We also closed the cement-floored zoo that was the Belconnen Remand Centre. I was also for a time, minister for corrections.

Can the AMC perform better? Probably. Remember how difficult it is to have both remand and sentenced people, all genders, multiple religions and a significant Indigenous population, all incarcerated together.

Am I proud to have been part of the bringing home of our people? Yes I am. Am I proud of the officers at the AMC? Yes I am. Was it a mistake? No it wasn't.

Yes it was bad (Editorial: "Morrison's failure on the global stage", canberratimes.com.au, April 24) but it could have been worse.

If the PM had been incapacitated last week, Michael McCormack would have rolled up to represent us at the climate summit last Thursday.

His usual thin and faltering attempts at sincerity would have fooled no one as he delivered the pre-prepared words about the Coalition's latest focus on technological busyness and "hydrogen valleys" as key climate-turnaround helpmates.

No doubt an informal injection of some National Party gaucheness and stabs at bonhomie, encouraged by Angus Taylor's usual weasel words about Australia's unswerving adherence to vague climate policy "outcomes", would have crept in too and gone down a treat with the watchful world.

I would like to congratulate CDF Angus Campbell for reportedly saying that he advocated "diplomacy over war". Such a statement, in the face of that changeling Christopher Pyne, now weapons industry lobbyist, talking up war with China (and profits), is a breath of fresh air, and common sense.

Dutton will just have to develop a new skill, such as being creative, in order to find another occupation for the defence forces. May I suggest fighting climate change?

Re: Ian Morison's letter "Forget coal, let's go nuclear" (Letters, April 22) in which he made the claim that "Nuclear power is used by 19 out of the 20 OECD countries, Australia being the exception..."

I find myself again wondering how much of the fake news published and broadcast these days stems from plain old fact-checking laziness and how much from deliberate intent to mislead.

One need only look across the ditch to New Zealand, an OECD member and an avowedly anti-nuclear nation, to know Mr Morison's claims are incorrect.

The OECD has 37 member countries, not 20. Of those 15 do not include nuclear power in their energy mix. A further four are committed to phasing it out before 2030 (ref: International Energy Agency).

As to the merits of his argument that we should develop a nuclear power industry in this country "to provide high base-load, reliable, cheap and emissions-free energy" I'm yet to find an independent energy market expert or economist who would agree with him.

Nuclear power generation is not cheap to develop and neither is it emissions-free. Users around the world are struggling to manage nuclear waste and three countries (USA, Russia and Japan) have experienced catastrophic nuclear accidents resulting in wide-spread radioactive contamination.

Andrew Barr has said work should have begun to scale up Australia's vaccine production capacity in October ("Barr urges action on domestic COVID-19 vaccine production", April 21, p4). Why didn't he do that himself? It would have provided jobs for the ACT, and would have cost much less than a billion dollars.

Clive Williams considers the foreign policy of New Zealand, that prioritises maintenance of a close economic relationship with China "naive at best and dangerous at worst", because the policy involves a reluctance to becoming involved with Australia, Canada, Britain and the US in matters of "intelligence and security, secret defence and cyber technology" ("New Zealand's Five Eye hesitance is naive at best and dangerous at worst", canberratimes.com.au, April 22).

Yet there is something to be said for prioritising mutually beneficial trade. It is possible that security and defence are better served by open dealing and profitable trade.

Perhaps if the world had more of it, the need for secret "intelligence" gathering and covert plans would be much reduced.

Your editorial ("National unity on climate action is vital,", canberratimes.com.au, April 21) rightly said that the "Prime Minister will never be able to achieve anything beyond tokenism until he is prepared to stare down the climate recalcitrants in his party".

Perhaps the number one recalcitrant (in a tight contest with Craig Kelly) is former resources minister Matt Canavan who, in the same issue of your paper, said his government shouldn't allow pressure from the Biden administration to dictate its climate action policies ("Biden's summit to pressure Australia", page 6).

Canavan said that the results of the last federal election showed that people rejected the more aggressive climate policies of Bill Shorten and the Labor Party.

