They can be a bit clumsy as John Menadue tediously notes, but essentially America is a benevolent force for good. That's why the UN is in New York, not China, Iran or North Korea, the current axis of evil. It's for safekeeping. It's the difference between Chile under Allende and now booming under democratic capitalism. It's the difference between North and South Korea. One wonders what he hopes to achieve with his crude last century partisanship. Clutching at straws at best.

If history is to be our guide, we best avoid any advice from Menadue, given he was advisor and private secretary to the vicious and chaotic Gough Whitlam. Whitlam's idea of fairplay was to deny Vietnamese refugees safe haven in Australia, authorise Indonesia to invade and subjugate East Timor - and their oil and gas - and to recognise and support the invasion and subjugation of the Baltic States by the USSR.

And, meanwhile, spend half his tenure touring the world's best ruins while cyclones and fires devastated Australia. On the other hand, I understand Menadue felt Whitlam's indulgences were "bad optics". So that's something. The '70s and the Cold War are over, John Menadue. You lost.

Congrats for publishing John Menadue's article on the US (August 7). It reveals Australia's surrender of any vestige of international independence to an unstable and therefore unpredictable but militarily powerful nation.

The US is the world's predominant capitalist nation, its national and international policies and actions designed to maximise $US profitability for its corporations, a large number of which derive income from armaments production and sale. Military conflict, America directly or indirectly involved, achieves this. Does the constant talk of war with China remind us of Dubbya's 2003 non-existent Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction"?

Is our reliance on US militarism misplaced? I can only hope some in our political parties think so, and want change.

While recent initiatives ("Government and Gungahlin residents, businesses call for an APS department", canberratimes.com.au, August 8) are welcome, the failure to establish a significant federal department in Gungahlin is the greatest strategic planning blunder of the last 30 years.

The failure is a result of federal and ACT government policies which facilitated office development at the airport at the expense of Civic and the town centres. As a consequence transport infrastructure requirements to service Gungahlin increased and have yet to be fully met.

The election of the Albanese government presents an opportunity for the ACT government to promote the establishment of an APS department or flexible work hub in the town centre. It also presents an opportunity for the Barr government to amend the Territory Plan to increase the amount of commercial space possible in the town centre.

On July 29 you published my letter titled "Unnatural selections", in which I suggested your paper provide us a regular non-partisan assessment of parliamentary behaviour. I thought such an evaluation might allow us to establish a better tradition of such behaviour than we had seen over the last nine years of federal government.

I am now grateful to your journalist Mark Kenny for having begun to do this and for his second careful piece which continues this assessment, "Governing is back from the dead" (Opinion, August 7).

He notices Chris Bowen's careful listening to proposals about the emissions-reduction bill, his genuinely entertaining of crossbench amendments, and then the way the decision which followed was based on the debate.

Perhaps this approach will become a beacon in our history. Perhaps schoolkids will learn about the famous "August 2022 emissions reduction debate" when they are learning how to grapple with important issues, and perhaps it will be seen as the time we began to see that we need to discuss and share goals, regardless of their legal status, if we are to move forward as a country.

One would hope that the rightful dismissal of the case against solicitor Bernard Collaery will not be used to cloak the immorality of section 22 of the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act. It was this same NSI Act which was used to conduct the "secret" trial, prosecution and imprisonment of Witness J in 2018. We must insist that the teals, independents and Greens representatives in the new parliament, fight to remove this stain on our democratic society from our laws.

We must all remember that such outrageous elements buried in, what appears to be valid law, under secrecy legislation, can be pulled out at any time to exercise abusive political power to silence opposition. It is public knowledge that ASIS did in fact, bug the offices of the Timor government at the behest of the then Liberal government to achieve an improved commercial outcome. This should be evidence enough. Governance empowered under such immoral law can beget abuse, regardless of political brand. Such action, supported by the courts means public servants as security officers become police, judge and prison guard, when the accused has no recourse to an open, public justice system.

Jost Steller (Letters, August 6) makes a valid point about both the management of Lake Burley Griffin and the role of the ACT government in stopping nutrient entering the system. However it may be impossible to make an appreciable difference to water quality in a lake with an increasingly heavily treed urban environment and often limited flow through.

