The Molonglo Valley is already a great place in which to live

We've been Coombs residents for over three years. Moving to the suburb from the inner south has literally been a breath of fresh air. Surrounded by reserves and parkland, the close proximity to nature encourages people to be active, and they are.

Excellent urban design encourages residents to participate in outdoor and leisure activities, and in so doing meet other people.

The Suburban Land Agency (SLA), through its "Mingle" community development program has fostered a wonderful sense of community, something that was completely lacking in the suburb we moved from.

We know most of our neighbours, and thanks to an active Neighbourhood Watch, people look out for each other.

Sure, there are apartment blocks adjacent to arterial roads, sensibly next to public transport and possibly justifying the light rail in future years.

We can't all have (or want) quarter acre blocks, but the further away from the arterial roads you go, the larger the blocks are for those who want them.

The Molonglo Valley will experience growing pains. Additional shops and community facilities are coming, and as the trees grow our suburbs will offer all that the older suburbs currently offer, plus more.

What a disgrace to see Scott Morrison snivelling over Australian deaths in Afghanistan which successive Australian governments were directly responsible for.

We were not in Afghanistan protecting our country, our interests or our values.

We were in Afghanistan to serve the interests of USA warmongers and their weapons sales. The only thing we created there were thousands of displaced refugees.

There is no pride to be claimed from the "lethal violence" our ADF members sprayed around Afghanistan; only shame and disgrace for another failed war to protect weapons profits.

Morrison shames us all.

Our hearts must go out to the victims of the Afghan conflict, including the combatants killed or injured.

But it is well to reflect on the war itself. It is now only a matter of time until the Taliban takes power. Despite the effort and cost over two decades, we lost.

When will we ever learn that military might doesn't win hearts and minds? But then winning was never our objective, in a distant war that was never ours.

Participation is the premium we cynically pay for United States protection against enemies that never would be ours if we were truly a peaceful and independent nation.

The ABC recently ran a story about Google maps incorrectly showing the locations of some outback towns in Queensland.

It is not only remote parts of Australia that have problems with Google maps. On Mount Majura/Mount Ainslie the name "Mount Majura Mature (sic) Reserve is shown in the northern part of Hackett. The term "nature" is correctly used elsewhere.

The Ainslie Transfer Station is shown, but this closed in April 1990.

Phillip Avenue is shown extending into the Mt Ainslie Reserve near the transfer station. It also shows this road extending up the mountain to join the Mt Ainslie summit road.

I am sure there are many more examples across the ACT which have minor errors and create problems for interstate visitors. Perhaps the ACT government could compile a list of corrections and send to Google?

Another private business, a franchise in this case, is struggling and its owners and customers want ACT ratepayers to bail it out.

Like all businesses it has three choices (four if you include going out of business): improve the product to attract more customers; reduce costs; or increase prices.

ACT tax and ratepayers should have no role in subsidising a private school.

Perhaps our PM would like to have another shouting performance in Parliament?

Christine Holgate had the authority to use quite a sum of money on bonuses etc as CEO. She spent $20,000 in total to reward executives who had earned over $200 million for Aussie Post.

Now we hear 83 per cent of Nursing Homes are for profit. It was John Howard who introduced this appalling policy. I believe these for-profit homes are not sufficiently well regulated to account for the expenditure of large amounts of taxpayer funds. Why not?

We now hear that St Basil aged care home in Melbourne, where 45 residents died of COVID-19, did not provide enough PPE or sanitiser. There was a shortage of food for residents even before the pandemic.

Do we know know how the home is run now?

A lot of aged care residents put their life savings into their care homes.

Mr Morrison, please have an inquiry into where the enormous amount of government funding for aged care is going in these for-profit homes.

After reading Nicholas Stuart's "China, the West and a new world" (April 12, p39) I wanted to thank him for urging us all, as he does, to try and get into a different headspace in order to understand the modern world.

By making us think about the importance of human rights as being seen as an alternative to some basic material needs, like for a roof over our heads, he encourages us to see how a more "communitarian" way of thinking might go in China.

He reminds us to reflect on the poverty we allow in some of our remote Indigenous communities.

Then we might read Kate Colvin's excellent piece, "Australia needs a major injection of affordable housing", (April 12, p28), and particularly of the ease with which the people of Singapore accept government-provided housing, and we might think more about Australia.

We might begin to see that if our government refuses to provide affordable housing, our own precious democracy could be challenged with authoritarian or communitarian ideas becoming more popular.

Laurelle Atkinson (Letters, April 15) says it's only Israeli PM Netanyahu, not his country, that is concerned about the Iran nuclear deal. These concerns are not just Netanyahu's. They are the broad consensus in Israel, and have been voiced by many other Israeli political leaders, including the main opposition leader to Netanyahu, Yair Lapid. They are also shared by many other (Arab) countries across the region.

The only "law" apparently needed to fix the Coombs Shopping Centre debacle ("Law reversal to prevent more empty centres", April 13, p.9), is one to mandate architecture and landscaping that respects and enhances the local environment, while delighting the eye.

The developer of this mind-numbingly dull piece of architecture has apparently gone out its way to produce what some might describe as a dog of a building, almost completely devoid of landscaping.

It would no doubt send most prospective tenants into a rapid tyre-burning u-turn outa there.

From a town planning aspect, as in long-suffering Giralang, there would seem to be a need for a convenient retail development of the envisaged nature and scale, in the subject location, to meet the needs of locals and those passing through, as an alternative to the ubiquitous mega centre, with its time-consuming underground car park, and windowless concourses, being built across wide and busy John Gorton Drive, in Wright.

More verve and panache would get things going in Coombs.

Professor Sunderesh Heragu's suggestion of drive-through vaccination centres ("Drive-through clinics could vaccinate Canberra in days", April 16, p3) seems like a good idea. However, I see two potentially serious problems.

How are elderly people - who are among the most susceptible to coronavirus infection, but are no longer permitted to drive - to take advantage of drive-through vaccination? The only options I can see are taking an expensive taxi or Uber ride, or relying on the generosity of a relative or friend.

The second problem is parking. A parking lot with space to accommodate 500 cars reserved for the use of 'post-jab' users would require at least 0.836 hectares of vacant land, more than sufficient for 8 suburban houses. I dare say there are very few, if any, areas of unused land of this size in Canberra.

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