These committed, traditional farmers have been stripped of their right to own their homes and infrastructure, which they have worked hard to build and create.

After being told 19 months ago through a letter from the then planning minister Mick Gentleman that 25 year leases would be negotiated within a few months, the farmers have received no written information of progress since. No security, no ownership of what they have worked hard to build, no written contact from the ACT government providing them with assurance for their future.

Meanwhile, Minister for Finance Senator Katy Gallagher gives an "in principle support" for some decisions to be made on a small section of Defence land that overlays the ACT government farm land in the valley.

It is time the ACT Labor government made a decision on the land the ACT government owns in the Majura Valley, and remove the mental anguish the 20-year wait is now imposing on these innocent constituents who are now struggling with this appalling situation.

Since 2005, six farmers in the Majura Valley have died while waiting for this decision to be made. Twenty years of stress is enough.

The Prime Minister exhorted us to kindness in his acceptance speech. It was a new and very welcome word in political parlance.

It is very sad, disappointing and frankly astonishing to see him collaborating with the Coalition on this outrageous and inhumane immigration bill. It will further penalise and brutalise powerless and stateless refugees, forcing them to chose between returning to their country of origin where they face serious persecution and maybe death or to be imprisoned indefinitely in Australia.

Alan Shroot (Letters, March 27) speaks of "established links" between UNRWA and Hamas, yet everyone from the Israeli government and the US State Department, to gullible contributors to these pages, can't point to a single shred of evidence to support this spurious claim aside from a series of confessions tortured out of UNRWA workers.

Is this the same UNRWA whose staff are regularly vetted by Israel?

UNRWA students in Gaza were expected to learn in an environment of displacement, dispossession and a blockade that severely curtailed the health, well-being and opportunities of everyone they knew and loved.

It's likely that having classmates shot by Israeli snipers, relatives squashed by tanks, their homes destroyed by two-thousand-pound bombs, or any other of the litany of documented war crimes committed by the IDF, has contributed significantly more to any animosity felt by Palestinian children towards the state of Israel than any textbook.

Anti-Semitism is conflating Zionism and Judaism. Anti-Semitism is being a wilfully ignorant parrot of propaganda spewed out by the fascist Israeli state. Anti-Semitism is supporting the actions of a fascist state that will have negative repercussions for Jews everywhere for generations to come.

I am deeply ashamed of Australian government leaders. Life for all of us is about deciding between competing rights, within the family, within the community and within the world. Australia is supporting Israel's right to defend attacks on its sovereignty above all other rights existing in the same region. On the contrary, I believe Australians believe in the right for people to get a fair go and children not to starve above the rights of a rich nation with fears cemented way back in WWII.

"Having it both ways" (Letters, March 23), gives a voice that opposes the Hamas version of the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict, recognising fact not fiction. Facts are, Hamas undertook a brutal terrorist attack in Israeli on October 7, killed, maimed and tortured over 1200 Israelis, raped and sexually assaulted women and girls.

Israel, as is its right, launched a counterattack against Hamas - not against the unarmed civilian population - and issues warnings when it is targeting terrorists.

But this is where the waters muddy, seriously. You cannot successfully fight a conventional war with a conventional army against ruthless terrorists who are difficult to identify, embed themselves in the local civilian population, hide under hospitals, schools and other civilian buildings and use their own citizens as shields.

No decent human being, irrespective of race or creed, wants to see the bloodied, emaciated bodies of children, victims to a war they did not choose to be part of, paraded on TV, to help Hamas, a brutal terrorist organisation, win the propaganda war.

Smart weapons can only go so far in targeting terrorists and unfortunately there are many, far too many, unnecessary victims, who are among the 70 per cent of Palestinians who support Hamas, recognised internationally as a terrorist organisation, as their elected government.

The old adage sums up this conflict succinctly: "In war, truth is the first casualty."

Taxes do not finance federal spending. To reiterate, taxes do not underwrite federal expenditures. Parliament possesses the constitutional authority to create new money, which it exercises for all federal spending. Taxes, once collected by the Treasury, are not reused within the economy as they are unnecessary. With Parliament's ability to generate new currency, borrowing is redundant. Why borrow when you have the power to create money?

Understanding this, one realises that claims of insufficient funds for public expenditure are misleading, serving only to justify austerity and to instil fear.

As a sovereign nation with currency-issuing capabilities, Australia can adequately finance all necessary social and environmental reforms.

Australia has sufficient resources to support universal healthcare that includes dental healthcare, to transition swiftly to renewable energy to mitigate climate change, to refurbish infrastructure, to provide food for the needy, to shelter the homeless, to enhance social security, and to ensure a federal job guarantee. We can rectify our current predicament by informing politicians that we are aware of the truth.

In response to Margaret Lancaster's letter (March 27), I have decided to confess that I am a regular user of what Margaret describes as "foul language". As a person who is readily able to adapt my language for people to understand what I am saying, I possess a broad vocabulary, which includes a repertoire of swear words.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I use alternate language when meeting with "suits" in formalised environments, as in contrast to the language I use within the comfort of certain friends and family members.

Personally, I can't see anything wrong with this; I do not offend people who speak a non-profane language; I merely choose my words with care and precision, depending on my audience.

To quote Neel Burton (author of Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions), "The health benefits of swearing include increased circulation, elevated endorphins and an overall sense of calm, control and well-being."

Therefore, I choose to enjoy the health benefits associated with my "foul language", and Margaret can maintain her opposition to it. In essence, I think I've made a bloody good point.

Now we finally have the real reason the Barr government is so bent on eradicating kangaroos from our nature reserves: they are in the same category as dogs, cats and foxes - an invasive species.

So shoot them, bring in the introduced sheep, horses and cattle to try and graze the rank grass now growing.

Take a look along Majura Parkway, where once kangaroos did the work now being asked of cattle and horses. And I note yet again the government has had to send in the slasher to slash the several kilometres of grassy verges behind Hawkesbury Crescent homes facing the Farrer Ridge Reserve.

And I continue to walk in vain along those verges, hoping that a few of the families of kangaroos that were such a delight to walkers can still be found. But no, in three years since the 2021 cull up there, the number I saw there in those three years I can count on one hand.

This is not culling, this is extermination and now we know how that is justified - they are an invasive species. In that case, why is the kangaroo on the national coat of arms.

Someone got it seriously wrong it seems. This will make us the laughing stock of the whole world, if it were not so serious.

Letters to the editor should be kept to 250 or fewer words. To the Point letters should not exceed 50 words. Reference to The Canberra Times reports should include a date and page number. Provide a phone number and address (only your suburb will be published).

Responsibility for election comment is taken by John-Paul Moloney of 121 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra. Published by Federal Capital Press of Australia Pty Ltd.