Barnaby Joyce should represent Australia at COP26 Glasgow climate summit

No worries mate. The reinstated Deputy Prime Minister, who's been revelling in his job as mouthpiece for the government in the PM's absence, would be a far better choice.

Barnaby Joyce has come down heavily on the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who wants further modelling that includes unvaccinated children before she will commit to the Doherty Institute's plan.

"Obviously the Premier has decided that she knows better than the Doherty Institute. ... I didn't know she was an immunologist. I didn't know she was so expert in virology. I didn't know her epidemiology was so up to speed that she's prepared to put her views ahead of the Doherty Institute and send people broke," Joyce declared.

Who better to represent us at a meeting about the most dangerous man-made threat to the planet since humans started pillaging it than Barnaby Joyce?

He is a man who now has demonstrated his recognition that experts are there to be heeded and as such, will be the strongest voice for science apart from the scientists themselves.

Finally we might get some action. What a relief.

Australia is deciding its policy on the vital question of climate change which will affect each and every one of our lives and the lives of generations to come.

So, is there a national summit on the question; is there a reconvening of the Parliament to debate the issue?

No, there is a meeting between those two intellectual giants Scomo and Barnaby which will be more of a horse-trading exercise than anything else.

The result of that horse-trading session will then be presented to the world as Australia's contribution to solving the issue of climate change.

As we're so often reminded, it's lucky we live in a democracy.

Our hustler-in-chief has now decreed "It's important that we do move forward. We can't stay in second gear. We've got to get to top gear in living with the virus ...".

Yet the PM is slow to even jump start the engine on targeting 2050 and 2030 climate crisis mitigation action, which would enable us to join the race on avoiding unbearable global heating and its catastrophic impacts ("PM trip in doubt as Nationals hold out on net zero", canberratimes.com.au, September 28).

He and his lemming-like colleagues will leave us and other species to roast on earth as long as their petty partisan politicking, stoked with more than a hint of libertarian laziness, prevents Australia from revving up its responses to this worsening national and global threat.

We will all soon be widely exposed to COVID-19.

I'm confident most of us will survive although we will all be touched in different ways.

Coming out of lockdown is both fraught and to be celebrated; not so much about freedom as pragmatism and resilience.

We need an uncontroversial, apolitical, inspirational meme for such a beautiful time and our perpetual struggle.

May I suggest "Diamonds in the sky".

The astronomy student who wrote "Chlorophyll: the star of the show in our earthly presentation" (canberratimes.com.au, September 26) article would have us believe that chlorophyll "evolved".

Molecules are formed from the joining of atoms as the product of chemical reactions that have naturally occurred in nature or are discovered or created by humans.

Living things evolve by mutation, either positively or negatively. Once a particular molecule observably exists, then it exists and does not "evolve" into or out of existence.

Most plants evolved as they are because "green" chlorophyll was around and was useful for proto-plants to evolve from the primeval soup. I'm happy to be corrected by a professional biochemist, of course, though Bible literalists need not comment.

You're right Murray May (Letters, September 29), Michael White (Letters, September 28) owes more to ScoMo-style spin than anything the ALP can come up with.

Let me clarify Michael's point straight by paraphrasing: "we pay more rates, and that allows timely filling of potholes etc and that improves the value of our homes, which makes rate increases a very good thing".

So, if we wish to realise this new value and change houses but stay local - because Canberra is so wonderful, thanks to the high rates - we get to pay more stamp duty as well on the increased value of the new place.

I feel blessed that I can be fleeced on all fronts.

With yet another audit exposing what a waste of public money the ACT government's tram project is (a report that will, no doubt, be ignored like the first one), it was interesting to find an academic study that rationalises such behaviour.

The paper published by social scientists at the University of Oslo - Autocrats and Skyscrapers: Modern White Elephants in Dictatorships found political leaders often have private incentives to pursue expensive and socially wasteful "white elephant" projects, inasmuch as they seek to impress their own populations.

The authors suggest weak accountability mechanisms allow autocratic leaders to more easily realise such projects. Democratic leaders are more constrained from doing so.

