Canberra’s big dish, Deep Space Station 43, at Tidbinbilla, celebrated 50 years of exploring the solar system and beyond.

The largest antenna dish in the Southern Hemisphere, it is one of three space network stations in the world, and part of NASA’s global network that supports interplanetary spacecraft.

It has supported the Voyager robotic interstellar probes’ “grand tour” of the solar system, landings by spacecraft on Mars, encounters with asteroids and comets, orbital missions around Jupiter and Saturn, and a journey to Pluto.

‘Traditional custodians’

Coming down to Earth with a bump, the ACT Government acknowledged the Indigenous Ngambri people as ‘traditional custodians of the land’ and apologised for failing to recognise them.

The Ngunnawal people took umbrage, saying that the government’s decision was “an affront to the traditional custodianship of our lands”.

Ngambri people Paul Girrawah House and Leah House took the ACT Government to the Supreme Court last year, claiming the government had breached the Human Rights Act 2004 by failing to acknowledge the Ngambri as traditional custodians of the ACT.

Since 2002, the ACT Government has acknowledged the Ngunnawal people as the traditional custodians of the ACT, “acting on the advice of the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community”. This acknowledgement was formalised in an Indigenous Protocol.

The ACT continued to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as traditional owners, but the Protocol changed to include the Ngambri and possibly others.

2022 ACT Book of the Year

In more edifying news, Dr Lucy Neave, creative writing teacher at the Australian National University, was awarded the $10,000 ACT 2022 Book of the Year prize for her second novel, Believe in Me.

Believe in Me (University of Queensland Press, 2021) explores the relationships between mothers and their children across three generations of one family, and questions what we can ever truly know of our parents’ early lives, even as their experiences weave ineffably into our identities and destinies.

“Neave writes assuredly, and is never weighed down by her subject matter,” the panel of judges declared. “The novel is moving and beautiful, combining deep feeling with insight and compassion.”

Later that year, Professor Frank Bongiorno was awarded the ACT 2023 Book of the Year Prize for his political history of Australia, Dreamers and Schemers.

Suicide awareness

Two years ago, Joshua Clarke, a 25-year-old Canberran, a construction worker and carpentry apprentice, took his life. His bereaved family, determined to raise awareness of male suicide, particularly among construction workers, a high-risk industry, started a fundraising business, I Got You.

His mother, Leesa Mountford, received Suicide Prevention Australia’s LiFE Award for founding ‘I Got You’.

“While I was cleaning out Josh’s belongings, doing the crappy life admin that needs to be done for somebody, I came across his diary,” Ms Mountford said. “In it he had written ‘I got you’.

“His sisters had spoken about how Josh would say ‘I got you’ instead of saying ‘I love you’. It can mean so much, those three simple words.”

Ms Mountford printed Josh’s handwritten note on clothing, in hopes that somebody experiencing their darkest day would see the message and remember that there is always someone to talk to. 

By selling the apparel, I Got You raises money for OzHelp, a Fyshwick-based not-for-profit that was established in 2001 after David O’Bryan, a young building apprentice, took his own life.

OzHelp now focuses on providing mental health programs for workers in “high-risk, hard-to-reach” industries.

Canberra Daily talked to Ms Mountford later in the year, when I Got You held its first Trek of All Trades, a vehicle convoy and barbecue for World Suicide Prevention Day.

Mothers and daughters

Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee gave birth to her second child, Ava.

“Welcome to the world, baby Ava,” Ms Lee wrote on Facebook. “A little earlier than anticipated, but she’s perfect, and we are all smitten already.”

In Ms Lee’s absence from the Legislative Assembly, Jeremy Hanson acted as opposition leader.

Another mother and daughter duo, Monika Mironov and Sofia, create wheelchair-friendly blankets that throw a splash of colour into the market of grey-and-black disability support products.

Monika is the designer, and Sofia the muse. Sofia has a rare neurological disorder called Rett Syndrome which affects around one in 10,000 people. It occurs almost exclusively in girls, being a random mutation to the X chromosomes. It is much like having Cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism, Parkinson’s disease, and anxiety disorder all at once, her mother says.

“We try to add colour to people’s lives because it really changes how you feel, doesn’t it?” Monika Mironov said.