Australia in total has expended billions of dollars over many years attempting to maintain the degraded ecology of the Kosciuszko National Park.

The condition of our National Parks overall is a direct reflection of our abusive attitude toward our environment.

For the past 200 years we have conducted an all-out war on all forms of nature's biological and ecological processes, destroying landscape, understory and soil alike.

The only beneficial way horses could stay in Kosciuszko National Park is as compost.

Re: "ACT government's speed bump obsession is over the top" (Letters, July 22). This describes the situation accurately.

If only those responsible for the placement decisions would take the trouble to undertake genuine consultations with those immediately affected beforehand, a lot of discomfort could be avoided and tax payers' money saved.

My particular concern relates to the humps in Bramston Street in Fadden. Fadden Primary School is not located on Bramston Street and I have yet to see an unaccompanied child crossing that street to get to the school. The kids are dropped off by their parents or use one of the two underpasses.

So the safety of children is a very dubious basis for the location of the humps. As against this some motorists, seeking to avoid the humps, drive the wrong way along Foxton Crescent, a one way street. This has resulted in some near accidents.

In addition, elderly residents in Foxton Crescent have to put up with the discomfort suffered when driving over the humps. Surely those responsible can be big enough to recognize their error and remove these atrocities.

Daniel Andrews has named the beast at the heart of Victoria's failure to get the second wave of COVID-19 under control. It is job insecurity. In the real world, workers in insecure jobs are faced with the choice of either working while they are ill or losing income and future shifts.

Those workers are heavily represented in the care sector, working with elderly people or those with chronic illness. They are overwhelmingly the people serving us food or coffee.

They are delivering our take away food. They work in the areas where the risk of spread is greatest and the people at risk are most vulnerable. For their sake and for the rest of us we need to stop the march of casualisation and change the gig economy.

Every worker needs sick pay and the assurance that a few days off work will not compromise future shifts. Otherwise, we are wasting our time trying to contain this virus.

Re Mike Hutchinson (Letters, July 22). The Queen's private secretary (Sir Martin Charteris) wrote to Kerr about a possible request from Whitlam to the Queen to decommission him as Governor-General. Charteris wrote: "If such an approach was made you may be sure that the Queen would take most unkindly to it".

He intimated the Queen would be loathe to grant a request based upon scurrilous political intent against the principled conduct of a vice-regal representative (unlike Whitlam's justified request to remove the dormant administrator commission held by a mischievous Queensland Governor).

Prime Ministers who dare request the unjustified sacking of a Governor or Governor-General would risk the monarch's earnest request for complete details warranting the removal, possibly involving a visit to the palace. That would not make for a happy discussion.

Moreover, action by the Speaker of the House of Representatives', asking the Queen to restore Whitlam as Prime Minister (that was politely rebuffed by the Palace on constitutional grounds) was a remarkable example of the left seeking to avail itself of the very intervention by the Crown which it decries.

Mark Sproat (Letters, July 23) claims that journalists are wasting their time attending a Daniel Andrews Press Conference because he fails to answer their questions. Obviously, Mark does not watch ABC News24, if he did he would note that the briefings are not concluded until the Premier and his colleagues answer every question or provide a commitment to respond when the required information is available.

The only time he refuses to answer questions is when a journalist attempts to politicise the issue or comment on a matter that is subject to the Victorian judicial review.

To his credit, he regularly praises the Prime Minister for his support and constantly reminds the media that he only has to ask and the answer is always "Yes" from ScoMo.

John Coochey ("More climate hype", Letters, July 21) seems to have forgotten his high school geography lessons. The north-eastern Siberian town of Verkoyansk recently recorded a daily maximum temperature of 38C, the highest ever inside the Arctic circle. The 38C reading was not an anomaly: it was part of a trend

A temperature of 38C would be regarded as abnormally hot anywhere in Europe - and uncomfortably hot almost anywhere in Australia - during summer.

The times they are a-changin', John.

There seems to have been little public discussion about the government's decision to massively increase our defence spending; turning it effectively into an offence capability.

Are we planning to go it alone, or do we expect the US will willingly stand alongside us? Indeed, who is the potential enemy: is it necessarily China and, if so, what hope of victory would we realistically have against the PLA?

It's ironic that the Treasurer somberly announced an "eye-watering" budgetary future arising from the bushfires and COVID-19, the largest deficit since World War II. Yet, the additional cost of the defence up-grade doesn't rate a blink of a dry-eye, nor any mention of the inevitable human consequences of an international armed conflict.

Australians deserve a full and open discussion, including less "sabre-rattling" options, before we meekly accept this latest attempt to divert attention from our more immediate problems.

It is a surprise Mike Hutchinson feels entitled to refer to a member of staff serving Queen Elizabeth II as a "flunky with no accountability for, or knowledge of, Australia's democratic processes" (Letters, July 22).

It is highly likely the "flunky" was very well versed in any democratic processes applying in Australian politics, those being based upon those in Westminster. Mr Hutchinson does not elaborate on how democratic processes are relevant to John Kerr's behaviour. The "flunky" being merely, like Kerr, a delegate or appointee of our foreign monarch-head of state, could have told Kerr to do his job or resign. It seems clear Kerr wrote too often about too many matters which did not need canvassing with his boss; some of which should not have concerned Kerr so early in the events of the period. This behaviour smacks of Kerr being out of his depth.

Meanwhile our nominally democratic government is by-passing Parliament more and more. I'm sure the secret police will shortly supervise going without the election due in 2022. Scotty will explain that with no sittings members are not due for renewal and we can save voters the risk of queuing up.

Marlene Hall (Letters, July 23) points out the design flaw in older blocks of flats, in having shared laundries. My wife and I spent about two years living in London in newly constructed flats where they incorporate an under-bench washing machine (usually a combined washer/dryer) in the kitchen. We found this fairly common in a number of European countries.

One point overlooked: as the Queens representative in Australia, isn't a Governor-General meant to inform the Queen what he's doing? The letters state he deliberately did not tell the Queen i.e an Australian sacked the government.

Whether Australia is a republic or constitutional monarchy, when supply is blocked in the senate the president or similar will have to sack the government.

Has any person of knowledge within the federal government had the sense to explore the possibility of Qantas allowing a couple of their retired 747 Jumbo's to be converted to firebombers, either at a cost to the government or a public spirited initiative of their own? Hey I'm just asking..

Acting on building inspections is one thing, but governments across Australia should be requiring construction integrity insurance on larger buildings.

The costs of insurance will help drive better building quality, and purchasers should not be exposed to the consequences of developer mistakes or shortcuts.

That 54-year-old retired world boxing champion Mike Tyson was made a mega offer of $20 million (NZ$30m) and some additional benefits "to make his return in a bare-knuckle fight" tells us heaps about the perverse world of titillation we live in.

I wonder how many people in poor countries could have access to clean drinking water for that kind of money?

USA presidential candidate Kanye West is setting the standard for the next American president.

I wear hearing aids and glasses, both hooked over my ears.

Now I'll have to find room for a mask's ear loops as well on my already overcrowded auditory appendages.

I'm sure Muslim ladies find it all quite funny, but they are too polite to laugh out loud.

A big "thank you" to all who were involved in making the lovely, bright, kingfisher mural which graces a wall near Woolies in Dickson. Cheered my day up no end.

If so many people are confused as to the action to take while waiting for results after coronavirus testing why not stipulate that all who have been tested are to self quarantine for 14 days regardless of the result? No confusion there.

In the last decade or so Australia has had its first female prime minister, caliphates have formed and reformed, Britain has left the EU, we have endured a global financial crisis and now we are fighting a global pandemic.

Rockets have landed on Mars, a teenager has addressed the UN and taken on governments for inactivity on climate change, and Geelong has won three AFL grand finals.

But nothing has been done about the Giralang shops. How hard can it be?

I see that, should it win government at the next election, the Liberal party in the ACT proposes to introduce anti-consorting laws for bikies on the basis "everyone" "knows" bikies are criminals.

Will they also introduce anti-consorting laws for politicians on the basis "everyone" also "knows" that politicians are corrupt ?

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