“Seven Days” columnist IAN MEIKLE gets cold feet about commenting on something good, sorta, kinda…

I WAS going to write about Women’s Minister Yvette Berry’s media announcement that the new public primary school in Strathnairn will be a women-led construction project.

Then I thought better of it. No matter how I phrased any well-meaning comment about the $62.4 million project, scheduled for completion in 2025, and its “100 per cent women site-management team, as well as women’s representation in every trade sub-contractor” it would get me a social media pile-on.

But what if I prefaced a respectful suggestion that the media release sounds patronising (stop shouting, that’s what women in the office were saying, not me) with sincere agreement for the government’s objective to “improving gender equity for women in the construction industry”? I’d be okay; then I figured I wouldn’t.

Maybe if I led by agreeing with Berry that census data showing women made up only 2.4 per cent of people working in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, automotive and telecommunications trades in the ACT needed to be addressed, that would confirm I’m on side.

“We want to support more women to undertake or grow their careers within the construction industry”, said she. I agree, said me. 

“Having a women-led construction project for one of the ACT’s new public schools sends a strong message that we need to continue working together to break down gender barriers in the construction industry.” Yes, but does it, Yvette? 

I dared to have the shameful, random thought that the ministerial spinning of the announcement might be starting to sound, ahem, discriminatory; there were no men equally qualified? I quickly let this bubble go, chastened by its danger. 

Best leave it all alone because Berry says this project fulfils an action under the ACT Women’s Plan 2016-2026 to deliver a women-led major ACT government capital works project.

Roll on the day when projects like this are unremarkable – and unpolitical. 

THE ACT chief health officer Dr Kerryn Coleman is not given to mincing words and if she says, which she did, that daily cases in Canberra are predicted to triple in coming weeks we’d better pay attention and try our best to prove her wrong.

As the chief minister was isolating his way through a week of covid, Dr Kerryn was predicting that daily infections would worryingly hit an unthinkable 2000 to 3000 cases a day as a third wave of the virus – the more infectious sub-variants of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5 – made its way through Australia.

“Daily COVID-19 case numbers are not expected to peak until late July or early August,” she said. 

So, what to do? Bring back the masks and other mandates? The chief health officer coyly replied that she would “never say never”.

Meantime, she said, keep up with vaccinations; wear a mask in crowded, indoor places; stay home if you have covid symptoms and get tested; work from home if possible and keep washing those hands. Anyone else getting nostalgic? 

HERE’S an interesting couple of takeaways from former ACT Treasury officer Dr Khalid Ahmed’s public housing presentation at an Inner South Canberra Community Council meeting this past week. 

He reported that in the decade 2011-2021, the number of public housing dwellings fell from 11,063 to 10,859, a drop of 1.8 per cent. At the same time, the population rocketed from 372,070 to 453,324 – a rise of 21.8 per cent. And they wonder why they have four-year waits for Housing ACT help. 

But it gets worse, since 2015-16, the ACT government has announced a bedazzling $699 million in capital spending on public housing, but actually allocated only $80.9 million. And they wonder why they have four-year waits for Housing ACT help.

THE NFSA has again screened its 2014 restored version of the 1978, award-winning classic Australian film, “Newsfront”, which follows the adventures of a newsreel crew in the pre-TV late ’40s. 

It rang a bell; didn’t author and “CityNews” columnist Robert Macklin have something to do with it?

“I did, indeed. I was engaged to write the book of the film,” he flashed back, saying that some of the changes he made in the print story were incorporated into the film’s final script. 

“The director Phillip Noyce gave me a copy of his biography inscribed, ‘To Robert, Who made ‘Newsfront’ the book better than the screenplay’.”

READER Meg Rudder, of Melba, wrote in response to Barry Peffer’s earlier “Seven Days” suggestion to share economical, non-traditional ways of keeping warm.

Barry had warmly reported the energy effectiveness of a friend’s placing bubble wrap on her south-facing kitchen window. 

Meg’s suggestion was this: “We find a lot of cold air seeps around the edge of our curtains, but if you use a thumb tack to affix the edge of the curtain to the wooden window frame, it prevents a lot of cold from getting in. 

“It is a simple and cost-effective trick, and it has the added bonus of helping keep light from street lamps out at night time.”

You read it here first. More easy energy tips to editor@citynews.com.au

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon. There are more of his columns on citynews.com.au