CityNews 200924

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

Labor’s housing shame in a young mother’s cry

JON STANHOPE

The deafening silence of the Canberra Greens

PAUL COSTIGAN

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SEVEN DAYS

Woden tram comes rattling into election’s view ANYONE who thinks the ACT election campaign is a fizzer isn’t paying attention. Things are heating up as the finger pointing, rebuttals and policies from the big boys are starting to emerge.

The policy muscling up – think trams, education and health over this past week – may have a lot to do with pre-polling opening on Monday (August 28).

Trams to Woden finally came rattling into view. Behind the scenes the reality for Labor, given the debt do-do they’ve plopped us into, is that they want us to believe they want to do it, but can’t admit we can’t afford it.

In the Liberal cloisters, Crew Coe can taste that vital third seat in Murrumbidgee, but don’t want to commit to laying tracks any time soon.

But reality is a poor substitute for political spin and Labor leader Andrew Barr, when asked if the tram was an election issue, told “CityNews” political hackster Belle Strahorn: “Not with the same level of intensity as it was in 2016 and possibly 2012.

“We built Stage 1 against, arguably, a very strong force of opposition, I think it’s less so this time around and people do want to see the network extended and we will do so but in a prudent and sensible way.”

In the next term of government are you committing to the planning or the construction of the tram or both?

“Both. A re-elected Labor government will put the construction stage of the project out to tender once the relevant Commonwealth and ACT planning, environment and heritage approvals are received.”

And the cost? $1.9 billion? Can Labor afford that in the next term?

“Yes. It is already in the Budget forward estimates for the next term.”

So Labor’s in at any cost, while the Libs want to conduct an independent inquiry into Stage 2A and 2B, and shook the tree saying they’re also looking into where the next route should be built as part of the inquiry.

This set Master Builders ACT CEO Michael Hopkins fizzing: “A last-minute change to the route for Stage 2 of light rail will set back construction of the territory’s largest infrastructure project by years.”

Then to top things off, up pops Belco Bill as the “voice of reason”.

“I again call on the ACT government to immediately delay the next stage of light rail because of the economic slump inevitably coming after the COVID-19 crisis and because of the huge cost blowout,” says Belco Party candidate Bill Stefaniak, arguing for vital services such as hospitals, schools and programs that employ local businesses and people.

But ever the lawyer, Bill lobbed this in: “If new tram lines are to be built, the first priority must be Belconnen to Civic and on to the airport.”

CLUBSACT attracted more than 1300 responses to a private political survey of what

ment, planning, transport, education, employment and crime.

WHEN the editor steps into print he’s always fair game for the colleagues he edits.

And the scrutiny can be very exacting.

In last week’s column I reported on the Greens being quick (“as night follows day”) to complain about the environmentally unfriendly corflute advertising signs. Up pops a cheery email from political flack and “CityNews’’ music critic Clinton White: “Ian – day follows night. Read Genesis 1:1-3”.

Bless him.

AND some political news with a happy ending: Labor MP for the seat of Canberra Alicia Payne and partner Ben Phillips have announced the birth of daughter Elena Patricia Phillips, weighing 3.48 kilograms.

She is sister to a “very excited” Paul.

issues were most important to ACT voters, with CEO Gwyn Rees teasingly describing it as “Canberra’s largest non-published poll”.

He’s promised to write to the major parties to ask how they will be addressing the survey’s key issues, but won’t say what they are.

However, despite the poll asking a multitude of political questions (I know because I did it), Gwyn does open the folder slightly on one big question: “What single issue will have the biggest influence over how you will

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vote at the upcoming ACT election?”

Concerns around the cost of living, rates and the economy were top of the pops, but interestingly there, at number six, was negative concern about the “Labor/Barr government”, rating voter dismay with this lot ahead of concerns about the environ-

Ian Meikle is the “CityNews” editor. He can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast”, 9am-noon on 2CC.

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NEWS / Hugh Mackay

Since 1993: Volume 26, Number 38. Phone: 6189 0777 Responsibility for election comment is taken by Ian Meikle, 9b/189 Flemington Road, Mitchell

Hugh’s deep dive into discovering the inner self

By Danielle

NOHRA “WHO am I, really?” asks social researcher and psychologist Hugh Mackay, in his latest book “The Inner Self”.

The new book tells readers to look within and ask themselves who they are – a question the bestselling author of 21 books had once thought was boring.

When writing “The Inner Self”, the inner-south resident had to face some deep questions about his own inadequacies such as how two of his marriages came to an end even though he used to and still thinks of himself as a “one-gal” guy.

“Could I have handled those divorces more compassionately? Did I let my work interfere with my family life?” he says.

“A lot of people resist the idea of the inner-self journey. What will I find?

What will I do about it, when I do find something?”

In the book Hugh explores the “top 20” hiding places such as addiction, materialism, nostalgia, IT and victimhood.

Hugh suggests that it’s fear of love’s demands that drive people into hiding.

“I was caught up in ‘busyness’.

When I was establishing my own business I was totally preoccupied. I

neglected other things, I neglected my family,” he says.

Another hiding place is victimhood, and, while Hugh says for a while it’s understandable that people would feel victimised by certain circumstances and it’s important to give them support, but if they get trapped in victimhood it can become a problem.

“If people are only victims, we do tend to switch off and be less sympathetic,” he says.

“But if you start thinking about the needs of other people, you very quickly don’t feel like a victim.

“The best way to find ourselves, is to lose ourselves in the services of others.”

Naturally, Hugh says humans are fascinated by their differences, but if they go deeper, he says people are all the same.

“We’re social species, which means that we belong together,” he says.

“Turns out we have something in common with everyone else [and] at the core is our capacity for love. [It’s the] essence of what it means to be human.

“We humans are social beings whose primary duties to our species, right up there with reproduction, is to create and maintain harmonious, co-operative and social communities.

The survival of species depends on it.

“We don’t simply need each other, we need each other to thrive.”

Author Hugh Mackay… “The best way to find ourselves, is to lose ourselves in the services of others.”

In the first half of people’s lives, Hugh says they’re often preoccupied with establishing their own identity and being different and unique.

When, usually in the second half of life, people look into their inner self, he says they’re usually tugged by something, whether it’s a relationship breakdown, a pandemic, a serious illness or a mid-life crisis.

“My recollection of what was happening between my mid-20s and 40s is all pretty foggy,” he says.

“I knew all these things happened, but I wasn’t fully aware of my true nature until I was well into my 50s.

“Over the last 10 or 15 years I’ve real-

ly understood, like never before, what it means to say that I am a human. It’s my human responsibility to be a good neighbour, a good friend. Life should be about the ways we’re connected.

“This pandemic is a really good reminder of that.”

The main premise of the book, according to Hugh, is love. He says it’s the highest ideal for humans and is the richest source of life’s meaning and purpose.

He also explores these ideas in a fictive novel, “Questions of Love”, which was published at the same time as “The Inner Self” late last month, but was written earlier.

Hugh’s publisher suggested publishing them together, saying “Questions of Love” was like a case study to his work on “The Inner Self”.

“It’s a very intimate, forensic examination of a marriage,” says Hugh, who started writing the novel about four years ago but because of its complicated structure, it took him a while to get it right.

“The structure is like taking a jazz improvisation or theme and variations in classical music and adapting that structure to the written word, so the book starts and ends with basically the same chapter,” he says.

Based on a couple, Richard and Freya, Hugh says all the variations and improvisations along the way gradually peel away the layers of their relationship.

“Richard and Freya are both hiding from themselves and each other,” he says.

On the surface, he says they’re a perfect couple, but the novel examines the complexities and contradictions of human love.

“I hope readers will find this a really engrossing read. There’s nothing like peering into someone else’s relationship to clarify what’s going on in yours,” he says.

“The Inner Self” ($29.95) and “Questions of Love” ($32.99) are available at all Canberra bookstores.

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CityNews September 24-30, 2020 5

NEWS / Australian War Memorial expansion

To Matt, it’s about making room to tell the stories

By Danielle

NOHRA THE Australian War Memorial’s new director, Matt Anderson, stepped into the role in April with the goal to keep the memorial relevant.

Part of that is taking charge of the once-in-a-generation attempt to create additional space to tell the stories of the women and men who have served, says the former diplomat and soldier.

The memorial’s controversial half a billion dollar expansion plan will see Anzac Hall demolished, a move the Australian Institute of Architects has labelled as “grossly wasteful and unnecessary”.

But Matt says the debate has become “about the building rather than the stories we’re seeking to convey within it.”

“I genuinely wish that Anzac Hall had been built back in 2001 in such a way that it could have been readily expanded, but sadly it hasn’t been,” Matt says.

“I understand that [there are people] attached to that building, as is anyone who visits it, but what I believe is that the heritage value of the memorial, and certainly the heritage value

of Anzac Hall is, in large measure, the value of the things that are in it and the stories that are told within it.”

The retention of Anzac Hall was “absolutely considered” and it was looked at from a cost-benefit analysis and from a practical municipal logical advantage.

“In 15 paces, of my paces, I will go from Vietnam to the Tarin Kowt Wall.

In 15 paces, I’m telling the story of 66 peacekeeping missions, in 15 paces I’m telling the story of 72,000 women and men who have been deployed to the Middle East Area of Operations,” Matt says.

“As you walk through, you have Somalia on your left and Rwanda on your right and Cambodia on your left and East Timor on your right and then suddenly you’re in the Gulf and then you’re in Iraq and then you’re in Afghanistan and Afghanistan is in a hall, an exit corridor.

“We can do better because part of the importance of continued relevance is it needs to be relevant for current serving; it’s a continuing story.

“We have been unable to tell these stories in the same level of detail.

“If the government sends women and men into harm’s way, when they come home, they should be able to come here and find a touch point to that service, they should be able to come home and find recognition of that service, they should be able to come here and feel the thanks of a na-

War Memorial director Matt Anderson… “The memorial is not a glorification of war, it’s a place where we celebrate ordinary Australians who proved capable of the extraordinary.” Photo: Danielle Nohra tion that sent them there.

“This is our chance to do a precinctwide development from the front entrance to Anzac Hall, to expanding the Bean Centre and the research centre, to getting non-gallery functions out of the main memorial building… so we’re not only able to tell the stories to now, but we have room to tell the stories going into the future.”

There are many people who have

missed out on being honoured and having their stories told through the memorial, Matt says.

“Just a couple of weekends ago I was in the peacekeeping area and a guy walked up to me looking for the South Sudan section,” he says.

“He was looking to see where his story was told so he could show his family and it wasn’t there.”

Matt was born in Victoria and

moved to Canberra as a teenager to go to the Royal Military College, Duntroon, before holding military posts across the nation, and then leading a defence project in Tonga.

He then joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 1995, where he held senior positions and postings in countries such as Samoa, South Africa and Afghanistan.

One story he thinks people should be proud about is the work of HMAS Tobruk during Samoa’s 2009 earthquake and tsunami.

Matt was the high commissioner to Samoa at the time and says people should also be proud of the civilians, the doctors, the nurses, the anaesthetists, the AFP and others who came to support Samoa at the time.

“This is genuine humanitarian, wellintentioned, well-targeted, life-saving work that was done by members of the Australian Defence Force in our name,” he says.

So, as the memorial’s custodian, Matt says he will continue to push to tell these stories and to keep the memorial relevant.

“The Australian War Memorial belongs to all Australians and for many who thought they wanted to come but haven’t, this is their chance,” he says.

“The memorial is not a glorification of war, it’s a place where we celebrate ordinary Australians who proved capable of the extraordinary.”

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YESTERDAYS / Blundells Cottage

Ghostly secrets of the little, lakeside cottage THE humble stone house perched on the edge of the national capital’s artificial lake is as much a landmark as the political and cultural institutions that dwarf it.

There, more than five decades before Canberra was made official in 1913, stands Blundells Cottage – known equally for its historic relevance and the ghost who’s said to haunt it.

Blundells Cottage is named for its longest-residing tenants rather than the Ginns who were its first, or the Oldfields as its last of long-standing.

Built by George Campbell, of the local landed gentry clan, for ploughman William Ginn. The ploughman’s brood remained on until Will himself became a landowner in 1874, which is when bullock driver George Blundell and his midwife spouse, Flora, moved in.

With Flora giving birth almost every two years, the couple needed to add to the simple dwelling to fit their eight children. The rough-hewn walls – blue, crystal-laden rock (porphyry) and sandstone quarried from Mount Majura and Black Mountain, and local slab timber – were extended, bringing it to a total of six rooms.

“Poplar Grove” – apparently its original poetic appellation – was home until George’s death in 1933, 16 years after his bride.

A shepherd and stockman with the

Blundells Cottage by local artist Jenny Shepherd. apt surname of Oldfield came next.

Harry and his wife Alice inhabited the picturesque though rudimentary property for almost 30 years. Alice, on her own for the last decade-and-ahalf, took in boarders and was never seen dressed in anything but black following her husband’s passing.

In a century of occupancy, the amenities of modern life – water, gas and a sewer line – were never part of the deal. Electricity was only connected once it was repurposed as a museum in 1964.

