The rush to a terrorism judgement was unfortunate

The word "terrorist" creates different reactions in different people, some justified, others not so.

We need to find out a lot more about what motivated this particular incident before making public declarations about its "official" level of national seriousness.

It may seem clear that religion-based issues are at the heart of why a teenager attacked church leaders with a knife but it needs to be verified.

Why local members of the church and perhaps others then attacked police who attended is also extremely worrying and requires considered investigation.

Calmness on the part of everyone is essential.

Equally vital is that our leaders, while providing as much information as possible, don't raise unnecessary fears among the public, especially when its timing can be counterproductive.

Jorge Gapella (Letters, April 13) laments that electric vehicles are being made with normal vehicle sounds. It is in fact a safety measure, required in some jurisdictions, as people detect vehicles using all their available senses including hearing.

The profoundly deaf may not hear a vehicle but the sight impaired cannot see one.

Similarly reversing commercial vehicles make a special, and loud, noise to alert pedestrians that the vehicle is moving in an unusual direction.

Why would anyone object to this?

Barnaby Joyce and his media adviser need to wake up to the fact that the corporate memory of the APS is and always will be more reliable and trustworthy than their selective takes on Coalition history and the nuances of public sector attendance and service delivery ("Gorman lashes Joyce over Anzac Day holiday", April 18).

Albo you need to employ more people to answer ATO and Centrelink phones.

Every call I make, regardless of time of day, I'm told that demand is unusually high and to call again, then my call is simply disconnected. This has happened repeatedly over the past year - most recently trying to finalise tax obligations after the death of my father.

Not every issue can be resolved online and clearly high demand on the phone lines is the "new usual" and should be the level that is funded.

There are countless newsworthy events occurring in Canberra and the rest of the world. Yet The Canberra Times focuses on the possible change of the name of a building in Canberra.

Headlines such as "Dismay at rename plan", "Don't let department name-changers get Sirius" and "Ship of fools" (with a large image dominating the front page) quoting former prime minister John Howard abound. Some perspective please!

The call not to give in to terrorists reminds me that the source of the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict is directly attributable to the foolish decision of the United Nations, led by the UK and the US, giving in to Zionist terrorists and creating Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948.

The terrorists murdered many British soldiers and police when Britain governed Palestine under a mandate.

Those terrorists were subsequently lauded as "freedom fighters". They then turned on the Palestinian people.

The Western world preferred to forget the past. Unfortunately for Israel, those dispossessed Arabs will not just forget, and their offspring will not just go away. They learned from their Israeli oppressors, just as Israel learned from their Nazi oppressors. Terrorism is terrorism, no matter who conducts it.