Whilst attending a session of Senate Estimates at the ACT Legislative Assembly, I was interested in hearing questions and answers in relation to ACT Corrective Services (ACT CS), which was primarily focused on the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC), including the Transitional Release Program (TRP) and the Transitional Release Centre (TRC). Several MLAs posed questions to the "big guns" of ACT CS, including Minister Gentleman (Minister for Corrections). I was bemused at the fumbling and bumbling of these highly paid professionals as they scrambled to respond to some very basic questions, with many being taken on notice. Why is the visitor café still closed after it was closed during COVID? The response was that AMC staff are working hard to re-open it; they need to train detainees to work there as baristas. He later stated that it should re-open in three to four months. That seems like a long time for detainees to complete a barista course. However, low and behold, detainees suddenly have the opportunity to complete a barista course; announced this week. Regarding the smoking cessation at AMC, it was stated that detainees will be provided with "passive recreation packs", which will include board games, puzzles, and card games. What a great idea; when you feel like smoking, let's play a game of UNO instead. As for the alarmingly disturbing rate of recidivism, I won't go there, except to state that things are so not on track to reduce recidivism to 25 per cent by 2025. 'Community Safety' - I'm thinking not. The whole of June 2022 would have loomed so large on the CIT executive team's "temporal and spatial scales" that they would have had no time or inclination to attend a tea party, let alone a series of workshops and other interactions designed to, inter alia ,"build trends to improve products and services" and identify "patterns that lead to dysfunction" ("CIT being sued for $3.4m", July 24). It is surprising that such topics had not been covered already in the previously funded training and mentoring sessions that started in 2018. But from the first week of June 2022 onwards the CIT CEO and her executive team were at least able to quickly discern strong "signals" about contract management dysfunction matters being sent by the public, the minister for skills, the ACT opposition and this newspaper. The seriousness of these and other related matters has now been detailed by the ACT Auditor-General. Recently Minister Rebecca Vassarotti appeared before estimates, where Liberal Mark Parton asked about the treatment of kangaroos during the annual kangaroo cull. The minister's performance was pitiful. She deferred answering questions to the conservator and refused to take any responsibility for the ongoing killing of kangaroos. The minister claims that the cull is humane, respectful and accords with the National Code of Practice for the shooting of kangaroos and wallabies. Her claim is disingenuous. The minister would be aware of instances in the 2022 cull where two fully furred joeys were found decapitated. This is in breach of the code. One joey was discarded in a bush, the other on the side of the road. This is not a respectful end to an animal's life. The minister admitted joeys may be hit on the head with a mallet as part of normal culling practice. The majority of culls are not supervised, as claimed by the minister. There is no vet present to protect the welfare of the animals. A vet/supervisor may attend on one or two occasions only. Ms Vassarotti is abdicating her responsibility to the kangaroos to protect the shooters by turning a blind eye to rate-payer funded cruelty. One person was missing at the recent well-attended Meet the Author event at ANU with Nick McKenzie, who wrote Crossing the Line about his investigation into war crimes related to Ben Roberts-Smith. That person, the whistleblower who first signalled the possibility of war crimes in Afghanistan, is David McBride. David McBride, an army lawyer, who while serving in Afghanistan became concerned about battlefield behaviours that were being covered up, lodged complaints up the chain of command but was ignored. He finally "blew the whistle" by going to the ABC, which published the Afghan Files in July 2017, with details of war crimes. McBride was arrested soon after and is being prosecuted. Despite the fact that David McBride's courageous whistleblowing triggered the Brereton Report and McKenzie's investigative reporting, his name was not mentioned during the Meet The Author event. All charges against McBride should be dropped. The report of Australia lifting its standard in global gender equality ratings from 43rd to 26th place is welcome news. But The Canberra Times letters pages lag far behind. Going on the basis of the writer's first name, of the 51 letters published over the five weekdays from July 20 to 26, 37 were from men and only nine were from women. Five giving initials only could not be assigned. Women contributors account for less than 20 per cent. Is this underrepresentation because: women have little of relevance or importance to say to Canberra Times readers, because they don't know how to write letters to the editor, because they do write but their letters are not published, or because they can't be bothered? I look forward to