Right now legislation (the Defence Legislation Amendment Bill 2020) is being pushed through parliament, ostensibly in response to last summer's bushfires and the pandemic, which would facilitate a calling out by the PM of the ADF reserves in response to natural disaster or "other emergencies".

The bill fails to define the "emergencies" under which the new provisions could apply. It fails to rule out the use of force in such situations. This raises the possibility of the use of military force against Australian citizens, for example in protest actions or industrial disputes.

In addition ADF, and even foreign military, personnel would have immunity in the event of civilian harm in such situations.

The ultimate irony is that a government that barely believes in climate change is now prioritising military responses to it, and leading the way towards the use of force in a range of climate-related and other "emergencies", however the PM wants to define them.

The Bushfire Royal Commission got it right. Some of the major findings were that there be better national coordination and engagement with Indigenous peoples on land management.

When looking at fuel accumulation and the climate fire relationship, the history of burning by our indigenous peoples is most important. One study has found there is now 10 times more wood fuel in Australian forests than when Europeans arrived.

State, territory, and local governments have not done enough fuel reduction burns.

While it is accepted that temperatures are rising since the 1938-39 fires, this last season is ranked only fifth in area burned, sixth in fatalities and second in the number of houses destroyed. It only ranked the worst in the number of non-home buildings damaged.

A temperature rise of three degrees makes only a six to eight per cent change to the extreme fire danger rating. Clearly there are other factors.

It can be argued that human activities and lightning strikes have a greater impact on the frequency and severity of fires than the emission of greenhouse gases.

It is important community, the media and special interest groups look at all the factors that influence the spread and suppression of forest fires and support management activities that will make fire suppression safer and easier or the next fire season could be our worst.

I thank Ching Ang for the letter of November 3 entitled "Learn from the fires". Since the Bushfire Royal Commission has unequivocally acknowledged that climate change fuelled the "Black Summer" bushfires and the federal government is still choosing a fossil-fuelled approach, this should be a wake-up call to us all to each send a strong message to our parliamentarians.

We deserve a much stronger approach to reducing our national emissions and should not settle for less. Like Ching, I cannot face another choking summer. It's time for our federal government to step up and join the rest of the world in becoming serious about reducing our emissions.

Crispin Hull ("Overcoming decades of GOP ideology", October 31, p33) said Biden should expand the US Supreme Court to 13 justices if he became President.

This would be "court packing". The term originates from the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, proposed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to add more justices to prevent the Supreme Court from finding his New Deal legislation unconstitutional.

Democrats' portraying Amy Barrett's nomination to an existing vacancy as court-packing are being absurd. Presidents have always had the right to nominate their preferred candidates.

The Democrats, who invented "court packing", are accusing Trump of doing what they would likely do if elected. They are lying.

Court-packing denies voters the right to influence what legislators do because the court's role is confined to ruling on whether legislation is constitutional, not whether it is appropriate. If that is so why have a Congress at all?

How many watchers of the parliamentary broadcast on Tuesday night last week would have been appalled at the apparent lack of observation of COVID-19 precautions?

Sadly, with only one bottle of hand sanitiser in view, what could have been an excellent opportunity to set an example to the rest of the country was wasted.

instead we saw a classic case of "don't do what we do, just do as we say".

Our shouty Prime Minister may have been better received if he had yelled at Alistair Taylor and Bridget McKenzie when they brought his government into disrepute.

Shouting at Christine Holgate was a bully tactic. She does not appear to have done anything wrong in her management of Australia Post. A sincere apology seems in order.

An auditor friend of mine in the 1970's once told me there are two falsehoods in the audit industry.

The first is when an auditor tells a client they have come to help. The second is when the client tells the auditors they are so pleased to see them.

So bravo to the Commonwealth Auditor-General, Grant Hehir, for doing his job, even though at times that might have shocked the public and shamed the federal government.

The late Don Chipp would have said keeping the bastards honest is essential in a democracy.

