Albanese should confront the issue of the treaty head on

He points only to treaty work already underway in some states. It would be better to confront this issue head on as Professor Megan Davis has done in the current Quarterly Essay.

She points out that treaties in other countries early in the colonisation period were supposedly international covenants between independent sovereign states. This situation does not apply today in Australia.

The UN special rapporteur on treaties cautioned against adopting a narrow definition of a treaty, and indeed the Voice could be considered an innovative type of treaty.

Without the Voice it would be difficult to determine who the Commonwealth negotiates treaties with leading to irreconcilable power differences in negotiations.

Perhaps the government could undertake to legislate, following the referendum, that one of the functions of the Voice is to negotiate an appropriate form of treaty with the Commonwealth?

We are told by "yes" advocates that the Voice is needed to end indigenous disadvantage. We are told this is the last chance to save the situation. We are told we will be pilloried on the international stage if we vote "no".

But without clear details of what is proposed and sensible limitations on its power, the Voice will, in fact, just be the beginning. The beginning of claims for more power, more restrictions on land use, a treaty, sovereignty, and reparations. This will seriously divide Australia in favour of 3.8 per cent of our population.

So, we should ask: Is the voice the path to a better Australia for all?

Nev Sheather (Letters, August 2) suggests reading Dark Emu in regards to controlled burns by first nations people to prevent uncontrolled bushfires.

I would suggest reading The Biggest Estate On Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia by Bill Gammage.

It is a scientific look at the subject and less controversial than Dark Emu but also a fascinating read.

In June the federal Greens made a snap move to underpin LNP Senator Mat Canavan's interventionist and religious belief-inspired bill about the public management of a public hospital in Canberra, and the associated setting up of a senate inquiry into this bill.

While all this was considered by some to be a likely and convenient outcome of a deal having being done between the federal Greens and the Opposition on another particular housing matter now able to be pursued by the Greens, the ACT Greens very quickly fell into line. They agreed to this set of anti-ACT rights shenanigans before issuing some weak technical and other process-linked excuses and then fleeing for the doona.

Just as quickly, they have emerged again, blinking, as the bells started tolling for the federal Greens' reissued standoff over the Housing Australia Future Fund legislation at the end of July.

The ACT Greens' new announcement of a poorly thought through and inadequately explained rent-freeze and rent-cap bill for application across the ACT might earn them credit from their federal parliamentary party.

But more astute local voters are likely to just as quickly write off the Greens at the next territory and federal elections.

When Albanese was elected he said he wanted to be able to look back on his time in politics and think he had done good.

Well, hopefully he's seen that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has declared the arrival of "the era of global boiling", after scientists confirmed July is on track to be the world's hottest month on record.

Mr Guterres also said: "Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning", and that we need "dramatic, immediate climate action" to limit global temperature rises.

If this is not enough for Albanese and his government, note that Guterres added that: "the air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses".

Why is this Labor government allowing the Beetaloo gas fracking project and many other fossil fuel projects to go ahead? Why are you not acting with desperation and determination to stop Australia being (when exports are included) one of the planet's greatest emitters of carbon dioxide?

If Albanese wants to feel confident he did good his government must start urgently acting according to science.

When the atomic bombs were unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 I was a child of nine living in the UK. I soon became aware from newspapers, the radio and cinema newsreels of the catastrophe that had descended upon the non-combatant residents of those cities in the final weeks of the war. The horrors of these war crimes were seared upon my memory where they remain to this day.

The threat of nuclear war has raised its head again at a time when the world faces the climate change crisis.

Australia must stand firm in opposing any form of nuclear rearmament, however defensive.

Humanity's best hope for survival is world wide compassionate solidarity.

Let us remember the words of John Donne: "No man is an island ... every man's death diminishes me. I am involved in mankind".

Throughout the ACT buildings have been kept at least one kilometre from the Murrumbidgee, with the exception of Tuggeranong Town Centre (400 metres in one location).

