CityNews 190704

PERCHED ON THE ROOFTOP OF THE AWARD WINNING BURBURY HOTEL, OVERLOOKING THE CITY, LAKE AND LEAFY BARTON IS CANBERRA’S MOST EXCLUSIVE HIGH TEA.

NEWS / Fitzharris fallout

Deepak turns right, calls for a ministerial voice

INCOMING MLA Deepak-Raj Gupta is calling for his electorate to have a voice in cabinet.

“I think the Yerrabi electorate needs strong ministerial representation because it’s such an important region in the ACT at the moment, with a young, growing population,” says Deepak, 53, of Gungahlin.

He will replace senior Labor minister Meegan Fitzharris by countback following her shock resignation last week and, like Ms Fitzharris, the former independent Labor candidate will align himself to the party’s right faction.

“I’ve made a conscious decision to represent the right faction of the party out of the party’s best interests,” he says.

“I also think it’s a good fit.”

In fact, it’s the fit he had been searching for, saying he decided to quit his job as a project manager a month ago, leaving behind a 17-year career in the public service.

Deepak, who’s also a leader in the local Indian business community, had decided to search for a new path after losing his father last year and, in more recent weeks, his mother.

“I wanted to find something that involved being more connected to people,” he says.

So when he got a phone call on Wednesday, June 26, after only three days of being unemployed, from someone in the ACT government telling

INDEX

Arts & Entertainment 19-21

Canberra Matters 8

Cinema 20

Crossword 23

Dining 20

Gardening 22

Horoscopes 23

Letters 14

News 3-14

From washing cars to a seat in the Legislative Assembly, Deepak-Raj Gupta is not a man easily distracted from his ambitions. DANIELLE NOHRA talks to the impending new member for Yerrabi…

him to watch for an announcement that morning, it ended up being the new path he was looking for.

Deepak will be one of the first ACT Labor representatives of a multicultural background and says it’ll be a significant acknowledgment for people of a migrant background in Canberra.

“Not only to people of an Indian background but also people of other migrant backgrounds,” he says.

“I want to inspire others and show them that someone with a migrant background can take public office.

“It shows the cultural diversity and the acceptance of multiculturalism in the ACT – the most diverse city in Australia.”

Searching for a new life, Deepak came from India to Melbourne to study IT in his early 20s.

Alone and with only $150 in his pocket, he got a job at a car wash, which he says taught him about the Australian society, people skills and the Aussie lingo.

The job was a day-to-day thing and Deepak remembers running for about three kilometres each morning to get to the carwash early in order to be guaranteed a shift.

Politics 12-13

Socials 15

Cover: Canberra’s Luminescence Children’s Choir. Photo by Holly Treadaway. Story Page 21.

Rd, Mitchell 2911

He lived in Melbourne for about 14 years, where he eventually got a job working in IT for an insurance company, which transferred him to Canberra in 2002.

When the contract ran out he de cided to stay. Canberra reminded him of home, Chandigarh, one of the first planned cities in India, so his wife joined him here and he got a job in the public service at the Department of Defence.

“I’ve seen Gungahlin grow with my children. It’s like my third child,” says Deepak, who’s been living in Gungahl in his whole time in Canberra.

He says it gives him a good under standing of its needs, the needs of a growing township and the needs of a community with growing families.

In cricket terms, Deepak says Meegan Fitzharris has had a fine innings.

“A lot of good work has been done but a lot still has to be done so I’ll be doing a lot of public consultation and taking it to the ministers,” he says.

“I think we need to do more on the health side of things in this growing township.

“Education is also very important and, again, we need more education

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Gungahlin College.

“One thing I would really like to work out is how to best address the issue of bus connectivity [and] I’ll be out and about soon talking to people in the community.”

Deepak says he also wants to give Gungahlin more life and make it a more happening place by organising events such as having a night market in the Gungahlin town centre. Another way he wants to do this is by turning Yerrabi Pond into a water sports hub.

“I want to make Gungahlin more

coming place, and I hope to make a big difference as an MLA,” he says.

“I’m a newbie – a new kid on the block – so there will be a lot of things I still need to learn but I’m also bringing a lot of experience into the Assembly, too.”

MOORE: ‘Hopeless’ government just got worse, Page 12 JON STANHOPE: Where was the leadership, Mr Barr? Page 13.

Barr’s light-rail analogy takes the prize

ALL the usual, overused cliches were wheeled out in the wake of the shock resignation of senior ACT minister Meegan Fitzharris. The dependable duo of “spending more time with the family” and “difficult decision”, were mixed with the plausible “time is right” and the elusive “work/life balance”.

But it was Chief Minister Andrew Barr’s light-rail analogy that took the prize. Barr explained: “The tracks of your life are laid down for another four years if you commit to the process, so now is the time to be making those sorts of decisions.”

Barr’s pragmatism could be code for “covering your (tram) tracks” or referencing an out-of-control train “hurtling down the line”. Two questions remain: was the Yerrabi Express politically derailed due to an overloaded baggage car? Or did Ms Fitzharris simply bite off more than she could “Choo Choo”?

THE Canberra Airport managing director has gone into bat for our society’s marginalised.

Stephen Byron, who participated in the recent Vinnies CEO sleepout in an airport hangar, says the Newstart allowance is “so low it’s a joke”. Byron, who raised more than $70,000 for the annual fundraiser, says the benefit should be increased by $75 a week. Most economists agree, suggesting the increase would stimulate the economy and create employment.

STILL at the sleepout and there were a few sniggers from among the high flyers who’d stepped into the shoes of the homeless,

doing it tough for a few hours. At sunrise, as the bleary-eyed participants packed up their cardboard mattresses, a chauffeur wandered through the homeless hangar to whisk his charge back to their real world.

FORMER Brumbies star Clyde Rathbone has confused social-media followers with bizarre comments on fellow former Wallaby Israel Folau. In an opinion piece on the online platform PlayersVoice, the South African-born player appeared to be standing by Izzy.

“I feel for him as a person. He’s got strange ideas in his head and didn’t necessarily choose them,” he wrote.

“He appears to be caught up in a relatively small community of zealots”. But unhelpfully Rathbone, or “Rattlebones” to his mates, later

tweeted: “For three million I will make sweet love to Israel Folau. We can even do it in a church to make sure it’s not gay sex. Call me @IzzyFolau”.

IN these days of rapidly disappearing provincial TV newsrooms comes a documentary on the demise of a local news bulletin that had run for 40 years. Canberra commercial radio producer/journalist Daniel Pizarro has put together “Ten Capital News: The final days”. The 20-minute production featuring the anchorman’s anchorman Greg Robson, with contributions from Greg Hughes, Virginia Haussegger and ABC anchor Craig Allen chronicles the end of the one-hour

bulletin, axed in November 2001. Pizarro plans to enter the doco in festivals beginning with September’s Canberra Film Festival.

IF Canberra isn’t the tailgate capital of Australia I’ll wager it’s in the top two. I’ve long wished for a better and more apt way to respond to the impatient bully bearing down on me. “Dangerous dickhead” lost its power long ago. But thanks to one of our National Living Treasures, I feel better knowing someone else considers tailgaters to be the worst of the worst. In his regular column in “The Australian” Phillip Adams writes: “Whilst opposed to capital punishment, I reckon tailgaters deserve the death penalty”.

AND still in traffic, an update on the rogue cyclist I wrote about on June 13 (playing chicken with four lanes of peak-hour traffic) who was at it again this week. This time his arrogant antics were met with a chorus of blasting horns. His response was to boldly give them and anyone else in the vicinity the middle finger. Seems while most of us are bound to obey road rules there are some, often cyclists, who apparently have been given special dispensation from annoying and tedious regulations.

NCA hikes parking fees

PAY parking on national land has increased by 50 cents a day. The National Capital Authority says the rate in its car parks is now $14.50 a day. The hourly rate has also increased by 20 cents to $3.10.

NAIDOC trivia

CALVARY Hospital’s auxiliary, together with its Aboriginal Liaison Services Unit, celebrates NAIDOC Week (July 7-14) with a trivia night also featuring raffles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artwork, Aboriginal cook books and spices, lucky door prizes and more. At the Canberra Labor Club Belconnen, 6.30pm, on Friday, July 12. Tickets are $20 via eventbrite.com.au. All funds raised go to buying equipment for the public hospital and supporting Amaroo Public School with a traditional games kit.