And it was the precariousness of such conditions that led to its attached legend.

The eldest Blundell child and one of

three girls, was also christened Flora for her Scottish-born mother.

There’s some familiarity with the general story: in 1892 when just 16, on a winter evening while ironing in front of the fire, Flora got too close, her nightdress erupting in flames.

The echo of her former self is said to continue to inhabit the place that was home for all of her tender years.

Shadowy appearances; items moving about; the pervasive feeling you’re not alone even if this is the case. More disturbingly, a burning smell. All these allusions to the supernatural are to be found in various sources – and occasionally acknowledged by those who believe they’ve had

an encounter. [Another suggestion is a figure “all in black” within the building itself – might it be a case of mistaken identity and instead it’s the “eccentric” Alice Oldfield?]. Interestingly, the first known reports of such phenomena are as insubstantial as the ghost itself.

Perhaps though, if Flora remains tethered by her earthly bond, it has less to do with the nature of her death than her final resting place – where some also claim to have crossed her path.

Despite heavy rain, there was a large turn-out on Sunday, August 14, 128 years ago, for the teenager’s burial in the Presbyterian section of the Queanbeyan Riverside Cemetery of 1846.

Twenty-five years later, also on a rainy Sunday, her mother would be laid alongside her.

Of the other seven siblings, Charles and Herbert are there also (12 and 9 respectively at the time of Flora Jnr’s death). Husband and father, George, lies alone in the Anglican churchyard of St John’s, “in the shadow of which” he was born.

Mother and daughter’s combined burial marker is the only one of its kind of the almost 4000 within “God’s Acre” on the bank of the Queanbeyan

River. In contravention of the Christian tradition in which bodies are laid with the feet pointing eastwards – in order that they might rise more easily come Judgement Day – theirs face west. As to the why, I’m so far, dare I say, at a dead end.

And what of the quaint cottage to which they were so attached in life, providing as it does a “symbolic foil for the majesty of” not just the one Parliament House of 1927, but since 1988, two?

Almost as disturbing as the tales of Flora’s ghost, after the final exit of the more corporeal residents, it was to make way for a lake to be named for the capital’s creator.

Fortunately, the house survived to become a bastion of the region’s historic record; its unblinking shutterless windows continuing to overlook a modern city that’s grown up and around it.

Though small in stature, more than 160 years on, the spirit of Blundells Cottage is undiminished – in all manner of speaking.

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NEWS / community tennis clubs

Tennis clubs give ‘derelict’ government a serve

By Danielle

NOHRA THE ACT government has been accused of being a “derelict landlord” for not supporting community-run tennis clubs trying to manage major maintenance bills.

North Woden Tennis Club, whose eight courts are riddled with cracks and declining ground cover, is facing major repairs worth about $750,000, says president Terry Lennard.

“We’ve been left behind,” he says.

Backed by other presidents of the not-for-profit tennis clubs in Canberra, Terry wants the government to help with the major repairs of clubs and, at the same time, develop a sinking fund for them.

The community-run clubs pay the government yearly land rent and rates, and Terry, who says the North Woden club pays about $7000 a year in land rent and rates, wants the government to use these fees paid by all clubs to collectively place them into a sinking fund instead of putting the money into general revenue.

“I’m agitating for all those rates and land rent that we pay as clubs to not get frittered away on grant programs and

be used as a sinking fund,” he says. “[And] if the ACT government [can] top that up a little bit, they could actually address the sins of the past fairly quickly and cater for the future fairly quickly.”

Community-run tennis clubs in the ACT were moved to a crown lease system a couple of decades ago, and Ainslie Tennis Club president Steve Ryan, a former head of Property ACT and former director of Territory Planning, wants to know how much money the ACT Treasury put aside at the time.

“They did put some money aside, but it wasn’t much. Why didn’t they keep topping it up?” he says.

“If they had, then we might not be sitting here today.”

Ainslie club, which is 92 years old and the second oldest in Canberra, ran into trouble when it discovered a termite problem.

“There was nowhere to go at first.

Basically we depleted our funds [and] went on a massive fundraising exercise [before we] ultimately got a capital assistance program grant that took us over the line,” Steve says. “[But] when an emergency occurs, no matter what the emergency is, there should be a sinking fund that you can go to.”

While Ainslie Tennis Club survived, Steve says its third court is getting ever closer to having to be replaced.

“We’re being told at the moment

Terry Lennard, left, and Steve Ryan… “We’ve taken a lot of kids through to national ranking but we can’t coach them on these courts properly because the bounce can be so variable,” says Terry.

Photo: Danielle Nohra that we’ll no longer get a grant out of the capital assistance program to do court cover replacements,” he says.

“So, for us, that’s going to be $30,000 to $40,000 to just put a new surface over the top.”

For North Woden Tennis Club, Terry says it needs to replace all eight courts.

The club had some support from the ACT government about five years ago after it agreed to foot half of the club’s bill to turn four of the courts from

synthetic grass, which is not approved

by Tennis Australia, to an acrylic surface, but within 12 months, the courts started to crack.

“They started to deteriorate because the base wasn’t proper for that type of surface and was never going to hold the surface,” says Terry, who admits the club won’t finish paying off the loan, which they got from Tennis Australia, to match the other half of the costs, in December.

Court cracking and patched synthetic grass at the North Woden Tennis Club.

Photos: Danielle Nohra

10 CityNews September 24-30, 2020

“We’ve got quotes now to do all eight courts with a proper reinforced concrete base with a slip layer. The quotes already are between $600,000 to $900,000.

“No community club with our revenues can really afford that, particularly if you don’t own the place.

“If you go and get a bank loan, the reality is they can’t foreclose. They’ve got nothing to foreclose on. As a club we own the improvements and the LED light heads and a few other bits and bobs but they can’t foreclose on that and take it away for a $900,000 loan.”

Terry says they’ve crowdfunded, got court sponsors and, with some luck, it has allowed them to put in smaller things such as disability ramps, but he says they can’t save enough to solve a $750,000 problem right up front.

“We’ve got some rank juniors here, and we’ve taken a lot of kids through to national ranking but we can’t coach them on these courts properly because the bounce can be so variable,” says Terry, who’s also worried the cracks on the surface will become a trip hazard.

“My view is that the ACT government is a derelict landlord because they give nothing back to our facilities.”

As an affiliated club to Tennis ACT, Terry has attempted to lobby the government through them, but says, after seven years, things just aren’t happening quick enough.

“Worst-case scenario is that we will be forced to close,” says Terry, who doesn’t want to wait around for that.

“We rarely hear from the board and I tried to gain their assistance through the process and we still seem to be getting no traction.”

A majority of the community-run tennis clubs in Canberra pay fees to be affiliated with Tennis ACT, so they have access to their services and competitions, but Terry was disappointed when they accepted money from the government for tennis courts in Gungahlin.

“I think it’s disingenuous to say, we’ll accept this money and forget about the rest. We pay for them to represent us,” he says, of the 12 courts that ACT Labor, in an $8 million election promise, committed to the Gungahlin region.

“I will never, ever believe that Gungahlin doesn’t deserve tennis courts, they do, build them for them, but it was heartbreaking in a sense that we cater for members and people all over Canberra.

“We’ll probably lose members as a result of it and so will Steve. We’re stuck in this horrible situation where we can’t provide for our members but there’s more than $8 million going to be sunk over there and so it hasn’t fixed the base problem.”

And, Terry argues that all the government’s doing is setting up the same problem for a new club in 10 years’ time or 20 years’ time.

Steve says he’s disappointed that they didn’t do a two-pronged approach, which saw them plan for new facilities but also plan to pay for the large maintenance costs of older facilities, too.

“As well as investing in new areas, the government should set up a sinking fund, which could be managed by ACT Tennis, and that would take care of the maintenance,” he says.

F#&$

OPINION / pain

Discovering the painful realities of being in pain I WANTED to write about pain, because I’ve experienced a fair bit of it in the last little while. Also, I felt I didn’t know much about it and it was time to learn more.

My hazy view was that physical pain (“ouch”) was part of the body’s warning system. Don’t do that again or fix it were the messages. Then there is the problem of the pain that comes from grief, the loss of a dear one, the “woe-is-me” pain that seems to be with you forever until, at last you can emerge from the box and live freely again.

I didn’t have to wrestle with that issue for long. There is a global body, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), which defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with or resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage”. Note the last few words.

Pain is a symptom of something else, an underlying condition. That’s what you have to fix. So I’m sticking with IASP. It simplifies things for me. Pain is why we go to the doctor, and if we don’t have the capacity to feel pain we tend to die young.

Of course, doctors and philosophers have been studying it from the beginning.

Hippocrates thought it came from an imbalance of vital fluids. Avicenna thought it was one of the feeling senses, such as touch and taste. Descartes thought it was a disturbance that went to the brain which then sent out the pain response.

Recent scientific work has led to a great abundance of theory and practice, but I like the nursing definition, which is that “pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does”. This statement was made by a woman, not a man, but she made it in 1968.

In hospital, nurses will ask you where, on a scale from 0 to 10, you would situate the pain you are feeling. Zero is no pain at all, while 10 is the worst pain you have ever had. Although we all feel pain, and seem to feel it in the same way for the same reason, my 5 may not be like your 5, but it’s the best estimate we have.

When I joined the Army’s national service training system in 1955 the first thing we had to do, even before picking up our military clothing, was to line up for “tet and tab”, one or two injections to guard against typhoid and tetanus.

Young men, bigger and stronger than me, fainted at the experience. I’d had penicillin

DON AITKIN has been discovering the meaning of pain through the presence of a ureteric stone and a little research… because I had previously contracted tetanus, so I was more or less used to injections, but they were rare at the time.

For what it’s worth my own 0-to-10 scale would go something like this. I’m thinking here of stomach pain, my usual problem. If you’ve had comparable experiences, see how your ranking squares with mine: 0-2 No pain at all, or something so mild that at two I only just notice it, and get on with other things.

3-4 Now the pain is irritating, but I can deal with it by finding something to distract me, like resting and hoping, or watching television, or walking around and muttering.

5-6 I need help, and go to find it. The trouble is that because of my relative stoicism the ordinary analgesics don’t work for me. Panadol is useless, as is Endone. I take codeine anyway to counter diarrhoea so its analgesic properties are already there. There is much discussion between me and the staff.

7-8 Now I am in real trouble, moaning and complaining. What will work is subcut (subcutaneous) morphine, but I have to go to hospital for that, and then there’s a long wait until a doctor agrees. But it works. Phew!

9+ Oh dear. Everyone is doing their best. Time passes in great hurt. Fortunately you forget it after the event. We can’t remember pain any more than we can remember pleasure. We can remember the event and the context, but not the experience itself.

11/10 Kidney stone. It is said that women in childbirth have the same sharp moment of acute pain, but they are pumped full of adrenaline to help them through, and they get a baby as well.

Men don’t even have a kidney stone to show anyone.

So there it is. I learned a lot, and IASP and Wikipedia were a help, and are worth going to if you too would like to learn more about this universal and troubling phenomenon.

Prof Don Aitkin is a former vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra and blogs at donaitkin.com

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CityNews September 24-30, 2020 11

POLITICS / housing

Labor’s housing shame in a young mother’s cry IS it just me or have you, too, over the last few months (or even years) heard – or at least imagined hearing – a heartbreaking wail outside as you sat down to breakfast.

It may be that that experience was as you opened the daily paper or a news website or turned on the radio.

I fancy I hear this mournful wail every time the media reports, with what always seems to me to be misplaced pride, that the housing market in Canberra remains the “strongest” or most “robust” or “resilient” in the whole of Australia.

Good old Canberra, a real estate agent’s paradise, the strongest housing market in Australia. Punching above our weight again.

Having the “strongest” housing market in Australia means simply, of course, that houses in Canberra are increasing in value at a faster and higher rate than incomes and inflation and higher than anywhere in Australia.

It’s not surprising then that for those in Canberra not lucky enough to own their own homes that rents are increasing commensurately and also at the fastest and highest rate in Australia.

As I mentioned, the news about the

That the people who suffer most from this heartless monopoly release of land are from the working class or households with annual gross incomes of under around $110,000 shames the ACT Labor Party. “strength” of the housing market is usually presented in a celebratory fashion.

And indeed, those of us who are comfortably middle class and proud owners of a detached house on a nice block with a garden and back yard have much to cheer about and celebrate.

Without lifting a finger, the value of our house and net financial worth is increasing at a stunning, if not obscene, rate. Even a median-priced house has in recent years been increasing in value by between $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Fantastic isn’t it?

Fantastic for some of us, yes, but sobering and sad if one stops to think about where the money that our houses are making for us comes from and who it is, at the end of the day, that’s paying the price for our good fortune.

It is, of course, young families, first-home buyers and people from the working class and lower-income households who are desperately seeking to break into the housing market and who pay the price both in terms

of being fated either to never own a house in Canberra or forced, because of the lack of affordable housing stock, to pay a price that they can’t really afford.

