130725 citynews

Backyard blitz to help the helpless

IN one Saturday in October, a team of about 50 Belconnen Community Service employees and volunteers will give their time freely to clean up the gardens of 10 people at risk of eviction, bushfire or who have physical limitations.

The team’s makeover efforts will include mowing lawns, cleaning rubbish and gardening.

BCS transport program manager Graham Mckerchar started the “10/10” volunteer project last year after the struggle to maintain yards became a “common issue” for BCS clients.

“When you’re battling financially, often your garden is the first thing to go downhill and larger yards, in particular, can be very difficult to maintain,” says Graham.

“Sometimes when you walk past homes you pass judgement on someone’s unruly yard, without knowing the story behind it.

“Some people are unable to clean it physically, whether that be because they are elderly or disabled, or they just can’t afford the tools to maintain it, and some of these people are at risk of eviction or bushfires because of that.”

Graham says last year’s inaugural project, which was unfunded, received a “fantastic response.”

“We had a single mother with three young boys who was at risk of eviction, and she and

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Arts&Entertainment 27-29

Canberra Confidential 18

Cinema 28

Dining 29

Fashion 22-25

Garden 30

Letters 14

News 3-17

Politics 17

Socials 20-21

Cover: Georgia de Salis

models a $139.80 outfit.

Story Page 22. Photo by Andrew Campbell

her kids couldn’t get out to the backyard at all because it was so overgrown and messy... since we’ve cleaned it up, it’s made a massive difference for her and her family and she was able to stay there,” he says.

“We also had a lady in a wheelchair who just loved to sit outside in her courtyard, but it had been neglected over the years and damaged. After we cleaned it up she was able to entertain guests for a party, and she was so happy.”

For now the team’s focus is on cleaning gardens in the Belconnen area, with homes usually put forward for nomination, but Graham says his “big dream” is to eventually branch out to other areas around Canberra.

“We’re looking at having some of the volunteers come back to these homes once a month and educate on energy and water efficiency, and we’re keen to do more on the landscaping side of things when we get funding,” he says.

“To have a lasting impact on the people involved in this project is something that is really important to us.”

This year’s 10/10 project will be held on 19 October. Register at bcsact.com.au/

A trivia night will be held at the Belconnen Community Centre from 6.30pm on September 13 to raise money for tools used in the project. Book at bcsact.com.au/

Since 1993: Volume 19, Number 26

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Antiques, ahoy

THE Rotary Club of Canberra’s spring antiques and collectables fair will be held at the Albert Hall, over the weekend of August 17-18, with an evening opening on Friday, August 16 from 6pm. Entry is $7 and proceeds in aid of Pegasus Riding for the Disabled.

Brain cancer marathon

BRAIN cancer victim Monika Schmidt, 34, will be the beneficiary of a “12 Hours 4 Brain Cancer” cycling marathon in the Civic gym of Fitness First, starting at 8am on Saturday, August 3. Funds will go to support Monika, her family and her medical costs, and 10 per cent of funds raised will go to the Cure For Life Foundation. Registrations and more information at 12hours4braincancer@gmail.com

Thought for food

WHETHER you’re a locavore, organivore, omnivore or farmaniac, what you put on your plate has an ecological impact and it isn’t always easy to know what that impact is. The Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss is hosting a Q&A public forum to discuss the science of eating sustainably in the Canberra region, with farmers and academics at the Manning Clark Theatre, Union Court, ANU, 6pm8pm on Thursday, August 15. Entry is free on RSVP to events@ecoaction.com. au or 6248 0885.

Editor: Ian Meikle, editor@citynews.com.au

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Distribution: Richard Watson, circulation@citynews.com.au

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Ian Meikle, Level 1, 143 London Circuit, Canberra.

WINNERS of

DVD WINNERS

Silent fate for victims’ voice

Canberra’s Victims of Crime Assistance League turns 25 this year, but the little organisation isn’t celebrating, writes STEPHEN EASTON VOCAL (ACT) lost government funding at the end of 2011 and without a miracle, in the form of a sudden upswing in donations, or a merger with a larger organisation, it is unlikely to exist for much longer.

Fighting a slow decline, VOCAL has kept going through the dedication of a handful of volunteers, a voluntary management committee and its passionate executive director, Marie-Noelle Cure.

Marie started the job in 1994 and has gone unpaid since January, 2012. Nearing retirement, she fears nobody will take her place.

“No one wants to do that for free; I need some money to pay someone to take my place but it’s not happening because no one wants to work for free,” she says, her voice a mix of desperation and bitter disappointment.

Lynn Bamblett, 54, moved to Canberra from Victoria with her family in 1987. In 1996 she reached out for support with the impact of a rape that happened 20 years before, contacting two organisations which both had strict limits to the support they provided.

“When I moved to Canberra, I had recall,” she says. “There are long spaces in between where you go into survival mode, and then you pick yourself up and give it a try, then you go back into shutdown mode because it’s just too hard and it’s too confronting to bring it all out again.”

She sees Marie as a kind of saviour because she helped her when the trauma resurfaced again in 2007, despite the fact her crime happened a long time ago, interstate, and is not officially recorded in many places.

“It can go on for years and years and years, and it’s the empathy and understanding that’s important – I exist through what

VOCAL here do for me.”

Lynn explains recurring symptoms such as loss of appetite, control issues, fear of leaving the house and anxiety attacks, set off by something as simple as getting lost in the car, which she suffered as recently as a few months ago.

“I was 17-and-a-half, and my whole life has been completely different to what it was going to be,” she says, fighting back tears for her younger self.

One of the reasons VOCAL lost funding appears to be that Marie, a victim of crime herself, disagreed with limitations on what that funding could be used for.

“As in Lynn’s case and over my 20 years of experience, this is exactly how it goes,” she says. “Victims have a burst of energy or they feel a bit better after a little counselling, they go home and feel good, but then things happen that remind you of bad things. Suddenly you find yourself in the depths of despair again, because of memories.”

Marie believes victims should be entitled to some ongoing support when they need it, even if that’s decades after the crime and even if it occurred interstate.

“It should be able to happen like this, on and off, whenever they feel, irrespective of whether the crime occurred in this State or not, because [Lynn is] working; she’s paying taxes here,” Marie says.

In 1988, the League was started by eight people who had been affected by serious crimes, and still retains some features of a support group. Lynn describes VOCAL as an “advice system, based on empathy and a belief that I was being heard” and fears that “sanitised, bureaucratic” organisations operating within strict fiscal constraints can never replace it.

She and Marie fear the loss of the organisation’s thousands of

files – information many victims have not confided elsewhere – as well as the feeling of community and the League’s ageing, out-ofthe-way headquarters in a cottage next to Narrabundah shops.

“Here, it is very dated but it’s comfortable,” says Lynn, glancing at Marie’s teddy bear beside

her on the couch. “It’s not sterile, and it has that ‘community’ thing. It’s cosy and it’s safe because it’s small, and the big world out there is a hideous place.”

VOCAL (ACT) accepts donations through its website at vocalact.webs.com/donations.htm

Ooroo to a real problem

Kangaroos think they own this city. They’ve discovered again in the last month that they don’t, rumbles MARK PARTON

I HAVE a special relationship with Canberra’s kangaroos; I know some of them by name and I see hundreds of them most mornings.

For 15 years I’ve been driving to work in the pre-dawn and I know where the ‘roos are more likely to congregate. Experience has taught me to spot the ones with a death wish.

In all that time, I’ve only ever hit two, one on William Slim Drive at Giralang and another on Northbourne Avenue at Lyneham. I’d hate to even guess how many near misses I’ve had… well over 50.

Despite the best efforts of the animal libbers, the kangaroo cull has proceeded and professional shooters have been plying their trade at seven locations around town.

