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Roundabout way to help Canberra’s kids in need

By Lily PASS

HANNAH Andrevski started Roundabout Canberra because she is a mum who likes the idea of being able to pass her secondhand baby items on to people in the community who need them.

“At the time, I was living in Quean beyan, I had a young baby and a tod dler, and there was a need there for some families who needed support. I used to give stuff away free on Face book Marketplace or Gumtree,” says Hannah, 35.

“I just really liked the idea of know ing the items I passed on were going directly to families that needed them.

“I have previously done an arts degree at ANU, and then I went on to do a masters in criminology. I actually worked for the AFP for 10 years, so I’ve always had a strong passion for help ing people and doing something good in the community.

“I’d seen some charities around other parts of Australia who do what we do now, and I thought surely something like that could work here.”

Hannah founded Roundabout five years ago, in early 2018, and in the first

year they helped 360 babies.

Last year they helped more than 3000.

“Through Roundabout we take donations of secondhand baby and children items. In the early days we were focused on babies but we now

take up to size 16 children’s clothing, and then we work with social services and community organisations to pass things on to families or people who need them,” she says.

“Whether it’s public hospitals,

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women’s refuges, migrant and refugee support services, there is a whole range of people we support, through working with 110 services in and around Canberra.

“Whenever a service is working with a family that needs goods, the service places an online order with us, sort of like a click-and-collect order, and we package up exactly what that particular family needs and the service comes and picks it up and takes it to the family. It’s different for every

Hannah says with the current costof-living pressures they’re expecting demand to keep growing, quickly.

“It’s just huge, there are so many families really feeling the brunt of pressure. Food, rent and petrol, everything is very expensive so we’re seeing families who need support who might not have previously needed support,”

“We’ve grown certainly in terms of the demand but also in terms of the volume of goods that we’re processing and the number of volunteers that we have. We now have 250 active volunteers on our database, so we’ve grown in all aspects of our work.

“We know that there are around 8000 children living in poverty in the ACT, so last year we helped just over 3000 kids. We just want to make sure we’re in a position to support all of those children who do need our sup -

port. We need to make sure we keep that supply of children’s goods coming in and we keep our volunteer numbers up, that we keep things moving along.”

Hannah says she knows there are still people in Canberra who don’t know about Roundabout, so she is trying to spread the word.

“We had a Southside Donation Day on June 17, in recognition that people in Canberra tend to stick to their Canberra bubble. People who live on the further side of town, southside, think it’s a bit of a trek to come out to Holt to donate, so we’re doing what we can to make it as easy as possible for people to get their donations to us, because the volume of goods that we’re flying through at the moment is huge and the demand is really high,” she says.

“Winter clothing for all sizes, but particularly for sizes five to 16, winter linen, bassinet, cot and single bed linen, prams and cots, those are probably the things that we are in particular need of.

“We’re also running out our winter tax appeal as well, seeking financial donations to just allow us to continue doing the work that we’re doing.

“I am so proud to see how much we’ve grown, and how many people we have been able to help. It’s very hard to believe and I can’t wait to see it all continue.”

roundaboutcanberra.org

secondhand baby and children items.”

Photo: Lily Pass

The disingenuous spin that’s never questioned

DEVELOPER lobbyists and their government friends do a great job of getting the media to promote false narratives about the motivations of residents who care for their suburbs.

This flow of misleading articles comes about because journalists do not question the disingenuous official spin that blames housing shortages on residents.

The unsavoury truths the property industry do not want discussed are tax changes that were introduced decades ago and have been a success in delivering increased profits to developers. The most notorious problems are how capital gains tax was changed to suit developers and how negative gearing has contributed to making home ownership less accessible.

Governments, including the ACT’s coalition government, have been selling off social housing for more than a decade. They have tried to distract from the devastating effects of their actions by talking up their housingrenewal programs. The reality is the number of social houses has dropped.

The spin about numbers built avoids the reality of the net deficit of social housing and that so much of the profits from social housing sales was directed to other programs.

A serious aspect of housing has been identified by journalists who actually research and produce evidence.

This was done recently by Peter Martin when he identified that the number of houses that could be built in any year has not shifted that much. Regardless of additional government programs, the housing industry has only been able to produce more or less the same limited annual supply.

The picture on housing gets more complicated when you add in the statistics that a high number of residences are left vacant for investment reasons with some placed on the short-term (eg Airbnb) rental markets for quick profits. Another extraordinary figure was the thousands of development applications that were approved but were paused – meaning construction was not commenced.

Into the quagmire of diversionary tactics marched the mindless “Missing Middle” campaigners and

their gullible followers. Taking up the developers’ false narratives, these groups argue that residents are hindering the building of the missing middle, and therefore more-affordable housing, through their opposition to the deregulation of planning codes for residential areas.

This misleading missing middle argument is another developer-driven diversionary attempt to avoid the truth that so-called missing middle programs actually increase inequity, do not deliver affordable housing and deflects discussion away from the tax systems that favour investors over those seeking to have a roof over their heads.

More insulting are journalists who continue the propaganda that the reason for the decline in social housing is that residents oppose social housing in their suburbs. Those journalists need to read the community’s submissions that support and encourage

quality social housing provided that it is built well to 21st century standards and according to planning rules.

Few journalists and politicians take the time to engage with residents to ascertain that their opposition to development is about what they see has not been happening.

Many redevelopments are not based on good design and do not address key issues including climate, biodiversity, transport needs and the preservation of suburban character. Many innovations in housing types and proposals to increase density would be possible with residents’ support if contemporary issues were addressed – and the rules followed.

The relationships governments have with developers no longer encourage objectivity. Planning and developer decisions are made within a culture with the emphasis on the relationships with lobbyists and far less on how decisions affect present and future residents.

When an inner-southside resident read the 400 submissions, it was identified that few submissions supported what was being proposed. Despite this, the ACT planning minister still boasted about the support for his

proposals to junk real planning and for his missing-middle myth. The media reported his false narratives as facts.

Meanwhile, the ACT government and its supporters continue to gaslight residents as their normal response to issues raised. The Nimby name-calling and other nastiness towards residents continues with ACT Greenslabor looking the other way. The Greenslabor politicians act as if they endorse the community representatives being the subject of attacks and having to defend themselves against online trolling by government supporters. Honesty and respect for residents from within this ACT government remains wishful thinking. Is this what they call being progressive?

Paul Costigan is a commentator on cultural and urban matters. There are more of his columns at citynews.com.au

Honesty and respect for residents from within this ACT government remains wishful thinking. Is this what they call being progressive?

FOMO keeps kids logged on too long Help for screen eye disease

By Kate Catanzariti

Half of young Australians want to disconnect from social media but fear of missing out keeps them logged on.

Many young people realise social media does more harm than good, with almost half of respondents to a survey saying what they see online is more negative than positive.

Despite that, one-third feel like they should use social media more and feel pressured to keep abreast of its news and current events.

One in three youth experienced problematic social media use, according to the survey by mental health foundation Headspace.

More young women than young men fell into the problematic category, and the rate was higher still for young people who identified as LGBTQI (45 per cent).

“Young people thinking of logging off might experience a fear of missing out on news, popular culture or conversations with friends,” Headspace chief executive Jason Trethowan said.

“They may also worry about how

going offline could impact their status or influence.”

Almost half of young people compared their own lives with those they saw on social media.

Gerard-Lachlan Abadines, 18, said social media could sometimes make him feel inadequate.

At one point, he found himself comparing his life to that of American singer Billie Eilish, given their similar age.

There were times when Mr Abadines had to reassess his relationship with social media, he said.

“It can be easy to judge yourself and compare yourself to others, because people put up the best of themselves out there,” he said.

Switching off from social media was easier said than done when platforms were designed to keep people scrolling, Mr Trethowan said.

“That’s why the responsibility to foster healthy social media habits can’t rest solely on the shoulders of young people or their families.”

Social media companies and governments must ensure young people have a safe and healthy experience

online, Mr Trethowan said. He stressed young people still have positive experiences using social media.

Mr Abadines used social media as a hub to connect with friends, communicate with his family, play games and watch content created by others.

“Features such as blocking and restricting are really helpful,” he said.

“You turn off the more toxic aspects of social media.”

About 40 per cent of young people said what they found online was empowering, and two in five believed social media was a good place to make friends.

Almost half of young people also agreed it was easier to express their opinions online rather than in person, while more than half wanted more stringent laws and regulations governing social media.

More than 3000 young people took part in the survey. –AAP

DRY eye disease is one of the most common complaints of people seeking medical treatment for their eyes and experts say it is exacerbated by too much screen time.

It happens when the body fails to produce either enough tears, or the right kind of tears, to lubricate the eye surface and leads to blurred vision, burning, tearing, tired, red eyes and general discomfort.

It is becoming such a significant issue for Australians that the government has made the decision to subsidise the cost of a new treatment for chronic sufferers, by adding it to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

With Australians spending more than a third of their lives in front of a screen for work, education and social activities – equivalent to 143 days a year – the problem is becoming increasingly prevalent.

“Digital screen time affects blinking patterns, tear quality and volume... (It) is becoming more common, even in those without a history of eye conditions,” says leading ophthalmologist Prof Colin Chan, from Sydney’s Vision Eye Institute.

“(Screen time) may strongly influence both the incidence and effect of the disease in the coming years, noting young Australians use digital devices more than older age groups.”

Dry eye disease affects almost twice as many women than men, with the risk of it developing increasing with age.

Many young Australians know social media does more harm than good but they stay online for fear of missing out, results of a youth survey by Headspace suggest, reports

CASSANDRA MORGAN .

Young people see more negative content online than positive but fear missing out, a survey shows.

Photo: Dean Lewins/AAP

Linda Clee – Physiotherapist

Linda is an experienced physiotherapist having worked clinically in private practice for over 20 years, in rehabilitation settings and in community based aged care. Having owned and operated her own clinic for over 10 years, Linda offered a range of different therapy options, and has refined her skills and service offerings to ensure a functional focus to therapy; that is holistic and promotes overall wellness. A dancer in a past life, Linda loves to add a bit of fun in her programs, often throwing in rhythm and co-ordination challenges that are good for the body and the mind.

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.

Dorothy Johnston – Exercise Physiologist

Dorothy is our newest graduate Exercise Physiologist who we employed because she was such an outstanding student. Dorothy excells with us, having a soft spot for both older persons with pain, but also a long history of working in disability services with children. Dorothy loves working with people to improve their pain and function, and always has a bright smile for everyone in her care.

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 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.

PILATES GROUP CLASSES ON NOW – NORTHSIDE & SOUTHSIDE

DON’T FORGET ABOUT ACCESSING OUR OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS WHO HELP MAKE YOUR EVERY DAY TASKS EASIER

• 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.

“You do not need to have any particular condition to utilise our services, just a desire to ‘Build a Better You.’

POLITICS / rabbiting on

When hand-sitters let things get out of control

The plague of rabbits on City Hill is illustrative of the current problem with ACT politics. When procrastination has been the standard way of operating problems are exacerbated.

The number of rabbits on City Hill is staggering. The infestation has been obvious to anyone driving around Vernon Circuit for months. The rabbits have burrowed under the mature cypresses.

The ACT government’s own website argues City Hill “is central to the original design of Canberra and features formal tree plantings from the 1920s”, adding it is “a symbolic representation as the heart of the national capital”. The same site points out “plantings from the 1920s includ ing double staggered rows of closely spaced Roman Cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens Stricta)”.

The trees are being methodically undermined. Action was needed months ago. It seems the government has been sitting on its hands, fiddling around while the Roman Cypresses are destroyed.

Rabbits have been out of control around the northside of the lake for years. It took a little longer than forever for the National Capital Authority to recognise the problem. Now the rabbits have spread to suburbs

inadequate. She drew attention to the extensive terms of reference of the investigation being carried out by a House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs that has yet to report.

and it must be “evidence based”. She said that the Coalition’s bill is inadequate as it is “only focused on radio, TV and live streaming and is limited to live sport”.

There is much more to be taken into

Canberra

The Nordic Walking Capital of Australia!

account. One of the considerations ought to be how much more harm is done if action is not taken as soon as possible.

There are other pressing issues.

Alcohol advertising is one. Of immediate interest is junk food advertising to children. This ought to be considered alongside gambling advertising. Recent research shows three quarters of Australians support a blanket ban on targeting kids online with these unhealthy food advertisements.

Independent MP and former GP, Dr Sophie Scamps has introduced a bill to severely restrict such online

advertising along with television and radio. There are already governmentsanctioned definitions that include sugar-sweetened drinks, confectionary and unhealthy fast-food meals.

In 2009, the now defunct Australian National Preventive Health Agency recommended such restrictions. It is way past time for action on junk-food advertising for children.

Will governments be caught sitting on their hands regarding artificial intelligence? The penalties for not providing a legal and regulatory framework around artificial intelligence as soon as possible just might be catastrophic.

Prevention is better than cure. There would be so much less harm done if politicians would act rather than rabbiting on before problems become endemic.

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

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Above: Rabbits running amok on City Hill. Right: Burrows under the City Hill trees. Photos: Michael Moore

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

Looking for books and fun stuff…

WODEN Seniors is seeking donations for its 2024 Book Fair.

Donations of books, jigsaws, board games, CDs and DVDs can be left at the club, 12 Corinna Street, Phillip (opposite the Woden Library) weekdays, 9.30am-3.30pm.

Woden Seniors, which recently marked its 50th anniversary, is a selffunding, charitable organisation that provides a range of activities for people over 50. It receives no recurrent funding and the proceeds of the Book Fair support the provision of activities and building maintenance. New members are always welcome.

Steph’s topical message

STEPH Harvey, from Community First Development, a First Nations community development and research organisation, is the guest speaker at the next meeting of the Narrabundah Probus Club at the Harmonie German Club, from 11am on July 11. Probus activities provide social experiences for retired people. Anyone with an interest is welcome.

Share your community event, email editor@citynews.com.au

The ‘Godfather’ wants a deal on electoral reform

tions. Few would defend the Palmer cash splash as being appropriate in a good electoral system.

SPECIAL Minister of State Don Farrell, who’s also minister for trade and tourism and the government’s deputy leader in the Senate, is a numbers man from way back.

A powerbroker of the right, in 2012

Farrell is prospering. With the thaw in China-Australia relations, it’s a very good time to be trade minister.

Now Farrell is set to wrangle sweeping changes to the donation and spending rules for federal elections.

Last week the Joint Standing

But dig deeper and the spending argument becomes a lot more complicated, with the pros and cons of caps nuanced, and decisions requiring fine judgments.

Teals elected in 2022 had expensive campaigns. Allegra Spender (Wentworth) spent more than $2 million, as did Monique Ryan in Kooyong. Without Climate 200, a number of candidates would have had substantially less resources.

Kate Chaney, a teal who holds the WA seat of Curtin, was a member of JSCEM. In her “additional comments” in the report she says, while agreeing with the principle of curbing “big money”, it’s important the system is open to new entrants.

“Caps” need to be “structured to recognise the additional barriers to entry faced by independents or new entrants”, Chaney argues. “Donation caps must not be set too low […] new entrants are dependent on ‘seed capital’ to reach critical mass in campaign viability.”

Chaney is also hesitant about extra public funding, saying it’s “unhelpful” to replace private “big money” with “state dependency/taxpayer funding”.

While superficially the odds might seem against an agreement between

government and opposition, they both stand to gain from pushing towards it (there would be less chance on truth-in-advertising legislation). The two main parties share the serious problem of a falling primary vote, which they want to protect from further erosion.

Certainly, Holmes à Court has fears. “We wholeheartedly support reform if it’s fair, but we should all be suspicious because major parties have a track record of changing election laws to rig the game for their own benefit,” he says.

“Let’s be frank, Labor would like to see the back of Palmer, and the Coalition would like to kill the independents movement.

“While the Libs are saying they oppose Labor’s changes, ultimately they have only two ways to get back into government: change their culture, or change the rules, the latter being much easier.”

Farrell says it’s a matter of finding the right balance between restricting the ability to “buy” elections and finding ways to improve access to democracy. “My job in the next six months […] will be to try and find that balance.”

Michelle Grattan is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra. This article is republished from The Conversation.

Labor’s ‘Godfather’ seeks a deal on electoral reform – but some fear changes could disadvantage community candidates, writes political columnist MICHELLE GRATTAN

Price drops destined to ‘change the dial’

By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson in Brisbane

AN electric vehicle has broken price records in Australia for the second time in a week, with Chinese manufacturer BYD fulfilling its promise to undercut competitors.

But the price gap between BYD’s Dolphin and the entry-level MG4 electric hatchback is just $100.

The electric vehicle price battle comes with a Roy Morgan survey finding 548,000 Australians intend purchasing a battery-powered car in the next four years – an increase of more than 1200 per cent since 2019.

BYD revealed the price of its small electric car would be the second to locally break the $40,000 barrier with a price tag of $38,890.

EV Direct chief executive Luke Todd said the lower price of electric vehicle ownership, along with statebased incentives, would disrupt the automotive market in Australia.

“We believe that today is the day the dial changes,” he said.

“When you can buy a high-quality EV, a five-seater… that is more price competitive than a petrol equivalent, we believe that heralds the EV era that’s been coming for some time.”

The BYD Dynamic Dolphin, which

pected, Mr Todd said, as the company could produce 5000 a month for the Australian market alone.

BYD’s announcement comes after MG revealed the price of its hatchback would also break records at $38,990 when it arrives in August.

Both launches could help to fuel a growing electric car market, which

Levine said, which represented a huge increase from 2019 when 41,000 motorists expected to buy an EV.

“Electric vehicles have come a long way in a short time,” she said.

“Men have been the early adopters when it comes to electric vehicles but in the last two years the fastest growth for intention to purchase electric

Koalas are cool about drones

By Tim Dornin

KOALAS are not overly stressed by drones despite an increase in deployment of the new technology to aid conservation efforts.

Flinders University researchers have studied the heart rates and responses of captive koalas when the small aerial vehicles are near their trees.

They used Fitbit monitors and recorded other behaviour with cameras as drones were flown about 15 metres above the animals’ heads in a wildlife park enclosure.

of potential buyers planning to buy a vehicle from Tesla.

The US company currently leads electric vehicle sales in Australia and has challenged traditional automakers, with its Model Y becoming the third most popular vehicle sold in May 2023, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.

“Koalas responded to the drone flight with a short-term increase in vigilance but no change in heart rate or breathing rate, indicating that drones may not have a long-term detrimental effect on fitness or energy demands,” animal behaviour expert Diane Colombelli-Negrel said.

She said the research was part of the ongoing development of tools to compile data over large areas.

Such technology was emerging as important to better understand the factors influencing the survival of a species.

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How does a Taylor Swift fan prove their love?

Taylor Swift’s business model is largely built on fan desire to meet her. How do you meet her? You prove you are the biggest fan, writes

IN November, Ticketmaster was forced to cancel the general sale for Taylor Swift’s North American “Eras” tour after unprecedented demand.

More than 3.5 million fans had registered to try to get a presale code – a number far exceeding the number of available tickets for the 52 shows. The story made international headlines and led to a congressional hearing into Ticketmaster’s processes.

For the Australian leg of the “Eras” tour, Swift will perform three shows in Sydney and two in Melbourne in February. Fans from other cities –and NZ – will have to travel should they wish to see her perform locally for the first time in more than five years.

Tickets for the five performances will go on sale next Wednesday, with less than 500,000 seats available. While this may seem like a lot, the disappointment seen in North and South America is likely to also be seen here.

Taylor Swift fans are known for spending significant amounts of money on albums, merchandise and concert tickets.

While being a fan is an increasingly expensive experience, there seems to be a particular connection between Taylor’s fandom and the expectation of consumption.

Handpicked fans

Swift shares a particularly intense connection with her fans.

Fans frequently engage in parasocial relationships with their celebrity objects of fandom, where they feel as if they honestly “know” the celebrity.

These relationships are often portrayed as problematic in both academic and popular discourse. However, the connections fans feel to their favourite celebrities can be a healthy expan-

sion of their social world.

Swift is unique among celebrities in that she actively courts these connections.

By handpicking fans for “secret sessions” before album releases (often held in her own home) and hosting post-show meet and greets, over the past 16 years she has carefully built the illusion of these relationships as reciprocated friendship.

For these events, she memorises facts about each fan in attendance, surprising them with comments about new haircuts, academic achievements and relationship milestones.

She also has a history of sending fans surprise gifts in the mail, ranging from handwritten letters of support to gift boxes full of things she says “remind her” of the fan in question.