And so every time I read or hear news reports about the “strength” of the Canberra housing market it’s not cheering that rings in my ears but the sound of a young Canberra mother crying. I even have a face to put to that young mother.

In the recent past I attended the auction of a house. I accompanied my daughter and her husband and their children who planned to bid for the house.

There were six other registered bidders – all young couples with children. The agent had advised in pre-auction inspections that his best estimate was that the house would sell for between $590,000 and $640,000.

There was an air of understandable anxiety and tension as the bidding began. All the young couples were no doubt praying that this time they might be lucky; they might

finally have a home of their own and fulfil a precious dream.

However, in a sign of the “strength” of the housing market the bidding opened at $660,000 and one of the young mothers gave out a wail that haunts me still and burst into uncontrollable tears, gathered up her distraught children and left.

As an aside, the property, a 50-year-old, renovated, threebedroom house in an outer suburb, sold for $700,000. My daughter was not the purchaser.

That scene, which plays regularly in my mind, is one of the reasons I’m so unremittingly critical of the landsupply and planning policies of the current Labor and Greens’ members of the ACT government.

The harsh reality is that the decision taken by Labor and the Greens to deliberately restrain the supply of land for detached houses has created a level of pent-up demand that simply cannot be met by the current strategy. The market has failed.

The consequence is that young families and people in the bottom two to two and a half quintiles (i.e up to half of all Canberrans, who are currently not in the housing market)

will never, for so long as the government asserts its monopoly control over the release of land, be able to afford to buy a house in Canberra.

That the people who suffer most from this heartless monopolist ideology are from the working class or households with annual gross incomes of under around $110,000 shames the ACT Labor Party.

My colleague Dr Khalid Ahmed and I have written extensively about these issues for the Policy Space blog of the University of Canberra.

The evidence to support the claims I make above is incontrovertible and is detailed in the posted articles.

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

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MENTAL HEALTH MONTH ACT / October 1-31

advertising feature

‘The main message is that it’s okay not to feel okay. Reach out and talk to someone.’

Month makes mental health a ‘Priori-Tea’ PEOPLE are being encouraged to start a conversation about mental health over a cuppa with workmates this Mental Health Month ACT, says Mental Health Community Coalition (MHCC) ACT executive officer Simon Viereck.

“It’s completely normal at this point in time to be feeling anxious or depressed and we want people to know they can open up and that there are places they can go for support,” he says.

Funded by ACT Health, and run by MHCC ACT in partnership with local community mental health providers, Mental Health Month ACT will run from October 1-31, with World Mental Health Day on October 10.

This year’s theme is “Conversations and Connection” but, because of COVID-19 health restrictions, much of the program of events has been shifted online this year.

“The Mental Health and Wellbeing Expo is usually our major event, with 80 local organisations involved and more than 3500 people attending last year, but we’ve unfortunately had to cancel it for 2020,” says communications and events officer Alison Hall.

“Instead there will be more virtual events,

with the aim of reaching people we don’t usually reach, and more focus on encouraging people to organise their own events in smaller community groups.”

Mental Health Month ACT is an opportunity to bring mental health out in the open, to improve understanding of mental health issues and to remove the stigma by showcasing mental illness as a source of strength.

More than 30 community events will be happening in October, including the virtual Mental Health Month launch event on October 10, the ACT Mental Health Month Awards, which will be live-streamed via Facebook on October 29, and the Wellbeing Priori-Tea, which can be hosted at workplaces, within community groups or online throughout the month.

“We want as many people as possible to check out the calendar of events and get involved,” says Alison.

Simon and Alison say hosting a Wellbeing Priori-Tea can provide people with a range of resources, giving a better sense of where they might go for help and support, from crisis hotlines, national programs and community programs.

Importantly, it’s also about creating a safe space to start those conversations in the first place, they say.

“I think we’re often worried about appearing weak in any way in the workplace. It’s a strength to be able to say, I need support,”

Mental Health Community Coalition ACT executive officer Simon Viereck, with communications officer Alison Hall. “It’s a strength to be able to say, I need support,” says Simon.

Photo: Holly Treadaway says Simon.

“We want to legitimise talking about how we’re coping or not coping, when we’re feeling stressed and might need a helping hand from colleagues.

“The main message is that it’s okay not to feel okay. Reach out and talk to someone.”

Feeling connected to each other and

communities creates a sense of belonging, which is why MHCC ACT says intentional conversations are crucial to supporting mental health and wellbeing.

The reality is that nearly half of people are going to experience a mental health issue at some point in their lifetimes, says Simon.

“It’s not something unusual. In any

12-month period it’s one in five people – so if it’s not you, it’s your friend, colleague or partner. And it could be worse under the impacts of the pandemic,” he says.

“If you’re struggling, others will be too.

One person speaking up can allow others to feel safe to do the same.”

Alison says a Wellbeing Priori-Tea event could be a morning tea, afternoon tea or high tea but it doesn’t have to happen in person.

“If physical distancing is an issue, a PrioriTea can be done online. It’s just about the ability to connect and have a conversation,” she says.

Anyone interested in hosting a Wellbeing Priori-Tea event is encouraged to register online to receive a resource pack with a series of conversation starters around mental health.

It’s not just starting the conversation that matters – it’s how to respond appropriately, too, says Simon.

“If anyone is showing signs of needing more support, the resource packs offer support on how to follow up with someone and check in,” he says.

“Listening is the main thing. It’s amazing how much that can help. You don’t have to have all the answers. Just care.”

The Mental Health Month ACT program is available via mentalhealthmonthact.org

CityNews September 24-30, 2020 13

CANBERRA MATTERS

The deafening silence of the Canberra Greens MANY residents who voted for the ACT Greens are disillusioned given how the partnership with ACT Labor has sidelined many planning, development, environmental, heritage and urban issues.

The perception is that the Greens were to be silent on some issues so that leader Shane Rattenbury could occupy a government cabinet position.

Their deal with Labor contained a list of initiatives – many were delivered on (good news). But that list must be judged in the context of how the agreement continually silenced the Greens and hindered opportunities to stand alongside residents in battles for urban improvements.

After years of the Greens being in partnership with Labor, voters should be experiencing enhanced green infrastructure, biodiversity, trees and parklands. Has not happened!

The city does not have 100 per cent renewable energy. The ACT government has paid for renewable energy infrastructure elsewhere in the country (a good thing). This offsets by 100 per cent what comes to the city as electricity. There is no magical pipeline of renewable energy into Canberra. The energy we use is from the national grid – being coal and gas based. When the Greens say Canberra is 100 per cent renewable – it is not quite true. People wish it was.

Over the last decade, as conten-

14 CityNews September 24-30, 2020

wonderful place to live.

The Greens have been a partner in the reduction of the city’s amenities and its reputation.

A city of towers with less community and cultural facilities and diminishing greenery is not what people had expected to be the outcome of having the ACT Greens as part of government.

Instead of taking the time to understand the issues, the Greens used the Chief Minister’s and Shane Rattenbury caricature by Stephen Harrison, with City Renewal Authority’s apologies to Edvard Munch.

Illustraion: Stephen Harrison spin that West Basin was omable mess, so much development is tious issues popped up, the Greens simply a car park that destroying the bush capital, heritage were often silent. They were not should be built over. They refused is ignored and, shockingly for the keeping the Barr government honest. to recognise the opportunities to Greens, greenery and biodiversity has enhance these lakeside spaces. They Especially around planning. Think diminished. All for the privilege of the Dickson land swap and the North have signed off on converting the Curtin Horse Paddocks land exchange having that one cabinet position. parklands to an international style Having such an agreement, rather for part of West Basin, and the green archi-park. Does Shane Rattenbury than sitting outside cabinet on the and community spaces converted for have nightmares about well-designed crossbenches, has been a disservice housing (a quick fix given Labor mingreen open spaces with old growth to the community. To honour their ister Yvette Berry’s failure on social trees and abundant biodiversity? contract with Labor they have broken housing). Usually the ACT Greens The Greens leadership must experitheir contract with the electorate. sat on their hands and did little about ence terror whenever they confront There has been a serious erosion in the the reality of what they have allowed residents being given a hard time. trust in what the ACT Greens stand for. to happen. It’s time for the ACT Instead of being a humane influOurs was a well-planned city with ence on the Barr-led coalition, the an internationally recognised urban reverse was true. They enabled the character – think trees, greenery, barbary to continue unhindered. biodiversity, urban forests and a The planning system is an unfath-

A city of towers with less community and cultural facilities and diminishing greenery is not what people had expected to be the outcome of having the ACT Greens as part of government.

Greens to decide whether they are to deliver on a progressive 21st century agenda by sitting on the crossbenches and debating each issue with whoever forms government. Alternatively, they could again fail the community by trading off important urban and social issues to form another Greens Labor coalition – if that’s how things go in October.

Some voters are still keen to see the Greens win seats. These people must be kind and mysteriously optimistic – despite the reality that the ACT Greens’ record for the last decade has not matched voters’ aspirations. It is time for Shane Rattenbury to re-think his role in a future government and to be honest and transparent about that now – so voters know what to expect.

Silence in this case is not golden!

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

POLITICS / power to the people

You have the voting power – not parties Ignore the political parties and take voting power into your own hands,” says political columnist MICHAEL MOORE

left unmarked by you and others, that person drops back, making them less likely to be elected.

Some argue that it is only necessary to put one mark on the paper, despite the instruction from the Electoral Commission. The reason for this is that the legislation has a specific clause to ensure where voter intention is clear, then the vote is recognised. Voters putting fewer than five numbers on their ballot paper have a much greater chance of having the vote “exhausted”.

It is not necessary to stick to one party. The power of voting under Hare-Clark is that you can place a number 1 against an independent, numbers 2 and 3 against minor parties, number 4 against a favoured candidate in one of the major parties and number 5 against a favoured candidate in the other party. The reason for doing this sort of voting is simply to get the best person for the job.

As an illustration, it makes sense for someone who is financially conservative but socially liberal to vote for a candidate they know personally in the Progressives column, followed by a Greens candidate before moving to support a right faction candidate in the Labor column and then on to the Liberal Party to vote for a candidate who is a “small L Liberal” rather than a conservative.

ONE advantage of the Hare-Clark electoral system is that it puts the power squarely in the hands of the voter. In this column I explain how to use it most effectively and why.

The election is being held on Saturday, October 17 with early polling starting on Monday, September 28.

The singlemost important message is to avoid putting any number against someone you do not wish to elect. You might not like the person or you might disagree with the individual’s policy and approach. Perhaps the candidate is an elected member who, in your opinion, has done very little. Another possibility is that the candidate has behaved badly.

You have the power to choose one candidate or more from one party or more and leave the others unmarked. There is nothing wrong with just picking the best people for the job, even if your numbering of candidates runs right across independent and party lines.

The most effective way to cast a vote is to follow the Electoral Commission instruction on the ballot paper.

It reads: “Remember, number at least five boxes from 1-5 in the order of your choice”. Numbering further than 1-5 increases your chances of ensuring your vote is not “exhausted”.

“Exhausted” means that your vote does not support any candidate to get elected.

Preferential voting is the Australian standard and gives you flexibility with your vote. It allows you to put a number 1 or 2 or more against candidates who have little chance of being elected and then go on to support others who you believe are much more likely to be In ACT elections, names on ballot papers are rotated, which elected. This is an effective way means the “donkey vote” is evenly distributed amongst a to send a message to those with party’s candidates. whom you are not happy.

With Hare-Clark, the parties have no say You exercise more power by supporting betregarding the order their candidates appear ter candidates and refusing support to others on your ballot paper. Our system rotates the who have not performed well, or are unlikely candidate names so your ballot paper will to perform well. Current members of the Aslikely be different to another person’s. sembly may be punished or rewarded for their Therefore, voters who simply number 1-5 performance – irrespective of party loyalty. down the list of major party candidates will Your first vote may have been assigned to be voting for a different number 1 candidates. a little known candidate and originally be in This means the “donkey vote” (or running the smallest pile of papers for the count. Your down the list) ensures the votes are evenly vote is not wasted. This pile of ballot papers distributed amongst the party’s candidate. is picked up by the counting staff and placed When you choose more carefully, your vote on other piles in accordance with the specific will mean that candidate has an advantage numbering of each ballot paper. The counting over others that have been evenly distributed. staff then move to the next smallest pile, which This is also why a high-profile candidate, or is distributed in the same way. This process one attractive to a particucontinues until your ballot paper lands on lar group of people, has an someone who gets enough votes to be elected. advantage.

You have the power. Use it!

You, the voter, have the power to advantage a Michael Moore is a former member of the ACT candidate who deserves Legislative Assembly and an independent minissupport. Similarly, where ter for health. He has been a political columnist a candidate is with “CityNews” since 2006.

ADVERTISING FEATURE

VOTE EASY / cover story

Website aims to help voters make an informed decision WITH the vision of making voting easier for everyone, Craig Blakley and Owen Whatley founded the website Vote Easy to help voters make an informed decision on election day.

Electricians by trade, Craig and Owen teamed up to start Vote Easy out of a need to make voting easier for people in the community.