So why have we done it? Many callers to my radio program believe we’re shooting the ‘roos because of the danger that they pose to motorists. But it’s got nothing to do with car crashes, it’s about preserving endangered ecosystems and minimising the impact of overgrazing.

At the risk of an avalanche of hate mail and social media attacks, I’d be happy if the Government just conceded that one of the main reasons for the cull is to make the roads safer because the number of collisions keeps rising.

In 2011, there was virtually one every day. Last year, the figure blew out to 509 – a significant increase.

An NRMA report into animal-related crashes in Canberra suggested that the hot spots include Kambah and Belconnen (I daresay that would be Sulwood Drive and Belconnen Way) as well as Aranda, Hume and Hall.

The worst kangaroo accident that I nearly had wasn’t even my car… it was on the bike one morning, before 4am, cycling to work in Mitchell. I found myself surrounded by a mob of a dozen or so kangaroos as I rode down a dark section of the off-road bike path on Gungahlin Drive.

Initially, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them jumping through the grass next to me. It was surreal and more than a little frightening. Imagine the mess they would have made of me and my bike if one or two of them had suddenly changed direction and sideswiped me.

I’m anticipating the early morning roads to be a little safer after this month’s cull is complete.

Mark Parton is the breakfast announcer on 2CC

When floral beauty meets innovation

By Stephen Easton

FLORIADE organisers have created a unique hybrid flower for this year’s festival, but not by the usual horticultural methods, and not even in the real world.

The “Liloptica” is a three-dimensional digital image, created as a symbol of the flower show’s 2013 theme, “Beautiful Innovation”.

The new virtual flower is made up of a lotus emerging from the centre of a lily, which presumably represents “beauty”, while “innovation” is taken care of by optic fibres – the technology that makes the National Broadband Network so fast – sticking out from the middle where the flower’s stamens should be.

“Floriade 2013’s theme of ‘Beautiful Innovation’ sees science and technology collide with the world of art and design and this year’s creative concept, the Liloptica, epitomises that,” an Events ACT spokesperson tells us.

At this stage there has been no suggestion that any physical prototypes of the Liloptica will appear among the real-life blossoms.

As if one conceptual flower isn’t enough for all of us to share, the Floriade website will soon feature a hybrid flower designer, an online app which will allow anyone with an internet connection to have a go at constructing their own cyber-flower.

“We hope to inspire our audiences – both those

who attend Floriade and those who are unable to make it to the festival – by inviting them to create their own unique flower with the online flower designer,” the spokesperson explains, adding that the web-app will be available from mid-August.

Of course, those who can make it will get to see over one million real flowers and other plants, filling almost 9000 square metres of garden beds that have been artistically arranged to represent Canberra’s iconic buildings, as a nod to the centenary year.

There will be more than 600,000 annuals and more than 460,000 bulbs, including roughly 230,000 pansies, 48,000 tulips and 112,000 violas.

Floriade has gone for a low-key approach in 2013, focusing on sustainability, food and new technology, beginning with an opening weekend featuring “Masterchef” winner Julie Goodwin, who is also an ambassador for Oxfam’s GROW campaign.

“Smart living” in week one will continue the focus on sustainable living, organic gardening and permaculture while week two’s “future style” will showcase cutting-edge fashions.

Week three is all about invention, with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki hanging around and entries from a competition for aspiring inventors on display. In week four it’s “contemporary cultures” with the runner-up to Julie Goodwin’s 2009 “Masterchef” crown, Poh Ling Yeow.

Floriade will be held at Commonwealth Park from September 14 to October 13.

CONstRUCtION NOtICe

Come planting

THERE will be a National Tree Day planting event at Mount Majura Nature Reserve, 1pm-3.30pm, on Sunday, July 28. Mount Majura is home to a nationally endangered Yellow Box-Red Gum Grassy Woodland, which supports a range of plants and animals such as Sugar Gliders, Swift Parrots and the Canberra Spider Orchid. “We provide you with the know-how and resources you need to get involved,” said Friends of Mount Majura’s Waltraud Pix. More information at treeday.planetark.org/site/54733

Medal winner

ANDREW Inglis will be presented with the Farrer Memorial Medal at the National Library, 5pm, on Thursday, August 8. Mr Inglis is being recognised for an outstanding contribution to agricultural science in Australia. The medal, which was established in 1911, is awarded annually in memory of William James Farrer (1845–1906), considered to be the father of the Australian wheat industry. The event is free and the public is invited to attend, but bookings are essential to nla.gov.au/bookings or 6262 1271.

Power of cakes

THE Red Cross Big Cake Bake Day will be held on Monday, August 26, with all money raised going to support Red Cross programs such as breakfast for primary school children, life-saving clean water to overseas communities and relief for victims of natural disasters. More information from bigcakebake@redcross.org.au, call 1800 652635 or visit www.facebook.com/ BigCakeBake.

In coming months, you might notice some construction work in these areas associated with the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN).

What is the National Broadband Network?

The NBN is an upgrade to our existing telecommunications network, designed to provide the infrastructure for affordable high speed internet and phone access for all Australians.

When will work start?

You may have already seen some of our construction workers in these areas as we prepare to start work. Silcar Communications has been appointed by NBN Co to carry out the construction work in these areas and they will notify you before they start any work in your street.

What type of construction work can you expect?

Construction work will include the installation of fibre optic cable in underground pipes and overhead on existing power poles. Fibre distribution hub cabinets will also be installed in some locations.

What will it mean for you?

Silcar Communications will try to minimise any inconvenience you may experience during construction. They will also endeavour to restore any land affected during construction to a condition similar to what it was before the activity began.

We’ll contact you when the NBN rollout has been completed and you can call your preferred phone or internet service provider to order services over the NBN.

Thank you for your patience while this work is carried out.

Jai steps in to rescue orphan girls

By Natasha Quinlan

JAI Sharma, a former leader of the Gungahlin Youth Group, founded a home for orphaned, neglected or abused girls in Delhi two days before his twenty-third birthday.

Born and bred in Canberra, Jai says he discovered that the girls were being abused in their old home and that it was by the “grace of God” he was able to find a new home for them and give them a new start.

That was on January 16, 2010, and now, more than three years later, the orphanage is home to 15 thriving young girls.

As the male leader of an all-girl orphanage, one of his first priorities was to run the Delhi Girls’ Home on a professional basis, adhering closely to child-protection principles.

“One of the first things I did was to get some really good female staff to be like older sisters and mothers to the girls,” he says.

“The home is staffed and run by women and the only people who live with the girls are women.

“At the same time, I think it’s important that the girls at the home have strong, positive male role models.”

In September, a team of 12 leaders and young people from the Gungahlin Youth Group will visit the home to meet and assist the girls, with whom they’ve forged a friendship through letters, photos and fundraising support.

GYG head Lyn Floyd says: “We have been supporting the orphanage since it began as Jai Sharma, its founder, was a leader at our youth group prior to him moving to India.

“The youth [group has] worked hard on many special fundraising events to raise money for the orphanage, which has helped them to look beyond their own needs and make a difference in the lives of these children. The trip to India is an extension of their desire to make a difference.”

Jai says the connection be -

tween the orphanage and the youth group is primarily one of friendship – “the kids in India have known and written letters and have been supported financially by GYG and, similarly, the kids at GYG have received pictures and updates and developed a friendship with the girls in India as well.”

He says the GYG’s trip is not about people from the West going to help poor Indian kids, but about both groups being able to support and benefit each other.

“It is about building genuine friendships between kids in Australia and kids in India to be beneficial to both groups. There’s a lot to be learnt about different cultures and different backgrounds.”

As well as visiting the orphanage in north Delhi, the GYG’s 12-day trip will include a visit to Kerala, in south-west India, to work with a church and assist local people.

The author is a member of the GYG delegation to India. More information at wellspringprojects.com

Merinda blooms in Senate race

NEW ACT Senate candidate Merinda Nash has quickly gone from arranging bouquets to running the political rat race.

