February was festival month in the ACT. The Multicultural Festival, returning after a three-year absence, was the biggest ever, and broke records for attendance and revenue. It generated $20.8 million for the ACT and enriched Canberra’s reputation as a diverse and multicultural community, Tara Cheyne, ACT Minister for Multicultural Affairs, said.
“After a two-year break due to COVID-19, the MultiCulti returned with a bang,” the Minister said.
Nearly 274,000 people attended, and many eagerly returned over the three days, contributing to the total attendance of 380,563, which smashed previous records, Ms Cheyne noted. At the last festival, held in 2020, more than 200,000 people came.
The free, community-run festival celebrated 170 cultures found in the ACT, some represented for the first time, including Nepal and Afghanistan. There were 266 stalls, more than 325 performance groups, 34 workshops, 16 cooking demonstrations, a record-breaking 30 cultural showcases, and the largest ever festival parade.
Likewise, the Royal Canberra Show (24-26 February) attracted more than 92,000 attendees, making it the “biggest in at least 20 years”, Geoff Cannock, CEO of the Royal National Capital Agricultural Society, said.
The February 2023 Lifeline Canberra Bookfair (this time not cancelled because of vaccine protesters) was a “resounding success”: it raised more than $500,000 – a record, Lifeline Canberra CEO Carrie-Ann Leeson said. Before the doors to the pavilion opened, 2,000 Canberrans were already waiting in line. Bookfair attendees began queuing as early as 4am. 23,500 people made their way through the maze of items over the weekend.
Sofronoff report
Walter Sofronoff KC, formerly Queensland’s Solicitor-General, was appointed to chair the Board of Inquiry into the conduct of criminal justice agencies involved in Bruce Lehrmann’s trial for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins. Mr Sofronoff would investigate how police and prosecutors handled ex-Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, and if police, the Director of Public Prosecutions, or the Victims of Crime Commissioner breached their duties through the investigation.
The ACT Government had announced in December that it would establish a Board of Inquiry to examine the conduct of criminal justice agencies involved in the trial of R v Lehrmann, after then-ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold accused the police of misconduct, and police in turn claimed that Mr Drumgold had compromised the trial.
In August, the ACT Government released the report earlier than it had intended to, after Mr Sofronoff gave embargoed copies of the report to The Australian and the ABC.
Prize winners
Canberra glass artist Annette Blair was awarded a national prize, the Vicki Torr International Year of Glass Prize, and the People’s Choice Prize, for her piece, A Quiet Afternoon in May 2022. The work features two buckets full of sticks, with coloured leaves placed on the ground, all carefully crafted from glass. The piece instantly transports the viewer to a brisk autumn scene where freshly fallen leaves paint the ground. Each of Blair’s works reveal a deep-rooted connection to items beyond their original function, triggering a memory of a specific place, time or person.
An internationally renowned expert in solar energy, ANU’s Professor Andrew Blakers, was awarded the 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the world’s most prestigious engineering prize, for his work transforming the efficiency of solar cell technology with the development of Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) solar photovoltaic technology. He has dedicated his more than four-decade-long career to developing solutions to climate change and accelerating the world and Australia’s transition to 100 per cent renewable energy.
Redefining what women working in IT looks like
Canberra Daily also spoke to Michelle Graham, Australia’s Chief Architect for the Department of Home Affairs, who was crowned 2022’s WICked Woman of the Year. (WIC stands for Women in Information and Communications Technology.)
She told the women in the crowd to “do something that scares and excites you”. In her case, that was raising her hand for a two-year position in war-torn Iraq.
A far cry from the “guy coding in a hoodie” she says is often associated with IT, Ms Graham used her expertise in cybersecurity and architecture to advise the Secretary of Defence and Prime Minister of Iraq in 2008.
“We were helping them re-establish their government, but it was a war zone being bombed every day, multiple times a day,” Ms Graham said.
“I did that for almost two years. It was the best job I’ve ever had, and it absolutely frightened me.”
In other news
The ACT’s first grid-scale battery connected to the National Electricity Market. The 10-megawatt, two-hour (20 megawatt hour) battery was the first of dozens that will be installed in the ACT over the next couple of decades.
Canberra featured as the backdrop to a Singaporean drama series when the largest ever overseas film crew to work in the ACT filmed here in February.