By giving each candidate the opportunity to upload information about their campaign on the website, Vote Easy aims to be a convenient platform in which voters can find out who is running in their electorate and what their policy positions are.

So far, Vote Easy has covered elections across the country, and now, Craig says it’s their turn to make voting easier in the ACT. “When we come to vote, it’s hard to get information on the candidates. We get the headlines, banter and politicians bagging each other, but when it comes to finding out more about what each candidate is all about, it’s not straightforward for voters,” he says.

Craig says Vote Easy allows voters to consider all the candidates and make informed decisions whilst levelling the playing field for the candidates.

“We wanted to create a platform which is unbiased and genuine, allowing people to make the best decision and get better representation,” he says.

According to Craig, Vote Easy is an affordable way for candidates to display their whole campaign to the community, and to celebrate this, Vote Easy is offering all candidates an introductory offer of $5, to promote themselves to voters. He says being on Vote Easy allows candidates to connect with voters that they haven’t spoken to or haven’t reached yet.

For the candidates who choose not to be involved, only their name appears, in ballot order.

“If the candidates aren’t on the site, you should question why,” says Craig.

Vote Easy, according to Craig, is also very community-

minded and he is working with a group of teachers to roll out a free version of the Vote Easy website, specifically for schools to use for student elections and in conjunction with their political studies.

If people are given all information, Craig says they might make a different decision on who represents them.

“People are disenchanted with politics and politicians, however, the great news is, they can do something about it. Value your vote, consider all the candidates and make an informed decision,” he says.

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“Vote Easy doesn’t care who you vote for, just that you make an informed decision.”

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MIGNONNE CULLEN

Candidate cares for minority groups

Independent candidate for Ginninderra Mignonne Cullen.

Mignonne says an appropriate employment opportunity with tailored support is crucial for improving the life of some of the ACT’s most vulnerable citizens – including long-term unemployed and ageing people who want to participate in a work program.

“For many Canberrans living with a disability, and other marginalised groups, daily living, such as getting to and from a job, shops, medical appointments and a night out, is difficult due to the inconsistencies of the ACT public transport system and out-of-pocket expenses,” she says.

“The constantly changing routes and timetables can create a challenge for some, which is made worse when a person with mobility issues turns up for a service marked on the timetable as accessible when it’s not.”

Mother of two boys aged 24 and 28, Mignonne grew up near Broken Hill and has lived in Scullin, in the Ginninderra electorate, for almost 30 years, with some time away for military service.

“My main focus if elected will be improving the quality of life for all Canberrans and improving ACT government service delivery,” Mignonne says.

“I’m good with people, I care about people and marginalised groups, and I’m here to create real change.”

Mignonne CULLEN I will advocate for all Canberrans but in particular marginalised groups such as people with disabilities and our ageing population.

Ask questions. Be informed.

I look forward to engaging with you in the future.

VOTE 1

It is time to elect a candidate who wants change and understands the need for a better life for all.

Independent for Ginninderra Authorised by Mignonne Cullen, candidate for Ginninderra

16 CityNews September 24-30, 2020

Let loose to: editor@citynews.com.au

Canberra was much better when it was much smaller I NOTE that in all the electioneering going on at present there has been no mention of the elephant in the room, namely population growth.

BACKED with an understanding of issues that the ageing population, the disability community and other marginalised groups face, former nurse Mignonne Cullen is running as an Independent for Ginninderra in the ACT Election.

Mignonne, who lives with a disability herself, has worked on various advisory and management boards in the disability sector for the past 12 years.

“I was a nurse for 27 years but none of my nursing experiences prepared me for the reality of living with disability,” says Mignonne, who, in her early 40s, suffered three strokes, causing complex health issues which resolved over time.

“Unless you’ve been there, done that, you don’t always see what’s needed.”

Mignonne’s been a member of People with Disabilities ACT for 12 years, and is a current board member, she was a member of the ACT government’s Office of Disabilities, Disability Reference Group from 2017 to 2019, is a former volunteer for the Belconnen Community Services disability programme, Positive Links, and is a member of Women With Disabilities ACT. She says despite efforts by advocacy groups, the same issues – housing, employment and transport – keep being raised with little resolution.

“While there’s a shortage of affordable housing in the ACT, the issue of appropriate affordable housing for people living with disabilities is even more acute; and almost invisible,” Mignonne says.

“There’s a reluctance by the major political parties to embrace changes to building design that would enhance many people’s living standards, not only those in the disability sector.”

Since housing and employment have a symbiotic relationship,

LETTERS

I do not believe in the mantra “growth is good” despite being an economist, although I can well imagine that big business, developers and a cash strapped ACT government would.

As a born and bred Canberran, I can remember how much better Canberra was when it was smaller, but now we have a situation where population growth is contributing to climate change, the highest house and rental prices in the country, desecration of our fauna and flora, our arable land going under houses, roads and parking areas and an ever increasing rise in rates, numbers of traffic lights, parking meters and stop signs together with increases in youth homelessness and decreases in green spaces and recreational areas, etcetera.

In my view most of the problems in this world, including man-made contributions to climate change, can be traced back to uncontrolled population growth.

We do not need a government, with a supposed Greens component, making things worse. We need smaller population growth and a willingness for the community to lower its consumption levels and expectations so as to enjoy the much simpler pleasures of the Canberra of my boyhood.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

Watch out, Yarralumla!

THE NCA has been glued to the development of West Basin since 2004 supported by a string of lacklustre federal ministers and an avaricious ACT Labor-Greens government.

And now we reach the last step in a continuum of ignoring all critical comments along with a hushed-up lake land swap – the so-called public consultation has been ticked off.

How can we ever have confidence in this process when 75 per cent of public submissions against the foreshore development were simply dismissed with the only change by NCA being some planting of trees and installing barbeques?

Claims have been made that the West Basin development was discussed in 1992 as if that gives it credibility and justification. A lot of ghastly development ideas reach drawing boards such as for The Rocks (Sydney) but in that case community opinion saved the place.

The West Basin development has been fought on a campaign of words – careful use of barely truthful information and a complete absence of the full intentions, all presented using taxpayer money.

But if spin is spun often enough people believe it and it masks the real blight being done to Lake Burley Griffin and to Acton Park.

Meanwhile the spin continues, flagrantly using Griffin’s name as the planners annihilate his parkland and damage Lake Burley Griffin’s beauty and composition.

Gone are the days of expert government planners with integrity; this is the world of “developers rule” supported by this Trump-style word power.

And after West Basin what’s next? Watch out, Yarralumla!

Juliet Ramsay, via email

Electric-bus promise I NOTE a number of ACTION buses perambulating around our city bearing the logo “One of 40 new buses”.

All of them are fossil-fuel burning diesels,

Happy days? Garema Place (circa 1950s). but our chief minister has announced, as an election pledge, that the ACT will move to an electric bus fleet.

What a pity that this was not done before we, at huge cost, built the inflexible tram and destroyed Northbourne Avenue.

Norm Hughes, Narrabundah

Balancing a budget?

ARE there any potential ACT political candidates who can balance a budget?

A check of letterbox pamphlets and profile Googling would suggest that most ACT candidates are not interested in good economic management, but rather are idealists who are more interested in pushing particular barrows than they are in creating a strong economy coming out of COVID-19.

It is reminiscent of the global financial crisis.

Oh, dear!

Rewa Bate, Coombs

Limerick for the left A former MLA and Assembly Speaker is moved to poetry: Unions and developers reign supreme Under a government of Labor and Green Who soak the community With total impunity Of rates and taxes extreme.

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

Look to the constitution IT would provide deep relief if Australia’s troubles knew no boundaries but sadly that’s not the case. Overall our constitution has served us well, but primed by the coronavirus and its satellite problems, our nation and its people are suffering badly – and an increasing number see the constitution as an obstacle – including some, rightly or wrongly, to achieving fewer levels of government.

In my view it is past time to see in what way that which governs us can be reviewed, not simply change for change sake, but if a referendum or plebiscite shows a majority of Australians want to see a formal review of our constitution to identify how it is helping or not helping – then all governments should speak up and allow that particular consultation with the nation’s citizens.

Colliss Parrett, Barton

Time to take charge I IMAGINE we would all thank former chief minister Jon Stanhope for the arboretum.

It cost millions and doesn’t make a “profit”. But

trees have instant appeal, and are easier to “sell” than say, trams.

Of course, the arboretum delivers a social/environmental dividend, as should public transport, hospitals, housing, parks, and schools, etcetera.

They must be developed against rigorous environmental, social and performance guidelines.

However, somewhere along the line, the profit-driven private sector, including financiers, commercial project managers, “can-do” contractors, and developers have inveigled themselves into government works delivery methodologies, causing financial havoc, huge cost blowouts, poor design standards (especially in housing), and quality problems.

The University Avenue vista blocking the new ACT Courts complex is a glaring example.

Government needs to return to carrying out all such design, installation, and operational activities itself, with the help of professionals, and contractors chosen by competitive tendering. That’s how we got the arboretum.

Jack Kershaw, Kambah

This is Ngambri country!

I FULLY agree with the statement by Paul House (“Welcome to Ngambri country”, CN August 20) that Canberra was not in Ngunnawal country.

Research by Harold Koch and others proved their country was the land surrounding the lower Yass River with its southern boundary well north of Canberra, approximately on a line from Gundaroo to Wee Jasper.

A major battle for ownership of land was fought at Sutton between an invading Ngunnawal band (the Yass mob in 1820 reports) and the Nyamudy/Namarigo inhabitants (the Limestone Plains mob), which the latter won.

Ngambri was the name for the land around Sullivans Creek occupied by one of the 10 Nyamudy families. Ngunnawal people, then mixed race, did not move down from Yass until the 1920s to find work with the building of Canberra.

It is about time the ACT government corrected the obvious error, and modified its recognition and the signs.

However, I disagree that the name Canberra was derived from Ngambri. The first European home was called Camberry Cottage on the Acton Peninsula overlooking what was then the Fish River.

The cottage occupied by the head drover was named after Cambridge where he came from.

This in error became Canberry.

Later, when the population grew, a church was built at what is now Reid, the parish was called Canberry. However a clergyman changed it to Canberra to make it sound more classical.

Let’s get our history straight.

Paul Fitzwarryne, Yarralumla

NEWS / election2020

ADVERTISING FEATURE

MIKE STELZIG / CANBERRA PROGRESSIVES

Covid-safe poll a ‘no-fail’ ‘I promise I will be there for people and I will work for the electorate.’

Progressive Mike says he mission for Cantwell

will represent the people

By political reporter

BELINDA STRAHORN

DESCRIBING himself as a new breed of politician (although he finds the word “politician” offensive), Canberra Progressives’ candidate for Yerrabi, Mike Stelzig, wants to put ethics back into politics, deliver evidenced-based policies and empower Canberrans.

HEADING up security in a war zone for the Afghanistan presidential election in 2009 is a far cry from the calm and order of an ACT election in 2020.

But that’s the challenge for Army brigadier turned ACT electoral commissioner Damian Cantwell.

An illustrious military career spanning 37 years, including a high-profile appointment at the Pentagon and various deployments overseas, has taught him a thing or two about being prepared. But nothing quite like the challenge of running a pandemic election.

Weeks out from October’s poll, an unflappable Cantwell, 57, is moments away from his first test as the territory’s election boss, a mission he hopes to execute with military precision.

“In a combat situation someone is always trying to unhinge you, to bring you harm or death,” Cantwell explains.

“And here we are in an election year where no one is shooting at us or trying to blow us up, but the events that have transpired have been difficult and have challenged us in our thinking and planning.”

Public service is in Cantwell’s DNA. One of eight children, four of his brothers also served in the Army, as well as his wife Susan and one of his two children.

His exceptional career includes appointments in Australia, the UK, the US and the Middle East. He was deployed to Bougainville in 1994, Kuwait and Afghanistan several times. He was a trainer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, and served as the chief of defence force’s liaison officer to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon.

Despite his impressive CV, Cantwell is equally proud to be a cycling enthusiast and collector of funky socks.

In 2017 Cantwell left the Army and succeeded long-time ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green.

“When I applied for the job my wife Susan asked: ‘What do you know about elections?’,” Cantwell said.

“Not much,” he replied.

“But I did organise the logistics and security support for the 2009 Afghanistan presidential elections, it was a huge undertaking in an active war zone.

“Whilst I didn’t know that much about the technical or legal aspects of an election, I did know about the logistical side of things, and I think that’s what they were looking for, someone with leadership and management experience.”

Cantwell, now three years into his five-year term as commissioner, has applied his military know-how to create a “contingency” plan he hopes will see the territory through its first pandemic election.

“When I took the job in 2017, I asked the question: ‘What contingency plan do we have in case what we have done before doesn’t play out?’,” Cantwell said.

The short answer was nothing.

“This wasn’t a criticism, but there was a reliance on what has been done before will work again, and here we are in 2020 with drought, fires, floods, a pandemic and economic turmoil... it’s been a hard year,” he said.

ACT electoral commissioner Damian Cantwell…

“We are in a good place, we have a plan to ensure the covid-safe arrangements work, and we are on that path now.”

