Not by chance.

It's a wonderful photo. You can get lost in it and have to snap yourself back into the room.

That brumby — you know the one, in the middle — is so plainly in its element. It is living life large, charging into every new moment clear-eyed with nostrils flared.

Which raises the question of "whose element is it?". Is it really — I mean in a deeply moral sense — our element to call him "pest" and then figuratively push the button on a can of Mortein, and after a few minutes thrashing have his heart stop beating?

Just as we have no memory of our birth, and no say in which country it happened, neither does that brumby.

We are, and he is. When you get right down to it, it's as simple as that.

Except that we, as a species, as common man and bureaucrat, now rule over this planet like a swaggering Roman emperor. Thumb up over here, thumb down over there.

We have the demonstrated collective moral sense that has delivered — over centuries and to this very day — unspeakable cruelty to animals, and will on every indication produce — centuries hence — a world barely liveable for anything.

The conceit of a "captain's pick" of species based on natural history, or a plan, or a research program, or any doctrine, is horrific in my view.

We have neither the right nor the wisdom.

What we may have the right and capacity for is to collaborate with the present; enjoy it, nudge it in ways that don't involve brutality, and alleviate suffering.

The brumbies of Kiandra? They rejoice in the here and now. The here and now is valid. Change brings sadness and joy.

Ross Kelly, Monash

Really? And, 'You can't even see where the horses have been' ('Icons or pests?' June 1, page 6).

It's hard to take such statements seriously, but they illustrate a serious issue, the on-going willful rejection of scientific evidence.

With its endangered species of frogs and orchids, the fragile alpine sphagnum bogs and associated fens ecological community is a critical part of the Australian alps' environment. The sphagnum species and underlying peat also have significant water-holding capacity, water being naturally filtered and slowly released into the headwaters of the Murray, Murrumbidgee, and Snowy rivers. In 2009, the ecological community was listed as threatened under the EPBC Act, one reason being 'its small geographic distribution coupled with demonstrable threats'.

It is also protected under NSW legislation.

The 2015 Recovery Plan listed feral horses as one of the very high threats to the ecological community, through their trampling, wallowing, and the tracks they make. In terms of recovery, containing and controlling them was given the highest priority.

Elsewhere in Australia, efforts continue to reduce exotic pest species. In KNP, this is to be reversed. John Baralaro's 'Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Bill' gives these animals pre-eminence over everything. He has swept aside over a hundred years of scientific research.

To illustrate, the corroboree frog has been saved from extinction by captive breeding, the intention being to return them to the wild. But why bother, when their habitats are being destroyed and individuals will be trampled by the hard hoofs of the horses.

Shamefully, nothing of substance has been heard from the relevant environment ministers. Surely, Baralaro's bill and its inevitable consequences for a listed ecological community, is an 'action' that demands assessment under the EPBC Act.

Dr Peter Crabb, Visiting Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Genevieve Jacobs' endorsement of Chris Bourke's "acknowledgement, apology, atonement and forgiveness" ("Don't treat our first Reconciliation Day as just another day off work", canberratimes.com.au, May 25) shines as a stark example of left-wing orthodoxy's uncanny religious template; resplendent with original sin, guilt and repentance.

Bourke sees Cathy Freeman's golden Olympic 400m as a hint of how reconciliation-heaven might look.

I fear this promotion of mass piety and self-flagellation with its fantasy endpoint; it's a demeaning, racist scenario.

Indigenous problems are nuanced and varied; in many cases they will take time to solve.

Racism is written out of our laws; let's not write it back in.

Encouraging the general public to spend a day off work guilt-tripping is righteous nonsense.

Peter Robinson, Ainslie

Apologists for the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) aggressive global expansionism, including Australia's past and present political class — the former, having taken up agreeable sinecures with CCP-linked interests, deluding themselves they are influential confidantes rather than useful dupes — seem to have had their critical faculties blunted by either fee or flattery, or both.

Those who believe that the CCP has only benign intent ought to read Clive Hamilton's Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia. For China, read the CCP, not the Chinese people or the diaspora.

