CityNews 210819

SURGERY

SHAME

THIS MAN HAS BEEN MADE TO WAIT FOUR YEARS IN PAIN TO HAVE NASAL SURGERY. HE IS STILL WAITING. AUGUST 19, 2021

Well written, well read

TOP PUZZLES FOR TIME ON YOUR HANDS

Memories from the Dawn of Canberra Dawn Waterhouse shares her feisty and fond memories with BELINDA STRAHORN

NEVER MORE THAN NOW citynews.com.au

L FICE L D A , OF EDS N I F ME NE HO GE R U RA YO STO &

EX-GOVERNMENT

FURNITURE

EXPLORE OUR EXTENSIVE RANGE AT EXGOVFURNITURE.COM BULK DISCOUNTS APPLY

6 Yallourn St, Fyshwick

• CHAIRS • WORKSTATIONS • STAND-UP DESKS • TABLES • SHELVING • FILING CABINETS • BOOKCASES • LOUNGES • MAP CABINETS

6280 6490

LIKE AN ITEM ON OUR WEBSITE OR IN THIS AD? Email us sales@exgovfurniture.com

NEW STOCK ARRIVING WEEKLY

exgovfurniture.com

POLITICS / elective surgery shame

Four years on, Vladimir waits for nose surgery “I HAVE felt completely ignored, rejected and discriminated by the healthcare system”, said Vladimir Golobokov, who has waited more than four years for a Category 2 elective surgery.

The ACT Health Policy allows 90 days.

Are Canberrans being deceived regarding the elective surgery waiting lists?

Official reports imply things aren’t so bad. How then can someone in Category 2 wait more than four years and still be left in the purgatory of uncertainty?

Mr Golobokov has waited since mid-2017 for surgery to remove nasal polyps. He has waited more than 12 times what is clinically indicated while the condition has got worse and worse.

Despite the Canberra Hospital having constant updates from his GP regarding a deteriorating condition, he has still not been given a time. Serious discomfort, sleep apnea, facial swelling, pressure on the forehead, loss of sense of taste and smell, difficulty breathing and associated mental health issues are all outcomes of the failure to deliver elective surgery within any kind of sensible time frame.

According to the “ACT Waiting Times and Elective Surgery Access Policy”, a Category 2 patient is in a group where “no patient should wait longer than 90 days”. A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Vladimir Golobokov’s swollen and blocked nose… serious discomfort, sleep apnea, facial swelling, difficulty breathing and associated mental health issues are all outcomes of the failure to deliver elective surgery. indicates that in 2019-20 (while Vladimir had been already waiting for more than two years) the median waiting time for this category of elective surgery was 76 days.

Nationally, in that year, the mean waiting time was 39 days with 90 per cent of patients admitted within 281 days. Being specific, the mean waiting times for ear, nose and throat surgery was 102 days.

ACT Health are patting themselves on the back about how well they have done in managing an average of 76 days, 14 days short of the target. In the meantime, ordinary people have been suffering.

The reports on waiting times should provide the community with confidence.

However, cases like Vladimir’s

Vladimir Golobokov has waited since mid2017 for surgery to remove nasal polyps.

He has waited more than 12 times what is clinically indicated while the condition has got worse and worse.

INDEX

Since 1993: Volume 27, Number 33

Arts & Entertainment 15-17 Canberra Matters 8 Cinema & Streaming 16 Crossword 22 Dining 17 Garden 23 Horoscopes 22 Letters 14 News 3-14 Politics 3, 11 Seven Days 4

Cover: Dawn Waterhouse.

Story Page 10. Photo: Belinda Strahorn.

Well written, well read

Ph 02 6189 0777 Fax 02 6189 0778 9b/189 Flemington Rd, Mitchell 2911

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Ian Meikle, 9b/189 Flemington Road, Mitchell.

do the opposite. The information provided to AIHW comes from ACT Health. Is this case an outlier? If not, how come the figures are so dodgy? And why hasn’t the minister held them accountable?

The year that Vladimir was referred, the report showed a mean waiting time of 62 days and the following year 65 days.

And yet he is still waiting around 1200 days later.

Vladimir explained his recent actions: “My GP has sent three referral letters to Canberra Hospital from March to June, 2021, and I went to the hospital’s Emergency Room myself on June 5”.

Then Vladimir asked if I could be of assistance and provided me with written permission to approach ACT Health and the Minister on his behalf.

He added: “I have been told that currently, I am sixth in Category 2 with 50 people ahead of me in Category 1”. He was also told: “This cannot be converted to a time estimate for an appointment”. He

Managing Director: James Anderson, 0404 077605, james@citynews.com.au Director: Kate Meikle, kate@citynews.com.au Senior advertising account executives: David Cusack, 0435 380656 Tracey Avery, 0477 939999 Advertising account executives: Damien Klemke, 0439 139001 Tim Spare, 0423 381691 Editor: Ian Meikle, editor@citynews.com.au Digital news editor: Danielle Nohra, danielle@citynews.com.au Journalists: Nick Overall, nick@citynews.com.au Belinda Strahorn, belinda@citynews.com.au; Kathryn Vukovljak, kathryn@citynews.com.au Arts editor: Helen Musa, helen@citynews.com.au Production manager: Janet Ewen Graphic Designer: Douglas Lima Proof reader: Glenda Anderson Accounts: accounts@citynews.com.au

added, “I followed up on July 9 and was told that I’m still sixth in Category 2. Unfortunately, nothing has changed”.

My first reaction was that his case would be an outlier. However, I approached both the Canberra Hospital and the office of

Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith towards the end of July.

Had it been an outlier, it would have been dealt with in a sensible way. Both Vladimir and I would have received, at the very least, a satisfactory explanation and a plan for dealing with the issue. At the time of writing this has not happened.

This sort of waiting-time misinformation leads to frustration and desperate action. In January, a Canberra electrician, sick of waiting for two years, decided he would cut out a painful grape-size cyst with his own Stanley knife. It was reported at the time that the policy on non-urgent cases was just one year.

The electrician was fed up after two years. Vladimir has been getting worse and worse and has waited four years.

Although nasal polyps are not generally associated with cancer, he worries about them being pre-cancerous.

“Having been in daily discomfort and pain not only physically, but mentally and

emotionally for four years, with symptoms getting progressively worse, and not being able to find out when I can be seen for a review, has been overwhelming and distressing,” he said.

Are our waiting list figures dodgy? The ACT Audit Office has identified elective surgery waiting times on the last page of its 2020-21 Performance Audit Program. It needs upgrading.

If you, or someone you know is also suffering in a similar manner, why not write to editor@citynews.com.au.

Canberrans need to know what is going on.

Michael Moore is a former member of the ACT Legislative Assembly and an independent minister for health. He has been a political columnist with “CityNews” since 2006.

Have you considered a pre-arranged funeral?

Take the burden off your loved ones and pre-arrange your funeral.

Pay today’s prices for the funeral you want, with a personalised payment plan.

With 31 years experience, William Cole Funerals provide excellence in funeral service.

02 6253 3655 williamcolefunerals.com.au | 60 Nettlefold Street, Belconnen, ACT 2617 CityNews August 19-25, 2021 3

SEVEN DAYS

Four years on a velocipede, girls, is Marisa’s tip AS a southsider, I’m mildly panicked by the prospect of four (more) years of tram construction disruption as the work gangs this time head to Woden.

Beyond the enormous debt, I’m anxious about the commuter chaos of getting to Civic over Commonwealth Avenue Bridge and the heritage shock of the project’s blunt bulldozing through the parliamentary triangle.

And that’s before we get to years of messing up the smooth commute of Adelaide Avenue.

But for women, it’s going to be a comparative doddle, if the southside member for Murrumbidgee, Labor’s Dr Marisa Paterson, has her druthers.

She launched her “Her Way” campaign to change their daily commutes to accommodate the construction of light rail stage 2 and blithely called on women living in the ACT’s south to rethink their travel patterns by switching to public transport and more active modes of travel, including walking, bike riding and scooting. No mention of men. Presumably, we just get in our cars and go to work.

“I’m just like you,” she says. “I recognise that the upcoming construction works for light rail will be very disruptive but I’m also positive about the long-term benefits this huge project will bring for our community.

“I want to ride a bike but I’m nervous about it, and not quite sure how to make it happen.”

off and pick up children from school and sport as well as travel to work.

Mrs Paterson said: “By rethinking travel options now, people living in Canberra’s south will be able to help relieve pressure and congestion for those who genuinely have no other option but to travel in a private vehicle, as well as exploring other options that are likely to improve their overall quality of life and wellbeing.”

That would be her in the governmentprovided vehicle heading to, whatever the reduced parking in Civic during the construction period, a certain spot at the Assembly?

Off to Civic? Some inspiration for MLA Marisa Paterson. Photo: William James, 1930, City of Toronto Archives Oh, really, Marisa? Maybe Deputy Opposition Leader Giulia Jones (and fellow member for Murrumbidgee) could offer some advice on the joys of cycling having lost her driver’s licence for three months for multiple, low-range speeding offences last year.

“After three months of getting around on my bicycle, it’s given me some additional perspective and I’m looking forward to starting a-fresh,” she said at the time.

But Mrs Jones is having none of “Her Way”, slamming it an insult to Canberra women and saying the campaign highlighted how out of touch the government was, especially mums and families who are required to drop

Toilet heaven in Wellington, NZ… “I was struck by the quality, quantity and cleanliness,” says reader David Tyler.

REPORTER Danielle Nohra’s comprehensive look at public toilets in Canberra a couple of weeks ago (“Toilet talk” CN July 29) flushed out, so to speak, a lot of continuing feedback.

Slightly out of the usual mould is the response from David Tyler, of Macquarie, who gave us something to aspire to in an

attached holiday snap.

Reassuringly, he wrote: “I am not in the habit of photographing toilets, but in Wellington, NZ, a few years ago I was struck by the quality, quantity and cleanliness of these public facilities.

“My wife reported how impressed she was with the ladies’ cleanliness, which is not often the case in her experience.

“I would also suggest there are more accessible and clean public toilets on Kangaroo Island than there are in the ACT.” John Coleman, of Monash, wrote to say the ACT government has, in some instances, flicked the responsibility for public toilets to private enterprise.

“As a former homeless persons’ shelter volunteer, I was informed by some shelter guests that public toilets around Civic are locked at night,” he says.

“Whereas homeless people, including women, can access the reducing number of public toilets and toilets in the larger shopping centres during the day, they have no access to toilets at night, unless they are sleeping in a shelter.

“Many don’t, and sleep rough and they rightly say that if they’re caught relieving themselves in public they can be in strife because such activities are illegal.”

And finally, Barry Peffer emailed with this waggish suggestion: “Would it be more

Our PROPERTY MANAGEMENT service is client focused, backed by experience, and qualifications SECOND TO NONE • • • •

No hidden charges No lock-in contracts World class technology Higher returns and better care for your property

Call or email today for more information

FIRST TWO MONTHS FEE-FREE New clients only

E: info@realestateAustralia.com.au | P: (02) 6287 4577 4 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

productive to ask readers which shopping centres and other areas have usable toilets.

The list would be much smaller and motorists could fix it to the dashboards of the car for emergency use.”

NEWS that the problematic Gungahlin pool repairs have gone down the gurgler for the foreseeable future got Liberal MLA for Yerrabi Leanne Castley hopping about with indignation.

She says the leaking pool would still be on track to reopen this year had the ACT government used local Canberra workers to fix it because now the Sydney tiling contractor has been grounded by covid restrictions and no-one knows when he’ll next be back.

Well, that’s interesting, because Sports Minister Yvette Berry has been beleaguered since last summer with Ms Castley’s incessant demands to get the closed pool fixed for the community.

“Leading to the Budget later this month, the Chief Minister has continually spoken about creating local jobs,” says Leanne.

“Surely this is a missed opportunity to support local workers and businesses.”

corkhill bros

Residential and Commercial 2.5m3, 3.5m3, 6m3, 9m3 and 13m3 bins available

order online today WWW.CORKHILLBROS.COM.AU CityNews August 19-25, 2021 5

NEWS / Jane Madden

Jane picks up the passion for Fred Hollows’ vision

By Nick

OVERALL JANE Madden’s passion for community service has taken her from growing up in Tasmania to having breakfast with Nelson Mandela. Now she’s bringing that same passion to the Fred Hollows Foundation as its new chair.

She’s served in positions at the most senior levels of the Australian Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Austrade, Prime Minister and Cabinet, and has been on diplomatic postings to Japan, South Africa and France, including as Australia’s Ambassador to UNESCO. But she’s always been inspired by the Fred Hollows Foundation, saying it’s a “great privilege” to be given the role, taking over from former Premier of Victoria John Brumby.

“It was about that time in the early ‘90s when Fred was starting his work that I became aware of the cause,” says Jane.