Photo: Belinda Strahorn Figuring out how to conduct a pandemic-safe election hasn’t been easy.

“We developed a plan and now we are marching towards the sharp end of the endeavour,” said Cantwell.

That plan, among many things, involved changing legislation to enable all Canberrans to vote early.

As a result, 15 early voting centres – triple that of the last election – will open across the territory on Monday, September 28.

Come election day on October 17, 82 polling booths will open for Canberrans to cast their vote.

To cope with the expected influx of early voters, 300 electronic voting machines, three times the number of machines than last time, will be available – and wiped down afterwards.

Traditional ballot papers are still on offer, with single-use pencils only. All electoral staff will wear masks and carry out social-distancing checks.

“We will also have on our website the peaks and troughs of where people are voting so they can make their own mind up when they think it’s best to vote and act accordingly,” Cantwell said.

With 99 per cent of Canberrans already enrolled to vote, Cantwell expects that four in five electors will exercise their democratic right ahead of polling day. Most will do so on the electronic touchscreen, which means the ACT’s result may be known sooner.

“We have always been able to arrive at an initial distribution of preferences within an hour or two of polls closing,” he said.

“Of course, we have to wait till postal votes or overseas votes are received to do the final count, it’s then subject to the scrutiny process, following that I can declare the result officially, and seven days after that the new government is formed.”

But before then, there’s much work to do.

“We are in a good place, we have a plan to ensure the covid-safe arrangements work, and we are on that path now,” said Cantwell.

“This is a no-fail mission.”

“As the saying goes: ‘democracy happens every four years’. In between that time the government can do whatever they like,” says Mike, inspired by the Swiss model of “direct democracy”.

He would also like the ACT to adopt the Irish system of a “citizens’ assembly”, which would be representative of the people, and would guide the government’s decision making.

The married father of two from Ngunnawal believes that democracy needs to happen every day and that elected officials are essentially employees of the people.

“When I returned to live in Canberra from Germany in 1989, I was shocked that no one seemed to be as engaged and interested in politics as people were in Germany,” he says.

“I saw the decisions that politicians were making on a federal, state and territory level [and thought they] were bizarre and unrealistic.”

Mike, a public servant, has held auditing and policy roles in the Commonwealth and ACT government, and says he’s experienced first hand the number of problems facing Canberrans, which should be prioritised, such as a shortage of hospital beds and medical specialists, a shortfall of public housing units, and the over-development that has destroyed large areas of the ACT. He says his interactions with the current government and MLAs have been unsatisfactory, with a number of his letters and requests for meetings being unanswered.

“Many politicians don’t care about the people, they care about kudos and their own reputation [but] I promise I will be there for people and I will work for the electorate,” says Mike, whose policy agenda includes building two new hospitals in Gungahlin and Tuggeranong, expanding the Gungahlin police station and changing development laws.

“We (Canberra Progressives) believe that there needs to be a logical and strict hierarchy as to how funds are dispersed to address the gaping human needs of our community. The light rail, at this point in time is unnecessary, we instead need to get the priorities right”.

With 1600 homeless people and a lack of 3000 public housing units, Mike’s appalled that $650 million was spent on the light rail, and believes that human needs must be met before spending on tourist attractions.

Canberra Progressives’ candidate for Yerrabi Mike Stelzig... “There are a lot of minor parties and independents who are worthy of being elected and could form a better government.”

“I wish I could dismantle and get a refund for the light rail,” says Mike who has seen the impact that the reduction in bus routes has had, particularly for older people.

He proposes that a free shuttle bus network be created that eldery people can call to be picked up from their home, to connect to their nearest light rail stop.

“My motto is: ‘If you vote the same, you get the same.’

After every election people complain about politicians, but in the end, we voted for them. There are a lot of minor parties and independents who are worthy of being elected and could form a better government,” he says.

Mike says politicians should be limited to serving only two terms as an accumulation of power, vested interests and apathy can grow, if left unchecked.

He believes the development laws in Canberra need to be changed to give people a say, rather than the “ticking and flicking” that occurs with planning decisions, which also gives too much power to the planning minister.

“There needs to be a proper system which is thoroughly vetted. We are becoming a concrete capital and we need to have experts in sustainable planning advise us as to how our suburbs should look, rather than developers who only want to maximise their yield,” he says.

“The government is destroying our whole ecosystem by giving developers free rein in destroying native flora and fauna. Once gone, it won’t come back.”

Mike says he thinks outside of established boxes and has solutions to problems, which is why he urges Canberrans to stop putting the major parties first.

“Put your preferred independent candidate first to make sure we don’t get more of the same,” he says.

Visit mikestelzig.com

CityNews September 24-30, 2020 17

THE FIFTH SEAT / Murrumbidgee

Libs looking for third seat in must-win electorate There are 25 seats up for grabs in the October 17 ACT election and there is one seat in each of the five electorates of five members that will effectively decide the election – the fifth seat. In a series of articles political reporter BELINDA STRAHORN will analyse the fate of each of the “fifth seats”.

This week she looks at Murrumbidgee.

THE departure from politics of ACT Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur will create great interest in the seat of Murrumbidgee from both the Labor and Liberal parties this election.

The Greens have lost an independent voice in the chamber and both sides will see it as an opportunity to pick up an extra seat given she won the fifth and final spot in Murrumbidgee at the last election, some 300 votes behind Giulia Jones, who was returned as the Liberals’ second representative.

Le Couteur’s retirement also leaves the door open for a strong independent candidate hoping to cash in on voter antipathy towards the major parties.

Liberal’s Leader Alistair Coe has long identified Murrumbidgee as a must-win seat for the Liberals if they are to form government. Currently, the Liberals have 11 members in the Assembly and to form government in its own right the party needs to pick up another two seats. The fifth seat in Murrumbidgee represents the Liberals’ best chance of winning an extra spot.

The Liberals’ strongest support at the 2016 election was largely south of the lake. Twenty three of the 80 booths voted 40 per cent or higher for the Liberals (excluding pre-poll booths). Eight of those booths were in Woden or Weston Creek. Deakin was the best booth for the Liberals, where 57.7 per cent of voters gave the party their first preference. The party also substantially out-polled Labor in Yarralumla.

The suburbs of Yarralumla and Deakin now reside in the electorate of Murrumbidgee, after the latest boundary redistribution, which is said to have favoured the Liberals.

On this basis, some pundits predict the Liberals have a decent shot at gaining another seat in Murrumbidgee.

While veteran psephologist Malcolm Mackerras foresees a victory for the Barr government, winning a third seat in Murrumbidgee is achievable for the Liberals.

“I think the ACT is so naturally left leaning that it is distinctly more likely that the Barr government will continue than the Liberals will win the election,” he says.

“My specific predictions are that the Labor Party will win three of the five seats in Ginninderra and Yerrabi, and two of the five seats in Brindabella, Murrumbidgee and Kurrajong.”

The only way the Liberals can win the election, Mackerras says, is if they won three of the five seats in Yerrabi and the odds are “distinctly against that”.

Who’s who in Murrumbidgee Murrumbidgee is currently represented by two Labor MLAs, Chris Steel, who sits in cabinet as Transport

18 CityNews September 24-30, 2020

Minister, and backbencher Bec Cody; two Canberra Liberal MLAs Giulia Jones and former Liberals’ leader Jeremy Hanson, and Greens’ stalwart Caroline Le Couteur.

All of the incumbent MLAs, minus Le Couteur, are re-contesting their seats.

While Mackerras predicts a Labor win, former ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope believes the longevity of the Labor government is bound to be a factor this election.

Stanhope argues the “It’s Time” factor will play a significant role, citing the failing state of the Budget, a bad performing health system, lack of housing affordability and appalling outcomes for the Aboriginal community of Canberra as some of the Barr government’s shortcomings.

“This will be the hardest tussle that Labor has faced in the last 20 years,” Stanhope said.

“And I believe there will be an increase across the board in the Liberal Party vote.”

Carrick in with a chance In Murrumbidgee, Stanhope considers independent candidate Fiona Carrick as being highly electable, pointing to her “commendable” track record of commitment to the community.

“Fiona has genuine commitment of work and devotion to the community of getting things done, in a way that she believes and reflects the views of the community,” says Stanhope.

“Fiona did a good job as president of the Woden Valley Council. She has strong roots in the community, she’s got a track record of delivery and she understands the processes… I would think Fiona Carrick has a high chance of being successful.”

“CityNews” columnist Paul Costigan shares Stanhope’s prediction for the fifth seat.

“Fiona Carrick is an articulate community leader who has not been afraid to take on ministers and their planning and transport bureaucracies,” Costigan says.

“She could bring intelligence and a people-focused approach to whoever forms the government.”

Costigan has questioned the Greens’ ability to retain the seat vacated by Le Couteur in Murrumbidgee.

“Caroline attended many residents’ meetings and engaged with residents on many issues – not just planning,” says Costigan.

“Her exit should have made it easier for the next Greens’ candidate but maybe not given it was very much Caroline’s personal and friendly approach that won the seat.”

Greens’ candidate Emma Davidson is trying her second tilt at the seat.

But Davidson was no match for Le

Couteur, securing 0.1 of a quota at the 2016 election, trailing Le Couteur by some 2000 votes. Other Greens’ candidates running for Murrumbidgee this election are Merlin Baker and Tjanara Goreng Goreng.

Unless the Greens have a highprofile candidate in Murrumbidgee, Michael Moore, a former independent ACT Health Minister and veteran political columnist for “CityNews”, predicts the fifth seat will be “completely open”.

Moore predicts Hanson will get elected, Steel “is in” and Jones “will make it, too”.

“But Bec Cody is vulnerable,” Moore says and “Fiona Carrick is in with a reasonable chance.”

Hanson topped the polls Looking at Moore’s prediction, it is interesting to note how the electorate voted last time. At the 2016 election former Liberal leader Hanson romped it in securing over a quota (1.3) in his own right, and a staggering 11,224 first-preference votes. Jones trailed Hanson by some 7000 votes.

Hanson was the highest-polling Liberal at the last election securing 22.4 per cent of first-preference votes.

He polled higher than Chief Minister and Kurrajong MLA Andrew Barr, who secured 10,398 first-preference votes and more than deputy Liberals’ leader (now leader) and Yerrabi MLA Alistair Coe who picked up 7259 firstpreference votes, almost 4000 behind Hanson.

Steel secured Labor’s highest firstpreference vote in Murrumbidgee winning 4574 votes and was delivered half a quota with Bec Cody trailing Steel by 200 votes.

So while the results of the 2016 election point to the return of most of the current members in Murrumbidgee, it is clear that a strong campaign from

independent Fiona Carrick could deprive Labor of Bec Cody’s vote in the Assembly.

What are the issues?

There are a lot of issues at play in Murrumbidgee and winning a seat here will be a challenge for all local candidates. Some hot topics include: • The land swap saga between the National Capital Authority and the ACT government resulting in the loss of the Curtin horse paddocks and the bulldozing of a wildlife corridor.

• A swag of tree issues in Yarralumla and Deakin.

• Diminishing green space in Woden Town Centre as well as a lack of community facilities there.

• Plans to concrete part of a park and slap in a carpark beside Cooleman Court. The non-delivery of a replacement Coppins Crossing bridge.

• Battles by Coombs and Wright residents over development applications.

• And a decision to build the hospital extension fronting a suburban street in Garran.

Earlier published reviews of the electorates of Brindabella and Kurrajong in this series can be read at citynews.com.au

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OPINION / trains

Hold the tram and fix the train to Sydney first JON Stanhope’s interesting article “A parable of trains, trams and lying politicians” (CN, September 10) reminded me that we have heard little from the major ACT parties about upgrading the rail system between Canberra and Sydney.

It is not a particularly good rail track by any standard, but that could be offset by the use of tilt trains designed to run fast on substandard track. A tilt train in Queensland holds the Australian high-speed record at 210 km/h, but in normal operation it runs at a maximum of 160 km/h. (Highspeed is defined as 200 km/h plus.)

In 2017, I invited a representative from Talgo, the Spanish tilt train manufacturers, to come to Canberra and talk about what they could offer us by way of an improved train service.

This was after I had travelled in 2016 on one of its high-speed tilt trains from Samarkand to Tashkent – a distance of 344 kilometres.

With one stop, the journey took just under two hours – and that was in the Third World country of Uzbekistan!

The current rail timetable has three trains a day travelling each way between Canberra and Sydney taking more than four hours – which is no quicker than travel time in the 1960s.

Talgo agreed to send a manager and an engineer and I organised a public meeting for them at the ANU’s University House. It was standing room only and went well over time (suggesting a reasonable degree of public interest). I then took them to meet with relevant officers in the ACT and federal governments. They subsequently met with NSW government transport officials in Sydney.

Talgo was prepared to offer three train sets for $100 million, including running a test train at its expense to validate the exercise. The offer was not taken up because of vacillation on the part of the various politicians responsible for rail transport.

