Page 1350 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022
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Moncrieff—sludge pit
MR BRADDOCK (Yerrabi) (6.37): The Moncrieff sludge pit has caused locals headaches for years. A few months ago, Ms Natasa Sojic started a petition calling on the ACT government to encase the pit so that it could contain the rubbish within it and also to commission its removal, away from residential areas. I was really glad to see the government’s response to this petition this week in the Assembly.
Unfortunately, it is not practical to move the sludge pit, but we have gotten a significant number of commitments from the ACT government for a large number of improvements to the area. These include installing chain-wire fencing around the perimeter of the pit and also heavy duty shade cloth to help enclose the rubbish. There are also scheduled works to landscape around the immediate area which include a thick layer of mulch that will be placed on the eastern side of the area.
Finally, working in partnership with the great local group that I know of, the Ginninderra Catchment Group, there will be planting around the area, including larger sized eucalypts, casuarinas, screening shrubs and small scented plants to assist with odour control. I am heartened to hear that these works will be complete by 30 June 2022. I would like to say that this is just one example of the power of petitions and what can be achieved when community voices are illuminated here in the Assembly.
Arts—theatre
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra—Assistant Minister for Economic Development, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Business and Better Regulation, Minister for Human Rights and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (6.39): On 13 April I was very pleased to attend the opening night of Alchemy Artistic’s The Boys, directed by Amy Kowalczuk, in her debut in this theatrical collective, at the new ACT venue, the Australian Capital Theatre Hub, or ACT Hub. The Boys was written by Gordon Graham in the 1990s but its relevance today is stark and it is disturbing.
The Boys is a brutal reflection of masculine violence, told largely through the viewpoints and experiences of the women in their lives. The themes are unmasked in a way that is relatable and in some ways all too real. This is something that Amy has taken into account, because Alchemy Artistic is about exploring and examining social issues through a lens to help bring about transformative societal change. In this respect, Amy has employed a variety of theatrical techniques that allow for contemplation and for rumination—to pause, to consider and, through considered action and experience that only theatre can provide, to drive change.
She also provided space for questions and answers with her and the cast, to work through the very difficult issues presented, and offered, on different nights, spaces for female-identifying people to come together and spaces for male-identifying people to come together, with non-binary, gender queer and queer audiences invited to participate where they felt most comfortable.
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