Big business just doesn't care about its customers anymore

They do not care for loyal customers and clients. It is profits before anything else.

Leaving elderly clients (and others too) out on the street in mid-winter waiting for service is an appalling indictment of the Commonwealth.

We have experienced similar treatment by this bank. The appalling waiting times when you tring the call centre is a further indication of a "we don't care" attitude.

The Commonwealth Bank is not the only culprit however. The PwC scandal has exposed the "big four" accounting and consultancy firms to scrutiny.

The other banks, the telcos, Qantas and many others are just as bad.

It is obscene that you have to wait more than an hour to have a phone call to a company that makes billions of dollars in profits answered.

Given customer service is equally bad across the board means changing from one provider to another is not a solution.

Appointing more customer focused people to company boards appears the only possible solution.

As we get tired and emotional over Victoria's abrupt withdrawal from the 2026 Commonwealth Games, even (give me a break) floating the idea Canberra should step in, here are two things we probably won't be discussing.

Firstly, just like the monarchy, the entire Commonwealth, and its Commonwealth Games, are a ridiculous and ever-so-slightly racist anachronism.

You would think that Albanese's Australia, whose entire raison d'être almost seems to be UN Open Borders and UN Net Zero, would just about be ready to move on from this antique and oh-so-British show. Where's the sense of cognitive dissonance?

Secondly, the cloud cuckoo land of the Commonwealth Games financing is entirely consistent with how they usually "engineer" things in woke Victoria.

Marvellous Melbourne runs the least viable and most indebted of any of the state economies. More than any other state, they rely on the gravity-defying absurdity of barely funded and overly ambitious infrastructure programs to "catch up" with ruinous levels of population growth.

Watching the most recent episode of "Grand Designs Victoria" was both riveting and sad. It featured an aspirational multi-site build. The owners had grand plans and, as is usually the case, an optimistically low budget.

Predictably the costs soared and the owners were under significant financial pressure. Eventually, with very little of the work completed they pulled out.

Significant relationship pressures were evident - will they break up with their electorate? There will be no grand opening for the show's host to attend.

The announcement by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews that the 2026 Commonwealth Games have been cancelled is an enormous disappointment for all who were to participate. As the reason given was "financial constraints" that seems to suggest gross financial mismanagement.

The last 12 months or so have seen a huge number of taxpayer-funded state funerals in Victoria for noted identities; far more than for all the other states combined. Just where do the responsibilities of Premier Andrews lie?

The article "Byelection, polling shows federal Labor under pressure" (canberratimes.com.au, July 17) was fanciful in the extreme.

The Liberals won with a swing less than the average byelection swing. The Liberal Party could have preselected Krusty the Clown and won Fadden. It means nothing.

It's blatantly obvious that Albanese's honeymoon can't last forever but current polls indicate Labor would romp home in a federal election.

The latest two-party-preferred polls have Labor at 53 per cent and the Liberals at 42 per cent. Albanese is well ahead as preferred Prime Minister over Dutton.

It's nonsense to suggest Labor is under pressure.

I honestly wonder why I bother to be a law-abiding citizen anymore. It seems that if you are young, recidivist and have a sob story you can get away with almost anything.

Given I am white, female, older and middle class I doubt if I would get away with running from a crash leaving two young girls to die.

I truly despair for our legal system and pity the police who do their best to keep us safe but are at the mercy of the court system and lenient magistrates.

Andrew Leigh did not have to look to John le Carre to find riveting treatments of murky political intrigue ("Andrew Leigh urges a space for politicians outside the factional system", canberratimes.com.au, July 19).

In the Cold War era the ALP was divided neatly between the friends and foes of Bob Santamaria.

The resulting shenanigans inspired controversial novels by Frank Hardy and Canberra's own Alan Reid.

Your article "Yvette Berry defends spending safer families levy on government training" (canberratimes.com.au, July 20) said "the levy raised $7.2 million last year" and "the bulk of the money, $1.8 million, went towards a family violence safety action program".