The Liberal Party’s number two candidate, who owns her own florist shop in Woden, will run in this year’s Federal election with top pick Zed Seselja, and she reckons she’s in with a blooming chance.

Merinda, 45, was inspired to run for Federal politics after “seeing what happened to small business” when the Labor Party regained power at the last Federal election.

Born in Canberra, Merinda is a single mother of one and served as a police officer for seven years before starting her florist business in 2005. She is currently studying a PhD at the ANU, researching the impacts of rising CO2 on coral reefs.

Having missed out on a seat for the Canberra Liberals after running in October’s ACT election, Merinda is much calmer about her second shot at politics.

“I’m just excited about a possible change of government,” she says.

“I’ve always admired stoic, steady-handed leaders like John Howard. Kevin [Rudd] is what my grandmother would call a ‘flibbertigibbet’, changing major policies all the time.”

–Laura Edwards

Tania sets Riley loose on Canberra

TANIA McCartney’s series of children’s books on the life of a boy who travels around the world started as “a bit of fun” while she was living overseas, but the author says they have quickly attracted a cult following.

“I can’t believe how well received the books have been since the first one came out five years ago, it’s been a dream,” Tania says from her Jerrabomberra home.

Tania, who returned to Canberra in 2009 after four years in Beijing with her family, has just launched the fifth instalment in the series of “Riley”, who travels in a red tin plane with iconic animals from each city – so far visiting Beijing, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney.

The latest book, “Riley and the Jumpy Kangaroo,” will focus on Canberra, neatly timed with the capital’s Centenary year, with illustrations by local artist Kieron Pratt.

“I’ve been trying to do one ‘Riley’ book each year, and I thought I’ve got to do Canberra for the Centenary this year, as it’s just such an exciting time for us,” Tania says.

And she didn’t have to look too far when deciding which animal should represent the capital.

“From where we are in Jerrabomberra, we’ve got kangaroos jumping

Laura Edwards reports

around all over the place,” Tania says.

“Sometimes I’ll be working at my desk and I’ll suddenly turn around and one will literally be standing there, staring at me from the window.”

The story follows Riley and the kangaroo as they visit Canberra’s iconic attractions, such as the War Memorial and Lake Burley Griffin, with the final page set at Floriade, where Tania will officially launch the book on September 15.

So far, the “Riley” books have sold at least 8000 copies, Tania says.

“We get a lot of Aussie expats living overseas ordering the books for their kids,” she says.

“I shouldn’t have been so surprised children love them, as Australian kids are so well travelled and cultural. Everywhere in the world you go, there’s Australians everywhere.”

Tania’s lead character is inspired by her 10-year-old son, Riley, who is “used to” having a series written about him now, she laughs.

Her 13-year-old daughter, Ella, is patiently waiting for a book of her own.

“She’s in luck because I’m currently in the midst of writing a junior fiction novel, about an animal-loving girl named Ella,” Tania says.

“These books are something my kids can show people at their 18th birthdays... although by then, they might be mortified!”

“Riley and the Jumpy Kangaroo – a Journey around Canberra”, $22.95 hardcover, $16.95 paperback, is available from August 1 at taniamccartneyweb.blogspot.com.au.

Pompeii comes alive

“POMPEII: ancient lives, modern myths” is the title of archaeologist Dr Estelle Lazer’s talk at the ANU Classics Museum, in the Copland Lecture Theatre at the ANU, 8pm, Tuesday, August 6. Dr Lazer, from the University of Sydney’s Department of Ancient History, has been studying the human skeletons of Pompeii for the last 25 years and recently obtained permission to CT-scan and X-ray the casts of the 2000-year-old victims of Pompeii. All welcome to this free event and to supper afterwards. More information from victoria.appleby@anu.edu.au

City art prize

A NEW visual art award and exhibition, which will showcase the city’s built environment through the eyes of its young artists, has been announced. The Master Builders Australia Centenary of Canberra Young Artist Award & Exhibition will be run as part of the MBA’s national conference in November with a non-acquisitive prize of $1000. Entrants must be between 18 and 30 years old. The finalists’ work will be displayed at Canberra Lab’s “Mazz” Centenary pop-up gallery in a prominent location throughout November.

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ACT launch in 2014

The ACT is one of six locations across the country to benefit from the launch of DisabilityCare Australia. Between now and June 2014, programs will be implemented to help people with a significant and permanent disability, their families, carers and service providers get ready for DisabilityCare Australia. The scheme will launch on 1 July 2014. DisabilityCare Australia will have full coverage across the ACT for people up to age 65 by July 2016.

One scheme. One focus on individuals. One commitment to lifelong support.

From 1 July, Australia’s current support system for people living with disability is being progressively replaced with DisabilityCare Australia. This new scheme will help provide a better quality of life for Australians with a significant and permanent disability, and for their families and carers too.

What’s new about DisabilityCare Australia?

DisabilityCare Australia is a new way of funding personalised support for people with disability. As well as looking at a person’s immediate needs, it will take a lifelong approach and enable people with disability to have choice and control over their supports. It will focus on early intervention, recognising that timely support can minimise the impact of a disability on individuals, families and carers. Assistance will be provided at the right time, rather than only once people reach crisis.

Who is eligible?

DisabilityCare Australia will help people who have a significant and permanent disability and who need assistance with everyday activities. This includes people whose disabilities are attributed to intellectual, cognitive, neurological, sensory, or physical impairment, or a psychiatric condition.

Will I lose my current support?

No. Your current arrangements will stay in place until you have met DisabilityCare Australia to discuss your needs.

Will it affect my Disability Support Pension?

No. Your Disability Support Pension will not be affected.

When does it all begin?

DisabilityCare Australia is being rolled out in stages because it is a big change to the current system.

Locations that start from July 2013

Barwon region of Victoria People aged 0-64

Hunter region of NSW People aged 0-64

South Australia

Children aged 0-14

Tasmania Young people aged 15-24

Locations that start from July 2014

ACT People aged 0-64

Barkly region of NT People aged 0-64

From July 2016, DisabilityCare Australia will continue to extend to more locations and age groups around Australia, including Queensland.

For more information, visit australia.gov.au/disabilitycare or call 1800 800 110

For people with hearing or speech loss

TTY: 1800 555 677

Speak and Listen: 1800 555 727

One big difference to lots of lives.

Rough deal on road

PICTURED is new road resurfacing in Power Street, Mawson. There has also been resurfacing in Phillip.

These roads were resurfaced earlier this year and are now worse to drive on than they were prior to the work. They are noisy, rough and full of loose stones. Shouldn’t new roads be smoother and quieter than the ones they replace?

I think Canberrans deserve better than this.

Wine rip off

HEATHER, you don’t get it, do you?

(“Get a life, Les”, letters, CN July 18). In defence of Les, with whose whinge about a $10 glass of wine

I agree, I say it’s not a matter of “going to a BYO restaurant or there being more important things in life”.

The issue is that these restaurants – also cinemas and tourist attractions that sell wine – are ripping people off and it shouldn’t be allowed.

Vivien Munoz, via email

Try then buy

I WOULD never go into a store with the express purpose of then leaving that same store to buy online

(Canberra Confidential, CN July 11).

If you have gone to the trouble of going into the store and trying on the clothes, then why not buy the clothes while you are there?

Makes more than perfect sense to me... less time waiting for your parcel to arrive, more secure way of shopping (internet fraud), you have your clothes ready and waiting to wear and you are contributing to that shop assistant’s wage.

Dian Langley via email

Damp and annoyed

AS Canberra’s public transport users watch the clouds roll in, they stand, increasingly damp and annoyed, under their umbrellas waiting for an improved bus shelter at the back of the Canberra Centre in Civic.