Performing fandom

Based on the North American performances, it appears Swift is not conducting meet and greets during the “Eras” tour. But fans believe there is always the chance they will be noticed and chosen to meet her.

When Swift’s official social media team, Taylor Nation, engages with fans – by liking, replying to, or retweeting their messages – individuals often put the date and type of interaction in their bio to broadcast the attention they received to others within the fandom community.

The belief among fans (which has never been confirmed) is that being noticed on social media puts you a step closer to meeting Swift in person – something many of the participants in

my research into her fandom described as the ultimate motivation behind their engagement.

To be noticed, however, fans must participate in particular, approved ways.

The Taylor Nation twitter account retweets and engages with fans who have shared screenshots of merchandise receipts (from increasingly frequent, themed merchandise releases), pictures of themselves with multiple copies of albums, or particularly over-the-top displays of emotion and creativity.

This sets a baseline of what it takes to get their – and Swift’s – attention.

The hierarchy of fandom

Fandom communities are often discussed as spaces of friendship and community.

More realistically, they are hierarchical structures in which fans have their status elevated by participating in certain ways.

For Swift fans, these hierarchies are heavily tied to practices of consumption, including the purchasing of concert tickets.

The most expensive package for the Australian tour dates will set fans back A$1249. For that price, fans will get an “unforgettable A Reserve floor ticket” and “exclusive VIP merchandise”.

If fans are just after a seat, A Reserve is listed at $379.90, dropping down to $79.90 for G Reserve.

Within the fandom, fans who travel to shows, attend multiple nights, or have seats near the stage are labelled “dedicated” and “committed”. Those who miss out on tickets often express their frustration at missing out to others who they don’t deem to be “real” fans.

North American fans have gone to great lengths to secure tour merchandise, even after they have secured tickets to the concerts. Fans have reportedly been queueing before sunrise, spending thousands of dollars and waiting in the rain to get their hands on limited-edition items.

The higher the levels of sacrifice reported, the more someone can project to other members of the fandom just how big a fan they are. This can result in increased attention and a reputation as someone who “deserves” to meet Swift.

In her song Karma, Swift sings “my pennies made your crown”. When tens of thousands of fans scream this back at her every night, they are reflecting the reality of Swift’s celebrity. Swift’s business model is largely built on fan desire to meet her. How do you meet her? You prove you are the biggest fan – and you’ve made the sacrifices (and spent the money) to show it.

Georgia Carroll, PhD Candidate in Sociology, University of Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation.

GEORGIA CARROLL .

US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs during the “Eras” tour, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, US, last month.

Photo: Sarah Yensel/EPA

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Pay road planners a commission on travel times

THE June “QPRC News” discusses the upgrade of Queanbeyan’s Monaro Street, which apparently has been oxymoronically “a priority for many years”.

The summary of the proposal includes:

• “widening the footpath”, although I would have thought there is ample room for pedestrians, “new paving, additional planting and lighting”, very necessary given the aged appearance currently,

• “reduced median width”, well the space has to come from somewhere, but it is hardly a safety improvement for traffic,

• “a lower speed limit” and this is where I really part company, but more in a minute,

• “changed turning options at intersections”, I can only guess that this is a euphemism for “no right turn”,

• “new street furniture” which, I guess, hints they would like the main street to become an outdoor restaurant and we should collectively pay for the seats, and

• “wayfinding”, which is modern vernacular for fixing the signs.

The point that seems obvious to me is that the traffic is forced to use this route because of the bridge. Follow me here; the road is there to connect Queanbeyan to Canberra and the coast and all the points between, the bridge is a necessary part of the road, although there are some alternate options, the geography means there will always be

significant traffic volumes, the real estate surrounding the road is valuable because of the passing traffic.

There is a conflict here between the needs of travellers and the desire for an attractive main street.

From a traffic perspective it’s a bottleneck, but one we’ve learnt to live with. How can businesses survive when trade virtually stops during construction? Some won’t.

So the question is, can we live with a bottleneck in the main street, because this is the inevitable consequence of lower speed limits, not to mention street furniture?

This brings us to the broader topic of

dose of dorin

than ever, but instead we sit tense behind cars doing 75, that we don’t dare pass because of the regular speed cameras. Life would be so much better if council road planners were paid a retainer and commission based on travel times through the main corridors, weighted against safety performance.

It’s time to remember what roads are actually for, and do something to improve flows, not hamper them. Restaurant precincts can be lovely, but the main street of Queanbeyan is NOT the place for one.

Andrew Snowdon, Wamboin

Happy to help with resignation letter

speed limits. Locals in many of our regions have endured lengthy road works that have resulted in significantly reduced travel times.

The classic example of public frustration was the seemingly endless work on the lower half of Sutton Road. For about two years various sections were reduced to one lane with the dreaded auto-traffic lights. The public hoped that realignments, safety barriers, drainage and a new surface would make for a more comfortable drive, only to discover at the end of it all the limit was dropped from 100 to 80. From a commuting perspective we were better off before.

Now the road is suited to 100km/h more

Seeing through the double vision

ROBERT Macklin nicely connects political expediency (he calls it “double vision”) to explain how Albanese can profess strong religious commitment, yet deny it affects his judgement when it comes to supporting the ACT Labor-Greens government over Calvary (“When political double vision blinds the science”, CN June 8) .

He can support India’s Modi, while excusing the latter’s autocratic methods of oppressing Sikh and Muslim communities in India.

EVERY FRIDAY

DURING the last few years, I have been an avid writer of letters to the editor, both to “CityNews” and “The Canberra Times”; I have had many letters published regarding social, criminal justice and coronial perspectives.

Further, I believe I have earnt some stripes for being a respectable writer on such topical issues.

With this competence, I am more than happy to assist Shane Drumgold, Director of Public Prosecutions to pen his resignation from his position.

Given Mr Drumgold appears to have gone underground, with no recent comments on why he is on leave, it makes perfect sense that I assist in his demise.

Janine Haskins, Cook

And, as Robert reminds us, Albo also excuses Modi’s practical support for Russia, while “ignoring Xi Jinping’s attempts to broker talks between the combatants” because, as Robert suggests, “somehow the Indian religious component trumps China’s communist ideology”.

And where, asks Robert, does all this leave our political and religious connections. We’re gradually waking up, it seems, with religious affiliation becoming less and less the Australian way of life – not helped either by the Catholic church’s appalling record in protecting child-abusing clergy over the suffering of their victims – not that other religions are totally free from sin.

Yet in the midst of the still remaining double vision, we keep giving religious bodies tax-free status. Get rid of it, says Robert, so we can all “run the race of life down equal lanes”. Couldn’t agree more.

Eric Hunter, Cook

Kangaroo meat a profitable

MANY protests have been written about the future killing of Australian kangaroos.

Perhaps it may be appropriate to point out that kangaroo meat is a profitable enterprise for certain sections of the Australian government.

The meat can be bought in some of Australia’s supermarkets, but also in Europe.

In France, the following advertises that kangaroo meat is a “species hunted in the Australian bush; tender, moist and lean meat: 3 per cent fat. The product is vacuum packed, raw and frozen”.

As for the fate of the joeys, one can only surmise that the huge number of foxes inhabiting the bush would take care of them.

Myriam Amar via email

Bemoaning the end of the good ‘Times’

HELEN Musa’s article “’Times’ blames cost and abandons arts reviewers” (CN June 22) brings to mind a recent conversation with a fellow resident of Deakin. We both lamented the present state of “The Canberra Times”.

In our view, the “Times” was some years ago an interesting and factual journal of ACT, Australian and international news (befitting a national capital) with probing reporting; incisive commentary; and a healthy coverage of the arts, as well as sport.

The “Times” has declined to an unevenly-written jumble (I must resist beginning with its journalists’ English grammar and spelling) of local, sometimes trivial issues. Most of the truly interesting, important and well-written articles are from news services, syndicated and unattributed offshore sources.

There is also a lop-sided emphasis on sport; horse racing and its attendant gambling are the most recent additions to the sports side of the reporting scales.

Now “The Canberra Times” is handing over its coverage of the arts to “amateur critics” among its staff. One can only wonder what will be next to get the axe on the altar of cost-cutting.

Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

enterprise

‘Flawed’ judicial system needs reform

FOLLOWING the recent release from prison of Kathleen Folbigg after being wrongfully incarcerated for 20 years, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that our judicial system is flawed and needs to be reformed.

The jury or judge-only system used for criminal cases leaves a lot to be desired, judging from the number of persons who have been wrongfully incarcerated under the judging criteria of “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Mario Stivala, Belconnen

Albanese’s just a show pony waving the flag

ANYONE would think Robert Macklin was writing for the “Canberra Times” or the “Guardian” in his article “Maybe Albanese is playing a long game” (CN June 22), in waxing so lyrically about what the PM and his team has presumed to have done over 13 months in government.

He has gone with AUKUS but there are no more funds for Defence for four or five years and has cut major projects. NDIS (a Labor creation) is out of control and it will be seen if Labor can tame it.

Linda Burney is not up to the job of selling the Voice and Albanese is not helping in his intransigent, obfuscating, crash-through or crash approach.

And Katy Gallagher has not exactly covered herself in glory with her involvement in the Higgins affair.

Plus Albanese’s grandiose promises for the aged-care sector, of which he has Buckley’s hope of achieving. Then there’s the housing fiasco. One could go on.

Mr Albanese is certainly doing his fair share of globetrotting and loving it at great taxpayer expense – he is just a show-pony waving the flag.

In short, the Albanese government has not achieved anything of substance yet except to spend billions. It will end in tears for all.

Max Flint, via email

*RACQUETS AND BALLS ARE PROVIDED

FEATURE

Fire ants: the war Australia can’t afford to lose

bodies tightly together, trapping air bubbles to stay afloat while they wait to be deposited somewhere new.

GOLD Coast cane grower Larry Spann was lying on his side fixing farm machinery when he felt the intense burn of the first bite.

Within seconds his body was covered in imported red fire ants surging out of a nest he hadn’t seen, in angry defence of their queen.

In all, he copped 40 bites that day and it was months before he was right again.

“I was half way through pulling a jet out on the planter and next minute, bang, there were fire ants from my knees right up to my shoulders.

“It was a severe burning sensation... it took nearly two and a half months before the welts were completely gone and the itch was gone.”

Mr Spann is sure most Australians have no idea what they stand to lose if the nation fails to eradicate one of the world’s worst super pests.

He points to Texas, where they are so prolific some grazing land is now useless for rearing cattle. Where people sometimes die from anaphylactic shock after being bitten. Where kids can’t play in their yards and camping is out.

And he shudders to think about the toll on native species if the ants take hold beyond Queensland’s southeast.

“Nobody really understands and I reckon the public should see some of the videos they’ve shown us of just the total desolation. Nothing survives when they get hold. Nothing.”

Having lived with fire ants for well over a decade, Mr Spann and son Ben are troubled but not surprised by a review that found the national eradication plan will fail without an urgent gear shift and far more money.

Containment won’t even be possible under the scope and budget of the existing $411 million, 10-year blueprint.

The panel of experts who conducted the review have called for a radical change of approach if Australia is to avoid profound consequences for the economy, health, the environment and people’s lifestyle.

Its chair and former Australian

Inspector-General of Biosecurity

Helen Scott-Orr reported to government two years ago but the findings have only just been released.

She’s also convinced Australians don’t fully grasp what’s on the line if eradication fails. Personally, it could forever determine whether they can sit unmolested by the beach or in a park, or enjoy their own backyards.

At the national level, it could ravage the economy. Especially if they reach the Murray-Darling Basin where countless waterways will give the rafting pest a fast and free ride to NSW, Victoria and SA.

Rafting is one of the invader’s best tricks. Thousands of them lock their

Colonies can survive for weeks, with the multi-layered rafts strong enough to keep rescued queens and their eggs, larvae and pupae safe and dry.

The ants are creeping closer to NSW’s flood-prone Northern Rivers. Last month, an infestation was found at a Gold Coast school 14km from the border, the most southerly discovery so far.

“I would imagine it’s highly likely they are right at the border or over it by now. It’s even more urgent now to be applying precautionary, preventive measures,” Dr Scott-Orr says.

The bad news is the whole of Australia is suitable habitat for the South American super-pest first detected in Brisbane in 2001.

The only possible exceptions are Tasmania’s high country and the Snowy Mountains. But as the climate changes, even those pockets might not be safe.

In the two decades or so since the invader reared its head, Australian governments have committed $778.4 million to deal with it, including $411.4 million under the current 10-year plan out to 2027.

Dr Scott-Orr says there’s no doubt those efforts have slowed the ants’ spread but the steady creep has not stopped and the review provides a

frank assessment of some fundamental failures.

It says delays in planning, funding approvals and scaling up operations meant broadscale control efforts only began in earnest in 2018 – three years after the estimated extent of the ants was mapped.

“By then (fire ants) were already beyond the planned and budgeted treatment boundary, which surrounded 480,000 hectares in 2017,” the review says.

While the national program has so far contained the ants to Queensland’s south-east, largely through repeated rounds of aerial broadscale treatment, it hadn’t stopped them spreading and expanding the control area to 750,000 hectares at the time the report was written in 2021.

So what needs to happen now to avoid the kind of entrenched problem that costs the US economy billions yearly, including never-ending suppression programs.

Is eradication in Australia still possible? Dr Scott-Orr says it is but urgent change is needed. She says the war must involve every level of government, every Australian and every industry that disrupts the landscape.

“Unless you opt for eradication you are condemned to an endless gruelling battle you are always in danger of losing,” Dr Scott-Orr says.

Australia’s red fire ant invasion is more than 20 years old but people are yet to grasp how everyday life will change if efforts to defeat the super-pest fail, writes TRACEY FERRIER .

Larry Spann says Australians have no idea what they stand to lose if fire ants can’t be eradicated.

Photo: Jono Searle/AAP

Cash is king, but it may not be

Always expensive, the cost per cheque grew and grew as the number of Australians paying with cheques dwindled to a fraction of what it had been.

LATE last year, the Reserve Bank gave 1000 Australians diaries and asked them to record every payment they made over the course of a week. Of the 13,000 payments, only 17 were with cheques.

It’s been an astounding collapse. Back in 1980 at the start of the credit card era, 85 per cent of non-cash payments were made with cheques. Today it’s less than 0.1 per cent.

Earlier this month, the government announced it was following New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands and others, closing our cheque system down by 2030.

Meanwhile, NZ is already on to the next thing. Having phased out cheques, it’s now looking at winding down the use of cash.

So how close is Australia now to becoming a cash-free nation?

Cheques are horrendously expensive to process. The average cost of everything that had to happen to process a cheque exceeds $5 per payment, mostly borne by banks.

But cash is expensive in its own way. The average cost of creating,

sorting and trucking all those sheets of plastic and coins exceeds 50 cents per payment, mostly passed on to banks and retailers, and it is soaring as the number of payments plummets.

As recently as 2007, the vast bulk of consumer payments –69 per cent – were in cash. By 2019 only 27 per cent were in cash.

By 2022, after two years of covid, it was only 13 per cent.

At this rate, it’s hard to be certain how long cash will last.

For those who’ve never had to write one, cheques are bank-issued pieces of paper on which the owner writes the name of the person they want the bank to pay and the amount. They then hand it to that person, who then hands it to their bank, which then tries to get the money from the payer’s bank.

Behind the scenes, until recently when the electronic transmission of digital images changed things, each bank would collect all the

cheques that had been presented to its branches each day and sort them into bags, one for each originating bank. Then, late at night, its “bag man” would travel to a nondescript city location with a bag for each bank, hand the correct one to each of the other bagmen, and be given bags in return, which the bagman would take back to the bank for signature checking. When each bank worked out what it owed the other bank, they would usually discover the flows largely cancelled each other out, and then make net payments which would be reflected in the cheque-writer’s account, up to five business days later.

longer

It’s the same sort of story with cash. Although we don’t often think about it, cash costs an awful lot to move, sort and restock.

Printing the notes still makes money – it costs about 32 cents to make each note, whether it’s worth $5 or $100, although making some coins now loses money.

The real expense is in moving notes and coins around, keeping them nearby and restocking banks and cash registers. Aside from payments the Reserve Bank makes to banks for returning damaged notes, the banks (and, through them, the retailers) are expected to pay for the lot.

Until recently that gave the two firms that dominate the business (Linfox Armaguard, and Prosegur, which owns Chubb Security) a pretty good deal.

Except that the volume of cash they’ve carried has dived 47 per cent over the past 10 years, 30 per cent of it during covid.

Both firms say their money-moving arms are incurring “heavy financial losses” and that if they increase their prices much more, retailers might move even further away from cash, pushing their costs even higher.

This month, the Competition and Consumer Commission allowed them to merge on the condition that they limit their price increases to the consumer index plus 7.5 per cent per year. That increase is so steep as to suggest a death spiral: the more they charge, the less retailers will use cash, the more they’ll have to charge.

Bank transfers cost a mere fraction of using cash, and pretty soon we’ll be able to use them for everything, via things such as QR codes.

If Australia wants to ban cash (and ban it for small transactions too –cash is now used less than cards for transactions of all sizes) the easiest solution might be simply to wait.

Cards are now the dominant means of exchanging money, and electronic transfers are growing from a small base.

Pure extrapolation would suggest cash has less than a decade to go, but it will probably hang around for longer as an (expensive, little-used) backup that maintains privacy.

Like cheques, cash will probably die gradually, then suddenly. By the time it does, there will be few users left who care.

Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation.

As recently as 2007, the vast bulk of consumer payments – 69 per cent – were in cash. By 2019 only 27 per cent were in cash, writes PETER MARTIN.

Cash is now used less than cards for transactions of all sizes.

SAVE THE LAKE, RIP UP THOSE CONCRETE CREEKS

Creek’s massive concrete drainage system that flows into Lake Tuggeranong. The photo is looking upstream from the top of the bridge on Clive Steele Avenue. Note the tributary that’s entering the creek is runoff from suburbia. This huge concrete creek needs to be ripped up.

Environmentalist MICHAEL CALKOVICS outlines his plan to reduce pollution entering Lake Tuggeranong.

REPAIRING the Lake Tuggeranong catchment is the first step and a vitally important part in mitigating and removing most pollution from entering the lake.

At the moment the catchment is mostly a concretelined creek and stormwater system.

There is currently little, if any, natural ability to remove pollution such as nutrients from entering the lake.

As we now know, nutrients in waterways lead to bluegreen algae blooms, which has been linked to motor neurone disease (“City News”, February 17, 2022).

My proposal, which should resolve this issue, is to rip up those concrete creeks and replace them with ponds, rapids and riparian vegetation including poplars, casuarinas and willows.

Install pollution traps on every tributary entering the new creek.

Build a pipeline that pumps water from polluted Lake Tuggeranong to a long way upstream and allows it to flow down the rehabilitated creek. This should reduce lake nutrients loading?

This pipeline is achievable due to available existing easement and such a pipeline already exists by pumping water from Murrumbidgee River uphill and into the Googong Dam catchment.

Obviously, many issues must be addressed such as

The town centre on Lake Tuggeranong. Note the lack of trees that are capable of removing nutrients from waterway. Despite being the middle of winter, there are still blue-green algae blooms floating on the surface. This suggests the waterway is very toxic and needs cleaning up.

safety and the willpower to at least do something. Imagine that one day in the future this was to eventuate. And water entering Lake Tuggeranong and other urban lakes was now so clean that platypus and Macquarie perch could live and breed in rehabilitated creek and catchment.

So is this issue and cause worth voting for? Which candidates in next year’s ACT election will support this idea? The choice is yours.

Importantly, there is proof it can be done not far from Canberra.

Mulloon Creek is located between Bungendore and Braidwood and it crosses the Kings Highway.

This landscape restoration project there is on a grand and awesome scale, carried out by the Mulloon Institute (it’s worth Googling to see for yourself. The “Landline” show about this project is truly amazing).

The Mulloon Institute is a not for profit organisation and at the helm is the very capable and former federal MP Gary Nairn.

A former chair and still involved, is the hard-working and caring former “Madam President” of the Senate, Margaret Reid. And did you know that she was the first and still only female senator to hold such a noble title. Well done to the Mulloon Institute. It has my full support.

I hope to feature my previous Frog Ponds Landscape Restoration Project at Old Minton, Nimmitabel, NSW in a future article.

This looks far more pleasant and healthier… the leafy vegetation cools the climate better than the “open sewer” that’s currently Tuggeranong Creek. Native Casuarinas should also be planted as they like nutrient-rich waterways.

MOLONGLO VALLEY DEVELOPMENT

A big thank you goes to the developer of Denman Prospect, McDonald Crowley, for raising the issue of inadequacy regarding the ACT government’s stormwater retention system and pollution entering Molonglo River.

