CityNews 221006

Eastlake cricketers crack a century of their own

Lily

WHEN founders William (Bill) Findlay and John (Jack) Esmond played the first match for their new Eastlake Cricket Club in October, 1922, a century of cricketing history began.

The result and the location of this game against the military team, the Cadets, remains unknown, but the first reference to a cricket pitch was in 1926/27 when Eastlake listed its home ground as an area “south of the print ers headquarters”, believed to be the current site of Kingston Oval.

Now, through countless wins, losses and name changes, Eastlake Cricket Club has scored a century of its own which sees it as the only foundation club still playing in the ACT Premier Cricket Competition.

Throughout history, Eastlake has been home for several notable figures, including chief justice John Gallop playing for the team and being named ACT Cricketer of the Year in 1964-65.

Club treasurer Gary Molineux says one of the club’s most famous players was Neil Fairbrother.

“He was an English player who

INDEX

came and played a full season with Eastlake, and he captained the Eng land team,” he says.

Senior vice-president Petra Bright says another high-profile member of the Eastlake team is SJ Moore.

“She captained the ACT for quite a long time and was recently inducted into the Cricket ACT Hall of Fame,” says Petra.

Cricket ACT lists Moore as having “one of the most successful careers in Women’s Grade cricket history in the ACT”.

She played for Western District from the mid-1980s to 2001, and played for Eastlake between 2002 and 2006.

Across her cricketing career Moore

won 18 premierships, played 240 matches in first grade and scored 3133 runs at an average of 38.20, including two centuries.

Petra began playing for the East lake junior team when she was 17, and says it seemed a natural fit to continue with Eastlake when it introduced a women’s team in 2002, and she played its first match.

“This is actually the 20th year of having a women’s team, which is fan tastic too, although not quite as excit ing as 100 years,” she says.

“So we joined in 2002 and won the premiership in the first four years of our existence. Over the years we have actually amassed 12 premierships be

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tween one-day and T20 competitions.

“Across the men, I believe they have won 20 first-grade premierships since 1922.”

Petra, now 38, has played about 160 matches for the women’s team.

Gary, 61, joined the Eastlake Club while it was under a different name in 1982, and says it’s the camaraderie that’s kept him involved.

With 13 name changes across its century, it was only after they changed to Eastlake in 1999 did the club realise it had been the original name of the cricket club.

“I think knowing our history and where we’ve come from as a club, knowing that we started as Eastlake,

certainly cements the Eastlake iden tity pretty firmly,” says Petra.

“I can’t see us moving away from that anytime soon.

“Something we would like to do more with and we started last season – we’re the third club to do it in Aus tralia – is participating in the Pride Cup, as well as embracing the Recon ciliation Round.”

“And improving our facilities as well,” says Gary.

“It would be nice sometime soon to have a picket fence around the ground at Kingston Oval.

“We’ve got a couple of other grounds as well that don’t have too much in the way of change rooms and stuff like that, so down the track it would be nice to have something better at those grounds.”

On October 1, a time capsule was launched to commemorate the cente nary.

“Over the course of this season we’ll be collecting items to put in, including any notable items from during the season such as awards and premier ships as a memory of not just what’s happened, but what’s happening on this anniversary,” says Petra.

“We’re not going to be around in 100 years when the club is celebrating its 200th anniversary, so it would be fantastic for us to leave a legacy that lasts another 100 years and keeps this club going.”

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32 years

William

Molineux.

Photo: Lily Pass

The 1922 Eastlake Cricket Team, its co-founder John (Jack) Esmond is at left.

So, how’s our money spent? Who would know

THREE presentations at the Inner South Canberra Community Council’s (ISCCC) September meeting made it very clear how this ACT Greenslabor government is not aligned with the aspirations and values of the residents of this city.

To understand the values of the Greenslabor politicians (and their minders), people have learnt to ignore the worthy words and frequent announcements.

Instead, residents are looking at the government’s expenditure as this is the real indicator of the ACT Greensla bor values. Getting your head around their expenditure is not easy to do.

The Rattenbury-Barr government operates with a lack of transparency and is comfortable with the use of disingenuous spin and obscurity to hide the reality of how it spends money. The ISCCC presentations laid bare the depressing state of the values of the ACT government.

Using his well-established forensic research of government documenta tion, Dr Khalid Ahmed made it clear that the Greenslabor government is operating way beyond its means with increasing huge budget deficits now forecasted. There is no sign that it is willing to change directions and to

were stunning – and very upsetting!

Graham O’Loghlin applied a de tailed and logical argument why the Gungahlin tram sort-of made sense – if you ignored the enormous costs to other programs such as housing, education and health. However, there was no way these same infrastructure measures could be used to justify the tram south to Woden. It does not stack up – let alone that its costs will be enormous (goodbye to more of the housing, health, education and community budgets).

No-one was questioning whether the government should improve public transport between Tuggeranong, Woden and Civic. O’Loghlin is a public transport advocate and enthusiast.

The reality is that there are public-transport options available

when the tram concept and develop ment corridors were proposed over a decade ago by the property lobbyists.

The best-guess projected costs for the Woden tram are beyond the finances available, especially given the enormity of the growing deficits. The Greenslabor Woden tram will be much less efficient and costlier than wellestablished public transport alterna tives that should now be considered.

Dr John Bell , from the Deakin Residents’ Association pulled apart an unpublished report prepared for the government on the redevelopment opportunities that the government hopes to create as the tram arrives in the southern suburbs.

The logic used for the report was skewed to suit the Rattenbury-Barr way of thinking. The report ignored

the 21st century priorities of urban planning and well-established research reports on urban design that address the climate emergencies.

The no-longer confidential report will be used to justify the massive developments along the tram corridor that Greenslabor knows will degrade the standard of living in these estab lished suburbs. The tram south makes no sense except to the development lobby who can see dollar signs and 30 per cent profits on massive develop ments within the southern suburbs.

This ACT Greenslabor government is firmly in the pocket of a significant branch of the property industry and urban-development decisions are made to keep them on-side.

A mix of Greenslabor ministers over see a planning system that has been

broken to such an extent that there is only a tokenistic (at best) consideration of architecture, landscape design, urban planning and biodiversity in how development is delivered.

The ACT Liberals have tended to be fence sitters on urban development and planning issues. They are part of the problem as their inability to pre sent real alternatives has empowered Rattenbury and Barr to do what they do best – to sideline the aspirations of the residents.

Two years out from the 2024 ACT elections, the ACT Liberals and any independents have enough time to get their act together to offer alternatives to the Greenslabor coalition.

The other unlikely scenario for change would be for the ACT Greens members and any thinking members still left in ACT Labor to say enough is enough and to nominate a new set of candidates for the 2024 elections. People should be able to trust an elected ACT government. Desperate times require desper ate solutions.

There are public-transport options today that weren’t in the thinking when the tram and development corridors were proposed over a decade ago. Photo: Paul Costigan

The Rattenbury-Barr government operates with a lack of transparency and is comfortable with the use of disingenuous spin and obscurity to hide the reality of how it spends money.

Does an integrity commission stop corruption?

THE crossbenchers in the federal parliament negotiated for the most effective possible legislation for an anticorruption commission.

Other similar commissions provide a blueprint to optimise such commis sions. However, with just two substan tive reports after years of operation, can the ACT Integrity Commission provide such a model.

Along with a strong interest in pre vention of corruption, transparency must be the prime focus of federal legislation. Education and deterrence of corruption was also a major plank in the legislation that established the ACT Integrity Commission.

In both reports on the website of the ACT Integrity Commission there has been no corruption identified. In fact, criticism has been levelled at other investigative groups including the ACT auditor-general and an Assembly committee. The Special Report – Sale of Block 30, Section 34, Dickson, also known as “Operation Raven”, for example, found no corruption.

In fact, the Integrity Commission determined to discontinue the inves tigation arguing “the commission is satisfied that the legal threshold for investigation was not met”. The commissioner went further in stating: “The commission is further of the

To be trusted, integrity commissions have a key role in identifying where no corruption occurs and to be able to appropriately reassure the public that everything is actually above board.

view that many of the criticisms made by the auditor-general and the committee were not justified”.

The commission “found that the land sale process itself was adequate and complied with all necessary legal requirements. While there was an inappropriate lack of documentation surrounding some aspects of the transaction, there was sufficient material to enable the commission to confidently conclude that there was no reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct on any person’s behalf”.

There was a similar story with regard to investigation “Operation Lyrebird” regarding a land deal in Glebe Park. The report con cluded “the evidence does not provide grounds for a reasonable suspicion” that would suggest “any official acted corruptly in connection with the acquisition of Block 24”.

In February, after a scathing report regarding the upgrading of Campbell Primary School, the ACT Integrity Commissioner, Michael Adams KC pointed out that probity issues with

the ACT government’s procurement processes are likely to be endemic.

can be much broader and referrals ought not be restricted to a mandate by the government.

ACT Integrity Commissioner, Michael Adams.

He also told an Assembly commit tee that the cost to fully investigate them would be trivial compared to the money spent on the contracts. This investigation remains ongoing.

A great deal of faith is put in the hands of anti-corruption commis sions by the public. Along with royal commissions, Assembly committees, auditors-general and other instru ments of government they have a key role in exposing corruption.

To be trusted, they also have a key role in identifying where no corruption occurs when issues are raised and to be able to appropriately reassure the public that everything is actually above board.

The legal nature of integrity commissions and their investigative powers are not dissimilar to those of a royal commission. However, the focus

One of the key elements called for by the federal Greens and independents, including Senator David Pocock, is the ability for the federal anti-corruption commission to have the power of self-referral. The legislation introduced by AttorneyGeneral Mark Dreyfus includes this provision even though it means that the government does lose a significant amount of control.

When Dreyfus introduced the legis lation it became clear he was looking for an effective anti-corruption commission. It will be able to examine serious or “systemic corrupt conduct” across the Commonwealth including ministers, statutory office holders, employees and contractors.

Oversight, as expected by the crossbenchers, should be at the parliamentary level in order to remove the appearance of corruption at party political level. Additionally, appropriate funding is fundamental. At the moment this has been set at $262 million over four years.

Sticking points in negotiations for crossbenchers have been protection of

whistleblowers and the use of public hearings. Consistent with promises by the government to work with members across the parliament, the whistle blower issue has been incorporated in the legislation and other legal protec tions have been strengthened. There is still some debate over whether public hearings should only be used in “exceptional circumstances”.

These issues will be debated when the legislation is examined by a parliamentary committee.

The parliamentary champion for the issue of an anti-corruption commission has been the independent member for Indi, Helen Haines. Her consistent advocacy has paid off. Although Dreyfus will get credit for introducing effective legislation, it is Haines and the other crossbenchers who have been the catalyst.

Michael Moore is a former member of the ACT Legislative Assembly and an in dependent minister for health. He has been a “CityNews” political column ist since 2006.

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A second opinion on hearing loss

An elderly woman with hearing loss came to my clinic for a second opinion, after she had recently been to a hearing aid sales person. I found the cause of her hearing loss was simply the fact that she had build-up of wax in her ears, the salesperson had failed to inspect them. You might be surprised how often this happens!

Here are some things to do to avoid getting ripped off:

1. A visit to the GP may save you from being ‘sold’ something when your only problem is wax in your ears.

2. Look for someone who is independent and can offer you unbiased advice, not just give you a sales pitch.

3. There are a range of hearing aid prices. Finding the right hearing aid might save you money and it will also give you the best chance of success.

4. Hearing aids can be expensive.

Recently I was told by two different patients that they were quoted $16,000 for a pair of hearing aids. This seems a ridiculous amount of money to pay and is most likely not appropriate for the majority of people (or possibly anyone).

5. If you are a pensioner or partpensioner, or a DVA gold or white card holder, you should carefully consider if you want to use the free-to-client government hearing aids or if you’d like to top-up to a different hearing aid.

The free-to-client hearing aids are appropriate for many people, however if you have great difficulty hearing background noise (for example in restaurants) then you might trial the top-up hearing aids, but only if you can afford them. There are a range of top up options and prices, if you are disappointed after a trial, you should return them and trial the free-toclient hearing aids.

If you get the feeling the person you’re dealing with is just trying to sell you something, then take a step back and get a second opinion.

“In an unregulated market there is a lot of opportunity to take advantage of people. Yes you have read correctly, there is no licensing of people who sell hearing aids.” – Dr Vass

– you need professional advice, not a sales pitch

‘She was like the sun, that sun’s gone, we are lost’

KATRINA Spadafora has lived every parent’s worst nightmare.

