It’s been a huge few weeks, particularly in my role as Deputy Chair of the Estimates Committee, so apologies for the lengthier-than-usual update but there’s a bit to unpack!

Thank you to everyone who reached out to my office to suggest topics and questions for me to raise during Estimates. My team will be in touch with many of you individually to update you on what we’ve learnt wherever possible. Some questions have been placed, or taken, on notice, and responses to those have now started trickling in.

Scroll down for a summary of what we learned through the Estimates process this year plus a few more updates.

• Community Forum on Density Done Well

• Operation Kingfisher

• Ongoing Issues at CIT

• Wakefield Gardens Update

• Gambling Harm

• Dissent Cafe and Bar

• A Better Best Energy Deal 

• Oaks Estate

• Canberra Avenue Crossing

• Telstra Tower

• Women’s Safety and Gender-Based Violence Funding 

• Legal Aid Funding

• Public Housing

• Early Childhood Regulation

• Footpath Closures

• Canberra City Farm

• Dubious Languages Program Costing

• Dickson Pool

• Wrap-Up

• I’m Hiring A Policy Adviser

• Voices of Belconnen and Gungahlin Community Workshop

Community Forum on Density Done Well

On Thursday 3 September, I'm co-hosting a community forum at ANU alongside Senator David Pocock and Fiona Carrick MLA about apartment and townhouse living in the ACT. 

Featuring leading experts in planning, construction and sustainability, the evening will involve a panel discussion and audience Q&A facilitated by the independent candidate for Bean, Jessie Price, about how we can do density well in Canberra, and the reforms needed to make our city work for us as it grows.

I’d love to see you there. You can find more details and RSVP here.

Operation Kingfisher

The Integrity Commission recently handed down its findings from Operation Kingfisher – a long-running investigation into a 2019 procurement process for modernising Campbell Primary School. 

The Commission found that the former head of the Education Directorate, Katy Haire, and Joshua Ceramidas, the former Chief of Staff to the now-former Education Minister Yvette Berry, both engaged in serious corrupt (and potentially criminal) conduct by providing a back door for the contract to be awarded to a CFMEU-aligned company despite their tender being deemed to be of both a lower quality and a higher price.

Although no findings were made against Ms Berry, the Ministerial Code of Conduct states clearly that ministers are accountable for the decisions and actions of their staff. It’s difficult to imagine a more egregious breach of that obligation than a minister’s most senior staff member engaging in serious corrupt conduct that’s potentially criminal in nature. 

Following the publication of the report, I called for the former Deputy Chief Minister, Yvette Berry MLA, to resign. The Chief Minister then announced Ms Berry had done so a couple of hours later.

In the report, the Integrity Commissioner acknowledged that the serious corrupt conduct uncovered would not have come to light without evidence from a whistleblower who was willing to take the personal risk of exposing the truth – including their part in it – in the public interest. This shows the importance of supporting whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing and corruption within government.  

Ongoing Issues at CIT

Last night, the Canberra Institute of Technology’s (CIT’s) CEO, Dr Margot McNeill announced her resignation. It’s a relief that Dr McNeill has finally done the right thing and stepped down. 

It will be welcome news for the many dedicated staff at CIT whose hard work has been undermined by repeated failures and controversies at the executive level over recent years.

However, her resignation has raised further questions. Normally when someone resigns, they just receive any unused leave entitlements. It’s hard to square this being called a ‘resignation’ with revelations that Dr McNeill has received a $445,000 payout. 

Last week, a second Assembly Committee voiced serious concerns about Dr McNeill’s conduct, and recommended she be investigated by the Public Sector Standards Commissioner. You can learn more in this ABC article here, and read my statement here. 

There’s been a lot going on at CIT beyond the controversy around the CEO. I’m now regularly hearing from CIT staff with complaints about decisions being made at the executive level, many of whom have raised concerns that senior officials act like they’re ‘answerable to nobody’.

We learned during Estimates that the CIT Board has appointed someone to thoroughly investigate the whistleblower allegations I aired in the Assembly over two months ago regarding safety concerns at the EV Centre of Excellence, including the use of hire cars for training sessions. Just this week we learned that it’s now been escalated for investigation by the Public Sector Standards Commissioner. I was pleased to hear this after the now-former CEO had categorically rejected the allegations prima facie. You can learn more in this Region article here and my media release here.