On all fronts: political, social, economic, military, the CCP is inveigling itself into, and interfering with, the fabric of independent, sovereign nations, and no more so than in Australia.

A case of the iron fist being withdrawn slowly from a velvet glove.

On reading Hamilton's compelling, well-researched book, the most apt simile is found in the insect world where a parasite enters and stealthily invades its unwitting host until, ultimately, the parasite takes over and becomes the host, the latter now but a malevolent imitation of what once was.

We need to wake up and throw the switch from complacency to concern.

Otherwise, in time, we will pay dearly for our obsequiousness and passivity.

A. Whiddett, Forrest

After Barnaby Joyce's admission he was aware that he could lose his positions as National Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister ("'I knew I was going to lose my job': Joyce" (June 4, p 4), I am amazed and appalled, but not entirely surprised, at his actions when he ran foul of Section 44 of the constitution.

After he was forced to resign his seat in Parliament he went back to the voters of his electorate and asked them to re-elect him, knowing that Ms Campion was pregnant and that he would consequently again lose his positions.

I am also appalled at his statement that he "couldn't give a shit about the political ramifications" of his actions. I'm sure that most, if not all, members of the federal Coalition would feel the same as I do.

In my opinion, given this latest fiasco and his official failings – such as his apparent turning of a blind eye to water theft in the upper Murray-Darling Basin – federal Parliament would be well rid of him.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

Barnaby's right (re the pressure allegedly put on Vikki Campion by some Nationals politicians to abort their baby), that there are some politicians who are just not up to standard and should get out of politics.

The whole sorry saga suggests that he's top of the list.

Isn't it time to exit Parliament, Barnaby?

Phyllis Vespucci, Reservoir

No one would argue with the premise of your argument, John Dobinson ("Joyce quite correct", Letters, June 2), but for the fact the decentralisation was an ill-considered disaster, ill-planned or perhaps not planned at all.

As a voter in Mr Joyce's electorate, New England, I saw the results of this fiasco. First, Centrelink offices were taken over to house the APVMA, disrupting their services, then the internet service was so inadequate that APVMA employees were forced to use the Wi-Fi in the local McDonald's, then most of those selected for the decentralisation quit, as Mr Joyce had not considered their families, the disruption to schooling, the shortage of suitable work in Armidale, etc. etc.

In the military, we had a saying, "Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance", something Mr Joyce should have kept in mind, and not just in relation to the APVMA.

Ian Usman Lewis, Kentucky, NSW

Barnaby Joyce has described his colleagues who encouraged Vikki Campion to have an abortion as "scum of the earth." Strange sentiments for a man who supports live exports, cheats on his wife and has probably delivered to her and their daughters intense embarrassment and heartache.

Nancy Tidfy, Chisholm

So, an expert says that we should make Canberra famous, better known in the world and more attractive for visitors and tourists.

Great idea! We have so much to offer: the cleanest air I've ever breathed, wonderful wildlife, great landscapes and a natural environment, stunning cultural events, lovely festivals, and the main thing: the friendliest people I've ever met.

And, in addition, it will create jobs and Canberra's economy will grow faster.

I'm not an expert at all, but as a Berliner who's lived the past 30 years over there and seen the German capital city growing, increasing its economy, population and number of tourists as well as its sheer size, I would strongly recommend: don't!

Don't let your – our – wonderful little Bush Capital become a Moloch like New York, London or Berlin.

It might be a great prospect for some people to live in a "place to be", with all its fancy and noisy nightlife, glimmering and dirty streets, hip and overcrowded venues ...

Earning money with tourism might be a good idea but you can be sure that you and I, the "ordinary" people, would not profit from such a development.

There are also the side effects: damage to the natural environment, traffic jams day and night, air pollution, an increasing crime rate and unnecessarily high housing costs.

I know: "panta rhei" — nothing lasts for ever and Canberra isn't perfect as it is.

But I would say anyway: please, dear Canberrans, don't.

Conny Schueritz, Braddon

Martin Luther King's biographer, Taylor Branch, used the expression "psychological avoidance" to explain why Americans were slow to back the civil rights movement.

