The ambiguity regarding fossil fuels in Australian and other countries' approach to emissions reduction is because we are locked into a high-consumption lifestyle based on fossil fuels. Our cities, food and material infrastructure will remain critically dependent on fossil fuels during the transition.

The network of energy infrastructure, industry and transport that has developed over the last 150 years has to be replaced in around 30 years if climate change is to be mitigated.

The only energy source to effect this transformation and allow economic growth in the developing world during this period is fossil fuels. The scale of the investment and energy required is huge.

This is why countries are hedging their bets on fossil fuel projects. Fossil fuels are still needed.

We have to continue to manage access to fossil fuels even as we increase renewables supply. The European energy crisis is having a profound effect on attitudes; many are realising access to fossil fuels is essential to keep economies going during the transition.

The scale of fossil fuel use required for the transition in the short term is so large that unless the developed countries curtail their general energy use there well could be a surge in emissions in order to create the low carbon energy infrastructure.

Space needs to be created for these non "business as usual" emissions. This is really a catch 22 situation that at the moment has no resolution.

Mitigating climate change without invoking "negative growth" and changed lifestyle scenarios, with all their disruption, seems impossible.

Further information from Stephen Bartos in the Public Sector Informant (August 2) on what has been termed the Coalition's election day boat stunt adds significantly to its shoddiness. But beyond the apparent illegality; breach of universally accepted caretaker conventions; and all round unethical behaviour sits the sad pathos of desperation.

That, at midday or thereabouts on the day of the national election, and with a view to swaying its outcome, the then caretaker prime minister of Australia, would seek to coerce senior operational officials and bureaucrats to issue a media statement about an asylum seeker boat interception.

And this with full knowledge that a significant percentage of electors had already pre-polled over the previous weeks and that more would have also voted in person in the intervening four hours (democracy sausages at Majura Primary School had run out well before midday).

Are we to conclude then that the self-declared devout Pentecostal had succumbed to the siren songs of the devil or was this standard operating procedure for a raucous mountebank who would say and do anything to achieve his goals? A no-brainer really.

Well may he now languish, bored and glum, on the extremities of the opposition backbenches, visibly pouting at the injustice of it all.

Concern continues to grow over the dangerous condition of the entrance track to the Federal Golf Club from Red Hill Drive.

The lack of attention to local road repairs in the ACT budget is disappointing. Up to 200 cars travel the track on golf days, and new and deeper potholes are adding to the risks of collision or damage to the suspension.

Course closure from 29 August to 1 September for renovation would give ACT roadworks an ideal opportunity to for remedial repairs.

A well respected writer recently said "Taiwan is a US military asset, not a US ally. That's a very significant difference that everyone, especially the Taiwanese, would do well to keep in mind".

Australia should also remember that there is nothing quite as fragile and insincere as US policy on anything.

In order to advance the bases for war against China, again not in or near mainland USA but in the Pacific through the recently structured AUKUS and QUAD initiatives, Australia is not asked but "required" to allow even further US military bases on our land.

We would be wise to look at the history of the USA since WWII and state a firm "no".

Such a decision is imminent.

M R Flint (Letters, August 3) asks what the Albanese government has done in the two-plus months since the May 21 election, and accuses Labor of whingeing about what has been passed on by the Coalition.

The incompetent Morrison government needed no help from the new government to accumulate a trillion-dollar debt. Labor is not "extending Morrison's debt": on the contrary, it is conscientiously being frugal with taxpayers' money because it anticipates the troubled times that are doubtless ahead.

In the first two sitting weeks of the new Parliament Labor legislated a 43 per cent emissions reduction target for 2030, introduced historic new legislation for 10 days' domestic violence leave, legislation for the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia, and for essential aged-care reform.

Labor will also be consulting on a bill that would establish a federal anti-corruption commission by September.

Is all this "doing nothing"?

Bill Stefaniak (Letters, July 28) writes: "When talking about China, it is always important to separate the Chinese people from the CCP". Precisely.

Why then does Stefaniak so strongly defend the weekly call to arms from Bradley Perrett, who seems intent on Australia going to war against China? Does he really imagine that in such a war the Chinese leadership would be in the front line protecting the rest of the nation from harm?

