Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin Prickly prime ministers The revelation that a thin-skinned Malcolm Turnbull tried to have the ABC's Emma Alberici sacked ("ABC Chair told Guthrie to 'get rid of Alberici"', September 26, p1) is reminiscent (for those of us old enough to recall) of an equally thin-skinned Bob Hawke engineering the sacking from the ABC of Jane Singleton in the early 1980s after she'd famously cut short an interview with Hawke because he repeatedly dodged her questions. Thin-skinned PMs and back-room interference with ABC journalists' careers are nothing new, it seems. Peter Moran, Watson Claim to fame

Can I enter Chris Smith's "Was Dave Sharma the youngest ever Australian ambassador competition" by stating that, compared with Sharma who was 37, I was 35 when in April 1982 I was appointed as Australian high commissioner to Tanzania and also ambassador and high commissioner to five neighbouring countries. My other significant claim to fame is that on Sunday, at the age of 72, I completed my maiden Canberra Times 5km Fun Run in 38:49. John R Baker, Griffith It's about relationships I am surprised Toni Hassan has been told aged care in Canberra is "pretty good" ("Aged care fine, but could be improved", September 24, p33 ). She later quotes Associate Professor Maree Bernoth's observation that the most important aspect of aged care is the relationship between the older person and the worker, and I would like to point out that such a relationship requires time and continuity, which most age care workers in this city's institutions do not have.

I recently had to choose a nursing home for a beloved relative. On the advice of medical staff, I chose a place in a nearby rural town. I did this because, despite a lack of chandeliers, I could see the staff were local and had been working for longer periods and were more dedicated to the residents than in similar homes in Canberra. Send your letters to the editor to letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. I was also glad to allow my relative to be accommodated in a shared room because I could see that this meant that he would see his carers twice as often, hence increasing his chance of enriching his relationships with them. It seems obvious to me that, if we are to be wrenched from our loved ones and placed among strangers for our last years, we should at least be given the option of forming a fond relationship with a team of workers who can, over time, celebrate who we are and have been. In the best circumstances, these workers can encourage a resident's family and friends to come into the home because it fulfils their need for continuity as well. And yet we hear that 50 per cent of Canberra's nursing home residents have no visitors at all. I would suggest the atmosphere of alienation and lack of hospitality that can be experienced in Canberra's aged care homes needs urgent attention. Jill Sutton, Watson

Care for the aged If someone is hit in the street, we confidently expect the police to follow up and lay charges, particularly if there is good photographic evidence and the assailants can be traced. This also applies in domestic violence. Why is it different if the event takes place in an aged care setting, such as we saw on the recent Four Corners episode? Is the current situation a reflection of the way we treat and regard the older members of our community? I hope that those who come after us will have realised that having the most experienced members of our society staying with us longer is an asset that we should utilise and not treat as a burden, with individuals regarded as less than human. Minister, your response to the current situation will show what you are capable of, which currently does not appear very positive.

Audrey Guy, Ngunnawal The drug menace Bronis Dudek (Letters, September 24) suggests that since we do not charge police for failing to prevent deaths through not having speed traps, RBTs and red light cameras whenever idiot motorists cause death, we should not think about charging those responsible for preventing pill-testing. There is a very great difference between events that are totally unpredictable, and those that are organised and publicised. We should never try to make police or roads authorities responsible for random events that they have no control over, but when every conceivable piece of evidence shows that drug dealers will take advantage of large numbers of festival goers, then there is a responsibility to do what can be done to minimise harm. It is known that pill-testing reduces deaths and hospitalisation – there is a responsibility to act on the facts, not on some unsupported "war" rhetoric. It is a distinct no-brainer that when large numbers of young people gather together for a music festival, drug pushers will take advantage of the situation. Personally, I agree with Bronis that taking drugs, the composition of which cannot be known, is a very high-risk – even stupid – decision, but decades of phenomenally expensive law enforcement has made no impact at all on the likelihood of young people doing exactly that. In fact, the war on drugs has created the very situation where those who would consume drugs cannot know what they contain. Sending people to prison for consuming illicit drugs has only succeeded in pushing them further into criminality. Requiring the police to impose counterproductive laws is a gross mis-direction of resources and a highway to corruption.

Properly controlled, those drugs that are currently illicit could be freed of deadly contaminants, packaged with warnings as we do with tobacco and alcohol, and taxed appropriately to their harm. Please don't take any of this as criticism of the police – they are doing the job that they are required to do. It is the job that is stupid. John Walker, Queanbeyan Let's move on anthem

I thank Peter Burrett (Letters, September 18) for promoting replacement of the Australian national anthem. For many years I have hoped that the final (five-line) chorus of I am Australian would replace Advance Australia Fair. Indeed, I had hoped that the replacement would occur before the Sydney Olympics. First, the words of Advance Australia Fair are embarrassingly ridiculous, as Mark O'Connor pointed out (Letters, September 24). Second, the chorus of I am Australian is a work of genius which while being extremely uplifting succinctly includes two important aspects of an Australian anthem: the heritage of all Australians; and a major component of our culture — our acceptance of diversity — which probably began with the First Fleet when survival depended on a "We're all in this together" attitude. I understand Christopher Jobson's concerns (Letters, September 25). Waltzing Matilda details the suicide of a man mentally depressed by an economic depression. Ned Kelly is not a hero, but perhaps was a victim of a class divide. These events are appropriate in the song to illustrate hardships which helped forge the Australian character, but they are certainly not appropriate in an anthem; however, they are not part of the chorus. I recommend that the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, in the spirit of the chorus, together ask Bruce Woodley to create an anthem based on the chorus, and together work to get it approved by Parliament and adopted by Australia Day 2019.