Kids’ bush dance

THE Monaro Folk Society’s next Kids’ Bush Dance is at All Saints Hall, 9 Cowper Street, Ainslie, 2.30pm-4pm on Saturday, July 13. Hosted by experienced callers and live music from the Tin Mugs, dancers will learn the Brown Snake, the Caterpillar, the Bunny Hop and more. Entry is by gold-coin donation. More at monarofolk.org.au

WHEN you’ve spent the best part of your

interviewing people, you dread the question that’s often asked of you: “What was your most memorable interview?”

Cool Jazz

I dread it because there are so many that have been either interesting, funny, embarrassing, spirited, forgettable, inspirational, personally rewarding –or a mixture of all of the above. Let’s take one of them – personally rewarding. And it happened just last week.

I had the privilege to sit down with Canberra’s surviving “Rat of Tobruk”, John Fleming, two days short of his 100th birthday, which he celebrated with family and friends on Saturday, June 29.

John’s eldest great grandson,

ROD HENSHAW delights in meeting a centenarian who was born in Scotland, farmed in Bega, fought at Tobruk and only recently gave up his driving licence…

Daniel Hamilton, met me in the car park of the neat looking retirement village complex in Bruce to guide me to John’s first-floor unit. Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect when we reached the door. Was there an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair, or reclining peacefully in bed, waiting on the other side?

Not on your life. The door opened, and there stood a beaming John Fleming with a welcoming handshake and the invitation to “make yourself at home” as he shepherded Daniel and me to the lounge room.

“Have you received your letter from the Queen yet?”, I inquired.

“I’m not a hundred yet. If I don’t last till after Saturday, she won’t write,” the proud royalist replied with a chuckle.

“Well,” I said. “You know what Australia Post’s like. She’s probably written it and it’s late arriving.”

Born in Scotland, John was just four when his family came to Australia in 1923.They were intending to head to the North Queensland coast to take up sugar farming. But the plans changed when they arrived in Sydney, and instead they headed

south to start life as dairy farmers.

“(Dad) only had 10 pounds in his pocket and three kids. So the next thing we knew we were going to Bega,” John said. Presumably travel to Queensland was too much of a financial stretch.

John left the farming life to join the army during World War II. He was three months shy of joining age when he fronted the recruitment office, but was unaware of it at the time.

Warm S C a

“The bloke looked at me and said: ‘You’re underage. Oh, that’s close enough’.” So John was in the army and heading to Tobruk.

“We went up to an Italian place north of Tobruk. That was the headquarters,” he said.

“Our blokes went up there with nothing but pea rifles and that sort of thing.”

They held Rommel’s troops at bay until the British arrived to help out. They never lost ground.

After Tobruk it was on to El Alamein, which John remembers being even tougher than Tobruk. When he finally arrived home to Australia, two weeks later he was shunted off to fight the Japanese in what was then New Guinea.

time. He married his long-time sweetheart, Mary, a nurse at Goulburn, before he headed north.

“I wouldn’t marry her before I went away with the army in case anything happened to me over there. But when I came back (from Tobruk) I decided it was time to get married,” he said.

Having survived the ravages of war in Tobruk and El Alamein, it was eventually the Japanese closer to home in New Guinea that brought his military days to an end when he was wounded during combat.

“I was only there about 11 days.”

John and Mary moved to Canberra

in the ‘60s and had three children and, over time, a brood of grandchildren and great grandkids.

His not-so-secret passion is cars.

His great-grandson Daniel Hamilton reckons he was a “bit of a rev head”.

“No, I wasn’t a rev head,” John protests. “I was just a good driver.”

He only recently had to give up driving when one of the family members petitioned the doctor when he sought licence renewal. The doctor declined to endorse his application.

“They said I could get into trouble driving too fast,” he complained. He assured me the family member who dobbed him in is still in the will!

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Goodbye babies, we’re almost,

A CLOSE friend recently shared her pregnancy news with me. As thrilled as I was to hear she will become a mum for the second time, it surprised me how relieved I was that I wasn’t in her shoes.

Not even a pang of wistfulness from me, a usually nostalgic and very much a baby-person, made me realise that I could very well be… done.

This comes after years of obsessing about babies – conception, pregnancy and the intensity of caring for a baby, then doing it again two years later with a toddler in tow.

Five big, transformative years into motherhood later, I feel like I am almost, ever so slightly, getting to the elusive “there” – the place in which new parents look at each other in despair during the tough baby times and ask: “Will we ever get there?”

I’m so close I can almost touch “there”. We are now at the point where the two kids mainly sleep through the night, almost completely toilet trained and while we are still working on the boss baby’s tantrums, our kids for the most part get along and play beautifully with each other.

I have learnt the hard way, as so many of us do, that the road to motherhood is paved with tears. We fight so hard for our babies, be it through fertility challenges, miscarriage, complicated pregnancies or traumatic births.

The idea of travelling anywhere with them doesn’t make me break into a cold sweat anymore, getting out of the house is becoming slightly quicker and having some more “me” time doesn’t come at the huge emotional cost that it previously did for me or the kids. They are more adaptable and predictable. I am more calm.

I have learnt the hard way, as so many of us do, that the road to motherhood is paved with tears. We fight so hard for our babies, be it through fertility challenges, miscarriage, complicated pregnancies or traumatic births.

It’s a quiet, private and desperate pain to be yearning for a baby but feeling like your body is letting you down, well at least that’s how I felt when I was faced with my own fertility challenges. You put your life on hold, hoping to become pregnant, worrying if it will never happen, frightened of disappointment.

Apart from those in the inner

sanctum, all of this is hidden from others. I have held my sobbing friends as they have endured hardships and disappointments to become a mother, including a friend who bravely fought postnatal depression shortly after becoming a mum. And they in turn have supported me through my own challenges. We’re not joking when we say that motherhood is the toughest job and it changes you forever.

My story has a happy ending with two healthy children including a “surprise” second pregnancy but would I want to roll the dice with a third? I don’t think so.

I used to hope that I would be lucky to have a second child and the thought came to me when I was bathing my then baby boy. The bath always looked so big with just him in it and I began to wish for another

baby to literally fill up the space in the bath and complete our family.

My friend asked me the other day if the bath looks empty again and my answer was no! The kids fight over the bath toys and complain that each of them aren’t giving the other enough room and I am close to calling an end to baths and just go with showers.

My life with my children is chaotic, noisy and fun and we may never get to the magical “there” point where everything is completely rosy. But together we are moving into a new phase and I am content that the baby phase is behind us.

When I shared the exciting news of my friend’s second pregnancy with my husband, he said he was delighted to hear that they were going to have a second child but jokingly asked me: “Did you tell her that their life as they know it is over?”

BRIEFLY

Frank Brennan says farewell

AFTER 11 years in Canberra, Catholic leader Frank Brennan, pictured, is leaving the city to take up the post of rector of Newman College at the University of Melbourne.

His departure will mean the closure of the Jesuits’ Xavier House in Canberra and he is concluding his role as CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia.

In a farewell speech to a standing-room only audience of Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn, Father Brennan discussed eight issues confronting the church in an address entitled “Our Church or Our Museum?” in which he called for a more open dialogue in the church on issues such as women priests, warning that even with currently suggested governance changes, the Catholic Church “remains at a crossroads between life and death”.

Father Brennan said the church would continue to suffer for as long as it did not engage in open discussion and education about women priests. The Vatican’s position in trying to shut down the women priests’ issue was incoherent.

“The official position is no longer comprehensible to most people of good will, and not even those at the very top of the hierarchy have a willingness or capacity to explain it.”

Shade for playgrounds

PLAYGROUNDS in Hughes, Isaacs, Monash and Macquarie are to have shade sails installed as part of a refresh of 19 play spaces across Canberra. The upgrades include repainting of equipment, repairs of seating, decks and fences, and replacing soft-fall mulch.

