Well it won't do. Of a Sunday morning there is not a nicer place to go for coffee and raisin toast or whatever else takes your fancy. About 9.30 the bell ringers at St. Paul's set about reminding the faithful they have duties to attend to. Further up Franklin Street, at St. Christopher's, their bell ringers take up the challenge and remind their faithful there are other places of worship available, theirs in particular.

Before long, up on the hill, the Presbyterians at St. Andrews, have had enough of the Sassenachs and their bell ringers set to with a will.

Ah yes, it is all there at Manuka on a Sunday morning. Nourishment for the body and the soul as you sit in the sun soaking it all up, despite the constant reminders that it is a while since you attended church. Still, next Sunday perhaps.

No, Professor Rubenstein ("Stories to be told around 'Palace Letters' High Court judgement", June 1, p16) the Mabo case did not finally right the legal fiction of terra nullius.

After all, you can't right something that didn't exist and hasn't an accepted legal definition. Neither Captain Cook, Governor Phillip, the drafters of our constitution nor members of the High Court had heard of the expression until 1979 when Aboriginal lawyer Paul Coe borrowed it from an International Court of Justice advisory opinion relating to the Western Sahara.

In a High Court case claiming compensation for Aborigines, Coe ham-fistedly claimed that Australia had not been terra nullius when British sovereignty was asserted. Unfortunately for Coe, nobody had said it was.

It is all explained in Michael Connor's The Invention of Terra Nullius (Macleay Press, 2005) and reviewed in The Canberra Times on May 25, 2006.

I have often thought of myself as one of the first environmental believers, remembering around 70 years ago how aghast I was at trees being torn down but no one seemingly caring. These days the people who complain about these issues are very unconvincing.

I submit that this goody-goody tone does not work. Look at the nasty people in our society, the two young males walking past our house eating junk and simply dropping the containers on the footpath. These are the types we need to convince.

How? A small starting point might be to make all businesses that sell items wrapped in eventual garbage liable for that garbage. Plastic bags, for example, must include the name of the manufacturer and a sizable fine be imposed on that manufacturer when a bag is found floating about unclaimed.

Of course, everyone needs to be told that if junk food prices go up it is their own fault; ownership. And of course as I approach my eightieth year maybe I am just an unrealistic oldie.

When it comes to the recent response to police killing in the US, we can just hope history doesnt repeat itself.

A prescient peer reviewed article in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology published online last December investigated the aftermaths of 700 racial uprisings between 1960 and 1980. Employing a modelling approach, they showed that these uprisings were followed by an increase in civilian deaths by police intervention regardless of race in the short term; and a seemingly permanent increase in non-white deaths over the long term. Has US the sufficient and necessary leadership to change the course of history? Or will bad news from the US get even worse?

I love Canberra and its Times. I moved to Darwin last year and still enjoy reading the Times to stay in touch with my old home.

It's frustrating to find that a small number of Canberrans still love to fill these pages with very familiar anti-light rail messages.

They never take into account the jobs created, the cars never bought, the comfy trips taken, the memories made. The accessibility bonus. The ease of using light rail with a bike. That it's been much more popular since day one than anybody expected. They pick at the rationale for something that opened ages ago instead of pushing the ACT Government to do even better.

They always neglect to mention the reason that the tram still makes me smile from 3000km away: Canberrans are calmly using a transport system run on 100 per cent renewable energy every day.

It's proof to the rest of the country that it can be done. And all this in a capital that hosts a climate-science denying, fossil fuel-obsessed federal government just up the road.

The light rail has been built. It's not going anywhere. And it is a delight. I would like to ask the remaining objectors to please focus their considerable time and energy on more pressing issues.

The ACT government Age Friendly City Plan tells me: "The principles in the Vision guided the development of this work, providing the basis for the consultation forums that were held throughout 2019.

"These forums built on what we heard through the Survey, bringing together community members and representatives of community agencies and government services to develop solutions to address the barriers that older people face.

"The Age-Friendly City Plan is organised under the same four focus areas as the Vision. Each focus area has designated outcomes, actions and indicators for achievement. It is holistic, intersecting across areas including health, public transport, human rights and planning."

