On campus accommodation at the ANU is out of reach of most

In the midst of this crisis, the university made a deal with private equity. In exchange for a lump sum to fund the construction of new residential halls, the university would guarantee a rate of return through the income from its nine existing residential halls. This arrangement would come to be known as the Purpose Build Student Accommodation agreement (PBSA).

There was a promise that tariff increases for student accommodation would be limited to CPI, maintained at or below 75 per cent of market rates and subject to five yearly reviews where tariffs will be bench marked to market rates. There was a catch, however, as "market rates" has not been transparently defined.

Now, as reported in "University students skip meals as residential hall fees climb" (canberrratimes.com.au, February 18), tariff increases have made student accommodation blatantly unaffordable for all but the richest students on campus.

Such high prices have a cost. Despite it being barely 10 years into its PBSA agreements, the university struggles to find students and must resort to offering a $250 reward for referring a student to live on campus. At this rate, who will will be left to pay after two more decades?

In saying she taught the poetry of Simon and Garfunkle, (Letters, February 19) Merrie Carling incorrectly includes Art Garfunkel as a contributor to those works.

The music and lyrics of the songs cited, The Boxer, Sounds of Silence (actually The Sound of Silence) and I am a Rock, are Paul Simon's alone. Art Garfunkel sang these and many other songs with Paul Simon, but contributed very little to writing the poetry or music.

Before The Sound of Silence became a major contributor to the duo's success it was recorded with the title, Sounds of Silence. When Paul Simon recorded it as a solo on The Paul Simon Songbook in 1965, he had changed the title to The Sound of Silence.

Re Merrie Carling's letter (February 19) about the poetry embedded in modern song: my applause.

When I was a child 75 years ago there was no TV and no radio. We had poetry recitals in our house, but no music. I memorised a lot of poetry, recited it, and it was precious to me.

I note that the work of the bush poets is not mentioned by Merrie. I studied poetry in high school, both English and Australian, and I noticed that all the works I read were written in the 19th century, before the development of modern entertainments.

To me, the words of songs are as magical as the music is to others, and as worthy of study as the older works.

How sad that Mr Stivala jumps to a theory of political motivation in the timing of the Prime Minister's engagement to his long time partner (Letters, February 20).

Doubly sad that it seems to be beyond Mr Stivala's ken that their engagement might simply be an expression of their love and commitment to each other.

Sadder still that Mr Stivala would seek to use such a happy event to further criticise a government which, on the evidence of his many letters, he obviously dislikes.

At the risk of being arrested on dubious charges, held indefinitely without consular access, and sentenced to death by a court following the "rule of law" should I ever set foot in territory held by the Chinese Communist Party, I beg to differ with Xie Liyan (Letters, February 16).

Arbitrarily arresting citizens of other countries simply because China feels slighted is bullying at its worst. Just as bizarre was their raising tariffs on multiple trade commodities in a "cutting off your nose to spite your face" move.

I suspect the average Chinese citizen suffered just as much as Australian farmers and suppliers. Luckily we can turf out our government in a democratic election if we don't like them, unlike the poor Chinese. But what can Australia do to complain? Words don't mean much to the CCP (unless you're insulting them). Is it possible to hit them where it hurts - in the pocket book?

This may be another case of cutting one's nose, but if Australians boycotted Chinese goods, maybe they'd be more conciliatory? Highly doubtful given recent history. So we muddle on with diplomatic words in the hopes that they'll be nice to us.

Doug Hurst's call for an audit of what he calls the $40 million "Aboriginal industry" (Letters, February 17) is based on incorrect assumptions that $40 million goes to direct support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and the funding is going to and is controlled by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations.

As the Productivity Commission's Indigenous Expenditure Report clearly explains only 18 per cent of the $40 billion is for Indigenous-specific programs and services. At least 64 per cent comprises the Indigenous share of mainstream government services such as Medicare and education. The remaining 18 per cent represents other mainstream government expenditure.

So, 82 per cent of government spending on Indigenous Australians goes to mainstream government departments. Even a good portion of the Indigenous-specific funding, such as Abstudy and Aboriginal Legal Aid, goes through government departments.

