Having spent many months working as a geologist in various parts of far-north Queensland, where cane toads are numerous or in plague proportions, I have learnt a few things about these ugly creatures.

Most reptiles and other animals that eat cane toads die. Only a few animals, such as the tawny frogmouth and the crow, which have learnt the technique of flipping the toad onto its back and attacking its belly, can eat them and survive.

I have been told by many people in north Queensland that animals can die even ifthey only drink water in which cane toads or their tadpoles are or have been swimming.

Cane toads breed at a phenomenal rate, so it is vital that any new population is nipped in the bud.

One way of catching them is to look in areas that are lit at night. The light attracts insects, and cane toads are attracted to the easy meal. The toad should be picked up by a rear leg – don't touch the poisonous glands behind the top of the head – and consigned to the freezer in a plastic bag.

We have to stop these awful creatures becoming established in the Canberra area.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

The ACT may have contributed 54 per cent of Australia's renewable energy projects in 2016 ("ACT steps into federal climate policy vacuum," canberratimes.com.au, October 16), but Canberrans remain among the world's biggest [individual] contributors to climate change.

In 2004 the average person caused eight tonnes CO2-e of greenhouse emissions.

At about the same time the average Canberran caused 23tonnes to be emitted each year, as estimated by the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The ACT Greenhouse Gas inventory shows that four of those 23 tonnes were emitted from within the ACT.

The government's so-called Zero Net Emissions target aims to eliminate those four tonnes.

The inventory shows that another eight tonnes were emitted outside the ACT, in producing electricity that Canberrans consumed. The government's 100 per cent renewable energy target aims to eliminate those emissions. That leaves 11 tonnes unaccounted for.

Those emissions are caused in producing goods outside the ACT for us to consume here, and from interstate transport.

Unless we Canberrans drastically reduce our consumption of greenhouse-intensive products – and our travel – we will continue to cause more emissions than the current world average, even as the rest of the world approaches zero.

Leon Arundell, Downer

Our political leaders can't understand why turning the Opera House sails into an advertising billboard is unacceptable.

Why would anyone be surprised given that philistines and fundamentalists now flourish in our parliaments? But it could get worse.

In Barry Day's affectionate study of Raymond Chandler's writing there is this extract about The Little Sister (1949): 'On his way home from a case ... Marlowe stops at a bar for a brandy.

As he leaves: "I stepped into the night air that nobody had yet found out how to option. But a lot of people were probably trying. They'd get around to it."

Ian Dillon, Garran

I feel for Bob McDonnell and CJohnson (Letters, October 12 and October 17, respectively) along with others, who have experienced problems after connecting to the NBN.

In an attempt to avoid similar experiences I'll be taking very seriously the advice provided by a representative of my telco when they called to say the NBN would soon be available in our area: "wait for about six weeks after the NBN is made available before connecting to it as there are sure to be problems with it so let them be sorted out before you sign up."On reflection, perhaps I should wait six months, or six years, or ...

Col Shephard, Yamba, NSW

The ACT education minister and directorate have at last been forced to face up to what their employees have been enduring at an escalating rate for many years ("WorkSafe takes action over school assaults", canberratimes.com.au, October 16).

However the massive cultural change that is needed, from the top down, to give higher priority to staff well-being and safety and the broader issue of resourcing schools to manage students with complex needs, will not occur magically because the directorate has now adopted a 'nation-leading' occupational violence policy and management plan and promised yet more staff training.

Nor will encouraging more staff to report workplace violence work unless the previous tendency to minimise the seriousness of incidents, particularly those encountered by support staff, is eradicated and reporting does not carry with it any sense of failure on the part of victims, or individual schools which often do not have the on-site resources to provide the assistance and support needed.

School-based staff at all levels must be able to inform, influence and monitor the new policy's implementation processes.

Perhaps the AEU can be funded to conduct annual confidential surveys of ACT school staff to determine the degree to which the new policy and plan are reversing WorkSafe ACT's very concerning yet unsurprising findings.