Using underground aquifers seems an ideal solution for the storage of huge volumes of water without loss to evaporation ("Banking on underground water supply", October 31, p20). Unfortunately it is not so simple.

Because aquifer water moves at only one to five metres a year, the only practicable method of recharge is to rely on the access of rainfall and other surface water, to rocks that are sufficiently porous to contain significant volumes of water, sufficiently permeable to allow this water to flow, and close to or at the surface.

For example, in Australia's largest aquifer, the Great Artesian Basin, the aquifer strata are upturned along its margins, and recharge mostly takes place along the relatively high-rainfall eastern margin in the coastal ranges. Given the slow flow rates, it could take aquifer water 80,000 years or more to reach the innermost parts of the Great Artesian Basin.

Rather than relying on rainfall along the eastern margin, water could be pumped into the Great Artesian Basin, but this is a very costly and still necessarily very slow option.

I generally enjoy Pope's take on life.

However using the release of the Bushfire Royal Commission report to satirically reprise the Prime Minister's error of judgement in taking a holiday detracts from the critical recommendations contained therein (Editorial cartoon, October 31).

He made a mistake, misjudging the importance of being seen to be in control. He came home and attempted to redeem himself in the face of snide criticism.

We learn from mistakes. To dwell on an individual's shortcomings does nothing to help heal the hurts.

Annastacia Palasczcuk has now won a third term as the Queensland Premier, mainly due to the ongoing use of politically motivated border closures, allegedly based on advice from her chief health officer.

I, for one, will be very interested to see how she will now cope with all the bankruptcies and thousands of jobs lost due to the unwarranted, logic defying border closures.

Surely it's more than just coincidence that she has decided to re-open the borders immediately after the the election was over?

The Parliamentary Agreement between the ACT Greens and ACT Labor seems to provide actions to support all sectors of the community except senior Canberrans.

At least there was a Minister for Seniors in the last government. Have the Greens and Labor forgotten us? Given the inhumane neglect of seniors in need of care by the Commonwealth, we need the ACT government to be a champion for us, not to ignore us.

Crowd or no crowd, the Melbourne Cup once again delivered another needless and avoidable death. It is distressing to see the industry claim yet another innocent life in Anthony Van Dyck.

Congratulations Melbourne. Yet another horse race with a dead horse. When will this cruelty end?

I'd like to point out to M Silex (Letters, November 11) that whether or not you agree with Pope's point of view the last word to use to describe his cartoons is "puerile" (meaning childish). His cartoons are multi-layered and sophisticated, often covering several topics at once. Many is the time I've had to ask to have them explained to me.

That was an interesting article in Monday's paper: "Discrimination against Asian-Australians on the rise" (November 2, p6). The ACT Liberals should take notice.

Listening to the Queensland, NSW, and Victorian leaders bickering, I have a suggestion: make them all swap seats so they experience what it's like to own someone else's problems. (And for those who didn't like the election result, we could throw the ACT into the mix.)

Given his evident passion on the subject ("Saturday Serve", canberratimes.com.au, October 31) can we assume the righteous David Polkinghorne "takes a knee" in his lounge-room before the start of Bledisloe Cup rugby games or other high profile sporting events? I prefer to "raise an elbow" to partake in a refreshing beverage. To each their own.

Why would people who weren't racist have a problem with a statement against racism? What a fantastic question from The Canberra Times' David Polkinghorne. ("Rugby codes drop the ball in the fight against racism", canberratimes.com.au, October 30).

I'm very happy to read (each week in The Sunday Canberra Times) that Ian Warden is a "regular columnist". I'm sure he would agree with Samuel Johnson's observation that few things are more conducive to happiness than a powerful digestion.

Australia's best chance of being acknowledged in the Bledisloe Cup competition may be if there was an award for coming second.

I filled up with unleaded 91 on Sunday before travelling to Sydney and paid $1.15.9 per litre. On arriving in Sydney I noticed the price of 99.9cents for the same product. What a rip off. Why should Canberra drivers pay 15 per cent more? Andrew Barr please note.

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