“Like a lot of Australians, I saw the images on television that affected us so much and thought what wonderful, practical work that’s happening.”

Fred Hollows was an eye doctor who, in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, shocked to dis-

Fred Hollows Foundation Chair Jane Madden... “The world The late Fred Hollows examines the eye of nine-year-old Tran isn’t an entity we have to accept, it’s what we make of it.”

Van Giap at the Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology

Photo: Nick Overall in Hanoi in 1992.

Photo: courtesy michaelamendolia.com cover that Aboriginals were suffering from some of the worst eye diseases he had ever seen, travelled with a team of 80 doctors to 465 remote communities, helping more than 60,000 indigenous people.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Prof Hollows discovered that millions of people in poor communities around the world were also going blind because of eye disease. Most were suffering from cataract blindness, an eye disease that causes the lens of the eye to become cloudy and fuzzy. Luckily, cataract blindness is easy to fix.

He started the foundation in 1992 but died the following year. Today the foundation works in more than 25 countries and has restored sight to more than 2.5 million people.

“Sadly, I never met Fred Hollows, but I’ve seen where the work is need-

ed,” says Jane.

In Alice Springs she recently saw the work of the foundation in a rural Australian community. Jane says one of her priorities will be closing the eye-health gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

“Indigenous people are 12 times more likely to have a cataract and over ninety per cent of indigenous eye problems are preventable,” she says.

“That becomes all the more important when you consider the education and economic standards that eye problems have an effect on as well.”

While Jane has called Canberra home since 1985, her career has taken her throughout the world.

She was born in New York but her parents, both scientists, moved to Hobart when her father was offered a job with the CSIRO.

A talented student, Jane had the marks to get into medicine, but a Rotary scholarship to live in Japan for a year would change the course of her life.

“I went from little old Tasmania to rural Japan where no one, not even my host family, spoke English,” she says.

“It was a life-changing time for me.

I really had to immerse myself in the language and study hard being the only foreigner.”

By the time she returned to Australia, Jane had decided to study economics, law and Japanese, rather than medicine.

From there her passions for community service and international development only grew.

Years later, as first secretary in South Africa for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Jane found herself in the same room as the Afri-

can National Congress leadership and Nelson Mandela on the morning of his release from prison.

“It’s one of those moments in life you think: ‘Wow, history is happening,’ and somehow I find myself fortuitously in the middle of it,” she says.

On top of her impressive diplomatic career she’s also served as president of the National Foundation for Australian Women, been a member of the Lirrwi Arnhem Land Indigenous Advisory Panel and a director of the Black Dog Institute, a mental health research organisation.

“Sitting behind a desk and making policy decisions without thinking about the implications is just an anathema to me,” she says.

“I’ve always believed in getting out in the community, getting on that grassroots level, and it’s another reason that the work of Fred Hollows appeals to me, because it is so practical.”

Jane says it’s one quote of Fred Hollows – “We discover our own humanity when we help others” – that she believes most summarises the important work of the organisation.

“It comes back to that idea of being the change you want to see in the world, which is clichéd, but I love it because it’s absolutely true.

“The world isn’t an entity we have to accept, it’s what we make of it.”

More information at hollows.org

Comprehensive, expert advice in your time of need Des Moore Principal and Solictor Family & relationship law, by agreement or litigation if necessary: Matrimonial and De-Facto property settlements Care and parenting arrangements for children Binding financial agreements

Kerry White Family Law Special Counsel Over 20 years’ experience in Family Law Dispute Resolution Family Law Mediator

Laura Dowling Family Law Associate Masters in Applied Family Law Property Settlements and Complex Parenting Matters Our team would be pleased to help you with your family law needs

6281 0999

For successful results in a cost effective manner call or email kjblaw@kjblaw.com.au Ground Floor, 10 Corinna Street, Woden 6 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

kjblaw.com.au

THE GADFLY

So, we may think things are bad now...

By Robert

MACKLIN NO-ONE likes to be the bearer of bad tidings, not even the IPCC in its frightening report on climate change.

Recently, I was asked to give a talk to the AustraliaChina Friendship Society, based on my book, “Dragon and Kangaroo”, the shared history of the two countries over the last 200 years. And right now the relationship is pretty grim.

In fact, there’s no doubt that we live in what the Chinese would call “interesting times”. But the apocryphal curse applies just as much to the Chinese people – and their Communist Party leadership – as it does to the former colonial nations of Europe and their offshoots in the US and Australia.

We are all trying to survive a worldwide existential threat posed by man-made climate change and one of its most virulent manifestations, the COVID-19 pandemic.

We think things are bad now, but it’s entirely possible that it’s only the beginning of a much more serious sequence of pandemics. We may well be at the start of an era that will determine whether our scientists and our political leaders have the imagination, the wisdom and the will to guide our species through its darkest hour.

If they fail, then the future doesn’t bear thinking about.

But if we scrape through it occurred to me that given our shared history, China and Australia have a chance – albeit a slight one – to resume a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding.

Let’s not fall into the mental trap of thinking that the current Communist Dynasty will endure forever; that somehow it marks the end of Chinese history. Like all the others, it will eventually fall; the only question is when. The human spirit demanding freedom,

justice and self-respect will triumph in the end.

Meantime, as the Olympic Games has revealed quite beautifully, when stripped to its basics, we are all equally human, equally prone to the strengths and weaknesses, the tumbles and revivals of life’s tribulations. Against that, we have different approaches to governance.

In China, power and authority resides with the emperor and is devolved to his agents. He is chosen either by family heritage or a cabal of associates. In Australia, authority rises from the people via the ballot box to the executive. But what is rarely appreciated is the concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister. He heads both the executive and the legislative branch and has final say in the appointment of the head of state and the High Court judges.

So while we often say the two systems are incompatible, there are also strong similarities; and both are subject to the iron law of Lord Acton: “All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Clearly there’s a danger that Emperor Xi will try to divert attention from domestic disaster with the folly of a military Taiwan takeover. And while no Australian prime minister has yet tested the limits of his de facto power to remain in office, in a world at panic stations over climate change and pandemics, we should not discount any possibility.

Nevertheless, I’m an optimist. And paradoxically, the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic will give us a little more time to act on climate change and think about the consequences if we fail.

There’s time to replace recalcitrant governments at the ballot box, or with a popular uprising in countries where the ballot box has been corrupted. In the end, it’s up to us. And that’s good news.

Well, goodish.

We are all trying to survive a worldwide existential threat posed by manmade climate change and one of its most virulent manifestations, the COVID-19 pandemic.

robert@robertmacklin.com

COVID-19 has affected all of us, but there is a way forward. It’s time to arm yourself by getting vaccinated. Protect yourself and the people you care about. The sooner we all do it, the sooner we’ll get through it.

Book your vaccination today.

australia.gov.au 1800 020 080

Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra.

CityNews August 19-25, 2021 7

CANBERRA MATTERS

Canberra’s planning function not fit for purpose THE ACT’s Labor/Greens coalition government is well practised at not addressing planning issues.

These politicians avoid meaningful discussions on these matters by boasting about how the Planning Directorate is conducting a planning reform – apparently starting with a blank page sometime soon.

What could go wrong with a reform being undertaken by the same lot who have messed it up completely and almost daily continue to make decisions that are horrible for the city?

ACT politicians refuse to admit just how bad things are. They remain in denial. They accept the Planning Directorate’s alternative facts as being the one true reality. One possibility often heard is that the government consists of not-so-bright politicians who do not have the capacity to see that they are being manipulated by a planning bureaucracy that is totally under the influence of developers and property lobbyists.

The new crop of Greens politicians has adapted quickly to using the meaningless language of their “communication” advisers. The nonsensical and stupid statements that surface as ministerial statements are truly gobsmacking. It is stunning to see people, who must in other aspects of their lives be normal, sign off on such pure nonsense. It must be something the bureaucrats and the communica-

When it comes to planning and development, the Labor/Greens government has allowed the Planning Directorate to pull it down the well of incompetence. tion advisers slip into the politicians’ coffees every morning.

Leading into the recent planning-reform consultations staged during June and July, community groups clung to the notion that they should be polite and respectful towards the planning bureaucrats and their ministers. They were prepared to work with the system and make submissions as required (being often). They spent time seeking a friendly adviser or bureaucrat who seemed to listen. It’s what you do in a civilised society.

Unfortunately, history has shown that these approaches can see those you are dealing with use your civility as a weapon against you. They demand you act courteously and show them respect while doing the opposite in how they conduct themselves towards you.

This is the situation that is becoming clearer to residents’ groups.

Their politeness, their patience and commitment to the city has become

480 Northbourne Avenue… home of the Planning Directorate. Photo: Paul Costigan their undoing, while the Planning Directorate, with political approval, carries on having fun in their lofty towers making a mess of things.

The most patient of residents have started to wonder whether the planning portfolio is either completely incompetent or is it simply malicious (and, therefore, has to be opaque and rude with residents to cover this up).

Something must be seriously wrong given the manner in which the last planning consultations were staged and the tokenistic documents that were published online.

These purported to represent the workshop discussions. Residents looked at the statements with utter dismay. Those who attended spoke

of the dedicated work by attendees straining to respond to the wrong set of questions while trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to steer the conversations back to things that mattered.

The insult is that the directorate published shallow and meaningless statements as a summary of what was discussed. They didn’t even bother to tell the participants that the documents were online. Anger at the charade and wasted opportunities are what people are expressing.

But what of the politicians who are

promoting this planning review as the solution to all that is wrong with planning, development and design.

Difficult to answer that as none of the present crop demonstrate a willingness to take on the Planning Directorate’s practices and on-going damaging decisions. Do we assume that all of them agree with all that is foolish within the Planning Directorate and are content to see so much damage being done to the fabric of the city?

When it comes to planning and development, the ACT Labor/Greens coalition government has allowed the Planning Directorate to pull it down the well of incompetence. This Planning Directorate and its political leadership is no longer fit for purpose.

We have three years to the next ACT elections – thinking caps on, please.

Paul Costigan is an independent commentator and consultant on the visual arts, photography, urban design, environmental issues and everyday matters.

Your source for natives in Canberra EXTENSIVE RANGE OF TUBES AND POTTED NATIVE PLANTS Grasses, ground covers, shrubs and trees suitable for cool climate gardens available year round.

A large range of unusual grafted plants and bush food plants also available.

Expert staff happy to advise or answer questions.

SPLMROSITNHEG RE! IS A

NATIVE PLANT MARKET DAY

Saturday 4th September 8.30am – 3pm Come out and support your local market growers!

Social distancing rules apply for your safety

OPEN 7 DAYS | 5A Beltana Road, Pialligo, ACT | 6257 6666 | coolcountrynatives.com.au 8 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

OPINION

Heroes lost to ‘selfish’ modern values

By Rick

FORSTER I AM a WASP, a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and I was born before World War II, so am now on the sunset side of 80.

And I am bewildered.

I come from a farming family as did my parents and grandparents. My four grandparents were born in Canada, England, Australia and NZ so I was a true child of the Empire.

We were the salt of the earth.

Of course, we do not have an Empire any more, just a Commonwealth, which sounds much more democratic and friendly, so why am I bewildered?

We were very proud of our background as pioneers and settlers, hard-working for six days of the week and Sunday was a day of rest. We had neighbours just like us and townsfolk and shopkeepers who we knew and had all formed a community, which was secure and supportive and while we had to battle with the vagaries of the climate, life was orderly and predictive.

There were indigenous people in the community and they were treated with the respect that was accorded to all, working in various jobs and playing in all the local sporting teams.

What has left me bewildered are the changes of attitudes towards us that have been wrought by this modern, selfish, disruptive and competitive world that has distorted history by imposing modern values and opinions upon those of the past.

All nations were colonised in one way or another, whether it were through the constant shifting borders or power plays in earlier settled countries or claims of property ownership as new lands were discovered. I suppose my native forebears were the ones who coated their bodies blue with pigment from the woad plant before they were colonised by the successive Picts, Jutes, Scots and Romans.

Settlement of colonies was

not smooth as there was fierce competition and battles with the French, the Spanish and the English, amongst others, as well as the skirmishes against indigenous warriors.

These were cruel and warlike times and, it may be said, the places that were settled by the British were the most fortunate, inheriting the British systems of law, civil administration and land settlement.

At the end of World War II, Australians were fundamentally an Anglo-Celtic population of around seven million people. Then we had a huge influx of refugees and migrants and these were absorbed into the community with remarkably little disruption and intolerance, and this was a most successful example of a transformation into a multicultural society.

Very little has been written or recognised about the tolerance of that British and Irish base that has welcomed foreigners to Australia.

