With an election year maybe some of them could earn their salaries and announce some stimulus for the Belconnen town centre, which looks more akin to a southern African township at present.

Australians deserve more solid justification for investing scarce treasure in 12 new submarines, "post-coronavirus-pandemic" or not, than the highly contestable partisan puff from the executive director of the Submarine Institute of Australia ("Australia's future national security could hinge on 12 new submarines", CT, June 4). That "could" is telling.

This opportunistic special pleading linking jam today in recovery from the pandemic to jam tomorrow, at least a couple of decades off, in putative stealth options and operational capability of overpriced, obsolescent submarines gives little comfort. If development of "our most strategic sovereign asset ... as quickly as possible" in Adelaide is so vital, we surely are going about it in a dilatory, profligate and provincial way.

I feel for the police. While there are undoubtedly police officers who should not be in the job, from my experience, most of them are pretty good. They face threats from difficult and dangerous people every day. The rights and wrongs of the actions of young police officer who brought down a young Aboriginal man in Sydney recently are for others to determine but one thing I can say: the Aboriginal man could have saved the whole situation simply by not threatening to break the policeman's jaw.

Armageddon: a dramatic and catastrophic conflict, especially one seen as likely to destroy the world or human race (Oxford Languages). Really Josh? Even an economist's version? ("Recession cash splash", p.1 June 4). I certainly hope you guys get the response right then because if you don't it would seem that we're finished for all time with no way back. Or were you indulging in just a little hyperbole?

That bearded Googonian is a legend ("Get off the grass", June 4), never, and I mean never, step on a man's newly-seeded lawn.

John Howard's first home buyers' handout, coupled with unnaturally low interest rates, kick-started a housing bubble that had the perverse consequence of putting homes out of the reach of first home buyers, and had tradies driving $80,000 utes and earning more than doctors who had to study for many years before they earned a dollar.

A correction was desperately needed by young Australians hoping to one day own their own home, and might have been one of the very few good things to come out of the coronavirus crisis.

But another interventionist 'Liberal' prime minister wants to keep tradies in the Mercedes utes to which they have become accustomed. Morrison's $25,000 handout to people who can already afford to spend $150,000 on an extension or $750,000 on a rebuild will just go into the pockets of builders by way of inflated prices, and will be paid for by those least able to pay.

Another hare-brained idea from this government. Why didn't they just take the $658 million dollars and build lots of houses for the homeless?

It is disappointing that The Canberra Times, and contributors such as Gerry Gillespie (Letters, May 27) and Jenny Goldie (Letters , June 4) continue to offer a one-sided view of the East Timor Oil Gap negotiations. So-called 'Witness K' has already pleaded guilty to disclosing the product of bugging of East Timor's Parliamentary offices.

His colleague, Bernard Collaery, is holding on to a plea that court proceedings should be totally open: moreover, that Australia's conduct during negotiations had been inappropriate, given East Timor's poverty.

Securing the upper hand in sensitive negotiations is rarely a one-way process. So, other considerations require airing. When Australia assumed, thanks to the Brits, control of the 'Timor Oil Gap' nearly 100 years ago it was well outside the '12 mile' international law process. Now the 'Gap' at its north-west perimeter just squeezes in to the confected 200km commercial zone. Ninety-five per cent of it is in international waters. Neither the Dutch nor the Portuguese put in the hard yards locating the massive oil reserve.

And, neither put their skin on the line when Australia's enemy Japan sought control nearly 80 years ago. Australia did. Now we legitimately thwart Chinese ambitions for our resource; yes! Chinese. Consequently, the close interest of the Australian Security Intelligence Service [ASIS].

China, now the world's most accomplished reader of other people's mail, and with well-practised modus operandi, had to be bugging us when we were gaining insights into East Timor's communications with China itself. Thus, can Collaery, et al seriously believe that China's huge infrastructure involvement on behalf of East Timor won't see a quid pro quo?

Strategic Policy Institute [ASPI] is clear on this; and ASIS as an arm of Australian government was looking after our interests. Where's the beef?

The NZ Ministry of Health has said elimination of the COVID-19 virus can be declared 28 days after the last case from a "locally acquired unknown source", or community transmission, has completed their treatment and tested negative. It is intending to make such a declaration on June 15.

Given, as of Friday, the ACT has gone 31 days since last reporting a case of the virus acquired from any source, isn't it time the ACT Government declared the virus eliminated in the ACT and moved swiftly to remove all remaining restrictions?

Despite COVID-19 , atmospheric CO2 levels are now at the highest level for three million years and the highest in human history (reported June 4 from Scripps Observatory, Hawaii).

On these trends, the situation will be catastrophic for our children and grandkids and much life on Earth. How do we change the conversation so that climate change is our top priority? How do we get rid of the Morrison Government that refuses to do anything serious on climate change?

It is obvious that Kirsten Lawson and The Canberra Times editors did not read, nor take notice of my letter of April 16, in which I asked that the word "dole" not be used to describe the different forms of Government assistance that is available to those people who require it.

It is unfortunate, that in the past, the word "dole" was associated with people who did not want to work ie: "dole bludgers".

It was disappointing therefore, to see both the headlines on Kirsten Lawson's article ("Dole queue expand", p.11, June 3) and again in the content, the word "dole" used to describe Government assistance.

It is so important for those people who require help in these difficult times, to maintain their self respect and dignity, so let us stop using words that are negative and derogative and do nothing to assist those who need it.

Mary Samara-Wickrama (Letters June 5) reveals her ignorance of the context in which the slogan ' Black Lives Matter' is being used. It's in the context of the institutionalised racism, the police brutality and police killing of black people and the entrenched, inherently discriminatory criminal justice system in America.

She should read the renowned civil rights attorney (George Floyd's family lawyer) Ben Crump's book Open Season : Legalised Genocide of Coloured People published in October 2019 to acquire an understanding of that specific context.

The white people in America and around the world who march in protest alongside black people understand that context. There is nothing racist about it.

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