Even though services through the bus stop have increased and the current bus shelter was identified as thoroughly inadequate by the ACT Greens over three years ago, nothing has changed.

Labor made promises, but action never followed (no pun intended).

The small, badly constructed bus shelter provides very little protection for Canberra’s weary

Jeremy Funnell, via email

and frustrated public transport users, despite the political party who originally raised this issue now holding the ministry responsible for fixing the problem.

Added to that, the run-down nature of the road markings in this area means that buses have to fight for space with cars which are parking illegally in a badly marked bus drop-off zone, causing confusion and delays all round.

One wonders how committed to public transport this ACT LaborGreen Government really is?

Michael T Rollins, via email

Policy backflipper

THE hyperactivity of Kevin Rudd of late amounts to reversing most of the policy action (failures) of his (and his successor Julia Gillard). His asylum changes alone delivered in five years, three times the boat arrivals of the preceding 30 years, and we are supposed to reward him for that? No!

Martin Gordon, Flynn

Drug question

IT is interesting to read Colliss Parrett’s letter re [Chief Minister] Katy Gallagher’s continuing consideration regarding the needle exchange program in our prison and his mention of maintenance programs for illegal drugs. Many of the inmates are there because of drug-related crimes. This prison was widely touted as being top security prior to its opening and yet drugs are getting into the prison and needles are being shared. How are the drugs getting into the prison? Are regular body searches carried out, especially if there are conjugal visits for prisoners?

Surely, a zero-tolerance policy should be in place, let the prisoners do it tough and get rid of their addiction.

Heather Ponting, Greenway

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Find out more at the Googong Sales and Information Centre at Jerrabomberra Village Shopping Centre (we’re open every day), by calling 1300 446 646 or online at googong.net

*Average price $240,000 and average size 555m 2

Kevin is heading for election victory

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is heading towards an election victory.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s negative politics, which worked so effectively undermining Julia Gillard, will now come back to bite him.

Abbott wants the election now so that the Prime Minister does not have time to really sell the positive things that the Labor Government has achieved over the last two terms. The most important of these is fiscal management.

The Australian community may have been receptive to the negative messages about our first woman Prime Minister, who was hogtied to some extent by her gender, lack of religion, her marital and parental status, her own occasional bungles and, most significantly, being constantly internally white-anted by Rudd and his allies.

Rudd has none of this weight in his saddle bags. The Opposition’s negative politicking is now likely to backfire as he sells Labor as a fiscally responsible, middle-of-the-road government with clear plans for the future of the country.

The Standard and Poor’s triple-A credit rating that has now been released within months of an election is a godsend for the Prime Minister. It is not all great news – but it is enough to ensure that Australians see the Labor Government as a good financial manager. Financial management has been one of the major reasons for a swing to conservative governments.

Australia is one of only eight countries to retain a triple-A rating from all three major credit rating firms. One of Standard and Poor’s analysts, Craig Michaels, is reported to have identified one of the factors as Australia’s ability to deal with large economic and financial blows “as was demonstrated during the global recession in 2009”.

The rating agency identified that Australia’s financial status has deteriorated somewhat in the last few years, but was “more contained” than was the case for other triple-A countries. Even with the weakening of the mining boom, Australia is managing extraordinarily well in international terms.

The positive financial management demonstrated by Labor leaves Abbott with just two major areas to continue his attacks – refugees and climate change, unable to land effective punches against other areas such as the National Broadband Network and school education.

On climate change, Labor has been wandering all over the place. However, the Opposition

is even worse! There are some simple things the government can do that are financially sound and will have a significant impact. The most obvious of these is to remove subsidies to fossil fuel energy and fossil fuel dependent transport sectors, including provision of infrastructure support such as railways and harbours.

NGOs advocating this approach suggest that savings from removal of this $10 billion worth of subsidies will assist the Government in reducing the overall Budget impact of bringing forward the introduction of the emissions trading scheme without having to reduce support for renewable energy or reducing the public service.

“Stop the boats” has been the catch cry of Abbott and his conservative Opposition. With the advent of a new Prime Minister there is no longer widespread acceptance of simple, negative slogans. On boat people, Rudd has become more conservative than the conservatives with his “asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia”. And the Opposition still has no plan to explain “how” to “stop the boats”. A question that ought to have been asked many times over the last three years!

The irony is that Abbott squandered three years of minority government where the balance of power was held by quite conservativeleaning independents. The Coalition parties had the opportunity to demonstrate that they could both attack the Government and achieve some positive legislation for the country. But now it is too late – he has carved out his negative niche in politics and it is looking to me as though this will be his legacy.

In March I suggested in the “CityNews” that it was still possible for Labor “to rise phoenixlike from the ashes” although qualifying that “no party can expect to do well in an election when they fail to sell good economic credentials, present as unprincipled and lack unity”. I added, “but a week is a long time in politics”.

The election will be close but the tables have turned on the negativity of Tony Abbott.

Michael Moore was an independent member of the ACT Legislative Assembly (1989 to 2001) and was minister for health.

Canberra Confidential

Kiss and tell on Kevin?

KEVIN RUDD’s estranged biographer, former bestie and “CityNews” columnist Robert Macklin is in talks with his publisher about a second look at the resumed Prime Minister.

Kiss and tell? Rob’s not saying beyond revealing his “dance card” is pretty full with a new book just started and a threeuni lecture tour in September to China. “We’ll have to see,” he says mysteriously.

LOL, Welshy

WHILE we’re in Kevin mode, 2CC talkback doyen Mike Welsh, a man of a maturity not usually identified with hip hop music, has penned the laugh-out-loud “K Rap”.

Newsroom staffer Wilson Smith provides a very credible Prime Ministerial voice and the station’s production manager Kirsten Lim-How put it together. It’s at youtube.com/watch?v=3lBtcz6gaMk&fe ature=youtu.be

Booties in the mail

THE Australian Monarchist League has shared the address for readers who can’t resist slipping blue booties into the post for the Cambridges’ new baby. Despite the Duke and Duchess urging

that “people might at this time look to support those more in need; perhaps a children’s charity local to them, as a way of marking the birth of their child” here it is:

TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, St James’s Palace, London SW1A 1BA UK

Nourishing biscuits

ONLY in America... from CC’s Californian correspondent comes this wonderful piece of biscuit marketing, from a manufacturer called Bumpbooster. They’ve come up with a “Pregnancy Cookie” aimed at “nourishing pregnant moms with whole food ingredients”. Pictured is the clearly nourishing oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, made with “organic ingredients”.

Out there, Jerry

ACT Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson will be making a star turn at the August 6 general meeting of the Tuggeranong Community Council when in a lightning 10-15 minutes he will talk about, the council promises, “everything Tuggeranong, his role as Leader of the Opposition, and his vision for the ACT if he should be elected to form the next ACT Legislative Assembly, as Chief Minister”. That’s the one in 2016. Nevertheless, Dasher’s up for 45-minutes of questions afterwards. It’s happening at the Southern Cross Club Tuggeranong, from 7.30pm.

Mint condition

CAFE news: new eatery spruiking itself with all but a start date is heading to the Narrabundah shops. Called Mint Rd, it says it is owned and operated by “descendants of pioneering Narrabundah settlers” who seek to “re-imagine the charm of the late 1940s that mark the establishment of Narrabundah as Canberra’s quiet heart in the south”.

And we’re a heartbeat away from knowing who’s taking the space of the liquidated Italian eatery in the Actew-AGL head office foyer.

CC threatened rubber hoses, but our in-the-know Bunda Street whisperer was not for turning beyond admitting it is a local, well-known operator... yes, but so was the last one.

Back to the future

THOSE old softies still rattling around the unused news studios at WIN HQ just can’t seem to say goodbye to the golden days when Danielle Post read the local news and Greg Thomson the sport, and it was broadcast from Kingston. Despite the duo’s unrelated departures and the bulletin now being broadcast by strangers in Wollongong, Danielle and Greg are still there, beatifically smiling down on busy Wentworth Avenue from the larger-than-life giant poster at the front of the TV station the best part of a month after the studio lights were dimmed for the ‘Gong.