Upselling hearing loss: retail hearing aids

Recently, I was approached by a patient looking for a second opinion. The week prior she had been to a retail hearing aid store in her local shopping centre, hoping to get some advice regarding her hearing loss. As a pensioner, she should have been able to claim free hearing aids as part of the Australian Government’s hearing loss scheme under the Office of Hearing Services, but when she inquired about the program she was told by the salesperson that the governmentissued hearing aids were of poor quality and inadequate for her needs.

”We need to speak out and about what is going on in the hearing aid industry if we want change.”

– Dr Vass

The salesperson insisted what she needed was one of their more expensive hearing aids, priced at over $7,000 for a pair. Anxious about not being able to afford what seemed to be a necessity, she reached out to a friend who suggested she make an appointment with me for a second opinion.

After consulting with the patient and looking over her results, it became

clear to me that the assessment from the shopping centre was completely wrong. The patient had had surgery on one ear 20 years ago which had resulted in worse hearing loss in that ear and not the other. Yet the “hearing test” from the shopping centre showed that her hearing was equal in both ears. Was this because the tester was incompetent or the equipment was faulty? Or was it just an attempt to cover up a medical condition that would have required the patient to be seen by a doctor before hearing aids could even be considered for her? It is likely we’ll never know the answer, but any of the above explanations would be unacceptable.

We need to speak out and about what is going on in the hearing aid industry if we want change. Anyone who has a similar story can report it to the ACCC.

If you would like to have a complimentary second opinion with Dr Vass please phone 02 6282 2717 to make an appointment.

CANBERRA MATTERS

How good is Watson when it comes to

THE Watson Community Association recently conducted consultations to produce the community’s own visionary plan for their suburb.

The document is labelled with key phrases: “A Vision for the Future” and “A Plan for Sustainable Development”. How good is that?

The next step would be for one of the many ACT ministers for urban stuff to engage with the association to embrace such sound strategic thinking based on real resident feedback and participation – rather than the superficial and questionable fluff generated through the government’s Your Say surveys.

The association’s hard work could be the model for how the government could work with residents to undertake intelligent consultations to deal with suburban redevelopment while addressing community needs, climate change as well as embracing a proper planning process for redevelopments within established suburbs.

To quote from the Watson Plan:

“It is an injunction to urban developers, speculators,

There are massive residential developments going on in New Watson and little offered to deal with traffic, the enormous number of trees being cut down and the lack of facilities.

builders, business entrepreneurs and real estate agents that the people of Watson insist on high quality of planning, design, building and community infrastructure.

“It is a challenge to urban planners, architects and consultants to offer exemplary standards of liveability. It is a reminder to government ministers and their respective agencies to ensure the implementation of their espoused principles in their urban planning statements.

“This especially includes the decision makers in the portfolios responsible for housing, urban planning, education, environment, transport and traffic.”

Engaging with residents and addressing their aspirations can still be addressed while delivering on the ACT Labor/Greens government agenda of “jobs and growth” and economic outcomes. That is both the residents’ and governments’ goals are compatible and equally achievable

by an honest government working with their electorate rather than as has been – working with the focus on someone else but not the residents.

That’s the good news. Unfortunately for Watson residents the government’s lack of community-focused planning and the ad hoc development continues.

There is a growing list of concerns –both in the older established areas as well as the New Watson developments at the northern end of the suburb. Where to begin? Here’s a few and apologies that there is not enough space to spell them all out.

There are two massive vacant areas on the Federal Highway down from the petrol station corner as you arrive in Canberra. Both are to be sold and residents have asked that apartments be well designed and attractive given they will be the first buildings on entering into Canberra (Gateway).

Also given the lack of community facilities in New Watson, residents have politely asked that land be set aside for community facilities including a well-designed children’s playground.

Then there is the issue these large developments will add to the traffic

(no trams up there), what can be done?

The answers have not been encouraging. Once sold, it is over to the developer to provide any facilities – and all the extra traffic will be channelled back on to the Watson suburban streets.

Another serious concern is that there are hundreds of trees with established biodiversity – and this has not been addressed in conversations about the sale.

The Watson Community Association has had long-running conversations trying to secure the parklands next to the old Watson High School and to get a commitment to have community facilities provided on this important inner-suburb’s open space.

Meanwhile, on Negus Street in New Watson, all the street trees on one side were taken out by the developer

and, without any notice, the street was narrowed to suit the massive new developments.

In short, there are massive residential developments going on in New Watson and very little being offered to deal with traffic, the enormous number of trees being cut down, and the continual lack of facilities across the whole of Watson; for instance no public toilets near the shops.

Given the friendly, constructive and strategic approach by residents, someone in this government needs to get seriously engaged with the Watson Community Association.

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

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‘Hopeless’ government just got worse

THINGS have just got worse for the local Labor government. If you thought the current government was largely hopeless, you can now expect an even greater downhill run.

The loss of the top-performing member of Andrew Barr’s team will mean a loss of skill, intellect and competency.

The inaugural speech of Meegan Fitzharris is telling. A large chunk of her introduction as a politician in February, 2015, was dedicated to her family. Not just her immediate family. She also included the NZ branch of the family, her parentsin-law and their families. Even then, it was clear that, as much as she loved politics, family would be a key driver for her and family would come first.

For an outsider it is difficult to understand the impact that ACT politics has on the families of Assembly Members – and particularly on ministers. As I have written in the past, while the MLA has the tools to respond to criticism, the families do not.

Partners and children are not responsible for such decisions but often wear the flak without having the tools to defend

against criticism. The MLA can use tools such as the floor of the Assembly or local media to challenge the critics.

Even as she leaves the Assembly the criticisms don’t stop. Kirsten Lawson writing in “The Canberra Times” begins her comment with: “Meegan Fitzharris might have made a dog’s breakfast of health...”. I couldn’t disagree more strongly.

The strength that Fitzharris brought to the role was being prepared to stand up to her bureaucracy – a skill greatly lacking amongst current ACT ministers.

What Lawson ought to have recognised was the “dog’s breakfast” was inherited. Perhaps this is acknowledged to a certain extent with “but in this she is little different from the health ministers who came before her”.

The strength that Fitzharris brought to the role was being prepared to stand up to her bureaucracy – a skill greatly lacking amongst current ACT ministers.

The restructure she oversaw in ACT health was not just about putting lipstick on a pig. The considerable change in the ACT Health Directorate was courtesy of a minister who recognised a problem and followed through, in her words, using a process to “listen, advocate, explain and lead”.

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The “dog’s breakfast” was, more than anything, about the culture of the Canberra Hospital. Meegan Fitzharris introduced both cultural and governance reviews as part of the process of tackling these issues. Hospitals are complex places and change does not happen quickly.

As one of the earliest and most effective political commentators, Nicolo Machiavelli, emphasised: “He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building”.

Meegan Fitzharris has made it her business to “lay them afterwards”. However, it will be some time before the foundations that she built deliver outcomes.

Building on those foundations will require a minister with strength and ability if the outcomes are to be realised.

Following her resignation, I asked Meegan Fitzharris, apart from the hospital, what were the issues on which she felt most pride. Not surprising was the role she played in delivering light rail for Canberra, and particularly for the people of Gungahlin who she represented as a Member for Yerrabi. Despite the

position taken by the Liberal Party and the objection of so many Canberrans she did deliver. And it did not cost Labor an election.

Additionally, she pointed to her work on preventive health and well-being. The issue has gone beyond the health portfolio and is being embedded through government. What good is maintaining a focus on a stronger economy if it favours a few and the benefits are not directed to a healthier community?

As a minister, it is sometimes the small things that generate pride. Finally, providing funding for a paediatric palliative-care nurse finally dealt with an issue that came to her attention when she originally contested the 2012 election. Whether on small issues, or those with a major impact, the ACT Assembly and community will be worse off without Meegan Fitzharris’ intellect, competence and drive.

Where was the leadership, Mr Barr?

THE surprise resignation of Megan Fitzharris as Minister for Health and Transport will leave a large hole in the ACT/Greens government.

In my “CityNews” column of March 20 I said: “The management of ACT Health is looking increasingly problematic and the constantly negative press it is receiving is almost certainly now seriously damaging the reputation and standing of the Minister, Meegan Fitzharris.

“She is clearly the government’s best asset and most capable minister and frankly she should have been rotated out of Health before it got to the stage where the AMA is effectively demanding a Royal Commission into her management of the hospital.