In fact, public perception is now distorting history and those who were the salt of the earth are now, according to the “progressives”, the racist, sexist, white supremacist, violent colonists who raped and pillaged and stole the land, slaughter i ng the indigenous population and ruining the land through their thoughtless European practices of farming and grazing.

I have never raped, pillaged or slaughtered. I loved my country through all the seasons and worked the land to my very best ability for our mutual benefit, as indeed did my father and my grandfather, who also had never personally displaced or injured Aboriginal people.

As land settlement is now changing to corporate farming, there are the three generations of family settlers who built the foundation of wealth of the Australia that rode on the sheep’s back and who are now largely unrecognised, and in fact are being castigated cruelly and irrationally instead.

If you want to blame a scapegoat for any problems incurred in the inevitable colonisation process, why do you attack the later heroes upon whose shoulders you now stand? No wonder I’m bewildered.

We were very proud of our background as pioneers and settlers, hardworking for six days of the week and Sunday was a day of rest… we were the salt of the earth.

­

CityNews August 19-25, 2021 9

COVER STORY / Dawn Waterhouse

Feisty, fond memories from Dawn of Canberra

By Belinda

STRAHORN ONE of Canberra’s oldest residents identifies the “concreting” of Canberra as her greatest sadness as she reflects on a near 100-year association with the city.

As she approaches her 98th birthday Dawn Waterhouse – who grew up in Calthorpes’ House, on Mugga Way – is looking back on a lifelong connection to the nation’s capital.

Mrs Waterhouse, whose late father stock and station agent Harry Calthorpe, played a part in the settling of well-known Canberra suburbs Kingston, Griffith and Red Hill, laments the poor planning of the city that has allowed parts of it to be overwhelmed with “concrete” buildings.

“I don’t like cement, I don’t like the overcrowding and I don’t like what seems to be disrespect for the city’s poorer citizens,” says Mrs Waterhouse. “Where has our community spirit gone?”

For someone whose fam-

ily has been connected to the national capital almost for the entirety of its existence, the shape and form that Canberra’s development is taking greatly concerns Mrs Waterhouse.

“I’m so proud I’m a Canberra girl, if only they would stop building with concrete; they have lost the plot.”

Born in Queanbeyan in 1923, Mrs Waterhouse spent her formative years in the nation’s newly formed capital at a time when she said there was “really nothing there”.

“It was just a bare paddock,” Mrs Waterhouse said.

“I remember when we moved into Canberra from Queanbeyan and my father waved his hand across the land and said to my sister Del and I: ‘One day, girls, all this will be a city’.”

From close quarters, Mrs Waterhouse watched the city grow, observing its transformation from sheep paddock to modern city.

Her youth was spent riding bikes, looking for fossils at Mugga, swimming at the Cotter and roaming anywhere she liked.

“One day I walked all the way from Red Hill to Mount Ainslie and back, that was a long way,

Dawn Waterhouse OAM… “I’m so proud I’m a Canberra girl, if only they would stop building with concrete; they have lost the plot.”

Photo: Belinda Strahorn it was such an adventure,” Mrs Waterhouse said.

Witnessing the first steps of Canberra’s urbanisation, she recalls with great clarity the day the Manuka pool opened in 1931.

“Dad bought us a season ticket that cost 12/6d, that meant we could go day and night. It was absolutely wonderful,” said Mrs Waterhouse.

usic, M e r o M un...

More F

THE CLASSIC BREAKFAST with Holmsey & Jen

5.30AM TO 9AM WEEKDAYS How to listen: 1053 AM DAB Radio • www.2ca.com.au Smart speakers (just say “Play 2CA”) 10 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

A well-known local historical landmark, Mrs Waterhouse’s childhood home, Calthorpes’ House, is now a museum.

Built on Mugga Way by her parents Harry and Della, Calthorpes’ House was designed by Oakley and Parkes, the same architects who designed the Prime Minister’s residence, The Lodge.

“The bathroom in The Lodge and our bathroom were exactly the same,” said Mrs Waterhouse.

“It was my mother’s dream home, she absolutely loved it, and she never wanted to alter it. That’s why it’s a museum because it has never been changed.”

Mrs Waterhouse attended school, first at Telopea Park, then at Girls Grammar.

Her childhood ambition was to be a nurse. However on leaving school she worked as a lab assistant at the CSIRO where she met her future husband Douglas Waterhouse, an entomologist and the inventor of the formula that would go on to become “Aerogard”.

“All the boys were heading off to war so the girls got the jobs. There were lots of experiments to do. I fed grasshoppers and mosquitoes, I learnt how to crutch a sheep and drive a gas producer,” said Mrs Waterhouse.

“It was a wonderful time.”

During World War II, Mr Waterhouse, who would go on to become the chief of the CSIRO entomology division, researched extensively on controlling malaria outbreaks affecting soldiers in Papua New Guinea.

He died in 2000, aged 84.

“Doug was a very plain man, but absolutely the most witty and very clever. I loved him so much,” said Mrs Waterhouse.

The couple’s 57-year marriage produced four children, Jill, Douglas, Jonathon and Gowrie, two of whom are septuagenarians.

On top of raising her family, Mrs Waterhouse found time to join the Red Cross, the Canberra and District Historical Society, the Blood Bank and the first Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) committee.

In 1954 she was invited to arrange the flowers for the Queen’s visit to Old Parliament House.

“Then I was asked to do the flower arrangements for the Queen Mother’s visit and Princess Margaret’s visit, too; I had a bit of a flair with flowers,” Mrs Waterhouse said.

The nonagenarian has only recently slowed down, having moved into a retirement village, leaving her Forrest home of some 70 years.

For someone who has lived through a world war, the Great Depression, a polio epidemic, bushfires and drought, Mrs Waterhouse is able to put the COVID-19 pandemic into perspective.

“I am very upset at the way people are behaving. If people just stayed still it wouldn’t spread, but it’s just gone mad,” she said.

“When we were young and had chickenpox or measles, we had three weeks of isolation. I think they are letting people out too early.”

Stylishly and carefully dressed, with her hair cropped close, Mrs Waterhouse does not appear as a woman eyeballing 100.

The grandmother-of-four has written two books, can make a mean cheese scone, took up bridge in her 40s, and was recently awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

Time spent with her is uplifting, invigorating, and when you ask for her secret she doesn’t hesitate: “Always be involved in something”.

That, coupled with a “positive attitude” is the key to her longevity, she says.

While she insists she is nothing special, Mrs Waterhouse is happy to share her advice.

“Keep busy,” she said.

“And love one another... everyone needs to love each other a bit more.”

POLITICS

The border may have to burst to get everyone in THERE’S been discussion recently about the desirability of establishing a local government council or councils in the ACT, mirroring those that exist in every state, the NT and, indeed, Christmas, Cocos and Norfolk Islands.

While the idea is clearly worthy of mature debate, a big ask I know, it was nevertheless interesting that Chief Minister Andrew Barr, in response to media questioning, noted quite reasonably, that he thought that the Canberra population was currently too small to justify the expense or warrant an increase in the number of elected representatives at either a local government level or indeed in the Legislative Assembly.

What stood out for me in the Chief Minister’s response was his acknowledgement that when the ACT’s population reached 1.5 million or perhaps even a million people, that it might be appropriate to incorporate local government councils into the ACT system of governance.

What these comments suggested is that the ACT government, it seems, has in its planning for the future growth of Canberra given consideration to, or at least imagined, a population for the city as high as

The ACT government, it seems, has in its planning given consideration to, or at least imagined, a population for Canberra as high as 1.5 million (ie 1.1 million more than currently live here).

1.5 million (ie 1.1 million more than currently live here).

If that’s not the case, then it begs the question on what basis did the Chief Minister raise these numbers?

To provide some perspective, the ACT Treasury, in research underpinning the report of the “Taxation Review” handed down just over a decade ago by the then Treasurer Andrew Barr, asserted that there was sufficient developable land in the ACT, including that at Kowen, to support housing for 100 years at the then rate of population growth assuming, consistent with the then government policy, that 70 per cent of land would be released for detached housing and 30 per cent for attached housing, ie apartments and flats.

Since that research was undertaken the Labor/Greens alliance has reduced the ratio of land to be released for attached housing to 30 per cent and increased it for attached housing to 70 per cent. Because of this very significant change in housing and land-supply policy, it follows that the capacity of the ACT to provide housing will have increased proportionately.

Where will all these extra people that the government has said will live here actually reside? While I am particularly interested in where they will live, I am pretty sure, as an aside, that some of their water will be coming from a sewage purification plant.

The government has, as we know, sensibly stockpiled thousands of hectares of developable land to the west of Belconnen, in the Molonglo Valley and to the south of Weston Creek and Mount Stromlo all the way to the Murrumbidgee River.

That land will all come in handy but will barely scratch the surface of the anticipated need. Admittedly, much of the growth in housing will be met with apartment towers along the expanding tramway corridors such as Adelaide Avenue, Belconnen Way, Cotter Road and Drakeford Drive all of which, I assume, will in time resemble Northbourne Avenue.

In addition, as already mooted for Yarralumla, and one imagines all suburbs fortunate enough to be adjacent to a tramway, apartment blocks will also rise through the middle of those suburbs.

But again, that will not be sufficient to meet our anticipated needs, which suggests that the decision to extend the suburb of Ginninderry across the ACT border into NSW was, after all, an admirably strategic decision, made in response to the ACT’s future housing needs and demonstrates a level of foresight and advanced planning that, I admit, I have not previously recognised or appropriately acknowledged.

The precedent now established by the Ginninderry expansion into NSW raises the possibility for further cross-border collaboration most relevantly on the eastern, Queanbeyan, side of the border.

The Kowen plateau, which is north of Queanbeyan but in the ACT and currently covered by pine trees, has always been included in the inventory of land within the ACT to be utilised, as and when required, for housing.

I understand it has the potential to house somewhere in the order of 300,000 people.

It is, unfortunately, logistically tricky, and hence potentially costly, to access the Kowen plateau from the Canberra side. It seems logical to me, therefore, in the interests of stabilising Canberra house prices

by developing a pipeline of affordable land for housing, that the ACT government agree to swap, as a start, say 400 hectares of the Kowen plateau, with NSW in exchange for the 400 hectares of land that NSW has, in effect, agreed to cede to the ACT for the Ginninderry development.

The ACT border is surely going to have to be changed, in any event, to accommodate the Ginninderry development, so why not do it as a job lot and change it on the eastern edge at the same time. We are, after all, quite adept at land swaps.

I am sure Queanbeyan mayor Tim Overall, who has successfully provided housing for 15,000 Canberrans at Googong, would relish the opportunity of housing a further 15,000 Canberrans at Kowen.

Jon Stanhope was chief minister from 2001 to 2011 and represented Ginninderra for the Labor Party from 1998. He is the only chief minister to have governed with a majority in the Assembly.

The MonaLisa Touch is a comfortable, nonhormonal, minimally invasive and painless 5-minute treatment with zero downtime Creating longer-lasting relief, the MonaLisa Touch is for women experiencing vaginal itching/burning, vaginal dryness, loss of lubrication, vaginal laxity, incontinence symptoms, or painful sexual intercourse.

Key benefits of The MonaLisa Touch:

Dr Omar Gailani offers treatment for Gynecological conditions including Fibroids

Prolapse

Low risk – suitable for most women Pelvic Floor

Abdominal pain

Menopause

Incontinence

including Botox for overactive bladder

A referral is necessary for an appointment with Dr Gailani Canberra Urology and Gynaecology Centre | P 6285 1813 E reception@omargailani.com.au | W omargailani.com.au Suite 2, Level 2, Equinox 1, 70 Kent Street, Deakin ACT

Achieves long lasting improvements Immediate return to normal daily activities Suitable for women who are not able to undergo hormone replacement therapy eg. Breast Cancer Patients High success rates after treatment Minimal maintenance after initial procedure

Dr Omar Gailani MBCHB, DIP O&G, FRANZCOG

GYNAECOLOGICAL SURGEON & PELVIC FLOOR MEDICINE

CityNews August 19-25, 2021 11

YESTERDAYS / the dogs of war

When Digger the brave bulldog went to war AS if it wasn’t difficult enough farewelling a husband, sons, sometimes a daughter to fight foreign battles in far-flung shores, what about having to send the family pooch to join them?

More famous are the horses, donkeys and even pigeons that served – and died – particularly at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in World War I. Less attention goes to the other animals that also fulfilled important roles, including many a Rover and Fido.

In the collection of the Australian War Memorial is the taxidermy version of “Driver”, a scruffy terrier so small that after going to war in 1915, it was smuggled home in the pocket of a soldier’s greatcoat.

Another, a jowly, brown-and-white bulldog-boxer named “Digger” was also partly preserved – its outer-self tanned – and is kept by the AWM. A stray that wandered into the training camp outside Melbourne, Digger followed soldiers of the 1st Division Signal Company boarding the Gallipoli-bound troopship.