Since when is $1.8 million the bulk of $7.2 million?

If we don't support the Voice to Parliament, what kind of country will we be?

If we don't pass this referendum there will be despair in the hearts of many people.

People like the respected Elder Pat Anderson, who is exhausted from begging for things to be done differently: "Every time there is a change in government; a change in minister ... a new head of department ... we have to sit down and go painfully over everything all again ... we are going back to ground zero every single time."

The Voice is a small thing but whatever its form, it will not divide us, it will enrich us.

The dreadful figures on Aboriginal people's lifespan, health, family trauma, are all indicative of one thing: we are not doing things right in this country.

The Voice is a gift from Aboriginal people to the rest of us, a chance to be a better country.

How will you feel if the "no" vote wins? We will look like the very worst of us, a backward-leaning, frightened people, easily persuaded by cynical and organised and deliberate attempts to confuse us.

We are better than that.

Please, for all of us, vote "yes" to the Voice.

Thomas Mayo has politely outlined why the Voice should be supported ("Voice to Parliament will close gaps and address glaring issue at nation's heart", canberratimes.com.au, July 17).

But elsewhere he has described the Voice as "just the beginning", arguing for reparations, "paying the rent", the "destruction of colonial institutions", and the "punishment" of politicians who defy the Voice.

I have to wonder why he didn't repeat these things in this latest statement?

Kym MacMillan perpetuates the sterile and heartless legalism that has for too long given the AWM the excuse to ignore the longest wars in Australia's history.

He points out (Letters, July 19) that the Queensland Native Police did things besides pursue and "disperse" (a euphemism for kill) Aborigines. But that was their main purpose, and over 50 years they killed tens of thousands.

The Native Police did not arrest criminals. On the orders of their white officers, they massacred indiscriminately - they conducted a war.

To ignore them in the AWM because they were called "police" would be like neglecting the ADF because it also fights bushfire and flood: but it's not the SES.

The AWM Act obliges it to explain "warlike operations". How was this not "warlike"?

Mr MacMillan should read the several excellent books about the force, notably Jonathan Richards's The Secret War, written in spite of the destruction of the force's records. (Now, why would they do that?)

Better still, he could enrol in U3A's "Frontier Contact" course which might open his eyes, his mind and his heart.

With Commonwealth and Olympic Games costing so much it is stupid for a bid from any one state or territory. Bids should be national and involve all states and territories and multiple venues. It could still be done. We have just become a pariah on the international sporting stage.

Anyone who thinks the Voice is some half-baked idea that has come out of nowhere should read the article by Professor Megan Davis in the current Quarterly Essay. It explains why a constitutionally enshrined Voice is necessary and how it emerged, in bipartisan agreement, from a lengthy and broad regional dialogue in 2016 and 2017 that culminated in the Uluru Statement.

So India now has a pact with France. History informs us that French support is no more than a scrap of paper, and the Pacific is no more than a testing ground for their nuclear arsenal.

Ann Smith asks why taking the bus to work isn't good enough for Canberra's bus drivers (Letters, July 17). When their shift involves driving the first or last bus, the obvious reality is that there is no bus for them to take.

The geological era named the Cretaceous is estimated to have lasted around 78 million years, the Jurassic 51 million. Scientists have named the era initiated by us the Anthropocene. It has started around 73 years ago. The destruction we have caused makes it likely the Anthropocene will last only the blink of a geological eye.

It might be some consolation to Margaret Smith to know her mother's suicide in 2008 was not an "illegal act" (Letters, July 18). The current version of section 16 of the ACT Crimes Act states: "The rule of law that it is an offence for a person to commit, or to attempt to commit, suicide is abolished." This has been in force since 1990.

To add to the discussion on black cars, they are so much hotter than white cars in the sun and are harder for other road users to see.