“Chief Minister and Treasurer Andrew Barr… having taken the decision to effectively deny the hospital any growth funding thereby guaranteeing the stream of negative publicity that has eventuated, really should have stumped up and taken on the health portfolio himself rather than throw his best minister, and only credible alternative chief minister, to the sharks.”

There is nothing that I said in that column three months ago from which I resile. Ms Fitzharris has clearly been the standout member of the current

government in terms of her work ethic, grasp of the detail of her portfolios, communication skills and her ability to connect with the community. She should be content with what she has achieved.

Having said that, it is perhaps unfortunate that the extremely poor outcomes being achieved by our public hospitals will be an enduring part of Megan Fitzharris’ legacy.

At one level that is fair and reasonable. She was the responsible Minister and a senior member of a Cabinet that deliberately chose to postpone the redevelopment of Canberra Hospital for a decade and slash the health budget to fund, in part, what she and her colleagues determined was a higher priority than health, namely the tram; the construction of which she oversaw.

The Chief Minister has handed the poisoned chalice to Rachel StephenSmith. It would have been appropriate for Andrew Barr to show leadership and take responsibility for the Health portfolio himself.

However the Chief Minister has now handed the poisoned chalice to Rachel Stephen-Smith. It would, as I have said previously, have been appropriate for Andrew Barr to show leadership and take responsibility for the Health portfolio himself.

Not only does he have a relatively light administrative workload as Chief Minister and Treasurer and should, in any event, be doing more of the heavy lifting but it would have shown that he was prepared to accept

responsibility for the massive cuts that have been made to the health budget under his leadership and allowed him more scope to explain the cuts and accept responsibility for the impact they are having, particularly on low-income families without private health insurance.

The importance of Fitzharris to the government was emphasised following her resignation when the Chief Minister was moved to explain on ABC radio that had she not signalled her intention to resign that he may have done so himself.

By this admission the Chief Minister faces the very real risk of being seen as a lame duck leader occupying his place in the government not out of conviction or dedication or because he has a plan or a passion for reform or because he wants to be there but out of a sense of duty based on the apparent belief that with Meegan’s departure there is no one else in the government with the capacity to fill his shoes. One does wonder what his deputy Yvette Berry thinks about that.

I do hope, nevertheless, that Rachel Stephen-Smith is prepared for

the shock she will receive when she sits down with the director-general of ACT Health and receives the incoming minister’s briefing on the true state of the health budget.

The implications for health care in the ACT of the continuing savage cuts being made to the budget of the Canberra and Calvary hospitals are deeply worrying. Just last week it was reported that there had been a further fall in the number of patients attending A&E and triaged as Category three (urgent) being seen in clinically approved times, from 37 per cent to 30 per cent. This is more than twice as bad, for example, as NSW.

Outcomes as poor as this are undoubtedly a reflection of the state of the health budget. What will be of particular concern to Ms Stephen-Smith as she absorbs the fact that the cuts to the health budget are unsustainable, is that the just released Budget and forecasts reveal that the health budget will be cut even more drastically over the next four years to levels that will not meet the increase in activity due to population growth and demographic change let alone increases in the cost of wages and medicine and new health technology.

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Bush capital eroded by greed

I WISH to draw your attention to the vandalisation and resumption of some of the Kippax ovals by the local ACT government as yet another of their notorious land grabs to increase their perception for high density and to make money, let’s be frank.

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The string of about six ovals flanked by the shopping centre, tennis club and rugby club is a generous open space that people need to survive in a busy city.

All are heavily used on the weekend and often at night with football and cricket facilities.

The ACT government seems to have forgotten that local people need recreation opportunities that bring many health benefits to both adults and children.

The ovals also serve to drain into Ginninderra Creek which needs runoff to flush out its waterway and to keep the biodiversity of birds, plants and animals along its banks flourishing. Ginninderra Creek is one of my favourite places to walk with my son and our two dogs and I have seen black cockatoos and other rarer birds along its banks.

Holt and surrounding suburbs have a high number of people who live in public housing and suffer disadvantage and probably do not in many instances know how to deal with government and stand up for themselves.

I wondered how this land grab would go if they tried resuming ovals and other open spaces in Yarralumla or Forrest where many high-ranking public servants and academics live and know how to advocate for themselves.

A part of the Aranda ovals was resumed where I live about six years ago opposite Canberra High School and many were vocally

unhappy about it. However, as the land was used for a new fire and ambulance station most of us accepted it as a public good.

I concede that with the building of outer suburbs into NSW such as Strathnairn and others in Ginninderry, Kippax Shopping Centre will need more car parks and probably more facilities. However, how do extra townhouses and units on the oval increase public facilities?

And why hasn’t the local government planned new shopping centres to open out that way as part of the new suburbs’ infrastructure.

Molonglo Valley relies too much on the Cooleman Court shopping centre to the detriment of those in Weston Creek and you wonder why a shopping centre was not planned for in this development as part of infrastructure planning.

The same can be said of Ginninderry; why isn’t a new shopping centre planned as part of the new infrastructure as soon as possible?

Kippax Fair will need multi-storey car parks; why can’t they be built on the existing car parks as part of the revitalisation plan for Kippax Fair?

Taking away green spaces for profit’s sake on public ovals creates heat islands that go against the local government’s touted climate change strategy.

Canberra as the bush capital, at least in Kippax, is being eroded by greed. What should be remembered by the ACT government is that they are only stewards of the public land, not the owners. The ovals belong to the local residents and other citizens of Canberra.

Karna O’Dea, Aranda

Stop this foolishness

LETTER writer Vi Evans (CN Letters, July 20) cites a previous correspondent as not having done her research on climate change.

She claims to have done her research into the bogus claims of climate change advocates. Really?

Going on to the internet and falling down the rabbit hole of finding what you want to believe is not research. Yes, climate change has been proceeding for millions of years, but previous shifts of temperature and CO2 have taken thousands to tens of thousands of years. Our climate change is happening over a handful of decades. This is the real danger. Our biosphere will not adapt quickly enough to escape mass extinctions.

She claims we are being hoodwinked by those who want to sell renewables. Renewables don’t do harm. Petroleum and the oil industry does. She is being hoodwinked by these vested interests.

This planet, your children and grandchildren are running out of time. Stop this foolishness.

Luca Collins, Reid

What would Jesus do?

THE Folau saga continues. Acceptance or rejection of homosexuality has occupied the minds of many religions over the millennia.

Interested people may broaden their understanding of it by referring to Koran 7:80-81 and 26:165-166, and the links to Lut (known as Lot in the Bible).

And poor old St Paul was hauled before the authorities to defend himself against the charge of preaching Jesus and, after offering a withering defence, was flogged and told to leave the city – and stop preaching Jesus. And long before Folau, he didn’t.

Colliss Parrett, Barton

How can the Greens do this to Canberra?

I AM writing to ask how the ACT Greens are able to, in all conscience, continue supporting the apology for a government that is ACT Labor?

It has only been the support of the ACT Greens that has made it possible for Labor to govern in the ACT since (I think) 2012.

I realise that entering into such an agreement has been hugely beneficial for the ACT Greens. Sadly, that agreement has meant they’ve been able to push a range of their platforms with all the resources and power of being in government. I guess for the ACT Greens that’s a plus. Unfortunately, the ACT Greens’ platforms seem bereft of human compassion. The focus would appear to be based on ideology at all cost, rather than ensuring that government delivers quality of life and affordability for the citizens of the ACT. Light rail, I suspect, is one of the more costly and misdirected ideologies pushed through with the willingness of ACT Labor.

Last Saturday, I walked out into the bitter cold of a Canberra morning after spending a night at the Salvation

Army hall with homeless guests. I again thought how, in the name of anything that is civilised, can this apology for a government continue to fail so abysmally in providing shelter for those most vulnerable and in need.

As I look at the soaring high rises forever changing the skyline of Civic and Northbourne Avenue with advertising targeting the young and well heeled I wonder at the vision the ACT Greens have for this city. The enormous high-rise towers that are replacing the social housing that sat right near the Civic shops. The vacant, fenced off land along Northbourne Avenue, close to Civic, which was once social housing. The clapped-out, graffiti-riddled 1950s social housing blocks near Lyneham left to rot so they can now be destroyed so yet more developers can make a nice profit at the cost of ACT residents.