Hmms...

CUSTOMER complains to an Australian Tax Office call centre employee about the confusing ATO website. Employee replies: “Yeah, even we can’t understand it.”

CANBERRA Symphony Orchestra has lost the talented Lauren Black , who has opted for the cloisters of the University of Canberra where she’s joined the formidable new marketing team that’s being assembled there.

READER Brian reports and CC confirms that free copies of “The Canberra Times” can be found at the Kingston Railway Station. Keep the sites coming at confidential@citynews.com.au

IS nowhere safe from public art? A snow fiend heading to the slopes spotted this giant, odd ball on the Monaro Highway, just north of Snowy Mountains Airport. Clues, anyone?

Trenton Morrissey

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property

At Tiffen Cycling Team launch, Kingston

fashion / looking good for less

Hot looks for the frugal fashionista

Striped pants

STRIPED pants are back with a vengeance! They’re a big statement on their own, so keep the look simple with a neutral top and khaki jacket, says stylist Jane Allen, of Styledge Image Consulting.

“This outfit is about attitude; it’s edgy, strong, on trend and has a lot of drama,” Jane says.

“You could also add a simple beanie to this outfit when it’s cold out!” Team with killer heels or ankle boots for extra-zing.

Georgia wears ankle biter jeans, Jay Jays ($39.95), shoes, Kmart ($19.95), tank, Jay Jays ($10), jacket, Tressle ($59.95) and beaded necklace, Collette ($9.95).

Outfit total: $139.80

CREDITS

Photography: Andrew Campbell

Words: Laura Edwards

Styling: Jane Allen, Styledge Image Consulting

Model: Georgia de Salis

Hair: Sheryn O’Connor, Hair in the City

Make-up: The Body Shop, Canberra City

Little black dress

A LITTLE black dress is always in style and a must-have for every wardrobe, says Jane.

“This particular LBD offers some gorgeous lace detail which is on trend this season and creates a more elegant look that is very ‘Great Gatsby’,” she says.

“The dress does all the work here and just a touch of gold on both wrists turns it into a very glamourous look.”

Georgia wears black lace dress, Forever New ($89.95), black and gold belt, Ice ($7.50), blue pumps, Emerson by Big W ($18.95), and jewellery cuffs, Lovisa ($19.95 each).

Outfit total: $136.35

Budget wisdom

Jane’s tips for keeping the cost down:

• Ask yourself whether the garment will work with anything you have already or will it become just another closet orphan? Think of the outfit as a whole!

• Shop around! You can pick up some great finds in places such as Hipsley or your local Vinnie’s/Salvation Army stores. Adding a little vintage with something new will definitely keep your costs down and make your look one of a kind.

• Think outside the box – places such as Target, Kmart and Big W have a wide selection of shoes for under $25 that are right on trend.

Boyfriend jeans

YOU can’t go past the boyfriend jean for a chic yet comfortable look. The key is to choose a pair that suits your own style – whether rolled up or ripped, washed-out or weathered.

“This relaxed style of jean has been seen on the likes of celebrities such as Olivia Palermo and Rihanna,” Jane says.

“They are such a great staple for your wardrobe; dress them up with a simple heel and a blazer or go casual with a cute pair of flats, plain white tee, layered necklaces and a cardi.”

Georgia wears boyfriend jeans, Jay Jays ($39.95), cream button up shirt, Ice ($10.00), cream cardigan, Valley Girl ($29.95), Shoes, Emerson by Big W ($18.95) (not shown), coin necklace, Lovisa ($29.95) and felt hat, Salvation Army ($10).

Outfit total: $138.80

Promise of top quality brands at lower prices

“WE focus on stocking the best quality brands from all over the world, and creating a unique ‘treasure hunt’ shopping experience for our customers,” says Trade Secret Marketing Manager, Tessa Buenen.

She says Trade Secret has stores at Majura Park and Westfield Woden and stocks a huge assortment of women’s, men’s and kids’ fashion and homewares for up to 60 per cent off other store prices.

“Our shoppers are very savvy, and they come to us to find bargains on brands found in high street stores and on the pages of glossy magazines,” says Tessa.

“Our customers tell us they are always surprised when they visit the store – on every visit they discover something new that’s right on trend for the season. And that’s all thanks to our buyers’ commitment to negotiating the best deals direct with designers on current season merchandise and passing those savings on.

“Take your pick of our amazing fashion finds – like designer brand women’s dresses from just $59.95, and big brand two-piece men’s suits for $99.95.”

Trade Secret opened its first store on the Gold Coast in 1991 and there are now 27 shops nationwide. The company first opened in Canberra at Majura Park in 2008.

More information at tradesecret.com.au

Low-cost, unique clothes

THERE are seven Salvos Stores across the ACT and one in Queanbeyan, and they’re all filled with a wealth of unique clothes at bargain prices.

“No Salvos Store is the same,” says Tony O’Connell, the area manager for the eight op-shops. “Whichever store you go into, you’re going to find different products donated by different people, which is what people like about them.”

All the money made by the Salvos Stores goes towards the operations of the Salvation Army, which cares for Australians in times of need, in a massive number of different situations.

Tony says the stores are frequented by people on low incomes and wealthier people alike, and have become very popular with fashion-conscious young

people in the past decade.

“You get the younger kids coming in on Saturdays especially”, he says. “They’re going out and doing fancy dress or they just want to look cool, but fashions change so quick these days they can’t always get what they actually want from a retail outlet. That Gen Y demographic are amazed at what they can find if they go and have a look.”

And if it’s inspiration you’re after, the Salvos Stores website has 11 different examples of “looks” that can be achieved using secondhand clothes.

Salvos Stores are located in Tuggeranong, Weston, Phillip, Jamison, Belconnen, Fyshwick, Mitchell and Queanbeyan. Call 6239 0117 or go to salvosstores.salvos.org.au

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National Pain Week / special feature

Online clues to chronic pain relief

CHRONIC pain is not something most people talk about very often, or even recognise as a genuine medical condition, which is strange given that it affects about one in three Australians.

Pain is considered chronic when it has lasted for a certain period of time, usually a few months, and often there is no obvious medical cause that can be treated.

Raising awareness about chronic pain, including among those who suffer from it themselves, is one of the key aims of National Pain Week, which runs until this Sunday, July 28.

The main aims of this week’s campaign are to reduce the stigma associated with chronic pain, as well as the isolation and suffering caused by the condition, and “to work towards creating healing relationships between the person in pain and pain clinicians”.

Often people with chronic pain are incorrectly seen as malingerers, hypochondriacs, weaklings or even drug addicts after a presciption for powerful painkillers, but the research shows these behaviours are rare. Dispelling these and other myths through education is a major goal of Chronic Pain Australia, which organises National Pain Week.

Unlike most of the other national awareness-raising days and weeks vying for space on our calendars, Pain Week does not involve events all around the country. Instead the organisers have opted for a series of

all-inclusive online events which they are calling the “CyberFest of Hope”.

“We know that people in pain often seek help through the internet and this can be sometimes the only lifeline that they use when isolated at home due to pain,” says Chronic Pain Australia president Dr Coralie Wales.

Each day, several videos appear on the National Pain Week website, giving people all over the country an opportunity to hear presentations from experts and the stories of different people who have chronic pain, due to a wide range of different causes, and how they deal with it.

“On the other hand, many people in pain are, for one reason or another, unable to connect to the internet,” says Dr Wales.

“For those people we are reaching out to local libraries to ask them to make their computers available for people in pain to go to their library to see these programs.”