Sue Dyer, Downer

These columns have sheltered so much criticism of Canberra that I think any contemporary appreciation of the city should be welcomed.

Trevor Dickinson's exhibition of prints at the Canberra Museum and Gallery celebrates our extended family of chubby concrete bus stops in all climates, times of day, states of repair and in the complete range of their suburban environments.

I think perhaps the homely shape of our bus stop works better as an icon of our city than the Eiffel Tower speaks of Paris.

It is more widely distributed and speaks of our links between each other. Dickinson's loving portrayals certainly help.

The other feature of our city which I predict will become iconic is its growing system of wetlands and accompanying bike tracks.

They are beginning to shelter some surprisingly beautiful vistas and again they link us together.

Such important features of our city ameliorate our much-reported urban loneliness.

Jill Sutton, Watson

PM Morrison is considering establishing "facts on the ground" about Jerusalem in relationship to Israel and, by non-acknowledgement, to a future Palestinian State.

There's no question Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have deep historical ties to Jerusalem. And no question that the final status of Jerusalem is not yet determined.

So if Morrison recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which version of Jerusalem will it be?

The choices are many. They include: 1947's mandate for an international city administered by the UN; Jerusalem west of the 1949 Armistice line; "Unified" Jerusalem after the 1967 war; Jerusalem as annexed unilaterally by Israel in 1977; the Jerusalem Municipality, with its fluctuating boundaries; the parts of Jerusalem that Israel actively administers; the parts of Jerusalem the American "peace plan" doesn't excise for having too many Palestinians or the parts of Jerusalem west of the "security barrier".

I write from West Bank, Palestine, a Jewish-Australian, home from another day of another year's olive harvest. I implore Morrison not to change Australia's stance on Jerusalem, especially before a byelection in an electorate with a large Jewish population, the former ambassador to Israel as one of the candidates, and an evangelical Prime Minister.

Judy Bamberger, O'Connor

The decision by Scott Morrison that Australia will even consider moving the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is beyond belief on every level.

The Middle East is a complete mess and a lot of the blame for that can be sheeted home to Israeli policy over the last 20 years.

As the government of Israel lurches further to the right its policies become more extreme.

The argument that moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem will aid the achievement of a two-state solution is completely absurd.

Less and less of the Israeli political establishment now believe in such an outcome as they get more and more of what they really want through other means.

Israel's colonisation of the Palestinian Territories continues unabated. At the broader international level we are proposing to align ourselves with the United States lead by that outstanding international statesman Donald Trump, and with Guatemala.

Great company for a country that preaches support for a rules-based international order. We have already got one response – a suggestion that Indonesia will suspend or at least drag its feet on the Free Trade Agreement which Morrison trumpeted just a couple of weeks ago. We can expect other disapproving responses.

Scott Morrison, recently praised by Tony Abbott as just the sort of leader the Liberals need, has demonstrated on this issue that he is completely out of his depth.

Both sides of Australian politics are closer to the state of Israel than genuine Australian interests warrant.

I am certainly waiting for the ALP to resolutely oppose this absurd proposal.

Jeff Hart, Kingston

David Wroe, ("Controversial shift on Jerusalem status flagged by Morrison", canberratimes.com.au, October 16) writes that Australia would become only the second country in the world to shift its position on our embassy in Israel.

However, Guatemala has also moved its embassy, the Czech Republic has recognised West Jerusalem as Israel's capital and its President has stated he would like to move his country's embassy, Romania and Slovakia are moving in that direction while Russia and Vanuatu have also recognised West Jerusalem is Israel's capital.

As Dave Sharma argues, putting the embassy in West Jerusalem, where Israel's parliament and governmental institutions are, and which no-one who supports a two-state doubts will remain part of Israel, does not preclude a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

Israel should not be discriminated against by being the only country not entitled to nominate its own capital, just because of fear of offending the Palestinians who are refusing to negotiate peace anyway.