It would though help if our local federal politicians were to actively support the financially constrained NCA. It could then, for example, restore the weed cutting which removed nutrient, and other measures to improve the health of Lake Burley Griffin.

In reply to Charles Gasgoine's letter (August 5) condoning pedestrians ignoring the red light when crossing roads, I would like to add, I drive from Haig Park to London Circuit every day. Last week in one morning I counted 20 people along this 10-minute drive who walked across the road in the face of a red light and oncoming traffic. This included parents with three small children, a group of seven people and people with dogs and people on bikes and scooters.

I have been driving this route for 54 years and never seen a car go through a red light there. It is not the motorist putting lives at risk including children, it is the pedestrians.

Poor old Jenna Price must really be down on Christians if she has to devote a whole article on dishing out Christianity. She states that only 38 per cent of Australians claim Christianity as their faith. I would have thought this number is still relatively high considering all the backlash they receive from people in the media like Price. That 38 per cent is still by far the most popular religion in this country. The leftist media in this country, particularly the tax-funded ABC, spend a disordinate amount of time airing negative programs against Christianity. Programs like Four Corners that crucified Cardinal Pell even though he was shown to be innocent in the High Court along with trying to portray rapists as predominantly white, Christian men when per capita the exact opposite is true, but this somehow escapes the always biased against conservatives ABC.

Price may not like Christians, but the society she benefits from is based on Judeo Christian values that have served us and many other like-minded countries for years. I wonder how Price would go expressing her views in a Muslim country like Pakistan, Iran or Indonesia. She whinges about having Christianity pushed upon her, but has written articles previously being supportive of LGBTI values being pushed upon us.

Using the term "teal" as a generic reference to independents reminds me of the old joke" "Why do they call them gurus?". Because it's easier to spell than "charlatan". It's as lazy and inaccurate as referring to the federal government as "Canberra". The term was apparently invented to indicate independents who are disaffected Liberals with a lean to the Greens. While it may be true of a few, it's certainly not true of all of them. If you insist on using it, then please use it only about those who fit the definition.

A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star, an everlasting world and you are here with us, eternally.

It is time a First Nation person is made head of state of Australia. The British monarchy is an expired institution. It's archaic. Difficult to understand why Australians, descendants of those who exiled by the British monarchy for pinching a loaf of bread want a descendant of that family to be head of state of Australia.

Rod Matthews (Letters, August 9) says, "the concept of an Indigenous Voice ... assumes that all Indigenous people are of the same opinion". Does he also think the "voice of the people", or the "voice of the parliament" is also literally singular? Or, does he "apparently" think Indigenous Australians are somehow incapable of arriving at a consensus like every other group? If so, why and how does he think the Statement from the Heart was arrived at?

I know it is weak to be dogged about insults, but I was gutted to hear the word gutted used when it should have been gutless.

Both the government and opposition should read John Menadue's incisive article "Our perilous, warmongering ally" (August 7), and rethink our fawning over the US. Yes, there is no doubt that America's behaviour is motivated by its love of freedom; but it's the freedom to kill anybody, anytime, anywhere - at home or abroad. By cosying up to Uncle Sam, we're signalling that we have the same mindset.

M R Flint's question (Letters, August 3) re Labor's progress since winning the election reminds me of the Monty Python question "Romans, what have they ever done for us?"

Don Sephton (Letters, August 8), says a The Canberra Times picture of Barnaby Joyce shows him as "surly, disinterested, irrelevant". No problems with two of the adjectives, but "uninterested" might be more precise than "disinterested", or even, perhaps, "uninteresting"?

In all the commentary about Ricky Stuart's words has anyone thought to ask Tom Starling what he thought of the incident? The video indicates he was intentionally kicked twice, first in the groin, and then in the face, and clearly went down in agony. Jaeman Salmon's actions were deplorable. He needs to be more heavily sanctioned than a contrary conduct charge.

Ryan Goss (Opinion, August 5) must know what primogeniture means. So his republican rant is irrelevant. Charlie will be king of Australia for 21 years even if he is a tit. (Calculation: Charlie is 73, his dad died at 99, Charlie's got 26 years left. His mum is 96, her mum was 101 when she carked it, Charlie's mum has five years left, 26-5=21).