Many people support and want to believe in Labor's good policies for the country and our future. Show us, tell us, sell us your good policies, convince us. Talk up achievement and future plans repeatedly, let all ministers be involved - don't just leave it to Julia Gillard.

Last week, before the National Press Club, Greg Combet did an excellent job of explaining Labor policies on climate change and other issues.This shows how it can be done. At the same time, Labor must show a united front - minimise negativity and keep their disputes behind closed doors.

The disunity, disloyalty, insincerity and self-serving shallowness seen recently by some prominent MPs is staggering. It will turn people off. Show us that you can support your leader Julia Gillard. Demonstrate discipline, courage, restraint, dignity, and conviction - and curb your individual egos.

Jill Hayes, Nimmitabel, NSW

With fewer than 100 days to go until the federal election, what to do? I can't vote for Labor: not because Julia Gillard is the most uninspiring and inept Labor leader since Arthur Calwell, but because the Labor train wreck has been bearing down on us for 30 years, following the decision by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating to swap Labor's principles and values for the expediency of neo-liberalism, while its trade union and party officials focused their energies on furthering their own careers ahead of the interests of all Australians.

I can't and won't vote for Tony Abbott: a dry, dare I say, barren version of John Howard whom we previously rejected, primarily because of his dishonesty and his tiresome inability to view any issue other than through the prism of the economy. Talk about a step backwards!

I can't vote for the Greens, not just because they can't form a government but, most importantly, because the way our democracy works, a vote for them winds up going to either Labor or the coalition. Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Clive Palmer: why not Tom Waterhouse?

So, for the first time in 50-years' voting, I'll be spoiling my vote and going informal, simply because there is not a political leader who I can trust; who will listen and who can inspire my confidence and support.

Poor fellow my country.

John Richardson, Wallagoot, NSW

Jeffrey Miles' assertion (Letters, June 6) that our British Queen's constitutional power to disallow Commonwealth laws is now vested in the Governor-General is incorrect; the Queen still has that power.

Our constitution doesn't say who is to advise the Queen on the exercise of the power. However, constitutional practice suggests that the Queen would exercise the power on Australian (rather than British) advice, thereby presenting an opportunity for the presumed incoming Coalition to have legislation of the current Parliament overturned without the bother of a double dissolution.

Frank Marris, Forrest

R.S. Gilbert (Letters, June 2) warns that home owners, via rates increases, will be subsidising home buyers. Unfortunately, that is the intention. It applies across the spectrum for all of society's infrastructure: housing, roads, electricity, hospitals, schools. We pay maintenance and replacement costs of existing infrastructure which, assuming it needs replacing after 30 years, runs at 2 per cent per annum. If we are to maintain existing social standards, we also pay in advance for a growing society. Australia, growing at 1.7 per cent, subsequently needs 3.7 per cent spending on infrastructure; about half of it to subsidise growth. The current (Ponzi) economic paradigm is to grow the numbers to ''spread the load'' in paying for growth; and increasing residential rates is part of that.

Colin Samundsett, Farrer

Barnaby Joyce (''Jaunt through colourful past brings future into focus'', Times 2, July 6, p5) may be correct in claiming that the Country Party is our second-longest established party after the ALP, if the technicalities of party registration mean that it remained the same party after being renamed the National Country Party in 1975, and then the National Party in 1982. But he would be wrong to imply that it is our oldest non-Labor party, since our first Liberal Party was established not by Menzies in 1945, but with the merger of Deakin's Protectionist Party and Cook's Anti-Socialist Party in 1909. It, too, underwent name changes - Nationalist (1916), United Australia (1931) - before becoming today's Liberal Party of Australia that we know and love.

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

As I write, the ASX has had its 10th fall in 13 sessions and I expect this kind of volatility and irrational behaviour to continue. Much of the blame lies with the ASX and regulatory authorities like the ACCC and ASIC who are not doing their jobs protecting the ordinary share trader, particularly those trying to run SMSFs.

The ASX's refusal to address the problems of high-frequency computer trading and the regulatory authority's tardiness in addressing concerns relating to the operations of various ''fund managers'', ''Clayton'' takeover offers and the operations of large banks like the CBA, means that share ownership among retail clients is declining and will continue to do so.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

My son and I are the victims of a hate crime, part of which includes stalking. On May 31, a policeman said to me, ''Well, what do you expect us to do about it?'' When that is the police response to crime, $150 million a year has been ill spent.