Showing them their intransigence will no longer work may be the only way to get peace talks to resume.

Bill Arnold, Chifley

So, Australia will meet its carbon emission climate change targets "in a canter", somehow despite federal persistence in an ideological dogma that coal and gas are the only viable sources of energy.

Now Dave Sharma seems to have had no trouble convincing the PM and local Zionists that being in a global group of two with the Trump administration in recognising occupied Jerusalem as Israel's capital "can be done consistent with Australia's [and the world's, diametrically opposite] long-running position" on not destabilising the Middle East terminally. As can going along with whatever else that prominent moderate, Netanyahu, demands. Obviously.

After all, as the PM sagely notes, it's high time for a new tack – decades of desperate, even-handed efforts by the Anglo-led West to bring peace to the region having failed. Why, Britain even appointed Tony Blair as its Middle East envoy, after he was finished helping Bush turn Iraq to ashes. You can't reasonably ask for more than that.

And, as the PM says, our radical new Middle East directions are 100 per cent Aussie-grown and free of foreign pressure, least of all American – like all our foreign policy historically.

Alex Mattea, Kingston

Vasily Martin says that on religious matters we should defer to the experts, as we would on car repairs to a mechanic or on medical treatment to a doctor (Letters, October 14). So we should follow theologians and live as they tell us.

But I don't ask a mechanic whether I have a car. And I wouldn't trust a mechanic who couldn't agree with other mechanics what car I have, or what I can do with it.

Does Martin want me to go to a Muslim mechanic, or an Orthodox one? How about a Vedic mechanic, or a Zen one?

Christopher Hood, Queanbeyan

EXCLUSION POLICIES

The discussion about the churches' attitude towards people of a different sexual orientation reminds me of a story when apartheid was at its height. A black man was thrown out of a white church. He went down on his knees and prayed, "Lord, they won't let me into your church". The answer came: "Don't worry, they won't let me in either".

Audrey Guy, Ngunnawal

OMINOUS SIGNS

In supporting Hanson's OK to be White stunt and talking about moving the embassy to Jerusalem, is it now ScoMo Trump?

T. Puckett, Ashgrove, Qld

FAUSTIAN SHENANIGANS

Last week, it was choosing coal and current economic advantage over climate and our future. Now, the federal government is cynically proposing to reverse a long-term policy and take hard partisan positions on the Middle East.

Will these Faustian, mercenary political shenanigans ever end?

J. Schmidt, Monash

TRUMP LOOKALIKE

Has our exalted leader done a deal with Donald Trump to become the latest state of the US behind our back? You could for forgiven for thinking so after he spoke of moving our Israeli embassy in lock-step Trump or was he just doing a Donald Trump after he became our exalted leader.

D. J. Fraser, Currumbin, Qld

PM MUST RECONSIDER

The Australian government should not move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem or recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It will be seen as a betrayal of the Palestinian people, and will not have the support of most Australians. Scott Morrison must reconsider these proposals.

Bill O'Connor, Beechworth, Vic

LEARNING CURVE

Our friends the Saudis appear to have taken successful lessons from their friends, the CIA and Mossad, and from nobody's friends, the Russians and the North Koreans, on how to assassinate people, on how to be found out and on how to get away with it.

Jochen Zeil, Hackett

SMART COALITION? NO

Members of the Coalition are so clever they are smarter than the IPCC. In claiming that "we will meet our Paris commitments in a canter" they have shown how much smarter they are than all the experts who observe that our emissions continue to rise.

T. J. Marks, Holt

DELIGHTFUL WHINGES

But, Alex Wallensky (Letters, October 16), it is the way Ian Warden whinges that is so delightful. Warden is another of those great writers with the three vowels a, e and i in his name and no others – further proof of the validity of this interesting theory.

Michael McCarthy, Deakin

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