I'm old. Please, can someone, perhaps younger, tell me what the ACT government is trying to say there?

The PM has outlined what he wants post pandemic. This is what Australians don't want.

Country people don't want droughts starving livestock, withering crops and sending dust storms through nearby towns.

City people don't want to breathe toxic smoke or succumb to heatwaves. And no one wants wildfires, taking lives, destroying forests, killing wildlife; and we don't want our special places, like the Great Barrier Reef, degraded by pollution and warming seawater.

These have all happened in the past year. They are symptoms of the climate crisis we are living through, and unlike COVID-19, they won't go away, they will get worse.

PM, what Australians want is a strong economy and a healthy environment. Is that too much to ask?

Jack Waterford comments that "The PM has all the flexibility he needs" (p22, 30 May, CT) but Jack obviously suspects that payments to displaced people might be run down very soon and that welfare for the unemployed will be returned to 'starvation levels'.

This can make us sad, especially when we read about Spain's recent introduction of a guaranteed minimum income or GMI.

According to the 'EUobserver' (29 May) the "minimum income will be firstly applied to vulnerable households with dependent children" and the government has estimated that this will cost the Spanish government three billion euro per year and will assist 850,000 households in severe poverty.

The Spanish minister for social security has been reported as assuring those households that the scheme will be compatible with paid work so in no way will it be a deterrent to their search for employment.

We want our governments to trust us, to do away with the suspicion and meanness expressed in 'robo-debt' and to acknowledge that, given a reassurance that we will have resources for basic food and shelter in challenging times, you can rely on us to do our best to rebuild Australia after the trauma of this pandemic.

I'm sorry if it's shrubbery on my property in O'Connor which is inconveniencing my neighbours Ferguson and Downie as they walk past on the footpath. Equally, I trust they are not the vandals who break branches on the wattles, or rip them off the oaks on the nature strip and dump them on the footpath.

I wouldn't mind if people dropped a note in the letter box, or complained to the Rangers or even carried a pair of secateurs and did some plant - friendly snipping.

But just damaging an offending plant seems a bit off. It's a bit like kicking dogs or children that get in your way.

Japan has had bullet trains in operation for 56 years - and now even has a bullet train museum. What a sad indictment that is of our political decision makers.

Yes, John Milne (CT, June 1), we have ScoMo and BoJo, and don't forget Albo. But DoTru for Trump? I think the world would breath easier if he was replaced by Groucho, Harpo and Chico.

The Prime Minister said in announcing the abolition of COAG that its replacement, the national cabinet, will operate under cabinet rules. Yeah, sure! It's just too far fetched to believe that concepts like cabinet confidentiality, cabinet solidarity and collective responsibility will hold firm once we're truly over the current crisis. Cabinet rules - I give it less than six months.

President Trump is making America great again. Sad.

2016: "Make America Great Again".

2020: Are we there yet?

In 2016 Bill Shorten described the future President of the Dysfunctional States of America as 'Barking Mad'. Tell me he was wrong with his assessment.

Bravo, Rod Holesgrove (Letters, June 2), it's well past time that Australia ditched the monarchy. But if past lessons weren't enough, surely current events in the US illustrate beyond any doubt the inherent dysfunction of a directly (or indirectly in the US case) elected head of state. The only safe method of appointment is by a two-thirds vote of the combined houses of parliament.

Forget Virgin Australia. Its restructure will likely be opportunistic, inadequate, expensive, and short-lived. Let's go with Qantas and Air New Zealand - operating in both countries and overseas, competitively, profitably, and extensively (part of the trans-Tasman "bubble").

Dear PM Morrison and Minister Roberts.

You were warned, you were warned, you were warned. You ignored, you ignored, you ignored. You failed, you failed, you failed. You might say that the scheme was 'legally insufficient'. Shame on you. The time for an apology is now.

The people who claim that the COVID-19 pandemic is a scam ("Rallies claim virus a 'scam' as rules ease", May 31, p10) are displaying a 'Trumpian' reaction to inconvenient news.

In spite of overwhelming evidence, there are still delusional or paranoid people who deny the bleeding obvious. It would not surprise me if a large share of these denialists live in 'Trumperica'.

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attachment. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to The Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).

To send a letter via the online form, click or touch here.