Both sides are more intent on grabbing a winning headline than obtaining credible information for voters.

The party heavies appear to be locked into a constant theatre of huffing and puffing about "transparency" and partisan accusations one against the other.

They treat the bulk of Australians - who are not party zealots - as mugs. They think they can just serve up the same old lines, and same time-worn furphies, over and over and we will believe.

Last week's Jenkins report called for genuine action to change a "culture" which is surely is aimed at everyone.

Yet we are already seeing the issue just being sheeted home to the current government while the opposition, despite its tired and useless rhetoric about being appalled, keeps its own nose clean by seemingly keeping a tight lid on any of its own members who might have strayed.

This has previously been raised by some MPs.

Come on, Labor. We need transparency to be real and bipartisan before this whole pack of cards crumbles.

David Pope may have a rival for the title of best political humorist at The Canberra Times.

When I turned to page five on Friday I laughed more loudly than I have done for weeks. Craig Kelly's visage, coiffed and made-up (how appropriate), under the banner "Our next Prime Minister".

Now, I accept that the bar has been progressively lowered over the last decade, but come on! Then it dawned on me.

Still, he'll have his work cut out keeping up this quality of work day-in, day-out if he wants to take Pope's crown.

Before the 2019 election many media commentators were forecasting the demise of the Morrison government and a win for Labor. Several long-term senior members of that Coalition government resigned, obviously clearly of the mind that the election would be lost to Labor.

But then the Coalition was re-elected.

Many of the same journalists are now also predicting the end of this government. We should never take anything for granted. People who follow media reports on politics are in the minority. The majority just turn up and vote as they always have.

If the Labor Party wants to ensure it wins its members must visit people in cities and towns, especially outside the major metropolitan areas.

They need to listen to these people's worries and concerns and commit to representing them in a fair, open and transparent way.

They also need to clearly show the ineptitude of the Morrison government and their policies need to demonstrate Labor is committed to making society fairer and looking after everyone.

We cannot afford another three years of the Morrison government.

Another year without a promised federal integrity commission. Clearly there is no integrity in Morrison's promises.

So let's have a short, minimum-length campaign, so we don't have to listen to any more of them.

Let's vote based on past performance and allow him to conserve those corrupting political donations.

We can safely start referring to Christian Porter by the title "ambassador" as, on past performance, that will be guaranteed in the dying weeks of this federal Coalition government.

The only question is where will the appointment be to? The EU? Paris? No, that could be less comfy for an Australian ambassador now. Rome? Or, given Porter's impeccable ethical standards, perhaps the Holy See?

If, under the proposed federal religious discrimination legislation, religious schools will be able to select only teachers who uphold the required religious doctrine and fire those who don't, gay teachers or, at least, those teaching acceptance of sexual and gender diversity, will not have safe jobs in that sector.

Rather than trying to build into legislation protection for those teachers (and many vulnerable students) a simpler solution would be to make public funding of private schools dependent on their inclusiveness and tolerance.

After all, it is surely a bridge too far to not only allow such unfairness, but to support it with public funding.

Ron Gane (Letters, December 3) shows that good palliative care at the end of life can be just what is needed in some cases.

However, those terminally ill people who do not wish to continue suffering should have the choice to stop their suffering through Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD).

Ron writes that in dying one is "going to a better life". If true VAD could help one get there quicker.

A vigorous campaign has started in the media to prepare the grounds for the introduction of a "gagging" law in Australia under the guise of an "anti-trolls law". Once that is enacted, anybody posting negative comments about others - including politicians - could be sued for defamation.

You can imagine the implications: law suits by the powerful against the average person who posted a critical opinion and who has no means of being represented by an expensive QC.

This is yet another terrifying step towards the consolidation of totalitarianism in our once freedom loving and democratic Australia.

Ray Trewin (Letters, November 27) has it all wrong.

As the concern is anthropogenic climate change it makes perfect sense to ratio emissions to population.

His suggestion that we should ratio to land area might make sense if the atmosphere could be contained within each country's borders but Australian emissions rapidly spread throughout the planet.

Everyone's carbon dioxide mixes to create a global problem.

All nations should strive to reduce emissions rather than seeking specious excuses or accounting tricks to avoid responsibility.

The letter from Liz Swain about the Kokoda Memorial Statue at Manuka (Letters, November 26) expresses the same concerns a number of previous correspondents, including myself, have raised about the neglect of this memorial.

An important feature of this statue is that although originally unveiled in 1972 it was re-dedicated in 1992 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kokoda Campaign.

The plinth on the base shows that the "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel" depicted in the statue, Raphael Oimbari OBE, was the guest of honour at that ceremony.

The ongoing neglect of the statue is an embarrassment to everyone who values the sacrifice of the people represented in the memorial.

In January this year I wrote to the president of the Canberra RSL pointing out the neglect of this important symbol and asking if the RSL had any plans to properly preserve and honour the statue.

I have had no reply.

If the RSL is not interested in this reminder of our wartime history can the ACT government do something to correct this ongoing indifference and ensure the relocation of the statue to a more suitable environment?

Barbara Preston (Letters, November 26) raises the interesting question of whether the fictional location of the Man from Snowy River's ride could have been somewhere in the Kosciuszko National Park.

If Paterson's knowledge of native flora was accurate, then the answer must be a firm "no".

The eighth stanza of the poem tells us that "the wild horses held their way, Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide".

In Doherty, McDougall and Wright's comprehensive 2015 catalogue of the park's flora, mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) is not one of the species listed.

That seems to rule it out.

An extraordinary advertisement (The Canberra Times, December 3, page 5 ... all of page 5) proposing Craig Kelly for PM. He wouldn't make my top 25 million candidates, and that's after allowing for Section 44.

Thank you Clive Palmer for Friday's dose of rib-tickling humour. Normally, readers must wait for David Pope on the letters page for a delightful dose of humour or satire but on page five we were greeted with a full page mug shot of Craig Kelly under the banner "Our Next Prime Minister". Brilliant. Keep it up.

I support the suggestion to move the "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel" statue to the Canberra Remembrance Nature Park as suggested by Liz Swain (Letters, November 26). This would be a much more suitable place for this memorial than a dusty roadside in Manuka.

The Morrison-Joyce government will never table legislation for a Federal ICAC. Why? You don't run onto a field filled with sharp needles without any running shoes.

Clearly ScoMo is worried the introduction of an effective federal ICAC would cause him to meet the same fate as his chum Gladys.

The COVID-19 variant that emerged in South Africa was named after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. It seems purely coincidental that the World Health Organisation skipped two Greek letters to name the new mutation. Omicron is an anagram for moronic, but apparently that had nothing to do with the international response to the variant.

Re R F Bollen (Changing the guard, Letters, November 30). Peter Dutton as the leader of the Liberal Party? Heaven forbid.

Now that both cartoonist David Pope and Greenpeace are on the side of common sense, Woodside should abandon its Scarborough Gas project.

B L West (Letters, December 1) calls for a Plan B in case our AUKUS nuclear subs deal falls through. Here's a novel suggestion. Focus our submarine strategy and procurement on the defence of our large island continent instead of hypothetical conflict 4000 kilometres from our shores.

The environmental assessment for raising London Circuit claims to be consistent with the "precautionary principle". But the EA demonstrates there are significant environmental risks and feasible alternatives have not been investigated. It does not demonstrate why this work is desirable or necessary, yet there will be years of traffic chaos. It should not be approved.