CIT recently announced a round of voluntary redundancies, which I asked about during Estimates and was surprised to learn it’s available across the entire workforce. I find this concerning given CIT’s teaching workforce was reduced by almost 70 positions in the last decade while the senior and executive management workforce more than doubled. Losing more teachers would be hard to square with CIT’s purpose of providing quality education and training opportunities for Canberrans, yet some teachers may feel drawn to taking a voluntary redundancy in the midst of ongoing controversies at CIT.

Meanwhile, CIT has cut popular fitness classes for seniors, almost doubled the cost of its highly regarded remedial massage program (which is on the ACT Skills Needs List), and discontinued a critical language education offering for college students. While cutting these programs and increasing course fees, CIT flew 39 staff to an interstate conference earlier this year at a cost of $94,000. This misalignment of priorities shows why so many people are losing trust in public institutions, which I reflected on in a recent video.

Moving forward, I’ll be pushing for governance reforms that establish clear ministerial accountability for CIT and strong parliamentary oversight of what happens there.

Wakefield Gardens Update

Last week we learned that the demolition of the burnt-out building at 91A Wakefield Gardens to make way for landscaped gardens and (hopefully) a new community hub will commence by the end of August. Residents have been advocating for this site to be returned to community use for a long time, and it’s encouraging to finally see something happening – as sad as it will be for this historic building to be torn down.

My team is working with Rachel Stephen-Smith’s office to arrange a ceremony to commemorate the history of the building. This event will be an opportunity for people connected to the site to gather, reflect, mark the start of a new chapter, and discuss what’s next. More details to come shortly.

I’ve been energised by all the community engagement in shaping a vision for the future of Wakefield Gardens, and have also greatly appreciated the positive engagement from the now-Deputy Chief Minister and her office. This space holds a lot of significance for many members of our community, and I really think there’s a great opportunity here to do something special for the inner north to build on that significance for current and future generations of Canberrans.

You can learn more about the community-led proposal for Wakefield Gardens here – thank you to Mitch, Amy, Charlie, Fiona, Nat and Robert for all their work on this.

Wakefield Gardens Community Forum, December 2025

Gambling Harm

The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission revealed under my questioning in Estimates that reported incidents of gambling harm rose to over 72,000 in 2025-26, which is more than a 50 per cent increase from the previous year and double the number made the year before that. It’s being played off by the Government as a good thing because it shows reporting behaviour is increasing but whatever the reason, 200 gambling harm incidents occurring in our community every single day is a terrifying statistic, and points to the need for serious gambling harm reform in the ACT. 

You can learn more in my media release here, and please complete my gambling reform survey if you haven’t already here. 

Dissent Cafe and Bar 

I finally had a chance during Estimates to ask the Attorney-General, Tara Cheyne, about the Dissent Cafe and Bar raid in February 2026, where a gig was shut down and satirical anti-fascist posters were removed by police due to concerns the posters violated the new Commonwealth hate speech laws. I described it at the time as Orwellian, and heard from countless Canberrans who felt the same way. But when I asked if the Attorney-General was concerned about what happened, she said ACT Policing acted appropriately. I probed further but she held the line and gave no assurance that this was a mistake and wouldn’t happen again, or that the ACT Government had any concerns about it whatsoever, despite testimony from the Human Rights Commissioner saying what happened should never have occurred.

Free Speech Forum at Dissent Cafe and Bar, March 2026

A Better Best Energy Deal

I had the opportunity to question ActewAGL executives about their energy prices, where they said the quiet part out loud: that the ‘best offer’ included on customers’ energy bills may not, in fact, be the best deal that’s available to them. 

The Australian Energy Regulator’s Better Bills Guideline requires that energy retailers inform customers whether or not they are on the lowest-cost generally available plan that’s applicable to them.

But during hearings, ActewAGL confirmed that customers can seek a better deal by threatening to move to another energy retailer, or initiating such a move, even if their bill says that they are already on the best available plan. 

ActewAGL is 50 per cent owned by the ACT Government. People shouldn’t have to haggle with a company that’s half-owned by their own government to get a fair deal. And regardless of ActewAGL’s customer retention practices, they definitely shouldn’t be lying to us on our energy bills.

You can read more in this ABC article here, and my media release here. You can also see some social media content I’ve put out about this here, and watch the full Estimates exchange here.

Thank you to everyone who’s reached out to my office and shared their own experiences and frustrations with getting ripped off by energy retailers. 

I’ve written to the Assistant Minister for Competition, Dr Andrew Leigh MP, requesting he report the matter to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for consideration, and asking whether consumer law reform is needed to address this issue. I’ll keep you posted. 