The day the ACT Greens walk away from their cosy arrangement with ACT Labor could be a good day for Canberra.

Gerdina Bryant, Watson

Macquarie’s full of firsts for Belconnen

MACQUARIE, a residential suburb in the Belconnen district of Canberra, was gazetted on June 22, 1967, in recognition of Maj-Gen Lachlan Macquarie, a former governor of NSW.

Three years later, the first commercial hub in the Belconnen district, Jamison Centre, was built in Macquarie in 1969. Named after Thomas Jamison, a First Fleet surgeon and government official, the centre preceded the Belconnen Town Centre by almost a decade.

But the centre isn’t the only first for the Belconnen area, and not far from it, on Bennelong Crescent is Macquarie Primary School, the first government-run public school in the area. It was established in 1968.

fosters a great community feeling with strong relationships between the children, educators and staff.

“We have a great team of highly educated and dedicated educators and we make sure that we support

as well as a fabulous indoor gym space where the children

staff enjoy taking the children out for local walks and they

The YMCA Jenny McCombe Early Learning Centre, corner of Bowman Street, Macquarie. Call 6251 5735, email earlylearning.jam@ymca.org.au or visit canberra.ymca.org.au

Elisha helps students achieve their singing goals

WHETHER people want to sing for fun or professionally, Canberra Vocal Development, a school that only focuses on singing, has been helping people with their singing techniques since 2013, says owner Elisha Holley.

Elisha, who’s been singing from a young age, says she started Canberra Vocal Development because she found that a lot of music schools tended to focus on multiple instruments and there wasn’t high-quality teaching available for singing.

“We are a school that focuses only on singing,” she says. Canberra Vocal Development offers beginner and advanced classes, which Elisha says are taught in a like-minded and collaborative environment, benefitting both the teachers and their students.

“We focus on a holistic approach to draw on each experience and use our expertise in order to achieve the best outcome for our students,” Elisha says.

Often, Elisha says people come to her school with individual goals and the teachers, with their extensive knowledge of how the voice works and their understanding of each person’s capability, are able to help them achieve them.

Canberra Vocal Development, Suite 5, 25 Macquarie Place, Macquarie. Call 0403 707761, email admin@canberravocaldevelopment. com.au or visit canberravocaldevelopment.com.au

Walking into YMCA Jamison is a unique and special experience.

At YMCA Jenny McCombe ELC Jamison we have spaces that promote active and healthy lifestyles. This is evident through our unique indoor gym space, natural outdoor area and across the centre.

We recognise It Takes A Village To Raise A Child. Let us become part of your Child’s Village.

OPENING HOURS: MONDAY TO FRIDAY – 7:00AM TO 6:00PM

SINCE opening Bentleys Hair of Canberra about 44 years ago, owner June Irving still loves sending people away looking the best they possibly can.

Offering cuts, styling, colouring and hair treatments for all ages, June says the team at Bentleys Hair of Canberra are highly trained so they can provide the best and most efficient service possible.

“We are very customer-focused,” she says.

“We’re really good with cuts and colours, including ombres, tints, foils and perms.

“We listen to customers’ values, we’re respectful [and] we keep up to date with all types of hairdressing.”

Leading the team, June has also kept up to date throughout her career and has attained multiple qualifications including two certificates in hairdressing, a diploma in hairdressing, a certificate in hospitality and a Training and Education (TAE) certificate.

She brings these skills with her when working with the 21 trained stylists in the Jamison location but says the team at the Red Hill location, called Bentleys at Red Hill, are also backed with up to date experience.

As for the products, June says the salon mainly uses Schwarzkopf hair products but it’s also one of two

salons in Canberra offering Alterna haircare and the new GHD Oracle. And, in August, June says Bentleys Hair of Canberra will be excited to welcome new specialist William Patterson, who has around 15 years of experience in styling and educating.

Bentleys Hair of Canberra, 3/9 Jamison Centre, Macquarie. Call 6251 2681, email bentleyshair@grapevine.com.au or visit bentleysofcanberra.com.au

CUSTOMERS are less likely to run into someone wearing the same outfit when they shop at the family-owned and operated men and women’s clothing store, Cassidys Department Store, says one of its owners Paul Sheedy.

Located in Jamison Centre, Paul says the welcoming store offers a friendly, personalised service, tailored to each customer.

“We offer unique and fabulous fashion for women and men in classic styles and spectacular colours,” he says.

According to Paul, Cassidys Department Store has a wide variety of labels such as Yarra Trail, Orientique, Jillian, Corfu, Equinox, Foil, Marco Polo and Breakaway.

He says they also offer a variety

of styles and colours which are of great quality and good value for money.

While Cassidys has been operating since the ‘70s, the store has been run by its current management successfully for about 25 years.

“With many multinationals closing down and online shopping threatening many stores, we offer an individual, personalised shopping experience where you can touch and feel the clothing and talk to friendly staff,” Paul says.

“We know many of our customers by name too.”

Cassidys Department Store, Jamison Plaza, Bowman Street, Macquarie. Call 6251 1911 or email admin@cassidysatjamison.com.au

BENTLEYS

Shop 3

Plaza

FOLLOWING the changes to the first home owners grant on July 1, the staff at Bendigo Bank are on hand to explain these changes and what they might mean, says mobile relationship manager Jacob Krog.

“We have the experience to guide buyers through all the steps and tell them about the pitfalls to look out for,” says Jacob who, combined with mobile relationship manager Estelle Whitby, has more than 25 years’ experience in finance.

Both Jacob and Estelle offer an easy and friendly service which can be brought straight to the client, according to Jacob, saying they can come out to any interested customer, or people can come in to the branch and meet the customer-focused, Macquarie branch team.

“We can help guide first-home buyers through the process of buying their new home,” Jacob says.

“We will help with everything and show the difference between buying a house, or a unit, or an apartment.”

And, he says the best thing about using Bendigo Bank is the customers’ money will go back into the community because it’s a bank run for the community.

Bendigo Bank, Jamison Plaza, Bowman Street, Macquarie. Call Jacob on 0418 329087, email jacob.krog@bendigoadelaide.com.au or visit bendigobank.com.au

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Where friends gather and

ARTS IN THE CITY

By the time we got to Woodstock... Spotlight on the terrible Twits

It’s nearly 50 years since “Woodstock” and, after wearing out her vinyl album in six only months in 1969, our love-not-war, boomer arts editor HELEN MUSA is getting a little nostalgic...

PEACE, love, freedom, happiness... actually, I stole that from a song in the 1967 “tribal” rock musical “Hair”, but the words apply to the tone of ArtSound FM’s coming “Woodstock 50th Anniversary Special”.

All morning on July 20, Paul Conn, Mike Kennedy and other presenters will go live with music, interviews and trivia questions about the celebrated festival which “Rolling Stone” magazine has listed among the “50 Moments that Changed the History of Rock and Roll”.

The show, ArtSound says, “is guaranteed to take baby boomers back to the day, enthrall a second generation of fans of the music that Woodstock piped into Western popular culture and introduce a third generation of younger Canberra listeners to the pivotal event.”

Held from August 18 in 1969 near the rural town of Woodstock in New York State, it was officially billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music”.

Instead of an estimated 10,00050,000 people, half a million peaceloving fans turned up so that organisers were forced to make the event free

of charge. It rained, food supplies ran out, people got sick and muddy and the toilets didn’t work, but 32 acts still performed on the outdoor stage and it was considered a happy event.

The festival was recorded in Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary film “Woodstock”, a soundtrack album and the song “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell, who described the festival as “a spark of beauty”.

At the time, I rushed out to buy a copy of the Woodstock album, which my cheap record player wore out in six months, as well as a Santana record and one by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, all relative newcomers when they played in the festival.

Everybody was there.

Well that’s not really true, but Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar, Melanie Safka, Arlo Guthrie, Santana, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Blood, Sweat and Tears and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were. Last on the line-up was Jimi Hendrix, who sang his psychedelic rendition of the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

Woodstock, August, 1969… “[It] was the biggest display of youth culture and counterculture ever, and still resonates,” says radio producer Paul Conn.