Adopted as a mascot by 22-year-old Sgt James Martin, apparently the first South Australian to volunteer for World War I, Digger also bore witness to the hell of wartime France and Belgium for three-and-a-half

The postcard of Digger, patriotically resting upon a flag, wearing a silver campaign collar festooned with ribbons.

Photo: Australian War Memorial gruelling years.

Not content with providing companionship and boosting morale, Digger would “go over the top” with provisions for men in “No Man’s Land”.

Sometimes it would return with what may have been their final goodbyes.

Digger suffered, as the soldiers did, the effects of gassing. The dog’s fellow servicemen subsequently decked it out with its own mask. At the alert of an incoming attack, it would rush to whoever was nearby to have the mask fitted over its big head.

The courageous dog would be terribly wounded: a bullet piercing its jaw, blinded in the right eye and rendered deaf in its left ear – but it survived,

making it back into Australia before quarantine rules changed.

According to the book “Animal Heroes”, 136,000 horses went to war for Australia – and only a single one returned. Sandy was the steed of Maj-Gen Sir William Throsby Bridges – a descendant of one of the first Europeans to lay eyes on the Queanbeyan-Canberra region.

His horse returned to Melbourne two years after the major-general was hit by sniper fire at Gallipoli in May, 1915. The officer was one of only two Australians killed in the Great War brought home. He was buried at Duntroon, which he’d established as a Royal Military College, in a grave

designed by Walter Burley Griffin.

Kangaroos to cockatoos, roosters to possums, all somehow made their way to the battlefields. There’s even a photo in the War Memorial archives of a barn owl.

In the ancient sea tradition, HMAS Encounter had a ship’s cat.

When it came to canines, as many as 7000 were said to be attached to the Australian Imperial Force. Some were strays found over there.

Their roles were varied. While pigeons were used for communications – some of the first recipients of the Dickin Medal for Animals, introduced in 1943 – dogs also delivered messages under arduous conditions.

As donkeys have been immortalised for ferrying the wounded, medical aid was provided by “Ambulance, Casualty or Mercy Dogs”.

Wearing the internationallyrecognised humanitarian symbol of the Red Cross – in conflicts, a literal translation of “don’t shoot” – they’d seek out injured men. With first aid kits strapped to their backs, they’d wait beside them until the stretcher bearers arrived.

Back home in Australia, the public

rallied to raise funds for Digger’s care, its cause promoted with a postcard.

Giving an excellent Winston Churchill impersonation it patriotically rests upon a flag, wearing a silver campaign collar festooned with ribbons. These items are also with the War Memorial.

Digger posthumously earned “Australia’s first Blue Cross Award for coming to the aid of human life”, described as the “animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross”.

One hundred years earlier on Empire Day, 1919, the holiday marking Queen Victoria’s birthday and loyalty to the crown, Digger joined the march with its unit for the last time. That night, exploding fireworks, perhaps startling it back to a time of bombs and whistling shrapnel, led it to try to jump a fence, mortally injuring itself.

When found, Digger was lying upon his master’s bed.

Lest we forget.

More of Nichole Overall’s work is at anoverallview. wixsite.com/blog

IF things look a little different at citynews.com.au, they are.

In fact, everything’s different. We have rebuilt the popular website from the ground up to give us a (very) modern digital hub designed to meet the fast-news needs of readers in Canberra and Queanbeyan.

And, in all modesty, it’s getting rave reviews from our thousands of readers who are driving record daily audience numbers, which is pretty cool.

Advertisers are responding positively to the flexibility and cost-efficiency of being seen by so many people digitally every single day. And that’s pretty cool, too.

There remains no paywall to readers and it features all the regular news, views and arts stories that matter.

I can also confirm that the free crossword and sudoku puzzles are working perfectly!

Have a peep (citynews.com.au), we think you’ll love our new world of local news.

Sincerely, Ian Meikle, editor

A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF LOCAL NEWS...

12 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

WHIMSY

Say ‘cheese’, George, let’s see those choppers CLIVE WILLIAMS offers up a column to sink your teeth into and explains why it’s best not to use them to open bottles!

FIFTY years ago, many older people had their natural teeth replaced by dentures – dentures being removable frames holding artificial teeth. Both my mum and dad had dentures by the time they reached middle age (around 40 years of age in the 1950s).

Natural teeth are composed of calcium, phosphorus, and other minerals. The pulp is the “nerve centre” of a tooth. It contains blood vessels, nerves, and connective tissue.

The pulp is surrounded by dentin (the main part of the tooth) that, in turn, is covered by enamel. Enamel is the hardest substance in the body, but unlike bone tissue it can’t regenerate or repair itself.

In the past, even the wealthy lacked natural teeth by the time they reached their 40s. President George Washington had several sets of false teeth, including at least one with slave teeth. None of his sets – contrary to popular belief – was made from wood.

The set he wore when he became president (aged 57) was carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs.

Why do we need teeth? Well, the main purpose of our teeth is to mechanically break down items of

food by cutting and crushing it in preparation for swallowing.

To do the job, we have four types of teeth: incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. Each has a specific function: incisors cut the food, canines tear the food, and premolars and molars crush it.

Say cheese… President George Washington wore a set Incisors are at the front of your mouth, of false teeth carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs when he became US canines are next, president in 1789. and premolars and molars are towards caused by a combination of factors, the back of your mouth. including damage to the enamel, Humans, like other mammals, bacteria in your mouth, frequent develop two sets of teeth. The first snacking, sugary drinks, and not human set of 20 normally appears cleaning your teeth properly. Metharound six months of age. Permanent amphetamine users will end up with teeth start to appear between the ages teeth that are blackened, stained, of six and seven. By the age of 21, the rotting, crumbling and falling apart. average person has 32 permanent In the past, most dentists filled teeth – 16 in the upper jaw and 16 in cavities with dental amalgam, which the lower jaw. Wisdom teeth are usuis a mixture of liquid mercury and a ally the last four (molars) to appear. powdered alloy of silver, tin and copTooth decay and cavities are per. While amalgam is hard-wearing,

it cracks teeth due to the expansion and contraction differential and, according to my holistic dentist, eventually starts to break down and release mercury into your body.

In 1996 I got him to remove all my amalgam fillings and replace them with porcelain ones.

Today, fillings can be gold, porcelain, tooth-coloured plastic, or composite resin. Amalgam is still used in Australia although the European Union is moving to ban its use for health and environmental reasons.

My dentist also told me I needed a crown. I thought to myself: “At last, someone who recognises my true potential.” (Actually, he meant a dental crown that fits over a damaged tooth.)

Most Western cultures value the appearance of one’s front teeth.

TV stars invariably have perfectly spaced, dazzling white teeth mounted in a Ken or Barbie body. Most of the rest of us have slightly stained but otherwise presentable teeth in a more normal-shaped body.

Close-up television interviews have made us all more conscious of people’s teeth and it’s distracting when a speaker has an unsightly set

of front teeth. Smiling with no teeth is decidedly Third World.

In a major disaster – such as the 2004 Asian tsunami – bodies can degrade quickly beyond visual recognition, particularly in the tropics.

Fortunately, everyone with natural teeth has a unique set – meaning that most of us can be positively identified by our dental records.

It’s obviously important to take good care of one’s teeth with regular brushing and flossing. Only masochists enjoy dental drilling, but it’s essential for your overall health to keep on top of decay and cavities.

Finally, apropos cavities – a dentist looks into a patient’s mouth and exclaims: “That’s the biggest cavity I’ve ever seen, I’ve ever seen.”

“I heard you the first time,” said the patient. “You didn’t need to repeat it.”

“I didn’t,” said the dentist. “That was an echo.”

Clive Williams is a Canberra columnist.

Renovating or relocating? Don’t pay $500+ per month for city storage!

SPECIAL RATES: LARGE: 40m , 3-4 BED HOME – $240 per month MEDIUM: 28m3, 1-2 BED HOME – $175 per month SMALL: 14m3, STUDIO APARTMENT – $140 per month 3

Let us do the hard work for you with our pack & move, door to store service

HALVE YOUR

STORAGE COST

35

$

FROM

FOR

PER WEEK

14m3

Forget the corporates – our family run business has 50 years of experience Stored securely out of town and returned to you by professionals when you need it!

Removals only $180 per hour for two men + large truck OR $160 per hour for two men + small truck Caravan/Boat/Trailer/Car storage available!

FOR QUALITY STORAGE AT A GREAT PRICE CALL TODAY 02 9986 3618 Email: office@selfstoragesolutions.com.au • selfstoragesolutions.com.au CityNews August 19-25, 2021 13

LETTERS

Write to us: editor@citynews.com.au

Society’s at odds with itself in the drug war THE decision of an Assembly Labor MLA to introduce private member’s legislation to legalise small quantities of illicit drugs set me thinking about the inconsistencies of our attitude to the issue.

We repeatedly are provided with publicity about successful drug interceptions by our Border Force or local police. We are occasionally told of either lengthy prison sentences for drug smugglers of large quantities of these substances or limited jail time for some celebrity, often sporting, so involved.

And so what?

Despite these apparent successes, the scourge continues throughout society without real advances. Indeed, considerable efforts are made to excuse the drug problem as a health issue, a not unreasonable argument if we were doing more to defeat it, as we have with other human frailties such as smoking. But we are not.

True, alcohol and gambling also have destructive results, including criminal behaviour and social breakdown, but overall they’re in a minor league to that of drug addiction.

Insufficient attention has addressed why people turn to drugs and too much has concentrated upon the effect upon society.

Why do people turn to drugs? I don’t know and I’ve yet to see any explanation as to why people turn to drugs, surely a required step to fighting the problem.

Why are penalties soft? Our legal attitude to the death penalty obscures the truth that the kingpins of this illicit trade and their often well-funded mules threaten the lives of so many addicts, yet mortality figures are not published now, a strange way to fight an addiction.

We should either recognise this contradiction and reintroduce capital punishment for traffickers or tighten our laws so life sentences without parole are mandatory.

How can you justify limited sentences for those who profit from death?

Society appears at odds with itself in the drug war. Everyone believes it is a horrible scourge, yet our approach to fighting it varies from being too soft on penalties and wanting to legalise at least small amounts (however that can be assessed!) and seeking increased funding for rehabilitation. Isn’t this admitting we cannot win the war, so we might as well live (and die) with it?

This latter argument also advocates gov-

ernment involvement with injecting clinics for addicts. How this might slow the number of users in the community is not explained nor how it would stop traffickers, unless the government was prepared to increase the dosage to those who wanted it.

Once again it appears we are unable as a nation to make up our minds what to do about a serious problem, compensating for firm action with alternative options to soothe the concerns of a confused public.

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla (Greg is a former Liberal MLA and Speaker in the Legislative Assembly).

Shared concerns of housing affordability I SHARE with columnist Jon Stanhope the concerns he raises about housing affordability in Canberra (“ACT government pulls the levers on widening inequity”, CN August 5).

I remember buying my first (ex-government) house in Canberra and that it cost about six times my salary at the time. It was such a struggle to meet the repayments that we went without many things. It was about all we could do to afford petrol so we could go for picnics to the Cotter and down by the lake. I am sure mine is not a unique story. We paid off the house and eventually moved on to a bigger one where I still live.

The internet tells me that in Canberra the average house size is the largest in the country exceeding over 250 square metres.

This is well over twice the size of my first home and also much larger than my second.

Today people’s expectations are so high.

People are knocking down houses in our suburbs to replace them with dwellings that are larger than their parents and grandparents ever owned.

The demolished houses that were once good enough to raise a family in, are, apparently, no longer adequate. However, if one looks at smaller houses in the notso-expensive suburbs, guess what, they are about six times the salary rate for the equivalent pay level that I was earning when I bought my first house.

Jon Stanhope refers to people who travel from interstate to work in Canberra. The clue is in the fact that they have jobs. I lived in Queanbeyan to save for a house deposit.

Others live there long term maybe due to housing affordability. Yet others live over the border on quite pleasant semi-rural blocks. Some are attracted by the perceived advantages of freehold title. These are

choices that working people make.

But Mr Stanhope offers no viable suggestions on how to address his concerns.

Housing availability is not likely to be solved by just making more land available. To encourage investment and affordability it must be attractive for investors to sink money into housing.

In Canberra, I know someone who has sold his investment property due to land-tax impositions. Concerns about bad tenants have also knocked another investor I know of out of an investment property. It seems logical that ultimately the open market will determine housing prices and availability. It will always be a struggle for many to get a foot on the property ownership ladder or to acquire suitable rentals just as it has always been.

I would like to hear what other readers think on this topic and what remedies they might offer.

Stephen James, Chisholm

Plea to quieten a noisy neighbour HELP! My wife and I are in our mid-80s. We have lived in our own home in a very quiet street in Curtin for more than 50 years.

