The Zero-carbon Energy for Asia-Pacific project led by ANU professor Ken Baldwin ("Green energy plan to make Australia powerplant of Pacific", September 19) is a very welcome move, not only in the fostering of renewable energy, but also in the battle against global warming.

Australia, especially in the "Red Centre" and in the north, is blessed with huge expanses of sparsely populated land and with effectively unlimited sunlight and wind. As the "green energy" report notes, these areas have "massive renewable energy potential" which could - and should - be harnessed to help Australia and its Asia-Pacific neighbours reduce their reliance of fossil fuels and strengthen their resistance to climate change.

In this context, I find it paradoxical that the federal Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, was to launch the project on September 19. Mr Taylor has a reputation for being a climate change sceptic, if not a denier, and is a staunch advocate and supporter, along with Prime Minister Morrison and Resources Minister Matt Canavan, of coal mining and coal-fired energy.

Has Mr Taylor suddenly seen the light?

It is interesting to see that the Canberra Liberals are being true to the heritage of Steve ("Reclaim the roads from the cyclists") Pratt ("Political storm over climate action plan", September 18).

My family and I have lived in West Belconnen since 1986 and have never been car dependent. My children and grandchildren all got to school by walking or cycling or taking the bus: as far as Dickson College, in one instance.

I get to work on a bicycle and pride myself on a knowledge of the bus and tram system. So please, Alistair Coe, do not use me as an excuse to accelerate climate change. Cars have no place in cities and responsible Canberrans should be discouraging their use.

Surely the ACT Chief Minister is not quite so nave as to believe Tasmania has received a genuine benefit in the housing debt waiver from the Commonwealth: ("Barr makes case for $115 million housing debt waiver", September 19, p4).

The feds will offset any debt waiver today against other funds tomorrow for Tasmania. Tasmania may not notice, may not know it has occurred but it will be done. No-one catches the feds napping. Remember there is no such thing as a free lunch.

In addition the feds would want to protect their funds against being misdirected into the black hole known as the price of Greens support to keep the ALP in power, also known as the unaffordable tram project.

Peter White letter (Letters, September 19) on the "First Boat People" is inaccurate. The first people to migrate here were Homo Denisovan and Homo Erectus, who arrived well over 100,000 years ago. While most walked down from New Guinea, a few family groups arrived on rafts from Timor when it was very close to Australia.

The first Homo Sapiens, then Middle Stone Age people, arrived some 40,000 years ago in small groups of around 25 which was the most sustainable size. The earliest large scale migration was only about 4000 years ago from India, having lived there since moving out of Africa. They brought with them new technologies and languages, some say also with the Dingo.

Either due to poor climate or geological conditions in Australia these early migrants remained in small groups speaking some 700 languages. They did not develop technology and agriculture as other people had done elsewhere around the world. There were no nations on this continent.

The first fleet of boats to arrive were the British with their much advanced techniques including farming. Australia then really took off catching up with the rest of the world, and with migrants from all continents became a wealthy successful nation with a rich multi-culture. The Australian flag represents that historic jump into the present nation where citizens of all races and religions have equal rights.

The Canberra Times reports that September 18 was the 49th anniversary of death of Jimi Hendrix.

Hence, 49 years of fame for a fellow we came to know as Dr Bob Brown. He was the young resident doctor on duty at the London Hospital the night Jimi died. Dr Bob fronted the waiting media.

"And the wind cries..." environment, indeed. "All along the ..." trail to Greens, and Gordon (below Franklin), and High Court challenges re freedom of environmental activism.

Jimi had the balance right. Did his time (U.S. Army) before rock artistry and poetry. He would approve. of how young Robert turned out.

Tenuous connection? Dr Brown was grounded in the harsh reality of life and death as a Doctor. Did not shirk his unpleasant and hard duty. The adage, "doing it tough is character building".

I heartily agree with Glenda James of Narrabundah in her plea for better library facilities for the inner south. In Woden Heritage Library there is ample money for computers, which now take up half the space, though I've never seen people using more than half, and for jigsaw puzzles for the public, for electronic versions of books but the actual book collection is very poor, and poorly organised as well.

There are not more than two or three serial titles in any particular series, even very popular ones, like the "Vera" series, regardless of whether one asks for a particular copy to be sent from another branch.

Most of the books are quite old, too, with the few new titles (like Nikki Savvy's latest book, in such high demand I've already been waiting three months for a copy) being spread over all categories. I've seen very few new children's books.