That was a very long bow to draw, nevertheless, it does raise the question of whether dealing with an existential threat such as climate change should be determined democratically or by people in authority.

Democracy only works if people can make an informed decision, and in this country, voters have been mis-informed on climate issues for too long by the Murdoch press. In New Zealand, in contrast, people's minds have not been warped by media misinformation and have been largely supportive of their government's strong climate action.

We need to become much more ambitious on our emission reduction targets and move away from fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.

As a Vietnam veteran I was angered to learn from the Pentagon Papers that successive US administrations had secretly conceded that the prospects of success in that conflict were, at best, slim.

A half century later The Washington Post published a trove of recently declassified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. These revealed that many senior US officials, despite their publicly professed optimism, saw the war in Afghanistan as unwinnable.

Were Australian officials kept in the dark regarding these assessments? If not, why were the Australian people denied the information necessary to determine whether our commitment to the conflict was worth the effort?

The Samson option, which Kenneth Griffiths says concerns him (Letters, April 23) is allegedly Israel's last-resort deterrence retaliation, only to be used if Israel is overrun and about to be destroyed.

So, what concerns him is not Israel being attacked and destroyed, it is Israel's possible response. Very telling.

What is also telling is that Israel is alleged to have had nuclear weapons for decades, but there has been little consternation from its Arab neighbours, including those regarded as deadly enemies.

Yet now that Iran is getting close to nuclear weapons there is uproar, and many other Middle East countries are now contemplating getting their own.

On February 2 this newspaper published my letter as its lead under the title "Where is the community outrage over ACT prison failures?"

It included questions about high rates of Indigenous recidivism.

Now, on April 23, we read Jenna Price's piece, "White Australia must look inward" in which she recognises our national failure to attend to our own racism.

Price points to our "ordinary citizens who don't engage with black deaths in custody in the way they might engage with police murders of black Americans".

In the Netherlands they are closing down prisons as a result of excellent therapeutic community treatments of convicted criminals.

Why are we not doing the same?

Why, when I question a member of the ACT government on this matter, do I just get reassured about raising the age of criminality, thanked for my activism and invited to submit on any other issues I wish to raise?

As Jenna Price asks, why don't black lives matter to white Australians?

We have a newly defined offence; "stealthing"; the non-consensual removal of a condom during intercourse. The Canberra Liberals are mounting a crusade to make it a criminal offence. This is the first squeak I've heard from them since the election. If this is the most important issue they can come up with it's no wonder they lost.

I applaud the proposed ban on condom removal during intimacy. But I wonder how such a bold legislative initiative might be implemented at the "coal face"?

How good is ScoMo at claiming credit for things he has had no hand in? In his address to the Biden virtual summit he trumpeted Australia's rooftop solar success as a mark of our efforts in combating global warming. That Australia is a world leader in this area is no thanks to Morrison or his government.

I didn't consent to the $4 million wasted by the federal government on the "milkshake" Good Relationships videos. I should have yelled No, No, No.

Mr Morrison wants to delay now-proven technology in favour of trying to extract hydrogen from water. This may take years and will use a lot of energy. In 2020 renewables met 97 per cent of Scotland's electricity needs. Mr Morrison should be guided by common sense.

Morrison's claim to be acting on climate change is all smirk and mirrors. The rest of the world will see through the pretence.

It is inappropriate to talk about the current government moving at glacial speed on the matter of combatting climate change: the glaciers are disappearing faster than it is acting.

India, which produces about 60 per cent of the world vaccines and is the "pharmacy of the world", is in serious trouble. What is the world doing to help them?

Coronavirus's constant moving of the goalposts has earthlings continually kicking own goals.

With ever increasing renewables efficiency and negative returns on the billions "invested" in the last-ditch concept of carbon capture and storage might Musk be merely offering $100 million prizemoney as a PR exercise? (Musk offers $100 million prizemoney for carbon fix, April 24, p26.)

As the USA gets to grips with COVID-19, India steals the infections crown from under its nose. The common factor: religious superspreading events. Superstition is deadlier than any virus.

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