Her five-year-old daughter Rozalia died on July 5, a day after being admitted to Canberra Hospital with flu.

The pre-schooler suffered a cardiac arrest almost 30 hours after presenting to the hospital while awaiting emergency transfer to Sydney for specialist treatment.

Two months on from Rozalia’s death, her griev ing mother is still seeking answers as to what went wrong.

“How could this have happened?,” she asks. “If you can take your child with a clean bill of health to the hospital and you don’t bring them back home then something is wrong.”

Initially told her daughter was suffering from Influenza A, Katrina was advised later that Ro zalia had inflammation around her heart.

As her condition worsened, a decision was made to transfer the child to Sydney where she could be under the care of pediatric cardiologists.

Tragically, she never made it, passing away before her transport arrived.

“They kept saying that she was going to be al right,” said Katrina.

“I asked if this was life threatening and they said, no… she’s in the best possible place with the best possible care.”

Rozalia was found to have suffered from the viral infection myocarditis, a rare inflammation of the heart muscle, caused by the flu.

The circumstances of her death are being in vestigated by the ACT coroner.

NOW

at,” she said.

She is calling on Health Minister Rachel Stephen-

IN OCTOBER

Following Rozalia’s death the health minister was widely criticised in the media for her slow response in reaching out to a family in mourn ing. Her leader, Chief Minister Andrew Barr, has also copped flack for preferring to wait until the coronial inquest has handed down its finding before formally responding.

This cautious wait-and-see approach is cold comfort to a family grieving the loss of their daughter.

“I am living a nightmare every day from this,” said Katrina. “My daughter is gone… they have taken my life.”

Revisiting the emotionally charged hours watching her daughter slowly slip away, Katrina believes that hospital staff were too quick to dismiss her concerns, forming the view that her daughter’s con dition was not serious.

Rozalia Spadafora… “They couldn’t bring her back… we just had to leave her there with no answers, no nothing,” says mum Katrina.

but it soon became apparent the little girl was gravely ill.

Her grandmother, Maria Callipari, said: “When we rang the bell, no one came… we had to do everything and I tried to find warm blan kets, because she was cold.”

While undergoing tests and X-rays, Rozalia was moved between hospital wards. Her family became increasingly worried at her deteriorat ing state as she became less alert.

Robert is self-taught specialising in soft pastels. An interest in endangered wildlife, domestic pets, sea and landscapes. Robert has won many awards including Champion Exhibit in the Royal Canberra Art Show.

Sandra House Sandra has always loved to paint in oils. Originally from Melbourne she studied under Colin Johnson and Max Casey. Sandra has won numerous awards in NSW, Victoria and the ACT and is featured in the books, 50 Australian Artists, Volume 1 and Who’s Who of Australian Artists, Second Edition by D W Thorpe.

“We were 100 per cent not taken seriously,” said Katrina. “The care and the treatment was appalling.”

In the days leading up to her fifth birthday Katrina said Ro zalia had been unwell with an ear infection, but her mother knew something was wrong when Rozalia displayed little interest in opening her presents.

“She was lethargic and pale and her face was concerning me because it was still puffy,” she said.

Katrina took Rozalia to hospital on recom mendation of her GP who had seen her earlier in the day. The doctor revealed that Rozalia had a fast heart rate and said that she looked “worse” than when he examined her with the initial ear infection.

Upon arrival at the hospital – not only were the family forced to wait for hours in the emer gency department – a nurse thought Rozalia didn’t look that bad and suggested they should go home.

“I couldn’t believe it… Rozalia was so pale, she couldn’t sit up; she was just lying there,” said Katrina.

Finally taken into the pediatric area, par acetamol and hydralite were administered –

While the hospital was or ganising Rozalia’s transport for Sydney, Katrina noticed her daughter becoming increasingly cold – and her eyes had rolled to the back of her head.

“I was calling her name to make her come back… she looked at me, her eyes rolled back and she had a fit,” said Katrina.

A short time later after going into cardiac arrest the little girl lost her battle.

“They called us aside and said, ‘she’s gone, she’s gone’,” said Katrina.

“They couldn’t bring her back… we just had to leave her there with no answers, no nothing.”

Still struggling to come to terms with the fact that the brightest part of their life has gone for ever, Rozalia’s family are trying to get on with their lives without her – but it’s not easy.

“Rozalia was like the sun, she was all light, and now that sun is gone we are lost,” said Maria.

The family feels broken as a result of this ex perience, clinging to the belief that this whole situation could have been avoided. Katrina hopes the coronial inquest will shed some light on what went wrong with her daughter’s case.

“No one told us what was happening until it was too late… we just want answers,” she said.

Her key message to parents looking to take their sick children to hospital is to “beware”.

“It’s Russian roulette, that’s all I’ll say… be ware,” said Katrina.

Robert Wynton

Katrina Spadafora… “I am living a nightmare every day from this. My daughter is gone… they have taken my life.” Photo: Holly Treadaway

When we rang the bell, no one came… we had to do everything and I tried to find warm blankets, because she was cold.”

Rising interest rates no bar to Budget profligacy

THE deep structural weakness of the Budget

not only limited the ACT’s capacity to respond to the pandemic, but is also reflected in the ongoing deficits of a similar magnitude, which only the ACT is enduring, while all other states and the NT return to surplus.

In the previous article in this series looking at the state of the ACT’s operating Budget, we referred to the persistent deficits in the seven years before the pandemic.

We also noted that the 2022-23 ACT Budget forecasts a deficit every year up to 2025-26 and that not only will the ACT be the only jurisdic tion still in deficit in that year but that the ACT will also, by then, have posted a deficit for 14 consecutive years.

In 2012, when then chief minister Katy Gallagher handed the Treasury to Andrew Barr, the Budget had been in surplus for three years, and net debt was negative $473 million. In other words, the ACT’s cash reserves and investments were larger by that amount to borrowings.

However, the Barr government’s increase in debt before the pandemic was already unsustainable.

For example, from 2012-13 to 2018-19, the sum of the operating deficits was $1.616 billion and net debt increased by $2.1 billion. It is, therefore, simply incorrect to suggest that the ACT’s cur rent debt is a consequence of the pandemic.

We have previously expressed serious concern about the ACT’s rising debt, the prospects of its stabilisation and eventual repayment as well as the implications for future generations of Canberrans who will inherit it.

The reason for our concern at the magnitude

of both the operating deficits recorded in the ACT and the levels of debt we are accumulating is that they will inevitably need to be financed through large-scale asset sales or further borrowings, significant increases in taxes and major cuts in services. The trend in CHART 1 highlights the basis of our concern.

Over the Budget and forward estimates period, net debt is forecast to almost double from $4.996 billion in 2021-22 to $9.882 billion in 2025-26.

The net-debt-to-revenue ratio is a standard measure of the capacity of the operating budget to service debt. TABLE 1 reveals that the ACT’s net-debt-to-revenue ratio is forecast to rise faster and higher than the weighted average of all states and territories – a remarkable achieve ment given that just a decade ago, the territory had negative net debt.

Persistent operating deficits and the conse

quent increase in debt not only transfer a financial burden to future generations, but they also have implications for the level of services currently available.

As TABLE 1 shows, interest costs on our debt are forecast to increase from $272 million in 2021-22 to $517 million in 2025-26.

To put this in perspective we will be paying more on interest costs than the government has budgeted for environmental protection, police services and community mental health services combined.

As an illustration of the squeezing effect the rising debt will have on the operating budget, funding for the services mentioned above actually decreases at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent over the Budget and forward estimates, while interest costs increase at a rate of 17.4 per cent a year.

Territory net worth in the future;

(d) managing prudently the fiscal risks of the Territory;

(e) pursuing spending and taxing policies that are consistent with a reasonable degree of stability and predictability in the level of the tax burden;

(f) giving full, accurate and timely disclosure of financial information about the activities of the government and its agencies.

We have previously estimated that if per capita health expenditure in the ACT had grown at the national average level, hospital services would have received around $238 million more in 2018-19 than was the case.

We have also noted, with regards to infra structure, that in 2015-16 a $1.3 billion planned redevelopment of the Canberra Hospital precinct was scaled back to less than half of the scope, and then deferred repeatedly.

Likewise, oft floated, planned and promised economic infrastructure projects, such as the convention centre and stadium, have been abandoned.

The debt which the ACT has accumulated due to deep deficits and high interest costs has clearly forced the redirection of funds from services and infrastructure. We believe it is unarguable that the liabilities of the territory are not at a prudent level.

Section 11(6) of the FMA allows a departure from the principles of responsible fiscal manage ment under the following conditions and terms: The proposed budget may depart from the principles of responsible fiscal management, but if it does depart –

complaint

A surplus is not, of course, an end in itself. A balanced budget, however, is a means to ensure the sustainability of priority services to meet community needs. A surplus provides a buffer against fiscal shocks and allows the gov ernment to preserve services without a debt burden. Therefore, fiscal discipline is a critical enabler for the delivery of a government’s core functions, and as such a fundamental principle of public financial management.

Section 11(5) of the Financial Management Act 1996 (FMA) imposes an explicit obligation on the ACT government through the Treasurer to ensure that the annual ACT Budget is consistent with and reflects the principles of responsible fiscal management. The FMA con tains the following definition of the principle:

(a) ensuring that the total liabilities of the Terri tory are at prudent levels to provide a buffer against factors that may impact adversely on the level of total Territory liabilities in the future, and ensuring that, until prudent levels have been achieved, the total operating expenses of the Territory in each financial year are less than its operating income levels in the same financial year; (b) when prudent levels of total Territory li abilities have been achieved, maintaining the levels by ensuring that, on average, over a reasonable period of time, the total operating expenses of the Territory do not exceed its operating income levels; (c) achieving and maintaining levels of Terri tory net worth to provide a buffer against factors that may impact adversely on levels of

(a) any departure must be temporary; and (b) the Treasurer must present to the Legislative Assembly, when the first Appropriation Bill for the financial year is presented to the Legislative Assembly, a statement setting out –

(i) the reasons for the departure; and

(ii) the approach intended to be taken to return to the principles; and

(iii) when the principles are expected to be returned to.

We do not believe a timeframe of seven years before the pandemic to four years after the pandemic, can be considered “temporary”.

To our knowledge no statement consistent with Section 11(6) of the FMA has been tabled by the Treasurer. We are aware of repeated and vague promises in successive Budgets, that the government is on track to return the Budget to balance, but are yet to see any detail about how that is to be achieved. This may, of course, not reflect the failure of such a plan but rather that there is no plan.

The FMA provides, explicitly, that the operating expenses of the Territory do not exceed its operating income levels.

We believe the challenge this legal require ment presents the ACT government goes beyond the operating Budget and will, as a minimum, require a major change in fiscal strategy, including, for example, the reprioritising of investment in infrastructure.

The first in this two-part series by former chief minister Jon Stanhope and former senior Treasury officer Dr Khalid Ahmed is at citynews.com.au

Annual interest costs on ACT government debt will hit $517 million in 2025-26. That’s more than the government spends on environmental protection, the police and mental health services combined. We’re in trouble. JON STANHOPE and KHALID AHMED explain why…

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BRIEFLY

Top prize goes to essay collection

VETERAN Canberra poet and essayist Subhash Jaireth has won the $10,000, 2021 ACT Book of the Year for “Spinoza’s Overcoat”, a collection of essays that explore the lives of writers, poets and their travels.

The judges said: “This is first-class cultural criticism, in a voice that is daring and rare, moving and lifting. Subhash Jaireth is a superb writer, poet and researcher, and above all true to himself.”

Highly commended were “Oil Under Troubled Water” by Bernard Collaery and “Doggerland” by Moya Pacey.

Jan the tree junkie

“ARBORETUM Junkie” Jan Morgan is the guest speaker at the next monthly meet ing of the Narrabundah Probus Club. Jan is active at the Arboretum and even provides scarves to keep trees warm. The club meets at the Harmonie German Club, Narrabundah, at 11 am on October 11. New members are always welcome.

Scones and books

THE freshly baked scones are tempting buyers to the secondhand book sale at St Ninian’s church hall. The promise is books for all occasions – fiction and nonfiction, cookery, gardening, manuals, children’s books, magazines and more, but cash sales only. At the corner of Mouat and Brigalow streets, Lyneham, 9am-1pm, October 14-15.

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LETTERS

Rates rises expose ‘deviousness and deceit’

LOOKING at my Residential Valuation Notice for 2022, there is a massive increase of $264,000 in the unimproved value (UV) of January 1, 2022, compared to January1, 2021.

My block is not near any potential rezon ing area such as local shops or community facilities.