I suspect the sticking point was “who’s going to pay for what”. Only eight kilometres of the 286-kilometre line is within the ACT – but the benefits almost entirely accrue to the ACT. This means that the ACT should be prepared to commit to perhaps 80 per cent of the cost. (NSW politicians

CLIVE WILLIAMS

are focused on Sydney’s new Metro costing around $12 billion and likely to deliver more votes than improved country rail.)

Some of the benefits to the ACT of a fast tilt train service are fairly obvious: •R educed road traffic between Canberra and Sydney •R educed carbon emissions •A more frequent and enjoyable rail service for travellers •N early as quick door-to-door as air travel, and much cheaper •C anberra becomes a more accessible tourist destination •C anberra airport becomes an alternative international airport for Sydney •A ccess to lower-cost housing for commuters to Canberra and Sydney If the ACT government was footing the bill, it could insist on badging rights for the train – perhaps the Capital Express or something more imaginative. It could also insist on cutting the number of stops between Canberra and Sydney from the current nine to just two (Goulburn and Moss Vale?) to speed up the service.

Australia’s railways are a national embarrassment and an ongoing

Retired bullet trains on display at a railway museum in Nagoya. reminder of our politicians’ lack of vision. The train service to Canberra was efficient (compared to road and air travel) when federal politicians used to commute by rail to Canberra, but once they started coming by air (after World War II), surprise, surprise, Canberra’s airport was upgraded and rail was neglected.

The current rail timetable has three trains a day travelling each way between Canberra and Sydney taking more than four hours – which is no quicker than travel time in the 1960s.

Even so, it is often booked out.

While this neglect was happening, Japan introduced its first Shinkansen bullet train in 1964 – and now even has a museum of bullet trains. They travel at up to 320 km/h and the ride is so smooth you can stand a coin upright and it won’t fall over. Most developed nations now have similarly sophisticated rail networks.

China was a late starter, but in 20

years has more high-speed track than the rest of the world combined.

In February, Infrastructure Australia recommended the prioritisation of rail works to enable faster train travel between Canberra and Sydney. It noted: “Improving rail services in this corridor would provide more transport options for travellers, improve travel time reliability for rail passengers and reduce pressure on the air corridor”.

The next ACT government needs to take the initiative to provide a better rail service for the nation’s capital. It makes little sense for ACT politicians to be even considering stage two of a tram network to Woden when upgrading the Canberra-Sydney rail system would deliver far greater benefits for Canberra’s population – and at a fraction of the cost.

Clive Williams is a visiting professor at the ANU; he has no financial interest in promoting train travel.

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THE GADFLY

The slippery slope to spying on our own people SITTING proudly on the desk of my Canberra study is a framed medallion of the Australian Signals Directorate bearing its motto, “Reveal their secrets, Protect our own”. It was presented to me in 2015 by the then director of the ASD, Dr Paul Taloni.

It followed the time we’d spent together during the research for my opus, “Warrior Elite”, the fascinating history of our special forces and the intelligence agencies since World War II. It’s one of three of my works recently acquired by Australia Post and now on sale in post offices throughout the country.

Dr Taloni brought a refreshingly mature approach to the information surrounding the ASD; but of one aspect he was utterly inflexible: the secrets in question were those of other countries, and those to be protected were Australia’s. The very idea that the ASD would use its enormous power and expertise to spy on Australians was anathema. It was

It was a redirection of the government’s spyforce to our own people. It was one giant leap towards the kind of governments they have in Russia and China. To put it as mildly as I can, it was an outrage. also against the law.

So, when a successor, the eponymous Rachel Noble, foretold a turnaround to the policy on grounds that “not all Australians are the good guys”, this was no minor adjustment to meet the exigencies of terrorist activity in our country – of which we are blessedly free. Rather, it was a redirection of the government’s spyforce to our own people. She was changing the very nature of Australian governance. It was one giant leap towards the kind of governments they have in Russia and China.

To put it as mildly as I can, it was an outrage. Yet we heard virtually nothing from the federal Opposition, let alone the media charged with maintaining the kind of open and free Australia we know and love.

Of course, when challenged, Ms Noble will tell us how careful she will be to focus the ASD on those few

“not good guys” among us. That’s what spymasters do, before they quietly extend the definition of what constitutes a “not good guy” until it becomes meaningless.

Then, since the ASD is spying on Australians anyway, the next obvious step is to make it an arm of ASIO and the AFP; after all, it’s their job to protect us from home-based espionage and terrorist activities so why not make it official.

After that, it’s simply a tool in the hands of a Himmler, a Beria, or an Australian equivalent (can’t think who that would be) to do his worst.

And if anyone squawks, that probably means they need special attention because, the government will say, if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.

But if that’s the case, why is this government so afraid of a national ICAC to detect and reveal official corruption?

PM Scott Morrison promised to create such a body two years ago. Since then, all we’ve heard from him and his Attorney-General Christian Porter is

Australian Signals Directorate director Rachel Noble… “Not all Australians are the good guys”. a series of excuses about how terribly difficult it all is to “find the right balance” so the new body doesn’t go “off the rails” and actually embarrass someone in parliament. And, as usual, Labor is sitting on its hands.

Finally, the independent Helen Haines announced that she’s drafting her own Bill with another independent, Zali Steggall lined up to second

it. But without major party support, it has about as much chance of becoming law as Radish has of winning the Melbourne Cup. So, what is it that so worries its opponents? After all, if they’re not doing anything wrong, they’ve got nothing to fear. robert@robertmacklin.com

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The business is based in Picton, but services the area from Hawkesbury down to the Snowy Mountains, with many jobs in the Canberra region.

“I really enjoy my work and sorting out problems for people,” Leigh says.

“Our customers are always happy to see us and we get great feedback for our customer service – we turn up when we say we will and return all our calls.”

Leigh says the Australian Government Department of Health recommends that water tanks be inspected every two to three years for accumulation of sediment, which can lead to harmful bacteria building up and possibly causing health issues.

“If you’ve got a water tank that runs your washing machine and flushes the toilet, you can potentially have the dirt and dust washed in, which also damages the systems,” Leigh says.

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OPINION

Ref ‘Razor’ is a ray of hope in dark times EDDIE WILLIAMS says in these challenging times, Australia is looking for a national hero and who better than Canberra’s most significant sporting figure of the 21st century...

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IN a time of crisis, Australia needs a hero to look up to. An idol who can rally the troops through these dark times.

And who better than Canberra’s most significant sporting figure of the 21st century?

No, I’m not talking about the reformed Nick Kyrgios.

Not Mark Webber, either. Nor Lauren Jackson, Nathan Lyon or Kelsey-Lee Barber. Jarrod Croker? David Pocock? Tom Rogic? No, no, no!

I’m talking about someone who’s been on the field for more than 300 AFL games since 2004, including 27 finals and three grand finals. Someone with experience on the international stage. Someone with humble beginnings south of Lake Burley Griffin.

That’s right, I’m talking about “Razor” Ray Chamberlain – the highest-profile umpire in the land – and he was born and bred right here in Canberra.

Why is Ray the right person to lead us through the pandemic? Well, as his LinkedIn profile explains: “Ray’s areas of expertise include managing stress in high-pressure environments, adapting to change, effective communication and goal setting.” Sounds perfect!

Unlike others in leadership positions, Ray always explains

“Razor” Ray Chamberlain… Canberra’s most significant sporting figure of the 21st century? his decisions. If you watch any of his games, you’ll see he’s a pretty clear communicator – although perhaps he could be more concise. He’s accustomed to dealing with opposition and scrutiny. And he has a zero-tolerance approach when it comes to enforcing the rules.

If you get within 1.5 metres of another person, watch out!

You’ll cop a 50-metre penalty – or maybe even a 100-metre penalty if you don’t hurry up and get out of the way. And don’t even think about having too many players on the field or too many patrons in the pub – it could be game over.

On a serious note, he’s also a founding member of the Chamberlain Foundation, which focuses on suicide prevention and mental health awareness.

For some reason, we don’t

seem to claim Ray Chamberlain in the way we lay claim to “Canberra’s Nick Kyrgios” or “Canberra’s Caroline Buchanan”. But he’s definitely one of ours, attending Lake Tuggeranong College before studying a Bachelor of Education at the University of Canberra, while beginning his umpiring career in the old ACTAFL. He’s also a mortgage broker and, gee whiz, Australia could use some help paying off the mortgage right now.

So instead of putting rule-breaking sportspeople on posters and pedestals, let’s celebrate one of the ruleenforcers for once.

It’s time to blow the whistle on the coronavirus. And no one blows the whistle better than Canberra’s own “Razor Ray”.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

INSIDE

Greetings from pretty Pollen WENDY JOHNSON

The chaotic, mental mess of nocturnal hikikomori

By Helen

MUSA “MESS” seems like an improbable title for a piece of theatre, until you know how the young ANU art student and director of the work is thinking.

For, like many young people, to Natsuko Yonezawa life is just a chaotic mess, and she’s seized on a singular psychological phenomenon to investigate how we fit in – or in this case don’t fit in – with society.

The condition or practice of “hikikomori” now sees an estimated half a million Japanese youths and another half a million middleaged adults in Japan become modern-day hermits. In Japanese culture, with old-fashioned rules, this is particularly problematic.

Paired with another well-recognised syndrome, “amae”, interdependency of child and parent, usually mother and son, hikikomori often live by night and sleep by day, depending on close family to feed them.

Sounds familiar? To Yonezawa, whose cousin has been a hikikomori for a decade, it’s a perfect parallel to what’s happening during the enforced self-isolation of COVID-19, and it raises universal questions about what’s happening in our minds.

Only just 21, she’s in the third year of the

Natsuko Yonezawa explores hikikomori as a parallel to the self-isolation of COVID-19. new BA in Design at the ANU School of Art and Design, and is doing a sculpture course on “the politics of the body”.

That seems to hit the spot for the talented Japanese-born Yonezawa, who came here aged four when her mum enrolled in a PhD at ANU, went to various ballet schools, discovered Ruth Osborne’s QL2 Dance and liked it so much that she got into contemporary dance.

“Wait till you see this woman’s work,” says Chenoeh Miller, assistant director and live

programs officer at Belconnen Arts Centre.

The production, which features Christopher Samuel Carroll, Miriam Slater and possibly Yonezawa, who says, “I might open with a solo”, is still in progress but Miller is sure that when it opens at the beginning of October we’ll see “something completely fresh”.

COVID-19 has a lot to do with this new 45-minute production. Miller and fellow live programs officer, Sammy Moynihan, had

Photo: Martin Ollmann.

been floating the idea of some 10-minute works to test out the new theatre at Belco Arts Centre, but then covid hit and everything closed down.

Re-opening with a house capacity of only 76 and rules forbidding intimacy in the theatre, suddenly the 10-minute shows became the real thing.

Noted installation artist from Canberra Byrd was briefed to create a set reflecting a “messy mind, and our mental state” as well

as composer-sound artist Marlēné Claudine Radice, who often uses natural sounds like those created by the human body in her electrical acoustic compositions.

“Hikikomori was a mystery to me, but I trusted her [Yonezawa], she’s bringing such depth of knowledge to this,” Miller says.

It was a challenging concept to work on from scratch, but Belco had already engaged interdisciplinary artist Miriam Slater and later Christopher Samuel Carroll, the classicallytrained actor from Dublin and physical theatre graduate from LeCoq Institute in Paris, who won the inaugural Helen Tsongas award for acting last year at the ACT Arts Awards.

Steeped in Japanese culture and Adlerian psychology, Yonezawa will be setting “homework” for the actors during an intensive two weeks. She expects the subject, “the mental mess of hikikomori”, to stir up personal, intimate and possibly confronting issues for Carroll and Slater.

They’ll be facing questions as to how hikikomori get food and have sex, their hygiene, and their reversal of day and night, for instance.

“I found the physical mess hard to visualise… I had a vision of pinpoints of bodies moving through light but then Belco Arts came up with a budget, so it was possible to think of something sculptural,” Yonezawa says.

“Mess”, Belconnen Arts Centre, October 1-2.

Suitable for ages 16+. Book at belcoarts.sales. ticketsearch.com/sales/sales

ARTS IN THE CITY New program for acting students

By Helen Musa PERFORM Australia is launching a new development program for students in years 11 and 12.

With musical theatre and acting streams, successful auditionees would enrol with the Canberra Institute of Technology for year 11 and 12 then study online or by attending face-to-face classes at CIT. Students can receive an ACT Year 12 Certificate, an ATAR or even find a path to entering university without an ATAR. All details at perform.edu. au/young-professionals FOUR Winds in Bermagui is farewelling artistic director James Crabb, who led the annual Easter music festival from a biennial to an annual festival. Under a redesign following the impact of COVID-19, the Easter event will now be led by a contracted festival director whose work will complement a team who will deliver digital, educational, indigenous and community engagement programs including the Windsong Series, Youth Music Festival, Indigenous program and Musicians-in-Schools initiative.

Executive director David Francis stays on.