Part of Chronic Pain Australia’s campaigning involves petitions to both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the latter of which can only be signed on paper copies that are available for download from the website or from pharmacies and libraries. Any petitions that reach 10,000 signatures will get a response from the Government, and they’re close to that number.

“This year we should achieve that magic number –10,000 – to ensure a debate in Federal Parliament about the impact of pain on the lives of people who live with it,” says Dr Wales.

Plea to fix imaging rebates

ACCORDING to the association of doctors who perform X-rays, CT scans and other types of medical imaging, there is one way the Federal Government can make life easier for people with chronic pain – increase the Medicare rebates available for the scans they commonly need.

Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association president Dr Sue Ulreich has taken the opportunity of National Pain Week to call on the Government to close the gap in fees that thousands of Australians face when seeking radiology services to help them manage pain.

“Many people who are living with daily, on-going pain just cannot afford the imaging their doctors

need to be able to effectively diagnose and manage their pain,” says Dr Ulreich.

“Pain is the third most common cause for people seeking medical imaging, behind arthritis and cancer.”

In the past six months, ADIA has received almost 1000 letters from people with chronic pain concerned about the ever increasing costs of scans.

The central problem, according to Dr Ulreich, is that Medicare rebates for medical imaging have not been indexed since 1998, meaning the gap paid by patients has grown in recent years by about 10 per cent a year.

“It is bizarre to think that acupuncture is indexed, IVF is indexed, podiatry is indexed but diagnostic imaging – which is absolutely central to health care – is not,” she says.

The daily program

EACH day’s online Pain Week session is available from nationalpainweek.org.au at 11am, but will remain available so people can view and comment whenever is convenient.

• The first session, which ran this Monday, explored the link between pain and posttraumatic stress disorder, and aimed to provide an answer to three questions: what is the prevalence, what is the physiology, and what can be done?

• The next day, the nationwide discussion turned to the people who look after loved ones with chronic pain, asking: “Who cares for the carers?”

• The third program, on July 24, looks at medical acupuncture – what it is, how it works, the training that medical acupuncturists need and how to spot the good ones.

• On Thursday, the Cyberfest of Hope turns to the research for a look at pain management plans, and considers the pros and cons of hospital-based, peer-led and online models.

• On Friday, people with chronic pain will tell their stories of using the “Feldenkrais method” to manage the condition and discuss how useful they found it, and Associate Professor Susan Hillier, from the University of SA, will also provide an expert view on the same subject.

• Saturday will feature this year’s National Pain Week Ambassador, Petrea King, the founder of the Quest for Life Foundation. The well-known guru of healing, wellness and relaxation will discuss her ideas with Dr Wales.

• The final day of National Pain Week 2013 was originally billed as a “mystery program”, but can now be revealed as “The painful truth: It’s not just shingles”, with pain specialist Dr Malcolm Hogg and stories from people who have post-herpetic neuralgia.

arts & entertainment

Plain, simple Bard

By Helen Musa

NOT even a nasty winter cold can hide the excitement in the voice of Jordan Best as she tells me about fairies at the bottom of the garden.

She’s the director of “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, coming up at The Q, and tells “CityNews” she’s found “a weird and wonderful cast” for a show that will also feature original music by her AFI award-winning dad, Peter Best.

With left-of-field actors such as Tim Sekuless and Ali McGregor playing the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, and “a crazy, dysfunctional” set of Athenian Mechanicals including Cameron Thomas as Bottom and local actors David Cannell, Brendan Kelly, David Clapham, Liz Bradley and Lachlan Ruffy, she assures: “Don’t worry, the casting works really well”.

What’s more, she has Dave Evans as Puck, Riley Bell and Miriam MileyRead as Theseus and Hippolyta and a top set of lovers in Jenna Roberts as Helena, Rachel Clapham as Hermia, Chris Zuber as Demetrius and Duncan Driver as Lysander.

While Best is suitably enthusiastic about “most of” Bell Shakespeare’s productions, (her sister Blazey was a Bell star for years) she declares herself “kind of sick of seeing modern Shakespeare with the director’s twist on politics inserted… I just didn’t want to do that – I just wanted to do William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ beautifully”.

Many readers will sympathise.

Duncan Driver, as Lysander, and Rachel Clapham,

Her fairies are “good” fairies, “not punks with mobiles,” she assures me, explaining that while she did organise a Brazilian-style capoeira fight-dance workshop for them, “for the most part they are laughing, diaphanous, silk-winged, traditional fairies”.

It’s not set in any particular time or place she tells me, though Emma Sekuless’ costume designs owe something to the ‘20s and the fairy costumes are tied in with nature and animals.

So, why is she doing Shakespeare’s “Dream”?

Easy, Best says: “Because it’s awesome, it’s funny and I love the Mechanicals… I’ve played Bottom before, you know.”

And there’s more.

“It’s got fantastic parts for women,” she says. “It’s got great insults like, ‘thou painted maypole’; it’s not too long and it’s so funny that it’s accessible to everyone.”

It worries Best that some people

Would you like to watch those

We

seem to be scared by Shakespeare.

“They think it’s high art, but really it’s not, it’s just really good stories,” she says.

Best of all, her six-year-old son William will be able to enjoy the Mechanicals, lovers and fairies.

Yes, all the sexual innuendo is still there, but it’s all clean. “As trite as it may sound, it’ll be fun for the whole family,” she says.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, The Q, July 24-August 13, bookings to 6285 6290 or theq.net.au

In

‘End’ the

is, offensive

Sue’s still taking big steps

By Helen Musa

WHEN choreographer Sue Healey takes her seat at The Playhouse on August 5 for the Australian Dance Awards, it will be 18 years since she ran Vis-à-Vis Dance Canberra.

Those were confrontational, exciting days, immediately following the departure of Meryl Tankard, and she created seven original dance works with the company.

Now, after time working in Japan, later setting up an independent dance practice in Sydney, Healey has been nominated for two awards, one for her 76-minute doco “Virtuosi” (Outstanding Achievement in Dance on Film or New Media) and the other for her stage work “Variant” (Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance) in which she looks at extreme variations in body types.

I’m calling Healey in Sydney and her rich, resonant speaking voice crosses the phone-lines and the years as she tells me: “I really do quite like it here… I like the freedom of it, Melbourne is trickier, with all the dance companies and so many choreographers.”

Healey’s always had an interest in film. Most people don’t know it, but when she first came here to live, she was already working with filmmaker Louise Curham, now resident in Canberra, to make two films.

“That started me on my own path,” she says.

WINTER EXHIBITION

July 26th- August 17th

Opening Friday 26th July 5.30 – 7.30pm

This is a mixed exhibition of bold, vibrant, pastels from Janet Thatcher, Emerging watercolour works from the Orphans of a Cambodian Orphanage (money going to the orphanage) and stunningly bold and contemporary landscapes of Simon Palmer. An exhibition to warm your heart.

Featuring: Simon Palmer | Janet Thatcher | ODA- Orphan Child Art (Opportunities of Development Through Art)

“I had my apprenticeship with her.”

As Healey was soon to discover, there are distinct parallels between film and dance. “In film there’s not a classic narrative element and that attracted me,” she says.

“I realised I would have to become the director and become knowledgeable about how to make films.”

Although she did a little bit of formal training, at first it was mostly trial and error. Healey fell in love with editing.

“Truly it’s a form of choreography,” she says.

“I would sit next to a film editor and think: ‘I can’t stand it, I have to do it’.”

For “Virtuosi”, created to music

by

Mike Nock and focusing on eight dancers from her native NZ, she worked with “a brilliant editor”, Lindi Harrison.

“She mentored me through the whole process, she did the final cut, but I think I can call myself an editor now,” she says.

We’ll get a chance to view the film during Liz Lea’s DANscienCE Festival in August.

Making the film also gave her “a most wonderful adventure on the smell of an oily rag,” shared with her cinematographer Judd Overton as they travelled to London, Brussels, Berlin, Townsville, Sydney, New York, Melbourne and Wellington.