This large increase appears to finally fully expose the deviousness and deceit behind Andrew Barr’s 2012-13 residential rates reforms. Consider the following points:

• Barr claimed after this year’s budget that the residential rates reform would conclude in 2030. That means that rates will continue to increase above CPI as part of the reforms for the next seven years.

• The average unimproved value (AUV) of a property is used to calculate rates and other taxes. From 2021, the AUV has been extended to five years.

• If all residential properties have been determined to have a large increase (as mine) for January 1, 2022, this will mean that this increase and any subsequent increases in UVs will continue to exponentially increase the AUV each year, up to 2030, thus significantly increasing the annual rates levies. This is on top of the seven years of percentage increases anticipated under the reforms. This appears to be a triple financial hit to residential households (and also renters if landlords pass on these rate increases). There are several possible reasons for the UV increases including:

• The deliberate actions by the Barr government to strictly limit the release of new land blocks to drive up govern ment revenues; this in turn “justifies” the UV increases outlined above to existing land blocks.

• The proposed intent in the new planning reforms to designate all residential land as suitable for multi building development (instead of the existing arrangements for RZ1 etcetera).

• The government’s ever increasing requirement to increase revenue from all ACT residents to in the main cover the cost of light rail stage 2A and B, let alone fund the ongoing costs of essential government services and pay back increasing government debts. The previous review commissioned by the government to assess the impact of the

ACT residential rates reforms on stakehold ers found that there was no net effect on ACT residents and that the financial impact was neutral is surely seriously questionable in light of the above comments.

In particular the increased wealth transfer to the government in terms of increased rates revenue from 2022 to 2030 from ACT residents does not appear to be neutral.

Ron Edgecombe, Evatt

Rates: How is this equitable?

THE ACT government’s method of calculat ing residential rates clearly needs further revision. A five-bedroom, fully updated home with three bathrooms on a 900sqm block, around the corner from mine in Bonython, sold last week for $1.2 million.

The advertised rates were $2392 pa. My house is an unrenovated, three-bedroom, 1 bathroom dual occupancy on 485 square metres of the dual block, worth around half that. My rates are $2376 pa.

A friend with a two-bedroom apartment built in the ‘80s near the former CIT campus in Woden, worth less again, pays more rates than I do.

How is this equitable? The ACT Revenue Office website states: “Following community feedback... the government introduced further changes to improve fairness in how unit rates are calculated.”

Those changes obviously haven’t gone far enough. Looks like Mr Barr is pushing people into units, then milking them for the privilege.

Diane Osborne, Bonython

Dangerous e-scooter scourge in Canberra

THE death of a 19 year old woman riding an e-scooter in Kambah is a further reminder of the dangerous e-scooter scourge in Canberra, expanded recently with the blessing of the ACT government.

Many letter writers to local media, includ ing “CityNews”, have underlined the risks to both e-scooter riders and pedestrians.

In Victoria, a recent report outlined the injuries sustained, including severe brain and spinal injuries. The number of pedes trians admitted to the Alfred Hospital’s intensive care unit has reached a five-year high, with 66 people brought into the ICU in the past 12 months.

On road safety grounds, the ACT

government introduced 40 km/h speed zones in the central Civic area for cars, yet is apparently happy to expand the use of e-scooters with a known track record for seriously injuring pedestrians on footpaths.

What amazes me is the sheer lack of fore sight on the part of the ACT government. Many of these events are just accidents waiting to happen.

E-scooters should not be on footpaths at all, endangering pedestrians by their often fast presence. And even if better controls were implemented, who is going to police them?

Surely the ACT government is not expecting police resources to now extend to oversight of e-scooter behaviour across the city.

Murray May, Cook

Community planning advocate, anyone?

I WAS interested and impressed to learn that Waverley Council in Sydney – to the outrage of the developer class (“NIMBYism at its worst”) – has appointed a community planning advocate to help residents’ groups better understand, input and influence plan ning outcomes that will impact them.

Wouldn’t happen here, thought I ruefully. Must be a Labor Council in Waverley. But hang on...

John Griffin, via email

All fired up; I’m going to start a political party!

AFTER reading two articles in “CityNews” (“Berry treats community spaces like a land bank” and “Flooding will dog park development, say residents”, CN September 22) I am all fired up. I am going to register a new political party in the ACT.

Party members will acknowledge the effects of human-induced climate change and will be opposed to silly policies such as allowing housing development to occur in flood-prone areas.

They will be supportive of the need for spaces for community activity, sport and recreation and will not be in favour of residential and commercial development on existing spaces such as ovals and golf courses.

The party will be unwavering in its support of residents whose rights are being threatened by development which disregards current planning regulations.

Because the policies will have a lot to do

with the environment, I am going to call it the Greens Party. I think that it should be a winner at the next ACT election.

David Pederson, O’Connor

Government not sharing tram costs

A FEW weeks ago, Chief Minister Barr baulked at the figure of $200 million to move Parkes Way some metres to the south that would be needed to accommodate a stadium on the current swimming pool site. That was a good call. However, raising London Circuit for Stage 2A of light rail is a far more complicated project which, on the basis of the Parkes Way estimate, would cost about $800 million, if not more.

I don’t see Mr Barr baulking at that outrageous waste of public funds on the tram to nowhere.

The Rattenbury/Barr government has at least a moral obligation to tell taxpayers what Stage 2A and Stage2B will cost them, but this government has a bad habit of not releasing such cost estimates because of a certain reaction from taxpayers.

For what it may be worth to readers, my latest cost estimates for Stage 2A is $1.1 billion to build and operate (including $800 million for raising London Circuit) and for Stage 2B, a further $2.1 billion (including $500 million for the bridge), for a probable minimum cost in 2022 dollars of $3.2 billion (over build time and 20 years of operations). By comparison, Stage 1 is costing about $1.45 billion for the same distance (12km).

Use of electric buses would take half the time for the Woden-City trip and avoid the $1.3 billion for raising London Cct and a new or modified bridge.

Note also that planned development along the route does not depend on trams; rapid buses would do just as well.

Do readers really think this a fair thing to be kept secret by the government?

Max Flint, co-ordinator, Smart Canberra Transport

Climate change: a natural phenomenon

I AM beginning to wonder whether renew able energy, as currently protracted, can be a means of arresting global warming and climate change in the world.

In its 2022 Integrated System Plan for reaching zero emissions by 2050, the Australian Energy Market Operator states

that we will need nine times today’s utility scale variable renewables (wind, solar and hydro). Assuming wind turbines have an average capacity of 5 megawatt (MW) there would be about 25,000 turbines.

Even if Australia reaches this goal, it will be pointless unless the world also acts.

In the case of China with forty times our energy requirements, reliance on wind and solar to bring about zero emissions has some seemingly insurmountable problems.

The population is concentrated in the east of the country while regions suitable for wind turbines and solar farms are in the west, akin to Australia having all its renewable resources in WA.

Furthermore, with its megacities, distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar are not an option for China, leaving the challenge of erecting one million 5MW turbines, an equivalent number of solar farms, and building long-distance transmis sion lines of enormous capacity.

So, China may have no option other than a nuclear-powered electricity network to reach anything near zero emissions, hardly something on which Australia can take the moral high ground.

John Smith, Farrer

Macklin missed only one gift of Albo’s

I ENJOYED very much Robert Macklin’s “The Gadfly” column “It’s easy to underestimate the wily Albo” (CN September 29).

It summarised the extraordinary ability of our latest prime minister to cut through the “BS” and get to the heart of the issues confronting him, and to arrive at solutions acceptable by the (great) majority, by using the wisdom passed down to him by his mother.

The only significant gift not highlighted by Mr Macklin is Albo’s well-developed negotiating skill: persuasion rather than lecturing, instructing or ordering. What a contrast to the “my way or the highway” attitude of his predecessor!

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

What’s in a name when it comes to trams?

JOHN Lawrence (Letters, CN September 27) proposes a competition to name Canberra’s trams. I nominate “Bartram” for the name of the first tram.

Leon Arundell, Downer

29 Oct, 1pm

Hall, ANU

Music, Canberra

Joe’s big year leaves him hungry to go harder

JOE Tapine has had a big year for the Raiders, establishing himself as one of the best forwards in the competition.

Raiders fans have recognised Tapine as one of the competition’s premier big men for some time but, unlike many parochial fanbases who think their favourite players are the best in the comp, the Kiwi interna tional has the numbers to show why he deserves to be recognised in the top tier of the NRL’s talent.

Tapine made a habit of churning out huge metres for Ricky Stuart’s side throughout the 2022 season. He finished the season in the top three players with most running metres averaging a whopping 165 per game, behind fullbacks James Tedesco and Dylan Edwards.

No other player in the competi tion made more ground after being tackled with Tapine gaining an extra 1731 post-contact metres during the season, while his 47 offloads were the second most in the competition.

His dominant, individual season saw him win his first Meninga Medal as the Raiders’ player of the year, poll ing 44 votes across the year, 22 more than his nearest rival.

While his ground-breaking season wasn’t enough to get the Raiders a premiership, he did finish it on a

the club for 2023, with the four-year extension seeing him locked into Canberra for the next five seasons.

with Ricky [Stuart, Raiders coach] where he said: ‘You’ll play 250 for this club’ and that is one of my goals – I

want to try and play as many games as I can for the club.”

While his season in green is finished, there is more football on the horizon for Tapine as he links up with NZ for the upcoming World Cup.

It will be a good way to finish what has been the best season of his career to date.

“It has been good to see a lot of hard work pay off and to get recognition for it,” said Tapine.

“It is all about being consistent and backing it up next year and the year after that so I am looking forward to the challenge and growing.”

Tapine also achieved another milestone this season when he had the opportunity to captain the club for the first time in the Raiders round 25 demolition of the Wests Tigers to secure a finals position.

That leadership role is something he wants to continue and expand on as he extends his tenure at the club.

“I have always wanted to be a leader here,” said Tapine.

“I’ll still grow off the leadership group, there are still senior players ahead of me and I’ll just push my way and get to the top.

“I have changed dramatically as

a person and a player since I moved down here and I wouldn’t have told you that I would be a leader back in 2016.

“To be in the position I am in now is very humbling.”

“I have had a lot of opportunities in Canberra to grow and have been able to put that into the leadership group – I have pushed to be a better person and a better player and that has helped me and helped my character.”

Tapine will now travel to the UK with the NZ international team for the Rugby League World Cup. The Kiwis play their first match in War rington on October 16 and Tapine will be keen to help the side improve on their quarter final exit in 2017.

“Our Kiwi squad is really strong, I think we need to keep building on the things we have been doing for the last couple of years,” said Tapine.

“[Coach] Michael McGuire talked

FIND WYOUR W W . B E L C O A R T S . C O M . A

Community

T B E L C O A R T S

Challenge of judging more than 400 Rieslings

THE Canberra International Riesling Challenge returns this month and, once again, Canberra will host the largest collection of Rieslings to be assembled in the southern hemisphere.

The 21st Canberra International Riesling Challenge will be held from October 10-15.

The emphasis in judging this year is on consumers of Riesling, with an increased representation from sommeliers, wine reviewers and wine buyers in the judging panels.

The Chair of Judges is NZ Master Som melier Cameron Douglas, from Auckland, one of six (and the first) Master Sommeliers in Australasia.

The judging panel chairs are Jane Faulkner, a Melbourne-based wine writer and reviewer and Tim Pelquest-Hunt, from SA, who was recently appointed as chief winemaker for Orlando Wines, producers of the famous Eden Valley Steingarten Riesling.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr will launch the 2022 Challenge on October 10 and will also join the panel as a guest judge.

The Challenge was conceived and grown in Canberra initially to benchmark Canberra District Rieslings against those from other parts of Australia.

These days it’s an internationally recog nised event and the largest single-varietal wine show in the southern hemisphere, attracting competing wines from Rieslingproducing countries and regions from around the world.

The 2022 Challenge has received more than 400 entries from six countries –Austria, France, Germany, NZ and the US – as well as almost 350 entries from Australia. All the Riesling regions of Australia have large numbers of entries, including the Canberra District with 24 entries in six classes.

Four days of judging

Judging for the Canberra International Riesling Challenge will be held at the Albert Hall between Monday, October 10 and Thursday, October 13.

The Challenge judging is conducted on a regional basis and is designed to promote and explore the regional differences that Riesling expresses. The wines are presented for judging in regional groupings but,

to prevent any perception of regional bias, the judges are only given the vintage and the sugar levels (style) of the wines. Regions are only revealed in the results catalogue.

Reflecting the international nature of the Challenge and Riesling, judges are drawn from overseas as well as from Australia.