Mr Crowley stated: “The Molonglo River corridor is a key part of what we’re advocating should be retained as a beautiful, natural part of the precinct” (“Canberra Times”, May 16).

And also a thank you to Molonglo Valley Community Forum convenor Ryan Hemsley, who stands alongside Mr Crowley regarding this issue. You both have my support.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

Update on my “Rose Experiment” (“City News”, May 11) to try and eliminate Rose Mosaic Virus by using Iodine has unfortunately failed. At this stage its a treatment only and not a cure. And I will keep working on this issue.

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY

To “CityNews”, a thank you to all on the team past and present for making this milestone possible. Your publication is a vital part of media diversity and an important addition to Canberra’s media landscape.

Tuggeranong

Photos: Michael Calkovics

Maybe it’s our species that’s not fit for purpose

MY old French master, with his quiet smile at the double entendre, told us: “Words have gender; people have sex”.

It was a nice line – memorable but inoffensive, instructive but debatable. However, it was the following questions and answers that have kept the memory fresh. Everyone had a go and we walked away feeling pretty good.

Today, while the ballooning world population affirms that people still indeed have sex, they also share the “gender” marker with the written, spoken (and shouted) word. In fact, “gender”, “sexual preference” and a growing alphabetical list of hormonal predilections have expanded the vocab far beyond the old English master’s imagining.

At the same time, we’re engaged in a worldwide revolution to recognise and redeem the behaviour of those on the male side of the hormonal spectrum towards the female of the species.

What in the master’s day was laughingly called “the battle of the sexes” is a laughing matter no more. For months, it seems, the Parliament has been obsessed with it.

It comes just as two other existential issues bear down upon us – the weird 20th century-style war in Ukraine, which could so easily turn nuclear; and the almost inevitable

runaway heating of the globe leading to mass extinction, perhaps even of our own role as the apex predator.

Our responses to these threats do not bode well. Dictator Putin is downloading his atomic warheads to his thuggish enforcer in Belarus. This will give him the squeak of deniability should one of them “accidentally” explode over Kyiv.

The bodies of hundreds – soon to be thousands – of climate escapees are piling up in the depths of the

Mediterranean as our fellow “people smugglers” enrich themselves with their victims’ plight.

Others of similar ilk are feeding an insatiable addiction to escape reality with the illusion provided by cocaine, heroin, alcohol, speed, LSD or anything else that offers surcease from the normality of an earlier age.

Across the Pacific the gun-crazy, evangelical Americans are shooting each other in schools and businesses as they’re forced to choose a president

between a kindly old dodderer and a rabble-rousing conman. They’re threatening war with our biggest trading partner, which is run by a pretend emperor, while Xi Jinping himself uses provincial Taiwan as a symbol of his historical magnificence… as though history really gives a damn.

In the middle of all this, we’ve finally begun to realise the shocking pain of dispossession us whitefellas imposed on the Aboriginal people who had lived in relative harmony with the natural world from time immemorial.

And a new government is taking the first step in a healing process called the Voice to Parliament (together, alas, with the lawyerly “and the executive government”). It feels like we’re fighting on all

fronts while blinded by the smoke of a raging bushfire… and our usual weapons of informational force majeure are scattered to the four wild winds of social media.

Perhaps the answer is hiding in plain sight. To engage it depends on our willingness to step back from the chaos and seek the common denominator that connects them.

Perhaps the old English master touched a hopeful chord, one that spoke thoughtfully, humorously and a little provocatively, of the rules we make to navigate our way through our brief span of communal life. At least we listened to the questions and answers.

But maybe our species is not fit for purpose – perhaps hard fact and comforting fiction are inseparable in the human psyche; and our time in the universe will be as fleeting as a passing shadow.

robert@ robertmacklin. com

Flyer member to earn Qantas Points. Members will earn 1 Qantas Point per $1 spent on retail flooring and window furnishing products purchased from Carpet Court retail stores or online. Full terms and conditions available at www.carpetcourt.com.au/qantas-frequent-flyer

Caricature: Paul Dorin

Perhaps hard fact and comforting fiction are inseparable in the human psyche; and our time in the universe will be as fleeting as a passing shadow.

Can taking a daily multivitamin boost memory? HEALTH + WELLBEING

second large study conducted by the researchers to show that memory improved in older adults who took daily multivitamins.

to prevent heart disease and cancer. The group recommended against beta carotene and vitamin E for that purpose.

MILLIONS of adults take daily multivitamins, even though the pills have not been shown to prevent ailments such as heart disease or cancer and experts say it’s better to get nutrients from food.

The latest research looks at whether taking a daily vitamin can have an effect on memory. The American study found multivitamins may boost memory function in some people, by the equivalent of three years of normal, age-related memory loss.

While the study isn’t comprehensive enough to warrant broad recommendations to take vitamins, it provides important information about their use, said Adam Brickman, the Columbia University professor of neuropsychology who led the study. “Well-designed research studies are showing that there might indeed be some benefits to taking multivitamins,” he said.

Further study is needed to determine exactly which nutrients might make a difference.

Here’s what to know about the new research published in the “American Journal of Clinical Nutrition”.

About the study

Researchers at New York’s Columbia University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston tracked more than 3500 people over age 60 for three years.

The participants were randomly assigned to take a daily multivitamin or a dummy pill. They were evaluated annually for three years with internet-based exams that measure memory function.

One test gave participants a list of 20 words, one at a time, for three seconds each, then asked them to type all of the words they remembered immediately and after 15 minutes.

The exam measured the function of the hippocampus, an area in the brain that controls learning and memory, Brickman said.

After one year, participants who took daily vitamins had better memory function, moving from correctly recalling 7.10 words at the start to 7.81

“Vitamins can provide missing nutrients in the diet, but taking high amounts can result in side effects ranging from stomach upset to serious heart and liver problems.”

words. Participants who got dummy pills went from recalling 7.21 words to 7.65 words. The researchers calculated that the difference amounted to an improvement in memory equal to about three years of normal, agerelated change. That improvement was maintained for at least the remaining two years of the study and was more pronounced in people with heart disease, the study found.

The multivitamins may work by providing micronutrients that enhance function of the hippocampus, Brickman said. This is the

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and also by Mars Edge, a division of Mars, which makes confectionery, pet food and other products; and Pfizer and Haleon, both makers of multivitamins.

About multivitamin use

About 60 per cent of U.S. adults and about 35 per cent of children take daily vitamins, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pills are part of nearly $56 billion Americans spend each year on dietary supplements.

US dietary guidelines recommend that Americans should get their nutrients from food, unless they have specific needs or are advised to take vitamins by a healthcare provider. Vitamins can provide missing nutrients in the diet, but taking high amounts can result in side effects ranging from stomach upset to serious heart and liver problems.

The US Preventive Services Task Force, a national advisory group, said last year that current evidence is “insufficient” to assess the risks and benefits of multivitamin supplements

What it means

The new study shows that vitamin pills may provide missing micronutrients, especially in the diets of older adults, said Robert Hackman, a research nutritionist with the University of California, who was not involved in the research.

About a third of adults older than 60 fail to get adequate vitamins, minerals and fibre from food alone.

Still, the Alzheimer’s Association does not recommend the use of multivitamins to reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older adults.

Most of the participants in the new study were white and collegeeducated, with access and ability to take internet exams, noted Heather Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer’s Association.

“It would be important to see independent confirmation of these results, in particular in more representative study populations,” she said.

HELPING PEOPLE WITH A DISABILITY HAVE OPPORTUNITIES TO LIVE THEIR BEST LIFE

About Hartley Lifecare

Established in 1962, Hartley Lifecare (Hartley) is a Canberra-based not-for-profit organisation providing supported accommodation for people with disability, their families and carers. Hartley supports over 100 clients in 37 homes across the ACT. Over the last six decades, families have grown to rely on and trust Hartley to deliver high quality, person centred support. Our experienced staff support people to pursue interests and hobbies, make friends, plan holidays and participate in the community. Whether living alone or with other people with disability, we support people to maintain their home and complete day-to-day household activities including meal planning and cooking, washing or even maintaining a vegetable garden. Whether you have your own home and would like Hartley to support you, or you would like to live with others with a disability in a home already supported by Hartley Lifecare, please contact the Senior Manager of NDIS and Service Development on 02 6282 4411

Respite Care

Hartley Lifecare provides centre-based respite care (short term accommodation) to people with disability. Residential respite care is 24/7 care in specialist disability accommodation for a short period of time.

If you are interested in discussing respite care options please contact Chinedu NwakorDisability Programs Manager (STA) on 02 6282 4411 or at enquiriesSTA@hartley.org.au

About Hartley Hydrotherapy

Located in Hughes ACT, Hartley Hydro is an all abilities accessible heated pool, which operates 5 days per week at a temperature of 34o C. Hartley Hydrotherapy pool is available for hire to all members of the Canberra community and surrounds. We offer two different hire arrangements, including Shared use and Exclusive use.

Our pool offers access via pool steps or a hoist, shallow depth of 1.1m – 1.5m, handrails, non-slip tiles and a change room on site. We also provide a large range of equipment free of charge which can be used to enhance your program. This includes steps, floating devices, arm resistance equipment, kickboards and an in water seat.

Please contact the team at hydrotherapy@hartley.org.au or 02 6185 1653 for any bookings or enquiries.

Operating Hours

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Jonel Aleccia is the health writer for Associated Press.

A new study shows a daily multivitamin may boost memory function in some people, although the results don’t change recommendations about use of the supplements, writes JONEL ALECCIA

How friends in Phantom built a force for good

MY friend Richard and I are, um… eccentrics. Our wives may use stronger language but the concept is the same.

In 1936 Lee Falk created “The Phantom” comic strip and wrote it daily for 63 years till his death in 1999. The minute I found out about his passing, Richard, a teacher at the local school in Five Dock, was in my office. We knew an era had ended, part of Australian culture of a certain time and place.

Bill Lawry, Aussie Test skipper, was known as Phantom, and thousands of groups of Aussie mates since World War II have had at least one person so named, usually if they were absent from anything or consumed milk.

Richard and I decided to go out that night to honor Falk, but life got in the way and we couldn’t catch up for a week. By that time, Steve, Glenn, Dan and some other dubious characters had all said they’d join. So did Cath, Bronwyn, Sarah and Judith. We booked a restaurant, gave ourselves a ridiculous name (The Lee Falk Memorial Bengali Explorers Club), and got Jim Shepherd, publisher of “Phantom” comics and my occasional SCG cricket companion, to say a few short slurry words. Then, quite spontaneously, we passed the hat around at the end of the night and gave whatever

was accumulated to the kids’ hospital. And that was that.

Except it wasn’t. Richard loved it. He came more often for his blood pressure check (I didn’t mind, it was nice to get a bit diverse and have a patient speak English occasionally in that beautiful melting pot of a practice!) and we had another gathering.

We just had our 34th dinner tonight, over 24 years and I’m writing in the spare room of my son’s house, about a 7 iron from that medical practice in Five Dock. We organised that first dinner while he was in nappies. It is possible

that I’ve had nothing to drink and am in no way sentimental. Possible.

Our dinner tonight was a cracker as usual. About 60 folks from around Australia and NZ. A guest speaker delivering heartfelt thoughts about their career in art, a great fun night, a million silent auction items, then very late I got on stage as auctioneer. Four of my kids turned up at 10pm from some random inner-city pub, to cheer on dad.

We made somewhere north of 10 grand and have now passed $100,000 in total donated, and every cent goes to the Westmead Children’s Hospital. There are no costs – everything is voluntary. And it’s euphoric to do good while having fun with people,

some attending for the first time, some dear friends over decades. Same awesome night as usual. Almost.

Last week, Bron returned from walking, and nudged lazy Richard to wake up. To her shock, Richard was gone, his full, loud, busy, wonderful love-filled life expired sometime during the night.

It would take too long to list the wonder that resided in that infuriatingly enthusiastic heart, but it’s no surprise to anyone that this man travelled frequently and delighted in staying in every part of the globe with someone he had taught at Russell Lea Primary School. He inspired them to be citizens of the world, and for so many reasons they never stopped loving him.

In recent years I’ve been busier than ever, and Richard has done almost all the organising of our functions, in association with Bradley

and Joyful and our other buddies, leaving me, as Jane Austen would say of Mr Bennet, “to do nothing but take the credit of it”.

The latter two insisted they take over tonight’s event, partly to honour him; mostly, I suspect, to save the event from my ineptitude. Of course, thanks to them, it was brilliant.

Richard taught 50 years worth of kids to be the best version of themselves. He defined giving to others, and in our humble LFMBEC group, he’s given me one of the life items I’m most proud of.

Bronwyn was back delivering babies yesterday – she’s tough and awesome. I won’t sleep tonight – too busy being self-indulgently sad, but also proud of what nerdhood gives me – kindness, friendship, purpose, connection, pride, tolerance, and working together to make the world free from evildoers! Vale, my friend.

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader, and nerd.

There is more of his “Kindness” on citynews.com.au

Quite spontaneously, we passed the hat around at the end of the night and gave whatever was accumulated to the kids’ hospital. And that was that. Except it wasn’t.

Richard with a very special guest.

Calories in, calories out weight loss is a myth

Calorie counting can do more harm than good, taking the pleasure out of eating and contributing to developing an unhealthy relationship with food. That can make it even harder to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, says NICK FULLER

IF you’ve ever tried to lose weight, there’s a good chance you’ve been told it all comes down to a simple “calories in, calories out” formula: burn more calories than you consume, and the kilos will disappear.

And it’s easy to see the appeal of breaking weight loss down into simple maths – just follow the formula, and you’ll achieve success. It’s also believable because many people do lose weight when they first adopt this approach.

Indeed, the diet industry’s reliance on the “calories in, calories out” concept is why society blames people for being overweight. Anyone who can’t follow this simple energy formula is only overweight because they lack the willpower to eat less and exercise more.

But the only simple truth here is that it’s time to bust the “calories in, calories out” myth as the only way to lose weight. Here’s why.

The many calorie-counting apps and online calculators available make it seem effortless. Simply enter your sex, age, height, weight, body composition and activity levels and they’ll tell you exactly how many calories you should eat daily to lose weight.

Unfortunately, no matter how accurate these calculators claim to be, they rely on averages and can’t determine the calorie intake appropriate for you with 100 per cent accuracy. They can only estimate.

Similarly, our metabolic rate – how much energy we burn at rest – also varies from person to person based on many factors, including body composition or how much muscle and fat we have. Complicating things further, our metabolic rate also alters when we change our diet and lose weight.

Calculating the calories in food –the other part of managing “calories in” – is also far from accurate.

While Australian food standards require foodstuffs to display Nutri tion Information Panels showing energy in kilojoules, there are no requirements for information accuracy other than it must not be misleading. A worrying +/-20 per cent discrepancy is generally accepted for the values shown on labels.

In practice, the variation can be much more than this. One Australian study found food contained anywhere between 13 per cent less and 61 per cent more energy or nutrient compo nents than its packaging stated.

Another reason the simple “calories in, calories out” formula is not so simple is that our bodies don’t consume every calorie the same way. What’s shown in your calorie counter is not what’s actually absorbed in your body.

Different calorie sources also have different effects on our hormones, brain response and energy expendi ture, changing how we respond to and manage our food intake.

For example, while eating 180 calories worth of nuts is the same as eating 180 calories of pizza in terms of energy intake, the way these foods are absorbed and how they affect the body is very different.

While we absorb most of the calories in a slice of pizza, we don’t absorb about 20 per cent of the calories in nuts because their fat is stored in the nuts’ fibrous cell walls, which don’t break down during digestion. Nuts are also packed with fibre, filling us up for longer, while a slice of pizza has us immediately reaching for another due to its low fibre content.

The biggest failing of the “calories in, calories out” formula is it ignores that the body adjusts its control systems when calorie intake is reduced. So while the formula can support

the reduction in energy intake is counteracted by mechanisms that ensure lost weight is regained.

Namely, when your body registers a sustained decrease in the calories you consume, it believes its survival is threatened. So it automatically triggers a series of physiological responses to protect against the threat, reducing our metabolic rate and burning less energy.

This stems from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, whose bodies developed this response to adapt to periods of deprivation when food was scarce to protect against starvation.

Research also suggests our bodies have a “set point weight”: a genetically predetermined weight our bodies try to maintain regardless of what we eat or how much we exercise.

Our bodies protect our set point as

signals from the brain and hormones to hold on to fat stores in preparation for future reductions in our calorie intake.

The body achieves this in several ways, all of which directly influence the “calories in, calories out” equation, including:

• slowing our metabolism. When we reduce our calorie intake to lose weight, we lose muscle and fat. This decrease in body mass results in an expected decrease in metabolic rate, but there is a further 15 per cent decrease in metabolism beyond what can be accounted for, further disrupting the “calories in, calories out” equation. Even after we regain lost weight our metabolism doesn’t recover. Our thyroid gland also misfires when we restrict our food intake, and fewer hormones are secreted, also changing the equation by reducing the energy we burn at rest;

• adapting how our energy sources are used. When we reduce our energy intake and start losing weight, our body switches from

using fat as its energy source to carbohydrates and holds on to its fat, resulting in less energy being managing how our adrenal gland

Our adrenal gland manages the hormone cortisol, which it releases when something that stresses the body – like calorie restriction – is imposed. Excess cortisol production and its presence in our blood changes how our bodies process, store and burn fat.

Our bodies also cleverly trigger responses aimed at increasing our calorie intake to regain lost weight, adjusting our appetite horWhen we reduce our calorie intake and deprive our bodies of food, our hormones work differently, suppressing feelings of fullness and telling us to eat more; changing how our brain funcWhen our calorie intake reduces, activity in our hypothalamus – the part of the brain that regulates emotions and food intake – also reduces, decreasing our control and judgement over our

The “calories in, calories out” formula for weight loss success is a myth because it oversimplifies the complex process of calculating energy intake and expenditure. More importantly, it fails to consider the mechanisms our bodies trigger to counteract a reduction in energy intake. So while you may achieve shortterm weight loss following the formula, you’ll likely regain it. What’s more, calorie counting can do more harm than good, taking the pleasure out of eating and contributing to developing an unhealthy relationship with food. That can make it even harder to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

For long-term weight loss, it’s important to follow evidence-based programs from health-care professionals and make gradual changes to your lifestyle to ensure you form habits that last a lifetime.

Nick Fuller, Charles Perkins Centre research program leader, University of Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation.

While eating 180 calories worth of nuts is the same as eating 180 calories of pizza in terms of energy intake, the way these foods are absorbed and how they affect the body is very different.

Staying lighter longer can save knees in later life

PREVENTING weight gain from early adulthood could reduce knee replacements in Australian adults by almost 30 per cent and save the health system $373 million a year, according to new research.

The Monash University-led study found preventing weight gain from young adulthood to late midlife to reduce overweight/obesity could sig nificantly reduce the cost burden of total-knee replacements.

The study examined the association between patterns of weight gain (body mass index – BMI – trajectories) from early adulthood to late midlife and the risk of total-knee replacement for osteoarthritis.

Senior author Prof Flavia Cicuttini, who heads the Monash School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine’s Musculoskeletal Epidemiology Unit, said the results underlined the importance of prevention in improving health and reducing health costs. While weight loss was recommended for people with osteoarthritis who were overweight or obese, this was often too little too late.

“Preventing weight gain is feasible and effective in improving osteoarthritis health outcomes,” she said.

“Focusing on prevention, with

small average long-term changes in energy balance, can make a big difference. Reducing your caloric intake just slightly each day builds up to avoiding 8-12 kilograms of weight gain over a couple of decades, saving money and avoiding surgery. This also has cardiac health benefits.

“For example, eating the average equivalent of two fewer pieces of chocolate per week, or adding 10 minutes of exercise, can prevent the insidious 0.5-1 kilogram weight gain we see per person per year in Australia. This can result in tangible health gains, improving lives and saving money.”

Prof Cicuttini said a “call to action”

was needed for knee joint health.

“We also need to be sending out the message that it is important to make sure that people don’t continue to gain more weight,” she said. “Although recommendations to lose weight are important if a person is carrying excess weight, this can be difficult to achieve for most people.

“Too often we see people with knee pain, advise them to lose weight, only for them to return five years later having gained a further 3-5 kilograms. This is a missed opportunity because it is easier to prevent further weight gain than it is to lose it.

“We need to focus on preventing

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or slowing weight gain when people first present with any knee pain, even niggling knee pain. Australians tend to gain about 0.5-1 kilogram per year over adult life. This slow, steady accumulation of weight adds up, resulting in the obesity we see.”