Our neighbours opposite have a son in his 20s. After leaving school, he’s gone into the building industry and has a large SUV-type vehicle in support of his job.

Problem is, he starts very early to go to work, as early as 6.40am, and so I am awakened early, too, despite the fact we sleep at the rear of our house.

I have spoken with his father and complained to him in writing for months, but all in vain.

Question is, what can I do about it? I wouldn’t like to think this is going on for the rest of my life – what there is of it.

What are my options? Has anyone else had a similar problem and how did they manage to solve it? Legally? Peacefully?

M McGregor, Curtin (Readers with suggestions, please email editor@citynews.com.au)

Cyclists are reckless, too I THOUGHT it appropriate that the police said they will also be “looking for cyclists” doing the wrong thing on our roads (“Police turn their focus to the safety of cyclists”, citynews.com.au, August 2).

Yes, reckless motor vehicle users are on our roads, but I argue there is also a fair share

of cyclists that fall into that same category.

I have seen many times cyclists go through a stop sign or red light because they must think that only applies to cars.

I understand that cyclists don’t even need evidence that they know the road rules. Is there an age restriction on riders? – can a 10-year-old go for a cycle down a major road?

Like me, I think many readers of this letter could tell a story or two that relate to bad experiences with cyclists on the road.

I hope the increasing popularity of in-car video recorders proves the blame doesn’t always automatically fall on the motor vehicle driver.

Please know that I am not having a go at recreational riders that enjoy exercise by riding around the lake, mountain bike riding or having a casual cruise on the bike paths.

If you ride on the road then it’s your choice, however it’s not a chance with my safety I would ever take.

Bjorn Moore, Gowrie

Pothole concerns go unheeded THE land under the Southern Cross is what Australia is also known as, so I presume that the road from Holt golf course to Coulter Drive, Belconnen, was called Southern Cross Drive to honour this fact.

If our land is in such disrepair as Southern Cross Drive, I don’t give us much hope.

You start at one end and play dodgem all the way down to the other end. There are roadworks signs along the way that have been there for months but no roadworks (if you see someone working there take a picture as it could be a collector’s item) and worst of all potholes in the road that you could lose your car in.

I actually saw someone patching them up the other day and wonder what they were using as it must have been the shredded paper from City Services and tar as it rained the next day and, behold, the potholes have appeared again.

I have written two letters to my local Liberal MLA (still waiting for an acknowledgement) and two to City Services about this matter, but as usual the silence is deafening.

I wonder if I should pay my rates or road tax this year, because if an accident should occur due to the poor condition of the road will our illustrious local government bear the costs?

Errol Good, Macgregor

Take kindness ever forward SOCIAL researcher and psychologist Hugh Mackay’s final book is excitingly titled “The Kindness Revolution” (“Hugh’s calling for a revolution ... of kindness”, CN August 5).

He emphasises that we are a social species, and that during disasters such as the pandemic many of us are especially kind to one another. Why, kindness has even spread to competitors at the Olympics!

However, humanity must take kindness ever forward as in a revolution. Science is at the centre of deadly climate change for understanding and solving it, but kindness and compassion must be there, too, for all humans and other species. We urgently need our leaders and all associated with the fossil fuel industry to know and feel this.

It will be incredibly wonderful and important to see this culminate at the UN’s historic global agreement COP26 in early November. It will be a giant step forward for a better world for humankind.

Barbara Fraser, Burwood, Victoria

Dim forms of looming new towers IN the latest publicity graphics for light rail stage 2a (Civic to Commonwealth Park), the dim forms of new buildings sheepishly appear, lurking in the south-west sector of the City Hill precinct.

They’re bulky, close together, and tall; and they’ll block prospects of the lake and mountains beyond, as well as views into the hilltop park. And there’ll be more to come, including in the south-east precinct, and down and along Commonwealth Avenue.

For those who, in support of development there, invoke Griffin’s depictions, the proposed development is nothing like his suggested built forms.

Canberra’s planners in the ‘60s opted for an open-space character for the hill precinct, and chose fine grassed “cloverleaf” road arrangements in the southern parts of City Hill. They work well, and respect the Central National Area ambience; and we should respect their engineering and urban-design heritage, and not permit development there (certainly not private residential) – especially given the way some property developers are given free rein here.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

SUFFERING FROM DIGESTION PROBLEMS? OVER 35 YEARS OF HELPING CANBERRA FEEL BETTER

WE DO TELEPHONE, SKYPE AND VIDEO CONSULTATIONS Eliminate illness: address the underlying cause of your poor health, not just the symptoms We can provide a safe and effective treatment for: • Bloating • Constipation • Diarrhea • Flatulance • Irritable Bowel Syndrome Luke Clews

SAFE • NON-INVASIVE • EFFECTIVE • CHRONIC CONDITIONS ARE OUR SPECIALITY

Kingston Natural Therapies

49 Jardine Street, Kingston | kingstonnaturaltherapies.com.au | Phone 6295 6660 14 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

INSIDE

Alien stories always fly

NICK OVERALL

ARTS IN THE CITY

Soprano to train five local singers

By Helen

MUSA FIVE Canberra singers, Charles Bogle, Emmeline Booth, Hannah Carter, Thomas Nolte-Crimp and Katrina Wiseman, have been selected by National Opera director, Peter ColemanWright, to participate in a public masterclass with operatic soprano Alexandra Flood, who is returning from Europe to spend a few months here. The masterclass will be held in Larry Sitsky Recital Room, September 4, followed by a concert of operatic favourites featuring Flood at The Street Theatre, Sunday, September 5. Book for both at nationalopera.org.au

Sarah Lucas, “Wallpaper of Eating a Banana”, 1990. Foreground “TITTIPUSSIDAD”.

MEANTIME, bookings are also open for the postponed presentation of Puccini’s “La Rondine” at Llewellyn Hall on October 21, 23 and 25. Lauren Fagen replaces Lorina Gore in the lead role of Magda, but tenor Henry Choo still plays her love interest Ruggero. Book at nationalopera.org.au

Sarah Lucas’ “OOPS!”, 2019. Photo: Robert Glowacki

Sarah’s blush-making sculptures

By Helen Musa

“PROJECT 1: Sarah Lucas” is surely the National Gallery of Australia’s most in-your-face exhibition in years, from one of Britain’s most in-your-face artists.

Sadly, because of covid, she can’t be here to enjoy the fun as visitors wander among phalluses and very strange contortions of the female and male body combined.

Defying conventions of classical balance, Lucas combined the ancient aesthetic of bronze with its brilliant golden patina and sometimes something darker, with the soft sculptures she’s best known for to create an extraordinary suite of threedimensional artworks.

The exhibition is staged quite theatrically, with Lucas’ notorious black and white single portrait of herself eating a banana from 1990 now seen as wallpaper, dominating the sculptural installations.

“The banana joke is pretty clear,”

the NGA’s curator of projects, Peter Johnson, says explaining that though it was part of her rise to fame, she had later unearthed the contact sheet from those images and found them so sharp, snapped as they were in the pre-digital era, that they could be adapted into a wallpaper display of more than seven metres high from floor to ceiling.

Johnson has no doubt that Lucas is one of the most important artists of the past 30 years. He’s also pretty sure that it’s the first significant show of her work in Australia – a coup for the gallery – and declares himself “incredibly excited”.

“It looks like gold, doesn’t it?” he says enthusiastically of the bronze used in the NGA’s recently-acquired work, “TITTIPUSSIDAD” explaining that it takes a scouring pad to keep them looking like that and indicating a nearby sculpture in which the patina has been allowed to age naturally.

The show is an obvious adjunct to the “Know My Name Part II” exhibition in the adjoining galleries, and the decision to stage Lucas’s work is part of the gallery’s push to increase the representation of women artists.

“Project 1: Sarah Lucas” so named because it’s the first of the National Gallery’s “Project Series”, features two recent sculpture series, including new works from the “Bunny” series she’s been making since 1997 in which she leads the British artists who look irreverently and talk about sexuality.

Johnson alerts me to a 1997 prototype called “Bunny Gets Snookered,” in which the compliant blue-clad female figure sits on a mid-century armchair on top of a snooker table.

When it comes to unflattering diminutives for women, Australians might be more familiar with the idea of women as chicks, not bunnies, but as Johnson points out, Lucas had her eyes very firmly on Hugh Hefner’s sexy “Playboy” Bunnies, who were always available but, though appearing to be living the high life, sadly abused.

“The works are funny, this is always a joke or a punch to make difficult things easy to talk about,” Johnson says, and indeed Lucas has said: “‘When humour happens, things get good. Less depressing. It’s a kind of magic”.

Apart from the banana photograph, Lucas has been best-known since

UPCOMING

LIVE MUSIC

T-REX is roaring into Canberra this month in “Jurassic Creatures”, an animatronics exhibition involving more than 30 dinosaurs and activities designed to immerse families in a prehistoric time. At 18 Spitfire Avenue, Majura Park, August 27-October 4. Book at ticketmaster.com.au

the 1990s for her soft, female-like sculptures, often filled with wool, possibly undermining the materiality of what Johnson calls “the sculpturein-the- town-square” through the soft medium.

In her newest work, Lucas has set up an intellectual-visual analysis of the question, “where does power sit?” as she confronts and ridicules the stereotype, “soft for girls, hard for boys”. The title of one sculpture is “DICK ‘EAD” and the meaning is very clear.

The sculptures on show at the NGA are solid, hard and blush-making as she examines, though androgynous or even hermaphroditic sculptures, the way bodies works are enjoyed or exploited.

There’s humour in the way she takes a swipe at masculine superiority, yet there is sadness, too, as she seems to be exploring the pain threshold that women experience, especially when it comes to the shoes they wear.

In fact, the remarkable exhibition could be subtitled not “Know My Name” but “Know my Shoes”.

PERIPATETIC Canberra dance artist James Batchelor and his collaborators have been presenting the world premiere season of “An Evening-length Performance” in Berlin for the Tanz im August festival.

OUT of a field of nearly 250 applicants across Australia, Canberra visual artists Saskia Haalebos and Lisa Sammut are two of the five recipients chosen for The Unconformity artist in residence program on the remote west coast of Tasmania.

Haalebos, from Belconnen, is already there while Sammut, who works in sculpture, video and installation, makes the trip to Queenstown in September.

SOPRANO Veronica Milroy joins pianist Ella Luhtasaari in “The Desire for Hermitage”, a Luminescence Chamber Singers’ soloist concert. This exploration of the melancholy, creativity, and humour is shown through the lens of Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs and the music of 20th and 21st century composers.

ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Sunday, August 22. Book via Eventbrite.

THE Museum of Contemporary Art and Monash University Museum of Art are jointly staging a major survey of the work of the trailblazer Canberra artist Vivienne Binns next year in 2022.

Now 80, Binns has been at the forefront of her practice for more than six decades. A Creative Partnerships Australia Fund has been established to receive donations for the production of the monograph, writers’ and reprint fees. The fundraising target is $25,000. Donate at cpaus.force.com

“Project 1: Sarah Lucas”, National Gallery of Australia, until February 13. Free entry.

S

U

N

S

A

U

G

S

S

A

T

S

S

E

P

S

S

U

N

S

E

P

29 SPECIAL K SOLO 3PM

04 THIRD PARTY 7.30PM 05 WAYNE RYDER 3PM

A

T

E

P

U

N

E

P

11

NIGHT TRAIN 7.30PM

12 AZLAN 3PM Sponsored by

28 Kett St, Kambah | 6296 2425 | burnsclub.com.au CityNews August 19-25, 2021 15

CINEMA / reviews

Alexander makes it to his big Miss France moment “Miss” (M) FRESH ideas can bless or corrupt the people in whose mind they erupt. French writer/director Ruben Alves had one.

Ruben’s was a rather corny sociological and behavioural event called the beauty pageant. Namely, Miss France 2020. His approach to it was a surprise revealed to the resulting film’s viewers even before its opening credits finished. It ended with an outcome that I’m sure will not surprise you.

Nine-year-old Alexander tells his class that his ambition is to become Miss France. Laughs all round.

Fifteen years later, Alexander (Alexander Wetter) lives among cheerful LGBTQ friends in a dress-making sweatshop. We know his ambition. His sexuality remains not relevant throughout.

The plot involves a bunch of attractive young nominees in the Miss France contest. Until Judgement Night, they are a band of competitors under constant observation from day-to-day chaperone Amanda (Pascale Arbillot), learning to get along with each other and the corporate organisers.

For my money, Amanda’s listing in the credits, second only after Alexandra’s (the name Alexander adopts for contest purposes) makes a subtle but pungent statement.

Amanda looks okay but subdued, not a standout beauty.

Her assets run deeper than what shows on the outside.

