Dutton, Hunt, Ley and Fraser are "spitting into the wind".

Industry certainly isn't listening to the PM on climate change and action on the way forward. Bushfire prevention and recovery is a long forgotten issue. Likewise the treatment of women.

Mr Morrison makes pronouncements on issues but sensible people don't listen to his hollow statements anymore.

Vindictive threats on the risk of "illegal boat arrivals" while Australia and its allies rush belatedly to evacuate thousands of Afghan refugees from Kabul makes that policy position an anachronism.

I'm not listening, PM.

Sahema Saberi writes ("I don't accept the Taliban have changed", Wednesday 25, p24) movingly of the plight of Afghan Hazaris under Taliban rule, prior to 2001 and now with Taliban rule resumed. She pleads for the Australian government to go beyond their current commitment accepting 3000 refugees. I concur.

I too am reminded that prior to the US led invasion the UN sponsored a gathering of all parties to discuss a peaceful settlement of the unstable conditions following the collapse of the Soviet backed government.

This gathering on neutral ground for over a week agreed on terms required for stable government. These guaranteed rights and protections for women, yet reserved a place in civil life for the Taliban.

The formula of a lasting peace in the declaration from that commission remains valid. Logically its terms should have guided any outside intervention - be it civilian or military - that had the interests of the country and its people at its centre.

The terms of settlement - worked out among Afghans for Afghans over the course of five days - were comprehensively ignored or reversed in the course of the military intervention that followed.

No one wanted the Taliban in charge, yet equally removing the Taliban by overwhelming force and replacing with a client government was no solution. If all the centres of power in a country can come together on basic rights guarantees, not least to life, 20 years ago, the people from whom they derive their power can find their way to such guarantees again.

Australians are implicated in this quest. It does not reflect well on us that we cannot see through the shallow justifications for our involvement in 2001-2021, and the shallow response to the consequences of its failure.

We can afford to be generous, whether expressed through refugee policy, or in conspicuously rejecting colonial reflexiveness in our foreign and defence policies.

In amongst all the chaos and danger of Kabul Airport, the ADF and APS staff present there have served the Afghan evacuees well.

No, Minister Dutton - the Afghans are people with a well-founded fear of persecution. They are the very meaning of refugees; especially the Hazaras. Their families in Australia fear for their safety. Ministers Andrews and Hawke; is there a special visa for them? Please.

Just when we have more time on our hands we seem to be driving much faster. Is it frustration? The ACT Driver's Handbook states that in streets where there is no speed sign the maximum speed is 50 km/h. May I suggest that 50 becomes 40 and that a 10 km/h car park speed limit be introduced. I was nearly rear ended twice recently in Hawker by young masked ladies talking on their phones as they rushed for the street exit.

Several Canberra schools are now listed as close-contact exposure sites and thousands of students and parents are in quarantine after Harrison School was confirmed as a close-contact location.

Whoever decided mega-sized schools were the best solution for the ACT must be ruing the day they made that decision.

John R Baker (Letters, August 18) has just demonstrated the crux of the problem. He feels he doesn't need a COVID-19 test because he came back from regional areas with no cases.

How does he know that he wasn't rubbing shoulders with COVID-19 positive people from other regions who similarly think they are not a risk? And that he hasn't then transported this highly infectious strain back into Canberra after his jaunt?

Get tested John, even though it it a bother, if not for your sake then for the sake of the rest of the community.

Canberra's mobile speed cameras can't be doing much business during lockdown. Has anyone has considered redeploying them to the ACT's major road border crossings?

Not to record speeders, but to record all plates, both arriving and leaving.

The results could be compared against a list of registered exemptions, and those not found automatically issued with fines.

I know this would not be popular with those who consider travel restrictions to be discretionary, but think of the revenue opportunity for the ACT.

There may even be some deterrent value as people might be reluctant to risk being observed and identified doing the wrong thing. Not to mention the fines.

Lawry Herron is right to contend that "we must give Parliament authority over hostile deployments" (Letters, August 18).

A decision to go to war is arguably the most important decision any government can make.

Parliament debates the minutiae of legislation for hours. But the decision to go to war is made by the Prime Minister or a small group of ministers.

Surely any decision to go to war should require the approval of the Parliament (subject only to very small exceptions, for example, for genuine emergencies).

While I don't have any expectation that my letters will be published with any frequency, a quick Google suggests that very few other readers, if any, have critiqued Simon Cowan's highly contestable views on COVID-19 or any other subject in the letters pages in the last few years.

In this current crisis it is in your readers' interests that his questionable and regularly published views on the efficacy of vaccination and the value of lockdowns should be challenged more often. If not by me, then others. Or you might invite epidemiologists or public health experts to comment on Cowan's claims.

For weeks letter writers have been calling for a strong independent candidate for the ACT Senate.

Now Kim Rubenstein has answered the call with an impressive personal background and thoughtful policies.

The fantastic social media response to Kim Rubenstein's announcement of her candidature is testament, if any were needed, that Canberra is ready for a strong independent candidate.

The ACT government must be rubbing its hands with glee, rolling in the loot from the more than 5000 innocent motorists tricked by its speed limit subterfuge.

These are proceeds which will no doubt go a very long way to pay for its wilfully irresponsible decision to irrationally proceed with Stage 2 of the "tram".

And once again, the unsuspecting Southsiders, who have never known Northbourne Ave to have any other speed limit than 60km/h, are being screwed.

It doesn't take rocket science for so-called "traffic planners" to realise that such a radical change (allegedly in the name of safety) should have installed high-positioned, hi-viz neon-lit signage similar to that used on the M7 and the M3 at the entry to the airport tunnel in Sydney.

Can more than 5000 people really be accused of being wilful law-breakers? Or, worse still, stupid?

At your peril, ACT government.