The Challenge also places emphasis on the opinions of consumers by including wine critics, sommeliers and commercial wine buyers in the judging panels as well as wine makers.

This year judging will again be under the chairman ship of Cameron Douglas MS, from NZ. The panel

chairs are wine writer and reviewer Jane Faulkner (Victoria), and Orlando Wines chief winemaker Tim Pelquest-Hunt (SA).

The judges are winemakers Celine Rousseau (Canberra District) and Cate Looney (Victoria); sommelier Niels Sluiman (NSW) and wine buyer Dave Mavor (NSW).

The Challenge also provides opportunities for people in the wine industry to further develop their knowledge of Riesling through appointment as an associate judge. This year they are Angus Wardlaw (SA), Jeremy Nascimben (Canberra District) and Fergus McGhie (Canberra District).

Chief Steward Brian Sinclair checks the wine show layout.

place like home for Rieslings

RIESLING is considered the grape that most reflects the region and the vineyard from where

There’s lots to learn and enjoy about Rieslings

THE Challenge is about more than just judging wines, with a key aim being the promotion of the range of Riesling styles to consumers, winemakers and sommeliers through Master Classes, and the International Riesling Experience at the Albert Hall where consumers can taste all the wines that have been judged, many of which are not available in Australia.

During Riesling week there are opportunities to build your knowledge and enjoy tasting the world’s best Rieslings among experts from Australia, Germany, NZ and China.

This year’s Riedel Riesling Master Class will showcase Riesling trends and styles and wines from the key Riesling regions of NZ.

It will be presented in two sessions, the first featuring a Riesling expert presenting wines from a competing country and, with a variation from tradition, the second session will discuss key features of Riesling.

Cameron Douglas MS will present “Five New Zealand Riesling Regions – Terroir and Character” and will guide participants through the five major Riesling Regions of NZ, looking at their wines and terroir including the schist dry soils of Central Otago, loess and river gravels from Canterbury, the dry inland valleys of Marlborough, Nelson gravels and the Wellington District at the bottom of the North Island.

Examples demonstrating the terroir characteris tics of these regions will be presented for tasting.

Jane Faulkner, wine writer, critic and a “Halliday Wine Companion” reviewer, will present “Riesling with Texture – A new Zeitgeist for Australian Riesling?”

Jane will present a range of Rieslings from south-

Awards presentation

TASTE the 2022 award-winning wines and others from a museum collection at a cocktail-style event with canapes and fine Riesling while the 2022 Awards are announced.

Friday, October 14, 5.30pm to 7pm, National Ballroom 4, Hotel Realm. A limited number of tickets are available, at $85. Bookings required via trybooking.com/CCMKZ

Hotel Realm Riesling Dinner

The Hotel Realm chef will match food with awardwinning and rare Rieslings from the CIRC Museum.

Friday, October 14, 7.30pm, Buvette Restaurant, Hotel Realm. Tickets $140. Bookings required via trybooking.com/CCLTO

Taste the winners at the Riesling Experience

TASTE the entries – and the winners – for yourself at the CIRC-Toyota Material Handling International Riesling Experience. This is an opportunity to taste some of the best Rieslings in the world, many of which are not easily obtained in Australia.

Tickets are $50 and include a souvenir Riedel tasting glass and a copy of the official Challenge results catalogue.

A number of the 2022 judging panel and stewards will be on hand at the tasting to answer questions on Riesling.

Saturday, October 15, 11am-3pm, Albert Hall (trade representatives and exhibitors from 10am). Tickets are $50, book at trybooking.com/CBZUR or at the door.

Trade tasting bookings to trybooking.com/ CBZUU, contact the CIRC secretariat for the trade promotion code.

Bookings and enquiries to info@rieslingchallenge. com or call 6286 7515. Booking links at trybooking. com/eventlist/rieslingchallenge

than any other grape, perhaps because it ripens so late in the fall and is thus on the vine longer than other varieties, and because it thrives in poor soils with deep bedrock strata into which it can sink its probing roots.

“Riesling is beloved of all who grow it for being so co-operative – the furthest thing from a diva. It survives all but the most brutal frost, is hearty in its resistance to disease, and yields well without sacrificing flavour –perhaps because it ripens late in the fall when everything is taut and crisp and golden.

“Riesling wines are the afterglow of the contented world.”

Good quality Riesling is confined to coolclimate wine districts, where the required climate is achieved either by latitude or by altitude.

While growing Riesling in the Can berra District is relatively new, it has grown a reputation for being one of the best Riesling regions in Australia, and the world.

Australian Rieslings are renowned as being, for the most part, bone dry while delivering a fruity refreshment that is rarely matched elsewhere. Canberra District Rieslings certainly emulate this characteristic.

Semi-dry styles are becoming more popular because of their ability to match with a wide range of foods.

Unlike most grape varieties, Riesling can be made in a range of styles from very crisp and dry, to semi-dry, to sweet and luscious dessert and aperitif wines.

In some parts of the world, the grapes are picked after they have frozen on the vines to make ice-wine, and for almost 200 years Riesling has been used to produce a sparkling wine known as Sekt. Both these styles will be amongst the wide range of styles to be judged at this year’s Challenge.

Pale gold as a young wine, Riesling develops more colour with age and because of this it is sometimes referred to as the “Golden Wine”.

The International Riesling Experience… an opportunity to taste some of the best Rieslings in the world.

A steward pours Riesling for judging at the Canberra International Riesling Challenge.

IMPROVEMENT

Here’s a handy guide for improving the home

They say home is where the heart is, so why not make the most of your beloved property?

While improving the home can be incredibly exciting, it can also become expensive, tiring and time consuming. Luckily, there’s plenty of people in the ACT and surrounds with a passion for making homes better.

Whether you need some new furniture, a total renovation or just some help with moving to your new place, here are the people who love to lend a hand with home improvement.

New shop offers more fabrics than ever before

THE ART of Frippery now has a shop in Dirty Janes Canberra, providing even more fabrics to the region than ever before, says office manager Robyn Ebsworth.

“It’s stocking everything from stunning chairs, unique lamps and lamp shades, beautiful cushions, luxurious throws, quality furnishing fabrics, leather, trims and even lampshade making kits,” says Robyn.

“The collection and products are updated regularly. The very popular offcuts drawer is currently full to the brim and a goldmine for crafters. If you have a bigger project in mind there is a myriad of fabric pieces from half a metre to two to three metres in size at discount prices.

The new shop will be operating out of Dirty Janes Canberra, a market in Fyshwick that’s described as “perfect for vintage collectors and creatives alike and is a fabulous experience of shopping”.

Robyn says the Art of Frippery also still has their fabric library in Beard for

custom orders and consults.

“The retail space gives our customers access to discounted fabrics and leather hides without the need for a special order as well as rare vintage chairs and one-of-a-kind furnishings,” she says.

“Customers can follow us on Instagram to see new products as they become available at Dirty Janes.”

The Art of Frippery at Dirty Janes Canberra, 80 Collie Street, Fyshwick. Visit theartoffrippery.com.au or search The Art of Frippery on Instagram

Endeavour Carpets owners Ben and Taylor O’Brien.

Canberra’s most eclectic range of second-hand furniture

LEADING second-hand furniture provider

Ex-Government Furniture has something for everyone, says co-owner James Fullerton.

“We’ve got chairs for as low as $5 right now, through to chairs up to $2500,” he says.

With a quality range spanning a wide variety of time periods, budgets and designer styles, James says people can find items suited to any home or office.

“We’ve got designs by Sean Dix, a bunch of designer dining styles, dining chairs, bar stools and tables,” says James.

“At a fraction of the designer price.

“As well as plenty of storage solutions for a home office.

“We’ve even got coat stands and hat stands.”

He says Ex-Government Furniture offers everything, whether it’s a lounge, a desk or something else.

“We’ve got a heap of interesting items and objects here to see.

“There’s a huge amount of quality yet affordable furniture coming through the warehouse.”

The business, which has been operating for more than three decades, has become a well recognised part of Fyshwick and James says the suburb is more and more becoming the place to be.

Ex-Government Furniture, 6 Yallourn Street, Fyshwick. Call 6280 6490 or visit exgovfurniture.com

Kim’s passionate about improving your home

AS the owner of Renovation Matters, Kim Persson says her love of renovating has seen her take her passion from a hobby to a successful business and, with nearly 40 renovations under her belt, she’s got the experience and know-how to transform homes to the best effect.

“We can help people renovate to sell or re-tenant as well as renovate to enjoy their home even more,” she says.

Renovation Matters offers a “fix up, profit and pay later” process in which they can cover upfront renovation costs before settlement if you are selling.

“I’m hearing from some real estate agents that houses that are unrenovated or needing repairs are sitting on the market and not moving,’ says Kim.

“People haven’t got the time or energy in the current climate. It’s hard to get trades, supplies or even money to renovate.

“The houses with modern features like renovated kitchens, bathrooms and open living are selling with competition and interest from buyers, attracting premium pricing and selling faster.”

Kim says she works with specialised trades people who she trusts to bring their expertise and skill to clients’ renovation projects.

renovation works including styling, putting the property on the market, and getting it sold, taking all the stress out of the equation for our clients.

“If we are needed to help a client, there’s nothing we can’t do to help make the renova tion a stress-free experience.”

And Renovation Matters has an “explainer video” on its website, says Kim.

Renovation Matters, call Kim on 0427 696662 or visit renovationmatters.com.auSean Dix designer furniture available at Ex-Government Furniture.

MAXIMISE YOUR PROFIT WHEN SELLING Fix Up – Profit –

Renovation Matters offers transformational renovations

value

add the biggest impact

selling

are not selling, we can help

“We provide a full service for clients. We often are handed the keys, complete all

Renovation Matters owner Kim Persson.

Experienced packers that save time and stress

THE local team at House to Home are experienced packers who have been helping Canberrans get their property ready for sales, renova tions, insurance work, downsizing and relocating for over 10 years, says co-owner Renee Le Grande.

“Our expert team will save you hours of time and stress by packing all your personal belongings, household items, right through to packing up the shed,” she says.

“The team offers a personalised service and recognises every client is different and has different needs and expectations.

“Some people want the kitchen, bathroom and wardrobes packed, others want everything that is in a cupboard or behind a closed door.”

Renee says they also offer a full walk-in walk-out service, where clients hand over their keys and the staff completely clear the property, remove the furniture, take necessary items to a charity store, get the old property cleaned, and set everything up again in the new home.

House to Home. Call 0457 456767 or visit house-to-home.com.au

THE Australian Bedding Company is a family-owned business that has operated for 25 years, says office manager Stephen Dinn.

“We have more than 35 beds and bedroom suites on display in our showroom,” he says.

“We truly offer ‘old fashioned service’ where your personal needs are catered for.

“We match your beds and furniture to your requirements. Our highly trained sales staff have time to spend with you and really find out what you want.”

Stephen says the company sources a high percentage of Australian made products, and source quality.

“We have our own delivery drivers, so quick delivery of stock items can be achieved by staff, not contractors,” he says.

“Being a long running familyowned business up against the big boys and franchises, we pride ourselves on being the leader in customer service.

“People can compare prices

easily online and we are com petitive on price, but we won’t be beaten on service.

“We are able to have bedroom furniture tailor made to suit be spoke requirements of size, shape and colour (painted or stained).”

Stephen says the Australian Bedding Company also has a large commercial division that adds to its buying power.

Bedding to suit everyone just over the border

“We supply accommodation, bedding and furniture all over Australia, to universities, federal and local government agencies, numerous hotels, motels, B&B’s, hostels, backpackers and more.”

The Australian Bedding Company, 2/78 Hoskins Street, Mitchell. Call 6262 3260, or visit australianbed dingcompany.com.au

A FAMILY-RUN business for more than 30 years, Self Storage Solu tions was established to provide customers with storage options that are convenient, secure and affordable.

Located near the truck stop at Marulan, only a one-hour drive from Canberra, owner Lewis Jones says the business is proud to provide cost-effective storage options to people both in and outside metropolitan areas.

“Our monthly storage costs are easily half the price of a storage unit in Canberra,” he says.

“We have customers from the Snowy Mountains all the way to the northern beaches of Sydney and operate in a location that’s really convenient for customers and removalists.”

Lewis says the business is always striving to make things as easy as possible for their customers.

“We’ve recently installed automatic gates that are phone operated. Customers can call from their phone and go right through.”

Lewis says security is also one of their biggest priorities.

“We’ve installed 24/7 security cameras and have cloud-based storage of everyone entering and exiting all the sites to make sure customers know what they’re storing is safe,” he says.

