Blokes in tutus, the speeding-fine miracle, Andrew Leigh rattles the tin for the federal government and accident waiting to happen… it’s “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE. 

“YOU’D have to wonder where these boys have been with all the attention given to gender matters of late!” Indeed one would, Helen Musa. 

Our sharp-eyed arts editor was dining at a Monaro Street Thai restaurant in Queanbeyan and snapped this photo of young men in tutus and one, with his back to the camera, in a frilly number, sporting a T-shirt that reads “whore” with the number 18 beneath.

A player? Maybe not; a check of the “White Pages” reveals there are no Whores with hard lines in Canberra or Queanbeyan. 

Helen surmises that the 30 lads (no girls) frolicking in shocking-pink tutus at a long table were a local footy club at “some kind of team celebration”. We couldn’t confirm that, despite the Tuggeranong Bushrangers going down 60-6 to the might of Queanbeyan that day. 

So maybe it was a bucks night or something terribly innocent, such as the annual dinner of the Queanbeyan Cross-Dressing Club. 

IT’S a miracle! Not a single driver has been fined for speeding since the introduction of urban 40km/h speed limits all over town. Does anyone really believe that no one has nudged the limit in those areas for the past six weeks?

Transport Minister Chris Steel warned there was to be no grace period for motorists the day speed limits came into effect in Civic, Braddon and Tuggeranong in March. But ACT police have not issued a single infringement since then. They say they’re still keen to issue a warning that speeds will be monitored and safe driving practices enforced for the benefit of the community. In the remote possibility they catch anyone, that is.

OUR local, Labor member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh, has been losing friends on the national corporate stage by naming and shaming big companies for effectively pocketing the pandemic-year’s JobKeeper subsidies. 

The life-saving JobKeeper wage subsidies kept “CityNews” afloat for some months last year and I share Leigh’s disgust at the opportunistic and greedy behaviour of some of our leading companies.

The northside parliamentarian, an ex-ANU professor of economics, has used an extraordinary number of fearless tweets to hound retailer Premier Investments to return the JobKeeper money.

“Premier Investments get half a clap for returning $15 million in JobKeeper,” Leigh tweeted. “But they may have gotten as much as $110 million, and they clearly didn’t need a cent.”

“Repaying $15m should be just the start. Last year, Premier set a record profit, paid the CEO a $2.5m bonus and paid a stonking dividend. They don’t need a single dollar of corporate welfare.”

He’s also taken a bite out of Accent Group after the company, which owns Athlete’s Foot and operates more than 400 footwear stores in Australia and NZ, was found to have used the benefit of its $45 million JobKeeper lolly to buy out other businesses.

“If it wasn’t bad enough that they used JobKeeper as #BonusKeeper & #BillionaireKeeper, they’re now entrenching their market power. Payback time!” Leigh said.

He also revealed that construction giant Mirvac, which has $24 billion worth of assets under management, has profited heavily from taxpayers.

“Property developer Mirvac just upgraded its earnings guidance on the back of high-rise sales. But it’s only returning half of the $20 million in JobKeeper it received,” he tweeted.

A DICKSON snout has been badgering the bureaucracy to get a large, temporary road sign (“Roadwork ends”) moved because it’s been obscuring the presence of traffic on Davenport Street since October. 

He says the sign is a created hazard in that it obscures oncoming traffic when turning on to Davenport from Marsden Street and that “oncoming traffic on this busy road is invisible until very close”. 

I went and had a look and he makes a fair point in asking if it isn’t the duty of sign placers to check that they don’t create such hazards. 

AND in the inner-south, Liberal leader Elizabeth Lee has been exposing the fears of parents for the safety of their children over the impacts of increased traffic volumes and speed near family homes.

Residents of Red Hill, Narrabundah and Griffith have been pleading for ages for fast-track solutions with government authorities over dangerous intersections.

The intersections at La Perouse Street and Carnegie Crescent, and also La Perouse and Dalrymple streets have been identified as the “most dangerous” locations.

A spokesperson for Transport Minister Chris Steel says a study into traffic flows around the inner-south is currently “in progress”, but that the minister won’t see it until July. And then? Why does it always seem to take so long to get sensible stuff done in this town? 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon.