AS we smugly purred at being recognised internationally as living in the best city on the entire earth, forgetting for the moment the public service slicing and the feeble retail sales figures, that insensitive member for Canberra couldn’t help but prick our cafe latte bubble.

Gai Brodtmann was out spruiking that while we “enjoy a fantastic lifestyle, a wonderful sense of community and a beautiful environment” it could all be so easily taken away. No, Gai, no!

“The Abbott government’s plans to slash 16,500 public service jobs will hit our city hard. This is a government that has contempt for Canberra and contempt for the public service.”

MEANWHILE, across the border there was dancing in the streets for the 800 Queanbeyan ratepayers being menaced by the council for rates arrears totalling $3.7 million. On the comfort of legal advice from Sydney, the council sensibly withdrew the backdated supplementary rates bills, inspiring Tim Overall with mayoral understatement to declare it a “pleasing outcome”. Ruffle his hair someone!

FIRST the house, now possessions are under threat as part of the Mr Fluffy clean-up nightmare with suggestions that some belongings will be treated as contaminated waste. Chief Minister Katy Gallagher could offer little solace as affected owners worry about what possessions and furniture they will be allowed to keep if their house is demolished. Nor was the Chief able to say when a decision would be made on the future of the affected 1000 homes, other than the hope it would be “this side of Christmas”.

“How is it OK for us to live in the houses with these items but they can’t be given away?” asks one owner, not unreasonably, on the Facebook page of the Fluffy Owners and Residents’ Action Group. Despite Gallagher nipping their heels, the glacial decision-making from the federal government is shameful.

THE “Monopoly” money being thrown at executives going from and coming to our Toy Town water instrumentality is eye watering.

Outgoing Actew Water CEO Mark Sullivan trousered a consoling $690,000 when he slipped away in February, followed by his deputy Ian Carmody, who scored a $419,000 termination payout, chief financial officer Simon Wallace, $241,000 and company secretary Michele Norris, $324,000.

The subsequent public hand wringing then flushed out Actew Water to confirm that the salary for new MD John Knox is $693,000, reassuringly the same as Sullivan’s, which will warm the hearts of ratepayers.

ALL of which was small comfort for Actew Water customers in Macarthur, Fadden, Gilmore, Wanniassa and Chisholm who started the week deprived of being able to shower, bathe or wash clothes or dishes for a couple of days after a water main burst.

An Actew spokeswoman, with a straight face, helpfully recommended that affected residents avoid drinking water if it appeared, tasted or smelled objectionable.

AS PUP senator Jacqui Lambie might observe, the Greens cabinet cuckoo Shane Rattenbury appears to be growing a pair and taken umbrage with the Chief Minister, criticising her calls for a national or state-based clinical trial of medical marijuana. He says it means years more delay for sick Canberrans and overseas evidence was adequate for the ACT to allow cannabis for pain relief.

CANBERRA’S remarkable paralympian skier and cyclist Michael Milton has been inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in Melbourne.

“Michael Milton not only defies limits, he destroys them!,” says selection committee chair Robert de Castella.

Regular columnist Robert Macklin is on leave. Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews”.