“We take pride in providing excellent customer service and looking after your property while it’s in our care.”

Self Storage Solutions, Call 9986 3618 or visit selfstoragesolutions.com.au

THE EXPERTS

feature

Meet the experts who love what they do

FROM health to fashion, gifts to art and everything in between, the ACT region has experts in almost every field imaginable.

Not only have these proud locals spent years honing their craft or studying their specialty, they love what they do and they’re passionate about sharing it with others. In this special feature, “CityNews” gets to know some of the experts of the Canberra region as well as hear their well-informed insights.

STUDIO Pilates co-owners Simon and Tammy-Jo Hunter look after the studios in Braddon, Gungahlin and Manuka.

“The Braddon studio opened in November, the Gungahlin studio opened in March and Manuka only opened a month ago,” says Simon.

He and his wife say they are really happy with the numbers of people attending so far.

“Tammy-Jo is the driving force behind it all,” says Simon.

“She is a physiotherapist by trade, and she wanted to try something different while still working in a similar field.

And Simon says he does more of the “back-of-

house stuff”.

“We pride ourselves on being able to tailor the sessions,” he says.

“The pilates instruction is delivered by televi sion in the studio, but we have an instructor in the class, too, that can help when necessary and tailor accordingly.

“And it’s available for everyone, it can suit everyone.

“If you’re fit and want to get fitter you’re welcome, or if you are just a beginner, too, we can tailor it to anyone’s needs.”

Lollies to share between generations

LOLLY Swagman has been excitedly exploring new tastes for nearly three decades, says owner Ian Richardson.

Located in the heart of the Southern Highlands, the lolly shop stocks all-time favourite treats and the latest trending tastes from around the world.

“We’ve got American Reese’s, Her shey’s and candy corn, English bon bons and chocolates, sours and super sours, Dutch liquorice, Scottish tablet and our own Mrs Swag’s Fudge,” says Ian.

“We lost count at 1300 different treats

we know

on people’s trip to Berrima.

“It’s a happy place with kids excitedly exploring for new tastes, older people reminiscing and sharing in the thrill of finding a favourite and the great stories that go with them,” he says.

“We often see people who’d come as children now bringing in their own children and sharing their experiences, which is lovely to be allowed to join in on. It’s nice to have that history.”

more than

Lolly Swagman, 11 Old Hume Highway, Berrima. Call 4877 1137, or visit

Studio Pilates. Visit studiopilates.com

Lolly Swagman Ian Richardson.

Programs help make daily living easier Coverage for any occasion

ARTHRITIS ACT can support people no matter what type of chronic pain condition they have, says CEO Rebecca Davey.

“Whether it’s musculo skeletal pain, endometriosis, headaches or whatever it may be, we have programs in place to help make everyday lives easier,” she says.

And that’s only the start, with Arthritis ACT also offering services such as exercise physiology, disability support and meal planning to help people in managing their pain.

“No question is too big or small for us,” she says.

Rebecca says chronic pain differs from person to person and Arthritis ACT focuses on each individual to help with their own personal needs.

“Chronic pain affects all parts of a person’s life and we approach supporting the person from a holistic premise,” she says.

“We run courses and support groups for people living with chronic conditions that help them break down the tasks of daily living so that they don’t exhaust themselves or make their pain worse.

“Exercise and weight management is incredibly important in getting those good hormones going

again that are lost when pain is high or consistent.

“It’s great for social interaction as well, which is also key in beating the anxiety and depression lots of chronic pain sufferers [can] go through.”

Arthritis ACT, Pain Support & ME/CFS ACT, 170 Haydon Drive, Bruce. Call 1800 011041, email info@ arthritisact.org.au or visit arthritisact.org.au

CURATED Visuals provides video and photo services for businesses, and was started in 2019 by Koome Muthomi.

“Initially we used to do a lot of cafes and restaurants and then it sort of just turned into more of a focus on real estate,” says Koome.

“So that’s become our area of expertise and we’ve been doing that for about a year.

“We’re a team of two. When we aren’t available we contract other videographers depending on the need.”

Curated Visuals offer drone photography and wedding coverage, too.

“We do a bit of everything,” he says.

“I used to have an activewear clothing line and it was the initial reason for getting into photography.

“I did media in college, absolutely loved it and I decided instead of paying a photog rapher or videographer for the clothing line, why don’t I just do it myself?

“What makes Curated Visuals stand out is we focus on relationships before business. We’re all about having in-depth conversations and getting to know people.

And his expert advice?

“People just need to get out of their own way,” he says.

“What stops people is that feeling of not being good enough, that comparison and insecurity. We talk ourselves out of doing things that would benefit us.”

Curated Visuals. Call 9174 5246 or visit curatedvisuals.com.au

Industry leading real estate videography and

for the ACT Region

Photos and property films that sell

You know that saying “You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s

that’s exactly what prospective buyers and renters are doing when they’re looking for a home or commercial space.

is to make sure that your listing is presented in the

us?

Our team

Arthritis ACT CEO Rebecca Davey.

Curated Visuals owner Koome Muthomi.

MANAGEMENT EXPERTS

Gwen Estigoy – Exercise Physiologist

Gwen instructs Tai Chi for our Falls Prevention program and also supports people to meet their exercise goals within our gym or hydrotherapy program.

Gwen works with individuals, groups, and also leads our LGBTI program.

Gwen has a four-year degree as well as extensive industry experience working with people with chronic pain conditions.

Sophie Bullock – Exercise Physiologist

Sophie has post graduate qualifications in hydrotherapy, and as a non-sports centred Exercise Physiologist, helps clients who struggle with engaging in exercise due to a lack of sports participation. Sophie’s goal is to improve clients health via our hydrotherapy program, gym instruction and in-home visits. Sophie also is known for her passion for working with children.

Natasha Perry – Exercise Scientist

Tash takes a wholistic view of all her clients, considering their mental wellbeing as much as their physical needs. Tash delivers our Nordic Walking, Pilates and Tai Chi programs, all of which have a mental as well as physical component.

Tash also leads our strength and balance program, supporting those with lower levels of mobility or have concerns over falls to regain their confidence, whilst also meeting a great bunch of fellow exercise class participants.

Blake Dean – Exercise Physiologist

Blake has expertise in improving clients mobility and decreasing their pain through appropriate exercise. Blake delivers our ‘My Exercise’ program, targeting the relief of lower back and sciatic pain, shoulder and upper body concerns as well as leg, hip and and ankle interventions – for those who do not qualify for physiotherapy-led GLAD programs.

Blake provides individual & group exercise for younger people with a disability. Blake treats clients in-clinic or via our hydrotherapy program as well as attending your gym with you.

Jacqui Couldrick – Physiotherapist

Jacqui has a particular interest in hip and knee osteoarthritis. Jacqui delivers the GLAD program designed to reduce the need for joint replacements, or if a joint replacement is unavoidable, to prepare you thoroughly for surgery and recovery for day to day tasks. Jacqui is studying towards a PhD in the outcomes of the GLAD program.

Holly Hazelwood – Exercise Physiologist

Holly is a former sports journalist who believed so strongly in the power of exercise to heal and nurture that she undertook her 4 year degree in Exercise Physiology. Holly is be able to work with people directly to support them through their pain journey and regain independence and a joy for living again.

Holly provides one on one and group exercise classes both on land and at our hydrotherapy centres to support people to gain freedom from chronic pain.

WHO HELP MAKE

TASKS

NOW – NORTHSIDE & SOUTHSIDE

• Occupational Therapy – Assistance with the planning and modification of your home, workplace or car. Applications for NDIS, the Disability and Housing Support Pension, and also driving assessments.

• Physiotherapy – including the GLAD program for knee and hip osteoarthritis, sports injury prevention and rehabilitation, and pain condition support.

• Exercise Physiology – Individual exercise prescriptions, small group classes to increase strength and improve rehabilitation, strength and balance classes, hydrotherapy support.

• Dietetics – meal planning, weight management support, food intolerance support.

ASK THE EXPERTS

Shop celebrates all things Australian

STARTED as a small market stall selling homemade greeting cards, Wombat Cards and Gifts has grown into a shop that celebrates all things Australian.

Owner Monica Rolls has had a passion for Australia, its people, landscape and animals since she was a young girl living on a farm and today has turned that passion into a business.

“We have a lot of Australian children’s books. I try to bring in classics as well as the work of local authors,” says Monica.

“At the moment we’re showcasing some books by Sandra Bennett, a woman from Royalla who was a school teacher and a finalist in the International Book

Catching eye problems early

DAMIEN Lonergan and Ross Collins, of Collins and Lonergan Evolve Optometry, say it’s important for people of all ages to get their eyes checked regularly.

“Both seniors and young people should be getting check-ups every two to three years,” says Damien.

Damien, who has been in the optometry industry for more than two decades, says macular degeneration is one of the key issues that affects older people.

“It affects one in four people over the age of 80 and one in seven people between the age of 50 and 80,” he says.

“The earlier we find it the earlier

Books are just the start of the expansive range of interesting items available at the

“We have some absolutely gorgeous hand puppets of Australian animals, all hand made

“There’s Christmas decorations, aprons, cards, cups, coasters, kitchenware, plush

“There’s always something unique to be found.”

we can put effective measures and strategies in.”

Ross Collins’ high standards of customer care and attention to detail saw him progress to store management and become a key point of contact for suppliers. The next natural step was opening his own store, and Ross identified Gungahlin as the location in which he wanted to take this step.

Evolve also offers a large selec tion of glasses and Damien can also prescribe eye medication.

“When you come in we’ll talk about your experience in the past and anything you’re experiencing that may be a concern,” he says.

Damien Longeran, left, and Ross Collins.

“We look forward to the opportu nity to care for your eyes and your eyewear with a focus on what you need, accompanied by some good old-fashioned customer service.”

Collins and Lonergan Evolve Optom etry, Gungahlin Village (opposite Coles). Call 6189 5891 or visit evolveoptometry.com.au

Feeling sore? Talk to an expert

Wombat Cards and Gifts, shop 2, 31/35 Nettlefold Street,

Owner Monica Rolls.

The science behind the exercise

THE highly trained team of physiotherapists and exercise physiologists at Higher Function use the

scientific research in their evidence-based treatments and classes, says CEO Janet Fabbri.

“With more than 50 years of combined experience in musculoskeletal sports injuries and neurological conditions, we understand the physiology of the body, biomechanics and how the body moves,” says Janet.

“We’re the best place for helping people reach their higher functioning goals.”

Whether someone wants to walk up and down the stairs without pain or to be able to run up and down Mount Ainslie, Janet says the Higher Function team takes the time to learn the goals of each individual.

“We try to empower people by educating them.

In our classes we talk about why we’re doing a certain exercise,” she says.

“We help our patients perform better physically, reducing pain and stiffness, by giving them the science behind their exercise, specific physio and exercise physiology treatment, and ongoing support and care.”

Janet, who’s been in the industry for more than 35 years, says she still finds it incredibly rewarding to see people make progress and reach their goals.

“Things won’t happen overnight, consistency is key, but really seeing people improve over time is wonderful.”

Higher Function Physio & Pilates, Suite 4, Level 1/23 Petrie Plaza. Call 6262 9664 or visit higherfunction.com.au

FINANCE director Rhonda Hubert says the staff at Capon and Hubert take pride in knowing that respect and courtesy always takes priority.

Together, lawyers Ken Hubert, Ashilpa Khanna and Daryn Griffiths cover family law, wills and estates and conveyancing.

“Ken is experienced in all areas of family law, including adoptions,” says Rhonda.

“He is an accredited mediator and has been practicing in Canberra for 40 years.

“He helps people with their legal issues with confidence and compassion.”

Ashilpa joined the team five years ago, says Rhonda, and specialises in wills and estates.

“At the time of your loss, we know you need people who understand the challenges of this time and Ashilpa is known for her empathy,” says Rhonda.

“Daryn joined us four years ago and leads our conveyancing team, buying and selling property, both residential and commercial.”

He can also help with advice regarding contracts for retirement village accommodation, says Rhonda: “He is professional, efficient and a tireless worker for his clients.

“The Capon and Hubert team has been operating for many years in Canberra and enjoys working together.

“Many of our clients have been coming to us for a long time and much of our client base comes through referral, which speaks to Capon and Hubert’s success and the confidence their clients and other professionals have in the team.”

Capon and Hubert Lawyers and Mediators, first floor, 32-38 Townshend Street, Phillip. Call 6152 9203 or visit chsol.com.au

Working with you for the best result

Ken Hubert and Ashilpa Khanna of Capon & Hubert Lawyers & Mediators.

Higher Function CEO and physiotherapist of 35 years Janet Fabbri (right).

