For decades we have been promised an improvement in the standard of behaviour in Parliament from our leaders but last week showed that the current crop is no better than its predecessors. Once again they were apparently incapable of getting their message across without reverting to childish schoolyard behaviour with the same support given by their colleagues as occurs in that venue.

The difference is that in a schoolyard we put it down to immaturity and we hope that they will take a more mature attitude as they get older. Many of our politicians apparently miss this development stage expectation.

If our politicians want our vote they must show that they are worthy of it through mature behaviour. It's hard to put trust in someone who behaves like a teenager.

Audrey Guy, Ngunnawal

In his insightful and alarming article "Nuclear war risk never far away" (Sunday Times, February 12, p21), Paul Malone writes: "Thanks to [Soviet navy officer] Arkhipov and a level-headed President John F.Kennedy, the world dodged a catastrophe".

I would query just how "level-headed" JFK really was during the Cuban missile crisis. One needs to look beyond superficial appearances. In my view he doesn't deserve the credit he is usually accorded for his conduct at that time.

I have no brief for the late and unlamented Soviet Union, but the point should be made that its leaders were very cautious when it came to the risk of nuclear warfare. The Russians were in constant fear (perhaps with some reason) that the US would launch a pre-emptive strike against them.

We should bear in mind that the West had nuclear missiles based in places like Turkey, effectively on Russia's border. Yet when the Soviet Union installed missiles in Cuba, JFK – forgive the pun – went ballistic. He could have tried to negotiate a solution with the Soviet Union, for example by offering a withdrawal, or at least a reduction, of the US missiles in Europe and Turkey. Or he might have conferred with US allies and tried to agree on a measured approach to what was undoubtedly a serious situation.

Instead, though, he resorted almost at once to unilateral strong-arm tactics which involved threatening, probably illegally, to use force against Soviet ships on the high seas. However misguided Khrushchev was in acceding to Castro's request for missiles to be installed in Cuba, Kennedy's intemperate reaction to the situation put the whole world in grave danger.

It would not have been surprising if the Soviet Union had responded defiantly, but Khrushchev chose to back down. His decision may have damaged his standing at home but it probably saved humanity from the very real risk of virtual annihilation.

When it came to crunch time, then, which of the two men was the more level-headed?

Alvin Hopper, Dickson

Congratulations to Elesa Kurtz for her priceless picture of Kristine Elliot and baby daughter, Olive ("Pledge to beat pre-baby time", Sunday CT, February 12, p8).

Six-month-old Olive looked enchanting in her tiny shorts and first new runners.

Evelyn Bean, Ainslie

An ambiguous call has gone out for investment in Canberra Airport ("The responsibility to invest and build Canberra's infrastructure falls to all of us", February 12, p3).

It started out as a government enterprise in the 1920s. Somehow that became Terry Snow's domain. Adina Circson of the Property Council wrote, "the responsibility to invest and build the infrastructure falls to all of us".

Possibly Mr Snow wishes the government to buy back this infrastructure.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

In the height of summer, The Canberra Times has pages and pages of irrelevant, off-field rugby union and rugby league padding, but no reporting of the nation's premier domestic cricket competition. The results even of the Sheffield Shield are reduced to a brief summary – when we're lucky – in minute text on an inside page. How biased and parochial can your newspaper get?

George Miller, Narrabundah

The government is stealing from pensioners to pay the corporate giants and politicians.

This is because it is too afraid to tax the giants for what they should be paying.

Medicare and other infrastructure would be paid for if these corporate giants and overseas multinationals paid their dues.

Liberal and Labor alike are in bed with these corporations, receiving party donations.

Don't expect multinationals to be paying fair tax soon but be prepared for the pollies to cut services and pensions to further feather their own nests.

Billions are owed to the people of Australia in taxes from multinationals and yet the government is prepared to squeeze the life out of the poorest and most vulnerable end of society.

It is time someone with backbone and the spirit of the Anzac tradition attacked the true leeches of society and extracted the taxes from multinationals that could turn our country around and out of the red and give it the infrastructure it needs.

Margot Sirr, Gowrie

Mathias Cormann is resorting to blackmail to get his mean-spirited omnibus proposal passed.

His usual rant about justifying his government's necessity to put the boot into our most disadvantaged citizens is about repairing the budget.

He more or less states that if the bill fails, the government will have no other choice but to raise taxes.

All thinking Australians, including Mr Cormann, know that they do have a more palatable choice. Repair the tax system to ensure that the tax-free millionaires, billionaires, wealthy companies and overseas corporations pay the appropriate rate of tax on income derived in Australia.

John Vincent, Wanniassa

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