Canberra's pro-Palestinian rally was a heartfelt plea for peace

Israel's military occupation, attacks, blockade, deprivations, losses and humiliations have taken a horrific toll in human lives lost and devastated.

I addressed the rally on behalf of the Medical Association for Prevention of War, having informed the organisers ahead of time I would be condemning the brutal attacks that Hamas inflicted on Israeli civilians, as MAPW does.

On 10 July, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, said: "Israel's military occupation has morphed the entire occupied Palestinian territory into an open-air prison."

The arming and political support given to Israel, including by Australia, has facilitated this situation.

We call on the Australian government to condemn the cutting off of food, electricity and water for the 2.3 million civilians in Gaza, and assert in the strongest possible terms that we oppose indiscriminate attacks on civilians and their infrastructure, no matter who commits them.

The referendum result is disappointing to many Canberrans, but we can be proud of the outcome in the ACT.

A lack of understanding of Indigenous history and culture is a contributing factor to the poor national result.

We could address this issue locally by commissioning a historian to write a history of Indigenous people in what is now the ACT that could be used in schools.

We could also have something similar to Lanyon or Calthorpe's house to show how Indigenous people lived in the Canberra region prior to European settlement.

Yarramundi Reach would be a good location.

I thought the ACT voted last year for a Labor senator and an independent senator.

In recent days David Pocock has proven again that what we really got was two Labor senators.

In voting to support the government to close down the Senate airline inquiry and, again, to block an inquiry into Indigenous child abuse, Senator Pocock has shown he has no interest in open accountable government. He is simply an extension of the Labor voting bloc.

He doesn't want to expose any influence by the Qantas CEO or questionable decision-making by the minister in the Qatar issue, and has no interest in exposing abuse amongst our most vulnerable.

That is not the integrity and transparency we were promised last year.

On the night of the failed recognition and Voice referendum, Mr Dutton called for a royal commission into child sexual abuse in indigenous communities but not into the whole community.

Why would he do that if not to further isolate and discriminate against Aboriginal people who are feeling bruised and rejected after the referendum?

Bravehearts reported a 2016 study covering the whole Australian community "found that at age 21 years child sexual abuse was self-reported by 19.3 per cent of males and 30.6 per cent of females".

Yes, we do need a royal commission, but into all parts of our society, not only the Aboriginal communities.

Perhaps such a royal commission would also determine why all 76 recommendations of the 2007 Little Children are Sacred Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse have never been implemented by any government.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen deserves credit for sticking to his guns in the push for an 80 per cent clean energy target. Settling for an unambitious target is short-sighted.

The disastrous economic and social costs of global warming are already being felt worldwide. This, coupled with the increasing unreliability of our coal-fired power stations, means we need to focus on the clean energy transition now.

While upgrading the grid system is challenging, there are some positives. Capital is available for renewables investment. The uptake of solar and battery storage by householders is also encouraging.

In the ACT, plans are already underway to provide a battery storage system and help reduce our reliance on coal and gas.

An unambitious target becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We won't know until we try.

Now that the the Voice has been rejected the recriminations against "no" voters as racists who have no regard for Indigenous people are in full swing. But for many this is far from the truth.

The government must accept it was responsible for the referendum disaster.

Had the the Voice been separated from constitutional recognition for the Indigenous people we would have something to bring people together.

My frustration is that I could not recognise First Nations people in the constitution without voting for the Voice.

Hopefully a referendum on recognition will be be held at some future time.

Andrew Barr is reported as saying the AIS should stay in Canberra as that is the cheapest and quickest option ("Barr calls for AIS to stay", October 17). The reported cost of relocating the AIS to south-east Queensland is more than $1 billion of federal funds.

Is this the same Andrew Bar whose government is planning to spend over $2 billion of territory money on building the incredibly disruptive and slow tram to Woden?

Why is cheap and quick a good solution for federal matters but expensive and slow the preferred course of action for Canberra?

After the Voice referendum it has become accepted wisdom that changing the constitution is axiomatically difficult and requires cross-party political support-and preferably a vast improvement in integrity in political debate.

But it would be irresponsible to shy away from reform.

While the next major advancement - the republic - may now, regrettably, be delayed and problematic, there are other, desirable, and far less controversial, constitutional reforms that could safely be put to the people.

For example, s25 could validate a state enacting racially based disenfranchisement. A common policy option for a federation of white Australia. But it is now so unthinkable that the provision should be repealed.

Section 42 specifies that parliamentarians must swear fealty to the UK monarch. It would be trivial to give them the option of, instead, swearing loyalty directly to the nation.

Sections 58, 59 and 60 provide for the monarch to be able deny or disallow Australian legislation. While the forelock-tugging anachronistic monarchist elites might scream, any such action would now be unthinkable, and its enabling provisions should be repealed.

There are many other such outdated Constitutional minutiae that would merit from reform, but not at the risk of indigestion within the electorate.

We asked ourselves in a referendum to be generous in response to a gracious request from people who were treated wrongly when this nation was established and who continue to suffer as a consequence.

But the majority of us felt too worried about ourselves and the cost of living and we didn't feel we could be generous in this way.

What our government now needs to ask itself is how it can make us feel less selfish, and more generous again.

One way I suggest is that it could seriously modify the tax breaks it has planned to make to the rich and to massively raise the income support and resources available to the less well-off members of our communities.

I think this might make us all feel more generous again, and reconnected, as one, into this whole and vibrant country we call Australia.

Vladimir Putin's government has called for an immediate ceasefire between the Hamas and Israel.

Might I suggest that Russia's "peace-making" efforts be directed towards Ukraine, a war which his discredited regime initiated without any provocation.

As Israel prepares to invade Gaza will it follow the example of the Israelite prophet Joshua who God told to put the city of Ai to the sword? 12,000 were killed, its king included. It was looted and burnt to the ground. All in order to take land that was not theirs.

While we ponder how to respect and honour our First Nations people we seem to be standing beside the USA while it supports Israel's war against the Indigenous people of Palestine.

If Jesus had been preaching "peace and good will to all" in the recent referendum the "no" case would have demanded equal time.

Trevor Willis asks: "Is there any particular reason why the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands flags fly alongside the Australian national flag?" (Letters October 17). Does he not know about the First Nations who we acknowledge as its traditional owners with ancestral ties to it for many, many generations?

When will the press stop referring to Senator Jacinta Price as a "National Party senator"? She is not. She is a Country Liberal Party (CLP) senator, representing the Northern Territory, who sits in the National Party room while in Canberra.

Good on you, Ian Morison, (those blasted plebs) I think we barrack for the same side. But I hope you didn't waste that champagne.

Athol Morris (Letters, October 18) says Israel has made "many attempts" to negotiate a two-state solution. Does that include the facilitation since 1967 of hundreds of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories? I wonder how that looks from the point of view of a Palestinian?

Pope's "Terra nullius" cartoon (October 18) just about says it all. Tens of thousands of years of living here; their land rudely misappropriated by European land-grabbers; and, to cap it all off, modern Australia refuses to redress the egregious wrong. I guess we can all go back to "fat, dumb and happy" now.

Australian voters were not given the opportunity to support recognition in the constitution (unless we voted "yes" to the Voice). General elections are due within 18 months. Surely the political parties can agree on a recognition referendum to occur at the same time?

To all the "yes" voters still trying to come to grips with what happened on Saturday, and who are trying to explain it away as the result of racism, misinformation or no education I just say "look at the scoreboard".