“The similarities between choreography and film are that you’re playing with moving images through time,” Healey says.

“The temporal aspects are the same… knowing when to go from one image to another so that it becomes about the rhythm and, as you make those decisions, you feel like you’re flexing your choreographic muscles.”

The Australian Dance Awards 2013, at The Playhouse, Monday, August 5, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

In the ‘End’, the word is simply, offensive

“This Is The End” (MA)

JOINTLY written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, starring Rogen and a bunch of his buddies playing themselves, this apocalyptic comedy scratches the surface of celebrity lifestyle and morality among people who hover moth-like around evanescent fame unjustified by achievements that don’t stand up to enduring scrutiny.

Jay Baruchel arrives in LA to spend a weekend with Rogen. There is a party going on at James Franco’s mansion. Let’s go and get high on whatever’s going.

Then the San Andreas fault lets go, reducing Hollywoodland to burning rubble and crustal chasms leading directly down to the magma. What’s to do?

How does a tribe of hedonists deal with this kind of calamity?

With selfishness, gutter language, revelations of celebrities’ true feelings about themselves and their competitors, internal monologues about the unfairness of it all, destruction of property, equal sharing of resources between people for whom sharing is a novelty, scatalogical gags, penis-size comparisons and Emma Watson defending herself with an axe on hearing speculation about rape.

This goes on for a little more than half the film’s length, until Jonah Hill succumbs to possession by an evil spirit that needs exorcising. A minotaur with flaming eyes and nasty disposition gets in the act. One by one, the celebrity cast gets taken up to rejoin the party-goers in Heaven.

Many will find that finale offensive. Others will have already taken offence. A little more wisdom and restraint might well have improved the film’s ambience. No deity of any faith appears.

At Dendy, Hoyts and Limelight

“Before Midnight” (MA)

THE third in Richard Linklater’s film chronology about Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) – whose brief relationship began in “Before Sunrise” (1995) then resumed in “Before Sunset” (2004) – begins with Jesse putting his 14-year old son on a plane from Greece to the US to rejoin his mom from whom Jesse has long been divorced.

Now with twin daughters, Jesse and Celine are enjoying stimulating table talk and Greek cuisine during an intelligent, passionate idyll holiday among friends on a Peloponnese island. Their interaction is a delight to watch.

It’s all too good to last. The film’s second half is

Dougal Macdonald cinema

essentially a two-hander in a hotel room that friends have given them as a departure gift. It’s so easy for a single remark to sour a deep passion.

The screenplay by Linklater, Hawke and Delpy is perceptive, clever, witty, compassionate, magnificent. Long on dialogue, light on action, it leads us through delectable locations and joyous emotions. Once again, Hawke and Delpy generate superb chemistry. We yearn for delight and fulfilment always to nourish their relationship. And when it begins to crumble, we wish it might be otherwise while knowing that the film will be incomplete without something to jolt us from complacency.

Will the rift heal? We should hope to be around a decade hence for the same creative team to give us an answer.

At Palace Electric

“Only God Forgives” (MA)

THIS nasty, disagreeable, brutish movie gets three stars for its implication of some uncomfortable truths about culture clash.

Ryan Gosling plays Julian, whose Bangkok kickboxing club is a front for narcotics smuggling. His older brother Billy has murdered a 14-year-old sex worker. Retired cop Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) lets the dead girl’s grieving father kill Billy then lops off the father’s right hand to balance the situation.

Julian’s mother Crystal, head of the smuggling operation, a juicily wicked role for Kristin Scott Thomas in a blonde wig, commands Julian to avenge Billy’s murder.

Vicious cruelty characterises the film’s moral and dramatic standards. Gosling has top billing, but the principal character is without doubt Chang, laconic, unemotional, as comfortable using sharp tools to render a minor criminal blind and deaf as he is crooning karaoke at a nightclub.

About the attitude of Thai tourism authorities toward Nicholas Winding Refn’s film, one can only conjecture. However, the ethos deeply embedded in the screenplay is a subtle averment that Western exploitation of Asian, and particularly Thai, cultural life is pernicious and evil. Refn’s narrative model uses dark visual values to reinforce the gore.

Has God forgiven? Why should He? And if so, what?

At Palace Electric

Silence in the waiting room of ‘Dreams’

THE sparsity of the set is the first noticeable thing on

the theatre. Seated around the extremities

row against the wall, the audience is

into a waiting room where files are kept and a few administrative officers are working silently in the centre.

On the floor, a child plays while oblivious to the surrounds. She paints on cardboard while being overseen by a caring official. Radio interviews are heard in the background. We could forget we are in a theatre and easily imagine being in a waiting room. The incongruity of the child midst this cold officialdom is immediately obvious.

“Catalogue Of Dreams” concerns the very real and difficult areas of children caught in grey officialdom and dysfunctional family situations.

Much of the production negates the actor and the theatrical in order to focus on the issue. This is a strength that makes it resemble a kind of instal -

theatre

“Catalogue Of Dreams”

Directed by Rosie Dennis and Alicia Talbot, for Urban Theatre Projects and The Centenary of Canberra at the Canberra Theatre Centre’s Courtyard Studio until July 27.

Reviewed by Joe Woodward

lation. We hear the real voice-over of a child being interviewed.

It is also a weakness. Some audience members may be irritated by the long silences. While there are some very theatrical moments in isolation, the actors seem under-utilised in the creation of a fleshed out artistic work.

Strength or weakness? Perhaps it deliberately leaves space for the audience’s attention and involvement to empathise and connect.

arts & entertainment

Menu comes with conditions

YOU do not often read a menu with “conditions of entry”, but there they are at The Oaks Brasserie, a small café tucked away at the picturesque Yarralumla Nursery.

The conditions warn that the native birds will steal your food if you are not vigilant, that staff will deliver food to your table, but after that it is your responsibility to guard it, management cannot take responsibility for personal injuries occurring from individual negligence or birds or animals and so on.

And the menu is explicit that you must understand all the conditions before deciding to stay. Yikes.

But back to the setting, which is what attracted me to return to The Oaks Brasserie. Operating since 1990, it is set in a pretty heritage English garden and I recall masses of spring flowers on my first visit. This time it is winter, although the sun peeped through the clouds to warm us up.

The menu is extensive. Plenty of vegetarian, vegan and wheat-free dishes. Focaccias, bagels and light lunches from $13.50, salads served as mains from $20.50 and rotating chef’s specials

from $20.50.

Desserts are available for afternoon tea in the garden and the children’s menu starts with fairy bread sprinkled with hundreds and thousands (children are only welcome when supervised by an adult). The pet in your life is well taken care of with Canine Cuisine, which includes poochy pasta and snags (all $5).

We both selected from the specials — I the Nasi Goreng ($22.50) and my friend the steak panini sandwich ($23.50).

My dish looked fabulous and included a generous serve of prawns, big chunks of chicken and loads of crunchy Asian vegetables. However, the sweet soy and regular soy were too overpowering for my liking and I just could not finish the meal.

The 120-gram lean porterhouse steak was a better choice, cooked as ordered with scrumptious Italian toasted bread. And how good is

steak with sweet caramelised onion?

Another condition is that the brasserie does not do fast food, only good food as fast as possible. Fair enough.

However, I had to get up from my seat to remind staff our wine had not been served. And after ordering and waiting close to 40 minutes I got up from my seat again to chase down our meals. The staff apologised, saying our meals would take longer than usual because of challenges in serving the large crowd on the opposite side of the brasserie listening to live music. Sigh.

And, just because the conditions of entry are so important to Oaks Brasserie, I thought I would close by letting you know that there is only one bill per table allowed and no bill splitting.

