File this one under 'the more things change the more they stay the same'. On this day in 1971, the front page carried a report of more than 1000 people signing a petition complaining about the lack of parking at Manuka shops.
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Manuka newsagent, Mr C Crossley, and other businesspeople of the inner south retail area had organised it and Mr P. Daley of Flinders Way was manning the signature desk.
At the time, Manuka pulled "people from all over Canberra" and the common complaint was that people had to drive around the shops "five or six times" before finding a park.
Sound familiar? Yes, we're looking at you Braddon, and yes, you too still Manuka.
Also making news, and also with a sad familiarity, was plain old, hard-to-comprehend vandalism. A cute little boy, Julian England, 8, was captured holding up a small tree torn out of the ground at his neighbourhood park in Cook.
It was the fifth time these gum trees had been scattered around the park between Oakes Street and Lyttleton Crescent. Each time the Department of the Interior had replanted them, only to have them ripped out again in the dead of night.
"They're playing games with us," Julian's mother told The Canberra Times. "We're just afraid that the Government won't replant them".
See: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/11956404