“Miss” makes a gentle, mildly amusing statement about exploiting women merely because of their looks, not their minds. Some of the dialogue emphasises that without being unkind. It gave me a boost after a misadventure from which I came away unscarred but slightly shocked. “Miss” helped me get over that as well as for its own sake.

I enjoyed “Miss”. I quickly formed an opinion about how it was going to end. So will you.

At Dendy

“Free Guy” (M) I WAS the only grown-up watching “Free Guy”, director Shawn Levy’s subtle confrontation with the world of video gaming. After it finished, I spoke with some adolescents who also watched it.

They got their buzz from the images in the film’s imaginary technology content which, when you look more closely, aren’t as spectacular or as original as might at first glance seem.

Video games as the topic for an expensive-looking, dramatically unsubtle, thud-and-blunder movie? You bet.

Alexander Wetter as Alexandra in “Miss”.

The youngsters’ comments missed its deeper message.

Ryan Reynolds plays mild-mannered bank teller Guy for whom life is positive, cheerful but pretty mundane right down to his pale-blue shirts. But when Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer) shows up delivering video-game-like violence, love strikes him. Guy soon learns that he has become a non-playing character in a video game, “Free City”. And Molotov girl is really Millie who looks cute and behaves intelligently.

At Soonami Corporation, Keys (Joe Keery) and Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar) are developing the next iteration of the company’s best-selling game. Soonami mogul Antoine wants them to go faster – he needs more billions to enjoy.

These few characters head a cast of 106 actors, mostly credited, some not, delivering action subtly underlining the writer’s intention. It’s been a long time since I watched a big-budget-actioner-fantasy American movie almost identical with every other such except for the window-dressing created to paint it to the screen. I figure that people who enjoy such movies already know what’s going to happen.

“Free Guy” is an out-and-out satire on modern technology. Its video-game characters almost universally go about killing each other. Who kills most wins. Writer Matt Lieberman chose his target well. How’s about a game in which the hero is friendly, kind and helpful and might even convert bad guys into good guys?

NZ filmmaker/actor Taika Waititi plays Antoine. Look harder at Antwan. I saw Donald Trump.

The screenplay’s phonetic spelling of characters’ names, most notably “Soonami” and “Antwan”, looked like a shot at education levels for young folk who in later life might regret never having lernd to spell correctly.

At Dendy and Palace Electric

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Mulder and Scully in “The X Files”.

WATCH IT! / streaming and stuff

It’s the alien stories that always fly on the screens

By Nick

OVERALL EVERY so often Netflix will release a UFO documentary that will never fail to hover around the website’s top trending shows.

This time it’s “Top Secret UFO Projects Declassified” and it’s chock-full of wonky special effects, nutty narrators and apparent alien encounters.

Shows like this are pure fodder for Netflix. Cheap to produce, cheap to buy, and yet they still work wonders in absorbing large audiences.

For other documentaries on the world’s leading streaming platform production value this shabby wouldn’t fly, but for the ones about little green men people seem to overlook it, eager to get caught up in a mystery.

Some of the most successful of these shows in the last few years include “Ancient Aliens”, “Chasing Conspiracies” and last year’s highly popular revival of “Unsolved Mysteries”.

What the demand of these docos reveal is that UFOs and conspiracy theories continue to hold sway over popular culture, even 80 years after the craze first emerged.

While the idea of apparent alien visitors itself may be fascinating, the real events that entangled rampant speculation with the public consciousness is the true intrigue.

It’s birthplace: America in the ‘40s emerging from the shadows of World War II. Nuclear weapons were more than ever in the minds of civilians, the Soviet Union was quickly rising in power, and the Doomsday Clock, a timer that measures humanity’s proximity to annihilation, started ticking.

Paranoia and speculation were at an all-time high and, in 1947, it would tip over the edge when the town of Roswell’s daily newspaper reported that a strange flying disk had crash landed on a ranch.

Defence forces had released a press release announcing the discovery of an “unidentified flying object”, one they shortly after retracted in favour of a “crashed weather balloon”.

But the damage was done,

CONVERSION SERVICE Would you like to watch those old family videos once again, or listen to your favourite SLIDES TO records on CD? D NOW DV

We can take your AVAILABLE PRICE ON vinyl records or APPLICATION cassette tapes and put them onto CD and we transfer VHS tapes onto DVD.

OPEN 7 DAYS Cooleman Court, Weston Creek | 6293 4677 | songland.com.au 16 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

conspiracy exploded and transformed Roswell into the UFO capital of the world, a title it still very much holds today, with a UFO museum and a main street that’s littered with alien merchandise.

Some 30 years later the Roswell incident would resurface when a retired lieutenant colonel claimed the weather balloon was a cover story, causing a new frenzy of speculation.

With decades of conspiratorial momentum behind him, in 1993 TV producer Chris Carter would catch lightning in a bottle with his creation of the pop-culture touchstone “The X Files”, which still holds pride of place today on Disney Plus.

Do they need an introduction?

It’s the tale of two FBI agents Mulder and Scully who throughout 11 seasons and two films explored all things paranormal.

So impactful was “The X Files” that it ushered in a new age of government mistrust, an embracing of conspiracy theories and popularised the famous catch-cry “I want to believe”.

“Mulder and Scully came right out of my head: a dichotomy,” Carter explained to “Omni” magazine in 1994 in an article that, at the time, dubbed “The X Files” as “TV’s hottest show”.

“They are the equal parts of my desire to believe in something and my inability to believe in something.”

In 2016 “The X Files” got a revival that, even 14 years after the series originally concluded, still made a splash in the entertainment landscape.

Gillian Anderson has now moved on from the show, so while Mulder and Scully may not be paired up ever again, Chris Carter still believes there’s more X Files to be explored yet, especially with how popular the conspiracy shows continue to be.

Streamers, it seems, want to believe.

CINEMA

Loneliness of the long-distance monologue

By Helen Musa

Best is busy looking at entries in her newest digital monologue project “Q the Bard”.

Actors aged 12-25 have been invited to submit video submissions of five-minute monologues and duologues and the winners will become Q Young Ambassadors for 2022, with a swag of benefits.

Hatched during the depths of 2020, it’s a follow-up to last year’s lockdown initiative, “Stripped”, where from August to September, seven local actors performed short monologues on an empty stage, taken from works by playwrights as diverse as Shakespeare and Larry Kramer, and videoed for broadcast by Craig Alexander.

“I’ve always loved Shakespeare, but it’s often seen as elite and inaccessible,” Best says.

“People think you have to be an expert, but I think it’s just rip-snorting, good theatre.”

My understanding is that the monologue gives actors understandable insights into characters.

Best explains that while monologues are extracts from theatre works, in soliloquies, made famous by Shakespeare, the actor is talking directly to the audience – either is fine for “Q the Bard”.

MONOLOGUES are all the rage in Australia’s theatre and nowhere more so than in Canberra and Queanbeyan.

Elevated from a kind of maiden-auntly status because of covid, the monologue is offering opportunities to young up-andcoming talents.

One such is 15-year-old Jade Breen from Isaacs, who’s just been selected for the World Monologue Games Regional Finals.

Breen is everywhere of late. I’ve personally seen her on stage at Canberra Youth Theatre’s reading of Rebecca Duke’s play “Space Oddity”, in the company’s “Little Girls Alone In The Woods” and, during work experience at the theatre, joining comedian Josh Bray on stage.

She was also cast to play the plum role of Alfred in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” at Canberra Rep. “Auditioning for NIDA and the Victorian College of the Arts is my dream, or else to work in the theatre in Sydney,” she says and since her school, Daramalan College, has a good track record in getting its graduates into the top drama institutes, she’s in with a chance.

She saw the monologue competition advertised on Facebook last year and since not much was happening during covid, she decided to enter. Second time around, she made it to the finals with a monologue showing a girl struggling with an eating disorder.

That’s not her, she is quick to point out,

Jade Breen… selected for the World Monologue Games Regional Finals. although many of her close friends grapple with the problem, and she praises the monologue form for allowing her to get into new shoes.

“For me as an actor in a monologue, you’re getting into the headspace of a character, into the inner workings of the mind,” she says.

“That’s what I love, getting really into the character. But it’s not just about eating disorders, it’s about the insecurities of being a teenage girl and growing up into a young woman – that was what was more important, giving a voice to teenage girls in general.”

It was fairly easy to submit a monologue in basic video form and now, in preparation for the regional finals, she is required to re-record her initial monologue.

Natasha Vickery performs Portia to an empty theatre.

The World Monologue Games is a global acting competition and virtual showcase set up last year by Sydney playwright Pete Malicki, who wanted a lockdown-friendly platform for performers and this year there

Photo: Jordan Best

are performers from 51 countries in the finals, performing in different languages.

Meanwhile across the border at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre – The Q – director and Shakespeare tragic Jordan

To enter “Q the Bard”, send a video (phone is fine) by We Transfer to Jordan.Best@qprc. nsw.gov.au by August 31. Winners will be announced on September 6.

The regional finals of the World Monologue Games will be livestreamed at monologues. com.au from August to October, and the global finals, October-November.

DINING / The Meat & Wine Co Meeting at the carnivore’s delight

By Wendy

JOHNSON THE MEAT & Wine Co is a carnivore’s delight. This premium steakhouse seats more than 100 inside and 60-plus in the front courtyard.

It was Friday lunch and although we started at 2pm, parts of the restaurant were packed and the place was super noisy. The interior is intriguing – Afro-chic with big, leather, dark-brown seating and loads of bronze and gold accents.

The Meat & Wine Co offers an exclusive line of Monte Beef and steaks are basted with a 50-year-old secret recipe that adds a surprising touch of sweetness.

The South African influence is predominant throughout the menu and wine list, which features special drops from Stellenbosch and Western Cape. Our Stellenbosch Radford Dale chardonnay was charming and not heavy on the oak ($78).

Having lived in South Africa, I was keen to try the traditional dishes. We shared the air-dried beef biltong, lovely and peppery on the outside ($14/100 grams), an acquired taste for some. The Boerewors mini beef sausages ($16 for three) were dense, but not dry. The accompanying

The 300g rib eye steak won the taste battle! Photo: Wendy Johnson chakalaka relish was spicy, tangy and colourful. The Meat & Wine Co should bottle and sell it.

The Meat & Wine Co prides itself on the quality of its beef, working with hand-selected farms around Australia that operate ethically and dry-ageing to perfection.

I had heard mixed reports about The Meat & Wine Co cooking steaks “just so” – even though meat is their thing – and so on ordering, we specified that we wanted care to be taken. The meat, grain-fed for 120 days, was perfectly rare as ordered.

The 200-gram fillet was super tender ($39) although the 300-gram rib eye ($43) won the taste battle.

The Meat & Wine Co offers seven sauces and the hot African chilli was powerful ($5). We sliced through the meat with ease using seriouslooking, heavy-duty steak knives featuring black marbled handles.

The steaks arrived with

disappointing salads. The tomatoes were hard and tasteless (the kitchen should have just left them out), some leaves were wilted and the dressing was mediocre.

We ordered a decadent mash ($8) and loved that the kitchen didn’t hold back on butter. The dish of the day was the traditional samp – coarsely ground maize kernels; a staple starch dish in South Africa. This version featured truffles and porcini, with grated biltong, parmesan and herb crumbs and it was truly amazing ($12). We’d go back just for the samp.

The restaurant shocked us by whipping out a bright purple Dyson vacuum on not one, but two occasions, vacuuming directly around the place even though service was in full swing (a bit tacky). The music was super heavy on the base and at one point we wondered if we were in a nightclub.

CityNews August 19-25, 2021 17

FOOD & BEVERAGES

Celebrating the diversity of flavours in the region CANBERRA’S food and beverage scene is a true celebration of local, national and international flavours.

Whether it’s about highlighting the tastes of India, focusing on fresh produce, or locally made barrelaged whisky, “CityNews” speaks to the Canberra businesses that represent some of the region’s finest in food and beverages. Bon appétit!

18 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

Festival celebrates the tastes of India

Special whisky tasting experience

EXPERIENCE the soul of India at the upcoming “Taste of India Mega Food Festival” at the Lyons Church of Christ, 9am-7pm, on October 9, says convenor Jacob Vadakkedathu.

Jacob says the event brings together the best of the best from the Indian sub-continent and offers a great opportunity for the local community to taste vegetarian and non-vegetarian Indian dishes that are delicious and nutritious.

“This sprawling, outdoor festival has plenty of stalls set up in an open-air market serving all varieties of Indian delicacies including masala dosa, ghee dosa, plain dosa, idli sambar, poori, fried rice and butter chicken, chicken biryani, samosas, and everything in between,” he says.

“In addition to some mouth-watering Indian delicacies, the festival offers plenty of sweets, refreshing drinks, farm-grown honey and homemade cakes.”