Oaks Estate 

Oaks Estate is a beautiful suburb on the border with NSW that’s part of the electorate of Kurrajong and is home to one of Canberra’s most neglected communities. 

Following extensive advocacy from the Oaks Estate Residents’ Association, I worked with former Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury MLA and Liberal MLA Elizabeth Lee to call on the Government to develop a five-year strategic plan for Oaks Estate. The plan was released in October 2025, which I welcomed at the time after attending one of the consultation sessions that shaped its development. 

I asked about progress on the plan during Estimates and learned that 6 out of the 37 actions in the strategic plan were ‘completed’ with a single letterbox drop to residents. That’s pretty cynical as far as I’m concerned, and was deemed completely unsatisfactory by the Oaks Estate Residents’ Association, particularly given they’ve made clear calls for simple meaningful actions like constructing footpaths for their streets and giving them access to their own community hall. 

In response, I stood with fellow Members for Kurrajong, Elizabeth Lee and Rebecca Vassarotti, to call on the ACT Government to do better. 

You can learn more in this Region article here.

Canberra Avenue Crossing

The St Edmund’s College and St Clare’s College communities have both been calling for road safety improvements along Canberra Avenue for decades, and a new signalised pedestrian crossing has finally come into operation there. 

While this wouldn’t have prevented the tragic accident that occurred in March 2025, I know that the school community, Aiden, Aaron and their families will be pleased to see something positive come from their life-altering experience. 

I’m also pushing for the Government to listen to community calls for a permanent 40km/h zone on this stretch of road alongside the neighbouring schools – which has been in place temporarily and operated smoothly during the construction of the crossing. You can read more in this Region article here.

Telstra Tower

The ACT Government has announced the signing of a new heads of agreement with Telstra, which will (hopefully) facilitate the goal of reopening Telstra Tower for the summer of 2027-28. 

This has been an incredibly slow-moving process, with a lot of announcements along the way while little apparent progress has been made. More concerning is that in 2023, Telstra and Ngunnawal Custodians announced a joint endeavour with detailed plans to transform Telstra Tower into a world-class cultural tourism destination, but those Ngunawal-led plans seem to have fallen off the map since the ACT Government got involved.

Alongside David Pocock, Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Violet Sheridan and Ngunnawal Custodian Richie Allan, I’ve been calling for the ACT Government and Telstra to follow through on those earlier plans and work in genuine partnership with the Ngunnawal community in deciding what’s next for Telstra Tower.

In April of this year, an Assembly Committee recommended “that the ACT Government take advantage of the preexisting work done by Telstra in partnership with the Ngunnawal community on the future of Telstra Tower and ensure this earlier body of work is reflected in the Government’s decisions about the site.”

Self-determination and shared decision-making isn’t inviting First Nations people into the room once the key decisions have already been made; it’s having them at the table as equal partners. So why weren’t Ngunnawal Custodians asked to sign the heads of agreement between Telstra and the ACT Government? I asked this question during Estimates, and wasn’t given a satisfactory answer.

As it happens, it was during this exchange in the Committee room that the Opposition Leader, Mark Parton, sent that ill-fated text message…

Senator Pocock, Richie Allan and I are meeting with the Chief Minister and Telstra to discuss this further soon.

Outside Telstra Tower with Ngunnawal Custodian Richie Allan, Senator David Pocock and Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Violet Sheridan

Women's Safety and Gender-Based Violence Funding 

During a session on women’s issues and gender-based violences, I asked the Minister for Women, Dr Marisa Paterson, about the ACT Government’s reluctance to improve its target for the proportion of women who feel safe walking outside at night. Currently the target is very low at 42 per cent, with no aim for this to increase over the coming years.

Just last year, the Government amended a women’s safety motion I moved in the Assembly to add a line saying: "The ACT aspires to be, and should be, a place where women feel safe at all times.” I find this statement difficult to square with the Government’s own very low - and unimproving - target for women’s safety at night. 

I’ve been pushing for improved lighting across Canberra, particularly at popular exercise locations, which the ACT Government’s Gender Sensitive Urban Design Guidelines identify as the most effective way to help women feel safe in public spaces. Of course, men’s behaviour is ultimately the reason many women are unsafe. This is an indictment on men and needs to change, which is why I’ve also called for increased funding for men’s behaviour change and gender-based violence crisis services. However, my motion on lighting responded to specific calls from many women in our community who said improved lighting would make a big difference in their lives. It frustrates me that the Government continues to avoid improving basic infrastructure like lighting when that’s been directly requested by our community on the grounds that women’s safety is more complex than that. It is complex, I absolutely accept that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fix the lights!

