Perhaps you know the suburb of Keilor Downs? It is a suburb of western Melbourne. So what? Well, if you are anything like me you simply do not care. It is more silly politics. Would it not be easier for us forced to vote if this electorate was simply called Western Melbourne (could have 1, 2 and 3). That way we would all know where these electorates are.

Which is in part why I am now opposed to compulsory voting. I suspect most voters vote for the party they have always voted for. It is easy, take no notice of the party bumph, just tick Labor or Liberal with some going elsewhere. It is the swinging voters, those who read up on what their particular candidate supports, who decide the next government. Doing away with compulsory voting allows us all to enjoy a sausage sizzle on the day while those with a bee in their bonnet - sorry, who hope to make a real change - can do so. What say you?

Well said, David Perkins (Letters, November 17). Your list of the benefits of a genuine mixed economy controlled by the Australian people was a refreshing reminder of how things were (and can once again be).

Might I suggest that some form of national service (whether military or civilian) could assist in attaining these benefits and contribute to the self-esteem of younger Australians? Not to mention helping with our self-defence, infrastructure development and getting the fruit picked!

As ScoMo of Cronullus drew nearer to Glasgow he had an epiphany on climate change and saw the error of his ways.

"I have seen the light, and it is from an electric car's headlights on a weekend," he spake. Verily, the Liberal and Nationals gathered around. "Not in my electorate," chanted the Nationals in unison like a screeching host of seraphim high on pork barrels, car parks and sports funding.

And so it came to pass with each new dawn that the 10 pages of commandments that lit "the Australian way" for ScoMo on the road to Glasgow was little more than figurative pearls to cast before the electorate to buy time and profits for the moneylenders whom he could not cast out of the Temple for he was their disciple.

And thus, ScoMo of Cronullus sold out his children, grandchildren and all the generations to come.

"Don't be afraid, don't be scared, it won't hurt you. It's 30 pieces of coal."

I agree with Chief Minister Andrew Barr: the federal government should have been much more determined to have as many Australians as possible fully vaccinated ("National jab targets were too low: Barr", November 18, p2).

It was probably unrealistic to hope that 'anti-vaxxers' could be persuaded to change their minds, but surely it would have been (and still is) possible to persuade the vaccine-hesitant that being vaccinated could save theirs, and other people's, lives.

Good on The Canberra Times for calling out the horrible threats to our democratically elected politicians (November 18). After a number of days of the nasty gallows-carrying crowds and "kill Dan" signs in Melbourne at least one media organisation has called this out. But notably some other media has remained silent, not to mention the Murdoch press which with its relentless campaign against Dan Andrews arguably was one factor in creating this awful mob in Melbourne.

Also largely silent has been Mr Morrison and his government. Imagine the uproar if a noose-displaying mob was outside the national Parliament House directing its anger at the current PM. Oh, but wait a minute, this was the case when Julia Gillard was PM, and Tony Abbott was addressing the mob. The hypocrisy of the right-wing of politics and media knows no bounds.

John Warhurst in his otherwise excellent analysis of electioneering (CT, November 18) writes: "Most seats are safe seats for one side of politics or the other ... this applies in the ACT electorates."

His analysis would have been improved had he drawn to attention that in the ACT we now have a strong independent candidate for the Senate, Kim Rubenstein, with a range of attractive policies that will appeal to many. I understand her Kim4Canberra Party already has more members than the ACT Liberals and ACT Greens combined.

There has been some discussion recently about the need for some letter-writers to look up the word "banausic" in the dictionary. I frequently have to scurry to fetch my dictionary when reading letters to the editor.

However, when reading the original letter containing the word "banausic", I didn't feel the need to look up the word in the dictionary because I immediately assumed it meant "banana-like". Given all the discussion, I have now looked the word up, and realise that was the wrong call.

"To Coin a Raise" (Letters, November 17) brings to mind Sir Lew Grade's comment regarding his costly production of the 1980 movie Raise the Titanic, when he said: "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic than raise the Titanic." London Circuit - The Movie?

ANU research published in the journal Applied Energy indicates that hydrogen produced by fossil fuels (blue hydrogen) and using hitherto unsuccessful carbon capture and storage is more expensive than green hydrogen, which uses renewables to produce hydrogen from electrolysis of water. Blue hydrogen production also comes with the real risk of creating stranded assets as the world increasingly moves away from fossil fuels.

