I know that there are some water-quality problems with all of our suburban lakes but, seriously, could you even imagine Canberra without Lake Burley Griffin ?

Wherever you sit politically, I think at this time you should roundly applaud Sir Robert Menzies for his persistence in getting Lake Burley Griffin built. He had some serious resistance. Not quite as much resistance as Capital Metro has right now, but heading in that direction.

I cannot believe that we’re having a conversation about the potential to change its name. For half a century it’s been Lake Burley Griffin and so it should stay. If ever there was a place where too much thought is given to what should be simple matters it’s here in Canberra.

I think the lake-name critics are correct in saying that Walter Griffin’s middle name, Burley, should never have been included in the name. And, yes, it should have been Lake Griffin or Lake Walter Griffin, but it seems absurd to change it now.

Once you’ve been declared the best city in the world, I think the idea is to just let things bubble along as they are for a while after that.

One of my radio listeners participated in the debate on this with an SMS to the station last week. Jason said:

“Wow thanks Mark. I always thought Burley Griffin’s first name was … Lake.. Not Walter.”

I always give the Belco Mall example as a reason to not rename something. Can you believe the number of people who still refer to Westfield Belconnen as Belco Mall after all these years?

By all means, have all your committees examine this, but surely there are so many much more important things for us to worry about than the name of the lake.

Just walk around it, gaze at it, cycle around and take piccies… but don’t think too much about it.