We are told that Canberra's population is better educated than most cities and looking around the local cafes and on the buses, one sees so many people reading, why the paucity of library facilities? Step up, please, Canberra local government!

We're to have yet another inquiry into family law (a third, within only a couple of years).

This morning (September 18), Senator Hanson was confirmed as co-chair and was interviewed on air.

She made clear that she has some settled views on changes to family law. No domestic violence orders made after separation are to be taken into account in family proceedings, she says. This is to stop men being prevented from seeing their children as they wish.

Many children don't see a parent with whom they don't live as often as they should. Sometimes this is because they are prevented - rightly, to protect them; wrongly, in breach of contact agreements or orders. Breach puts the parent with whom the child lives at risk of family law proceedings.

Mostly, children don't see a parent with whom they don't live because that parent doesn't make contact although it has been agreed or ordered. Not making contact does not put that parent at risk of family law proceedings: the child has no right to enforcing the contact.

When parents who don't live with their child re-partner, they mostly stop contact. On average, contact drops by nine-tenths. We know this from longitudinal study by the HILDA survey.

Parents who live with their child mostly want the other parent to make more use of contact with the child. We know this from a one-off question in one of the HILDA surveys, and from other evidence.

But Senator Hanson doesn't want anything done about parents who don't take up contact. Senator Hanson doesn't want anything done about parents who are a risk. That is, if they are men and if the child doesn't live with them. The other way round? She calls for enforcement.

Yes, minister: we know the result of Senator Hanson's inquiry before we start.

The thought of Pauline being picked as a political pundit to participate in a parliamentary inquiry reminds me of when John Winston Howard's wisdom wished Wilson Tucker to be esteemed environment minister. Wilson's wit at the time suggested Howard did have a sense of humour. Is it just theoretical therefore to suggest ScoMo sees a sanctimonious scatterbrain to circumnavigate some women who weave words to wound partners in family courts or is he determined as Howard to distract detractors with deceit and deception by diluting the diligence of detectives?

Reported in various media is the impending return to Australia from Indonesia of 100 containers full of contaminated plastics. ABC TV reported that it was imperative that we find another country to export this waste to. Why isn't it imperative that we deal with our own waste ourselves? Why isn't it imperative that all levels of government get behind the Australian companies working on ways to reuse this waste here on our own shores? We could then export these initiatives instead of contaminated plastics.

I went to Floriade yesterday and was disappointed to see that the trend of the past few years continues. Each year the area covered by flowers decreases while the area covered by food stalls and shops increases. Will Floriade go the way of the Food and Wine Frolic?

Salman's despotic Saudi regime has no issue using US - and Australian - weapons and munitions to bomb Yemen back to the stone age, in the process committing 24 million to starvation while laying a country waste ("Trump does not want war with Iran", September 18, p14). Asymmetric retaliation is not tolerated!

The ACT government likes to make much of its 100 per cent renewables target, but meanwhile is busy helping developers concrete over much of the ACT with more and more high rise.

Cement has a massive carbon footprint, so I don't trust such double standards. Consider also its promotion of international travel via Canberra Airport, and non-stop expansion of Canberra with further built in consumption. These conflicting priorities don't add up.

In the latest episode of Utopia the government was panicked by an adverse Auditor-General's report on the Sunshine Coast light rail.

In contrast the ACT government ignored the highly critical ACT AG's report of Gungahlin to Civic light rail and is pursuing the even more problematic extension to Woden. Whatever happened to responsible and accountable government in the ACT?

I'd like to thank the couple who stopped to offer help when my car broke down on Wednesday and then went out of their way to drive me to my grandson's school. In these times of doom and gloom the kindness of strangers is especially appreciated. And I'm glad they enjoyed their time at Floriade.

According to Ian Pilsner (Letters, September 18), prior to colonisation "Australia was just a land mass". To use a false and highly offensive statement to support keeping the Union Jack on the current flag demonstrates that "fake news" is present in many forms of modern-day discourse.

Who in their right mind would talk to Pauline Hanson about anything let alone marriage breakdown!?("Pauline Hanson says women lie", September 18).

In his Canberra Times article of September 18 ("How Labor lost the unloseable election"), Nicholas Stuart stated "that Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen shouldn't have tampered with Paul Keating's dividend imputation reforms".

Did he mean to refer to "Paul Keating's dividend imputation reforms as amended by the Howard Government"?

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