Hearing aids can be expensive

SEVEN DAYS No soup for you, as cafes and clubs go begging

WHEN Chief Warder Andrew Barr parsimoniously eased the community’s parole conditions there was one group I felt especially sorry for.

Make no mistake, the Chief Minister has a lot on his plate, but banging on about how we’ve been treated like adults and still keeping clubs and cafes on a tight leash looks like an oppression of caution.

Virtuously, he is taking the advice of Chief Medical Officer Kerryn Coleman and that has served us well. But with the ACT’s nationleading response to confronting COVID-19, one wonders why the crushed cafes and clubs, unlike NSW, aren’t given a fairer go.

“It’s time for the Chief Health Officer to explain why the small and family businesses in our hospitality industry can’t be treated the same way as the busy-as-ever Coles, Bunnings, IKEA and Westfield,” bemoaned Anthony Brierley, GM of the ACT’s Australian Hotels Association in the daily chip wrapper.

“It’s time it is explained why having a meal in Bondi is safer than having a meal in Civic. Or, for that matter, why Queanbeyan is safer than Kingston, Googong safer than Calwell, and Sutton safer than Hall.”

Local cafes, restaurants, pubs and clubs are now enmeshed in what our 47-year-old hipster-in-chief described as a “scalable framework” allowing up to 20 people in each enclosed space whereas, across the border, NSW has already sanctioned 50 patrons. We

The “Seinfeld” Soup Nazi character’s fastidiousness looms large in Mitchell. will have to wait until midnight, June 19, to THE Bureau of Meteorology’s “2020 Winter be given that latitude. Outlook” says that most areas of mainland

“We complied and played our part. But Australia are showing a better than 70 per this shutdown has devastated the ACT’s cent chance of having a wetter than average hospitality industry for the past two months. winter and that includes the ACT. Better One third of our directly-employed 14,800 still – if you’re homeless, at least – overnight jobs have disappeared. The remaining 9900 temperatures are likely to be warmer than jobs only exist because of the Commonaverage. wealth’s JobKeeper program,” says Brierley.

“Our industry is on its knees.” And he has CANBERRA Liberals a point. The hospitality industry, reduced to police and emergency living off takeaways, has been scrupulous services spokesperson in dealing with the threat of coronavirus. A Giulia Jones, pictured, visit to my patisserie of choice in unloved has been extolling Mitchell is like being in the “Seinfeld” classic the virtues of cycling “Soup Nazi” episode. They are fastidious and without sharing the deserve to be trusted with putting a bit more news that she’d lost food on the tables. her driver’s licence

for three months for multiple low-range speeding offences.

She now has her licence back, but says: “After three months of getting around on my bicycle, it’s given me some additional perspective and I’m looking forward to starting a-fresh.”

Unsurprisingly, ACT Road Safety Minister Shane Rattenbury, in calling for her resignation from her portfolio position, sniffed: “Given the impact road trauma has on police and emergency services, it is not credible for Ms Jones to retain the portfolio given her track record.”

THERE’S a changing of the baton at the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. As predicted by “CityNews” smarty pants arts editor Helen Musa on May 13, conductor Jessica Cottis will take over the waving from chief conductor and artistic director Nick Milton when he finishes at the end of this year after 15 years with the CSO.

THE Australian National University is facing a $225 million coronavirus walloping this year, with vice-chancellor Prof Brian Schmidt calling the figure a “sensible prediction” and tipping 20 per cent of his salary into the black hole and 10 per cent of his senior staff.

He says the ANU will earn about $150 million less than expected in 2020 and would “spend about $75 million more than we planned due to the crises we have endured this year”. The border closures and subsequent loss of international students has hit university finances hard.

AND a final definitive word from the Chief Minister at a media briefing, ostensibly about COVID-19: “Every day does seem longer than would be the case normally and a number of us have felt this 2020 leap year not only had an extra day in February, but it feels like an extra 30 days in March, an extra 60 days in April.

“Here we are towards the end of May and it feels like it’s been a very long year, but we are taking steps every three weeks here so there’s not a massive amount of room to accelerate so people should have no expectation that I’ll be standing up again here tomorrow or next week and announce bringing forward things that are scheduled by July. That’s not going to happen.” Me neither.

Aluminium timber windows

Made in Europe for the Australian climate