When perfect starts to go wrong

CANBERRA Youth Theatre director Karla Conway has commissioned “a disturbingly funny new work” from playwright Angela Bietzen. It’s set around the perfect suburb, where everyone is polite and everyone helps out – until something unexpected happens. “Wickfield Wonderland”, C Block Theatre, Gorman House, July 25-August 3, bookings to cytc.net or 6248 5057.

THE Australian Stencil Art Prize, won in 2010 by Canberran artist E.L.K., has been re-branded as the Stencil Art Prize, with two categories, the Australian Stencil Art Prize for Australian artists only and the World Stencil Prize for all artists. Winners will receive a $2000 cash prize each and exhibit alongside finalists at Sydney’s Chrissie Cotter Gallery in Sydney during October. Entries to stencilartprize.com by August 15.

PORTRAITIST Barbara van der Linden’s centenary exhibition, “Faces of Canberra”, winds up at Tuggeranong Arts Centre at Lanyon (the old Nolan Gallery) on July 28 with the 2pm unveiling of her Stephen Collins portrait and a closing party, at which author Paul Daley will speak. Gold coin donation for wine.

ART in Miniature Canberra’s annual exhibition of tiny paintings will be held at the Yarralumla Gallery and The Oaks Brasserie, August 4-31. Nicky Mackay-Sim, curator of pictures and manuscripts at the National Library, will open the exhibition at 3pm on August 4. All welcome.

ANCA is seeking proposals for use of its beautiful Dickson gallery for the second half of 2014. Proposals are due by August 29 to anca.net. au/applications/gallery/

TOP local artist Timo Nest will tutor 12 ACT housing renters in a free eight-week visual art workshop, beginning on August 5, culminating in

an exhibition called “Tenants Made This City” at the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre in October. Inquiries to 6247 1026 or info@tenantsact.org.au

FREE Rain Theatre will preview its upcoming production of “Phantom of the Opera” at the regular “Wednesday Lunchtime Live” series at Wesley Music Centre, 12.40pm to 1.20pm, on July 31. Paper note entry or concession $2. Refreshments $2. No bookings, but prepare to queue.

AUSTRALIAN singer/songwriter Rick Price is looking for local musicians to support his Canberra performance at The Abbey on August 2. Bookings to 6230 2905 or 6293 4677.

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Special winter flowerers in a season of their own garden

Cedric Bryant gardening

ONE special variety of winterflowering clematis is Clematis cirrhosa “Wisley Cream”.

It is so special that it has been awarded the prestigious Award of Garden Merit by the UK’s Royal Horticultural Society, an award given to plants judged to have excellent garden qualities.

Its description reads: “Scented cream flowers from mid-winter to early spring. A dark-green glossy leaved vigorous climber ideal for growing over pergolas, arches or around pillars”.

An equally super clematis is Clematis nepaulensis, also known as Clematis forrestii after George Forrest the plant hunter.

Botanist Forrest was a giant amongst plant explorers, bringing no less than 10,000 new plant introductions to the Western world, mainly from China and Nepal, from where Clematis forrestii originated.

With lush, green foliage, bell-shaped, fragrant, cream flowers with red sepals, it flowers from late autumn to the following spring.

It brings honeyeaters to the garden, as they just love its nectar.

Different to most plants, as it has leaves and flowers in winter and is bare in summer, it is ideal

for mixing with a climbing rose over an arch or pergola to enjoy clematis flowers in winter and roses in summer.

NOW is the time to plant summer flowering bulbs such as Hemerocallis or Day lilies, Iris (bearded or flag varieties), Liliums, Polygonatum or Solomon’s Seal, Polianthes or Tuberosa and Zephyranthes or autumn crocus.

The best place to check for other varieties is your local garden centre. You can assume if they are in stock, it is the right time to plant. The same goes for annuals and veggies.

Most annual flowering plants take about eight weeks from the time you plant until flowering time. For example, pansies planted now will be in full flower by September, providing you have prepared the soil and regularly water and feed these delicate young plants.

Spring is in the air

• Uncover rhizomes [roots] from bearded iris. The top of these should be exposed to be baked by the sun for effective flowering.

• Drain drip irrigation systems before spring.

• Stand newly purchased plants in their original

Friends in seed!

IN 1954, seed company Yates used three child models to pose for an advertising placard to promote home-grown veggies.

The photogenic trio were Mareana Barca and brothers Laurie and Dennis O’Toole.

Last year, the images were used to promote the special edition of “Yates Garden Guide” celebrating the 125th birthday of this iconic brand and on a reproduction seed tin.

Having recognised themselves from this promotion, the three contacted Yates, who brought the 60-something trio together for a celebratory lunch this month. Laurie and Dennis had not had contact with Mareana since the original photos were taken 59 years ago.

pot in a bucket of Maxicrop Seaweed plant nutrient for 20 minutes before planting.

• When planting new shrubs, fill the hole with water and allow to drain completely before planting.

• Apply Maxicrop Seaweed Plant Nutrient to annuals and veggies on a weakly, weekly basis to get them off to a good start with strong roots, ie: a weak solution once a week.

38 FLANAGAN STREET, GARRAN

A BEAUTIFULLY RENOVATED SPACIOUS FAMILY HOME BACKING RED HILL

Located on the high side of a quiet street and backing Red Hill Nature Reserve proudly sits this beautiful family home that offers commanding views of the Woden Valley and the Brindabella Mountains. The original owners have renovated this solid brick home to the highest standards and are presenting it in “as new” condition. The separate living areas are all spacious and light filled and they include an elegant lounge room, a very large dining room and a combined kitchen and family room that all flow seamlessly to the outdoor entertaining areas making it ideal for entertaining. The kitchen is well appointed and is the perfect spot to watch the family in the thoughtfully landscaped back garden. The main bathroom has been recently renovated and features a free standing stone bath, porcelain tiles, under floor heating and heated towel rails. Other accommodation includes a master suite and three secondary bedrooms upstairs. There are also two bedrooms, a bathroom and sitting room downstairs that would be perfect as a teenager’s retreat or for those wanting to work from home. Quality fixtures and fittings have been used throughout including plantation shutters, stone bench-tops, and polished hardwood floors. Other features include ducted gas heating, reverse cycle air conditioning and a double garage with internal access. An added bonus is the extra bathroom in the garage and an abundance or storage. Surrounded by a mature hedge to the rear and ideally located backing bushland this property is perfect for those wanting space and easy-care living in a peaceful location. The home is located within close proximity to excellent schools, transport, local shops and medical facilities. EER2.0

Features:

• 6 Bedrooms

• 4 Bathrooms

• 2 Garages

AUCTION: SATURDAY 10TH AUGUST 11:00AM ON SITE

VIEW: SATURDAY 27TH JULY 12.45-1.30PM & WEDNESDAY 31 JULY 12.45-1.30PM

NICKY SYMON 0418 285 797 | EMILY TINDAL 0413 742 320

ROOMS FROM $159

Ta Da!

ABODE WODEN WINS SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION AWARD

Abode Woden is not only on target to be Australia’s first Green Star and NABERS rated hotel but is award-winning before the doors have even opened. The group’s third hotel was recognised at the 2013 Master Builders Association Excellence in Building Awards for Commercial Sustainable Construction.

Abode – The Apartment Hotel is committed to providing quality accommodation in the nation’s capital. This year, we are pulling a rabbit out of the hat and growing the group’s offering with the opening of Abode Woden in August.

On target to be Australia’s first Green Star and NABERS rated hotel, Abode Woden will be the smart choice for the savvy visitor.

Cleverly positioned in the true heart of Canberra, just minutes to the CBD and Parliamentary Triangle, these modern, serviced apartments bring together the comforts of home and the convenience of a vibrant retail and business district.

Offering 151 rooms and set across nine floors, Abode Woden transforms a 70s commercial building into stylish accommodation featuring a new restaurant and conference facilities.

To make it your Abode, get in touch.