The ACT government is essentially a democratically elected autocracy in that its members know there is little or no chance of it ever losing office and as such it can indulge itself funding white elephants with impunity.

As the ACT audit has shown the tram is one such pachyderm. I suggest the attendant corridors of high-rise buildings along the tram route are another.

I write in support of Fr Tony Percy, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, and his suggestion that restrictions around church services should be relaxed ("Police warn priests they are breaking the law", August 18, p16).

I concur with Fr Percy that these services fulfil people's spiritual, psychological and mental health needs, particularly during periods of tension and lockdown.

I used to drop into St Benedict's Church, Narrabundah, after work on Fridays, and generally one or two people would already be there paying their respects. On the Friday evening after September 11 there were five or six people already there, an hour later 30 people and by about 8pm numbers had swelled to about 80.

About August 22 I started viewing the 10.30am service online from St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney; it attracted about 1000 viewers at that time. Last Sunday there were 2070 viewers. Five people were waiting shortly before the service started a few weeks ago; 1049 were waiting at the same time on Sunday.

In times of tension and uncertainty, people who believe in God know where to find comfort, hope and reassurance.

The government could consider relaxing restrictions on weekday services. They are not well attended but still a source of great comfort, and there would be no danger of COVID-19 spreading from them; Canberrans have a much greater risk of catching it at supermarkets, as Fr Percy correctly noted. Holding larger services on weekends are more problematic at this stage of the virus in the ACT.

M. Flint was right on the money when he wrote: "Adding $98 million already committed for planning gives a cost of $538 million. This is much more than the $268 million cited in the Auditor-General's report. What a bargain for 1.7 km of line" (Letters, September 28).

Barely used boondoggles like the light rail are not the future. It is all-weather charging stations for electric vehicles that the ACT government should be investing in; and whatever peripherals.

But gradual and affordable extension of the existing light rail system could in time turn right on the south side of Capital Hill, stop at the Acton Peninsula's world-class godawful museum and then head on to Woden via the lower slopes of Black Mountain; at sufficient altitude to give passengers and tourists a stunning view of the city.

If the light-rail boondoggle must go ahead, Woden should be accessed via a bridge over the Molonglo below Scrivener Dam, leaving the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge uncomplicated and uncluttered.

The refusal to grant a visa to little Tharnicaa is sheer, bloody-minded cruelty. What possible danger could a two-year-old pose to Australia? The only possible reason the family is being kept behind bars is to placate the racist element in Dutton's electorate.

I share deeply Stuart Robert's "heartbreak" at Christian Porter's resignation. But my heartbreak is the confirmation that our Australian government leaders have now shed any skerrick of integrity (if this particular crew ever had any).

Shares are now catching up with reality.

Back in the 1980s Australia and Sweden were the first nations to publish a national strategy to protect the ozone layer. Environment minister Ros Kelly then signed up to the Montreal Protocol in 1987. We would be so much better off if Australia could provide the same sort of leadership at Glasgow.

The report "ATAGI 'shocked' by PM blame" (September 30, p7) is yet another example of Prime Minister Morrison's habit of shifting the blame away from himself. If Mr Morrison wishes to demonstrate leadership, he should heed the words of President Harry S. Truman, who often said "The buck stops here", and had a desk sign displaying those same words.

We have had many international meetings on climate issues. I hope the meeting in Glasgow does not become another talkfest.

ScoMo's great at having a plan to have a plan and then not delivering on anything. How good is that.

So Malcolm Turnbull says that under Scott Morrison "Australia will act honestly, unless it's judged in our national interest to deceive". Morrison is only following the example of Australia which, in 2004, deceived East Timor. Oh what a tangled web we weave ...

Now there are mutterings of 90 per cent vaccination before we all finally leave lockdown and borders between states reopen. Personally, if not satirically, why not 110 per cent; the entire population of the Shire of Australia and 10 per cent of New Guineans?

In refusing to mandate vaccinations for disability support workers and hospital staff, the Chief Minister seems to be prioritising individual human rights over collective human rights. Is this justifiable?

So Peter Dutton thinks people should keep their word? What should we follow, his advice or his example?