It’s not only delicious food that will be on offer though, there will be music along with a child-friendly section for kids to enjoy playing games.

Organised by the St Gregorios Indian Orthodox Church, a not-for-profit organisation in Canberra, Jacob says the festival will also fundraise for Ronald McDonald House Charities.

“As the name suggests, the event brings some fabulous tastes of India to visitors,” he says.

Expect to experience scrumptious food, refreshing drinks, grooving music and a cosy

PROHIBITION Bottle Shop Kingston is offering Canberrans a special tasting experience with a locally made, barrelaged whisky from the Canberra Distillery, says owner Paul Cains.

“We’ve had a 100-litre barrel ageing in store for two years and it’s been off-site for 12 months so it’s spent a total of three years ageing,” says Paul.

“The experience offers you the opportunity for two exclusive tastings from the barrel before the end of the year and a bottle of this delicious, smooth elixir of your very own to savour when it’s ready at the end of 2021.

“For $200 you’ll get to come in for one tasting in September with the head distiller and one in December where you’ll be provided with a bottle.”

Paul says it’s just one part of an extensive range of options available at the independently owned store located at Kingston Foreshore.

“We’ve got a great selection of local

Festival convenor Jacob Vadakkedathu. ambiance, he says.

In light of the ongoing COVID-19 situation Jacob says the event is still planned to go ahead in October, however it will be postponed if circumstances require.

Taste of India Mega Food Festival, at the Lyons Church of Christ, 2 Marrawah Street, Lyons, 9am-7pm, October 9.

spirits from ACT, NSW and right across Australia,” he says.

“There’s also a large range of local wines and we carry all the local beers like BentSpoke and Capital Brewing.

“Customers can always feel free to have a chat with our team of great staff, who do a wonderful job.”

Prohibition Bottle Shop, 39 Eastlake Parade, Kingston. Call 6295 0864, email prohibitionbottleshop@gmail.com or visit facebook. com/prohibitionkingston

advertising feature Capturing the region on a plate

‘Exquisite’ wine that’s critically acclaimed

PIALLIGO Estate’s premiere restaurant Pavilion Dining has been designed to immerse guests in the natural beauty of the region,” says marketing manager Bianca Board.

“We pick all of our produce fresh every morning at 6am when the sun is coming up, then we take it to our kitchen 500 metres away, prepare it and serve it that same day,” she says.

Award-winning bacon from the Estate Smokehouse, fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden tended by horticulturists, or wine produced from the vineyard are just the start of the selection on offer at Pialligo, says Bianca.

“Part of what makes it so special out here is that the menu is changing all the time because it is dependent on the produce,” she says.

And while guests enjoy their meal, Bianca says they’ll be treated with spectacular views out over the Molonglo River as well as the estate’s olive groves and vineyard.

“We have our own selection of regional wines as well as a range from other regional winemakers,” says Bianca.

“The fine wines represent an expression of regional style and the application of traditional winemaking techniques.”

FOR more than 20 years Shaw Wines has been making exquisite reds and whites in the region’s largest vineyard, says business development manager Karen Shaw.

And lockdown isn’t an excuse for not enjoying them, she says. Shaw wines specialise in all the classics, such as riesling, shiraz, semillon, cabernet and merlot.

“Our wines are available through the website with free delivery on orders of 12 bottles or more.”

Once locklown is lifted, Karen says guests will be guaranteed a special experience.

“Our winemaking team has selectively picked the finest parcels of fruit direct from the estate vineyard to craft the limited production reserve range,” she says.

“Our estate label is our cellar door range, where we have won most of our critical acclaim. The whites are lightly pressed using free run juice and the reds are oaked in predominantly French oak barrels for two years prior to bottling.”

Shaw Wines offers keen connoisseurs membership to a special wine club, too.

“Members of the club get 20 per cent off all their wine, and also 20 per cent off all the Italian ceramics available in the building,” says Karen.

“They also get special invitations to our wine dinners when we can hold them downstairs in our cellar.”

Pialligo Estate, 18 Kallaroo Road, Pialligo.

Call 6247 6060 or visit thepialligoestate.com.au

Shaw Wines, 34 Isabel Drive, Murrumbateman.

Call 6227 5827 or visit shawwines.com.au

Whisky Tasting Experience

An empty bottle, full of promise Be among the first to taste from a hand-picked barrel of whisky made by The Canberra Distillery and aged here at Prohibition Bottle Shop in Kingston.

Each bottle is a gift voucher, the start of a journey.

Attend two tasting experiences with other spirit-loving locals, sampling from the barrel at different stages of the ageing process, watching it mature.

Once it’s ready, you’ll receive a full bottle.

Open 7 days 10am-5pm

shawwines.com.au

02 6227 5827

Secure yours now for just $200.00!

Stocks are limited

Prohibition The Bottle Shop 39 Eastlake Parade, Kingston

Phone

6295 0864 CityNews August 19-25, 2021 19

FOOD & BEVERAGES / Belconnen Fresh Food Market

Deli offers an ‘international’ choice of meats and delicacies

Taste the difference…immediately AFTER customers have shopped at The Chicken Coop, owner Che-to Lo says they can taste the difference immediately.

“Every day we break down and process freshly delivered freerange chickens and have a large range of ready-to-cook products and meals that offer that extra level of quality,” says Che-to.

“The products are incredibly versatile, whether customers need our chicken for casseroles, chicken tagine or any other recipe and we also make our own dumplings and wontons.

“We often have people come back, especially if they’re a first-time customer, and say they’ll never go back to the supermarket for chicken again.”

It was Che-to’s parents who started the family business in 1989,

with Che-to taking over in 2017.

“Mum and dad are still very much involved in the business and it’s great to have their experience and expertise,” he says.

But it’s not just chicken that the Lo family specialise in, says Che-to, with free-range turkey also being a highly popular choice at the shop.

“We offer very nicely presented turkey rolls with different types of stuffing,” he says.

“Customers can also bring their own stuffing and we can do it for them, and then roll them back up into a nice presentation, ready to bake.”

The Chicken Coop, Shop 3, Belconnen Markets, 10 Lathlain Street, Belconnen. Call 6251 1510 or visit thechickencoop.site

Fresh seafood in the heart of market BEST Seafood City is dedicated to providing quality and affordable seafood products, says owner Ramiro Vasconez.

Located in the heart of Belconnen at the Fresh Food Markets, Ramiro says the shop is one of the best seafood providers in the region, with a commitment to providing fresh seafood all the time.

“Best Seafood City has a great selection of seafood available in store,” he says.

WE ARE A FAMILY BASED FREE RANGE CHICKEN SHOP.

Best Seafood City, Shop 4 and 5, Belconnen Markets, Lathlain Street, Belconnen.

Call 6251 2552.

Deli Cravings, Shop 15 Belconnen Markets, Lathlain Street, Belconnen.

Call 6251 4056 or visit delicravings.com.au

Deli Cravings is a family owned and operated Delicatessen established in 1999.

We value quality, with a range of fine meats and delicacies authentic to the countries of origin.

We specialise in FREE RANGE CHICKEN which is free from hormones, and antibiotics.

Belconnen Fresh Food Markets Shop 3, 10 Lathlain St, Belconnenn

20 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

“Sometimes it’s hard to know what to pick but if you’re ever finding it hard to make a choice the team are always happy to help!”

He says customers of the shop love the “massive” range that’s available, with some having told him it’s the freshest seafood you can get.

A FAMILY-owned and operated business for more than 20 years, Deli Cravings values quality, with a range of fine meats and delicacies authentic to their countries of origin, says owner Christa Potter.

“We specialise in unique imported European and Australian products,” she says.

“Offering all sorts of accompaniments for your next best entertaining spread we’ve got you covered. Pate, olives, dips, quince and the usual cheese, of course.”

Christa’s love of delis started at age 13 working in her mother’s shop, Ingrid’s Delicatessen and Health Foods, in Wanniassa.

Now the owner of her own deli, more than four decades later, Christa says she continues to source new products to keep up the demand for Canberra’s multicultural community.

And following family tradition, Christa says her son Sam is part of the team and works alongside the motivated, friendly, knowledgeable staff.

“We strive to provide a truly international eating experience through a selection of products that will transport you to the streets of Prague, Paris, Hamburg and many more,” says Christa.

Specialising in unique imported European and Australian products.

With over 27 years experience, we ensure to make our customers absolutely satisfied.

Open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday Phone: 02 6251 1510

advertising feature

Open: Wed to Sunday 8am-6pm

The Chicken Coop

Shop 15 Belconnen Markets, Lathlain Street, Belconnen 6251 4056 delicravings.com.au

We’re open for you with a huge range of fresh Seafood Gerry Gillespie… “This is a huge opportunity to create employment in Queanbeyan-Palerang especially for those who have a disability.”

Photo: Belinda Strahorn

NEWS / Queanbeyan rubbish

Best Seafood City Belconnen Fresh Food Markets Shop 4 and 5 Lathlain Street

sundayROAST

MEIKLE

By Belinda

STRAHORN WITH Queanbeyan-Palerang’s annual rubbish set to double to 50,000 tonnes by 2050 and the costs associated with dumping it also tipped to swell, it’s “high-time” the city builds its own material recovery facility (MRF), awaste expert argues.

Phone 62512552 www.bestseafoodcity.com.au

IAN

Stop wasting waste, says waste-watching Gerry

Talking to the names making news.

Join the ‘CityNews’ editor and 2CC personalities Sundays, 9am-noon.

Since the closure of the city’s landfill site in the 1970s, Queanbeyan has sent its waste to Mugga Lane landfill in the ACT, at everincreasing costs per tonne.

Instead of transferring waste over the border, Queanbeyan resident Gerry Gillespie says the city “desperately” needs to take control of its waste costs and can do so by building its own MRF. But Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC) says the city doesn’t generate enough waste itself to make a MRF viable and has indicated that, without commercial interest in an MRF, it’s unlikely to be considered.

Mr Gillespie, who’s been involved in the recovery of wasted resources and their reuse for almost three decades, argues that because Queanbeyan doesn’t have its own landfill, the city is “at the mercy” of a pricing regime for waste disposal “completely beyond its control”.

According to Mr Gillespie the cost of disposal of waste to Mugga for Queanbeyan had increased from $31 per tonne in 2001 to $130 per tonne in 2013, an increase of more than 400%.

“This has now gone even higher,” Mr Gillespie says.

“And for packaging-type materials being sent to Mugga, we were paying $50 a tonne to get rid of 3000-5000 tonnes a year in 2015. That would have doubled by now.”

A QPRC spokesperson confirmed that general waste from Queanbeyan disposed of at Mugga Lane landfill costs about $170 per tonne and recyclables taken to the MRF from Queanbeyan cost about $100 per tonne.

The council reports that the average household in QPRC pays about $315 a year for garbage collection, an increase of about $70 from the $249 from 2011-12.

“We can contain and control these spiralling negative waste costs and achieve maximum benefit for our city if we were to build and oper-

ate our own MRF,” Mr Gillespie says.

“Instead of paying someone else to take our waste and recyclables to Canberra we could sort them out here in Queanbeyan and market them for the benefit of jobs in the region.”

Like a giant factory, a MRF would be capable of accepting the city’s entire waste stream, and could be located anywhere in the city, Mr Gillespie says.

“It could be like Bungendore’s waste-transfer station. It’s set up off the road, and most people don’t even know it is there,” Mr Gillespie says.

Using manual and mechanical processes the waste is sorted and separated.

Recycled materials such as plastic, aluminium, glass, paper and cardboard are recovered and remanufactured into new products including glass containers, aluminium cans, paper, cardboard, plastic packaging and steel products.

“You could have categories like timber painted and unpainted, furniture re-saleable or recoverable, fridges and stoves de-gassed and sold for metal, cars sold for metal, and then you’d have domestic waste that you’d collect from households and businesses,” Mr Gillespie says.

Organic material, which makes up 60-70 per cent of the waste stream, could also be separated and used for compost on farms or on council land.

“Having its own MRF would provide reuse, recycling and composting options for all of Queanbeyan’s waste outputs and could divert up to 80 per cent of material away from landfill and create jobs for local people,” says Mr Gillespie.

With employment participation rates for people with disability some of the lowest in the country, Mr Gillespie sees the city’s own MRF creating job opportunities for people who might otherwise be overlooked.

“This is a huge opportunity to create employment in Queanbeyan-Palerang especially for those who have a disability,” says Mr Gillespie.

QPRC has argued that the city doesn’t generate sufficient waste of its own to warrant establishing a MRF and make it viable.

However Mr Gillespie cites the example of the Armidale local government area, which has half the population of Queanbeyan-Palerang and runs its own successful MRF. “Queanbeyan has a population of around 60,000, Armidale is around 30,000 and Armidale runs its own MRF along with an education and training centre,” Mr Gillespie says.