But as the producer of the coming ArtSound FM special, Paul Conn tells me, the list of those who weren’t at Woodstock was impressive, too.

Top of that list, Conn says, was Bob Dylan, who coincidentally, resided in the town at the time.

In the program on July 20, he’ll tell all, although he hints to us that Dylan was probably never going to come, and it was much the same story with The Beatles. Others who declined were Simon & Garfunkel, The Byrds, The Doors and Led Zeppelin.

Other secrets to be unveiled will include the identity of the couple draped in a blanket that appears on the cover of the album.

Conn is a self-confessed music tragic

who has been collecting music seriously since 1968 and has done radio shows for local ABC radio and several different public radio iterations.

“I thought this was too good an opportunity to miss, what with all the music and stories,” he says. “And besides, ‘Woodstock’ was the biggest display of youth culture and counterculture ever, and still resonates.”

He and ArtSound are doing it a month ahead of the actual anniversary, but he has an excellent excuse – on the real weekend in August, he’ll be in Woodstock.

“Woodstock 50th Anniversary Special”, ArtSound FM, 92.7 MHz Canberra and 90.3 MHz Tuggeranong, 9am-noon, Saturday, July 20.

By Helen Musa

SPARE Parts Puppet Theatre is coming to The Street with its adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The Twits”, a journey into the world of a grumpy old couple, Mr and Mrs Twit, who haven’t had a good thought or done a kind thing in years. At The Street Theatre, July 10-13.

Also at The Street as its last “First Seen” presentation this year, will be Hanna Cormick’s work, “Zebracorn” at 3pm, Sunday, July 7. Book at thestreet.org.au

VETERAN actors Max Cullen and Warren Fahey are appearing in “Dead Men Talking”, a self-devised mini-musical in which Henry Lawson and “Banjo” Paterson share a drink and a yarn or two at the Leviticus Bar & Grill. At Smith’s Alternative, Civic, at 7pm. Wednesday, July 10. Book at smithsalternative.com

AUTHOR of “Nora Heysen: A Portrait”, Anne-Louise Willoughby, will join National Library “Treasures” curator Nat Williams to talk about Heysen, the first woman to win the Archibald Prize and Australia’s first female painter to be appointed an official war artist. At the National Library, 6pm, Tuesday, July 9. Book at nla.gov.au

BRILLIANT, young, ANU-trained pianist Aaron Chew has been inspired by the “pianism” of Ferruccio Busoni to appear in a two-part recital of the piano music of Franz Liszt. At Wesley Music Centre, 12.40-1.20pm, Wednesday July 10 (part 1) and July 17 (part 2). No bookings required.

INTERNATIONAL Magician of the Year, Australia’s Cosentino, will create “mind-boggling stage illusions and cutting-edge street magic” in his show, “Anything Is Possible”, at Canberra Theatre, Saturday, July 13, book at canberratheatrecentre.com.au

Satire shines in families’ show of self-interest

“Parasite” (M)

AFTER introducing its principal characters, South Korean writer/director Bong Joon-ho’s winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival settles down to a merciless examination of their behaviour, balanced with humour, that other essential ingredient of satire.

To function effectively, satire is best served with just enough wit to trick its audience into thinking that it’s serious, just long enough for recognition of the trickery to sink in.

“Parasite” delivers satire with wonderful wit more visual than oral (gags in its native language would be unavailable to nonspeakers; literate subtitles pull no punches in their frankness.)

Satirical humour doesn’t have to be kind. Self-interest controls the behaviour of three families in “Parasite” as it examines the social and emotional roots of what drives them, from parents with adult children down to eight-year-old Da-song whose smallest wish commands parents and household servants alike.

So who are these people? The Kim

family has fallen on hard times. Educated son Ki-woo gets a job teaching English to Da-hye, adolescent daughter of wealthy Park and Da-song’s mother, his spoiled, selfish, socially-ambitious wife Yeon-kyo.

Moon-gwang, the Park family’s housekeeper, holds a secret involving her husband Geun-se and the basement of the family’s architect-designed home.

By the time the film has introduced this lot together with Ki-woo’s parents, filmgoers

have enough information to know the “who” of the story. Which brings us to the “what”, where wit meets humour, ambition, criminality, passion, violence, romance (across as well as within family lines) and, eventually, bloody resolution. Cinema is well equipped to deliver these elements of telling the story.

A wonderfully defined and performed dramatis personae, it delivers 139 minutes of very palatable entertainment with style and

panache on a layer of social commentary saying useful things to filmgoers who want to hear them. “Parasite” led me to laugh outright in a cinema more often than in a long while.

At Dendy, Palace Electric

“Yesterday” (M)

YOU are entitled to expect a good experience when Danny Boyle’s name appears on a film’s masthead as director. When Richard Curtis’ name appears on the next line in the credits as writer, expectations soar even further.

Remember the Beatles? Of course you do if you grew up during their heyday, writing and performing songs before huge audiences of (mostly shrieking) young women accompanied sometimes by boyfriends who might have felt miffed at having to play second fiddle to the Fab Four. “Yesterday” memorialises them.

Half a century since their songs stormed to the top of the charts and after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, supermarket shelf-filler Jack (Himesh Patel) wakes in Lowestoft to discover a world in which the Beatles have never existed, except for him.

Guitar-playing Jack recognises the Beatles’ inventive musicality and starts performing songs by the greatest band in history to a world that has never heard them. He becomes on overnight sensation.

Jack has a roadie to drive him around

when she can get away from teaching primary school kids. Lily James portrays Ellie with restrained charm until Rocky (Joel Fry) replaces her, leaving her free to concentrate on the romantic thread of the story to the edge of happy-ever-after over which she’s at risk of tumbling when she sees Jack, in California for a fame-makeover, kissing team leader Debra (Kate McKinnon) innocently enough.

Boyle and Curtis have a much bigger fish to fry. As Jack’s success builds, claiming the Beatles’ repertoire as his own work, we await the day when he’s found out, a dramatic thread tightening as the film progresses in an edge-of-the-seat tension.

My favourite Beatles number is “Eleanor Rigby”. I was chuffed when the film made an all-too-brief visit to her headstone. I also had a warm feeling when, in a gentle coda, Jack performs a calypso number popular in the same musically-rich era.

At all cinemas

DINING / amici wine bar & deli, civic

Where friends might graze

By Wendy JOHNSON

WALK into Amici and you’re immersed in the deli part of the operation, which is super impressive.

It’s produce, produce everywhere – gourmet meats hanging on mas sive shiny hooks, cheeses carefully displayed, antipasti dancing about and stacks and stacks of canned seafood. It’s a visual extravaganza.

Amici (which means “friends” in Italian) is about gathering a gaggle of friends and grazing.

The menu is small by design. Four-hand stretched pizzas ($12 to $14), four sandwiches ($14 to $16), three pates ($18 each), charcuterie and cheese boards featuring quality produce, and cold cuts (various prices).

We were thrilled with the creamy duck pate that wore a wonderful slice of limoncello gel on top. It was bursting with flavour and inspired us to duplicate it at home (wish us luck). Pates are made locally but not on site.

We shared charcuterie, including a chocolate espresso prosciutto; cheese, including a lovely blue, and beautiful sourdough. Then we got stuck into the Diavolo pizza, featuring fiordilatte (cheese made in the

a tad burnt around the edges (we encountered a friend dining for the first time who had the same issue).

Fascinating is the large range of products from the sea by Cuca including sardines in olive oil, razor clams, mackerel fillets and mussels in pickled sauce ($14 to $24). The Cuca brand is famous for producing high-quality canned seafood for more than 80 years. According to Amici’s menu, all products are harvested, cleaned and packed by hand, using only natural materials, seafood, olive oil and brine.

Wine is available by the glass or buy the bottle from the fridges ($15 corkage). Whites by the glass are $12 to $14 and include Architects of Wine Skinny Riesling and Alba are mounted on the wall, making it impossible for some diners to see (we snapped the selection on a mobile).

