This lack of facilities has continued despite a considerable increase in the number of residents in this suburb during this time frame, as well as several substantial increases in the rates we are required to pay.

It is now almost 12 months since the commencement of an ACT government Inquiry into the Giralang Shops, and to date the only positive action they have undertaken is to reverse the previous arbitrary 1000-square-metre limit on the size of the supermarket and to reintroduce the originally approved 1500-square-metre limit.

Having been to two public meetings at the Assembly and having received numerous emails from members of the ACT Legislative Assembly, it has become apparent to me that the Inquiry is nothing more than an exercise in political window dressing and an attempt to shift responsibility for all delays onto the developer.

The citizens of Giralang are tired of being ignored and fobbed off by their elected representatives.

Remembrance Day was a big deal when I was a child, but has now been eclipsed in the public mind by Anzac Day. It is a great pity, because "Poppy Day", the 11th day of the 11th month, commemorated the great slaughter of combatants in the first industrial-scale war of the last century. It was "the war to end war".

It was particularly poignant in my family. We lost two great uncles and several of their cousins. Nine members of my extended family volunteered to "do their duty" for the British Empire, and three survived. Their remains lie in Belgium, France and Palestine. In two cases, there was nothing left to bury.

As the horror of war faded, Anzac Day has been recast as part rememberence, but more "rah-rah" boosterism for our engagement in future conflict as an adjunct to the American empire.

Mr Morrison has recently strengthened our subservient military ties to the US to the point that we have all but lost our independence of action and essential sovereignty.

War between "great powers" in the nuclear age, with massive explosives delivered by hypersonic missiles across vast distances, is likely to be unimaginably destructive, and will doom large numbers of ordinary people. It will make past wars look like minor skirmishes.

We must stop this drift to war. Our real existential issue is global heating. International co-operation and diplomacy, peace and demilitarisation is the only, if so narrow, path forward. Remembering.

Jenna Price's article "Let's make every disclosure count" (November 5) notes that Australia became understandably upset when little Cleo went missing, but we sadly ignore the plight of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls.

We are also ignoring male victims of violence - including Indigenous men and boys. They matter, too.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, one woman is killed every 9 days, and one man is killed every 29 days, by a partner. One in six women and one in 16 men have experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner.

The community focuses only on what happens to women, and we incorrectly assume that men are always the perpetrators. The idea of automatically believing all women is as careless and superficial as the idea of believing all tennis players or all motorbike riders.

Communication within families is difficult, so endorsing dismissive negativity towards men won't help those women who want to have loving relationships with men.

We have witnessed the promotion of the doomsday scenario if we do not genuflect to the dictates of the doomsday carbon promoters, however no matter how I try I cannot get one simple answer to a question I ask of these "experts". That question is simply this.

It can be proven that the Earth has undergone several severe temperature fluctuations since its birth. Climatic fluctuations and variations are explained considering the Earth and its orbit around the sun. The periods when the Earth froze are called the glacial periods, and the warmer periods called interglacials.

It is these cold periods which caused the oceans to freeze and drop dramatically. It is these periods of oceanic freezing and lowering that permitted the Australian Aborigines, who are Dravidian in origin, to cross the exposed land bridges and enter the country from the north of India. Now, if we know there were several periods of freezing, what temperature did the globe reach during the interglacial periods?

The temperature may have exceeded what we are experiencing today and anticipate tomorrow. And if some "expert" gives me an answer, please tell me the source of that answer so that I can check for myself. If my question is inaccurate, I promise that I shall acknowledge and apologise.

Your article on the front page on Monday (November 8) reports Anthony Albanese as criticising the government for interference with and politicisation of the public service.

Minister Ben Morton takes a leaf out of the Morrison playbook. Just as Morrison deflected President Macron's criticism of him personally by saying that he [Macron] had criticised Australia, Morton deflects Albanese's criticism as being of the public service.

It doesn't wash, Mr Morton.

With the incipient opening of the new hotel, which reminds me of Paris, on the site of the old Manuka post office, as well as the plethora of restaurants and cafés and the large number of dogs with their promenading owners, is it not time to market Manuka as the "Paris quarter" or the "French quarter" of Canberra?

