What's the point of paying billions for future submarines?

Perrett says if we start paying the US $79 billion before the US agrees we might get our first submarine in a decade.

Australian families cannot afford to buy a home and raise children because we pay billions of dollars for military junk based on endless warmongering fear porn about China. We've just spent $3.4 billion on an aborted submarine contract with France that delivered nothing. Now Perrett demands we pay billions to the US because he's terrified of China.

Paying the US billions for submarines we don't need (and cannot get for decades anyway) will result in Australians having nothing left worth saving. China gets all it wants through trade so why would it attack us?

Moreover, if it did, there's nothing Australia or the US could do about it except start a nuclear war.

Pretending Australia could make war on China successfully or at all is ridiculous.

Your article on the death of former MLA Helen Cross (canberratimes.com.au, July 20) stated that she "crossed the floor to support the decriminalisation of abortion in the ACT".

That's not so. Both the Liberal and Labor parties have traditionally given their members a conscience vote on moral issues such as abortion, and did so in respect of this legislation in 2002.

Accordingly members of both parties - with their own party's blessing - were found voting both for and against this legislation.

On Thursday I checked with my hairdresser to find out if staff were wearing masks before keeping an appointment to have my hair cut and permed. They weren't and I cancelled.

Perms usually take two-and-a-half to three hours, much of which time a hairdresser is breathing over the customer as they work on the hair.

Later that day I checked with another hairdresser in a major shopping centre. They were not wearing masks either.

Masks can work. I've recently finished seven days' isolation following advice that the surgeon who had operated on me had tested COVID positive the next morning. I didn't catch the virus from him when he was wearing what appeared to be a normal mask when talking to me prior to the operation.

With our hospitals at risk of being overwhelmed and significant numbers of people dying or getting long COVID, surely it is time that masks were made mandatory indoors in public spaces. C'mon ACT government, you have done and continue to do well by leading the way with climate change. Be a leader again and make masks mandatory indoors in public spaces in the ACT. Some idiots will no doubt ignore the law, but many, including much small business, will obey.

Most of us would be grateful.

Bill Stefaniak (Letters, July 21) doesn't hide his conservative views on climate change. He doesn't seem to think much into the future either, as the ban on new internal combustion engine (ICE) light vehicles isn't proposed until 2035; 12 years from now.

Isn't that enough time to signal to industry and consumers the direction the government wants to take? It's a long lead time and I don't have any problem with that. This gives certainty which is what industry always says it wants.

Doesn't he realise an EV revolution is happening before his eyes? The rest of the world is already moving far quicker than Australia so their "learnings" will filter through to us eventually with the right policy settings by government.

This proposed EV policy is a good start.

Former home affairs minister Karen Andrews can deny until she's blue in the face that she pressured her department on behalf of the prime minister to release information on a boat loaded with asylum seekers on the day of the federal election ("Andrews denies pressure over boat", July 24, p2). The facts indicate otherwise.

An inquiry by the Department of Home Affairs, ordered by Prime Minister Albanese, found that pressure was indeed applied by Scott Morrison, via Ms Andrews, for officials to release information about the interception of an asylum-seeker boat within 15 minutes, while operations were still in progress. That was followed immediately by the nation-wide text message "Breaking: Australian Border Force has intercepted an illegal boat trying to reach Australia. Keep out borders secure by voting Liberal today. https://vote.liberal.org.au".

While Scott "I stopped the boats" Morrison was treasurer, then Prime Minister, he insisted that "on water matters" be kept secret. That need for secrecy evaporated when Mr Morrison's prime ministership was threatened.

Lee Welling (Letters, July 25) says that being up-to-date with vaccinations, including booster doses, not only helps protect us but also helps protect others around us from the worst effects of COVID-19.

With respect to others around us, this is no longer true. The current Omicron variant BA.5 is easily evading the vaccines, and thus not protecting against infection or transmission of the virus.

Wearing an N95 mask is far more important as far as protecting others is concerned.

Neil Hermes, the ornithologist, makes a vital point about habitats.

