The monument somehow seems even more forlorn and ignored than the famous morose shag. What's more, the orphaned monument suffers indignities, like having drink cans stood on it and bubblegum stuck to it, no shag ever has to endure. But now, as we are about to report, the monument is having some attention paid to it.

Quite right too, because the monument's shagonarockness is especially sad when one thinks of its historical significance to Canberra. Once upon a time, on that day in 1913 when it was put in place and when Lady Denman stood atop it (pictured) on a special platform to announce the name chosen for the federal capital city, it was at the centre of the nation's attentions. If you really love this city then the monument should matter a lot to you.

And just to digress for a moment and to bring some cheering news ahead of discussion of the mournful monument, reader Jenny Stokes rejoices that the new(ish) Lyneham Wetlands are receiving an important endorsement. If you create it, they will come.

"Here are some photos my husband, David Jones, took of four pelicans who have stayed on Lake Lyne (aka Lyneham Wetland) over recent days. It's lovely to watch them patrolling the banks for frogs (less lovely for the frogs) and cruising the open water ... it's good to see that habitat maturing."

But now back to the woebegone monument. Usually out of sight (a speck in the immensity of the Mall's great meadow) and out of mind, it is getting a little, rare attention. Its sad shagonarockery is being addressed by the National Capital Authority. There is a new Commencement Column Monument Draft Heritage Management Plan. It has just been released for public comment and is on the Public Consultation page of the NCA's website at www.nationalcapital.gov.au.

Let this Canberra loyalist remind you of what this monument, today just a bubblegum-magnet, means to this city. It is made up of the Foundation Stones of a planned grand Commencement Column (in historian Dr David Headon's words "proclaiming the new national city as imperial, national and federal") that has never been built. On that great day in March 1913, before Lady Denman's pronouncement of the city's name, the terrific foundation stones were ceremonially laid, to await the day when they had a column, an obelisk, to support.

Headon reports that "The Minister for Home Affairs, King O'Malley, made sure he emphasised the theatrical elements of the day. O'Malley presented [Governor-General] Lord Denman with a 'golden trowel', personally inscribed as a keepsake of the occasion, and asked him to lay the first foundation stone."

Although removed while new Parliament House was being built, the stones were afterwards put back in the place (up on what, in 1913, was Kurrajong Hill) where they had been installed with some pomp but also some Aussie informality. In the famous silent 1913 footage of the occasion you can see working class dogs, off-leash, rambling around the ankles of the potentates.

The NCA's Draft Heritage Management Plan is posted for you to read. Its Constraints and Opportunities section agonises over what, if anything, can be done (with something so remotely placed and so lacking in visual sexiness) to bring it in from the cold and into the affections of us all (tourists and Canberrans alike). Even the poor thing's officious official name (Commencement Column Monument!) is a libido crusher.

The plan's discussion of the monument's condition lists its various stains, scarrings and blemishes. There is algae and even a little lichen "on the southern and south-eastern faces". It has had candle wax melted on to it and bubblegum gummed to it. But of course, were the thing revered and more reverently displayed, the bubblegum-gumming classes wouldn't dream of mistreating it.

And draft plan ideas for embracing the monument include dreaming of the day when, perhaps, an actual obelisk, as originally imagined, may be added to the existing base. At the moment the semi-sacred spot is ignored (by, among others, tourism operators) in part because it's hard to see. A column would make it loom large. Although then of course, the draft plan discussion muses, there might be objections to it of the kind there were when a proposed, tall, 100 Years of Women's Suffrage installation was proposed for the very same Mall where the monument today so inoffensively squats.

Other ideas discussed in the draft plan include staging more ceremonies at the monument, some flattering signage, and the nocturnal illumination of it. At the moment its shag-like plight is made even more poignant by the way everything else in the Triangle is illuminated for Enlighten. It lurks in the shadows, like a shag on a rock in the night.

Readers, what are we going to do with our monument? Ideas, please. One comes across such ingenuity and gaiety in Canberra's young artists, designers and thinkers that it will be a shame if the only people who notice and respond to the NCA's shy and poorly-publicised request for comments are the usual noisy old bean-counting fogeys of the Canberra Taliban.

An information session about the draft plan will be held on Monday,March 16, at noon at the NCA offices. RSVP to heritage@natcap.gov.au or call (02) 6271 2888.