I've personally used the roadway seating areas twice so far, and loved it.

However, as local businesses have complained, there's been minimal advertising on the part of the ACT government, and to the unaware, the temporary roadblocks look just like roadworks - there's no signage to advertise any kind of Manuka outdoor dining precinct, and nothing at all I've seen on the internet or social media.

The Outdoor Activation Taskforce urgently needs to work with businesses to get the word out so that this experiment can thrive to its full potential.

Long-term, especially with the proposed Manuka hotel and cinema development, this block of Franklin Street is a perfect candidate for conversion into a Civic-style shared zone or even a pedestrian mall.

As a city, we desperately need to overcome our car-centric attitudes and embrace new approaches to planning if we want thriving communities and businesses while protecting our environment and adapting to our growing population.

I was intrigued to learn through The Canberra Times that there is a proposal to close Franklin Street in Manuka to traffic. Outdoor dining would be a feature of that development.

As a local resident, I support this plan and do not understand why local businesses would oppose it. More people coming to eat in that situation means more people around.

More members of the public would walk through the arcades, laneways and adjacent streets. It is a win-win situation for Manuka.

Currently, it is almost impossible to park outside the newsagent, bookshop and other businesses in the vicinity. A walkway is a great idea.

The Morrison government is usually more known for its hostility to the arts, so it's reassuring that its national plan - sorry, "Plan" - for net zero emissions by 2050 calls on literature so effusively via its innovative mix of Dickens' Mister Micawber's conviction that "something will turn up" topped with the absurdist existential stalemate in Waiting for Godot.

Bravo! It even calls on elements of magical realism, in its reliance on carbon capture and storage voodoo incantations. Curtain call!

Then, mixing mediums, there is an overlay of Groundhog Day, where we get to interminably relive the same policy day, and change is only ever (ironically) glacial.

On a more prosaic note, yet with a faint echo of Planet of the Apes, the best news is that the "Plan" can duck-shove any responsibility onto the governments of our children and grandchildren.

This is because apparently current governments are unable to make decisions which bind future ones. Such as who can vote. Who knew?

Of course, it's all to be done the "Australian way", which anyone familiar with non-fiction will recognise as a cheeky, ironic channelling of The Lucky Country's analysis of what might otherwise be termed the Great Australian Disease, complacency. How wacky!

Yep, the arts are back, baby.

Before President Macron delivered his "I don't think, I know" personal verdict on Scott Morrison, he said words to the effect that he has a lot of respect for Australia and Australians.

I'm sure our Prime Minister heard those same words, but has chosen, it seems, to interpret them quite differently. He now chooses to play the role of defending Australia against an imagined attack by the French President.

Listen to Macron's words again, Prime Minister.

There was no attack on Australia - just a serious question about the integrity of one Aussie who happens to be our Prime Minister.

Being green has long taken on the mantle of just another unbending religion, rather than a rational, scientific seeking of the truth about greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenies will never be satisfied with anything the PM puts up, and Labor would soon find that out too, if it ever gets into government again.

These are some of the questions I challenge Australian climatologists (and Greens) to answer rationally, but I won't hold my breath:

Why should Australia waste resources on renewable energy when, at 1.06 per cent of world emissions in 2020, we have zero effect on global warming, let alone on climate change?

Why damage ourselves economically by banning coal when user countries would buy dirtier coal?

Why deny developing countries the use of our coal to better their lot?

Why should Australia do more to reduce emissions than required to meet international obligations, which we are already doing?

Why should Australia not be investing in climate-proofing itself, rather than subsidising renewables?

Why is not safe, emissions-free nuclear energy a better and less invasive alternative to wind and solar?

Mr Morrison claims Australians can always trust the Coalition. What poppycock! His premiership is a litany of lies, deception and incompetence, as demonstrated in his bushfire response; delayed purchase of vaccines; sports, community and car park rorts; failure to recover JobKeeper payments; hard-heartedness to robodebt and growing inequality; and his wing-and-a-prayer approach to climate change.