Helena Kauppi, Cook

It is perhaps no surprise that WorkSafe ACT is to receive an additional $5.7 million from the 2013-14 ACT budget for additional inspectors and vehicles. The funding comes in response to safety issues in the ACT construction industry, which has seen worrying injury rates and the deaths of four workers in 2011 and 2012. No one would deny that worksite safety is a vital issue, nor that both a safety culture and a strong enforcement capability are required if deaths and injuries are to be avoided.

It is curious, however, that the budget contains nothing to address another health risk which has also received recent attention: the hundreds of reported cases of food poisoning attributable to food purchased and consumed outside of the home.

Despite the significant impact of food poisoning in the ACT, including more than 400 reported cases of salmonella in 2011 and 2012 (plus the hundreds of additional unreported cases), we are obviously no closer to a ''scores on doors'' system - which would probably cost a fraction of WorkSafe's budget allocation - to provide restaurant and cafe customers with the information that they want and proprietors with the compliance incentive that they need.

Karina Morris, Weetangera

I am a bit unsure if John Passant (Letters, June 6) was being serious when he suggested that giving ''building unions and their members the power to close down unsafe work sites'' would actually cut deaths and injuries on building sites.

This is the last thing unions and their members want.

What they want is for the management of building companies to get really serious about safety and stop mouthing platitudes that they ''take safety seriously'' and then have to face the reality of being pressured to meet deadlines and budget issues, with safety as an afterthought.

If building managers did the right thing the ''unsafe work sites'' John Passant refers to just simply would not exist.

Geoff Barker, Flynn

I basically agree with David Brooks (''Saving humanity at risk of forfeiture of soul'', (Times2, June 6, p5). It seems to me that working purely for financial gain can in the long run be fundamentally destructive.

The money has to come from somewhere. As multi-millionaires and billionaires accumulate even more wealth, there is ultimately less money for combating poverty, starvation, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and cholera - and for combating and/or adapting to the effects of climate change. This applies particularly to wealth derived from unproductive activities such currency, futures and derivatives trading, short-selling of stocks, various predatory banking practices, and hedge funds.

I believe that we really need to stop and think very hard about what we're doing to ourselves - and to this planet.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

Labor's National Broadband Network is estimated to cost $37.4 billion (although the Coalition estimates it will cost $71 billion), and the Coalition's $20.4 billion - the difference of $17 billion (or $50.6 billion?) apparently being because Labor proposes optic fibre right to the home, and the Coalition proposing it to a central ''node'' in the area only (but still giving greater download speeds than now). Users who want faster download speed would pay to have the cable extended to their workplace.

Given that the price retailers pay to access the network will almost certainly be uniform, this means that, under Labor's version, people who are happy with the greater-than-at-present download speed and data volume that the Coalition's plan provides (individuals with personal computers, and probably a lot of small businesses) will be subsidising bigger companies that want greater download speed and/or data volume. That's surprising for a Labor government, particularly as there would certainly be more individual-and-small-company voters than large companies.

R.S. Gilbert, Braddon

Readers might appreciate some background and context to better understand Jenny Weber's letter (May 20) and articles by Richard Denniss (May 11 and 25) about the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill. Prior to the ''peace deal'', 80 per cent of Tasmania's natural forests were already reserved for conservation, unsuited for timber production, or privately owned. In addition timber has been harvested from much of the 504,000 hectares of high-conservation value forest that is proposed for new reserves under the deal!

This begs a very simple question. Is this peace deal about conservation or ideology? Firstly, it cannot be about conservation because a majority of Tasmania's public natural forests are already reserved from timber production and because forests where timber has been harvested are apparently still considered good enough to place in conservation reserves. The latter means that the current management must have been doing a very good job to produce timber while protecting conservation values, so there was really no reason to change tenure. Secondly, any serious cost-benefit analysis would opt to retain the status quo.

Weber and other conservation proponents are very quiet about the economic and social cost of a large increase in the reserve area. The forest areas were in no long-term danger but the loss of potentially 3500 jobs in rural communities in Tasmania, a state that is already struggling economically, will have a massive emotional and financial impact on the families affected by this decision.

