In 2007 Australia was ranked 25th in the world for internet speed and affordability. The Rudd Government argued this wasn't good enough for a modern economy like Australia, and decided to roll out a fibre to the premises NBN. The cost was estimated at $40-$50 billion to be completed by 2020.

According to a recent international survey our internet speed has fallen to 67th in the world and we could be out of the top 100 by the end of the year.

We are ranked 113th for affordability. The current average global internet speed is 73.6Mb/s but the Coalition can only guarantee 25Mb/s.

Our network will not improve as long as we rely on aging copper infrastructure as part of the mix. Replacing old copper with new copper is plain insanity.

After seven years of mismanagement by the Coalition we have an NBN that is not fit for purpose, well below the global average speed, and more expensive than Kevin Rudd's original fibre to the premises proposal. Thanks Malcolm.

Last Sunday the Prime Minister addressed the findings of the report he commissioned from the secretary to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Mr Gaetjens, into the allocation of sports grants by then Minister McKenzie.

He indicated Mr Gaetjens apparently found no evidence the allocation of grants was unduly influenced by reference to marginal or targeted electorates and there was no basis for the suggestion political considerations were the primary determining factor.

I am sure every Commonwealth public servant will admire the courage of Mr Gaetjens in displaying the integrity, honesty and political neutrality required of him by the Public Service Act and code of conduct.

But he has apparently inexplicably dismissed the wealth of evidence in the independent Auditor-General's report and the volume of supporting evidence that has been made public since.

Can you believe the government still maintains there was nothing wrong with the sport grants presided over by Senator McKenzie? This is even after the colour-coded documentation uncovered by the ABC clearly showed the grants were overwhelmingly awarded to electorates targeted by the Coalition.

Senior ministers from the PM down are unable, or refuse, to see that the whole process amounts to nothing less than buying votes.

The government may think that if they deny it for long enough it will eventually go away. Voters will remember it when it comes to the next election.

Ron Cerabona ("Faith no more", Relax, February 2, pp 20-21) comments, in reference to the question of the existence of God, "I don't know and you don't know either".

I, as a "believer", have no quarrel with such a statement. It is impossible to grasp the concept of God in the same way that we may understand a scientific concept.

However there is a different kind of knowing. We can know a person through the relationship we have with that person. When it is a loving relationship it is the heart that is engaged rather than the mind.

The apostle John, in his first letter (ch 4 v 16), stated "God is love", a belief people of many different religions espouse. Thus a relationship with love's very being involves the heart above and beyond the mind.

Is anyone in the ACT still naive enough to believe the ACT government's claim kangaroos need "culling". The scientific basis for the assertion has been debunked by virtually every independent environmental scientist who has ever looked into it, including the relatively independent CSIRO Plant Industries.

Now, with almost all of the ACT's kangaroo population gone due to drought (during which kangaroos stop breeding) and 12 years of relentless shooting, the ACT government is apparently once again planning to pay hired guns to shoot the refugee kangaroos fleeing into ACT reserves to escape the fires.

Less than 20 years ago the ACT provided a refuge to kangaroos persecuted in surrounding NSW. The kangaroos repaid us with interest by managing the grasslands and woodlands to prevent wildfires (unlike cattle and sheep which destroy the land's capacity to endure any natural or unnatural disaster).

The government has no care for animal suffering, no understanding of the environmental holocaust which has now begun in earnest, and no sensitivity to the deep, desperate mourning of its own residents.

Tom Greenwell's analysis ("The private school fee-rises paradox", canberratimes.com.au, February 1) fails to comprehend the diversity of the non-government school sector and misrepresents the funding reality of many schools.

It is impossible for a student in a non-government school to receive more government funding than a "like" student in a public school.

Funding to non-government schools is capped at a maximum of 80 per cent of the base level of student funding. Parents are expected to make up the shortfall. Nationally, parents' capacity to contribute reduces government recurrent funding to Catholic schools, saving the taxpayer an estimated $2.3 billion a year.

Increases in government funding are legislated at the same rate, for both government and non-government schools.

The reality is that for many low-fee Catholic schools, parent contributions through school fees do not make up the shortfall in government funding.