The Productivity Commission's recent Closing the Gap Review concurs with Mr Hurst's conclusion that current funding arrangements are failing and must change. That is why it recommends that government departments overhaul their "government knows best" approach, and recognise the expertise of Indigenous Australians in determining what works for their communities.

The letter "Follow the money to close the gap" (Letters, February 17), repeated a falsehood currently being perpetuated, along the lines of: "there is no incentive for the people working on closing the gap to do so, as if they succeed, they will be out of a job".

This is disingenuous in the extreme. Shouldn't we be just as outraged by those slack medical researchers who have no incentive to find a cure for cancer?

Then there our armed forces. Could they go off and conquer China tomorrow? Of course they could but then we would have no further use for them. And don't start me on how the government clearly has no incentive to attack the cost of living.

We and our children are caught in a huge experiment. We do not know what prolonged screen time is doing to our learning and our physical, social and emotional wellbeing. We have suspicions.

We must ask questions! We have learnt that our eyes forget to blink when we gaze at screens.

For school children that lunch break away from screens may be vital for eye health. Some teachers are rediscovering paper based learning. Using a maths textbook is surprisingly challenging but worth learning. How about submitting a handwritten story? It is happening in Canberra. I read that in the US there are waiting lists for technology free courses. Imagine.

The ACT government encouraged Canberrans to catch public transport to the Multicultural Festival on the weekend.

Unfortunately, on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, the 57 and 58 buses only travel through Yarralumla and Deakin, respectively, to and from Civic every two hours.

This makes travel into Civic a major planning exercise.

It compares unfavourably with being able to jump in the car and arrive in Civic in about ten minutes.

This is another legacy of the disastrous 2019 public transport network changes.

These reduced weekend bus frequency through Yarralumla and Deakin from a respectable once every hour to once every two hours.

Ian Warden confides that his feminine traits are the reason he's brought to tears by some operas. It is also apparently why he loves doing flower arrangements and why he uses plenty of exclamation marks! ("Why I want to punctuate like a girl", canberratimes.com.au, February 3).

Such admirable manifestations of femininity in a man speak of a highly sophisticated, cultivated and refined intellect.

Alas, this contrasts abruptly with Mr Warden's avowed admiration for that macho event, Summernats, ("Summernats' welcome thundering jungle",canberratimes.com.au, January 13). This brought us to tears. Please, send flowers.

At least we don't have ultra-large cockroaches, cane toads, fire ants, stingers, sharks, crocs, dengue fever and a clutch of reactionary and tunnel-visioned senators such as Matt Canavan, Gerard Rennick, Pauline Hanson, and Malcolm Roberts ("'An awful place': Qld's ACT spray", February 20, p32).

It's time politicians, journalists and many Australians realised Canberra is a city in its own right, not just the seat of the national government. People delight in criticising Canberra while failing to realise they are bagging the very people they elected to represent them. Steven Miles needs to do his homework before bagging the national capital!

Re the Queensland Premier's abhorrent comment about Canberra being a terrible place. Let's remember their tourism motto: "Queensland! Beautiful one day, perfect the next". Premier, just think about the people in the north of your state before bagging people in southern states.

Seems like we have two types of Canberrans. There are those who enjoy a bit of schadenfreude and then there are the good Samaritans. I guess when Barnaby was doing his thing all the good Samaritans were home in bed leaving it up to the schadenfreude lovers to record the event for posterity.

Barnaby Joyce seems intent on improving the Parliament; prompting first a "bonk ban" and now a possible "plonk ban"?

Might the PM's second marriage beget a second honeymoon?

Why can't we just wish the PM and his lady all the best for their happy day and move on?

Those who conflate the actions of the IDF in Gaza with the Nazi holocaust are woefully - and wilfully - ignorant of what happened in Europe just before and during World War II. I suggest that after having read Martin Gilbert's History of WWII - which details these atrocities at length - they ask themselves if they want to continue perpetrating a loathsome post-modernist form of holocaust denial.

The "Homage to a hidden city oasis" (February 19, p7) brought back memories. My wife and I lived in one of those flats for two years in 1959 and 1960. They were excellent accommodation for their time. It was a great improvement on the months at Reid Hall.

You have to wonder where the flashy new Trump sneakers are made. Is it in China like the MAGA caps and the steel in Trump's Washington hotel?