Great news for the elderly citizens of Queensland and their families this week with the report that the sunshine State’s annual Seniors Week is to run for the whole of October.
Originally planned to go monthly last October but falling foul of COVID’s ill-mannered interruption, organisers are bolder this year and well on the way towards making it all happen.
As always with such well-known, well-regarded and well-supported popular events, the challenge will be to protect the long-standing brand of “Seniors Week” while running it for at least four ‘Seniors Weeks’ from now on.
Queensland Minister for Seniors seemed comfortable that nostalgia will prevail:
“For the first time, the State’s annual Seniors Week will become a month-long celebration,” the Minister declared.
“Last year we had to unfortunately cancel our plans to make Seniors Week a month because of the COVID pandemic.”
Will the Week become ‘the Month’ or will the seniors stick to what they know?
Far be it from PS-sssst! to predict the future but if Women’s Weekly can remain a Weekly when it was published monthly, perhaps the Seniors Week can survive monthliness!
Aboliting abolition
To the National Capital now where the local Archives celebrate every month by coming up with a ‘Find of the Month’, highlighting some of the more esoteric items it holds in its collection for the general public to muse over.
Always a popular feature among readers, this April’s offering dredged up the bureaucratic paperwork that considered and declared that household homes built in Canberra‘s suburbs would not be burdened with front fences.
“The idea that houses should not have front fences began when the planning for Canberra’s suburbs was first being developed,” the Archives revealed.
“The first building regulations passed in 1924 for Canberra houses set a precedent that has been followed ever since.”
According to the Archives, the Canberra of the 1920’s was designed along the principles of English gardens, in which the ‘abolishment’ of back lanes and front fences was a feature.
From PS-sssst’s embarassingly pedantic position the policies for front fences, back lanes or concrete letterboxes would be better dealt with by ‘abolition’ instead of ‘abolishment’.
But then one would expect the abstrusely pompous PS-sssst! to do that wouldn’t one!
The State of Minister?
Staying in the capital for the moment where the small number of local Government Ministers (8) serve a much bigger Legislative Assembly (25 members), PS-sssst! has noted a minor addition to the Ministerial ranks that seems to be deserving of some attention and appraisal.
While the 8 Ministers share more than 30 ministerial portfolios between them, it has been noticed that a new ‘Special Minister of State’ has recently been added to the team.
While PS-sssst! would never dream of questioning whether a town of less than half a million people needed 32 Ministerial portfolios, it certainly would question its need to call the Special Minister one of ‘State’ when Canberra itself doesn’t qualify to be a State in the first place.
“Why,” PS-sssst! would ask if it was to question the Minister’s title, “does Canberra have a ‘Special Minister of State’ when it would be far more appropriate to have ‘Special Minister of Territory’?
Pushing back forward
Another week, another giveaway from our literary leader Rama Gaind, this time the prize is the masterpiece of short stories from John Kinsella, Pushing Back.
To be one of two winners in Rama’s rewards all we had to do was answer her question: What is the title of the story featuring the Patras-Athens train?
The answer was Night Train – Patras to Athens and the first two correct entries to pop out of the PS News Barrel of Booty came from Ros M of the Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and Anne S from Services Australia.
Congratulations to Ros and Anne and thanks to everyone who took part. The prize books will be making their way to their new homes very soon.
To take your chance and the challenge to become one of Rama’s Weekly Winners, simply visit her review of this Book Night Train to Varanasi at this PS News link and answer the question or visit her other reviewed Book The French Gift and try your luck at this link.
Good luck to all who do…..
The PS of the PAST
The public service from 10 years ago is brought to life for another round of PS in the PaSt:
Unleasing the PS Past: 12 – 18 April 2011
1. This week 10 years ago, a national blueprint was released for the development of e-health records to allow patients to better manage their own healthcare.
Federal Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon said the blueprint was a step towards the development of Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records, which would be introduced on 1 July 2012.
“E-health records will drive safer, more efficient and better-quality healthcare for Australians,” Ms Roxon said. “Patients will no longer have to remember every immunisation, every medical test, every prescription as they move from doctor to doctor.”
2. To the Australian Federal Police (AFP) this week when they opened a new office in Los Angeles to strengthen ties with US law enforcement Agencies.
Assistant AFP Commissioner, Kevin Zuccato said this was an important step in combating national and international crime. “The Australia and US alliance is fundamental to Australia’s national security interests,” Assistant Commissioner Zuccato said.
He said the new office would have responsibility for liaison with the west coasts of the United States, Canada and Mexico, and would also work closely with the AFP office in Colombia.
3. The Commonwealth’s Minister for Human Services, Tanya Plibersek announced this week that Centrelink would be using new technology developed during Queensland’s recent weather disasters to assist people in remote communities.
“cPOP” (Centrelink Point of Presence) connects up to 10 laptops at once to the Agency’s network, giving outreach workers instant access to their desktops from virtually anywhere.
Ms Plibersek said the mobile technology would now be used on the Australian Government Mobile Office and by teams travelling to remote Indigenous communities in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
4. Also this week, the Federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Tony Burke announced Victoria’s Great Ocean Road would be added to Australia’s National Heritage List.
“The Great Ocean Road is one of the most powerful, spectacular and distinctive landscapes in Australia and the nation’s most famous coastal drive,” Mr Burke said. He said the listing would be a fitting tribute to the returned servicemen who built the road, often under difficult conditions, and a celebration of its cultural and historical significance to the nation.
5. Australia’s first centre dedicated to solving some of the country’s biggest environmental issues was opened in Queeensland this week.
The $270 million Ecosciences Precinct brought together the largest number of ecoscience researchers ever assembled in Australia, including more than 1,000 Queensland Government and CSIRO scientists, researchers and support staff.
State Premier, Anna Bligh said the facility was part of her Government’s $3.6 billion investment to make Queensland the Smart State of Australia.
“It has already paid off with … scientists at the Precinct working together to quickly monitor flood plumes in Moreton Bay and, once safe, to give the all-clear for fishing to resume,” Ms Bligh said.
6. Still in Queensland, a scientific report released this week 10 years ago suggested the State could expect coastal erosion and permanent inundation of coastal land as a result of a predicted 0.8 metre sea level rise by the year 2100.
Minister for Environment and Resource Management, Kate Jones said the Queensland Coastal Processes and Climate Change report would give Local Governments and planners a clear understanding of the effects of climate change.
“With 85 per cent of Queenslanders living on the coast,” Ms Jones said, “we need to understand these threats and what we can do to mitigate them.”
Till next week…..
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