The project used data from 24,368 participants in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study.

Researchers linked weight data over a period of years with National Joint Replacement Registry records. They identified six distinct trajectories of BMI from early adulthood (age 18-21 years) to late midlife (about 62 years). These included:

• Group 1: lower normal to normal BMI (19.7 per cent)

• Group 2: normal BMI to borderline overweight (36.7 per cent)

• Group 3: normal BMI to overweight (26.8 per cent)

• Group 4: overweight to borderline obese (3.5 per cent)

• Group 5: normal BMI to class 1 obesity (10.1 per cent)

• Group 6: overweight to class 2 obesity (3.2 per cent).

Over 12.4 years, 1328 (5.4 per cent) of subjects had a total-knee replacement. The risk of requiring one increased in all groups where someone progressed into a higher weight group.

In total, 28.4 per cent of knee replacements could be prevented if people moved to one group lower, with an average 8-12-kilogram weight loss from early adulthood to late midlife. This could save $373 million in annual health costs.

Prof Cicuttini said that assuming we can “fix” obesity after it had occurred was not very effective and prevention had multiple health and cost benefits.

“If an approach doesn’t work, why don’t we change it?” she said. “If adults can be encouraged to consider preventing the slow creep in weight from a young age, this will have multiple health benefits including reducing the need for a knee replacement in the future.”

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Prof Flavia Cicuttini.

Knee replacements…“Focusing on prevention, with small average long-term changes in energy balance, can make a big difference,” says Prof Flavia Cicuttini.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

INSIDE Cook-your-own fun and the food is fabulous WENDY JOHNSON

Simpson faces the final curtain, but it’s not hers

By Helen MUSA

THERE’S more to the new play coming to the main hall at Ainslie Arts Centre soon than just “Simpson without Shortis”, as some are saying.

For “Finale”, written and directed by Tracy Bourne, is a theatre show that throws light on the journey towards death.

As the clock ticks on stage through sound effects and artist Nyx Matthews’ set, an unnamed ageing cabaret star (Simpson), welcomes the audience into the space, and then without apparent control swings into a cabaret performance celebrating what Bourne calls “the worst that can happen.”

Conceived 10 years ago for performance by Bourne herself when she was much younger, it was created as a “dream cabaret”. She tells me she did perform it briefly when it was less a play and more a cabaret with a loose narrative, but she wasn’t satisfied with what she was trying to say.

“The piece unfurls in surprising ways, and it’s important that the audience is taken along with that,” she tells me. “It unfolds like a dream. It is a dream.

The main character starts to sing, and she creates a performance, which becomes a kind of cabaret, which is a more intimate way of doing it.”

“The piece does have a certain darkness to it,” she says.

“It is about mortality, but don’t forget that there are many jokes about endings and deaths… I hope the audience will feel kind of entranced as it goes on… It’s like it’s in the main character’s head.”

Although the piece was not written for Simpson, Bourne says: “This is a piece that pulls all of her skills out. She is at the centre of it… The role is a better fit for her, she is funnier than me, and she’s a really strong singer.”

Explaining how she needed to stand outside her play, Bourne believes that it’s also much stronger having someone a bit older playing the part.

“It gives it more weight; Moya is able to embody all those years of experience in terms of having more than 20 years longer than me and all those years of performing, too.”

It helped that they both live in Bungendore a few blocks away from each other, so could get together easily.

When I catch up with Simpson, she assures me that it’s not going to be a heavy evening.

“There are some very funny bits, profound and light at the same time, to

make people go away and think about a lot of stuff,” she says.

The audience will surely include many of the loyal followers of Shortis and Simpson, but she hopes the show will “reach out to a really big mixture”.

“My biggest question in getting involved was to ensure that people don’t think this is my story, it’s me as an actor,” she says.

Mind you, Simpson tells me she’s been a member of the charity “Dying with Dignity” for 30 years, and says: “I’m a total believer in not suffering”.

Percussionist Jonathan “Jonesie” Jones, with whom Simpson has worked before and pianist John Black, were with Simpson and Bourne for an intensive workshop in January, alongside jazz musician Ben Marston as sound man.

“Not only are Jonesie and John excellent musicians, but the relationship between Moya and Jonesie has a special quality on stage, while John Black is kind of their straight man,” Bourne says.

No suffering is anticipated. Bourne thinks of it as a musical theatre piece drawn from the style of cabaret, saying: “I hope people will laugh and will be moved by it. I don’t think it will be confronting. It’s important to have the audience feel included and welcomed – it’s only 60 minutes long and you can bring a drink.

“Finale”, Ainslie Arts Centre, July 12-15.

Moya Simpson… “My biggest question in getting involved was to ensure that people don’t think this is my story, it’s me as an actor.”

Uncorked, Turkey Flat shiraz falls… well, flat

I’D just returned from Tathra where I had been woken by a chorus of kookaburras and where I was lucky enough to spot two white-breasted sea eagles that soared high above the eucalypts along the cliff edge as I ripped out kikuyu grass from the garden.

DINING / Taki, Tiger Lane

Where you cook your own fun

TAKI, in the now-fully-opened Tiger Lane, holds its head high with many firsts.

It was one of the first restaurants to open in this new dining precinct. It was the first Shabu Shabu (Japanese hot pot) establishment in Australia and is the only true Yakiniku (Japanese barbecue) specialising in Wagyu.

Last, but not least, Taki’s private dining room is the only place in Australia where you can cook both barbecue and hot pot at one table.

Taki comes through with its promise of a unique experience, complete with a cute cat-serving robot. It’s cook-your-own fun and the food is fabulous.

We’ve been twice and on our first visit indulged in the superior Taki Signature platter ($139) showcasing premium Wagyu cuts, including the premium Japanese A5, considered one of the best cuts in the world.

This platter is definitely for meat lovers, and we enjoyed cooking over glowing coals, dipping slices into one of three salts provided and then taking in the tastes. The second platter – Stairway to

Heaven – combines Wagyu cuts, fresh seafood and pork belly ($239).

On our second visit, we reserved the private dining room for Yakiniku and Shabu Shabu. Five hot pots are available, including a deluxe seafood ($120). Our choice was the Chanko Nabe (translation sumo hot pot – $59.90 regular size, $89.90 for large). This hot pot is inspired by staple foods of the famous sumo wrestlers, so it’s no surprise it’s packed with protein and veggies. Thankfully, we were a large enough group to plough through it.

For starters, don’t go past the Wagyu dumplings ($18.90). We were intrigued by the “cheeseburger-inspired” description, but the experimentation works a treat. The dumplings were super crispy on the outside, moist on the inside and the cheese sauce was the twist. The spicy ponzu salad was fresh and vibrant.

Another smashing starter is Taki’s gorgeous Agedashi tofu ($13.90), also crispy and beautiful with a tempura dipping sauce. Equally tasty is the salt-and-pepper tofu salad ($13.90), with more of that sour, salty and citrusy ponzu dressing. The lotus root is worth ordering for the crunch and sweet chilli vinegar ($5.90).

At Taki you can build your own barbecue and we’ve road tested the scallops ($18.90 for three) and the green prawns ($29.90 for three).

The

Taki is Japanese for waterfall and the interior design is created around a fable of a little koi who tackles waterfalls to get to the top of a mountain. He was transformed into a Golden Dragon.

Tiger Lane, in Bunda Street, Civic, is a mustvisit for those wanting to explore the diverse tastes of Asia. Its 12 food and bar outlets cover hatted restaurants, hawker-style eateries and communal bar areas.

From a Jungian viewpoint, birds are symbolic of messengers from the unconscious. The messages they bring can enable the ego to be given many helpful feelings that during waking hours purportedly enable you to act more effectively. But, unfortunately, the kikuyu is still embedded in the garden in a number of places, a battle for another day.

The choirs of birdsong in Tathra were a sharp contrast to what I experienced in NZ in February. When walking in the bush there, bird sounds were much less audible than I had experienced even five years ago, and I’m not going deaf.

Historically, NZ has lost 40–50 per cent of its bird species, and more than half of these extinctions are attributable to predation by introduced mammals. Populations of many forest bird species continue to be depredated by mammals, especially rats, possums, ferrets and stoats. It’s sad and more needs to be

Back in town, I’d invited a friend to dinner who has just settled back in Canberra. Serendipitously, he brought a Bird in Hand 2022 Pinot Rosé for consumption.

The name derives from a 19th century goldmine. The winery is based in the Adelaide Hills and Halliday gives it five stars. I’d previously tried its delightful Two in the Bush Mt Lofty Ranges Shiraz 2017, which was superlative.

The rosé was good, vibrant pink in colour with a strawberry finish with just a hint of clean acid. It went well with the dips for entrée, particularly

the hummus. My friend abhors puns so I didn’t share my entrée joke with him but here it is hummingbirds: the Black Eyed Peas can sing us a tune but the chick peas can only hummus one.

The main course was spicy chorizo with garlic, red onion and chilli so we needed a much bolder drink than the rosé to complement this course.

I selected a wine that was expected to be big and bold, a Turkey Flat Shiraz 2018. This winery also hails from SA, the Barossa Valley. Halliday also rates it five stars. He remarks that the shiraz vines were first planted in 1847 with continued expansion so that there are now 24 hectares planted to shiraz.

This wine was a gift but the internet tells me that it retails for around $55 a bottle, so I was expecting something special. I know that domesticated turkeys can fly when they are young but lose that ability as they grow older. This wine did, in fact, fall flat.

On the nose, the smell of vanilla was overwhelming and on first taste also dominated the palate. The wine had obviously been matured in oak: the label tells me that it was fermented and matured in French oak. The vanilla taste derives from the chemical compound found in oak – vanillin. This flavour profile ameliorated after giving the wine some air. The wine was medium bodied (14.1 per cent alcohol by volume) and didn’t have the expected hit of tannins to fight the spice and garlic that I’d hoped for. For me, it came into its own the next day when I had a glass with gnocchi in a mild tomato sauce: the fruit was more predominant and it was a better match for the food.

“One reason that birds matter – ought to matter – is that they are our last, best connection to a natural world that is otherwise receding. They’re the most vivid and widespread representatives of the Earth as it was before people arrived on it.”

– Jonathan Franzen

lobster tail was also succulent ($24).

Wagyu dumplings… crispy on the outside, moist on the inside. Taki Signature platter… showcasing premium Wagyu cuts, including the premium Japanese A5. Photos: Wendy Johnson

Agedashi tofu…crispy, with a tempura dipping sauce.

THE Q AND SHAKE & STIR THEATRE CO PRESENT

Perfect. You and your child do not want to miss this remarkable piece of theatre.

★★★★★ Broadway World

13-15 JULY 2023

A full-bodied visual and aural experience –should not be missed Arts Hub

Youthful concert honours march of compassion

By Helen Musa

A MOVING symphonic work will be performed by the Australian Youth Orchestra at Llewellyn Hall.

Conducted and orchestrated by Nigel Westlake, best-known as the composer of the score for the “Babe” films, the centrepiece of the performance will be a full version of “Ngapa William Cooper” [“Ngapa means “grandfather” in Yorta Yorta].

Since 1948, the AYO’s mission has been to provide Australia’s gifted school-aged musicians and those on the verge of a professional career opportunities to reach their full potential and this work seems ideally pitched at their talents.

The work, co-created by Westlake, Lior and Lou Bennett with additional lyrics by Sarah Gory, tells the story of Yorta Yorta activist William Cooper who, in 1938, led the Australian Aborigines’ League through the streets of Melbourne in the only non-Jewish protest worldwide against the events of Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany.

The Llewellyn Hall concert opens with Westlake’s “The Glass Soldier,” dedicated to the memory of World War I veteran and artist Nelson Ferguson, followed by the orchestral

premiere of “Beneath the Waves”, taken from a distillation of Westlake’s score for the 2022 movie “Blueback”, which follows a fight to protect Australia’s coral reefs.

While Westlake is celebrated in this country as one of our leading classical composers, he has an ongoing career in film, having also composed scores for films such as “Ali’s Wedding”, “Miss Potter” and “Children of the Revolution”, as well as the theme for “SBS World News”.

But when I catch up with him for a phone chat, we focus on “Ngapa William Cooper”, initially premiered with a chamber ensemble at the Adelaide Festival earlier this year but now, under a commission from the AYO, expanded by Westlake into just under 40 minutes of full symphonic music, for which this will be the world premiere.

It’s part of an on-going collaborative process with his co-writer, Israel-born singer-songwriter, Lior,

that’s been going on for about 10 years, since they collaborated on the song cycle “Compassion”.

“But this work is a little different. It was always in the back of our minds as we were casting around for an act of compassion to enshrine in music,” he says.

“Lior, being Jewish, brought this amazing story to my attention and we decided to work on it… he wrote the main narrative before we put a note of music down, but then we realised

we had to get some cultural guidance to help us navigate the story.”

Luckily they came across the work of Yorta Yorta Dja Dja Wurrung artist and academic Lou Bennett, who has devoted her life to music and language.

“We approached Lou initially, thinking she could be holding our hands,” he says, “but to our astonishment found that William Cooper was her great, great uncle… we asked her to translate some of Lior’s text

from English into Yorta Yorta then asked her to read the text, which she did. We were so excited that we asked her to join us.”

Westlake will be holding the baton, while Bennett shares the stage with Lior and encapsulates the spirit of William Cooper, with moments of frustration, anger and beauty underscored with tenderness and beauty as Cooper looks back on his life.

“Lior has crafted very beautiful lyrics pared down to their most basic elements – he doesn’t waffle around,” Westlake says, but adds, “Lou brings in a whole other dimension. She is a very expressive singer who uses a lot of physical hand gestures specific to her culture and when singing in language, says, ‘I’m channelling the old ones’.

“Lior and Lou sent me their melodies unaccompanied. I put it all together into the context of a symphony, a bit like writing a film score… they related the story, and I supported that by working around the vocal line and following the dramatic action. “

“The story does traverse a lot of emotional territory. It’s a little bit cinematic, I feel.”

kind of thing in Canberra. In “An Australian Songbook” (July 7-8), she uncovers hidden gems of Australian music, from Bon Scott to Kate Miller Heidke, with piano accordion wizkid George Butrumlis, Cameron Goodall on guitar and Enio Pozzebon on keyboards.

FORMER “CityNews” Artist of the Year in 2019, Michael Dooley, will present a concert of his original instrumental music, conducted by Max McBride. It includes “The Piano Concerto #1”, performed by pianist Andrew Rumsey; “The Land That Is Very Far Off” performed by violinist Timothy Wickham and “Australian Landscapes”, a suite of five impressionistic movements for piano and orchestra. Llewellyn Hall, July 4.

and her 2001 portrait of Midnight Oil.

FEATURING in the cast of a new production of “Billy Elliot” on the Gold Coast is long-time Canberra musical star Kate Peters, appearing not in her usual glamorous role but as “Grandma”.

CANBERRA Community Chorale aims to demonstrate that Johann Sebastian Bach’s music is light, airy and buoyant when it presents a program of Bach’s choral music, “The Castle of Heaven”, under the direction of Dan Walker with soloists AJ America and Veronica Milroy. North Belconnen Uniting Church, 2.30pm, July 2.

Singer Robyn Archer... The Playhouse, July 7-8.

“Ngapa William Cooper”, Australian Youth Orchestra, Llewellyn Hall, 5pm, July 9.

Nigel Westlake… “We were casting around for an act of compassion to enshrine in music.”

The Australian Youth Orchestra… for gifted school-aged musicians and those on the verge of a professional career.

Cosy mystery keeps readers guessing right to the last twist

which is enjoying a resurgence in popularity in print and on TV.

“COSY” crime is not a recent phenomenon.

Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries are classics of the sub-genre. But cosy crime is indeed having a resurgence in popularity both in print and on TV.

At the Adelaide Writers’ Festival in March, a panel of crime writers were asked to identify current trends in the genre. The British crime writing duo Nicci French immediately nominated cosy crime and Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” series in particular. The reason – the “difficult times” the British people have experienced in recent years.

In the world of British cosy crime, Janice Hallett’s novels are reportedly now second in popularity to those of Osman.

“The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels” is Hallett’s third novel and once again she has reinvented the epistolary novel for the modern reader, using emails, texts, WhatsApp messages, transcriptions of interviews and screenplays to tell her story, rather than a traditional narrative. It’s a style that initially demands some persistence.

Hallett addresses her readers with a challenge, as the novel begins: “You have a key that opens a safe deposit box. Inside is a bundle of documents… You must read it and make a decision”.

The documents are the collected research of

true crime writer Amanda Bailey into the case of the Alperton Angels for a new series of crime books, which will “put a fresh, dark spin on a well known crime”.

In 2003, a cult led by Gabriel Angelis, aka Peter Duffy, believed they were angels with a divine mission to kill the newborn anti-Christ during a particular alignment of the stars. They persuade the teenage parents of the baby that they too are angels and that their baby must die.

However, the mother escapes with the baby and they disappear into the care system. The angels commit suicide in a bizarre ritual and, although Gabriel escaped, he is in prison for murder.

Amanda and her publishers know that the anti-Christ, the baby, will be 18 soon and if Amanda can find him/her it will be the true-crime “scoop” of the year. But the pressure is on, as another journalist, Amanda’s rival, Oliver Menzies is also on the hunt.

Amanda is a ruthless and manipulative investigator, calling in favours and persuading the hapless Menzies to share information. Their joint investigation, however, reveals a much darker story than the one reported in the press at the time and their sources begin to die in mysterious circumstances.

Original and intriguing, “The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels” will keep you guessing right up until the last twist in the tale.

ELLY Griffiths is a veteran of the sub-genre and first introduced her archaeologist detective Ruth Galloway in “The Crossing Place” (2009). She has since written a further 13 mysteries combining crime, archaeology and romance.

Prof Ruth Galloway is head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk

Migrant’s tale in Miles

(UNN). With her lover, Detective Chief Inspec tor Harry Nelson, she has been instrumental in solving a multitude of murders, often finding her own life in danger in the process.

“The Last Remains” is to be the last in the series.

Griffiths sets her novel in 2021, firmly in the time of covid.

Nelson’s wife has left him and moved north. As a result he has spent most of the lockdowns with Ruth and their daughter Kate. Nelson hopes they can finally live together as a family. But Ruth is hesitant.

Ruth’s carefully controlled world is further threatened when UNN announces it’s considering closing the Department of Archaeology because it’s unprofitable.

Ruth is therefore happy to be distracted when builders renovating a café in King’s Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall in the basement. Ruth immediately identifies the bones as modern, as a metal plate suggests recent surgery on the ankle.

The bones are identified as the remains of a young archaeology student Emily Pickering, who went missing in 2002 after a field trip to the Neolithic flint mines, Grime’s Graves, near Thetford. Griffiths in her acknowledgments calls them “one of the archaeological wonders of the age”.

Griffiths is an accomplished storyteller and in “The Last Remains” she skilfully combines a police procedural with local legends. The end result is tension and life threatening danger.

However, in the true tradition of the genre, she farewells all her characters in an ending that exudes the essence of cosy crime, to ensure that they all live happily ever after, except for the

Franklin shortlist

First-time author Kgshak Akec has made the Miles Franklin shortlist with a “novel of national significance” grounded in her own experience as a new Australian, reports LIZ HOBDAY.

DEBUT novelist Kgshak Akec is among six writers shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Her book, “Hopeless Kingdom”, is the story of a mother and daughter’s relationship as their family migrates from Africa to Australia.

The judges described it as a novel of national significance that “transforms the Australian literary landscape”.

“I’m beside myself and very excited to see what happens in the future,” Akec told AAP.

No one can complain that the 2023 list of hopefuls consists of the same old names: Akec has made the cut alongside four other first-time nominees.

Also shortlisted are Robbie Arnott, Jessica Au, Shankari Chandran, Yumna Kassab and Fiona Kelly McGregor.

Each author receives $5000 with the winner of the $60,000 prize to be announced on July 25.

The tale of “Hopeless Kingdom” is grounded in Akec’s own experiences of her family leaving South Sudan for Egypt when she was three, arriving in Australia on a humanitarian visa in 2003 with her six siblings.

Akec’s earliest memories are of Egypt, which

she knew was not her home, and the author speaks of feeling that she was born displaced.

“When we came to Australia I understood in every fibre of my being as a six-year-old, that this was our home forever,” she said.

But being the first African-Australians at Akec’s primary school in Geelong made things more complicated – no one else looked like her family – and it wasn’t until her twenties that she recognised herself as Australian.

Now there’s every chance Akec could win the country’s most prestigious literary prize – awarded for stories of Australian life in all its phases.

Akec wrote “Hopeless Kingdom” during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, starting at 7am before work, and some days writing until midnight, fuelled by Tim Tam biscuits and her mother’s green chicken curries.

She realised it could take years to get anyone from the publishing industry to read the manuscript and prepared herself to wait.

Akec didn’t need to – the novel won the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award, which came with a book deal.

Stories such as “Hopeless Kingdom” are rare in Australia because the African migrant experience is relatively new here, Akec said.

“It opens up the door to understanding what it’s like for migrant families settling into Australia, but it also looks at things that are very simple, very human,” she said.

The 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist

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In her first column of book reviews for “CityNews”, ANNA CREER looks at a couple of volumes of “cosy crime”,

• “Hopeless Kingdom” by Kgshak Akec.

“Limberlost” by Robbie Arnott.

• “Cold Enough for Snow” by Jessica Au.

• “Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens” by Shankari Chandran.

• “The Lovers” by Yumna Kassab.

• “Iris” by Fiona Kelly McGregor. –AAP

Author Kgshak Akec, nominated for the Miles Franklin Award, at the State Library in Melbourne. Photo: Joel Carrett/AAP

Henry falls on his sword as series marches on

THIS week, dark fantasy hit “The Witcher” is back for its third, and what many will call, its final season.

While Netflix plans to keep the show running for a few years yet, this latest instalment of episodes will be the last for star of the series Henry Cavill. Thousands of fans have since proclaimed his departure from the show will be enough to stop them watching.

“‘The Witcher’ won’t be the same without Henry Cavill,” said one Twitter user in response to the news of his leaving.

“No more Henry Cavill after ‘The Witcher’ S3? I’m not watching it then,” wrote another.

The beloved actor (also famous for his portrayal of Superman) has won audiences over during his three-year tenure as the pale-haired hero of the series, Geralt of Rivia. Geralt is a “Witcher”, a genetic mutant imbued with powers to hunt down all sorts of creepy creatures that threaten the populace.

But when Geralt finds himself entrenched in the political machinations of this twisted fantasy realm, his destiny becomes much greater than just hunting down monsters –discovering that people are often far more wicked than any beast that lurks in a cave.

“The Witcher” has become a major hit for Netflix since its arrival on the platform in 2019. Season two reportedly racked up 2.2 billion minutes of viewing time in just its first week of streaming alone.

One can see why Netflix is eager to hold

So why then is Cavill, self described as a “huge fan” of the character, hanging up the swords?

He’s kept things on the down low, but it’s widely understood he’s leaving due to the writers opting to make a major departure from the source material.

“The Witcher” is based on a series of Polish books, first published in the early ‘90s, by Andrzej Sapkowski. In later decades, they’d find major success after being turned into a video game franchise which served as a big inspiration for the TV series.

are eager to make the story of Geralt their own. They’ve made the call to divert from the books and games that inspired them and it’s a direction that Cavill seemingly just couldn’t agree to follow.

In his place, Aussie star Liam Hemsworth has agreed to sign on for the role after season three, but it would seem fans aren’t happy about it.

In recent weeks, Netflix released a sneak preview of Hemsworth in the title role, through a screenshot where he had donned Geralt’s now iconic armour. The reception

“Can’t believe they want me to take Liam Hemsworth seriously as the witcher in season 4,” announced one fan.

“Liam Hemsworth as the witcher? No thank you. You couldn’t find someone remotely close to looking like Henry?,” said another.

It seems that for many loyal viewers, “The

Witcher” just won’t be the same without Cavill and it will be interesting to see if future seasons of the show can even get close to the staggering viewership levels of their predecessors.

As a fan of the series and its source material, who admittedly was sceptical when Cavill was first announced to be playing the character, I must say it’s hard to imagine the show continuing without him.

At one stage there had been talks about Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen taking on the role (which in this columnist’s opinion would have been the best option) but one never knows, Hemsworth might just prove everyone wrong and do Australia proud. Remember the reaction when Heath Ledger was announced to play the Joker in “The Dark Knight”? Look how that turned around.

Of his departure, Cavill himself said: “My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures. Alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4. In my stead, the fantastic Mr Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf.”

It’s clear Cavill’s undyingly loyal passion for the character is what made him such a good Geralt. Hemsworth has big boots to fill indeed.

Images (clockwise from left): Steve Holland, Australian Cricketer Shane Warne Holding a Cricket Ball and Stump at the End of the Fourth Test of the Ashes Series, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, 28 December 2006 (detail), nla.gov.au/nla.obj-137980452; David Moore, Portrait of Dawn Fraser, Melbourne, 1963 (detail), nla.gov.au/nla.obj-140402089; Serena Ovens, Portrait of Louise Sauvage, 1996 Paralympian (detail), nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136368441.

Henry Cavill in the role of Geralt of Rivia… his third and final series of “The Witcher”.

Celebrating years 30

The little, local rag thunders into the big three-oh!

THIS year “CityNews” celebrates its 30th anniversary of providing news, views and information to Canberra.

Started tentatively as a tabloid-sized, weekly paper printed on newsprint in 1993, it suffered initial setbacks in the health of its original owner, before being acquired and renamed the following year as “CityNews”.

Over the years the paper rode the economic highs and lows of Canberra, necessarily changing its publishing cycle to meet the times and at one point appearing only monthly.

But it prevailed and the decision to change the format to a glossy paper in the early 2000s anchored the emerging magazine to a weekly presence.

The early editions on file at the “CityNews” office in Mitchell reveal a busy paper with issues of small business prevalent in its editorial columns matched by support through

advertising. Many of the advertisers in those early days are still with us today. Clearly it’s been a good marketing partnership.

There was a steady mix of advertising features from local shopping centres and a gutsy editorial voice that exposed the collapsing circulation of the “Canberra Times”, thundered that Chief Minister Kate Carnell had to go and featured a mysterious, un-bylined column of political mischief called “The Whip”.

The paper moved forward with technology and, after a change in ownership to Macquarie Publishing, in the mid-2000s settled into a consistent typography and editorial style, with a strong creative emphasis on producing interesting and inspiring covers. Columns were introduced, the arts coverage boosted and the daily, breaking news moved to the website, citynews.com.au

“When I took over editorial control in 2005, the paper was a bit rough and ready,” said editor/owner Ian Meikle, himself the former editor of “The Advertiser” in Adelaide and “The Australian” in Sydney.

“My objective was to provide a ‘paid paper’ experience in a free magazine by raising the writing and presentation standards to rival the daily paper. The more we did it, the better the response from our readers. And remember, our readers are articulate and affluent people who keep us on our toes.

He said the paper’s motto, ‘Well written, well read’, kept the pressure and focus on always working to the highest professional standard.

“The regular columnists are the agenda setters for the magazine,” Meikle said.

“I have to thank Michael Moore, Jon Stanhope, Paul Costigan, Robert Macklin, Wendy Johnson, Richard Calver, Clive Williams, Nick Overall, Jackie Warburton and, more recently, Antonio Di Dio and Hugh Selby for their unswerving loyalty to the community. Added to that, arts editor Helen Musa and her incredibly loyal band of skilled reviewers. And who can take an eye off the highly original “KEEPING UP THE ACT”?

“Advertising is the lifeblood of our paper.

“It pays the wages, the overheads, the printing and the distribution. But there is a nobler role: through a decision to advertise, businesses keep an active and independent community voice alive and heard in Canberra.

“Advertising, like editorial, doesn’t come out of thin air. It is hard fought for in a competitive market.

“Our terrific general manager Tracey Avery and her sales team always act with integrity and our customers’ best interests in mind.

“Tracey is a highly experienced and respected media sales executive. She understands the power of our paper and its website, and deeply appreciates its importance in the community.”

“CityNews”

The CityNews crew from left, Kate Meikle (director), Amanda Prosser (distribution), Phil McCarroll (distribution), Penny McCarroll (distribution manager), Janis Meikle (director), Tim Spare (advertising sales), Mona Ismail (graphic design), Ian Meikle (editor), David Cusack (advertising sales), Janet Ewen (production manager), Tracey Avery (general manager) and Lily Pass (editorial). Absent: James Anderson (director), Damien Klemke (advertising sales) and Glenda Anderson (proof reader).

EDITORS typically prefer to be heard but not seen, but I figured if I was going to reluctantly be on the cover, I might as well go the whole hog and write the cover story myself.

That and overseeing the production of (I reckon) 900 consecutive covers since December, 2005 gave my pictorial presence a little kudos if not a “Guinness Book of Records” record. I checked; the actual number of weeks is 917, but along the way we’ve sometimes missed publishing an edition over Christmas and the odd Easter break. We didn’t miss a single week over the covid years (now, that’s a cover story).

I have a reasonable recall of that incredible 18-year parade of faces (mostly always faces). We’ve had heroic faces, celebrity faces, political faces, historic faces, sporty, local, happy, sad, young, old and beautiful faces. All with character and all with a story to tell. Picking favourites is like asking me for a favourite Beatles song. It depends.

Small, dirty little secret: I’m shamefully sure I’ve used the same cliched heading a couple of times, too. Australia Day covers spring to mind and I reckon I have a couple of “Young and free” in the distant past.

and free”, that mistake’s something of a collector’s item.

What’s the obsession with faces? It’s a technique I learnt ostensibly from “New Idea” and other magazines under my charge when I was CEO of Pacific Publications, Australia’s then second biggest magazine publisher. We were turning out easily more than a million magazines (“That’s Life”, “TV Hits”, “TV Week”, “Home Beautiful”, “Better Homes and Gardens” and others) a week.

It was a big, big, creative business and every magazine knew the pulling power of the cover, every editor keenly knew how much their longevity turned on producing covers that called out “look at me, pay at the counter”.

Whatever we might think of magazines such as “New Idea” these days, in earlier times (even before Princess Di) they knew how to get sales. By way of survival, “New Idea” is 121 years old this year, though its circulation is a fraction of its glorious past. It tipped over the million-a-week mark in the early ‘90s. It was at half a million when I was there a decade later and still a big hitter.

Why faces? A great magazine cover (this week notwithstanding) is one that intimately engages the reader from first glance, when your eyes meet their eyes and it creates a sub-conscious question mark: what’s that about? What’s the story? Who’s she? Is that

Being a free magazine, it’s a painless reach to get the answers.

So I look for engagement, personality and raising those question marks. One tip I got from a “New Idea” editor was never to have a beardy bloke on the cover. Men will pick up women and other men, so to speak. Women will pick up other women, but not hirsute blokes, she said. Now this isn’t an exact science and we’re a free magazine not dependent on cover sales, so the hairy guys (I had one on the cover a fortnight ago) are as welcome as hairy women.

Free or not, we build “CityNews” to the same high quality as a paid reading experience. It’s not in my professional DNA to do anything less. We make our pages “sticky” (interesting), we don’t like the noise of page-flicking. You hear it when someone is

By Lily Pass

PASSIONATE social historian, journalist (and former member for Monaro) Nichole Overall has spent the better part of the last 30 days putting together a set of special pieces, reflecting on big news events from 1993 to 2023, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “CityNews”.

She admits it has been a challenge to research and cover 30 years of local and international history, “but it has also been fascinating to go back over three decades and see what’s changed and also, as Shirley Bassey (with the Propellerheads) sang, how it’s ‘all just a little bit of history repeating’.”

“There was a lot of research, everything from scouring Trove to other physical archives including

THESE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

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“reading” a lesser-quality publication (thinks: hmmm, who could he be talking about?).

But while I bask in the achievement of so many covers, it would be remiss not to say thank you to the true creative power that drives the highest possible standard for when the ink meets the paper.

Over the time I’ve had an interest in “CityNews”, I’ve worked with two exceptional graphic designers, from whom I’ve also learned a lot.

Originally, it was Silas Brown (“snapper to the stars” I used to call him because he also ran around town taking our social photos). Silas was quiet and thoughtful. He had the advantage of taking cover photos as well as helping design the page.

He had the photographer’s gift of managing the complexity of light and the designer’s gift of making what we’ve got look great. Silas left us for a one-year wander around the world that became two. He returned as a gardener, which he cheerfully is to this day. But what a creative talent!

Likewise, his eventual successor Janet Ewen, who came to Canberra from Geelong. It was as if the universe had organised her to apply for the job. She is the embodiment of old-school newspaper/new-school magazine design. There’s not a challenge she can’t conjure up a graphically magical solution to, either for editorial or advertising clients (without whom we’d be nothing, thank you).

She has an uncanny eye for what will work, despite being scolded once by a hands-on-hip photographer for Photoshop

‘CityNews’, as well as making good use of my ample regional history library,” she says.

“While I squeezed as much as I could into 700odd words to give an overview of each year, it was never going to be possible to cover everything.

“I concentrated on some of the most reflective major headlines and the people and events that were most impactful. And, along with significant moments in local news, the quirkier snippets that make history so interesting.”

Nichole says she was also keen to keep it “fresh” by having each year differ in terms of format and what’s presented.

“Ultimately, I wanted it to be entertainingly informative – definitely not all doom and gloom – to appeal to those remembering these things, and to

swapping a pair of blinking eyes for open eyes for the cover subject (remember, the eyes have it).

She’s been managing the paper’s graphic design for a decade this year (she’s hanging out for a gold watch and I haven’t the heart to tell her…).

Janet will say she and I discuss cover photo selections. I will say Janet and I argue over photo selections. But the creative tension over nearly 500 covers is always productive and professional and fun. Sometimes she’s right (smiley face). However, we’re always the best of friends when she fires off the paper to the printer on Tuesday evenings, satisfied we’ve produced another cracker.

To all our cover subjects of the past 900 front pages, thank you for being part of our success and I hope you felt we handled your unique personna with love and care. To our future cover subjects, please know that we will always treat your image with kindness and respect.

So why does the cover really matter? I like to characterise it as the paper’s defining image for the week. It doesn’t have to be the hottest news story, but it must be of the highest quality and match the integrity and brand values of our masthead. You’ll have to forgive me for this week’s lapse; blame Janet. I am.

Ian Meikle can be heard with Rod Henshaw on the “CityNews Sunday Roast”, 9am-midday on 2CC, and with “Canberra Live” host Leon Delaney Thursdays at 3.30pm.

those who know little about them, encapsulating some of the highlights, and lowlights of our region’s experiences. Hopefully, that’s what I’ve achieved!”

“CityNews” editor Ian Meikle said the assignment played to the social historian in her, disciplined by the journalist’s looming deadline.

“As a result, it’s given her work energy as she deliberately varies the writing style. It’s an eclectic look back at the past 30 years, a history in which ‘CityNews’ has been part of.

“I’m sure readers will enjoy being reminded of the big stories of the day and some of the ones they might have missed. She’s done a brilliant job, I don’t know of anyone else who could have pulled this off so successfully and so professionally. I’ve aged 10 years trying to keep up with her!”

“CityNews” editor IAN MEIKLE reckons he’s knocked up around 900 consecutive covers over the past 18 years.

Nichole Overall goes through the final page proofs at the “CityNews” Mitchell office.

Editor Ian Meikle… “Picking favourite covers is like asking me for a favourite Beatles song. It depends.”

Souvenir feature 1993

as a “300km/h rail system that would link them in 75 minutes”).

Canberra names a suburb for the recently deceased sur geon and World War II hero Lieut-Col Sir Dunlop (85), while on Remembrance Day, November 11, a crowd of some 20,000 bear witness as the remains of the Unknown Soldier, returned from the battlefields of France, are entombed at the Australian War Memorial.

“CityNews” evolves with ever-changing times.

It’s stood tall against doomsayers portending “print is dead” with the advent of the online world, the proliferation of social media (MySpace, anyone? First major player to globally extend its cybertentacles in 2003), digital footprints, clickbait and pay-per-click. Three decades on and here it is, still going strong. Dispensing informed content that, if it can be found elsewhere, usually comes at a price. Thirty years developing a masthead that’s become a known and trusted brand, an integral part of the Canberra landscape. It was 1993 when it all began, and so let us begin at the beginning in looking back at some of the highlights – and lowlights – of what was soaking up our attention locally …

indigenous peoples to traditional lands after the Mabo decision of the previous year.

With the grisly discovery of five mutilated bodies in Belanglo State Forest following two others found in the same location, calls arise for the unsolved disappearance and murders of four

and venues; the future of popular Summernats is in question with ACT Attorney-General Terry Connolly stating the focus shouldn’t be “the boobs, the booze and burn-outs”; and on Australia’s winning bid for the 2000 Olympics, hope of “improved transport links” between Canberra and Sydney (such

At month’s end, a gun-wielding maintenance supervisor crashes his ute bearing wired gas bottles through the front doors of the six-storey Jolimont Centre in the heart of Civic. Sparked by a failed relationship, the sole victim of his rampage. As 1993 draws to a close, Federal politicking is again forefront with a scandal enmeshing the electorate of Canberra erupting. It would come to be known as the “Sports Rorts Affair”.

Paul Keating and his cabinet.

Photo: National Archives of Australia

Jolimont Centre siege.

Connolly.

, January 26, Sydney: 23-year-old student David Kang fires two blanks at the Prince of Wales in protest about Cambodian asylum seekers; NSW Premier John Fahey and Australian of the Year Ian Kiernan protect the king-in-waiting.

GATEWAY TO THE FUTURE

Tech geek Bill Gates stages a record-breaking National Press Club address prophesying the next stage of the information revolution: “the super-highway”.

Celebrating years 30

FINALLY, KELLY PULLS THE PLUG

“Sport Minister Ros Kelly’s $30 million sports rorts grants program [has been] an easy money scheme attracting fraud like flies around a carcass.”

Auditor-General John Taylor

Done on a “great big whiteboard” – hence, “no records” – Minister Kelly resigns from federal cabinet due to accusations of “maladministration” of grants. Less than a year later, having served as the Member for Canberra since 1980, she’d announce her exit from parliament. Liberal Brendan Smyth (yes, THAT Brendan Smyth) will be her successor – at least until the federal election a year later.

“CANBERRA’S FIFTH TOWN, JERRABOMBERRA”

Consideration of Jerrabomberra as the

these priorities under my leadership to put up or shut up.”

John Hewson, May 21

LOCAL TRAGEDY

In early July, a well-regarded Queanbeyan flying instructor and two Canberra students are killed in a Piper Arrow which crashes in the Southern Highlands. It’s one of a number of Australian air disasters for the year includ -

wealth Games in Canada and the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, including 21-year-old multiple-medal Paralympian Michael Milton of Canberra.

“SMH” 9.30pm, Monday, September 5

John Newman, NSW Labor Member for Cabramatta and anti-drug/crime campaigner, is shot outside his home; a political

Mal Meninga’s grand

“Our mission is the same as it was when I started the business almost 30 years ago; keep quality timber out of landfill.”

– Thor Diesendorf (Founder & Director of Thor‘s Hammer)

final Raiders.

Ros Kelly.

Smyth.

Hewson.

Souvenir feature 1995

Chief Minister (1989) and first woman to serve as an Australian head honcho – are replaced by a minority Liberal, Kate Carnell -led outfit. During the election countdown, “The Canberra Times” dreams up “The Smith Poll”: “A random sample of 50 Smiths, taken from the about 900 Smith phone-book listings in Canberra”. Along with suggesting politicians should try listening to the peo -

Goulburn? Arising from water supply issues in the old regional city, former Premier John Fahey even weighed in: “no logic in having a government the size of the ACT’s for such a limited population” (still hovering around 300,000 despite early aspirations it would reach at least a half a mill by the 1980s).

On the other side of the boundary fence, an ACT government report says population growth should be contained to protect habitats from urban sprawl.

And in one of the most high-profile, controversial crimes to ever burden Canberra, former public servant David Eastman is convicted of the assassination of AFP Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester in 1989.

ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND

Thousands of timber industry workers descend on Canberra in protest of major changes to native-forest logging, some 300 trucks blockading entrances to Parliament House.

ELECTRIC BIKES FROM $1000

multi-million deals with Rupert Murdoch’s contentious new Superleague. When the Australian World Cup squads are announced, a number of them aren’t on the list. Meanwhile, three-times Australian rally champion and Tuggeranong mechanic Bates wins the Rally of Canberra on his seventh attempt.

SOCIALS

“[Canberra] looked like a pretty boring place – until you guys turned up”, Eddie Vedder,

Zoo, after 21 years the family closes the gates and farewells its menagerie.

A 1995 collectable card of Ricky Stuart and Laurie Daley.

1996

Celebrating years 30

HOWARD’S MASSACRE

Huge NSW swing destroys Keating

“The Sun-Herald”, March 3

After 13 years keeping the Opposition benches warm, “Lazarus with a triple bypass” John Howard leads the Coalition back with one of the most significant majorities since World War II (45 seats). Almost immediately Howard faces one of our nation’s greatest ever tests.

the safe Labor seat a 19.3-point haircut.

BEAZLEY WALKS A TIGHTROPE

Kim Beazley faces a hard time in winning back traditional support while distancing Labor from increasing union militancy

Geoff Kitney, “SMH”, March 15

The Coalition wins state elections in Tasmania, Victoria and WA. In Queensland, Labor barely hung on in ’95. In an extraordinary upset, a win in Mundingburra by just 16 votes

ho Wayne Goss from the premier’s office.

AND WELCOME TO TELEVISION

40 years of Australian TV

September 16

It was 1956 when Bruce Gyngell welcomed viewers to TCN-9 Sydney’s first broadcast (one of the very first interviewees in early programming: Mrs Edna Everage, of Moonee Ponds). It took six years for the first ACT station to go to air – CTC-TV (Super 7, Capital 7, 10 TV Australia,

Canberra who are contemplating installing TV sets”. (In an historical coup, CTC pioneered colour tellie in 1974!).

CLINTON’S ROCK-STAR WELCOME

Protest and passion marked LBJ and Bush visits

“The Spokesman Review”, Washington,

September 20

November and America’s 42nd President Bill Clinton gets a rock-star welcome for a

eye”, they only narrowly miss a finals berth in their inaugural year and within five years are Super 12 Champions.

CHALLENGE TO EUTHANASIA

Potential for the NT’s legislation to be blocked

Innes Willox, “The Age”, June 26

An issue already advanced in the ACT by independent Michael Moore, the successful vote in NT becomes a federal flashpoint.

The ACT Brumbies team of 1996.

Souvenir feature 1997

wreckage. (In 2012, Diver is appointed opera tions manager of the Thredbo Ski Resort).

With Ivan Milat serving seven life terms, when a third woman goes missing from Claremont in Perth, police confirm they are investigating the prospect of another serial killer.

Closer to home, in October, Bega is rocked when two young schoolgirls disappear, only to be found murdered. Two Yass men are arrested after a car they stole in Canberra is

ity party the Australian Democrats, whips up a political maelstrom on her defection to Labor. The rumour mill is in overdrive but it’s much later that the influence of her relationship with Labor’s Deputy Leader Gareth Evans is revealed.

So too, the wonders of technology

in three Canberra homes”, “you’ve got mail” means “you’ve got a virus”; the first ever, ShareFun, sharing its “fun” by emailing itself to everyone on your contacts list.

Financial hits as well: the “Asian contagion” stock market crash, most significant in a decade, and a threat to Australian icon Arnotts with biscuits removed from ACT, NSW and Queensland shelves following an extortion

attempt claiming tampered packets contain enough pesticide “to kill a small child”.

But for every challenging challenge, as Stuart Diver proved, there were moments to say “that sky’s fantastic”.

One of the brightest spots for the ACT, its blossoming as “cultural capital”, even earning a “Canberra Cultural Authority”. On the bustling program – the relaunch of arts magazine Muse, new appointments for the

National Gallery and the Canberra School of Music, plans for a new Playhouse for the Canberra Theatre and preparations for the opening of the new Canberra Museum and Gallery, the Tuggeranong Arts Centre and capitalising on the National Multicultural Festival, kicked off in 1996.

To wrap the year, the words of Zidler, impresario of the Moulin Rouge in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film: “everything’s going so well …”

Wednesday 25 October

Experience a red carpet event with drinks, canapes and live music, all in celebration of one of Australia’s leading ballet companies. Black tie optional (definitely encouraged)!

Princess Diana… when time stood still. Landslide survivor Stuart Diver. Photo: AP Katie Bender… killed by debris. Cheryl Kernot… defects to Labor.

be re-elected with this stance. Since then, I’ve been re-elected three times.”

At the end of the year, John Howard and the Coalition are returned.

“Kim [Beazley] actually did fairly well in the campaign but was bested by Howard, whose advisers, in a stroke of political genius, had him spend the entire year in Cleveland. The person you thought was Howard was an exhumed Benny Hill on Viagra.”

Peter Ruehl, Sunday Telegraph, December 31

ing in NSW with ‘Feel the Power of Canberra’ on my number plate.”

Bob Woodman, O’Connor, letters, “The Canberra Times”

Reinstated CM Carnell floats prospective sale of ACTEW.

“… maybe the new ACT number plates should read Sell the Power”.

Peter Willmott, Watson, letters, “The Canberra Times”

is officially marked on the anniversary of the inquiry into the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children by governments and authorities.

“Many see an apology to the “Stolen Generations” as an essential part of the

Albury crashes in the Snowy Mountains, killing all six on board including four highly regarded doctors.

“Reported weather conditions… suggest that Mt Jagungal was probably covered by cloud and the pilot may have been unaware of his proximity to the mountain peak.”

Australian Transport Safety Bureau, September 24, 1999

Abroad, in an episode right out of the concluding “Seinfeld”, Bill Clinton neither

The 50th anniversary of Holden – as Ben Chifley had opined, “She’s a beauty”; they’ll release a one-off VT Commodore coupe, the first two-door Holden since the Monaro.

“The Monaro was indeed named for the Monaro.”

Nichole Overall, former Member for Monaro

Michael Moore… Australia’s first independent health minister.

Souvenir feature 1999

Hoovering up headlines, a two-part constitutional referendum (say, what?): Australia to become a republic with a president plus a preamble recognising [to paraphrase]: “The nation’s first people, generations of immigrants, our unique environment and equal opportunity for all”.

It’s unsuccessful (about 55-60 per cent no to 40-45 per cent yes).

STATE OF THE WORLD

Kosovo/Serbian conflict; Putin as prime minister / president and “the destruction of Grozny”; Turkey’s

Steve Bracks replaces Jeff Kennett in Victoria.

Premiers horse-trade tax revenue for that never-tobe-introduced GST.

STATE OF THE TERRITORY

“A decade of self-government – or, one year 10 times” opines incisive “CityNews” politico, Jane Lee

While “The Canberra Times” crows about its circulation, “CityNews” points out the opposite.

“The only missing element from a decade ago is any serious coverage by ‘The Canberra Times’ of local affairs.

O’Malley” – “focusing on the colourful character” of “the Minister who defended the selection of Canberra as the site for the National Capital”.

“Loose with the truth” might be more apt: claimed he was Canadian to get into parliament but actually American so should never have been able to do any of what he did!

Progress for the “heart of the nation”: the Sydney and Melbourne Buildings to return to their “former focus and identity”, a “$110m facelift for [the] City”, while The Dome (Australian Academy of Science Becker House) gets a facelift for the 2001 Australian Science Festival.

ing the size of the boat harbour… The historically significant Kingston Power House, one of Canberra’s first permanent structures, will become the centrepiece of a cultural precinct”.

Community concerns include “the long-term viability of the project”.

AND TO KICK OFF THE 21ST CENTURY

November 19, 1999 - every digit is an odd number (19/11/1999), something that won’t happen again until the year 3111.

the first broadcast in 1923, Australians have had a long love affair with radio”, pointed out Susan Oliver, Chair of the newly renamed ScreenSound.

“This is 2CA Canberra operated by A J Ryan Broadcasters Limited. Operating on a wavelength of 286 metres” – so introduces Canberra’s first broadcaster, Jack Ryan, in 1931.

“At 7am on Friday, 31 October 1975, Canberra’s ‘long overdue and ‘long awaited’ second commercial radio station 2CC began

Celebrating years 30

talk”.

“A structure which has stood the test of time and continues to not only play a functional role but adds to Canberra’s heritage as a cultural symbol”, the Carillon, a 1970 gift from Britain for the capital’s Golden Jubilee, gets a 25-year award from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

“A circus-style, black Big Top… a world first for major touring productions” – the “CATS” spectacle comes to town (a day-anda-half set up, 150 crew, seating up to 2000).

water and sewerage services management”.

“The ACT government was already taking action to avoid the scenarios” says ACT Urban Services Minister Brendan Smyth on a CSIRO global warming study.

“Do they want to retain the option of resuming your land or do they just want to tax you to renew a lease on what you thought you already owned?” – not a question on Calvary

World War II Bangka Island Massacre of 21 Army nurses, passes away at 84.

But in the blockbuster news of 2000 …

The Torch being relayed to Canberra as part of the upcoming Sydney Olympics isn’t the only local heat.

CM Kate

been cavalier in its attitude to the warnings”.

And the “Bruce Stadium fiasco”. “Carnell went back to the Assembly for approval for an extra $27 million after maintaining previously that the taxpayer contribution to the upgrade would be capped at $12 million”. The project ultimately cost $82 million. And so despite that glowing headline of only two months ago, before a noconfidence motion gets up, “Clever Kate” makes her exit from “Clever Canberra”.

Chief Minister Kate Carnell. Jack Ryan… the marvel of radio. Bullwinkel.

Souvenir feature 2001

Another outcome: a need for a new Federal Capital; NSW Premier George Reid insistent it remained within his state (you’re welcome, Canberra).

Eden-Monaro was among the original 75 electorates created at the time – Sir Austin Chapman, of Braidwood, the first member and one of the longest serving (dying while still in office 25 years later).

One hundred years on, in a continuation of E-M having earned a rep as a seat that goes with the government of the day, in the

resign”.

It was also the election featuring “the shortest political career on record”.

Former footballer Mal Meninga , on radio to answer why he was running as an independent for Molonglo (a la,

Paul Osborne), within a minute, flames out mid-sentence. But fair cop, as someone once told me, it is a tough gig…

In other parochial headlines, the new National Museum, for which a hospital was disastrously imploded, opens, and Floriade

celebrates its 13th year and the Federation anniversary with “The Century in Bloom”.

Media-wise, Canberra had lost its local weekend TV news by 1995 (and 30 staff their jobs) and now its first station, CTC/Ten Capital, axes its weekly news hour, ending 40

became almost as well-read as the Bible; around 70,000 people nominate “Jedi” on the Census religion question; and the Holden Monaro is reintroduced, “a nameplate on hiatus since 1977” (see 1998).

And then on that fateful date, on this side of the globe, we turned on our TVs in the early hours of the morning, barely able to believe what we were seeing.

Phillip Mazda would like to congratulate Ian and Kate Meikle and their hardworking team at the CityNews for their outstanding achievement of reaching a thirty year anniversary milestone.

Phillip Mazda, as a proud member of the Rolfe Motor Group share that history of continued long-term success after commencing in the late 1970’s.

It is not easy negotiating the peaks and troughs of business, satisfying clients, employees and business partners but when you find the formula, it makes your working life far more pleasurable on so many levels.

We look forward to sharing in the next thirty years of life in the nation’s capital alongside City News and although we don’t know what that will bring, we are up for the challenge.

World Trade Centre, 9/11.

Photo: AWM

Nairn.

Meninga.

Bradman.

Celebrating years 30

were regularly spotted taking in the sights of Canberra, the pair immortalised outside the Parkes building also named for the RAAF ex-serviceman and “non-conformist” who became PM following the watery disappearance of Harold Holt in 1967.

“The Castle” (1997) became embedded in our collective psyche, “Kath & Kim” enters our cultural consciousness, right up there with the gladioli-waving Dame herself. One of the ABC’s most popular shows, when it moved to Seven, the premiere episode was the highest-rating in Aussie TV history.

many royal visits: the first in 1954 when HRH opened parliament, to celebrating Canberra’s own 50th in 1963, and setting hearts aflutter in Queanbeyan in 1977, long-serving mayor Fred Land all suitably officious in robes, chains and not a skerrick of a smile, no doubt feeling very Menzies-like.

Speaking of passing by, with the waning influence of the country’s “largest minority party”, the Australian Democrats (formed 1977), the political ground begins to shift once more. The Australian Greens wins its first seat in the House of Representatives when Michael

a “redevelopment of the AIS arena to bring it up to the modern standards expected by teams, players and fans”. Federal Labor promised $15 million at the last election, and another “$40 to $50 million” should do the trick… a ghost of Bruce Stadium past, anyone?

Alexander Campbell.

Photo: AWM

The Queen’s Golden Jubilee 2002.

Canberra Cannons player Robert Rose.

Photo: NLA

Statue of John Gorton and his Kelpie-cross, Suzie.

“Kath & Kim”

Souvenir feature 2003

quake (magnitude of 7 or higher) could be a major catastrophe, the rumbling underfoot this time around is a mild 1.4 magnitude (NB: 2012 will register a 3.7 event at Wee Jasper).

Far more seriously, the nation’s capital faces its greatest natural disaster and potentially most physically and emotionally scarring challenge.

For one hundred years, the “Federation Drought” of 1895 to 1903 was considered the most destructive since European

agriculturalist from Tharwa, William Farrer, helped pull us back from the brink, inventing rust and drought-resistant strains of wheat, significantly bolstering production (his contribution acknowledged on a stamp and the original $2 note, pictured).

But in 2003, having commenced two

“tinder dry”.

Locally, hot, humid, windy weather.

Lightning strikes in the high country to the ACT’s south-west ignite it; for the “bush capital”, there’s a heightened risk.

Over more than a week, fires slowly build then roar towards an imaginary and meaningless boundary dividing rural and urban. Fuelled by too much fuel, too little

an-hour winds. A thunderstorm of conflagra tion – a “fire tornado”. Unprecedented hence, unpredictable.

Suburbs surrounded. Skies the colour of hell. Night and day are barely distinguish able.

Cooling conditions see it shape-shift to a skerrick of its fury. More quickly than it arrived, its force is sapped.

One stark day, some 500 properties, four losing their lives.

Historic Mt Stromlo Observatory reduced

hurt and displaced. Still though, they rally. Hearts broken but spirits strong. Canberra will never quite be the same again.

Over more than a week, fires slowly build then roar towards Canberra.

Mount Stromlo Observatory burnt-out remains a year after the 2003 fires.

2004

Celebrating years 30

Was a “full-on blokey” handshake really his undoing? Mark Latham’s had more political transformations than the proverbial cat has lives (mayor of Liverpool when 30, wins Werriwa by-election two years later, second youngest leader of federal Labor Party by 42, beating Kim Beazley, and all the stuff since) but was it that pre-election encounter with John Howard that saw him miss his opportunity to be crowned political king – or did voters already have him pegged?

also have fallen foul of the Section 44 “dual citizenship” fiasco having actually been born in Chile as Johan Tanck – a Parliament House memorial unveiled by Chilean President Patricio Aylwin declaring as much).

ACT gets its politicians for four-years at a time and first-ever majority government under Labor’s Jon Stanhope

Brief Chief Minister, Gary Humphries (2000-2001) is the only candidate for the

Bird by name and nature: 89-year-old pioneer female aviator Nancy-Bird Walton – “the Angel of the Outback” – visits the National Museum where her story features in an exhibition in the “Eternity” gallery and includes her famous green leather flying helmet and goggles (a fully qualified pilot at 19 and youngest Australian woman to gain a pilot’s licence).

Ancient site of the first modern Olympics

40 years after mankind first reached Mars (at least, human-generated robots to search for “signs of past life”), rovers Spirit and Opportunity arrive to rove the Red Planet for a few years.

In some of Australia’s most incomprehensible crimes, Katherine Knight was the first woman in the nation’s history to receive a life sentence without parole (2000) having stabbed her partner 37 times, then

and 11 life sentences. This year, a fourth man involved is convicted on five counts of assisting with the murders.

26 Australians are killed in the devastating Boxing Day Tsunami (some 290,000 in total), including a six-month old baby swept from her father’s arms and Magdalene Balachandra (61) of Canberra, the mini-van she was travelling in struck by a wave. Magdalene was in Sri Lanka for a family reunion.

FAITHFULLY WITH YOU, EVERY STEP OF THE WAY

THAT handshake… Mark Latham greets John Howard. Margaret Reid. Magdalene Balachandra. Victory… Jon Stanhope wins for Labor. Photo: ABC News

Souvenir feature 2005

one of Canberra’s oldest (since 1990), scoring a 2005 national AHA Award for Excellence to prove it.

Australians watching “Meet the Fockers” and “Border Security” (though the 2005 Australian Open Men’s Singles, the most popular in Australian broadcast history), locally there’s the 9th Canberra International Film Festival while the Canberra Short Film Festival is 10 (Youth Prize shout-out to Ana R Dominick’s “Dead Shift: A Romantic

Maritime Incident: the sinking of SIEV X”.

In the news

The bipartisan bill to abolish ATSIC passes; the Bali Nine are arrested in Indonesia for drug smuggling; Hurricane Katrina is engulfing New Orleans (resulting in almost 1400 deaths), the “Kings of Australian television”, Graham Kennedy (71) and Kerry Packer (68) bow out, and the Cronulla Race Riots break out.

way the ACT has of conferring it on the likes sports teams and organisations rather than just creating a different category).

Arts & Artistic Endeavours

Spoiler alert: Dumbledore dies.

The Canberra School of Music is 40. Initially in Manuka, the Department of Interior noting “the need to establish centres for art and music study in the national capital”. Its ANU Llewellyn Hall, 1976, named for its first

Brew Your Own At Home

berra School of Art – its home, the graceful former Canberra High School building – to form the Canberra Institute of the Arts, then the ANU Institute of the Arts in ’92).

The ACT Honour Walk recognising individuals and groups that “have helped to shape the city of Canberra” is unveiled. Inaugural recipients include the Canberra Philharmonic Society (1951), historian Manning Clark, and Cooma-born, internationally recognised poet and essayist A.D. Hope.

becomes NSW’s longest serving Premier – and resigns two months later.

In 2005, HMAS Canberra II (1981) is decommissioned, its scuttled shipwreck set to eventually become the first artificial reef in Victoria.

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Anthony Callea.

Bob Carr.

Kerry Packer.

Graham Kennedy.

‘BURIED

ALIVE IN BEACONSFIELD’

In earthquakes of a more momentous nature, three miners are trapped in a goldmine in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. Two are discovered alive after six days, the third killed by rockfall. Two weeks later, Brant Webb and , emerge from their almosttomb, 925 metres below ground.

Prominent “60 Minutes” journo Richard also dies while covering the event.

In this year, 2006…

Chamberlains Law Firm was created in its modern form, under the guidance of Managing Director Stipe Vuleta.

As a small office with a dozen staff in Braddon, Chamberlains has grown to over 100 staff in Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, Perth and Braidwood offices.

No matter how big Chamberlains has become, Canberra has always been our home.

In 2022 Chamberlains Law Firm proudly hoisted our sign onto our building at 224 Bunda Street, which shines brightly over the heart of the city.

Four days later, motor racing legend “king of the mountain” Peter Brock , pictured, dies while driving in the Targa West ‘06 rally.

from the clutches of her kidnapper, Wolfgang Přiklopil

‘AUSTRALIA’S FINEST SPORTING ACHIEVEMENT?’

Not referring to the record Australian medal tally for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, football (aka soccer) is the sport in the spotlight. Sydney FC win the inaugural A-League Grand Final and the Socceroos play their first World Cup match in 32 years

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‘WIKILEAK DOCUMENT DUMP DISASTER’

The release of the first of numerous anonymous, classified documents. “Sending shock waves round the globe”, “news about WikiLeaks quickly superseded the leak itself”… and so begins probably the most sensational leaks/spy/covert intelligence download in the history of the planet, on everything from the film industry to war and peace.

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Bill Stefaniak.

Lincoln Hall.

Tim Cahill.

Steve Irwin.

Miners Todd Russell, left, and Brant Webb, centre, emerge from two weeks trapped nearly a kilometre underground.

Photo: Ian Waldie/AP

Souvenir feature 2007

watering lawns – even poor old plants only a dash of greywater at intervals.

MARCH

Happy birthday you, Big Beautiful Bridge! The 75th for one of the great engineering marvels of the world, Sydney Harbour’s ultimate adornment.

APRIL

States and territories want “harmonisation”

Audrey Fagan, 44, having served 26 years with the AFP and recipient of the 2004 Australian Police Medal, takes her own life following a review of the treatment of detainees in Canberra police cells.

MAY

In growing artistic argy-bargy, the Chief Big Wig, Jon Stanhope, really stokes the fire with the unveiling of a $72,000 life-size statue of Al Grassby, controversial former Whitlam Minister for Immigration (and the Mafia, ac-

Japanese freighter Pasha Bulker spends 25 days where it shouldn’t be – on a Newcastle beach, stranded after freak storms. In a local nod, Queanbeyan nicknames its unusual new state office building after the ship.