The Choice and Affordability Fund was introduced to deal with issues that arose under the Turnbull government, which significantly increased the fee expectations on families.

This threatened nearly 500 low-fee Catholic parish primary schools across Australia and would have made the choice of a Catholic school unaffordable for many parents, particularly in rural and regional areas.

Avoiding gross simplifications or the highlighting of extreme cases would provide a fairer analysis of funding to non-government schools in Australia.

On Monday, February 3, I heard Simon Birmingham and Michael McCormack sing the praises of Senator Bridget McKenzie on the ABC.

Despite the fact she has had to resign after the pork barreling of sports funds they portrayed her as a sinless soul.

Then I heard former NSW auditor general Tony Harris say a potential offence might have been committed and that it was necessary to get to the bottom of the scandal.

I know who I believe. It's not the former who are McKenzie's political sidekicks.

Members of the Coalition, from the Prime Minister and The Nationals leader down, are attempting to cover up their pork-barrelling by claiming public service assessment of applications against agreed merit guidelines is inferior to ministerial discretion.

No-one is deceived by this and the report of the Auditor-General confirms the bias.

It is disgusting that politicians have tried to divert attention away from themselves by accusing public servants of a poor understanding of community interests. The Nationals, in particular, trot out the tiresome "Canberra bubble" line and on many occasions denigrate "the bureaucracy".

No-one is denying ministers should have discretion to make decisions. But these have to be based on good and balanced information. When ministers get themselves into trouble it's a cheap and nasty trick to blame public servants.

Who paid for the big cheques used to publicise the tainted grants scheme? Did the money come for the sports grants funding or the Coalition campaign funds? If it was the former then more serious questions need to be asked as to who authorised the big cheques. Was it someone in the PM's Office or Liberal Party HQ?

If so, that person or persons may also consider it appropriate to tender their respective resignation(s).

We do indeed need a more intelligent approach to the Australia Day date (Letters, February 3). Many suggestions have been made over the decades but none have been effective. Part of the problem is the need to disperse public holidays throughout the year.

January 26 marks the end of the summer holidays.

Nothing can change the fact that this was the day that Australia started.

What is needed is a change in the way it is celebrated acknowledging the reality of what happened subsequently and identifying the sort of country we, the people, want.

There is one apt sentence in Barnaby Joyce's nonsensical condemnation of wind and solar farms. "Simple answers are generally wrong".

Andrew Barr vs Alistair Coe after the bushfire crisis. It's 6/0, 6/0, 6/0. Where were you Alistair? The silence was deafening. Game. Set. Match. The 2020 ACT Election is now probably a done deal.

The new Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud reportedly told Leigh Sales on the ABC's 7.30 Report "we're the ones who cut the cheques". Bridget McKenzie made that abundantly clear.

This government makes Monty Python look like amateurs. Led by Scotty clay shooting Bridget has resigned, Angus Taylor is waiting for his report card to be marked by the AFP and Barnaby, with extra mouths to feed, is on the lookout for a higher paying job.

Canavan's reasons for supporting Joyce say all that needs to be said about what's wrong with Australian politics. He wants Joyce because Joyce "is a fighter, a real brawler". That's exactly what we don't need. We need people of integrity who are there to constructively govern this nation.

When Ash Barty appeared with her niece after losing her match she said the child was "what life is all about". Nobody got it. What a dreadfully cynical mob we have become. If we all focussed on the next generation we would work to make the world a better place.

"...(it has) its own personality, its own characteristics, its own bad behaviours" I heard on the radio as I walked into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. A pretty good description of Scott Morrison I thought. But no, it was an update on a huge bushfire burning out of control nearby.

A pity your "item" now disappoints you Rob Ey (Buyers Remorse, Letters, January 30). Try putting said PM out on hard-rubbish night. Someone might be able to repurpose him or scavenge useful bits. There may even be foragers who can tweak some of the duty and integrity parameters.

How come the Bureau of Meteorology's rain radar is picking up the Orroral Valley smoke plume? It has been interesting to monitor and track the movement (and intensity) of the smoke plume.

Pork barrelling under Scott Morrison is safe and sound. All a minister has to do is spin an excuse and the largesse will flow in accordance with their party's interests. This blatant rort has to be sidelined and the involvement of other government players investigated.

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