Sweets, Treats, & Indulgences for Kids of All Ages

Mrs Swag’s famous Fabulous Fudge

Rachael knows how to make people look their best

THE owner of Quintessential Exeter, Rachael Norman, has curated a “colourful and vibrant selection of clothing and shoes” that she says has made her store a delightful destination to visit.

Offering a collection of European and American women’s fashion, Rachael uses her expertise to help people feel confident in their clothes.

“I come from a hair and beauty background I love working with colours that suit skin tones and usually can get it right when choosing clothes for people when guided by their hair, skin and eyes,” she says.

“Making people look their best is my passion.”

Throughout her hairdressing career, Rachael has worked closely with Park Hyatt Sydney

and the Observatory Hotel, now Langham, and various other five-star city hotels, doing hair for guests who preferred an in-room stylist.

“I did hair for many celebrities including Elle McPherson, Kylie Minogue, Shane Warne, Sting, Kelly Preston, Tim Rice as well as VIP guests and dignitaries from around the world,” she says.

Now running her own clothing store in the Southern Highlands, Rachael sells everything from dresses to pants, shirts, jumpers, shoes, scarves and more.

‘’We offer personalised styling appointments in a friendly and inclusive environment,” she says.

“It’s a relaxed place, where my customers can take their time, have a chat and a giggle, and walk out feeling happy.”

Quintessential Exeter, 2 Exeter Road, Exeter. Call 0412 624222.

Promoting Italian culture and language

THE Dante Alighieri Society (DAS) of Canberra is a highly regarded member of the international network of Dante Alighieri Societies dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture throughout the world, says director Franco Papandrea.

“Locally, it has been providing the Canberra com munity with a genuine experience of Italian language and culture for 65 years, has a well-earned reputation and is the best place to learn Italian,” says Franco.

“It is the only place in Canberra offering learners of Italian the opportunity to practice what they learn in the classroom in a welcoming and friendly setting. It is also the only place where non-native Italian speakers can get an internationally-recognised certificate of their competency in the language.

In addition to its in-house language courses, the DAS employs mother-tongue Italian language assistants in

support of the teaching of Italian in Canberra primary and secondary schools, an initiative made famous by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

DAS members are also provided with an extensive program of cultural and social activities.

“For the forthcoming International celebration of Italian Language Week, starting October 17, the Society is hosting several events including an exhibition of Italian educational books and teaching resources, a language competition for students of Yarralumla Bi-lingual Primary School and a workshop for teachers and educators on the Importance of using authentic language in the classroom,” says Franco.

The Dante Alighieri Society, call 5117 3996 or visit danteact.org.au

Rachael Norman.

PLUMBING AWARDS

Awards recognise best of the best in plumbing

EACH year the Plumbing Industry Excellence Awards recognise outstanding achievement across both industry and training sectors of the plumbing community.

This year taking place on October 28, the ceremony will see the Master Plumbers Association (MPA) ACT present more than a dozen awards to plumbing businesses, people and projects that have gone above and beyond.

“The highest professional and ethical standards across our industry continue to be essential in order to ensure the best public health, safety and sustainability outcomes for our entire community - which we are all a part of,“ said MPA president, Jason Tait.

“This is where MPA shines, and through our Awards we are also able to shine a spotlight on the exceptional work that continues to be done by individuals and organisations across our region.”

FIRST established almost half a century ago, Master Plumbers ACT has become the peak organisation for the local plumbing industry.

With this year’s Plumber’s Industry Excellence Awards just around the corner, CEO Claire Howe says it’s a great time to recognise the importance and diversity of plumbers and their work.

“I think in a lot of people’s minds plumbing is something that happens under a builder, but there is an incredible amount of work that goes into keeping our water flowing,” she says.

“Plumbers undergo six years of training. They keep the heating of homes going, gas cooking, sewerage, drainage, and stormwater flowing. They deal with gas, medical gas and so many other important projects across residential, commercial and civil construction.

“We’re trying to shine a light on the diversity that is in the industry.”

Claire says this year the awards will feature a number of new categories that recognise excellence across the whole industry, including an outstanding woman in plumbing category.

There’ll also be a number of projects

Local plumber ‘chuffed’ to be nominated for outstanding employee

A PLUMBER for more than a decade, David Wood, of JML Plumbers, has been nominated as a finalist in this year’s award for outstanding employee.

“I was very surprised, I’m absolutely chuffed,” said David upon hearing of his nomination.

David, who says he’s always liked working with his hands, first got into

as best I can and help out wherever I can,” he says,

“I think it’s always about putting in that little bit of extra effort.”

David says he loves to be able to work with JML Plumbing & Gas, a family owned company with over 25 years of combined plumbing experience.

Having started operations with just

Recognising those who keep the region flowing

JML plumber David Wood.

PLUMBING AWARDS advertising feature

Tradesman with an environmentally friendly focus

THE job of 6 Star Hot Water and Plumbing is to solve their clients’ problems, not to create new ones, says director Robert Edwards.

“Neither myself or our tradesmen accept second rate workmanship,” he says.

“We work with clients to find solutions that suit their needs and wants.

“Our thoroughness, efficiency and experience means we save our customers money in the short and the long term.”

Robert has been doing plumbing work since 1985, and says his tradesmen have been with the business for 10 years.

“I think it is our very strong focus on the environ ment that makes us stand out,” he says.

“Along with general plumbing work, we service and install solar hot-water systems.

“I personally get involved in developing training for new green plumbing technologies and developing Australian standards for hydrogen technologies.”

6 Star Hot Water and Plumbing is a finalist in multi ple categories because of their “Rainwater Harvesting Installation” at the French embassy.

6 Star director Robert Edwards.

“It is good to be recognised for doing work that benefits the environment and at the same time allows our customers to achieve their goals of reducing their impacts on the planet,” says Robert.

“The team of tradesmen and apprentices that come to work for us every day and their focus on good workmanship got us into a finalist position.”

6 Star Hot Water and Plumbing. Call 0448 844911, or visit hotwatersystems-plumbing.com.au

Small trader becomes finalist in big awards

THE Nixon Plumber is a plumbing company specialising in residential maintenance says owner Chris Williams.

The Nixon Plumber opened in 2020, but Chris’ experience began when he started his apprenticeship in 2007.

“I’ve always wanted to work for myself, and I noticed a gap in decent trades in Canberra,” he says.

“The Nixon Plumber is a reference to the Watergate scandal and ‘The Plumbers’.

“Although I can definitely ‘fix leaks’ I am also experi enced in all aspects of plumbing in residential houses.”

Discover how we can help you protect our environment today for our

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The Nixon Plumber has been nominated for the 2022 Outstanding ACT Plumber of the Year Award.

“I think I’m the only finalist who is a small trader and operator and I think that helped us get into the awards, and it helps us to offer more personal customer service.

“We’re local to the inner north, but service all of Canberra.

The Nixon Plumber. Call 0420 607765, or visit thenixonplumber.com.au

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A beaut time to be in the bush

By Jackie WARBURTON

THERE are short walks in the surrounding bush in our peri-urban landscape that we can enjoy this time of year.

One I recommend is a visit to Callum Brae on Narrabundah Lane, Symonston. The area is known for a failed soldiers’ settlement scheme after World War I and unchanged since the 1920s and 1930s.

The Red Box and Yellow Gum grassy woodlands are wonderful to walk through on a path that is quite wide and has some interesting old buildings to observe. This is an extremely easy trek and an ornitholo gist’s haven.

I remember coming to this area in the early ‘80s where the old Mugga Zoo was and more recently as a wonderful nature reserve for all of us to enjoy.

Another short walk I recommend is the Pialligo Redwood Forest. Managed by the Department of Defence, the forest is registered on the Commonwealth heritage list as the largest stand of mature Redwood species in Australia. There is a selfguided tour. Both walks are suitable for all the family.

NOW the soil is warming up and the worms are on the move, it’s a perfect time to get a compost bin going.

A good composting system is one in the ground where the worms do all the work. A garden bed as little as 30-centimetres wide can have a small composting system. The worms turn over the soil and add nutrients to the plants nearby and most compost bins come with lids to keep vermin out.

There are many types of compost ing bins to choose from or build your own for little cost with recycled pallets and a few star pickets (along

with an internet tutorial or two).

Most vegetable scraps can be put in the compost and the smaller the pieces, the quicker it breaks down. All vegetables can go in and shredded paper for carbon. Wet it all down and keep moist.

The only no-nos for compost are cheese and bread. Citrus and onions will need to be cut up small to compost well. Fork the material regularly to help with decomposition.

MY tomato seedlings are coming along and ready for planting out in a few weeks when all danger of frosts has gone.

This year I am trying an heirloom variety, Jaune Flamme, which is medium size and bright orange in colour. The other easy grower I’m trying is Black Krim.

Tomatoes need at least five to six hours of full sun to fruit and grow well. As a vine, growing up a trellis for support will benefit growth and keep them off the ground.

Sprinkle a little dolomite lime into the soil where tomatoes are to grow to add calcium and help prevent blossom end rot.

PLANT out seedlings when there are at least six sets of leaves and plant deeply into the hole and water well. Sow vegetable seeds and flower seeds into punnets ready for planting next month when the soil is warmer.

There are still a few frosts around and they are expected to still be around until the beginning of November at least.

MOST pruning (generally little but often) in the garden can be done now. Removal of dead, diseased or broken branches will clean up the garden for summer.

Weeds are prolific with this moist weather. Keep on top of them before they set seed, pull them out – roots and all. They can be composted, fed to the chooks or put in the green bin.

Composting system… the worms do the work.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Singers take to this concert with a deep breath

By Helen MUSA

“BREATH is absolutely fundamental to us, to all of us,” singer AJ America says as she and the Luminescence Chamber

Singers honour that most basic of human functions in a concert called “drawing breath”.

To America, a livewire member of the Canberra arts community and artistic direc tor of the ensemble, singing is technically the process of transforming wind into sound – “it’s such a basic part of the experience of what it is to be alive”.

She’s right. I’ve been looking into the pre-history of singing and have found that studies of the Neanderthals’ nasal, ear and sinus features as well as the larynx of modern humans, show that our ancient ancestors have had the physical ability to sing for many millennia. “There is no human culture that doesn’t sing,” America believes.

“Our breath is a base expression of our feelings, we let out an anxious or surprised gasp, or a sigh of relief,” she says.

“We take a deep breath when we brace ourselves, and hold our breath when we wait. We talk about our breath when we

are awestruck.”

It also has a darker side. She says that in recent years we have witnessed and experienced violent asphyxiation in many forms, from the thick smoke of bushfires to the spectre of respiratory infection, even as the words “I can’t breathe” resonate around the world as a reminder of the ongoing persecution of black communities.

With all this in mind, she and her fellow

sopranos Veronica Milroy, Rachel Mink, bass Jack Stephens and tenor Dan Walker will be ex ploring work related to breathing by everyone from Hildegard von Bingen to Pink Floyd.

To America, singing as a form of breath involves what she calls “most basic symbol ism, as it tells us about our emotional state”.

For instance, she says, we stutter or splutter to express emotion and in David Lang’s “When It Is Time” from “Little Match Girl Pas

sion”, the stuttering and spluttering reflects life, emotion and the flickering of a match.

“Drawing breath” goes back to medieval times, as with 14th century French poetcomposer Guillaume de Machaut’s “Motet no 2: Suspiro”.

Sighing proves to be the most popular form of breathing in the concert and is also explored in “Sospirava il mio core” and “Dolcissimo Sospiro” by Italian madrigal

composer Carlo Gesualdo and 15th century Flemish Adrian Willaert’s “Sospiri Miei.”

But the concert also features a few new works, not least Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” and Florence Welch’s “Between Two Lungs”, both arranged by ensemble member Walker, who has also written his own new work for the concert, “Listen, Are You Living Just a Little and Calling it a Life?”

There’ll also be a new commission from Canberra’s Jess Green and the world premiere of “Many Passes and Yearnings” by rising composer Connor D’Netto.

Inevitably, the theme of breath will lead to virtuosic singing, most notably in Brenda Gifford’s “Yangaa”, where a single word from the Yuin language, repeated over and over again, turns on a very simple melody with a virtuosic texture.

Grief plays its part in the concert in Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns, “Dark Cloud” and “Isolation Hymn”.

Hymns, she observes, are a very special way of drawing breath because there are always lots of people involved.

“Everything in this concert is totally unaccompanied, just five voices, pure and simple”, but within that there will be chant, unison and solo singing.

Luminescence, which will tour the concert to Braidwood, Goulburn, Orange and Glebe, will perform at the National Museum’s Gandel Atrium on October 16.