The cocktail list is fun with “no”, “low” or “go” ABV (alcohol by volume). Think Meno Male, Acqua Di Gio, Che Figata and Boh! The colour scheme is light and breezy – mint greens, pale pinks, light greys. Look up at the ceiling wallpaper (won’t give the secret away). The place is a bit bright at night (for us, anyway). Service was slow and whipping wine glasses away when they’re not empty is a worry.

Young voices shine for the world

By Helen Musa

NOTHING shines more brightly than the pure voices of young people singing together, as Canberra’s Luminescence Children’s Choir is about to show the world.

For this lively bunch of youthful treble choristers aged 10-16 will take the stage of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall between July 15 and 21 in the Gondwana World Choral Festival.

The week-long festival hosted by Sydney’s Gondwana Choirs will bring together more than 1000 young singers from Australia, Asia, North America and Europe, including Boston Children’s Chorus, the Estonian Television Girls’ Choir, the Inner Mongolia Youth Choir and Riga Cathedral Girls’ Choir.

There’s a lot of hard work involved and a lot of serious musical networking, as we find when we catch up with Luminescence founder and artistic director, AJ America, at Ainslie Arts Centre, where she and accompanist/associate artistic director, Veronica Milroy, are herding lively vocalists for a regular Tuesday afternoon rehearsal.

America – her name is, unexpectedly, of Dutch origin – is an admired mezzo-soprano whose solo voice has been heard on film soundtracks, including Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia”. After stepping down late last year from conducting the Canberra

Community Chorale, she now divides her time between Sydney and Canberra, where she first arrived to study history at the ANU in 2013.

As a child, America cut her teeth singing with the Sydney Children’s Choir and Gondwana Voices, both founded 30 years ago in 1989 by Lyn Williams, who is the brains behind the 17-concert festival.

Readers brought up on eisteddfod singing will be surprised to hear that Williams claims choral music to be “a relatively new art form in Australia”, but it is true that under her leadership Gondwana has commissioned hundreds of new Australian works.

As for Luminescence, it came about in 2015 when America and Milroy, another former Gondwana singer, were teaching at Aranda Primary School’s after-school care. They formed a small chamber group with 10 kids that, by 2016, became a permanent group, with fledgling singers from all over Canberra. Their Luminescence Chamber Singers is an adult ensemble, separate from the children.

As well as more demanding rehearsals for sophisticated baroque, romantic and classical music, America and Milroy hold free sight-singing classes on Saturdays and “Little Lumi” classes for ages 8-12 on Monday afternoons.

Back at Ainslie Arts Centre, 15-year old Ava Vagnarelli and 13-year-old Wynton Johnstone,

who chorus that through singing “you meet all kinds of talented people” and get to travel. They’ve been south to perform with The Young Voices of Melbourne, to the Festival of Voices in Hobart and next year they’re off to Finland, Latvia and Estonia.

America agrees, saying: “Travelling is very important… it helps build pleasant relationships if children are together for 10 to 12 days rather than just one rehearsal a week… their singing becomes invigorated.”

“It’s challenging and sometimes a lot of fun,” Ava says, while the more voluble Wynton, an alto who wants to be a countertenor, says he also studies mandolin, piano and violin.

Valdas, a classical guitar whiz kid from Currawang, says: “The best thing is friends I’ve made, how the choir sounds and how the voices work together to make something beautiful.”

America says: “I have no expertise in changing voices, but we have an uncommon number of boys in the choir and they really love it.

“Luminescence is a place where all the kids have to learn to take responsibility for themselves.”

America and Milroy are busy rehearsing new compositions by Australia’s Paul Stanhope and American composer Nico Muhly, as well as other mainstays of the Luminescence repertoire –Mendelssohn, Bulgarian and Swedish folk tunes, songs in German and Latin music by Bjork and the Dirty Projectors.

Apart from the massed choirs at Sydney Opera House, the singers will also perform a twilight concert at Verbrugghen Hall alongside the Sydney Children’s Choir Junior Performing Choir, the Hunter Singers and Valla Voices.

Then, as part of the Harbour City Series, they’ll sing with Nagoya Children’s Chorus at Sydney Conservatorium and at Emanuel School Performing Arts Centre in Randwick, America’s alma mater.

And the high point? That’s a new composition by yet another Gondwana alumna, Alice Chance, “Fiat Lux: The Light Cycle” – songs fittingly titled for a choir called Luminescence.

“Sounds of Australia” gala concert, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, 7pm, Monday, July 15 and “Sounds of the World” gala concert, 3pm, Sunday, July 21. Book at gondwana-wcf.org.au All Luminescence classes are at luminescence.org.au

toni@twinstitchupholstery.com.au

Blossoms that herald spring GARDENING

NOW’S the perfect time of the year to plant barerooted trees and shrubs and in this column I’ll look at blossom trees that herald spring when they burst into bloom.

The term “bare-rooted” traditionally meant trees grown in wholesale nurseries that were dug up when dormant in winter and delivered to retail garden centres with no soil on the roots.

The garden centres then “healed” them in, placing the trees in trenches and covering the roots with soil to stop them drying. Any unsold trees in winter were potted up for saIe during the year. These days trees are potted up immediately on arrival.

So it’s important to remember that when trees are sold in winter and taken out of the pot, most or all of the potting mix will fall away from the roots. This can be used to mix with existing soil when planting the trees.

• So let‘s start with flowering apricots which can come into flower at this time of the year and as early as mid-June.

• Prunus mume Rosebud is an upright branching, low, bushy, small tree to 4m x 4m. The large soft pink semi-double flowers are delicately fragrant.

• Its cousin Splendens grows to 4m x 3.5m in a vase shape and has double, deep-pink flowers with yellow stamens. Its fragrance is particularly noticeable in the evenings. Flowering in late winter

to early spring, both these plants are highly recommended.

• To avoid confusion, the Prunus family includes flowering plums, apricots, cherries, almonds and peaches. A really low-growing cherry is Prunus Kojo-no-mai (1.5m x 1.5m), which is also ideal for container growing. It has distinctive twisted and bending zig-zag branches with pendulous rosy-red buds opening to single white flowers, which appear in pairs on the branches in spring, often with a pink tinge.

• Prunus persica Magnifica is the perfect name for this spectacular flowering peach, growing 4m x 3m. Its double, crimson-red flowers of up to four centimetres across almost completely cover the bare branches in spring.

UNFORTUNATELY, blossom trees have rarely been planted as street trees resulting in a boring sameness, for example most of Belconnen has eucalypts as the predominant trees. Compare this to the older suburbs when Charles Weston was laying out the street-tree planting in suburbs such as Red Hill and Forrest.

Flowering plums were used extensively in early street plantings in Antill Street and on Flinders Way, Griffith (where it was alternated with Prunus nigra and Crataegus, or flowering hawthorn, to present a spectacular display in spring).

This demonstrates how new suburbs could look alternated with native Callistemons or Melaleuca. Although both these grow to more than five metres, Crataegus Rosea Flore Pleno only grows to 3.5m x 3m with rose-pink flowers appearing as the leaves are almost fully grown. This sets the flowers off perfectly against the dark green leaves.

MALUS or crabapples are a large family with amazing blossoms followed by fruit. For example Malus Gorgeous growing to just 3m x 3m. Its pink buds open to white-pink flowers followed by bright-red fruit in

autumn. The fruit is ideal for making crabapple jelly. My final suggestion is Malus hamzam Hamlet growing to just 3m x 2m. Perfect for the small garden with scarlet buds that open to rosy-pink flowers and deep rosy-red crabapples.

Jottings...

• Spray ornamental flowering trees while in bud now before the flowers open with Bordeaux or Kocide to combat the fungal disease leaf curl.

• Summer and autumn-flowering shrubs can be pruned now.

• Plant asparagus now.

• Plant peony roses now (both perennial and tree peony varieties).

Joanne Madeline Moore

ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)

The pace picks up this week… and so do the challenges. Retrograde Mercury connects with Mars (on Monday and Tuesday) when words have the ability to wound. So be extra careful what you say. If you don’t self-edit, then you could end up with a messy misunderstanding on your hands. Then Mars and Uranus turbo-charge your impulsive side on Thursday. So slow down, otherwise you could find yourself smack bang in the middle of an argument or accident.

TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 21)

Mercury is now reversing through your home zone, so be careful how you communicate with family members. When it comes to other matters, Uranus (in your sign) urges you to jump out of your comfort zone, shake off bad habits, embrace opportunities and fast track changes. It’s time to view transformation as terrific, rather than terrifying. Be inspired by birthday great, actor Harrison Ford: “We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.”

GEMINI (May 22 – June 21)

Keep in mind that Mercury (your patron planet) is in retrograde motion until July 31. So make sure you back-up all your computer files and check text messages carefully before you press send. Plus allow plenty of time to get to appointments or catch flights; and double-check everything as you revise, reschedule and re-do. You’re in the mood to hear (and spread) some red-hot gossip but remember words can cut like a knife. So avoid saying hurtful things that you later regret.

CANCER (June 22 – July 23)

With Mercury reversing through your self-esteem zone, are you still punishing yourself for a mistake you made many moons ago? Or are you still holding a grudge towards someone who wronged you many years ago? It’s time to forgive others – and yourself – for transgressions from the past. So your mantra for the week is from author and activist Marianne Williamson (who was born on July 8): “Forgiveness is not always easy… and yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.”

LEO (July 24 – Aug 23)

With Mars and retrograde Mercury both visiting your sign, you’re in the mood to mix and mingle; text and tweet; socialise and circulate. But will others be happy to hear what you’ve got to say? This week’s tempestuous stars also highlight your inclination to jealous, possessive or overbearing behaviour. Do your best to loosen your intense grip on a loved one Leo – otherwise you’ll just drive them away with your dramatic and demanding diva-like behaviour.

VIRGO (Aug 24 – Sept 23)

Relations with a child, teenager or friend will be strained and the more you try to organise them, the worse things will be. So avoid getting drawn into pointless power-plays. The best way you can help loved ones is to support them in practical ways, as they pursue their ambitions and follow their dreams. Criticism is out, and encouragement is in! With Mercury retrograde for the rest of the month, it’s also time to de-stress as you meditate, contemplate and recalibrate.

LIBRA (Sept 24 – Oct 23)

Expect some dramas as Saturn and Pluto stir up old grievances with a family member or a colleague. By all means use your natural diplomatic talents to help smooth troubled waters but, if you sit back and let others make decisions, then you’ll just feel paralysed and powerless. So strive to be more self-sufficient. Getting the ratio right between your public and private lives is an ongoing challenge. But if anyone can juggle complex commitments, it’s a well-balanced Libran!

SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 22)

This week’s stars boost your personal magnetism – and your manipulative side. Pluto gives you an energy surge that increases your desire to be in charge but, if you want to avoid unnecessary power struggles and unpleasant dramas, then stop trying to control others. You can be powerful and passionate – or compulsive and controlling. If you’re a smart Scorpio, then you’ll choose the path of least resistance as you channel your energy in positive and proactive ways.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 – Dec 21)

With Mercury now retrograde, take special care when travelling and double-check your itinerary. There could also be some stress involving money or intimacy. So be patient with your partner; be careful with cash and credit; and think things through before lending money to others (because you may not get it back). You’ll have a good week if you are uncharacteristically patient and look for the facts and subtle undercurrents that are hidden beneath the surface.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 20)

Conscientious Capricorn – your perfectionist side is likely to go into overdrive, as this week’s stars amp up your obsession with perfection. But other people may find your standards too demanding and, if you push too hard, then you’ll just end up pushing them away. Courtesy of Mercury Retrograde, money matters also look rather complicated. Incoming funds are in a state of flux so the more flexible and proactive you are, the more manageable your finances will be.

AQUARIUS (Jan 21 – Feb 19)

Avoid being disruptive and getting drawn into disputes with family, friends or colleagues. This week will work best if you keep your nose out of other people’s business and concentrate on pursuing personal projects. The Sun/Neptune trine (on Wednesday and Thursday) is great for experiencing fiery bursts of creative inspiration but good ideas on their own won’t get you far. You must also work on refining your daily routine, so you have more time to follow your true destiny.

PISCES (Feb 20 – Mar 20)

This week’s stars are somewhat bittersweet. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Sun/Neptune trine is terrific for creative projects and spiritual pursuits. But Mercury retrograde and Uranus will also disrupt your daily routine and distract you from your priorities. And a romance or friendship could experience difficulties. So it’s time for Pisceans to be creative and compassionate, but also robust and resilient. Then the bumps along the road will only make you stronger!

Copyright Joanne Madeline Moore 2019

Across

3 Which term describes that which is free from sensual desire? (8)

7 What is a glass bottle for wine, etc.? (6)

8 When one sets down words in a different form, one does what? (8)

9 What is the ground under the ocean? (6)

10 Which Turkish city was formerly Constantinople? (8)

11 Name a sheet of calfskin prepared as parchment for writing. (6)

14 Which insects burrow into trees, fruit, etc.? (6)

17 What are altar attendants of minor rank? (8)

18 What is a long, narrow excavation in the ground? (6)

19 Which term describes that which is done restlessly? (8)

20 What, in golf, are scores of two below par? (6)

21 When one conducts a trial on something, one does what? (5,3)

Down

1 Name the capital of French Guiana. (7)

2 What is a list of goods sent by a common carrier, with directions? (7)

3 Which phrase implies “each day”? (7)

4 What is a violent whirlwind, generally made visible by a funnel-shaped cloud? (7)

5 To be prominent, important, or distinguished, is to be what? (7)

6 What, in chess, are rooks? (7)

11 Which bridge of masonry arches, carries a road or railway over a valley, etc.? (7)

12 Which large cat produces cubs? (7)

13 What is the Latin name for Odysseus? (7)

14 Which term depicts the finest, up to this time? (4,3)

15 Name the favourite of Queen Elizabeth 1st, Sir Walter ... (7)

16 What is a toothed bar with which a pawl engages? (7)

Gail Freeman & Co Pty Ltd

CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT

Doug's car isn't a car, says taxman

Doug's starting a consulting business in horticulture and came seeking information on potential tax claims, saying: "I don't want to pay too much tax."

I thanked him for coming in and said his visit was timely given the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) had last week issued a media release about car claims.

Doug confirmed he would be claiming his business kilometres for his Toyota Hilux.

“As I understand it, that vehicle is designed to carry a load greater than one tonne and, as such, it is not defined as a car in the Income Tax Assessment Act," I told him.

"This means you can't claim up to 5000 kilometres at the perkilometre rate. However, you can claim 100 per cent of your costs provided you meet certain criteria.”

“When you drive a car from home to work, the travel is not tax deductible unless your employer requires that you carry equipment used to earn your income, there is no secure area to store that equipment on site and it weighs more than 20 kilograms and is difficult to transport.

"If you meet these criteria then you may be able to claim 100 per cent of the running costs as the home-to-work travel component is now claimable.

"In addition, you can claim your incidental trips provided that for trips undertaken wholly for a private purpose any return journey does not exceed 200 kilometres and the total travelled in any financial year does not exceed a total of 1000 kilometres.”

Doug said that was certainly the case and was keen to know what expenses he could claim.

“You can claim fuel, repairs, tyres, registration, insurance, interest on your loan and depreciation on the cost of the vehicle," I said. "Just a caution though, if you are registered for GST, the GST on insurance and registration is unlikely to be 10 per cent so you will need to check those invoices carefully to make the correct claim.

"If you buy a new ute that costs less than $30,000, including GST, and is designed to carry a load greater than one tonne, then you can claim 100 per cent depreciation in the year of purchase.

"However, this $30,000 limit is scheduled to cease on June 30, 2020. If you take out a loan, you can claim only the interest component and not the total repayments. Most organisations that provide car finance will give you a schedule of interest deductions that can be claimed month by month during the life of the loan.” If you do not satisfy the criteria, you will have to keep a log book.

I also reminded him that the ATO had recently announced new substantiation requirements for phones, home study and internet.

"In short, you need to keep a log for a month each year of your usage and if you do not have a log but can prove that you use these items, your claim is limited to $50 per year.”

Doug said this was all very complicated and there was a lot to remember.

I agreed but assured him that we were always here if he needed any questions answered because things change reguarly in the tax area.

If you need advice on your business claims contact the friendly team at Gail Freeman & Co Pty Ltd on