other and, on present form, plenty more seem likely. Slow learner or incapable of change? It seems like the latter.

Peter Funnell, Farrer

As anyone who has had anything to do with the Australian Public Service in the last 20 years will tell you, the reason for increases in unscheduled absences is the large rise in the type and extent of personal leave available to staff ("Tough-talking PS chief targets sickies, slackers", March 12, p1). These changes came about primarily through agency-level industrial agreements, with employees asking for greater flexibility to balance work and caring responsibilities.

Since agency bosses signed off on agreements that included these changes, we have to assume that they were aware that staff would avail themselves of this flexibility and that they had calculated it wouldn't affect productivity, but would improve morale and retention. So I'm not sure why management now thinks staff taking more personal leave is a bad thing or why it's preferable for an employee with a caring crisis to be sitting at work fretting about it, rather than having a few hours off to deal with it. I have seen no evidence that this increased flexibility affects productivity, but if it has, the weakness and incompetence of APS top management as industrial negotiators in the last two decades must be to blame.

Wasn't John Lloyd a departmental deputy secretary in the late '90s when the first agreements were negotiated?

I reckon it's more a matter of control for control's sake, a 19th-century approach to the workplace.

Christopher Oates, Stirling

There has been much in The Canberra Times this week about the future of the Braddon-based Canberra City Bowling Club and its recently self-appointed champion, John Mackay.

I am a life member of the Ainslie Football Club, a former playing member of the Gungahlin Lakes Golf Club, a current playing member of the CCBC, and have been a social member of the Ainslie Group since 1969.

Social membership entitles one to enjoy the amenities of the group's several club premises. Golf and bowling memberships attract large additional fees. To my knowledge, Mackay enjoys social membership only.

For him to be quoted in the Times as a "bowling member" apparently capable of representing and defending the interests of bowlers within the CCBC is a bit rich.

There is no doubt that he, as a local resident, and others would miss the social facilities at Braddon were the CCBC to relocate to Gungahlin, but it is equally certain that without the support of the Ainslie Group in recent years, the Braddon club would already have ceased to trade.

His recent public involvement in the future of the CCBC seems to rest heavily on self-interest and should be seen in that light.

Charles Smith, Nicholls

Robin Fitzsimons has written a thoughtful piece ("Research fund must live", Times2, March 9, p4).

When discussing how to recover development costs for expensive new drugs, she suggests that the initial price "could be negotiated downwards by increasing sale volumes".

However, in many cases the individual markets for new cancer drugs are limited and will become more so as new therapies become increasingly personalised.

For example, we know that the incidence among brain tumours of the most deadly malignant primary brain tumour (glioma) was 32 per cent in 2014, is the same today and will be the same in 2016. The only way to increase sale volumes is to expand a drug's application to several cancers. This might be more likely with the new immune therapies.

There is also a limit to industry subsidisation via co-payments or pre-Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme patient assistance schemes. An Australian subsidiary might be willing to be more generous, but its global marketing team might think otherwise. This is where patient advocacy is important. However, in some situations, there is no alternative but for the government to step in.

Denis Strangman, Fraser

Waleed Aly ("Guns not enough to beat IS", Times2, March 6, p1) is right to question the value of Australia's small military contribution. Nothing will change significantly in the Middle East until there is a will to deal with causes rather than symptoms. So we should stop wasting money and, potentially, lives. Now.

A rational start in a new direction would be the redrawing of national boundaries in the Middle East, many of which were arbitrarily established after World War I to reflect the perceived interests of the great powers.

Those boundaries and, in some instances, their absence, have caused vast hurt and cost ever since.

New boundaries could reflect some of the ethnic, religious and cultural differences on the ground, offering a measure of recognition and security to groups that, at present, see no prospect that their aspirations will be realised, and have little vested interest in the status quo. Of course, there will be multiple issues at the margin, but a genuine momentum for change offers real prospect of progressively defusing the substantial anger that commonly manifests in and feeds terrorist activity.

So there's a challenge to our politicians: just once in your self-obsessed lives, do something that will make a difference. Become the subjects of wide acclaim. Persuade your international peers to focus on causes instead of symptoms.

Chris Whyte, Higgins

J. Angle's Generation X comments (Letters, March 10) were sweet music to my ears. I hope we Generation Xers do finally have some say in how the country is run in the coming years. The reason little is heard of Generation Xers is because those above and below are such noisy birds. We are the sons and daughters of children born during or before World War II. Our parents knew sacrifice and frugality.

We left school at the end of the 1980s during a recession, when jobs were scarce and you started at the bottom. Now, we are the people who miss out on promotions and leadership in the workplace as the old baby-boomer executives stick people their children's age (Generation Y) into positions they have not worked for or earned over us oldies. Technophobic baby boomers fail to understand how anyone over 40 can be as computer savvy in an online world as a 25-year-old. Thus the young reap benefits denied many of us.

So excuse me while I go and leap high into the air to celebrate finally clawing back some power.

K. Skinner, Bungendore, NSW

Frank Parsons (Letters, March 11) may care to explain how his individuals on a (superannuation) pension of $150,000 per annum could possibly be not paying any tax or Medicare levy and getting at least some benefits of an old-age pensioner, yet still have some level of taxable income. Such people would obviously have to have substantial assets to boot.

I am a happy, self-funded retiree, drawing much less than $150,000, but not qualifying for any welfare benefits. So, Mr Parsons is either exaggerating to make a case against the Howard government or is aware of some very clever individuals. And why is he not copying their schemes? Or is he?

Why does The Canberra Times publish such obvious nonsense?

M. Silex, Greenway

It is worse than Frank Parson (Letters, March 11) makes out. There are five self-managed super funds with $100million, meaning their tax-free pension would be $5 million and still they would still pay no Medicare or National Disability Insurance Scheme. In each case, the Medicare lost by the government would be $100,000! There are 12,000 SMSFs with $5 million, which means their tax-free pension is $250,000 a year and again no Medicare/NDIS is paid, and for existing pensions (before the last budget), the recipients still get the Seniors Health Card. It gets even worse than the above, because with the pension being tax-free, the recipients still have the $18,200 tax-free entitlement, which means they could have investments of $365,000 earning 5 per cent outside super and still pay no tax or Medicare. The whole system stinks of a rort for the super-wealthy.

David Roberts, Dickson

Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd has signalled war against sickies, underperformers and red tape across the federal bureaucracy ("Tough talking PS chief targets sickies, slackers", March 12, p1). He deserves an Albo-style tweet of "good luck".

Ken Stokes, Wanniassa

Peta Credlin appears to have gone to ground – and rightly so – but I have no doubt she continues to assiduously (mis-)guide Tony Abbott from the back office.

Don Sephton, Greenway

It seems that the sad, benighted United States is having a serious political debate over the Trans Pacific Partnership ("US senator holds key to 'pivotal' trade accord", March 12, p4). Yet, here in Australia, we get nothing from our furtive government. Clearly, democracy in Australia has been hijacked.

Chris Williams, Griffith

Let Treasurer Joe Hockey work till he's 80 (or 90), if he thinks it's good for the future of the country, but please not in politics.

Jette Bosworth, Crace

All that need be known about the judgment of Peter Trickett (Letters, March 11) is summed up in his equation of the Northbourne public housing precinct with the Assyrian city of Nimrud.

Chris Whyte, Higgins

Tony Abbott's comment about Aboriginal "lifestyle choices" was not a gaffe at all ("Tony Abbott's biggest gaffes, clangers and cringeworrthy moments", March 12, p4). His views on how to handle important policy issues are genuinely held – mean and nonsensical as they are.

Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor

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