Maurice dancing around the ‘cherry bomb’ blend RICHARD CALVER

Breathing easy… Luminescence Chamber Singers with AJ America in the centre.

Photo: Hilary Wardhaugh

Berry good festival, but no picnic

By Helen Musa

THERE’S a strong Canberra contingent among the writers heading to the inaugural Berry Writers Festival.

When I catch up with the founder and artistic director, Suzanne Burdon, I find that organising a writers’ festival is no picnic.

Burdon, herself the author of “Almost Invincible”, a biographical novel about Mary Shelley, lives in nearby Gerroa and her daughter lives in Berry.

“I thought it would be a nice, warm and cosy event for readers and authors in a lovely little vil lage. I thought it would be very creative, but I had no idea about the scale of what was required… it’s a big deal putting on a writers’ festival, I was so naïve,” she says.

Happily, Berry turns out to have a very creative community with many local authors she didn’t know about, and many hands to help, so after a false start in covid-fraught 2021, the event is now scheduled for late October.

“Berry is such an appealing town and when I emailed potential authors, every single one said ‘we’d love to come to Berry for a festival’,” she says.

Making it work is another matter. She took advice from people in the town, from localregion bookshops and from experts such as publishing consultant and freelance editor Mary Cunnane, who lives in the area and came on to the committee.

There are pluses to having a festival in the Shoalhaven region from the accommodation point of view and all the authors, she says, are

But “billeting” is not quite the word, as some of the places where authors will be staying are gorgeous properties in rolling hills and country side, while others will stay in motels where the local business people have given several rooms for the two nights.

Shoalhaven Council came good with a grant, but the rest came from private donations and sponsors, including the Neilson Foundation.

From the outset, Burdon was sceptical about the value of an overarching theme, believing they are usually created at the end as an afterthought.

“I don’t like themes,” she tells me. “Reading is a very individual pastime, so it’s wonderful when you can go somewhere and find something that speaks to you.”

Not unlike Canberra Writers’ Festival, there’s a strong political strain in the event, with public figures such as former Australian ambassador to Indonesia, Gary Quinlan; ANU emeritus historian

Iain McCalman, and journalists Peter Hartcher, Rick Morton, Jacqueline Maley and Jane Caro talking about the issues of the day.

But some of the politically-minded festival participants have become authors, including Paul Daley, author of “Canberra”, “Beersheba” and “Collingwood: A Love Story”, and former Australi an Greens and now author, Senator Scott Ludlam, who has written his first book, “Full Circle : A Search for the World That Comes Next”.

“You have to get the people with big names like who have political issues to discuss, but we also have people who write warm and interesting books, so there’s something for people who enjoy relaxing,” Burdon says.

On the big-name front, there’ll be ubiquitous environmentalist Tim Flannery giving the opening-night keynote address, authors Ceridwen Dovey and Anita Heiss, and Canberra social commentator Hugh Mackay.

On the “interesting” front, there’ll be Canberra writer David Dufty, author of “Nabbing Ned Kelly”; Nigel Featherstone, whose “My Heart is a Little Wild Thing” is set in the Monaro; Craig Silvey, author of “Jasper Jones” and “Honeybee” and star children’s author Allison (AL) Tait.

And in case it sounds altogether too highminded, fear not. Mark Tredinnick, Julie Janson and Omar Sakr will be there to remind visitors that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” and in Berry Hotel, 6.30pm on Saturday, October 22, there’ll be “Hang Out at the Pub,” and a tribute to the late author, Frank Moorhouse.

Berry Writers Festival, October 21-23, program details at berrywritersfestival.com.au

Breaking every rule in the TV book Players sail the ocean blue

By Nick OVERALL

LIKE me, you might sometimes practice what you’re going to say before socialising.

A few quick rehearsal sessions in the car on the way to an event, maybe a run through or two at home the night before.

If that’s the case (and for the sake of my potentially embarrassing admission, I hope it is) you may also find a strange sense of comfort in Nathan Fielder’s docu-comedy curio “The Rehearsal”, a reality show that takes this idea to hilarious and surprisingly profound extremes.

In this six-part series streaming on Binge, the peculiar Canadian comedian creates simulations of future social events before they happen. He then fills those simulations with real-life people who practice what they’re going to say or do before the actual thing plays out.

Take the subject of the show’s first episode, Kor Skeete, a trivia-obsessed New Yorker trying to buck up the courage to confess to his friend that he’s lied about having a master’s degree for more than a decade in the hopes of appearing more intelligent.

The awkward encounter is set to go down at the bar where both friends regularly enjoy their competitive quizzes.

Kor, understandably, is more than a little unsure on how to spill the beans.

Not far away, in a vast, empty warehouse, Fielder puts his talented TV team to work recreating the exact same bar down to the most obscure details.

Rips in the leather of bar stools, a deflated balloon dangling in the corner, real, running tap beer and more are all built to recreate the establishment as accurately as possible.

Actors are even hired to play bar patrons in the fake venue, all serving to create the perfect “rehearsal space” for Kor to practice his upcoming confession.

You might ask, how does this all work if Kor’s friend, who he’s supposed to confess to, isn’t involved? Isn’t that the key to it all?

There’s a plan for that, too. An actor is engaged to covertly study this friend’s mannerisms, behaviour, clothing and any other idiosyncrasies, then impersonate them as closely as possible during the rehearsal sessions.

When it all comes together it’s uncanny, a near perfect simulation of a social event that this awkward trivia nerd can hit the reset button on as many times as he wants.

Does all this practice help in the end? Hidden cameras set up for the real confes sion at the climax of the episode reveal all.

To an outsider this no doubt sounds ridiculous, but those familiar with Fielder’s comedy will know it’s business as usual for the cult-followed comedian.

His previous reality show, “Nathan For You” (on Paramount Plus), saw Fielder implement ridiculous, yet hilarious ideas to help struggling businesses.

One of these involved advertising a local pet store at a pet cemetery so that prospec tive customers could start thinking about their next furry friend while saying goodbye to their recently deceased one.

“Dumb Starbucks”, the show’s most infamous episode, saw Fielder open his own Starbucks cafe while using a legal loophole to stop the mega coffee franchise from suing him.

By adding “Dumb” to the start of the business name, Fielder was able to claim

his business was operating under “artistic parody”, technically making it a legal venture.

A google of “Dumb Starbucks” will show the hoax made international news. People lined up for hours for a “dumb coffee”, with some even speculating it was all an intricate work of street art by Banksy.

With ideas as outlandish as these, it’s hard to spot where the TV show starts and where reality ends. Sitting in that limbo is a treat.

Throughout all of his bizarro escapades, the comedian somehow remains brutally deadpan, always convincing the real-life subjects of his shows he’s deadly serious about his perplexing plans.

Their raw, awkward reactions to this absurdity is what makes his comedy tick.

“The Rehearsal” hones in on this human element even more. In one episode, Fielder attempts to prepare a mother for parenthood, while in another he attempts to help a man plead for his share of a familial inheritance that’s being held ransom by his brother.

The result is a show that breaks every rule in the television book – a bafflingly unique spin on reality TV that is not just a hilarious examination of human behaviour, but even at times a moving one.

“The Rehearsal” might be the most bizarre television show of the year. It might also be the best.

IN

By Helen Musa

QUEANBEYAN Players return with the Gilbert and Sullivan favourite, “HMS Pinafore”, directed by Jude Colquhoun, with Matt Greenwood as musical director and Belinda Hassall as choreographer. The Q, October 14-23.

BRILLIANT Italian piano duo, Eleonora Spina and Michele Benignetti, will be at Wes ley Music Centre twice in October – October 12, for a lunchtime concert, “Music in their Veins”, then on October 23 with Schubert’s “Die Forelle” and Ravel’s “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales” and “La Valse”.

IN “Fairytales on Ice”, premier skaters bring favourite fairytale characters to life through ice skating, singing, and music. Canberra Theatre, 4pm and 7.30pm, October 9.

THE Czech and Slovak Film Festival is in Canberra on October 14 and 16, opening with “Zatopek”, a biographical blockbuster about long-distance runner Emil Zátopek. Ron Clarke is played by Aussie actor James Frecheville.

CANBERRA International Mental Health Film Festival is back for the fifth year running, hosted by This Is My Brave Australia, with three sessions at the AIE Theatre in Canberra Technology Park, 12.30pm6.30pm, Sunday, October 9.

Who-dunnit: there’s a murderer backstage at ‘The Mousetrap’

By Dougal MACDONALD

“See How They Run” (MA)

IN this comical who-dunnit spoof of Agatha Christie’s long-running play “The Mousetrap”, during a backstage party in the London West End theatre celebrating its 100th performance in 1953, a faceless antagonist murders visiting American film director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody).

Mark Chappell’s screenplay imagines that Scotland Yard, its hands full of serious crime in the search for the 10 Rillington Place serial killer, sends its B team to investigate.

Liquor-loving Insp Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and enthusiastic cop-in-training Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) interview a

long list of suspects.

Could the murderer be playwright Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo), film producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith), grand dame Petula Spencer (Ruth Wilson) or even actor Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson)?

There are plenty of other suspects and as time runs out, the killer strikes again.

“Maybe it’s all of them?” hopefully suggests Stalker. “See How They Run” leans heavily on comedy mainly expressed as wordplay linking “The Mousetrap” to the play from which it takes its name (“Hamlet” – remember those strolling players come to entertain the Danish court with a performance of “The Murder of Gonzago?) and the basic plot leading to a remote English country house where the killer is finally identified.

Director Tom George and writer Mark Chappell deliver laughs and intrigue in

equal measure. Rockwell and Ronan display admirable timing as the investigators.

Constable Stalker’s over-eagerness to identify the killer might reflect the filmgoer’s eagerness for resolution. “See How They Run’s” light touch and genial nature com pensate filmgoers with a taste for the absurd against a background of a grimy, post-war London (to date more than 10 million people have paid to watch “The Mousetrap”, which is still running).

In the film, that pint-sized acting power house Shirley Henderson plays Agatha Christie.

At all cinemas

“On the Count of Three” (MA)

WHAT goes through the mind of somebody who chooses suicide as a means of hastening a process that nature normally selects in its

own good time?

“On the Count of Three” proposes to try to offer a cogent cinematic explanation for DIY life-ending for which no matter of erudite scientific enquiry has, or could have, ever really succeeded.

The filmmaker who has used our favourite communication medium to try to do the impossible is Afro-American director and star Jerrod Carmichael, whose filmmaking debut mines our laughter and a sweet friendship from the hopelessness of losing the will to live.

His film could have very easily collapsed beneath its subject matter. Just explaining what it’s about is a hard sell. Anyone looking for an escape from daily life probably isn’t looking to immerse themselves in the story of two friends so desperate to escape the pain in their lives that they make a suicide pact.

The fact that Carmichael took this story as his directorial debut is an act of pure confidence that balances the dark with the heartfelt. It gets points for its warm heartache and, most of all, the watcher’s laughter as it explores a plot where the protagonists plan their day around violence and suicide.

Will you like “On the Count of Three”? It’s supposed to be a comedy. Be brave. People in the real world bared their souls to bring it to you. A comedy’s supposed to be funny. Funny offers a choice between two meanings – ha-ha and peculiar. Writers Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch jointly won the screenplay class with it at last year’s Sundance Film Festival – and that ain’t peanuts.

Comedian Nathan Fielder, left, with New Yorker Kor Skeete, the first subject of his docu-comedy series “The Rehearsal”.

At Dendy

DINING / The Marion, Regatta Point

Stepping up to the tea… high tea

IT’S airy, elegant and offers exquisite, sweeping views of the lake and some of Canberra’s iconic locations. The Marion restaurant is open in all its glory, serving a true high-tea experience.

At beautiful Regatta Point, The Marion is named in honour of Marion Mahony, Walter Burley Grif fin’s wife and her creative influence on the design of the capital.

The Marion is about luxury. Read the fascinating history of high tea, which has been reigning since before the 17th century, on the inside of the menu.

Tea is obviously a focus. The Marion offers 25 varieties covering black tea, green tea, white tea and herbal infusions, many with names transporting you to exotic locations.

The Marion’s high-tea options begin with the traditional ($70) and move up to sparkling ($80), cocktail ($90) and piccolo champagne ($100).

Children’s high tea is $45.

The five of us selected the cocktail, delighting in the Marion Bellini and the Floriade, created by smartly dressed bartenders behind the long, expansive, open-concept bar at the back of the restaurant.