CONFIRMING Canberrans’ current taste for drive-in movie experience, “Mov’in Car Canberra” is returning for spring to the Questacon Car Park. Movies will include “The New Mutants”, “The Greatest Showman”, “Pirates of The Caribbean” and

Perform Australia is launching a new development program for year 11 and 12 students.

“Frozen 2”. Book at movincar.com.au CANBERRA Theatre Centre is having a go at live theatre, with four performances of “Room on the Broom”, a dramatisation of the hit picture book featuring songs, comedy and fun for children aged three and up, coming to the main stage from October 1-3. It’ll be the first production in the Canberra Theatre auditorium since its closure in March, CTC director Alex Budd says, stressing that COVID-safe procedures will be in place. Book at canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

THE Royal Military College Band rhythm and vocal groups will be stirring up a storm at Wesley with

favourites like “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, “Night and Day” and “Sweet, Sweet Spirit”, as well as some Swahili and Zulu film score music from Disney’s “The Lion King”. Wesley Music Centre, Forrest, 12.40-1.20pm, Wednesday, October 7. Book at trybooking.com NEWS has reached us of a submission to the ACT government of a proposal for funds to establish a permanent professional theatre company. Apart from the fact that The Street Theatre is already funded as a professional theatre entity, there will be the need for full-time staff, like an artistic director, administrator, technicians, and actors, sets and costumes, costing upwards of $500,000.

CityNews September 24-30, 2020 27

CINEMA

From a pickle vat to mean streets of New York “An American Pickle” (PG) I DID a short internet survey to see how reviewers (which I am) and critics (which I’m not) dealt with writer Simon Rich’s adaptation of his short story “Sell Out” for director Brandon Trost to convert into moving images.

Most if not all those other commentators described it as a comedy. Well, any movie featuring Seth Rogen is bound to deliver laughter. But underlying the comedy arising from Rogen’s portrayal of a Jewish Russian immigrant to the US who falls into a vat of pickling liquid in 1919, there to remain until uncovered by a bunch of schoolboys in 2019, Herschel Greenbaum is alive, well and feisty after his century of submersion.

This is a type of futurist on-screen fantasy that doesn’t infuriate me – zany, intensely humane, imaginative enough to vest what follows with a tad of credibility.

Playing Herschel, Seth Rogen hides behind a luxuriant black beard such as was a symbol of faith in Russian Jewish communities in 1919.

Herschel and his beloved wife Sarah (Australian Sarah Snook) emigrated before the Marxist/ Leninist takeover of Russia in 1917. Sarah was pregnant when Herschel fell into the pickle.

In 2019, Herschel and Sarah’s great grandson Ben is their only surviving descendant, living alone in New York. With a beard more fiveo’clock shadow than Herschel’s lush whiskers, Seth Rogen plays them both, including when they’re both in the same shot.

What follows the reunion certainly has comic moments. But most of all, “An American Pickle” is a polemic for our time. It doesn’t tout for either party in the forthcoming election. But

their failed relationships. After some frank girl-talk, Nick bumps into her. By accident?

By design? Does it matter?

For the filmgoer, the experience may be agreeable or a trip to ho-hums-ville. I doubt that its strong collection of girlie passages has the strength of purpose to appeal to redblooded blokes. Or to girls who love girls.

It’s fair to say that Geraldine Viswanathan carries the film through ups and downs to an ending that was predictable from the moment that Nick re-appeared. And that the gathering at the opening of Lucy’s Broken Hearts Gallery looks little different from other gatherings with similar purposes in other movies.

Seth Rogen, left, as Ben and, right, as Herschel in “An American Pickle”.

At Dendy, Hoyts, Limelight

Herschel experiences the rise and fall of selected social themes influencing daily life in modern America. And that’s at best disconcerting, not funny ha-ha.

“The Translators” (M)

At all cinemas

“The Broken Hearts Gallery” (M) THIS is writer/executive producer/director Natalie Krinsky’s debut feature after a career in writing episodes of American TV series. Does it reflect her own experiences or has she assembled the story from scratch? Only she and her confidantes know. Does it matter?

It’s essentially about finding something

positive out of heartbreak. The plot centres on Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan) living in an all-girl, shared New York apartment.

Lucy has just been fired from her gallery job. In a plot that depends to a moderate degree on happenstance, after drowning her sorrows she jumps into a car that she mistakes for her Uber and asks to be driven home.

The driver is Nick (Dacre Montgomery) who has spent five years renovating a rundown hotel named after his girlfriend at the time the job began. Hang about while Lucy gets the idea of establishing her own gallery filled with other people’s reminiscences of

“THE Translators”, director Régis Roinsard’s second feature film, is a mystery movie in the truest sense.

Nine linguists come to a large country house to translate the unpublished final volume in a best-selling trilogy from its native French into their nine languages. Mystery surrounds the books’ authorship. And publisher Eric Angstrom (Lambert Wilson) has imposed very restrictive conditions on the translators to create enough mystery to

boost sales when the book hits the stores on release day.

The title of the trilogy is “Daedalus”.

Remember Daedalus? He’s the bloke in Greek mythology who designed the labyrinth where Cretan King Minos kept his pet minotaur, half man, half bull, the child of Minos’ wife Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull that Hercules got called in to kill. When he fell out with his boss, Daedalus built wings for himself and his son Icarus to use to escape from Crete. The wings were held together by wax which melted when Icarus flew too close to the sun against his dad’s warning. The moral of the story was, and still is, “aim for the middle course and avoid extremes”.

An element characterising all good mysteries is, who dunnit? Romain Compingt’s screenplay asks, who then among the nine translators is demanding big bikkies not to reveal the denouement and the author’s name? It could be any of them. I’m no good at solving mysteries. You may be better at it.

Test yourself. Watch the movie. The experience will be rewarding.

At Palace Electric

WATCH IT! / streaming and stuff

More to sport than winning and losing EARLIER this year, Netflix’s “The Last Dance” made a massive slam-dunk in the streaming world.

sundayROAST Stay in touch with the names making news on Sundays from 9am as 2CC and “CityNews” present Canberra’s only local weekend news and current affairs program.

It’s a revolving panel show that brings to the microphone great “CityNews” commentators and 2CC personalities.

Be part of the conversation call 6255 1206 between 9am and noon

28 CityNews September 24-30, 2020

It’s the brilliant basketball documentary series following the Chicago Bulls and the story of Michael Jordan progressing from high-school promise to global household name.

Across the streaming world more widely though, we can see the rise in viewing of sporting documentaries, especially after the success of the Netflix production. This week I’ve dug more into the sub-genre and what’s on offer makes for some fantastic viewing.

As a self-confessed cricket nut, I was captivated by “The Test: a new era for Australia’s team”. It’s an eight-part documentary series on Amazon Prime exploring the aftermath of the infamous “sandpapergate” scandal, where legends of the game, Bancroft, Smith and Warner were seen trying to alter the condition of the ball in a series against South Africa.

“The Test” is the story of the team that rose from the ashes of the controversy and how it, along with Cricket Australia, fought to win back fans and the respect of the world.

What we’re met with behind the scenes is a fascinatingly far cry from what we see on commercial television. The intensity of the game and just how demanding it can be on a team is shown in all its detail.

But of course, much like life itself, the lowest of the lows come with the highest of the highs.

Seeing the team slowly claw its way back up the slippery ladder of success and the celebration that comes with it makes for an inspiring and rewarding story.

In one particularly touching moment, we see the Aussies visit the Western Front on a tour of Europe and they reflect on the way that men of

Batsman Steve Smith in “The Test”... the story of the controversial team that rose from the ashes to win back its fans and the respect of the world. their age were once involved in a fight of far more import, for their country and each other, but still brothers in arms, albeit facing different struggles.

It’s not all cricket, though. If football (soccer) interests you more, Amazon has another ongoing series titled “All or Nothing”. Across different seasons, this offers a look at the passion, dedication and skill involved with teams of the English Premier League.

One season focuses on Manchester City and the gruelling practice and preparation that goes into holding a spot in one of the most intensely competitive clubs in the world.

The second and more recent season shifts to Tottenham Hotspur and the story of one of its most defining seasons in the history of the game. Particularly, a focus is given to the then new manager

José Mourinho and how he came to be considered one of the greatest managers of all time.

In the area of less conventional sports, Disney+ has “Free Solo”, a gripping account of the story of Alex Honnold and how, without the assistance of any ropes or safety harnesses, he dared to climb a 900-metre vertical rock face, entirely captured by a camera crew.

It is nail-biting, eye-popping stuff and the film digs deeper than just the feat itself. We get to see the psychology of Honnold, his upbringing and how he got interested in the quaint idea of climbing cliffs without safety ropes.

Fascinating as well is how the documentary examines the feasibility of a relationship when a partner’s hobby involves a good chance of his not coming home at the end.

No matter any interest in sport, or any one code, the excellence in production of these documentaries offers more than just insight into the games they capture. To be found is an exploration of resilience, independence, politics, competitiveness, winning, losing and just about every human emotion that makes up our lives.

What sport is all about, really.

We, the viewer, may not be playing sport internationally or climbing mountains, but the relatability and inspiration that can be found in these stories have the ability to teach us all something new.

More of Nick Overall on Twitter @nick_overall

PHOTOGRAPHY

Snappers celebrate 75 years of local photography

By Helen Musa

IT’S a happy 75th birthday this month for the Canberra Photographic Society, as it celebrates a lifetime of snapping people, places and events around the developing national capital.

Proof apparent of its vigour came earlier this year with the searing photographs of the bushfire-devastated region taken by society members, who continue to document the territory and the wider world.

As recently as July this year, society member Judy Parker won the $10,000 Mullins Australian Conceptual Photography Prize at Magnet Gallery in Melbourne. She is one of many in the group to have been honoured.

Certainly there have been other photography clubs in the Canberra region.

The first was the Monaro Camera Club, which grew out of the Queanbeyan Colour Photography Society and the Queanbeyan Leagues Club Camera Club and eventually threw its lot and its equipment in with CPS. There have also been the Southside Camera Club, U3A Camera Club, ANBG Friends Photographic Group, Canberra PhotoConnect and a host of photography groups on social media.

But none can boast the membership numbers or the longevity of the Canberra Photographic Society, which dates back to a meeting in the 2CA Theatrette in Mort Street on September 11, 1945.

“The Canberra Times” of September 12, 1945, reported that the initial meeting “decided to form a club to be known as the Canberra Photographic Society. It was to hold regular meetings, show screenings of different films and discuss photographic matters generally… Meetings will be held on the first Tuesday and at the initial meeting a colour film of Canberra, as well as talkies, would be shown”.

Then on October 3, the paper reported that

2

1

3

1. Hedda Morrison at the opening of her retrospective, speaking with then Senator Gary Humphries and a guest. at the first gathering on Tuesday, October 2, “Some excellent landscape studies, prints of child studies and views of the War Memorial floodlit, as well as flares on VP night, were exhibited, when a coloured picture of Canberra was screened along with views of New Guinea. Arrangements were made for a “photographic outing on Sunday week”.

The society was up and running, moving its headquarters from the 2CA Theatrette to the Institute of Anatomy, the Riverside Centre and at last the Griffin Centre in Bunda Street, where it remains.

Member and former president, Brian Rope, has researched CPS activities during its early years and found evidence of prizes won by society members at competitions far away from Canberra. As well, he saw,

4 2. Royal Race Meeting, 1988. Photo: Brian Rope

during the mid-1970s, the group conducted several national exhibitions of photography, receiving hundreds of entries from all over Australia.

In November 1983, the celebrated British photo-journalist Joan Wakelin presented a lecture jointly for the Monaro Camera Club and CPS. Wakelin was one of several notable women photographers to have given presentations to CPS over the years. Others were British garden photographer Helene Rogers and German-born documentary photographer Hedda Morrison, who had settled with her husband Alastair Morrison and after whom CPS named one of its prizes.

In 1987 the society was responsible for selecting local amateurs’ photographs for use in the Australian Bicentennial Exhibition

3. “Fireline” by Lenuta Quraishi, February 2020.

and members had images selected, which toured Australia during 1988 as the “Personal Views” element of the show.

During the bicentennial year, 1988, members covered almost every event here and took 6000 images, from the opening of the new Parliament House and the Queen’s visit through to modest events, all recorded in the exhibition “Bicentennial celebrations in Canberra” opened at the Link Gallery by politician John Langmore. The prints from the exhibition were later handed over to the ACT government, which subsequently lost them.

In 1995, to mark the society’s 50th anniversary, a retrospective exhibition, “100 by 50”, was held in the foyer of the High Court, then in 2001, the society published its

4. Opening of New Parliament House, May 9, 1988.

Photo: Brian Rope “Achievers Book, 1989-2000”.

Over the years a number of sub-groups have been formed under its aegis, including a group that used the facilities of a professional studio in Fyshwick, and a theatre group which produced front-of-house images for many opening nights.

Twice during its 75 years, Rope says, the society has undergone turbulent times and endured controversy, especially to do with the manipulation of image in portfolio entries, but the society continues to thrive, now under the presidency of scientist Marwan El Hassan.