seeing letters from Susan, Sally and Sarah as frequently as regulars Douglas, Roderick, and Ian. After 235 years how much crueller does Anthony Bruce (Letters, July 24) think we need to be to the Indigenous people of this country in order to "be kind"? The "kindness" of white settlement is what has been responsible for so many of the problems afflicting our Indigenous citizens. When you travel around this country and talk with (not "to") some of these people you realise that they actually have a lot of ideas about how to overcome the issues that are holding them back. Some are working while others are being stymied by the "cruel to be kind" mentality favoured by Mr Bruce. Solutions to the problems of Indigenous Australia can only come from the Indigenous people themselves. It's time to listen carefully to their ideas and, where possible, to help implement them rather than maintain the current top down paternalistic "we know what's best for you approach". I'll definitely be voting "yes". It's the only way a caring person willing to overlook the misinformation of the No campaign and use their head could possibly vote. I will be saying yes to the constitutional recognition of Australia's Indigenous peoples. In 1976, I spent time volunteering with the Victoria Archaeological Survey in the Western Districts of Victoria. Amongst other things, this exercise was pivotal in bringing the World Heritage-listed Budj Bim eel traps to public attention. On one particular day, we visited properties around Macarthur, talking to the owners and managers about their knowledge of Indigenous sites on their properties. One landowner offhandedly suggested that we look around Waterloo Lane, where they said the last of the local Aboriginal people "met their Waterloo" in 1942. We questioned the date - surely it was 1842 not 1942 - no they said, it was 1942. Almost 50 years later, that piece of unverified information still haunts me - what if that was true - and what does it say about prevailing attitudes in 1842, 1942, or 1976? As a non-Indigenous Australian, it is abundantly clear to me that Australia's Indigenous people deserve a greater and more permanent say in matters that affect their lives and their country. Say yes. The construction of the John Gorton campus car park defies reason. An environment suitable for childcare is not a car park, nor is a multi-storey car park consistent with a parliamentary triangle representative of open inclusion. Contact with the ground is for me one of the fundamental components of the parliamentary triangle experience. Pedestrians, children walking in class groups, rustling through leaves, feel of frost on the ground with faint wafts of wood smoke in the air are charming components. Multi-storey car parking with associated childcare is not. The value of children is beyond the convenient machinery of a planning system that would commodify seemingly all things. P Gibbons (Letters, July 27) is right. I too have never seen so much roadside litter in Canberra. Parts of Hindmarsh Drive, Tuggeranong Parkway, and Parkes Way are just a disgrace. Let's hope Andrew Barr spends a massive amount of that new federal money on cleaning up our once beautiful city. Does Ian Jannaway (Letters, July 26) think that Scott Morrison should, could, or will be rehabilitated like Clinton or Obama? Really? I agree with the comment (Letters, July 25) that the Australian War Memorial is a place of reflection for those who honour those who lost their lives in wars. In that case we don't need to fill the place up with tanks, planes and other war paraphernalia and turn it into a museum. I overcome my prejudices enough to watch Sky News' documentary on the Voice on Tuesday night. To my surprise it was well researched and extremely balanced. Why can't more Sky commentators and journalists follow Matt Cunningham's example and just tell it like it is? If I was considering signing a contract with Metricon for a new home I'd see their cash grab as a major red flag and run away as fast as my legs could carry me. It is pleasing that the June Quarter CPI is 0.8 per cent. Does that mean the future annualised CPI will be 3.2 per cent? That would virtually achieve the RBA two to three per cent inflation target. While I'd love to end to urban sprawl and boost investment in energy efficient homes, "missing middle" housing misses the middle class. Such homes sell for $1.6 million in our area. Let's not pretend it's the solution to affordable housing. Times Past (July 26) referred to "soft hail" falling ahead of a 1986 snowfall. My recollection was returning from a work lunch at the 'Page Vietto' amid snow falling like bean bag pellets. An older person termed it "sago snow". We had snowball fights on the roof of the Benjamin Offices. Excellent editorial on July 26 - "Extra homes needed but not at any cost". Those interested in how to increase densities in an environmentally responsible way should tune in to a presentation I'll be making to the Inner South Canberra Community Council public forum on August 8, online starting at 7pm. The Productivity Commission should probably be disbanded. It just leads to job losses, doesn't make markets more efficient, or work where there are imbalances in negotiating leverage, or entrenched practices, such as the petrol cycle.