The Institute of Foresters of Australia is neutral about forest tenure. Our aim is to ensure that Australia's forests are professionally managed to ensure all their values are sustained in perpetuity. Reducing the areas of forest we can harvest in Australia will only increase the demand for imports from overseas where forests may not be nearly as well managed as ours, and will increase use of energy-intensive materials as substitutes.

Rob de Fegely, president, Institute of Foresters of Australia

Those who voted at last year's ACT Legislative Assembly election for former opposition leader Zed Seselja might reasonably ask why they should vote for him in the September 14 poll.

For it was only a few months after the 2012 election that Seselja thumbed his nose at those voters and undermined Gary Humphries who, in ACT politics and in the Senate, has served this community well. Seselja showed himself to be ambitious and voters might reasonably ask where that ambition might lead him if he is elected to the Senate.

He has already treated with contempt those who voted for him and there is no reason to believe he would not do so again for a higher rung on the career ladder. ACT residents were entitled to know of Seselja's plans to replace Humphries before last year's election, not after it. It would certainly serve the ACT Liberals right if Seselja fails in his bid for the Senate.

I hold no political allegiance though I have voted for Humphries as a person of integrity. Seselja has demonstrated he lacks Humphries' integrity and he will not get my vote. Whether or not he is elected to the Senate, I will not miss him and his very minor contribution to this wonderful city ('''You'll miss me': Zed Seselja bids farewell to Assembly'', canberratimes.com.au, June 6).

Graham Downie, O'Connor

Good to see a public policy expert, Alison Booth, pushing for female quotas at higher levels of companies (''Quotas the next bullet to fire at durable class ceilings'', Times2, June 5, p5). Two problems. Firstly, US research has shown that in cases where companies have not met their quota target, it is often because qualified women do not apply because they oppose the organisational culture of aggressive competitiveness, back-stabbing and ambitious individualism.

Secondly, many women do not get these positions because they lack experience, and they lack experience because they don't get these positions. Years ago, the ABC in Canberra attempted to deal with this issue by appointing women to a number of temporary senior positions. Quotas for sex equity are a good idea, but they need to be introduced in step with other changes.

Paul Kringas, Giralang

GRANT US STRENGTH

The country is about to be run by a media baron whose top people ought to be in jail, a couple of mining magnates who want to pay you a dollar a day and a Christian party leader who has built popularity by promising to bash up refugees to play to a populist political agenda. Lord help us.

John Dinn, Ngunnawal

LOWERING THE BARR

So it's to be a 10 per cent rise in rates for absolutely no increase in services. This is a government that has lowered the Barr beyond the point resembling any semblance of serving its constituents.

Michael Doyle, Fraser

SHARE THE BLAME

I presume the sex gangs David Collier (Letters, June 5) is referring to is sexual abuse in religious organisations like the Catholic Church? Or is sexual abuse only to be condemned when it is perpetrated by people of Muslim faith?

Peter Marshall, Captains Flat, NSW

THANKS, MUM AND DAD

Professor Peter Visscher's comments on parents' DNA affecting their children (''Uni dropouts can blame their parents, May 31, p3) were antedated by the noted poet Phillip Larkin (1922-1985) when he wrote This be the Verse: ''They f--- you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.''

Jack Palmer, Watson

CLEAN UP THE MESS

I have sympathised with Wayne Mitchell (Letters, June 6 ) every time I have passed his neighbour's house during the 33 years I have lived in Waramanga. How have they been able to get away with that mess for so long beggars belief, not to mention the trailer of rubbish now parked permanently on the street in front of what is likely to be listed by the ACT government as Canberra's first heritage-listed ruin.

Alan Sinclair, Waramanga

GIVE BACK TO SCHOOLS

Roseanne Byrne (Letters, June 5) implies that Terry Snow should have donated his money to struggling schools. I am confident she would argue that there are many graduates of those schools who in later life have achieved much success in many fields. Surely, those graduates could be targeted for donations to their old alma maters.

G. C. Allen, Red Hill

JUGGLING ON THE HILL

The Gillard government is one of the greatest juggling acts of all time. With all due respect to Philip Telford (Letters, June 6) a second term for Labor, with an increased majority, would get the balance about right.

Susan M. Marshall, Chifley

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