Little of Australia is pristine wilderness since the white invasion.

However, good science tells us that all things in the environment are interconnected and to support the further pillaging of the environment for the benefit of his nuanced and biased view of the park is errant nonsense.

As a nation and as a state we have provided hard-working National Parks staff with many billions of dollars for the protection and enhancement of parks areas only to have it denigrated by this stupid proposal to protect a feral species. Every year Australia spends around a billion dollars trying to control the destruction caused by feral animals.

The management of weeds in recent years has risen to around $4 billion a year for management and lost production. All of this expenditure is put at risk by this irrational and politically driven proposal.

While I empathise with those who fear for the loss of life caused by culling operations, we must also consider the small possums, wallabies and a myriad other species which are yearly starved to death or driven to extinction by veracious and uncontrolled brumby breeding and a myriad other feral animals.

Further, to claim historic wonderment at the notion of an ill-tempered hoon risking the life of a valuable stock horse by forcing it down a steep slope at speed would have warranted a kick in the bum on the properties I have worked – not elevation to a national hero by Banjo Paterson tragics.

Gerry Gillespie, Queanbeyan

Barilaro's NSW horse bill is not about heritage horses, it is about destroying Kosciuszko National Park. The bill allows the recognition of huge horse paddocks, probably tens of thousands of hectares in size, and will transfer the management direction of these paddocks from the ecological guardians of the park, the rangers, to a Community Advisory Panel and an all-powerful chairperson.

All protective provisions of the Kosciuszko Plan of Management will be removed. Stock (wild horse) grazing will be permitted along with ever increasing numbers of these animals.

Catchment impacts and erosion will increase. Australian endangered alpine and subalpine animal species will be killed. Barilaro's bill will turn one of Australia's iconic national parks with its wilderness areas and protected Australian nature to an unprotected and eroding horse paddock.

The bill is the National Party dismantling Liberal Party legislation and its protection of a National Heritage Listed national park. It is one of the greatest acts of environmental vandalism in Australia's recent history.

Dr Graeme L. Worboys, Honorary Associate Professor, Fenner School, Australian National University

In answer to Peter Cochran ("Icons or Pests? Brumbies fuel a great divide", June 1, p6), I suggest that he get out of his car and take an overnight walk in Kosciuszko National Park from Dead Horse Gap to Cascade Hut.

He will have difficulty finding a dung-free patch of grass or leaf litter on which to erect his tent. When he goes to fetch water from the nearby river or one of its many side creeks, he will be unable to find clean water unpolluted by horse dung.

He will see river banks broken down and eroding from horses' hooves, criss-crossing horse tracks, numerous dust wallows cutting holes in the vegetation, and huge piles of horse dung.

Other states and territories, such as Queensland and the Northern Territory, have feral animal control policies which include keeping the feral horse numbers in National Parks to a minimum by aerial shooting.

As soon as numbers start to build up, they are culled before they become an out-of-control environmental disaster.

Meg McKone, Holt

Brisbane's exorbitantly priced public transport leaves a lot to be desired, as does Canberra's. After again being forced to catch a later bus because the one scheduled earlier never arrived, the only seat left was occupied by a schoolgirl's bag.

She insolently placed it on the floor after I informed her her bag would find the same level of comfort there. I was then assailed by the deafening volume of a chatty commercial radio station that the driver played for his solitary and merry singalong amusement.

I feared for passengers' safety as he negotiated gridlocked traffic while fielding three calls from Control Central for free drivers to backfill routes that were not able to be staffed.

Someone was allowed on gratis because there was no spare change for the $50 note that was offered in a deliberate ploy to get afree ride.

The last bus home for the evening had to be asked to return to Queen Street in the city from its premature departure after having travelled half way outbound to Wynnum on the Moreton Bay.

I finally arrived home two hours late in the night. My horror day holds shades of Brisbane Transport offering shambolic cattle class for ever steeper premium prices, a situation that Canberra has been mired in for some time.

Joseph Ting, Brisbane, Qld

Readers enjoying watching various bank officials squirm when questioned by the royal commission should support Alan Barron's call for a royal commission (Letters, June 1) into climate and energy policy.

The banking misdeeds would pale into insignificance if various politicians and academics, past and present, were forced to explain their views and decisions. Weeks of entertaining viewing would be assured as embarrassing, squirm-provoking issues were addressed.

For instance, why were claims of impending climate Armageddon from rising carbon dioxide production accepted without full and proper scrutiny by Parliament? Why was the vast history of natural climate change unassociated with CO2 levels ignored?

Why was wind and solar seen as the best way to reduce CO2 emissions instead of alternatives like nuclear? Why were international climate agreements signed without agreed success criteria based on cost-effectiveness criteria.

Why were the large, planned increases in CO2 emissions from big emitters China and India, that rendered any action by Australia pointless, not taken into account?

Why are we not joining much of the world to build modern nuclear and coal-fired power plants?

Doug Hurst, Chapman

So Hanson has been out-Hansoned! Good one, Burston.

M. Moore, Bonython

If you search online, you can find it: the gruesome official photo of dissident journalist Arkady Babchenko face down in a pool of blood.

Ukrainian police and ambulance services raced to his home. Flashing lights, sirens and a crime scene; it headlined news bulletins both at home and around the world.

Those closely following the news learned of the "cowardly" act of a presumably Russian assassin firing three bullets into Babchenko's back. And just days before, the journalist had filed a piece that now seemed poignantly prescient ...

But it was state-run theatre, and two months in the planning.