The Bellini is created with sparkling, Chambord black raspberry liqueur, rosé and hibiscus. A special touch, before sipping, is a peach mist sprayed on the drink at the table by

Floriade is here, so some of us celebrated by choosing the cocktail by the same name. Think pink gin, St Germain elderflower liqueur, sparkling, free raspberries and blueberries, and pretty petals.

We enjoyed the cocktails with the savoury start to the high tea, served on individual plates with only quality ingredients used. The thin slices of Wagyu beef melted in the mouth. The small cup of mushroom consommé was earthy, memorable and just the right temperature. We indulged in the delicate-looking

Tea towers… with a combination of finger sandwiches and sweets such as hazelnut choo and pecan dessert.

and delicate-tasting asparagus and salmon tart.

Next up were the graceful tea towers, with a combination of finger sandwiches (no crust of course) presented on the middle plate.

The excitement built with the tiny, gorgeous-looking sweets. The hazelnut choo was light, the apple with cinnamon not overly sweet, the pecan dessert a perfect balance. We loved these and more.

Our tea was served in highly polished silver pots. Our selections included the Oolong peach which combines Oolong and black tea with

apricot and peach flavour. The Pai Mu Tan and Melon had intricate aromas.

Tableware at The Marion is refined. Our teacups and plates featured thin white and red stripes and rims of gold.

The Marion’s staff are trained to take the high-tea experience to an other level, and they did. Attentive but not overbearing. Friendly but not too familiar.

Happy to take photos of guests against that amazing view.

Maurice dancing around ‘cherry bomb’

Q: What did the baguette say when it was being sliced? A: Sacré bleu, le pain.

IT’S easy to think of dedicated days, weeks or even months related to a particular topic or object as a pain. But on September 16 it was International Grenache Day, a matter I learned from the lovely people at French Flair in Manuka.

And, to be fair, we each have our own special day, and my birthday is very close to the celebra tion of this varietal.

I walk to the Manuka shops to do my shopping and if it’s late afternoon on a Saturday I usually call into French Flair to see what they have on taste.

To keep my sobriety and to pave the way for return tastings, I usually limit my Saturday afternoon indulgence to one taste.

So in the lead up to International Grenache Day, I spoke with Nicole Rebut, of French Flair, at their Palmerston Lane shop. She said they had a 10 per cent discount on all grenache-related wines as a way to celebrate the day.

Nicole said: “Grenache is not well appreciated but I love the chocolatey, cherry flavours of a good grenache. I love its juiciness, like it’s got more volume in the mouth.”

She offered me a taste of the 2020 Château Saint Maurice Les Parcellaires Grenache Shiraz blend.

“Wow,” I said. “It’s like a cherry bomb.”

Nicole said: “That’s because of the high alcohol volume at 14.5 per cent.”

I got the discount on a bottle, and that made it around $30, noting to Nicole the felicity of the name – Maurice being my middle name, which I got from my maternal grandfather.

I served this wine to my children at my birthday dinner, which they cooked for me. The grenache blend was not served with the main course of chilli prawns where we indulged and paired an ambrosia of a wine, a Domaine Cordier Pouilly Fuisse 2016 chardonnay. This superb drop tasted of brioche and peach stones and was in splendid harmony with the food. We all thought thoughts of heaven (which with this current birthday is a step closer for me – if I get there!).

The grenache was served with cheese (after an explosion at a French cheese factory all that was left was de brie) and opened up with food, after initially disappointing with its fruit bang. It could do with laying down for a while, as I had to after this indulgent dinner.

I indicated to my children that I had looked up the International Grenache Day website and the

grape is Spanish. Grenache originated in the Aragon region of northern Spain, where it is known as Garnacha. From there it has been cultivated in Sardinia, Southern France and the San Joaquin Valley in California.

It was an early starter in Australia where another website told me that it was one of the original set of varieties imported by James Busby in 1832. He was the bloke who started the Austral ian wine industry with his 323 cuttings that survived the harrowing journey to this country from Europe.

Setting aside history, I swirled the wine in my glass, and offered yet an other opinion to my captive audience: “I do prefer grenache in a blend.

“I prefer the grenache, shiraz, mourvedre GSMs, also best from the Cotes de Rhone like this Saint Maurice. You can’t beat Chateauneuf du Pape, which was the first official appellation to classify the GSM blend. That’s definitely the wine for next year’s birthday.”

Statistics show that those who have the most birthdays, live the longest.

Tea is the focus… The Marion offers 25 varieties covering black tea, green tea, white tea and herbal infusions.

Photo: Wendy Johnson

By Joanne Madeline Moore

ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)

The week begins in the last stage of the Full Moon phase in Aries, which fires up your passion for personal projects and spontaneous schemes. But you may come down to earth with a thud on Wednesday when Neptune squares your ruler, Mars, and you realise fiery enthusiasm isn’t enough. Getting other people onside is the secret to making things happen! With Mercury transiting into your relationship zone, clear (and constant) communication is the key.

TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 21)

Do you enjoy your job and does it stimulate your mind? This week, take the time to re-evaluate a professional matter (or a volunteer position) as the Sun, Venus, Mercury and Saturn stimulate your work sectors. The planets also activate your reputation zone, so make sure your public image is in line with your true Taurean self. Enjoy being the authentic you! Draw inspiration from birthday great, writer Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

GEMINI (May 22 – June 21)

With the Sun, Venus and Mercury activating your creativity zone, it’s time to write, sing, dance, perform, paint or play music as you draw on the richness of your colourful world within. Saturn will help you turn imaginative ideas into productive projects. But make sure you keep things real at work. A vague idea or a dubious colleague could lead you up the primrose path to trouble. So sharpen your senses, improve your game and keep your wits about you, Gemini!

CANCER (June 22 – July 23)

Crabs are capricious creatures and mood swings are likely, as the tension gradually dissipates after the fiery Full Moon. If you keep busy (and physically active) then it will take your mind off your tempestuous (and exhausting) emotions. And have you been viewing a friend or relative through ridiculously rose-coloured glasses? Neptune confuses your thinking mid-week but prepare for a Saturnine wake-up call. The chickens are coming home to roost!

LEO (July 24 – Aug 23)

Long-term partnerships – of the romantic, platonic and business variety – are highlighted this week. The Sun demands energy and dignity; Venus – calm cooperation; Mercury – clear communication; and Saturn – dedication and loyalty. Keep the conversation uplifting and inspiring! Your motto for the moment is from birthday great Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

VIRGO (Aug 24 – Sept 23)

You’re determined to complete a project but Neptune squares Mars, and Mercury (your power planet) opposes Jupiter, so expect misunderstandings and disruptions. Patience and compromise are required, otherwise it will be a long and confusing week. When it comes to your daily routine, the big lesson to learn is how to delegate. No-one (not even a super-capable Virgo) is indispensable! Looking for your soulmate? Love and work are a bewildering mix.

LIBRA (Sept 24 – Oct 23)

This week is all about getting the ratio right between your busy public life and your private inner world. Be inspired by well-balanced Libran movie star Hugh Jackman (who turns 54 on Wednesday): “The secret to modern life is finding the measure in time management.” It’s also time to make plans, set goals and dream big dreams. And don’t make them too safe and sensible! Go for gold, as mighty Mars helps you be bold and brave about the future.

SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 22)

There could be confusing words between you and an old friend, as you seem to be heading in different directions. Remember the good times you’ve enjoyed together and search for common ground. Things will look a lot brighter in the morning. Your motto for the week is from birthday great Eleanor Roosevelt: “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” If you are single, you could find yourself falling for someone from your complicated past.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 – Dec 21)

When it comes to communication and conversation, you’ve certainly got the Sagittarian gift of the gab. But be careful you don’t blurt out remarks that you later regret. With Saturn sauntering through your social media zone, try to be disciplined with yourself and compassionate towards others. Take the time to contemplate the wise words of birthday great, playwright Oscar Wilde: “Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us.”

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 20)

Despite nebulous Neptune confusing issues, strive to be creative, rather than bewildered, at work. Clear communication will get you a lot further than confrontation, so aim to be as cooperative as possible. Saturn trines the Sun and Venus, which will boost your capacity for hard work and your ability to lead others. Be inspired by fellow-Capricorn, poet and novelist A. A. Milne: “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

AQUARIUS (Jan 21 – Feb 19)

Someone may pressure you to reveal information that was given to you in confi dence. Hence your current moral and philosophical conundrum as you ponder ‘Is honesty always the best policy?’ With Jupiter, the Sun, Venus and then Mercury transiting through your travel zone, faraway places beckon. So start planning your itinerary now. It’s also important to keep up to date with your international contacts. Who knows where they will eventually lead?

PISCES (Feb 20 – Mar 20)

It’s not a good week to take on mighty challenges or make important decisions. There’s a nebulous Mars/Neptune square, so life will be complicated, physical energies low, and you may feel mentally confused. Wednesday will be particularly perplexing for many Pisceans, so avoid tasks that require stamina and sharp thinking. Instead, pace yourself – mentally and physically. Friday favours creative solitude, intimate confessions and long-term friendships.

PUZZLES

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Solution next editionDown

1 Who denies the existence of God? (7)

What is an addition to a building? (5)

Which art style was developed in Italy in the 16th century? (7)

To show displeasure or indignation, is to do what? (6)

When something is in operation, it is what? (5)

What are linear magnitudes of things, as measured from end to end? (7)

To be bitterly pungent, is to be what? (5)

What is a platform or the like, used for public speaking? (7)

What do we call a cold-blooded vertebrate? (7)

Name a renowned English conductor, Sir Malcolm ... (7)

To have engaged in sword fighting, is to have done what? (6)

What are pep pills often called? (5)

What is a company of eight singers? (5)

Which meshed instrument is used for separating coarse from fine parts of loose matter? (5)

FREE PUZZLES EVERY DAY AT citynews.com.au

DIRECTORS

Company director Jing had heard there was a new thing around called a Director Identification Number (DIN).

“I can’t see the point in applying for this so I think it best to close my company down,” he said when he came to see me wanting help with that decision.

I told him that recently the ATO clarified that anyone who was a company director at any time after October 31, 2021, was required to have a DIN, even if the company had been closed down.

“So closing the company will not relieve you of that obligation, Jing. You’ll still have to get a DIN,” I said.

“It is actually quite an easy on-line process or you can do it by phone.

“From my experience you can wait for some time on the phone so doing it on-line is probably quicker.

“If you can’t use either of these methods to apply, there’s a form on the ATO website that you can use to apply.

“Every company director will need a DIN. As you were appointed a director before October 31, 2021, you must apply for your DIN before November 30, 2022.

“If you were appointed between November 1, 2021, and April 4, 2022, you must apply for your DIN within 28 days of your appointment and from April, 5, 2022, you will need your DIN before you can be appointed as a director. “Your DIN will stay with you forever and will be used for multiple companies”

Applicants for a DIN will need to have a MyGovID account. This is not the same as MyGov. To get a MyGovID account applicants need any two forms of ID from a driver’s licence, passport, birth certificate or Medicare card. “After you have obtained your online MyGovID account you will need other documents to actually apply for the DIN,” I told Jing.

“These include your tax file number, your residential address which must be the one held by the ATO and two other forms of ID such as a tax notice of assessment, super account details, bank account details, a dividend statement, a Centrelink payment summary or a PAYG payment summary.

“The next step is to go to the ABRS website abrs.gov.au and follow the directions.

“The DIN itself should only take about five minutes to apply for. “Only you can apply for a DIN, I cannot do it for you. If you do need help, we can certainly assist you but we cannot do it for you. You must act now. There are huge penalties for not getting a DIN.” Jing said he would take me up on the offer of help, “I often have trouble with this sort of thing”.

“Based on your advice there seems little point in closing the company down as I will need a DIN anyway,” he said. I replied that I was happy to help.

“I have had to help quite a few others,” I said.

“Once you have your DIN you will need to advise the person who looks after your company so that it can be included with the company records.”

If you need help with applying for either MyGovID or your DIN contact the friendly team at Gail Freeman & Co Pty Ltd on 6295 2844.

column contains general advice, please

Gail Freeman

rely

it. If you require specific

No.

WINNUNGA NIMMITYJAH ABORIGINAL HEALTH AND

SERVICES

Nimmityjah AHCS

service operated by the Aboriginal community of the ACT.

Wiradjuri language, Winnunga Nimmityjah means Strong Health.

primary health

service logo is the Corroboree Frog which is significant to Aboriginal people in the ACT.

aim is to provide a culturally safe, holistic health care service for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of the ACT and surrounding regions. The holistic health care provided by Winnunga AHCS includes not only medical care, but a range of programs to promote good health and healthy lifestyles.

services include: