The ACT government should focus on looking after its parks

For years I have reached out to Access Canberra over mowing only six months of the year amid unprecedented rain.

The ACT government claims to have the most parks per capita in Australia but then does not take care of them so they can be used.

Paths are not edged. The grass grows over them, making them unsafe for people with mobility issues.

We are sick of complaining to no effect that my daughter and I are edging and mowing the sides of the local paths ourselves.

We have also weeded the local gardens and removed about 15 green waste bin loads of weeds.

One bin was actually full of thistle.

The ACT government should stop creating parks if they are never going to look after them. Stop promoting Floriade and just look after the local parks.

Dog owners are also paying vet fees each year to have grass seeds removed.

I agree with Marjorie Collins' assessment of Mark Butler's decision to not reinstate 20 Medicare rebate sessions in respect of psychological therapy ("Mark Butler announcing no alternative for slashed psychology Medicare sessions is lazy", p34, May 18).

I find it hard to imagine that anyone with first-hand experience with people suffering from chronic mental health issues would have been a party to such a decision.

Often treatment can involve trying to influence a patient's thoughts, feelings and behaviours that have been hard-wired over their lifetime. This is not done either quickly or easily.

Adopting more realistic, and more productive, thoughts, feelings and behaviours is a long hard slog.

Of course, with some of the more severe mental health issues, frequent and expert psychological treatment is needed just to keep someone alive, or out of hospital.

Ten sessions is nowhere near enough to address the mental health needs of many, many people.

I have noted articles and letters criticising the standard of care at Canberra Hospital.

I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and was referred to the radiology oncology section of The Canberra Region Cancer Centre. I cannot speak highly enough of the care and treatment that I received.

The staff were warm and friendly; from the reception staff to the oncologist and the treatment staff. They apologised if they were more than 10 minutes late for my appointment, always bright and friendly and very supportive.

By the time I returned to my car I had a message providing the results of my examination.

Canberra should be very proud of this facility and the wonderful people who work there.

The debate about the ACT government's take over of the Calvary hospital is not about the care or expertise of the staff, which is largely excellent. Nor is it about the chaplain or the chapel.

It is about the separation of church and state. The provision of public health care is a state responsibility. It should never have been outsourced to the private sector.

Governments can be voted in and out; they are there to serve the population which in this county is mostly secular, with a diverse collection of different ethnic and religious minorities.

It makes no sense to give the running of a major public hospital to religious minorities.

The second and equally important issue is transparency. The hospital is run by The Little Company of Mary. The last attempt to acquire the hospital was stopped by the Vatican. So who actually runs the hospital?

The land and the building were gifted to them. They receive massive ongoing funding from the public purse. Yet the church will fight to make a massive profit out of this debacle.

This fight is necessary to return public health to public hands where decisions on family planning, LGBTI rights, and Voluntary Assisted Dying can be made by the ACT people, not the Vatican.

Your editorial of May 14 ("ACT students being left behind by outdated teaching of reading", canberratimes.com.au) questioned the way our children are learning to read.

In about week three our kindergarten grandchild's parents were emailed a list of the first 100 sight words. So he is not beginning with A says "a" for apple. Instead, bewilderment.

We have made little flash cards but the 10 new words to be learnt each week, is not happening.

The class size is small enough for rapid progress even given these little ones are catching viral infections and missing days. Maybe the grade one teacher of 2024 will believe in phonic knowledge. A long time to wait.

The ACT Alliance for Evidence Based Education is not imagining the need for a rethink about literacy education.

An urgent note of caution: we must educate our teachers so they are confident with person-to-person learning. To hand over literacy teaching to machines is to fail our trainee teachers and our children.

We have never had more wondrous books waiting to be loved, cherished and snuggled up with by our kids.

Many thanks to Victor Diskordia for drawing readers' attention to Herbert Butterfield's The Whig Interpretation of History, an extended essay "real historical understanding is not achieved by the subordination of the past to the present, but rather by our making the past our present and attempting to see life with the eyes of another century than our own".

But I couldn't find the words Mr Diskordia cited as Professor Butterfield's conclusions in the essay itself; words Mr Diskordia suggested were "a useful set of maxims for any meaningful discussion about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and an Australian republic".

I did find them in an article in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, a right-wing publication "dedicated to defending and advancing the philosophical and spiritual foundations of Western civilisation".

Remembering Herbert Butterfield by Professor Kenneth B. McIntyre wrote that Butterfield's conclusions might "usefully serve as a set of maxims for any meaningfully conservative contemporary politics".

Around the perimeter of the Latham Primary School are 80 to 100 pine trees, the relics of the outbuildings of the former Cranleigh Homestead. Almost all are dead. The rest are dying.

Six months ago the City Services Directorate sent an arborist with a large yellow paint-tin to mark most of them for felling.

But nothing has happened and most of the bright yellow dots are now barely visible. So, what happens next?

Apparently players rave about Manuka Oval and The Canberra Times recently claimed it is one of the best "boutique grounds" in the country.

From my experience the facilities, especially the dreadful toilet arrangements, make those claims ring hollow.

They are on a par with ones I experienced when attending a second division rugby league game in Yorkshire in the 1960s.

If our sporting administration has ambitions to attract high profile events in the future a priority must be a significant upgrading of these essential facilities

With the "yes" and "no" votes only a few points either side of 50 per cent, regardless of who wins there will be almost as many people unhappy with the result as those who "win".

Win lose or draw our country will be divided. Good one Albo.

Recent personal correspondence from Senator David Pocock has highlighted the cost of Australia's offshore detention for the coming year. It is $485,721,000 to unjustifiably imprison just over 100 people.

This is an astonishing cost of around $4 million per person. The only things this achieves are misery and depression!

If these people were gainfully employed in the community they would be self-supporting and paying tax.

Off-shore detention is immoral and is in direct conflict with the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention. We must cease this horrific, deceitful and outrageously expensive cruelty.