Bob Salmond, Melba Sanitising our words Philip Telford (Letters, September 25) claims the word "fair" in Advance Australia Fair has Freudian overtones which suggest it means advancing "fair-skinned" people only. By that logic we should jettison our national saying "fair dinkum" too. And, obviously, the term "fair go" just means we're giving someone a "white go". Could everyone curb their outrage about the need to sanitise wording please? For instance the last line in the theme song for the 1960s cartoon show The Flintstones states "We'll have a gay old time". Should I automatically assume Fred and Barney were more than just bowling partners? As for making I Am Australian into our national anthem, I'll caution everyone that Indigenous people won't automatically sing it with gusto. Abbey Crawford, Macquarie

Open the conversation The Prime Minister's latest foray into the public debate about Australia Day shows much the same imprint as the government's response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart — rule something out and then suggest something different. So Australians are supposed to accept that January 26 is fixed in its current form, and that another date is appropriate for a separate recognition of the history of the first peoples. Apart from appearing to confirm the division in our country, it offers negotiation on a predetermined set of conditions. When will our government open the conversation with Australians (especially the originals) by listening rather than speaking? David Purnell, Florey

Different days divisive So Scott Morrison is planning Australia Day being celebrated on different days: one for the Aboriginal people and another for the rest of Australians. Isn't that apartheid? As heroic Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander men and thousands of other Australian men and women fought for our freedom in WWII together and celebrate together our freedom won, we can all celebrate this great country they fought and died for together on Australia Day. Christine Anu's grandfather was in Merauke with my father, a squadron leader with the RAAF. Penelope Upward, O'Connor Being 'one of the boys'

Alayne Richardson (Letters September 24) loves Morrison's "plain speaking". I interpret it, along with his daily photo-ops, as deliberately trying to make himself appear "one of the boys". This, together with his blatant attempts to buy his way back into election-winning mode rather than developing good policy, are more likely to take us even faster down the road to becoming a "banana republic". I want as prime minister a dignified, thoughtful and innovative leader who will earn the respect of all Australians, not just the ones whom he thinks will re-elect his self-serving, male-dominated party room. Eric Hunter, Cook Supermarkets complicit Albert White (Letters, September 25) hit the nail on the head as usual with his letter titled "Milk move cynical".

Coles is just as complicit in the shafting of farmers as Woolies in supposedly bringing "you" the best price it can. The major supermarket chains will probably give an extra 10c a litre to dairy farmers by charging the public more and maintaining profits while presenting a seemingly benevolent face to camera. If the major chains displayed morally ethical standards and weren't screwing the producers over to begin with then milk production would be better paid and the levy wouldn't be necessary on that score. Rory McElligott, Nicholls Modesty no liability

In lamenting our lack of political talent, Frank Breglec (Letters, September 25) compares Opposition Leader Bill Shorten with Clement Attlee, the UK Labour prime minister immediately following the Second World War, who Winston Churchill said was "A modest man with much to be modest about". Has modesty no place in politics? Churchill's one-liner maybe demands more than superficial analysis, because among scholars, critics and the public, Attlee is consistently rated as one of the greatest British prime ministers. The reviewer in The New Yorker magazine of the 2017 biography Clement Attlee: The Man Who Made Modern Britain wrote of it as "a study in actual radical accomplishment of how real social change can be achieved, providing unimaginable benefits to working people, entirely within an embrace of parliamentary principles as absolute and heroic as any in the annals of democracy". Much to be modest about, indeed.

Ed Highley, Kambah TO THE POINT EVERYBODY'S ANTHEM When I saw Christopher Jobson's assertion that I Am Australian in effect praises a killer thief, Ned Kelly, and also a suicidal thief, the waltzing swagman (Letters, September 25), I thought he was expressing his support for our possible new anthem: after all, the anthem should belong to everyone, shouldn't it. Philip Telford, Tarago, NSW

THE RIGHT BALANCE Maybe "righties" persist in seeing the ABC as a leftist plot because the far-right view of things always lands so far away from a balanced one. Barrie Smillie, Duffy JUST VISITING? There's been a bit of a kerfufflement and rumour lately about Rupert Murdoch coming to Australia, having high-power meetings with senior staff, and working to have Malcolm Turnbull replaced.

As Rupert's a US citizen (and they don't allow dual-nationals, so he can't be an Australian citizen) one wonders what sort of visa he's arrived on. Dallas Stow, O'Connor LIFE IS AT STAKE The National Capital Authority's refusal to have pill testing on Commonwealth land during the Spilt Milk festival is ridiculous, but does that really have to be the end of the story? Why can't the ACT government allow a pill testing station on the nearest and most convenient non-Commonwealth land? It's a second-best, but if anybody's life is at stake surely it's worth the try.

Gordon Soames, Curtin TELL US YOUR PLAN OK Jenny Goldie (Letters, September 26), what is your plan? Border control? No new land releases so we become an increasingly expensive enclave? A fence? Lesley Fisk, Barton WATER IS A WORRY

The Canberra Times reports ("Corin ... Corin ... but not gone (yet)", September 26, p1) that Canberra's water storages are 67 per cent full and that Icon Water people tell us not to worry we have plenty of water and that there will be no summer water restrictions. Are these the same people that several years ago cancelled the arrangement whereby Canberra could access Snowy scheme water? Don't these Icon Water people believe or look at global warming scenarios for Canberra? It's a worry! Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor

INVESTMENT REWARDED The ability of many non-government schools and their overarching education sector organisations to employ skilled staff to carry out specific public communication, liaison and promotion duties paid off handsomely last week ("$4.6bn boost a saviour for Catholic schools", September 22, p6). Sue Dyer, Downer Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message ﬁeld, not as an attached ﬁle. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610. Keep your letter to 250 words or less. References to Canberra Times reports should include the date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).