As if there were not already many practical reasons to prevent this 19th-century equipment from crossing the lake - involving 6000 tonnes of Earth for backfilling, creating traffic chaos and gross environmental damage - here's the latest.

The Spanish-built trams are being removed from service in NSW for 18 months, costing millions of dollars to repair their dangerous cracks. Our trams came from the same source. We need up-to-date electric buses instead. Of course, efficient public transport is great, specially when it's affordable. Stage two will cost even more billions. Buses are faster, ecologically make more sense, are more flexible, and nowhere near as costly. Maybe they could even be Australian-built. When will governments begin to listen to the people?

Lisa Wilkinson (Relax, November 7, p23) is quoted as saying: "those fairy tales [Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty] are all about how men are the only ones who have all the power".

In the case of Cinderella at least, she is demonstrably wrong.

This tale features the Fairy Godmother, a powerful figure who performs a series of miracles to get Cinderella to the ball. Cinderella prevails against the entrenched opposition of the cruel figures in her life: the abusive, vain and selfish stepmother and stepsisters. Cinderella subsequently performs a very powerful act by forgiving the stepsisters.

Cinderella isn't really about men at all. The Fairy Godmother possesses miraculous powers, the men none. She represents the strong, supportive, ego-free woman that every female deserves to have in her life, but many do not.

These are the unsupported female victims of female abuse and aggression, suffering in families, workplaces and schoolyards.

These victims are voiceless in the prevailing narrative that only men are abusive. These women also need to be allowed to tell their stories - but maybe this is another "inconvenient truth" which must remain silenced.

What better opportunity than now to bite the bullet and abandon light rail in Canberra, while the CAF trams may have a couple of years life left in them?

Decide whether an expanded electric bus fleet, or the Brisbane high-capacity HESS electric vehicle, or even the ART trackless tram is best for the revised Gungahlin-to-Woden route.

Abandon the destruction of the London Circuit-Commonwealth Avenue interchange, and find out what can be achieved in the upgrade of the Commonwealth Avenue bridge.

Then, in one decade, you will be able to complete a mass transit network that was going to take at least 30 years using light rail, and save the Canberra ratepayer several billion dollars.

It seems we now have a cracking public transport strategy, just like NSW.

How about on November 11, all those overpaid sports stars with overinflated egos all wear a poppy and take a knee to remember all those who died so they could spout their unimportant opinions?

There was an Australian government advert (November 8, p10) telling us all how much of a great job Team ScoMo is doing creating jobs and lowering emissions. Is there no end to the blatant use of public monies for political purposes by the LNP?

Now I know why the grass is up around our backsides.

Our wonderful Greens have worked out that whilst grass helps reduce greenhouse gases, mowing them unfortunately creates more greenhouse gases than the grass actually reduces.

Well done boys, can't wait till the weather warms up and the snakes emerge. Perhaps we should put a freeze on paying our rates.

Now borders have reopened, Scomo plans to tour marginal seats. One can only presume he imagines this will increase his chances of re-election. Good luck with that.

I discern a collective sigh of national relief whenever Barnaby Joyce's commission to act as Prime Minister resumes its dormant mode.

Broelman's cartoon on Sunday was brilliant. How much longer is Scotty from Advertising going to keep this little girl and her family in jail?

Congratulations to Peter Broelman for his brilliant cartoon on Sunday, November 7. So simple, so heart-wrenching.

Those trying to justify minimum, if any, action on the climate crisis often cite China as a far worse polluter than Australia, which has much lower overall pollution levels and is therefore inconsequential. In fact, China's per capita pollution levels are just under half Australia's per capita levels.

Has anyone else noticed the paucity of imported brie and camembert on the shelves of our delis and supermarkets in recent days? This is starting to get serious.

Crispin Hull (Opinion, November 6) presents a strong argument differentiating the Morrison way from the true Australian way.

But, here's the thing: if the LNP are re-elected, then the Morrison way is the Australian way, and the whole world will know it.

The only way we can begin to salvage our national reputation is to vote out Morrison, Joyce, Dutton, et al at the next election.