During Estimates hearings, I also interrogated the Government’s funding commitments for frontline domestic, family and sexual violence services. Community sector organisations told the Committee that the budget announcements for the sector are largely just an extension of existing funding arrangements, providing no increase in real terms. 50 per cent of the calls to the Domestic Violence Crisis Services’ crisis line go unanswered with this level of funding, and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre indicated their funding is 40 per cent below where it needs to be to meet demand. It's clear that these organisations and the vulnerable Canberrans they support desperately need more funding, which is what I’ll keep pushing for. 

Legal Aid Funding

I asked some questions of Legal Aid about their resourcing and was shocked to learn that, due to inadequate funding, they’re having to means test people on $30,000 or more a year out of being able to access their services. Access to legal representation should not be reserved only for those who can afford it, and it’s concerning that this incredibly low threshold leaves so many Canberrans at risk. The Government has announced a review of Legal Aid’s funding, and I’ll continue to advocate for sufficient funding to ensure anyone who needs legal representation in our community can get it.

Public Housing 

I asked a lot of questions about public housing and learned that there are now 588 public housing properties sitting vacant in the ACT. That figure has grown by more than 50 vacancies since the start of the year, while our public housing waitlist has grown by more than 150 approved applicants to 3,652. Make that make sense.

Local legends Jonny Warren, Adam Mumford and Jo Farrell are stepping up to help address this issue with an incredibly generous commitment to supply the tradespeople and materials needed to renovate 20 of these vacant houses for freeand turn them into homes for Canberrans experiencing homelessness before Christmas. I’m backing their campaign, and have written to the Housing and Homelessness Minister, Suzanne Orr, calling for the ACT Government to get on board. 

You can learn more in this ABC piece here.

With Jo Farrell from Housing All Australians, Lead Campaigner Jonny Warren and Corinne Dobson from ACT Shelter

Early Childhood Regulation

I asked Children’s Education and Care Assurance (CECA), the early childhood regulator here in the ACT, about progress on some of the actions the Government committed to through the motion I got through the Assembly in February. 

In some positive news, they revealed that work is underway to establish a public register of regulatory compliance actions so families can see the compliance history of centres they’re considering for their children, which has already happened in several other states and was one of the key calls in my motion.

I also asked about CECA’s (welcome) decision to close Edge Early Learning Higginsdue to serious child safety issues. The closure prompted Edge to encourage affected families to move their children to other centres, including Edge Early Learning Charnwood, which documents I got released in the Assembly last year show has an even worse child safety track record. It turns out the regulator’s taking action against that centre too, but Edge is appealing CECA’s decision to impose conditions on their operations.

These big for-profit providers who are responsible for repeated child safety breaches across multiple centres really need to be held accountable for putting our kids at risk. I’ll keep calling for serious consequences for providers where there are clear patterns of chronic poor practice, while also pushing for the Government to provide more support for the locally-run centres that actually take care of their staff and put what’s best for children first – many of which are struggling to compete with these big providers.

Footpath Closures

Footpaths across the ACT are routinely closed by developers around construction sites for prolonged periods – often for many weeks or months at a time. This isn’t just an inconvenience for pedestrians and cyclists, but can also cause really dangerous situations as we saw on Northbourne Avenue earlier last year. 

I get that closing footpaths is easy for developers, but is that convenience fair given the inconvenience to pedestrians and cyclists and the risk to public safety? I don’t think so.

I’ve been lobbying for footpath closure fees, which the councils of many other capital cities in Australia have had in place for years, to disincentivise prolonged and unnecessary closures.

Last year, the Government moved to introduce such fees, but then delayed doing so after industry pushback – a decision I tried to overturn.

The fees finally came into effect on July 1 2026, but I asked about this during Estimates and learned that the Government has since reduced them following further consultation with industry (but not with any pedestrian, cyclist, disability or road safety advocacy groups, of course). 

The fees were originally set to be up to $200 per block of closed footpath or bike path per day, and have now been reduced to as little as 50 cents per metre per day. This is incredibly disappointing, and clearly nowhere near enough to actually disincentivise this behaviour.