For Thomas E. Ricks this condition was illustrated by "a reluctance, even among well-meaning people, to address a festering wrong that could wait no longer" (Churchill and Orwell, Penguin, 2018, page 266).

Many politicians in Federal Parliament are practising psychological avoidance in declining to end a festering wrong that can wait no longer — the evil misery and cruelty of live animal exports.

The push is on to pretend that this shameful trade has now been sweetened because the horrifying suffering and dying of Australian livestock on ships will be reduced to an imaginary "acceptable" level.

The new-found government majority from recent resignations offers another justification for looking away from the extreme cruelty that would be criminal if it were inflicted on a single Australian dog, let alone hundreds of thousands of them.

Ending this festering wrong can no longer wait, as several Liberal Party MPs, led by former cabinet minister and sheep farmer, Susan Ley, have demonstrated by seeking to legislate a progressive total ban.

The time for psychological avoidance is long gone for all of us.

MPs and candidates who actively support, or passively condone, live animal exports are not fit to be elected as our parliamentary representatives because they are showing their capacity to approve or tolerate a level of industrial-scale animal cruelty on a ship that the rest of the community would find utterly beyond redemption if practised on an Australian farm.

P O'Keeffe, Hughes

Gary Wilson (Letters, May 30) displays an appallingly ignorant attitude when he mentions Nazism and Zionism as both being "wrongs".

The Nazis industrialised murder and killed millions, including six million Jews.

There is no real comparison, except in the hateful mind of an anti-Semite, by drawing implied comparisons of contemporary Israel to that of the Nazis.

His claim that the "UN's existence hangs in balance, weighted down by Israel's creation" is simply untrue.

His claim the State of Israel has created "global instability" defies all common sense.

Y. Goode, Yarralumla

SCORING CHEAP POINTS

I must have missed the PM saying that defacing statues of national heroes who bolster our foundation myths is reminiscent of Joe Stalin (Narrow view from statues; June 1, p14). I thought Stalin and his successors would be more likely to erect such statues, and it would be the Alexander Solzhenitsyns of the world who would deface them. This government could be thinking of ways to bring Aussies together, but why do that when you can score cheap political points?

S. W. Davey, Torrens

HORSE CASSEROLE?

The National Park brumby problem is easily solved. Legalise eating horse meat.

Roy Bray, Flynn

POET NAILS IT

I really enjoyed Ali Whitelock's poem Now is the modem of our discontent (Panorama, June 2). She really nailed it. So good to read a poem that tells it like it is for a change, instead of wondering over obscure and flowery phrases. She 's up there with Leunig and Dilbert.

Riggan Thomson, Richardson

IN THE WRONG SPOT?

When I read Poetry Corner (Panorama, June 2, p17) I became confused. Has poetry really come to be represented by this bunkum, or was it accidentally placed in the incorrect section of the paper? Maybe it should have been placed in the classifieds under rubbish.

Jeremy Morris, Kambah

WHITLAM AN INSPIRATION

I have wonderful memories of Freda Whitlam who was a very stern Brown Owl in charge of an unruly bunch of us Brownies in the mid-40s. We met on a Friday evening in the Guide Hall which was situated on a piece of land on the corner of Flinders Way and Stuart Street in Manuka. She could not abide swearing in any form and taught us to say "Plunk it" when we felt the need for a better expletive. I sometimes hear her when I let fly with a much more expressive word.

Mary Robbie, Aranda

MULTIPLE MINIMUMS

Business representatives who criticised and bemoaned the rise in the minimum wage are no doubt on incomes that are multiple times the minimum.

Rod Matthews, Melbourne, Vic

SINGING? REALLY?

Is The Voice supposed to find a good singer or who can scream or shout the loudest? Contestants who can sing are forced to scream or shout to have any chance of being heard by the judges above the noise from the audience.

A. Blake, Duffy

CAMPION UP AGAINST IT

I feel sorry for Vikki Campion, a struggling single mum with two baby boys to raise on her own. The older one is the biggest baby of the two.

M. Moore, Bonython

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