A QPRC spokesperson said the “operation of a MRF is a commercial decision of parties other than QPRC.” CityNews August 19-25, 2021 21

ROOF MAINTENANCE

PUZZLES PAGE

FREE PUZZLES EVERY DAY AT citynews.com.au

Your week in the stars

General knowledge crossword No. 795

By Joanne Madeline Moore

August 23-29, 2021

• OLD TO NEW GUTTER & FASCIA REPLACEMENT • LEAK & ROOF REPAIRS • SKYLIGHTS • VERANDAS & PATIO ROOFS • GUTTER GUARD

ISL

ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)

The Sun joins Mercury and Mars in Virgo (the sign that rules food, fitness, herbs, habits and healing) in your wellbeing zone. So it’s a good week to focus on improving your physical and mental health via a nutritious diet, regular exercise, a daily relaxation routine and close connections with loved ones. A romantic relationship or a burgeoning friendship could also move to the next level, as Venus and Saturn solidify your feelings and strengthen the karmic ties between the two of you.

HOME MAINTENANCE & REPAIRS PTY LTD

CALL RORY ON 0431 556 307 or email rorymartens13@gmail.com

TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 21)

Dependable Bulls can be strong, sexy, passionate, powerful, resilient and resourceful. You’re also pretty good at holding onto grudges, but then the only person who ends up being hurt is actually you. So make it a priority to let go, forgive and forget, especially when Venus (your patron planet) trines Saturn on Monday.

Your motto for the moment is from birthday great, legendary nun and missionary Mother Teresa: “If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.”

GEMINI (May 22 – June 21)

Internal and external painting services for residential and commercial properties.

Free quotes and seniors discount available.

Mercury, Pluto and Jupiter rev up your Gemini curiosity and propel you into a brand-new adventure. But you could encounter roadblocks along the way, as serious Saturn stymies your progress. Hasty actions and half-baked plans will only lead to long-term frustrations. You’re full of fabulous ideas but make sure you can differentiate between fact and fantasy. If you balance dynamic action with a dose of discipline and a spoonful of reality, then you’ll have a productive week.

CANCER (June 22 – July 23)

Courtesy of the Sun, Mercury and Mars, the buzz word this week is communication. Your Crab curiosity is piqued, and you’re keen to connect and converse with a wide range of stimulating people (in person and online) especially within your local community. Monday is good for cementing a long-term relationship as you help your relative, partner or friend to achieve their personal best. Then Thursday favours neighbourhood passion projects and clever joint ventures.

LEO (July 24 – Aug 23)

Phone 0451 031 550 info@taqwapainting.com.au ABN: 39617453237

hi-micro

VIRGO (Aug 24 – Sept 23)

The Sun, Mercury and Mars are moving through your sign, so it’s time to be the efficient and engaging Virgo you were born to be. Confidence is the rocket fuel that will take you where you want to go. But don’t just focus on facts, figures and the minutiae of daily life. Strive to expand your creative horizons as you do your best to make the world a better and more beautiful place. Be inspired by birthday great Mother Teresa: “The world is hungry not only for food, but also for beauty.”

Down

1 What is a pathological accumulation of diluted lymph in body tissues? (6) 8 Name a well-known Queensland Tableland. (8) 9 To wrench the ankle, wrist, etc, is to do what? (6) 10 Which is Australia’s most renowned marsupial? (8) 11 What was recovered by Jason and the Argonauts, Golden ...? (6) 12 Name the national airline of Israel. (2,2) 13 What is another term for the thighbone? (5) 16 To be ready for action, is to be what? (5) 19 What does an invigilator supervise? (4) 21 Who won the Brownlow Medal in 2009, Gary ...? (6) 22 What is a court of justice? (8) 23 What is an individual or minute part? (6) 24 Which term describes that which tends to prove or disprove something? (8) 25 Name the practice of going naked. (6)

2 To drive back or repel, is to do what? (7) 3 What is a tabular surface of high elevation? (7) 4 What is a native or inhabitant of the US? (6) 5 Name an arbour formed of horizontal trelliswork supported on posts. (7) 6 What is another term for the breastbone? (7) 7 Name a particular motor of a boat. (7) 13 How many red balls are there in a game of snooker. (7) 14 What is a body of citizen soldiers, as distinguished from professional soldiers? (7) 15 Which mass is celebrated for the repose of the souls of the dead? (7) 17 To be allied by nature, kinship, etc, is to be what?

(7) 18 What might we call race starters? (7) 20 Name a renowned actor, Karl ... (6)

FREE SUDOKU EVERY DAY AT citynews.com.au

LIBRA (Sept 24 – Oct 23)

C O M P U T E R S YS T E M S

L A P TO P / D E S K TO P C O M P U T E R S A L E S & R E PA I R S DATA R E C OV E RY UPGRADES ON ALL BRANDS TRADE-INS N E W & U S E D L A P TO P S A N D P C O N S I T E S E RV I C E

With taskmaster Saturn transiting through your partnership zone, you’re being reminded that relationships require hard work, 24/7. “Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone. It has to be made like bread, remade all the time, made new” – Ursula Le Guin. Venus and Saturn also highlight positive connections with like-minded people in your neighbourhood. The more time and effort you put into projects within your local community, the more your personal satisfaction will grow.

FREE QUOTES

M O N - F R I 8 . 3 0 A M - 5 . 3 0 P M SAT - 9 A M - 12 P M H I - M I C RO C O M P U T E R S 6 / 18 W H YA L L A S T F YS H W I C K PH 6280 7520 W W W. H I - M I C RO . C O M

With the Sun, Mercury and Mars stimulating your self-sabotage zone, are you being your own worst enemy? Is the only person undermining your efforts actually you? Stop being an over-accommodating Libra who’s trying to please everyone and instead, start focusing on your future health, wealth and happiness. So your mantra for the week is from birthday great, singer-songwriter Florence Welch: “You should have high expectations for yourself, and others should come second.”

Solution next edition

Across

Sudoku medium No. 298

SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 22)

Put on your problem-solving hat Scorpio! On Monday, Venus and Saturn stimulate your desire to help a friend or family member in a practical and hands-on way.

Then – on Thursday – Mercury and Pluto help you resolve an issue (at home or within your local community) in a strategic and satisfying way. So your motto for the moment is from Mother Teresa (who was born on August 26, 1910): “Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 – Dec 21)

The Sun, Mercury and Mars boost productivity and activate your aspirational side.

So it’s a good week to dream big dreams and take plenty of positive action. Even in tough times – nothing ventured; nothing gained. Be inspired by Swedish movie star Ingrid Bergman (who was born on August 29, 1917): “I don’t regret a thing I’ve done. I only regret the things I didn’t do.” But resist the temptation to over-promise and then under-deliver, especially at work. Keep it real Sagittarius!

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 20)

A Family Business: 55 years experience

Southlands Shopping Centre – Mawson (about 50 metres South of the Post Office) 0408 310 063 Your Precious ‘Old’ Jewellery - well it used to be... now maybe... It’s just old - and a bit worn out, or costs too much to fix... probably never be worn again...

You keep the memories - perhaps, we could buy the goods?

22 CityNews August 19-25, 2021

PISCES (Feb 20 – Mar 20)

Being kind of heart and doing good deeds are highlighted this week as Venus, Saturn and Jupiter stimulate your humanitarian streak. So it’s a good time to express your Good Samaritan side as you nurse a family member, support a friend in need, do some volunteer work or lend a helping hand in your local community.

Be inspired by birthday great, legendary nun and missionary Mother Teresa: “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”

Copyright Joanne Madeline Moore 2021

Solution next edition

Solutions – August 12 edition Sudoku hard No. 297

Advance Jewellers

AQUARIUS (Jan 21 – Feb 19)

Have you been questioning your Aquarian purpose in life? Or do you feel as if you’ve got the worries of the world on your shoulders? Take a step back and view things from a much wider perspective. Doing good deeds will leave you with a warm inner glow. So think up some dynamic ways that you can help those who are less fortunate – whether locally, nationally or internationally. As Yoko Ono (a fellow Aquarius) observes: “Helping yourself is connected with helping others.”

Crossword No. 794

Restorations - Repairs - Remakes - Re-Setting Ring Re-sizing - 48hr Service Custom Design - for something Special Pearl and Bead Re-Threading and Knotting

With the planets activating your work, business, travel and aspirations zones, it’s time to dream big dreams for the future. They won’t materialise overnight so you need to be extremely patient and persistent. Then – when the right moment manifests further down the track – you’ll be ready, willing and able to take flight.

Be inspired by birthday great, singer-songwriter, Florence Welch: “I like the idea of taking off like a bird.” A well devised plan leads to success on Monday.

GARDENING

An example of the effect of plants in a group.

Magnolia stellata... shedding its winter coat.

The gains of planting in groups IT’S that time of year when gardeners get excited about that new plant covered in flowers at the garden centre, and simply must have it.

And then at home, it sits in the pot for weeks until the right spot is found. It’s always best to look at the vacant spaces in the garden and then decide how big a plant will fit there.

Even then, think of groups rather than individual plants. This will always be more effective in colour, leaf form and shape.

When planting, whether shrubs or perennials, think in groups of threes, fives or sevens for the best effect.

Often, plants grow larger than the information on the label. David Young, one-time presenter on ABC Saturday morning radio in Canberra, used to say: “Look at the plant size on the label and double it”.

WHEN considering what to plant, my approach is based on the Royal Horticultural Society’s plant list of 85,000 plants. The UK-based RHS is a perfect place for garden information, but remember to add six months to compensate for the difference in seasons.

SOME deciduous plants are starting to shed their winter coats. I just love this picture of Magnolia stellata or star magnolia, with the flower buds emerging out of hibernation. In a few weeks the single, pure white, star-like flowers will burst forth.

high-rise units, according to Yates, the sale of veggie seeds continues to increase.

Householders with sunny balconies are growing veggies and herbs in pots and hanging baskets. Also there’s no reason why veggies can’t be grown amongst other plants. Herbs, carrots, lettuce and English spinach can all be grown amongst the ornamental perennials.

I OFTEN receive queries regarding leaf drop on evergreen plants. All plants, whether evergreen or deciduous drop leaves. Interestingly, I also receive requests when designing gardens for plants that do not drop leaves. Well, plastic plants will solve the problem! On evergreen plants, as the new leaves develop the older leaves at the base of the stems turn yellow and drop. It is not caused by a disease or insects. I liken it to a snake periodically shedding its skin. This is particularly noticeable on daphne plants.

START mulching all garden beds now. For mulch to be effective, it should be 50-75 millimetres thick. Often tree surgeons offer mulch free or a nominal charge. But be aware where the mulch came from – is it just from a particular tree? Or have the tree guys been clearing a garden full of weedy shrubs such as privet, cotoneaster or pyracantha? If so, that great, cheap mulch will soon start sprouting all those environmental

weed seeds throughout your garden!

Jottings...

• Plant peonies and dahlias.

• Check out garden centres for potted crocus and cyclamen for inside colour that can be planted out after flowering.

• Deciduous summer flowering shrubs such as Buddleia can be pruned quite hard now.

Remove some of the older wood in the centre.

• Strawberry planting time is now. Always purchase virus-free plants from garden centres rather than plants given by well-meaning friends.

• If those fuchsia shoots look dead, don’t pull them out. As the days warm, new shoots will start to appear. Then remove any obviously dead branches and trim back to three leaf joints as the buds appear.

• As camellia sasanqua has finished flowering, now’s the time to trim it back and feed it, as almost immediately new shoots start forming for next year’s flowers.

This is a “best of” compilation of Cedric’s columns from the past 10 years.

DESPITE the ever decreasing size of building blocks and the increasing concrete jungles of

Chris’ Trees • Tree pruning • Tree removal • Tree maintenance • Tree lowering • Hedge lowering

Quote range $200 to $750*

“Good things take time’’ MAXIMUM IMPACT! Insured – AAMI

Text or call 0468 695 561 Email cgsact@gmail.com Find me on gumtree.com.au * $750 day rate (Tree surgeon + one)

Aged Composted Horse Manure • Pick up by the bag $7 each • Pick up by the trailer load $40 per trailer • We deliver truck loads

7 BELTANA ROAD, PIALLIGO Any queries phone Ivan 0413 949 900

WICKING SOLUTIONS FOR ANY SPACE GARDENS COURTYARDS BALCONIES Visit us at 4/23 Essington St, Mitchell ACT 2911 02 6179 3977 admin@aquafloirrigation.com.au | aquafloirrigation.com.au

PUMPS - TANKS - IRRIGATION - FILTRATION CityNews August 19-25, 2021 23

Actually In person, 7 days a week.

ActewAGL Why go local energy? Find out at actewagl.com.au/local ActewAGL Retail ABN 46 221 314 841