Photographs by members may be viewed at cpsgallery.smugmug.com and inquiries about membership to enquiries@cpsaus.org

DINING / Pollen Café, Australian National Botanic Gardens

Greetings from the gardens and lunch at pretty Pollen DECIDED to make a day of it. My visit to the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Acton began with a trip to Jindii Eco Spa, a walk through a stunning diversity of native Australian plants and then a quiet lunch at pretty Pollen café. I felt like I’d been on holiday.

Pollen is doing well managing COVID-19.

Seating is limited, reservations a must (valid only for one hour), but they’re well and truly open for business.

There’s a Hamptons feel to the décor and you can feel the love that Tracy Keeley (Business Woman of the Year, 2018) devoted to revitalising the place, wanting it to be a destination café for Canberrans and visitors alike. I once read that Tracy is best known for breathing life into eateries that have

To fit in with the Botanic Gardens, Pollen has incorporated wonderful floral arrangements into the décor and lots of patterns, textures and shades of blue. lost their flavour, and it’s so very true.

To fit in with the Botanic Gardens, Pollen has incorporated wonderful floral arrangements into the décor and lots of patterns, textures and shades of blue. The café is flooded with natural light and you can dine inside or outside (a terrace overlooking a group of sensational ferns).

The menu is compact and designed around “all-day dining”. You order at the counter and food and drinks are served at the table by friendly staff in smart uniforms.

My pulled pork tacos ($21.50) featured 18hour slow-cooked meat topped with loads of brightly coloured ingredients, including red cabbage, corn, capsicum, red onion salsa

and coriander. The combination of tastes was fabulous and the pork was as tender as you’d expect after being so patiently cooked.

The peri peri mayonnaise was tangy and there was lots of it. My only comment is that some of the red onion was thickly sliced and chunky – a more refined salsa would have been much preferred. Avo lovers can have this as an add-on for $5. This is a nice, super tasty, light lunch.

Other items on the menu included some lovely looking zucchini fritters ($16.50), a crunchy quinoa schnitzel ($21.50) and fish and chips ($24.50). Breakfast/brunch items include eggs benedict ($18.80), smashed avo ($17.80), waffles ($18.80) and more. A specials board is also available.

I enjoyed my lunch with a glass of Nick O’Leary Rose, a top Canberra drop ($12 a glass or $48 a bottle). The wine

Pulled pork tacos… 18-hour slow-cooked meat topped with loads of brightly coloured ingredients, including red cabbage, corn, capsicum, red onion salsa and coriander.

Photo: Wendy Johnson list is as compact as the menu itself, with the rosé and riesling from Nick O’Leary, a pinot noir from Lerida Estate and one of the sparklings from Gallagher Wines. A couple of

the beers are from Capital Brewing – so good to see locals supported.

Pollen is open seven days.

CityNews September 24-30, 2020 29

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

FREE PUZZLES DAY ATRelease citynews.com.au 13 X EVERY 13 No. 752 PUZZLES GENERAL PAGE KNOWLEDGE GRID B General knowledge crossword No. 752

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Your week in the stars – September 28-October 4, 2020

1

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Even though Mars is retrograde and the Full Moon’s in fiery Aries, avoid being an argumentative and drama addicted Ram! The Sun’s visiting peace-loving Libra and Venus makes beautiful music with Mars. So… if you practice the gentle arts of patience and persuasion… you’ll be surprised how much easier life can be. Draw inspiration from birthday great Mohandas Gandhi: “Leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

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look within as you contemplate the meaning of life. With Uranus transiting slowly PO ways Boxthat 2585 through your sign, think of innovative you can navigate the unpredictSouthport Qldpersonally. Draw inspiration able covid landscape, adapt professionally and pivot from birthday great, actress and activist Susan Sarandon: Australia 4215 “I take responsibility for the ups and downs of my life, and that is very liberating.”

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Resist the temptation to butt heads with a frustrated boss, authority figure or loved one. Do your best to calm troubled waters and defuse potentially fiery Full Moon situations. But you’re likely to feel rather lonely, as people are preoccupied with their own problems and communication is blocked in some way. So avoid being overprotective, as it won’t be appreciated by others. Remember relationships need room to breathe and there’s a big difference between loving and smothering.

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VIRGO (Aug 24 – Sept 23)

The more intently you try to micro-manage relationships this week, the more loved ones or work colleagues will distance themselves from you. And if you are too critical or demanding, then a frustrating power is likely. You’re Created: Regstruggle Walker brimming over with plenty of ideas and are keen to teach or instruct others but Qxpress: Chris don’t assume you have all the answers. Smart-aleck behaviour will just put others off, so strive to be a more consultative and inclusive Virgo.

Checked: Noel

LIBRA (Sept 24 – Oct 23)

Expect some relationship rumbles this week, as retrograde Mars and the fiery Full Moon stimulate your partnership zone. Saturn also urges you to get the ratio right between your personal needs and those of loved ones. If you always give other people too much time, energy and support, then there’ll be no petrol left in the tank when you need it. So do your best to reset the balance between giving and receiving. The weekend is a wonderful time to rest, relax, meditate and ruminate.

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3 What is an unmarried man called? (8) 1 What is tungsten also known as? (7) 2 To accost another with immoral intention, is to do 7 Name a renowned WWII, PNG trail/track.ACROSS (8) what? (7)called (8) was theis lead guitarist for the Beatles, 3 8 Who What an unmarried man George ...? (8) 3 Where is Nassau situated? (7) 7 9 Name Name a second-largest renowned 4 NamePNG another termtrail/track for an apostate. (7) (8) the world’s continent. (6)WWII, 8 10 Who was lead(8) guitarist forhouse the Beatles, What is a loan obtainedthe to buy property?

5 Which opera in Milan, Italy, was built in 1778?

(2,5) 11 What are workers ... in metal known as? (6) George (8) 6 What do they call the fastest shearers? (7) food pieces wereworld’s once given to the family 9 14 Which Name the second-largest continent (6) 11 Who won the Wimbledon Men’s singles championdog? (6) 10 17 Name What is a loan obtained to buy property (8) ship seven times, Pete ...? (7) another term for a rissole. (8) 11 18 What are workers in metal known (6) 12 Name the style of printingas in which the letters slope Name a popular card game.

(6) the right. (7) given to the 14 19 What Which pieces might wefood call a town where railway weretoonce 13 What do we call a constant frequenter of a place? (7) workers stay? (4,4) family dog (6) 20 To bring something into existence, is to do what? 14 What is said to be golden? (7) 17 Name another term for15 Name a rissole (8) a toothed bar with which a pawl engages. (7) (6) 18 21 Name popular (6) What is a statea of mental uncertainty? (8)card game 16 For which city do the Panthers play? (7)

19 What might we call a town where railway workers stay (4,4) 20 To bring something into existence, is to do what (6)FREE SUDOKU EVERY DAY AT citynews.com.au 21 What is a state of mental uncertainty (8)

Sudoku hard No. 276

DOWN 1 What is tungsten also known as (7) 2 To accost another with immoral intention, is to SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 22) do what (7) Scorpios have strong likes and dislikes and you don’t do things by halves…

3 Where is Nassau situated (7) especially when there’s a Full Moon! And you could find it difficult to let go of a grudge or grievance. If you stew over perceived slights and sweat the small stuff, 4 Name another term for an apostate (7) then you’ll just end up feeling stressed and exhausted by the end of the week. So 5 Which opera house in Milan Italy, was built in avoid getting drawn into complicated discussions – especially with a neighbour, 1778 (2,5) colleague or relative. Do your best to bring more balance into your busy life.

6 What do they call the fastest shearers (7) SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 – Dec 21) 11 Who won the Wimbledon Men’s singles Prepare for a stop-start kind of week. You’ve got a head full of fabulous ideas and championship seven times, Pete ... (7) you’re keen to proceed with lightning speed, but Saturn and retrograde Mars will slow you right down. Money matters look particularly challenging as you are hit 12 Name the style of printing in which the letters with reduced income, extra bills, expensive repairs or rising costs. You’ll be at your slope to the right (7) bouncy and buoyant best on Thursday and Friday, when the Full Moon boosts fiery 13 What do we call a constant frequenter of a Note to Editor: enthusiasm and puts some extra wind in your Sagittarian sails. place (7) Created in QUARK CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 20) 14 What is said to be golden (7) XPRESS. VER.4.03 This week’s celestial salad throws some Full Moon frustration into the mix, as 15 Name a toothed bar with which a pawl engages your ruler Saturn squares retrograde Mars and everythingfor down (especially Items notslows needed (7) at home). Which could send yourpublication stress levels into the outer stratosphere.

Calm can be down Capricorn! Your motto for the moment is the Serenity Prayer (from Reinhold 16 For which city do the Panthers play (7) asthings each is in a the courage Niebuhr): “Grant me the serenity erased to accept the I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know difference.” separate textthebox.

AQUARIUS (Jan 21 – Feb 19)

The fiery Full Moon ignites your spontaneous and adventurous Aquarius dare-devil side. But slow down (and calm down) otherwise you’ll put your foot in it and come a cropper! Do your best to find more balance in your relationships and more equilibrium within yourself. So your mantra for the coming week is from Libran actress Naomi Watts (who turns 52 on September 28): “You have to make peace with yourself. The key is to find the harmony in what you have.”

PISCES (Feb 20 – Mar 20)

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group. Even under provocation, strive to display a flexible approach and a diplomatic demeanour. You’re inEmail: a hurry to get things done but be especially cautious when it comes to your social circle. Be wary of fake friends or work mates info@auspacmedia.com.au who are undermining your professional ambitions. Make sure you spend quality Visit site: who are supportive. time with companions who are genuineour and colleagues

The Full Moon revs up your adventure zone but hold your horses Lions. Mars is retro so if you are too hasty, you’ll run into obstacles. You also need to be extra careful when communicating with others (in person and via social media). If you say or write something when you’re feeling rushed, then it could backfire on you later. And don’t hog the conversation! As writer (and birthday great) Truman Capote reminds us: “A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue.”

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Telephone: (07) 5591 5361 GEMINI (May 22 – JuneToll 21) Free: 1 800 652 284 Expect some Full Moon turmoil this week Twins, especially involving your peer Fax: (07) 5591 5066

www.auspacmedia.com.au CANCER (June 22 – July 23)

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Thursday night’s Full Moon highlights a financial problem, a self-esteem issue or a challenge that needs to be overcome. But is a cherished dream taking forever to manifest? Forget about airy-fairy fantasies! Reality planet Saturn urges you to set a solid and achievable goal and then work towards it in a patient and persistent way.

So your motto for the week is from birthday great, singer-actress Julie Andrews: “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.”

WARNING !!!

Note to Editor: Copyright Joanne Madeline Moore 2020

Solution next edition

Solutions – September 17 edition Crossword No. 751

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TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 21) The People Thursday night’s Full Moon illuminates your Features solitude/soul zone, so slow down and

30 CityNews September 24-30, 2020

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ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)

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Solution No. 752

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The stunning colours of deciduous azaleas.

Here come the flowering shrubs THE weather is rapidly warming and with it comes a multitude of flowering shrubs.

It’s the perfect time to visit garden centres to choose these spring to early summer flowering shrubs, and to see the new releases for those striving to produce a plant that is not just different but substantially different.

Magnolias, rhododendrons, pieris and azaleas all originate in China. Magnolias with their majestic, magnificent bold flowers generally suit larger gardens. Rhodos, azaleas and pieris all have dwarf varieties, many of which are ideal for containers for balcony gardens. Check the label for their ultimate size; do you really have room for a seven-metre rhodo in your garden? Azaleas are part of the rhododendron family, separated by the number of petals and sepals. Rhododendrons are one of the most important and diverse groups of plants in cultivation. Azaleas can be both evergreen and deciduous, the latter renowned for their autumn leaf

colours; whereas rhodos are all evergreen.

There are well over 1000 species of rhodos, their home mainly in the wild mountain ranges and gorges of China and Tibet. We have to thank five of the most famous plant hunters in history for introducing these spectacular plants to the west. Joseph Hooker, George Forrest, Joseph Rock, Frank Kingdon-Ward and Ernest Wilson in the 19th and early 20th century. I mention their names as their explorations are as good as any adventure stories: forging flooded rivers and fighting off bandits, as some of the first westerners to explore these countries, looking for rare plants.

ONE of the most colourful ground covers is the osteospermum family, also known as the African daisy. There are more than 70 species native to southern and east Africa and into Arabia.

Therefore it’s ideally suited to our climate. They’re related to other members of the daisy family including calendula and asters. For a while they seemed to go out of fashion but with modern breeding of new cultivars and a rapid increase in the variety of colours, they’re back in garden centres. Perfect for rock gardens and growing over walls, and suitable for large hanging gardens and in containers on balconies.

DO check out perennial plants, many in flower

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GARDEN centres and supermarkets have been full of tomato seedlings for the last month! Unless you have a glasshouse or similar, the chances of ripe tomatoes before Christmas is nigh on impossible. Plant tomatoes, at the earliest, two weeks after Melbourne Cup day, which is the second or third week in November.

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CityNews September 24-30, 2020 31

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