It can only be hoped the electorate won't be fooled again.

Penny Wong has made the claim that Scott Morrison has wasted taxpayers' money to "buy political peace" and get the National Party to sign off on net zero.

But wasting taxpayers' money to "buy political peace" is exactly what Labor under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government did to keep the Greens/Labor coalition in government.

The problem that I see isn't that Scott Morrison bought off the Nats. It is the fact that the Nats squandered an opportunity to secure funds which could be used to improve educational outcomes for rural youth, address the fact rural people live shorter lives compared to their city counterparts, or even address the inequitable burden climate change polices place on the people who manage and care for the land.

Surely those who believe that God created Earth, human life and all its life forms, should treasure God's gift and do whatever it takes to protect and preserve it? But no.

Religious politicians like Scott Morrison, Barnaby Joyce, Zed Seselja et al appear to limit their reverence for life only to human lives - even claiming voluntary euthanasia is against God's law. But they have shown no such concern for all other life on planet Earth up to this point - inexplicable, since they must believe humans were given brains to do science. They believe in medical science, but continue to deny climate science.

So unlike David Benton (Letters, October 29), who is thankful our senator "has our community's best interests at heart" by opposing voluntary euthanasia, I think the senator has also failed by toeing the line on the LNP's climate-denying stance for decades.

A sure sign of a weak policy position is that its supporters resort to pathetic lies. John Utah claims it is impossible to walk a few hundred yards in San Francisco without treading on a junkie's needle (Letters, November 2).

Even if I hadn't visited that city I would doubt this preposterous allegation. I also had the benefit of spending several days there two years ago without any such calamity befalling me.

Can we please stick to the facts in our political debates and let the grown-ups have a sober discussion?

Those who still cannot see the urgent need for dramatic climate action bring to mind the anti-vaxxers who finally demand to be vaccinated when they reach ICU.

Of course, by then it is much too late. The difference between climate laggards and anti-vaxxers is that the wilful ignorance of science this time may destroy all of humanity, not individual lives.

Where once ignorance could be smirked at, it is getting more dangerous for the rest of us every day.

Scott Morrison states that at COP26 "it will be our scientists, our technologists, our engineers, our entrepreneurs, our industrialists and our financiers that will actually chart the path to net zero".

This from a man whose government has ignored the science of climate change and cut funding to universities and the CSIRO. Go figure!

Scott Morrison: combating climate change with hot air won't work!

Just want to congratulate Scott Morrison on taking the title of King of Spin from Shane Warne. From ball of the century to bull of the millennium!

Canberra's schools, gyms and shopping malls have reopened. But members of the public are still not allowed to enter the ACT law courts. Whatever happened to open justice?

I believe Twiggy Forrest has purchased Lizard Island, situated off far north Queensland. How nice, his own Pacific island. I wonder if he financed the deal through a sinking fund?

It's not President Macron who has insulted Australia. It's Morrison himself.

The French used the guillotine. The Americans used the Nuremberg trials. The Australian way to dispense with unwanted governments is the ballot box. Welcome home, Prime Minister.

Arriving for the climate summit in Glasgow, President Biden travelled in a 25-car convoy (reportedly an 85-car convoy in Rome).

When you add the dozens of heavy lift aircraft converging on Glasgow, it strikes me that one of the best things we can do for the planet is stop politicians attending climate summits.

Never have we had a PM who is so unsuitable for a leadership role. Never have we had a government whose only goal is the continuation of the Coalition dynasty; their deception, lies and obfuscation is stunning in its audacity.

They are treating the Australian people like fools, and we certainly will be fools if they are re-elected.

Charles Foley (Letters, November 3). You get my vote for letter of the year.

Malcolm Turnbull asserts that Scott Morrison has lied to him in the past. I wonder how many times Mr Turnbull has lied to him, to his constituency and to the Australian people? Never?

Mr Turnbull has proved to be as bitter as Rudd and Abbott combined.