On the contrary, a war with China would be utterly devastating for countless millions of innocent people in many countries. Avoiding it is absolutely imperative.

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq one of the multiple excuses given for this act of aggression was that Saddam Hussein was a dictator. That turned out well, didn't it?

Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives were lost, many more were ruined, and a whole region was destabilised. Best to vacate the Middle East and take the benefits of our democracy elsewhere.

War has the effect of giving a green light to human rights abuses, further suppression of dissent and state control of the media.

And we could ask Julian Assange and David McBride whether these things could ever happen in a "democracy".

There are infinitely smarter ways to handle our relationship with China than preparing for war, especially for those concerned with human rights abuses.

The new federal government is politically wedged. It says it must honour the stage-three tax cuts that are "law".

The overly generous reduction of marginal income tax rates from 37 per cent to 30 per cent for people on incomes up to $200,000 should preclude any wage increases for all but those on minimum rates.

How to meet the other worthwhile election commitments, and to make a start on budget repair?

How about an unavoidable tax on the turnover of companies, in particular those who pay no company tax at present.

Of course Peter Dutton and the Coalition have chosen to back nuclear energy: their brand of wedge politics is deeply ingrained. Unfortunately this approach is divisive and destructive.

The Coalition's position on climate and energy hinders our ability to work together to capitalise on the cheapest form of energy - renewables -- and thus reduce costs of living.

Fortunately, public sentiment is moving on and Dutton's party is becoming increasingly irrelevant, with slim election chances for 2025.

Congratulations to Anthony Albanese for proposing the referendum question about the Voice to Parliament be to simply ask do we want the Constitution altered to make it possible or not. A simple "yes" or "no" answer is required.

Details of how the Voice will be formulated and delivered will then be decided, as the second step, by the Parliament, on advice from interested groups.

New senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, in her maiden speech advocated a contrary view; that the model for the Voice should also be included in the referendum. I hope this is something she truly believes, and that she is not simply mimicking John Howard's undermining of the Republican referendum question several years ago.

It would be a shame to see such a clever and capable person become something of a divisive token for the Coalition.

I have been labouring under the impression our parliamentarians should show leadership and respect. But by not wearing masks LNP MPs and senators (with one or two exceptions) show neither.

Economists say the price of electricity is going to double. One dollar's worth of electricity will soon cost two. Who gets the second dollar and why?

Is the behaviour by the gas companies any surprise? I am reminded of the quote by actor and Bernie Sanders campaigner John Cusack: "Capitalism takes and takes. It takes whatever, whenever, however it wants. It'll take our lives, it'll take our labour, our spirit, our air and water, even our earth".

I wish to invite a valued friend into my household. My neighbour, upon learning of my intention, runs interference over my back fence. I find such actions juvenile, immature and beyond contempt. They are also an attack on my domestic sovereignty.

A commitment to a strong carbon price is a test of how serious about nuclear a party is, as without one domestic nuclear energy is unviable. Over to you Peter Dutton.

I "invested" in Powerball rather than cryptocurrency. I did not win the $20 million. Will a court to help me recover my "investment"? Seems like a similar issue.

Eric Zurcher (Letters, August 4) asks why not replace our "hereditary British monarchy with an Indigenous one?" What a great idea; except the Uluru Statement is about neither race nor "hereditary monarchy". It's recognition of a culture that continuously occupied and looked after our land longer and better than any monarchy ever.

Apropos the picture on the front page of Thursday's The Canberra Times. Barnaby Joyce: surly, disinterested, irrelevant.

The local ABC TV evening news seems to have become more theatre than reporting the news. The presenter twirls a pen and holds a piece of paper which is never referred to or used, and wanders from a screen to a desk, while trying to report the news. It concludes with "good evening" and Arrh - whatever that means. ABC can you just report the news - you are not a commercial media outlet.

Has the public service union ("Labor rushes PS superannuation bill through parliament as Greens slam lack of debate", canberratimes.com.au, August 4) considered that if the allowances they say should be treated as part of remuneration, and therefore attract employer superannuation contributions, that these same allowances should also be considered as income for tax purposes?