JULY

Honouring those who serve and protect the “Australian Capital Territory and the nation”, a plaque is dedicated to No. 28 City of Canberra RAAF Squadron, formed in 1983,

OCTOBER

2006 Census analysis reveals “there are more cars on Canberra’s roads than ever before”.

Forrest has the highest rent/mortgage repayments ($416pw/$2817pm), Queanbeyan’s median rental 29 per cent less than the ACT at $185pw (no aspersions to be cast, thank you!). Canberra also boasts the highest sports participation rate in the country, walking the most popular recreation activity (and clearly needing to drive to where they’re

were killed in crossfire in the East Timor invasion, an inquiry determines they were murdered by Indonesian troops to prevent disclosure of the conflict.

“Kevin ’07” defeats John W Howard for the main prize – Labor even taking the second-longest serving PM’s own seat of Bennelong.

Brendan Nelson becomes Chief Opposer, three votes more than Mal Turnbull; Julie Bishop his faithful deputy (for now, at any rate), and first female in the role.

...but our exhibits ...but our exhibits ...but our exhibits are millennia older. are millennia older. are millennia older.

We may be We may be We may be 30 years old... 30 years old... 30 years old...

Audrey Fagan.

Life-size statue of Al Grassby.

2008

Celebrating years 30

says sorry to the “Stolen Generation”.

3. Benedict XVI bestows blessings on his first Australian papal visit.

(NB: Predecessor John Paul II came to Canberra in 1986 and while the Pope-mobile never made it to Queanbeyan, in 1973 when still Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, he popped over to say hi to locals at the town’s Polish Club).

4. GFC: the letters indicating near worldwide economic meltdown. The

5. troops were sent to Iraq, Australia’s combat soldiers came home.

6. Barack Obama: first African-American president in US history.

7. ACT school closures are still a sore point but Labor is re-elected in yet another minority government.

Four Greens include Shane Rattenbury

Opposition in 2001, a member has crossed the floor to become an independent, the Liberals have, for years, been a road accident that no-one can take their eyes off”.

After a 45-year career with 2CA, the ABC and WIN News (1991-2007), Canberra media personality Peter Leonard dies from mesothelioma.

Joan Sutherland’s launch, the notorious Petrov Royal Commission, a rumoured ghost and rowdy public meetings

Rees (then youngest person to secure it at 40 years, 206 days).

13. Two Australians are killed in the Mumbai terrorism attacks, some of the worst since 9/11.

14. Missing since they were sunk in a 1941 “mutually destructive engagement”, the wrecks of the HMAS Sydney (all 645 hands lost) and the German raider Kormoran (317 of its 397 crew rescued) are discovered.

berra and Homemaker Hub and Direct Factory Outlets Canberra – DFO” (unfortunately re-named the Canberra Outlet Centre, “COC”, following its 2013 take-over) finally opens.

20. A very Canberran “mini-Y2K” moment on the ACT aligning daylight saving (first Sunday in October to first Sunday in April), leading to “computer systems, mobile phones and even the “time man” incorrectly [adjusting] the time back one hour”.

Sharing the care for 30 years

Shiny and new… the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

Photo: Andrew Finch Doszpot.

Tim Overall.

Souvenir feature 2009

Bloke in charge of the “Other Side”, Malcolm Turnbull, invoking another bloke who’s to become moderately infamous, Godwin Grech, declares PM Kevin Rudd and his sidekick, Treasurer Wayne Swan, have told porkypies in Parliament about dodgy dealings involving a ute used to promo the now PM in his big ’07 push. Thing is, high-handed Turnbull is, well, wrong. Embarrassingly so. The paper-thin paper trail is exposed as a fraud.

Inevitably, the revolving door on all things party political revolves once more: Libs get their third leader in what seems three minutes. (2007, Brendan Nelson

it’s Tony Abbott’s turn to wrest it from Turnbull – for at least another three minutes).

Similarly in NSW, Kristina Keneally is sworn in as the first female Premier of NSW, having taken the numbers and the reins from Premier Nathan Rees – who took over on Morris Iemma’s resignation only the year before. Queensland gets its first elected female Premier on the success of Labor’s Anna Bligh

“an unprecedented need to borrow $400 million”.

The release of 1979 federal cabinet papers reveal serious consideration was given to advanced security technology when it came to what would be “new” Parlia ment House. Concerns discussed included terrorists superglueing door locks, clogging up sewer outlets and, most chillingly, changing signs “to disrupt traffic around the building” (not kidding). Need for a “custom-built bomb shelter” would be shelved though, scaled down to just a handy basement bunker (that will need to be finished off sometime in the future).

With hearing aids on, do

Black Saturday fires, during and after… The worst peacetime disatser since cyclone Mahina in 1899.

Skyfire fireworks.

Kristina Keneally.

Mark Webber.

2010

Celebrating years 30

did Queanbeyan – the Queen even popping in to visit their Hall in 1977.

All up, it’s something of the Year of Women generally.

Basketball superstar Lauren Jackson, having joined the Canberra Capitals (est. 1984) in 1999, leads the dominant Women’s National Basketball League team, under the continued guidance of coach Carrie Graf, to an eighth finals win. Named MVP, Jackson announces she’s leaving Canberra to further pursue her international career.

More earthly female power is flexed. Julia Gillard ascends the Prime Ministerial throne, knave Kevin ’07 exiting stage left. As the first woman to hold the position, 27th PM Gillard also faces the voting public for their verdict (it’s a bit so-so).

Voters among the newly confirmed ABS figure of more than 22 million of us produce a hung parliament (72 seats apiece and first since 1940). And it’s the blokes who’ll make the call: Independents Katter, Oakeshott, Wilkie and Windsor. PM Gillard is duly crowned.

the Liberals’ Stuart Ayres wins the Penrith by-election with an eye-watering – and record-breaking –swing of 25.7 points.

A Canberra boy is also getting attention: James Hird 20th greatest player of all time” – moves from roving midfielder to coach, taking on the AFL club with whom he

For the decade prior, great swathes of the continent had literally been sucked dry due to the “Millennium Drought”.

And then the rains came. And boy, do

First, record inundations in Queensland affecting some 90 towns and more than 200,000 people, eventually, 33 deaths.

North-western NSW and Victoria also cop it (even claims there was such “colossal quantities… the world’s sea levels actually

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Julia Gillard being sworn in as prime minister by Quentin Bryce.

James Hird.

Queanbeyan’s great flood of 2010.

Souvenir feature 2011

“unremembered” bottle of wine).

In contrast, the ACT is all over the genderbalance thing – yet another female Chief Minister elected: Katy Gallagher, following Jon Stanhope’s exit having clinched the title of longest-serving (though lucked out on one of his much-loved statues it seems).

Apocalypse, then? – flooding across Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland, followed up in the Sunshine State with Tropical Cyclone Anthony. Meanwhile, Perth is beset by bushfires. And there’ll be another govern -

ment levy added for that; you’re welcome, Australia.

Canberra’s quirkiness on show once more – a coin commemorating itself, the Big New House on one side, on the other, a kangaroo apparently flattening a second kangaroo (though not in the better known Boxing style) …

In a second such mystery, “Penis Owl” dominates the Belconnen skyline – only ever intended to be a bird says artist Bruce

Armstrong, his inspiration the collective noun for a bunch of them: that is, a “parliament of owls” … Showing how much they love us, Lizzie and Phil visit Canberra again (14th time, mind you) – just missing almost-as-popular Prez Obama when he visits for the 60th ANZUS alliance back-slapping.

Also over from the UK, British Chancellor of the Exchequer and Minister in the governments of the Iron Lady herself and

her successor John Major, Lord Norman Lamont , for a chat at the National Press Club on the EU’s problem of having “too many opinions”.

We become World Champs in netball – by one point against arch-rivals in everything, New Zealand.

But not football, Matildas out of the Women’s World Cup, thanks, Sweden (but our “Golden Girls” will be back!).

Generating tears of a different kind – the

50th anniversary of Canberra’s second worst air disaster: in 1961 the city was shocked when a Viscount Airliner on its way to the capital crashed into Botany Bay. Fifteen passengers and crew were killed, nine of whom, ACT residents.

And Australia’s oldest ever passes away – Miriam Schmierer at 112, equalling the record of Myra “Nicky” Nicholson, of Victoria, made her long-awaited entrance to the Pearly Gates in 2007.

The Queen and Prince Philip arrive at Floriade…

Miriam Schmierer, 112, departs… … and that owl in Belconnen.

Barry O’Farrell.

2012 Celebrating years 30

rather large margin of 71 to 31. Rather than a much-needed end of days, this giddy trip will keep on spinning into the following year.

On the subject of spin, PMG’s big announcement is cutting the cost of electricity for households by – wait for it – $250! Bills won’t come down until at least 2014 (post election) and the plan does require significant market reform (is there an echo in here?).

In case we’re not dizzy enough yet, in Queensland, Campbell Newman fronting

sees Labor whirled out the door, Terry Mills and the Country Liberal Party getting back on the horse.

In the other Territory, Labor just manages to hold on: Katy Gallagher gets past a hung parliament with the helpful vote of ACT Greens MLA, Shane “All By Myself” Rattenbury (the golden carrot, a handful of ministerial portfolios and support for no less than 100 Greens policies).

Queen-maker or no, it was a comedown for the ACT Greens from four Assembly

may have “influenced” outcomes, they shouldn’t have cultivated false praise for the likes of “almost $50 million in increased funding for mental health services” and “increased investment in ACT housing”. Cheering the parochial pollies up though, in a clear reflection of all their great work (ahem), the Marion Mahony Griffin Lecture on Canberra as “a modern planned capital city”, sees it described by president of the illustrious Twentieth Century International Scientific Committee Sheridan Burke as

a higher order, Anglicans gain a bishop and the Catholics lose one.

Genieve Blackwell of the Canberra and Goulburn Diocese, is appointed NSW’s first female Anglican bishop while the other side’s equivalent, Pat Power, retires. Born in

“social justice warrior” chairing an inquiry highlighting the growing issue of poverty and inequality in the ACT (2000). And in the most sobering moment of the year, another vindication in the most infamous (though tragically, certainly not singular) miscarriage of justice in Australian legal history: a fourth coronial inquest on the 1980 disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain from an Uluru campsite rules that mother, Lindy, was accurate in proclaiming “a dingo’s got my baby”.

GWS Giants AFL team scored their first win in Canberra at Manuka oval.

Michael Chamberlain stands alongside Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton as she holds Azaria’s amended death certificate, 2012. Photo: NMA

Pat Power.

Souvenir feature 2013

“Our great Commonwealth Australia

Founded her new home From God’s good earth there came the birth Of our Capital our own”.

For this 100th milestone, a world premiere by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (itself now 63 years old), of the specially commissioned “Symphony No. 3 – Century” by Andrew Schultz

Parties, monuments and exhibitions abound – the biggest musical on the planet, “Phantom of the Opera”, even comes to

period piece ‘Anna Karenina’, military thriller ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’”.

Its name’s a nod to former local cinematic icon, family-run, independent Electric Shadows (1979-2006, first film Monty Python’s “Pleasure at Her Majesty’s”, the last was “Volver”). The architecturally-distinctive Center Cinema of the 1960s had closed in 2003, reinvigorated a year later as the Academy nightclub).

“A passing era, not only in Canberra’s

The official cash rate is reduced to its lowest level in more than 50 years (2.75 per cent).

Adam Giles becomes leader of the NT’s Country Liberal Party and Chief Minister making him Australia’s first indigenous head of government.

In our capital territory, the government earns ire for not grassing Kingston businesses, “Green Square” no longer, while ACT Liberal leader since 2007, Zed Seselja, controversially overthrows Gary Humphries in a run as an ACT senator. Jeremy Hanson

workers was due to “inadequate training, safety and supervision” and that warnings “were ignored”.

At the end of 2012, PM Julia Gillard delivered her “misogyny speech”, reverberating around the world, and while readying to take on the bloke she’d levelled it at, she instead has to contend with another attempted leadership coup.

Would-be comeback kid Kevin Rudd though, chickens out. Then.

Three months on, he’s back. First job:

Michael Moore’s political Nostradamusing on Big Kev being re-returned as PM turns out as accurate as political professor Peter Van Onselen’s later prognosticating. As does Robert Macklin’s on “why Kevin was never coming back”

It’s the pugilistic “Mad Monk”, Tony Abbott , who becomes “first among equals”. When it comes to more accurate future forecasts – the ACT passes the Marriage Equality Act 2013, first Australian state/territory to legalise same-sex marriage, but…

“Phantom of the Opera”. Jeremy Hanson. Julia Gillard.

“Tony Abbott the least popular PM in 25 years”

“The New Daily”

Still on popularity – or death – the Fed Libs more biff than Marty McFly : PM Tony Abbott and Deputy Julie Bishop neck-and-neck at 20 per cent (or, 80 per cent unlikeability); Malcolm Turnbull marginally more respectable at 35; Scott Morrison a paltry 3 per cent. If ever there was a political horoscope…

Celebrating years 30

years, Jay Weatherill’s government barely weathers their election, just clinging to a fourth-term of power.

“Victorian election 2014: Dan Andrews is now in a real jam”

“The Herald-Sun”

Labor’s social capital will up considerably on the rise of “Teflon” Dan Andrews, defeating Denis Napthine’s one-term Liberal government (not seen at state level since 1955).

“ABC axes Friday edition of ‘7.30’ program to make way for Stan Grant show”

“SMH”

A not cool drop: ABC’s “ACT 7.30” on Friday nights.

“Secrets of successful women in business”

“CityNews” makes a great success of local female success in the same year the ACT Women’s Awards kick off, recognising “women who improve the status and lives of women and girls in the ACT”.

10-day Australian tour.

“From General to Governor-General”

“The Guardian”

And a chance to take tea with the newest resident of Government House, General Sir Peter Cosgrove

“Cheers to Tilley’s Devine Cafe”

Nothing to do in Canberra, you gripe? Well, Questacon’s a winner, as is a trip out to Yass for a look at its ACT Local Government Award for tourism. And how’s the cultural heft?

CNN Flight MH17 crashes in Ukraine, close to the Russian border, in unexplained circumstances, 38 Australians on board.

William, Kate and George… downunder.

A run to safety from the Sydney seige.

Souvenir feature 2015

of the newly merged Liberal National Party before even being in Parliament (a 2012 landslide). Now he announces the shortest campaign period in Queensland’s history; a Labor minority government results and he loses that recently acquired seat.

Of local interest

The 100th anniversary of NSW giving Jervis Bay to the new Federal Territory, Australia’s only inland capital, for its seaport. (NB: In

that “Twilight Zone”-ish. In 1965 it snowed for hours, heavier still in 1949; again in 1987 and 2000 saw possibly the only NRL match ever played in such conditions (Raiders v Tigers, 24-22).

Enough to make Timmy Trumpet proud, Canberra City Band is 95. Started in 1925 to keep locals out of Queanbeyan pubs (it was Prohibition in the capital after all), “the official band of the ACT” is “Australia’s oldest and longest-running community concert band”.

in-Wonderland-like Scandinavian furniture emporium, IKEA.

Our sporting heart

Queanbeyan’s Brad Haddin retires from One Day Cricket while cantering on in our forever imaginations. Takeover Target, the “Cinderella” horse bought for next-to-nothing by Queanbeyan taxi driver Joe Janiak , dies at 15.

On the sport of kings, first woman to win the historic three-handled golden Cup: Michelle Payne

Stephanie’s has specialised in bra fitting for over 30 years

Owner Fil Barilaro says Stephanie’s boutique

in the Manuka Arcade, is central, open and inviting, but offers privacy and high standards of personalised service.

Stephanie’s Boutique Lingerie opened in 1992 and is renowned as a specialist and leader in bra fittings.

“Stephanie’s has one simple philosophy that underpins every aspect of the boutique – beauty and comfort,” says Fil.

“Beautiful, well-fitted undergarments should provide skin-soft comfort that lets you be yourself.

“We invite you to experience the personal satisfaction that comes from confidently wearing some of the world’s most elegant and best quality lingerie.

“Tell us your mood and our expert team of fitters will help choose a style and brand of lingerie perfect for your body. Tell us your irritations with your current underwear and we will have them vanish forever.”

Fil says her team are widely respected as the best-fitting service in Canberra and hand-select a range of brands to suit all body shapes and sizes.

Having undergarments fitted by our exceptional team may initially seem indulgent, even decadent. But once experienced, the comfort and confidence you feel in properly fitted lingerie will have you converted for life!

“Once we complete your first fitting, we securely store the details of what suited you. This makes your next visit one where we show you new styles, perfect for you,” she says.

Beauty and comfort are not only the domain of women, with Stephanie’s stocking a range of boutique men’s underwear. Stephanie’s also offers gift vouchers.

Stephanie’s Boutique Lingerie is now located in Manuka Arcade, Manuka. Visit stephaniesboutiquelingerie.com.au or call 6295 0469.

occur around the nation.

Richard Alfred Meech (29) was the first Queanbeyan local to sign up and among the first locals killed.

The “voice of Australian cricket” Richie Benaud dies (84) as does “The Thorn Birds” author Colleen McCullough at 77 (a personal favourite).

Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are executed in Indonesia – Australia recalls its ambas-

Hebdo” satirical newspaper in Paris are killed in a terrorist revenge attack; and a Germanwings plane is deliberately piloted into the French Alps, 150 passengers and crew, including two Australians, on board. That which gives us hope “The Atlantic” declared “2015: The Best Year in History for the Average Human Being”: “The world is better-educated, better-fed, healthier, freer, and more tolerant – and it looks set to get richer, too”.

Over 30 Years of bra fitting expertise in Canberra

Stephanie’s Boutique Lingerie is located in Manuka and welcomes you to call in and browse the wide range of new season stock, make an appointment for a personalised fitting or pick up the perfect gift

lingerie,

The owner of Stephanie’s Boutique Lingerie, Fil Barilaro, in her store at the Manuka Arcade.

Mick Fanning and that shark. Dalai Lama. Richie Benaud. Colleen McCullough.

2016

prior to ban greyhound racing from 2017.

(See above).

Barr is back.

(Looking at a political jackpot of 19 years, popular or perennial?)

Tech fail.

(Our whiz–bang online Census goes bang more than whiz, the website unavailable

for the entire night).

“Protect our privacy, Australian Bureau of Statistics”.

(Citizens worry about being revealed as a Jedi – the security of this TikTok thing though? Nah, that’s like, totally, different).

It’s a gas in Tasmania –again.

(Gas Turbine switched back on as no rain = near empty hydroelectric power dams).

Is South Australia a mushroom?

(It’s in the dark – a storm taking out the state–wide electricity infrastructure).

Regional real estate market

“strongest since 1993”.

(Yes, that is the agents saying so but you can still buy a one–bedroom unit in Canberra for $250,000 …).

Not a Beryl or a Barry to be found.

(Local babies mostly labelled Charlotte and William).

Queanbeyan’s Fink + Co Water

Jug creator killed in a car accident.

(The local community in shock over the loss of the internationally–recognised design innovator, Robert Foster).

He floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

(The death of numerous international icons including Muhammad Ali).

Snow pictured from Telstra Tower.

Souvenir feature 2017

Over in the La-La Land of LA Land, somehow they wind up giving their big red-carpet moment award to the wrong moment (because there’d be any way to confuse one of the most popular filmic songfests since “Mary Poppins” and “Moonlight” – the actual winner).

More seriously distressing, Las Vegas is subjected to the worst mass-shooting in modern US; a true towering inferno rips through a London housing unit complex with 72 dead; and a rash of terror-inducing acts around the world, including the UK and Melbourne.

experiences a notable spike in bikierelated incidents (and we’re not talking the In gang warfare of a different kind … Not so long ago he was setting social media a-twitter doing stuff all the hip kids say rates, like arriving at work (that is, the oldest Parliament in the country) in a DeLorean. But 15 minutes of the fame game is up. After only three years in the top job, he’ll end his political career as “one of the worst-polling premiers in Australian history”.

land, a bloke who’ll become even more popular in the hashtag stakes (#IStandWithMarkMcGowan) wins a supermajority in Westralia for Labor (NB: March 11, 2023, announcing he’ll go out on top). Hot air in Canberra of a different kind: a giant hummingbird from the US and a Belgian Smurf fly high over the capital in the Canberra Balloon Spectacular.

‘96) but Canberra-trained Single Gaze makes it to this year’s Melbourne Cup. Saying goodbye to 2017, Canberra also makes final farewells to passionate locals, Val Jeffrey (oldest to sit in the ACT Assembly at 81 and shortest term of two weeks) and Steve Doszpot (while still a member for Kurrajong).