We might argue that it was 'all in a good cause', but the fact of a state actor recruiting emergency services, photographing a forensically correct murder victim, weaving clues into his 'last days', and then pushing all that out into the public domain is jarring.

Jarring not only because we know it happened, but perhaps much more so because we might never have known.

Ross Kelly, Monash

The sarcastic response by Bill Deane to criticism of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation (Letters, June 1) ill befits someone defending the values of "logic, objectivity and truth".

Deane's claim that the ANU and other universities are "taking pride" in holding back these values is evidence-free and deeply insulting to the work of researchers and to this researcher at least.

While Western civilisation is a valid course of study for which funding is to be welcomed, any objective analysis of the criticisms of the centre would surely recognise that they were not based on the promotion and financing of one particular field, but on the risk of having outside political interests dictating staff and curriculum decisions.

Such external control would violate "core values".

David Roth, Kambah

Have you noticed how the names of many of the great writers contain the three vowels a, e and i and no others — except the occasional y?

Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Jean Racine, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, David Herbert Lawrence, Cecil Day Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, Patrick White, Hilary Mantle ... and Bill Deane.

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

Avner Gvaryahu, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, describes the Gaza border riots as an "unarmed protest" ("A former Israeli soldier's account of Gaza", canberratimes.com.au, May31).

In fact, many of the protesters were armed, including with guns, knives and explosives, Israel only shot those attempting to breach the border to let what amounts to terrorist killing squads through, and the vast majority of those killed were from terror groups.

Breaking the Silence has been heavily criticised because this is typical of the one-sided, factually flawed nature of its claims and because it refuses to divulge the sources of its allegations, or where they are alleged to have occurred, making it impossible for Israel to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute.

Instead, it prefers to circulate the allegations internationally, to advance its avowed aim of "ending the Occupation".

Criticising the Israeli decision to deploy snipers at the Gaza border as immoral, Gvaryahu says that if you walk around with a hammer "everything begins to look like a nail".

Perhaps when you make a comfortable living and are feted all over the world for harshly criticising your country and its army, everything it does begins to look immoral.

Jamie Hyams, senior policy analyst, Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, Melbourne, Vic

Barnaby Joyce's decentralisation push is quite correct and sensible simply because a public sector presence in regional towns and cities creates local economic activity — work.

Housing would be cheaper for public servants too.

I recall in the mid '70s a relative in Victoria set out to create a vineyard and approached the local state agriculture office (long gone) and asked for advice.

They returned to him with a drawing of his land with a vineyard laid out — a free service.

The dream sketched, the vineyard went ahead and thrived, and one day a local publican came up to me and said the town had a high regard for my relative because he'd created a lot of work; but it started with a local government department office providing a service. Push, Mr Joyce.

John Dobinson, Herston, Qld

It is a pity that the great derailer does not take his own advice and "move on" — and out of federal Parliament.

("Barnaby Joyce can no longer complain about privacy, says colleague", canberratimes.com.au, May28).

Joyce and his in-house media adviser still appear to believe that he is a hard-done-by victim who is entitled to do whatever he wishes and thinks he can get away with for the umpteenth time, despite being well paid as a full-time politician.

Neither appears to pay heed to common sense or courtesy to the public at large, let alone the conventions that dictate the behaviour of most federal politicians.

Yes, it's time to move right on, Barnaby. Feel free to seek out additional income and conduct lucrative media antics on a regular basis, but only from another workplace.

Sue Dyer, Downer

It is a matter of public record that Malcolm Turnbull claimed that he had "full confidence" the High Court would reinstate Barnaby Joyce to Parliament. After the byelection which resulted from Turnbull's misplaced "full confidence" we then had Turnbull and Barnaby "getting the band back together". We had Barnaby leaving the deputy prime ministership and now standing down from Parliament for "personal leave".

It is disappointing no one questions Turnbull's capacity for judgment on a personal level, let alone political and economic matters. We should all remember the Onetel and Godwin Grech affairs, in which our PM was also "fully" involved and both of which also reflected a very poor capacity for judgment.

E. R. Moffat, Weston

We now know too many super funds hit clients by high fees, have unqualified directors and don't disclose their directors' remuneration. They're sponging off forced acquisition of capital from other businesses who are trying to invest in themselves and provide for staff. It's discriminatory.

Super funds should be tossed off the gravy train.

Linda Vij, Mascot, NSW

BELL TOLLS FOR SCHOOLING

Alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear for everyone in the ACT who believes in quality public education. Trevor Cobbold notes that the ACT government has cut funding to public schools, while overall funding for private schools has increased, ("Claim deal fails public schools", May 29, p2) Segregating children and young people into separate categories according to the private schools they attend undermines democracy and increases social and economic inequality.

Pamela Collett, Narrabundah

WILD HORSES KEEP ME AWAY

The Brumbies are pleading for fans to attend their next home game on June 3. Their solution: donate $15,000 shared by three deserving local charities if 15,000 spectators come. Average attendance in 2018 is 8500 spectators. If an additional 6500 come (average entry price $30 minimum), extra revenue is at least $200,000. What a rort!

John Mungoven, Stirling

PIRATES OF THE CANBERRAN

Why is nobody apologising to the Somali airports authority? ("Industry group says sorry to Kenyans", May 31, p6).

Ian Douglas, Jerrabomberra

DOUBLETHINK DOLLARS

BAE is involved in major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a nation which is prosecuting a war in Yemen that is having a devastating impact on civilians. Under these circumstances to associate the term "corporate social responsibility" with BAE sponsorship of the Australian War Memorial is nothing less than Orwellian.

Dr Doug Hynd, Stirling

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