Scarlet robins are just as happy to shelter in foreign Scotch broom bush as in Landcare-planted hakeas. The insects they eat there taste the same.

The platypuses near Duntroon were more than happy to nest in the root plates of the willows lining the lake and creeks before Landcare and the authorities killed them.

Bandicoots thrive under the protection of blackberries. Gang Gangs eat big fat pine nuts. A weed is a plant which someone feels is out of place. So who was the someone?

Their advice may be out of context, ignorant or ideological. Think that through before reaching for the spray gun.

When we wipe out the shelter plants we also wipe out the precious species we then mourn.

The adolescent and anti-anything religious Ian Warden is on display again. ("Why clouds get better looking each day", Panorama, Saturday, July 23).

This time Ian is on about the Webb telescope and (according to him) its unequivocal proof that God's existence and in particular, Creationism, can be dismissed.

Whilst I am not an adherent of Creationism, I do believe in a loving and munificent God, who is far from being "pie in the sky", and who, among other things, has given us the knowledge and ability to learn, discover and create all manner of inventions and technologies.

With the assistance of that technological marvel, the Webb telescope, our ability to see far back to stars, light, galaxies and wonders of the far reaches of the universe is a scientific sensation at the same time as being intellectually daunting.

Might I remind Mr Warden that "God is light and in him there is no darkness" (1 John Ch 1, v 5). So the light of the stars which the Webb telescope reveals to us is God's light. God and science can co-exist, they are not mutually exclusive.

Ian Warden had his head hidden in his clouds ("Why clouds get better looking each day", Panorama, Saturday, July 23) when he discovered BioLogos' The Webb telescope and God's evolving universe. The idea that there is God, his son on earth, and the holy spirit which is God's action which we see as evolution belongs to the Jesuits (the intellectual arm of Catholicism).

Darwinian archaeologist Teilhard de Chardin, published the concept in his The Phenomenon of Man in 1955. I remember teaching this to my "Peoples, Beliefs and Society" students in their unit covering the Middle Eastern Religions at Hawker College in 1992.

Perhaps de Chardin could be seen as the Number One member of the Head in the Clouds Appreciation Society. Thanks, Ian, for the revelation.

I am writing to express my heartfelt appreciation to everyone in the ACT who supported The Smith Family's 2022 Winter Appeal.

With the donations received The Smith Family will provide extra learning and mentoring support to an additional 611 children and young people in the ACT.

Why are petrol prices about 20 cents a litre more expensive in Braddon than in Eden on the Far South Coast? Transport costs? Hardly. Gouging more likely.

Now we know even ScoMo didn't believe in government. That being the case, as retribution for his appalling legacy, isn't it time for him to depart this Parliament forever? The people of Australia would be grateful.

How could Albanese state he could not afford to reinstate the $750 isolation payment for lower paid works when he can afford to honour the Stage Three tax cuts, which will cost $15 billion a year, and benefit high income earners?

Perhaps now our dear English friends might understand why we choose to have cold beer in the colony.

The Greens and independents would gain far more respect and kudos if they pursued the full inquiry agenda before shutting coal mines. Only then would we achieve the transparency of government needed to move the nation forward.

It seems that by decreasing speeds on our roads we will go back to the early 1900s; trams and someone with a red flag walking in front of the car.

On Monday morning we were told the new government would be hitting the ground running. A few of us would prefer it hit the ground thinking

We are advised to avoid enclosed spaces to limit the spread of respiratory viruses. Now we have restaurants setting up dining domes. Really?

Record shortfalls in the flying kangaroo's appearance in the sky could be the harbinger of endangered species status.

If it were up to me I'd abolish the ACT's land tax, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for landlords to reduce rents. That won't happen, not in the short term. If renters were lucky there might be an increase in the available rental stock as new investors were attracted by windfall gains.

Speaking of trade commissioners and such, what's Brendan Smyth doing these days?

Regarding the military hardware we donated to Ukraine, Bill Burdin (Letters July 11) asked: " ... is the military hardware manufactured in Australia ... ". One would hope our missiles and bombs fly the Australian flag. We wouldn't want our "kills" going unnoticed.