“Ferry McFerryface” anyone?

Schapelle Corby. Val Jeffrey.

Same-sex marriage victory march in Melbourne.

Photo: Joe Castro/AAP

2018

years

Elizabeth of the big, two boomerangs house up on the Hill with its 266-foot flagpole, which took the place of the charming 1927 seat of government building (a certain Sir John Overall, first commissioner of the National Capital Development Commission, chair of the modern Design Selection Committee).

Spectacular Spiegeltent in town: “Worldclass music, comedy and cabaret”.

“Criminally overlooked” Canberra makes the top three in “Lonely Planet’s” world’s

subject to an election “bloodbath”. SA’s lot though, claw their way back after 16 years.

Media moments

Worldwide wonder at the miracle rescue of a junior football team of 12 and their coach from deep within a flooded Thai cave. Sadly, a former Thai Navy SEAL loses his life during the operation.

Huge if true: archaeologists claim to have discovered the wreck of Capt Cook’s 1770

Something of a Commonwealth Games groupie, Australia hosts for a fifth time, the Gold Coast the setting. The Invictus Games in Sydney – or, “The Harry and Meghan Show”, particularly on the announcement the duchess is pregnant. “Sandpaper-gate” explodes. A South African Test: of the game, players and the cricketing world.

Disastrous disasters

Bushfires destroy more than 70 buildings

bushfire season approaches.

Crime and punishment

With superannuation funds charging the dead for services, the financial services royal commission begins.

Westpac is fined a record $35 million for looking the other way on whether homeowners could really repay their loans.

In WA, seven family members are killed in a shocking murder-suicide, the worst

Thai rescue workers at cave entrance positioning a pipe for water pumping.

Steve Smith, left, and David Warner… banned for 12 months.

The longest lunar eclipse to be seen for 100 years.

Nicole Arrold Betty Churcher.

Souvenir feature 2019

tics has a reputation for being loopier than a Canberra roundabout… [and] the decision to ship all our pollies to a remote paddock in 1927 may have been one of the most inspired decisions this country ever made”.

Then there’s that “miracle win”…

O/S and #BorisBrexits – following the 2016 UK referendum when almost 52 per cent of Britons voted to leave the European Union and Prime Minister David Cameron resigned. PM Theresa May now resigns and Boris Johnson bounces into the box seat.

Back home, #TaylaKickChallenge, encouraging “excellence and equality in sport” (and kicking a few

trolls to boot), is the most liked Austral ian tweet of the year.

#IWD2019, hash-tagging achievements for International Women’s Day, #BartyParty and support for @ TheMatildas, other hot topics.

In downtown Canberra, #Skywhale sails back …

And the ACT gets a 12-kilometre, 14-stop, $675 million (“under-budget”)

#LightRail…

#GreenACT – cannabis laws pass

allowing Canberrans to possess up to 50 grams of the green weed and grow two plants.

#CasinoCanberra is 25 (opening midnight, July 29, 1994). Its history also goes back to the dawn of Canberra with another ahead-of-the-curve concept from the Chicago-native WBG, designating a prime spot for it at the foot of Mt Ainslie. Teetotaller he was, but casinos were all the rage in the US at the turn of the 20th century.

At that official opening (and winner of the golden roulette ball used for the first spin on the night), #TheSilverBodgie #ExtremeWeather with bushfires going on since late July hitting frightening peaks as a new year approaches. In the Canberra region, Mt Selwyn snow resort is the only commercial operation to be completely destroyed #InfluenzaPandemic – a phrase not heard for 100 years – starts to circulate as quickly as the emerging virus.

and extensive damage.

(and father of David and Don Jr), and David Madew, first ever popularly-elected mayor (1980), pass away.

“Foreign interference in Australia is higher than it has ever been”, declares the head of Australia’s spy agency.

MARCH 1 – First Australian death attributed to COVID-19. Government declares a human biosecurity emergency.

The country goes into overdrive on hoarding toilet paper, social distancing, cancellation

MARCH 22 – “Ruby Princess” cruise ship passengers displaying covid symptoms cause furore on disembarking in Sydney.

MARCH 23 – Centrelink and myGov websites crash with an overload of online benefit applications. Hoardes of “newly unemployed” line up at Centrelink offices, including Belconnen.

APRIL 8 – Almost 40 years in circulation and community newspaper “The Canberra Chronicle” is no more.

BEFORE YOU VISIT BOOK YOUR FREE TICKET

Minister Mick Gentleman commits to 99 new firefighters over the next four years.

JULY 4 – Eden-Monaro by-election brought on with Labor’s Mike Kelly stepping aside and the bellwether, marginal federal seat gets its first female member in Kristy McBain

JULY 16 – ACT Health Minister Rachel

Stephen-Smith announces an online screening tool to restrict the sick from physically visiting Canberra health facilities.

NOVEMBER 13 – Canberra becomes a tip with waste collection workers on strike for three weeks.

DECEMBER 19 – Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is cancelled for the first time ever. The Australian Grand Prix also didn’t go ahead.

DECEMBER 31 – Australia reports about 28,500 cases of COVID-19 in two waves (March/April - June/September) and around 900 deaths.

Orroral Valley fire.

Hail the size of golf balls.

Photo: David Foote

dose of dorin

Souvenir feature 2021

“KEEPING UP THE ACT”, once again we’re treated to the laser-sharp pen-work of an invisible, politically-savvy anti-hero.

In top “CityNews” reporting for the 21st year of the 21st century: covid still dominating – the capital going from unprotected to more than 98 per cent fully dosed in 12 months and “Freedom Friday” signalling the end of lockup and a “new normal”; administrative confusion costing the ACT coffers with thousands of Canberrans let off speeding fines; and “CN’s” news websites

with the Capitol riots.

Facebook gets snarky, wiping itself of Australian content on the push (rightly) to see Zuckerberg’s Frankensteinian monster pay those who produce original thinking. And that really big ship blocked that really narrow Suez Canal.

In the midst of the “covid-blur” of Year 2, there were momentous moments to mark:

• The ANU is 75.

• The only university created by an Act of

on your doorstep? Canberra Milk chalks up 50 years as the ACT’s Lone Ranger of local dairy production (NB: manufacturing operations moved to Penrith in 2023). ACT Brumbies and the Raiders’ sponsorship part of the capital’s sporting capital (“up the Milk”).

• We do see a return of Raiders Lime Milk – introduced in 1990, out by ’96, reintroduced 2013, discontinued in 2015. The hype was always good but maybe the

of Keren Rowland . The 20-year-old, pregnant at the time, went missing from almost the centre of Canberra in 1971. Three months later her remains were discovered in the Fairbairn Pine Forest. Her family continues to look for answers.

• Gardening guru Cedric Bryant’s long-running “CityNews” columns were a highlight for many and sadly, Cedric leaves us for the great garden in the sky (in 2014 he was honoured with life

before the Melbourne Cup).

• Another with considerable longevity to soon call it quits, film aficionado Dougal Macdonald – one of his most clicked reviews before he does, the 2022 Australian flick, “How to Please a Woman”.

• And speaking of bowing out, NSW Premier Gladys resigns, as does Deputy Premier Barilaro, while Canberra Liberals leader Alistair Coe steps aside, Elizabeth Lee stepping up.

Another return of Raiders Lime Milk. Cedric Bryant. Portrait of Keren Rowland. The first “KEEPING UP THE ACT”.

2022

Celebrating years 30

Egan (24).

#UniCBR: Canberra’s second university is 50, starting life as the Canberra College of Advanced Education (CCAE) in 1967 (and what a top uni it is, #nobias).

Straight-talking, multi-award winning 2CC breakfast radio host Stephen Cenatiempo calls out the “muppets” of the ACT government on the “giddy” announcement of two cranes finally arriving at the site of the “long-overdue $624 million Canberra

first female member for Monaro in its more than 160-year history (ahem).

Federal election fervour favours Labor and the ACT gets its first independent senator: former Brumby and Wallaby, David Pocock .

“Prison staff shock: alleged drug parties and cover ups”.

The 2021 $951.5 million in the red, ACT Budget had former CM Jon Stanhope fume:

and reasonably expect services worthy of a capital. Oh, and parking, rates and levies are all up; rego, too.

Coombs does get a new $7.1 million playground.

80 years since the sinking of the original HMAS Canberra, marked by a sunset service on HMAS Canberra III and a Last Post Ceremony at the AWM. (The wreck was rediscovered by Robert Ballard – who also found the “Titanic” – almost exactly 50 years

news-driven format” website of “CityNews”, too: the Lisa Wilkinson Academy Awardworthy Logie moment, “Students run amok at Calwell High”, and green Greens MLA Johnathan Davis “offensive” to Braddon businesses, topping the stories.

In the world beyond our borders: Russia invades Ukraine – and Putin bears witness to the saying “cometh the hour, cometh the man” in former comedian turned

Now there’s more than 8 billion of us, but at least one less as Warnie has his final over. The UK almost up there with Oz in exchanging PMs.

Lots more brouhaha (*not a French term*) over our now US/UK nuclear subs order and a cool $386 billion to be dropped on them. Release of James Cameron’s follow-up to the biggest film in the history of cinema, “Avatar”.

Val Dempsey. Nichole Overall. David Pocock. Andrew Barr.

Souvenir feature 2023

The Voice.

As Shirley Bassey sang (backed by the Propellerheads):

And I’ve seen it before

And I’ll see it again

Yes I’ve seen it before

Just little bits of history repeating.

Thirty years on, “Canberra CityNews”, still here, still delivering the news that matters to Canberrans.

Well written, well read… well done!

: “I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where”.

The rise of ChatGPT (most certainly not used in preparation of this three decades of “the greatest of”!).

We farewell the Dame of Dames (and her creator). At one of Edna’s ACT appearances (and which I had the good fortune to be present for) the “average Australian housewife from Moonee Ponds” spoke glowingly of Canberra, declaring it “the gateway to Queanbeyan”!

NSW gets a new government, Labor taking back the state after 12 years – Monaro living up to its bellwether

Federal by-election in Aston – first time in more than 100 years since a sitting government won a seat from the opposition.

Snapping up the farmers of our region, Queanbeyan boy (Cootamundra-based)

Brad Jones winning hearts on “Farmer Wants a Wife”; two years earlier, Delegate

And about that tram …

“SURGICAL STRIKE ON HOSPITAL BLOWS UP IN MINISTER’S FACE”

“It isn’t often that local events in the ACT have ramifications of national importance. However… the announcement of the compulsory acquisition of Calvary Hospital… by the ACT government was just such an event.” – The Australian, Angela Shanahan, May 20-21

The continuing Higgins case, including the involvement of ACT Senator Gallagher.

[Editor’s note: Thank you Nichole Overall for such a powerful blend of your enormous, professional skills of a social historian and a journalist. No one knows how hard this assignment was, but it’s proved a wonderful gift to share with our readers. Thanks also to production manager Janet Ewen for the lovely design and to journalist Lily Pass for sourcing the illustrations. Shall we do it again in 2033?]

* The heading is the final line of “The End”, the last track on the last Beatle album “Abbey Road”. Sadly, I’ve spent a lifetime in journalism trying to find a way to use it. While it makes absolutely no sense relative to the article, it felt time to roll it out. Thank you, Canberra. – Ian

Meikle, editor

Dame Edna and her creator… gone.

Brad Jones.

The Voice.

Cartoon: Paul Dorin

Brambles are a prickly subject

By Jackie WARBURTON

BRAMBLE berries can be pruned back any time in winter as the foliage and fruit have finished and they are dormant.

Bramble berries are fruits such as raspberries and blackberries and are thorny, prickly and hard to handle. Thick gloves are best when handling them.

There are two main types of raspberries, those that fruit in summer and autumn-fruiting ones.

Summer-fruiting raspberries such as Willamette and Chilcotin produce one big glut in summer. One cane takes two years to flower and fruit. The canes that have fruited should be cut out at ground level and the

primocanes, the ones that are yet to fruit, tied to a wire frame until the following year.

If the floricanes (flowering canes) are too long for the frame, they can be cut or trained horizontally along a wire to produce more fruit.

Autumn-fruiting raspberries such as Heritage and Autumn Bliss will fruit twice, once in autumn and, to a lesser extent, in summer then die. All the canes should be pruned to the ground after all the fruit has been harvested.

Feed raspberries with lots of organic compost, keep the pH acidic and the soil weed free, and the canes will reshoot in spring.

Bramble berries, which sucker easily, can be hard to contain in a garden bed. In a pot, the yield can be reduced and will need a lot of care to grow well.

The best berries are handpicked while still warm and when there is a glut. Put in the freezer for smoothies

and desserts.

If spines on the brambles are too much to handle, there is a thornless blackberry worth trying. It’s a vigorous grower and will produce large, glossy, black fruit in summer.

All berries need a good drip system in the summer to keep them fruiting. Keep foliage on the vines to protect the berries from the hot, summer afternoon sun.

THE common primrose (primula vulgaris) can provide colour and fragrance on a patio as well as potted colour in winter.

Once established, they need little care. They also successfully grow as an understory plant.

They like moist, rich, goodquality soil with good moisture retention and feeding regularly with compost.

Most primulas like morning sun and some species such as polyanthus can tolerate more sun than others.

The vivid flowers are cheerful and bright and come in many colours, including cobalt blue with zebra-striped petals and they are long flowering and scented.

Technically a perennial, some are grown as annuals and, to keep them flowering, feed them with a weak solution of potash or tomato fertiliser every few weeks

and discard old blooms to avoid any rotting in the crown of the plant.

Polyanthus, which look very much like primroses, can be sown in late summer to mid-autumn. For best result, sprinkle seed on to seed-raising mix in punnets or small containers and keep moist. The seed will take around three to four weeks to germinate. Seaweed solution gets them growing fast.

Snails and slugs can be a problem and traps can be put out or sprinkle diatomaceous earth if there is a lot of damage. Planted en masse is a low-cost, long-lasting winter display in a pot or in the garden.

jackwar@home.netspeed.com.au

Jottings…

• Pick lemons as they ripen and don’t get frost bitten.

• Sow seeds of shallots and transplant peas.

• Continue to replenish soils with manures and compost.

• Check the lawn for low light areas and moss growing on cold ground.

Bramble berries… sucker easily and can be hard to contain in a garden bed.

Photos: Jackie Warburton

The primrose… provides colour and fragrance on a patio as well as potted colour in winter.

HOROSCOPE PUZZLES

Your week in the stars

By Joanne Madeline Moore 3-9 July, 2023

ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)

On Monday you’re keen to rush things and speak bluntly but don’t barge in with Full Moon guns blazing! If you do, then you could end up smack bang in the middle of a fiery argument – especially at work. It is a suitable week to tackle domestic and professional projects. Just make sure you finish details properly before you embark on exciting new ventures. With Venus and Mars visiting your love/creativity zone, you could fall in love with a person or an idea.

TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 21)

This week’s Full Moon activates your adventure and exploration zone. Plus Venus (your ruling planet) and Uranus (transiting through your sign) push you to jump out of your comfort zone, shake off bad habits, embrace opportunities and fast track changes. Which can feel very uncomfortable! It’s time to view transformation as terrific, rather than terrifying. Be inspired by birthday great The Dalai Lama (who turns 88 on Thursday) “True change is within.”

GEMINI (May 22 – June 21)

The Full Moon shines a spotlight on money, business, property, investments, taxes and joint finances so make sure they are all in working order. On Friday, Mercury makes a fabulous aspect with Uranus, so an innovative financial idea or an unusual professional opportunity could really take flight. And maintain your sense of humour! Quote for the week is from birthday great, writer/artist Jean Cocteau “The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.”

CANCER (June 22 – July 23)

Mercury and the Sun are both moving through your sign, which boosts your creativity… and your moodiness. And there’s a Full Moon in your relationship zone on Monday. So it’s time to look after loved ones, and nurture your inner self via meditation, contemplation and relaxation. Your quote for the week is from fellow Crab, actress Selena Gomez “I’m such a Cancer. I feel everything so intensely, which is one of my favourite things about myself.”

LEO (July 24 – Aug 23)

The Capricorn Full Moon highlights your health zone so it’s a good week to try a detox diet or a disciplined new exercise routine. Venus and Mars are both vamping through your sign, which boosts your Cat charisma and playful sense of fun. So it’s also a wonderful week to turn up the charm and call in a few old favours. However, too much happy hilarity (and no action) will just annoy others (who are doing all the work). So try to walk your talk.

VIRGO (Aug 24 – Sept 23)

Mercury and the Sun are in moody Cancer and there’s a Full Moon on Monday. So your obsessive/compulsive side could crank up and take over. However, if you sweat the small stuff, you’ll end up feeling tired and emotional (and exhausted) by the end of the week. Perhaps it’s time to de-stress, as you sample a session of meditation or try a spot of yoga? You might just enjoy it! Friday is fabulous for innovative ideas, alternative viewpoints, and bohemian friends.

LIBRA (Sept 24 – Oct 23)

Expect some tension as the Full Moon stirs up old grievances with a family member or a work colleague. If you sit back and let others make decisions, then you’ll just feel powerless. So strive to be more self-sufficient, as you use your natural diplomatic skills to help smooth troubled waters. Getting the ratio right between your public and private lives is an ongoing challenge. But if anyone can juggle complex commitments, it’s a well-balanced Libran!

SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 22)

Neighbourhood activities and local connections are favoured, as the Full Moon encourages you to be more community minded. Also – courtesy of Jupiter and Uranus - you’ll be given the chance to heal an old emotional wound or patch up a relationship problem. Don’t let false Scorpio pride stop you from taking a giant leap forward when it comes to love and forgiveness. Accept the opportunity gratefully, with outstretched hands and an open heart.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 – Dec 21)

The focus is on financial matters, as the Full Moon fires up your money zone and your spontaneous spending gene. Which is OK – as long as you have the cash flow to fund a shopping spree. If you don’t, then you’ll have to entertain yourself in more frugal ways. Finances and friends are a particularly messy mix, so strive to keep the two well separated. On Friday the Mercury/Uranus link favours innovative ideas at work and adventurous daydreams at home.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 20)

Monday’s feisty Full Moon lights up your sign, so relationship dramas are likely. Unless you can slip out of fussy Capricorn control-freak mode and instead, try the gentle art of compromise. Other people are acting as a mirror, reflecting negative personal traits that you may have been unaware of. Use these experiences to work on your weaknesses – and build on your natural strengths. As always, calm cooperation is the key to interpersonal harmony.

AQUARIUS (Jan 21 – Feb 19)

Aquarians are free spirits. And you could go missing in action this week, as Uranus and the Full Moon boost your tendency to detach or run away from difficult situations. Heading for the hills or escaping into a private fantasy seems appealing, but the current problems will still be waiting when you return. So you need to get the balance right between dealing with daily challenges when they occur, and retreating into your own quirky inner world.

PISCES (Feb 20 – Mar 20)

You could bump into an old friend, discover long-forgotten love-letters, or reconnect with a former flame. Just remember – memories are so seductive because they’re so selective. You intuitively know what is right for you - even though you may appear confused to others. Don’t let your family (or peer group) push you around or persuade you to do something you don’t believe in. Saturn (in your sign) encourages you to be sensible and stay grounded.

Copyright Joanne Madeline Moore 2023

Across

1 Which mid-morning meal serves as both breakfast and lunch? (6)

8 What was the given name of the Dickens character, Scrooge? (8)

9 Which term describes a half-breed? (6)

10 Who looks on the bright side of things? (8)

11 What is a female peacock? (6)

13 Name the Spanish politician who was the founder of the Spanish Socialist party, Pablo ... (8)

16 What is a wolf spider also known as? (8)

19 Which fin is generally developed on the back of aquatic vertebrates? (6)

22 Name a game played frequently in the USA. (8)

24 Which spotted, leopard-like cat is found in the Americas? (6)

25 What is a trapezoidal zither with metal strings? (8)

26 Which bush tucker is made of flour and water? (6)

Solution next edition Down

2 What is a word, agreeing with another in terminal sound? (5)

3 Name a cardinal point of the compass. (5)

4 What is devotion to pleasure? (8)

5 Which term describes a religious denomination? (4)

6 Name the messenger of the gods. (6)

7 What was the former official name of Iran? (6)

12 What is an indefinitely long period of time? (4)

14 Who is the master of an inn? (8)

15 What is the 15th March known as? (4)

17 Which major planet has 15 small planets? (6)

18 What is a long, narrow excavation in the ground? (6)

20 Which term describes a cold? (5)

21 What is a sun-dried brick? (5)

23 What is the culmination of something? (4)

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