FROM a decaying construction site to a dire wet-weather warning for Queanbeyan, these columns got the most clicks in 2019.

1. PAUL COSTIGAN / “16 years on, is this Canberra’s worst building mess?”

SEPTEMBER: Sixteen years after someone bought a residential lease in Banks, Paul Costigan questioned if the abandoned construction site is Canberra’s worst decaying mess. 

2. NICHOLE OVERALL / “When the dam wall falls, Queanbeyan has 34 minutes”

AUGUST: Looking back to occasions when heavy rain had been a real risk to Queanbeyan, Yesterdays columnist Nichole Overall said that emergency procedures suggest that should the Googong Dam wall ever fail, residents would have about 34 minutes before their town became a modern-day Atlantis.

3. JON STANHOPE / “Andrew, mate; ScoMo here, how much do you need?”

JUNE: When Canberra Chief Minister Andrew Barr used almost all of his foreword to this year’s Budget Paper No. 2 to attack the Federal Liberal government of Scott Morrison, Jon Stanhope wondered what these attacks would produce. “Could it be that he actually believes he can bully or embarrass the Prime Minister into submission?” he wrote.

4. ROBERT MACKLIN / “Collaery battles on, but who cares?”

AUGUST: Does anyone care? asked Robert Macklin about the Federal government’s unfair court case against former ACT attorney-general Bernard Collaery and the former ASIS operative known as “Witness K”.

5. MICHAEL MOORE / “Use vote to send a message to the big parties”

MAY: In the lead up to the Federal election, readers were drawn to a column by Michael Moore urging Canberrans to use their votes to send a message to the major parties. The message? “The ACT needs to be taken seriously,” he wrote. 

6. HELEN MUSA / “Star shocked as plug pulled on ‘Gypsy’ blockbuster”

FEBRUARY: Theatre fans were shocked earlier in the year at the sudden news that the Queanbeyan Arts Performing Arts Centre, The Q, had pulled the plug on its blockbuster production of  “Gypsy“, starring Geraldine Turner, which was due to run as part of The Q season in April-May.