This has preserved the natural setting of the river, giving Canberrans the opportunity to visit a wild landscape close to home. You can walk along the river without seeing many signs of civilisation.

The proposed Ginninderry Riverside Park building intrudes on the river landscape as it is only 150 metres from the Murrumbidgee. This may interfere with wildlife movement along the river banks. It will compromise the view from Shepherd's Lookout.

The public were consulted, but did not ask for a 1000 square meter building or 63 vehicle car park.

All that is needed are picnic shelters, barbecues, and playground equipment for casual visitors to the river. It should be designed to blend in with the environment.

The trust office doesn't need to be near the river. It should be in the Ginninderry suburbs. This would make bushfire protection easier. Visitor centres in nature reserves and national parks are usually at the edges to minimise disturbance to the environment.

The car park should be drastically reduced in size, and a walking path alternative made available for access.

The plans do not show the location of utilities or the arrangements for sewage processing. If only day-use facilities are provided, no power lines will be required, improving the visual amenity of the park.

As parents of two small children who still carry the trauma of living through the bushfires in Bermagui, the months of smoke in Canberra; who are hyper alert about signs of smoke, and who are anxious about fire, we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Anjali Sharma and Senator David Pocock.

The "Duty of Care Bill" addresses the gap in the system that is failing our children.

To know the former government appealed a decision saying they had a duty of care to children, and succeeded, was devastating.

We should be able to have confidence that our governments will act in the best interests of future generations and long term survival.

Thank you Anjali and David for restoring our hope that the Government will finally be made to care for our future generations, for the sake of us all.

I suggest Anna Howe (Letters, July 28) who is puzzled by a surplus of men among contributors to the letters pages think about the difference retirement makes to men compared to women.

Quite a lot does not change for women who find themselves busier than ever often with beloved parents and grandchildren.

My heart leaps whenever there is a contribution from one of the kind, clever men I worked with so long ago when we created our first booklet for the 1971 Census - and came up with new data processed by a monstrous computer. So the letter writing task is taken up by men, we thank you.

How utterly predictable that the latest act in the Higgins-Lehrmann drama should be the leak of the Sofronoff findings. Let's hope that before a leak inquiry is ordered, Sir Humphrey's basic rule of never holding an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be is followed.

Actually, Matt Gately (and Ian Jannaway, Letters, July 31), pink indeed can be a good camouflage colour. The British SAS, when it operated in support of the Gulf sultanates in the 1970s, painted its Land Rovers a pastel pink, blending with the desert's hues.

As Vince Patulny (Letters, July 29) stated, if there was a publicly owned lender, the banks' behaviour might be tamed. We have a Labor treasurer, Paul Keating, to thank for privatising the Commonweath Bank in 1991 and setting in train the banks' obscene profits at the expense of customers.

Your article "Concern over C-section motives" (July 31) reminded me of a quip by US comedian Steven Wright: "I was born via C section. You don't notice anything different about me, but whenever I leave the house, I go out through the window".

If the Greens are seriously concerned about the availability of affordable housing, surely their first course of action should be to seek a sharp cut in Australia's immigrant intake.

Can someone from the "no" side please explain why it's okay for the European conquerors to unilaterally impose a constitution upon the original inhabitants who had been here for 65,000 years and then to say that giving them a non-binding advisory voice in said constitution gives them too much power?

Nev Sheather asks: "Hasn't the Church been attempting to control all aspects of human activity, trying to run people's lives?" (Letters, July 22). My answer: "Not any of the various churches that I have been associated with over the years".

Mario Stivala (Letters, July 2) says the Liberals saw the error of their ways by "pulling the pin" on the Voice. Perhaps they simply reverted to type by deciding to blow up their own credibility.

I don't think it's more listening Doug Hurst needs, Eric Hunter, (Letters, August 2). There's such a cacophony of different opinions whirling around us we should stop listening and start thinking. Many of us are wondering why 3.8 per cent of the population should be the sole arbiters of their destiny.

The rise of China is bothering the US. It probably would be even if China was a well-behaved democracy. The US is simply losing its global primacy.