Canberra City Farm 

We found out during Estimates that Canberra City Farm has lost its licence to continue operating on the 2 Dairy Road in Fyshwick. This is deeply disappointing news for this incredible community organisation, especially given how much time, love and resources they’ve poured into this land over the last decade.

The ACT Government has now run multiple tender processes like this one, forcing small organisations that are predominantly run by volunteers to fight over limited resources. On one hand, it’s creating a competitiveness between organisations that are trying to achieve great outcomes in the community and should actually be collaborating. And on the other, it’s both disdainful and hugely discouraging for groups that have devoted years to their work for their efforts to to be disregarded and discarded through an impersonal tender process.

The government relies heavily on these organisations to deliver on their own policies and commitments, especially in the climate change and environment portfolios. Ultimately, destroying goodwill like this comes at a significant cost not only to our community, but will also cost the Government itself.  

I raised this with officials, who didn’t seem to see the problem. It’s something I’m going to keep pushing on.

You can read more in this Canberra Times article here.

Visiting Canberra City Farm, March 2025

Dubious Languages Program Costing

I took the opportunity in Estimates to challenge the Government on their costings for delivering a centralised ATAR-level language education program in the ACT. The Social Policy Committee that I Chair learned that the Education Directorate’s cost estimate for running such a program was 2.66 to 4.42 times higher than the costs provided by the two organisations that have actually run this program before. This was unsettling as cost was the primary reason given by the ACT Government for choosing not to step in and deliver this program after CIT decided to discontinue it. You can learn more about the background in the committee’s report here and a Region article here. 

The Government’s costings included a full-time program manager on more than $200,000 a year (plus a part-time admin support officer), despite it being quite a simple program involving language lessons being provided just once per week with the same group of students, taught by the same teachers, at the same time and location every week. $200k for a full-time senior government official to manage a language class that happens once per week! That’s before paying any of the staff actually teaching the classes, and it’s more than what CIT spent on the entire program last year ($124,000).

During the hearing, government officials assured me they’d used their standard scoping processes for public service positions to calculate these costings. I pointed out that was exactly what I was worried about! They took my questioning on notice and said they’d come back with more information.

Dickson Pool 

If you’re like me, you’ve turned up to Dickson Pool over summer to be kept waiting at the door, out in the sun, due to a 1-in-1-out policy. And you may have also noticed while waiting that it’s not actually that full inside.

I’ve been asking questions about this since last summer, and learned that Dickson Pool has capacity for 1,200 people. But Belgravia Leisure who manage the facility use a ratio of one lifeguard per 80 people, and further questioning revealed they only roster on 3-6 lifeguards depending on the time of day and year. So, best case scenario, they can have 480 people in the facility at any given time despite a maximum capacity of 1,200.

I sought an explanation from the Government during Estimates about why they’re allowing a public pool to operate below capacity to such a significant extent, and they explained it was based on the individual capacity of each pool. But the splash area was excluded from those calculations for some reason, and obviously not everyone is in the pool when they’re at the pool. I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation.

Dickson Pool is a public asset that should be open to the public to the greatest extent possible, and I’m keen to continue digging into this ahead of summer. 

Wrap-Up

There’s plenty more to tell you about after sitting in the same room with officials from 9am to 5pm every day for 12 days straight, and lots of threads to continue pulling on moving forward. I really enjoyed the process, learned a lot, and feel like we had plenty of good lines of questioning to pursue thanks to some great steers from people across our community. Thanks again to everyone who provided input! The Committee is now shaping up the recommendations to go into our report, and I’m looking forward to digging further into a range of issues at annual reports hearings in November.

I'm Hiring a Policy Adviser

Do you want to join my team? I’m recruiting a policy adviser on a six-month contract. You can learn more and apply here. Please share the link with anyone who might be interested!

Voices of Belconnen and Gungahlin Community Workshop

If you’re keen to see community independents elected in Canberra's north at the next election, it would be great to see you at Voices of Belconnen and Gungahlin’s upcoming workshop on Sunday 22nd August from 2pm. Senator David Pocock and I will be there to speak about independent politics and the role communities can play in finding and supporting independent candidates. You can learn more and RSVP here.

My Next Mobile Office and Phone Me Friday

My next Phone Me Friday is on 14 August at 3-4pm. You can RSVP here.

And my next Mobile Office will be at Margot Espresso Bar (along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin) on Friday 21 August at 9:30-10:30am – RSVP here. 

You can find all my upcoming events here.

Please reach out any time on [email protected] or (02) 6205 1475 during office hours.

Thanks for your support,

Tom