Dr Fiona Beck, a co-author of the report, explains that green hydrogen has the capacity to very quickly reduce in cost. "It does beg the question who's going to invest in blue hydrogen," she says.

Green hydrogen has the potential to be a massive contributor to the nation's exports, and to make our energy-intensive products such as steel, aluminium and concrete, as Twiggy Forrest has foreshadowed. The Australian government must fund rapid development of this technology so that we can take advantage of the enormous opportunities it brings.

I hope readers will respond to Renée Goossen's appeal (Letters, November 11) to make submissions to the NCA call for consultation on the "Raising of London Circuit". Before doing so it would be worth reading the NCA document "Kings and Commonwealth Avenue Draft Design Strategy" (2017) and the submissions made about that document that can be easily found by internet search.

The most important difference between the NCA document and the public submissions concerns the critical transport role of Commonwealth Avenue in crossing the lake. On the other hand, the ACT government planners and the NCA appear to have some sort of telepathic harmony.

Their plans remind me of an impressionist painter focused on the street cafes of Paris, not on the Bush Capital. Both planning organisations want to get rid of slip lanes and cloverleafs in favour of level intersections and traffic lights. If light rail south must be, I suggest that adding a new cloverleaf between the London Circuit and Commonwealth Avenue grades in the north-east quadrant would work very well.

This month has seen the return of phone scammers "in force" using numbers from disused, disconnected or "out of service"- both fixed lines and mobiles. Let the answering machine answer the call, and if genuine, the caller will leave a message. If you have no answering machine, say "Hello" and ask them who's speaking and what they want. Do not give out your name to them. That's my advice.

Ian Pilsner writes that only 10 per cent of ACT's electricity comes from renewables, presumably because he knows we get most of our electricity from NSW, which is mostly coal (Letters, November 16). He is wrong. NSW has had more than 10 per cent renewable supply since 2018, was 22 per cent renewable over the last year and 28 per cent renewable over the last month. If many Canberrans buy an EV, thereby increasing ACT demand, then the ACT government has said it will buy more electricity from wind and solar farms.

Any Canberran buying an EV can be reassured that over the course of its expected life, a majority of the electricity used to charge it will likely be renewable.

I did rouse myself today to search for the meaning of life, post-morning tennis. Answer? 42 (look it up, "Hitchhikers Guide").

I'm encouraged by the frequent re-use of the word 'banausic' in the CT just recently. Back in the day, a young person seeking the meaning of words not often used might have to walk a few miles down a country road, catch a steam train to the Big Smoke, go to a large library and look the word up. Nowadays, anyone can check it out in about 10 seconds. One innocent word is no longer a treasure of darkness.

There has been commentary on the use [or misuse] of the Australian flag when used to partially obscure the face of the current Prime Minister. A bill was introduced into the Australian Parliament - Protection of Australian Flags [Desecration of the Flag] in 2003 that would make what he does an illegal act. The bill was not proceeded with, but it's waiting for you, Prime Minister.

One neat theory put forward is that China will never go to war, because their population would never tolerate losing its only child.

Hats off to Labor for promising to expand NBN full-fibre access to homes and businesses. One of the joys of moving from Reid to Coombs this year has been access to 21st century full-fibre internet. Reid has copper wire; Molonglo has fibre.

Bravo, Lewis Rushbrook. What a brilliant letter. Glasgow kids got it. Imagine: a treeless, birdless, fishless, eerily silent planet. Just like Mars, in fact. And Barnaby is prepared to chance it!

It's taken me a while, but I've just realised what "doing it the Australian way" actually means, these days. It now means doing it 20 years after every other advanced country. This isn't the brave country that I migrated to in the 1970s. Utterly shameful, comes to mind.

Former federal MP Craig Thomson's arrest for alleged migration fraud worth more $2 million is a stark reminder that such politicians don't exist only in third-world banana republics. The good thing in Australia's democracy, though, is that the wayward politician can't get away with his transgressions because of his political clout.

Five weeks on, the ACT Courts are still closed to the public and Civic and Woden libraries remain shut. There can no longer be any justification for this.

In relation to the pandemic, you don't have to be Einstein to discern that it's well past time that the authorities cut their reliance on modelling and took more account of indications from overseas.