Society today is very quick to become outraged and to vent their feelings on social media when they feel they have been wronged. Not many people will take the time to say something nice or to give someone a compliment.

They don't understand that the person getting the compliment feels good and so does the person who gives it.

My father, Trevor, passed away yesterday after being cared for by the lovely staff at Bupa Aged Care Cardiff for the past 15 months. The care he received was exceptional and in trying conditions all of the staff managed to keep a smile on their face and to perform their duties admirably.

Dad mentioned, on many occasions, how lovely the food was (they cook on site) and how nice the staff were to him every day. Even when he didn't want to get out of bed in the morning.

When I would go to visit he would be showered, shaved and willing to go and sit on the verandah for a chat.

I would like to give a huge thank you to all of the staff at Bupa Cardiff. There are too many to mention personally.

My family and I were able to have 15 months of precious time with Dad. I will never forget how well my dad was looked after and how happy he was.

LABOR needs to change the opinions of voters, and not give into them. The Sydney Morning Herald has provided Amanda Vanstone with an opportunity to vent her biased vitriol against Labor. It is therefore ironic that her compatriots in government are, I believe, clamping down on freedom of the press in order to control public opinion ('Albanese's leftie leanings could be an albatross around his neck, SMH, 10/6).

Does anyone else long for an Australia where people are not labelled "leftie" or "right-wing" or "centre", and where political debate is honest, free, and untrammelled by the misuse of political power?

Vanstone seems to believe that Anthony Albanese needs to pander to the centre of Australian politics in order to win votes and gain power. I disagree. Albanese needs to show political leadership by convincing voters of the virtue of Labor causes.

I MOVED into a Honeysuckle apartment earlier this year. Since then, from a "secure" car park beneath the building, I have had my push bike stolen on two occasions.

Firstly I had the back wheel stolen when it was chained up outside the NEX club, $270 later I replaced the wheel.

Then the entire bike was taken from this "secure" car park.

I regain possession from a user of the local meth clinic, he was apologetic.

On returning from holidays I then discovered that the same bike once again had been removed from our "secure" car park.

My point is why do we continue to support these people? I work hard for my possessions and these so-called people think it is OK to take other people's property.

Our police are fantastic and their time should not be taken up with these useless individuals.

AS a lactation consultant in Newcastle, who supports mothers to breastfeed, it was pretty disheartening to find my medical colleagues holding a recent Newcastle education session that I believe had been sponsored by an artificial baby powder manufacturer.

The WHO/UNICEF introduced the "ten steps to successful breastfeeding" into Australia in the '90s and the John Hunter Hospital is BFHI accredited which means they do not promote the use of artificial baby milk unless medically indicated. BFHI is an international quality assurance benchmark and something this city should be proud of.

Australia falls well short of the sustainable development goal of optimum infant nutrition targets and, without leadership from the medical fraternity, breastfeeding rates will continue to decline compromising the health mothers and babies.

OVER the past 20-plus years, Allan Earl and I have had our differences on matters of Defence and Australia's foreign policy.

However, to my knowledge, never once has Allan been anything but supportive of our men and women of the Defence Force.

I disagree with Allan's commentary on the cost of our deployments being enough to cancel the 'national debt'. However others commenting on his sums should be aware that government costings of a war in, say Iraq, do not include the billions already spent on military equipment.

Then there is the cost of the many thousands of service personnel employed to support the relatively small number of Australian Defence Force personnel in the arenas of war.

To come up with a realistic cost of a deployment is virtually impossible and government will always lean toward publishing the smallest amount possible. I know this because in a previous life I had to come up with some of these costings.

TO the extent "investment and optimism" fell at all in the lead up to the election, there's no need to draw the long bow Andrew Collins' does to try to explain it (Short Takes, 14/6).

It's really quite simple. Wealthy people and tax-dodging corporations thought Labor, if elected, would take some of their money, and got nervous about it. Now the government has been returned, they know they'll not only get to keep what Labor was going to take, but be handed even more. So, naturally, they all feel relaxed and comfortable again.

As for a Labor "inheritance and death tax", even the architects of that particular scare campaign now concede (with no shame it must be said) it was a lie. Why is Mr Collins still peddling it?

UNFORTUNATELY Gary Mohan who wrote bemoaning the loss of ship building in Australia (Short Takes, 14/6) seems to be unaware that at the present moment, there are currently three new classes of Navy vessels totaling 42 ships being built or preparing for construction.

Add to this 12 future submarines and one would assume that ship building in this country is alive and well.