Curious Canberra
Curious Canberra is a new project from ABC News Canberra that invites you to have a say in the stories we cover. Every week, a journalist answers a question posed by you - the audience. Ask us something you've always wondered about the city, its region or its people: abc.net.au/curiouscanberra
Episodes
February 2, 2018 • 6 mins
In the nation's capital, a popular Facebook page is helping the city's lost pets find their way home. Dinny McGettigan is a dog-owner and he wants to know - who's behind the page, and how do they reunite so many pets each year?
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December 8, 2017 • 4 mins
We're about to take a break for 2017 but before we do, we wanted to answer a question about an iconic summer festival in Canberra - Summernats. Rebecca Pearse thinks it's an odd fit in Canberra, she wants to know how it came to be here, and if there are any women who attend.
Photo: Christine Corkhill
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September 14, 2017 • 6 mins
Sam Robinson was chatting to a colleague at work, when something unusual came up. "Someone she had come across had heard that if a baby wasn't named within a fixed number of days ... then the government gets to name them," he said.
He wanted to know if this was true, and if so, whether the ACT Government had named any babies to date. What was the process, he wondered?
Digital journalist Elise Pianegonda went looking at the fine ...
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September 7, 2017 • 6 mins
Faye Powell has spent years driving down Commonwealth Avenue, and in that time she's noticed a lot of international flags. She wanted to know - how many are there, who looks after them and where are they kept?
Reporter Sonya Gee took Faye to the ACT Government's flag store in Fyshwick.
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September 1, 2017 • 6 mins
Gary Brown knew exactly what he wanted Curious Canberra to look into - it's something that's been at the back of his mind for years.
His question is about the south Canberra district of Woden, which he thinks has been named after an old Norse god. So how did this happen? Intern Dharshini Sundran and reporter Sonya Gee find out.
Music:
Track 1 - Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions
Track 2 - Blinky Fish by J Geer
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August 24, 2017 • 9 mins
When single-use plastic bags were banned in 2011, some Canberrans found themselves without a steady supply of free plastic bags.
Colin Mckay was one of them. He asked: "Has the sale of kitchen tidy bags increased as a result of not having plastic bags?"
His worried that it had, and questioned whether the ban could be considered successful if that was the case.
Reporter Sonya Gee peered into a few Canberra bins to find out what w...
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August 17, 2017 • 8 mins
We receive a lot of questions about the weather, especially asking whether temperatures in Canberra are changing.
Questioner Jacqui White seems pretty sure that they are. She remembers it being warmer in May when she was growing up, whereas these days, she's convinced the month is colder.
So how has the weather changed according to the BOM? Reporter Aarti Betigeri spoke to climatologist Joel Lisonbee to find out.
Photo: Katherin...
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August 10, 2017 • 6 mins
Canberran Elias Hallaj has been thinking about how his city is perceived by the rest of the country - it's not always seen in the best light. Often it's quite the opposite. That made him wonder: Is capital city bashing an international phenomenon? In particular, he wanted to know if other countries have the equivalent of 'Canberra bashing'.
Reporter Siobhan Heanue makes a few overseas calls in search of an answer.
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August 4, 2017 • 7 mins
Scott Mollan grew up in Canberra and while he can't remember the city without Lake Burley Griffin, he's heard plenty of tales of the days before it existed. He's always wondered about one particular aspect - how the lake was filled and where the water came from. Digital journalist Elise Pianegonda went looking through the capital's archives to find the answer.
Photo by Vishal Pandey.
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July 28, 2017 • 8 mins
It's winter, and there's no better time to think and talk about heating. We're answering a question from Don Fletcher, who remembered hearing about an unusual heating system that was installed within the Geoscience Australia building some 20 years ago. What is geothermal energy? And will we see it in more buildings and houses in Australia? Digital journalist Jordan Hayne answers those questions.
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July 19, 2017 • 8 mins
When Beck Pearse lived in Canberra, she found herself travelling to Sydney frequently but never by train. Living in Canberra's south, the trip over the lake made her journey that little bit longer. It made her wonder - why was the city's train station so far out of the CBD, unlike other capital cities? Reporter Sonya Gee found the answer.
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July 13, 2017 • 9 mins
It's a long standing mystery, which began in the days following the devastating 1974 Queanbeyan flood. Did corpses from the Riverside Cemetery get washed over the border and into Lake Burley Griffin?
Glen Takkenburg's family grew up in Queanbeyan, and his dad and uncle shared their memories of the flood with him. They spoke of coffins and corpses floating around the town but Glen wasn't quite sure. ABC News cadet Jake Evans invest...
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July 6, 2017 • 7 mins
Angelo of Deakin has been mulling over this question for some time. Several years ago, he saw a man collapse while he was out walking. Angelo believes that if the man had received CPR and a defibrillator was nearby, he might still be alive today. Looking for more information about the availability of defibrillators in the ACT, he reached out to Curious Canberra.
Kristina Shaw, an intern from the University of Canberra, joined Curi...
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June 29, 2017 • 8 mins
Lisa Ride remembers waking up in her Torrens bedroom during an earthquake. "The shelves in my room were moving," she said of the 1970s event.
It made her wonder about the territory's earthquake history. It's a question we've seen before. Ian, of north Canberra, also got in touch to ask about high risk zones.
Online reporter Sophie Kesteven goes looking for the answer.
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June 23, 2017 • 10 mins
Lillian will often drive from Canberra to Melbourne because the cost of flights on weekends are too expensive. So she wants to know - are there factors unique to the city that push fares up and price some people out of the market? Reporter Sonya Gee takes a look.
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June 16, 2017 • 7 mins
Primary school teacher Sandi Lees appreciates the fact that her city has very few billboards. But she wants to know why that's the case, and more importantly, whether it's likely to be the case for many years to come.
ACT political reporter James Fettes already knew a thing or two about the nation's capital and it's relationship to billboard advertising, so he went looking for the answer.
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June 8, 2017 • 10 mins
On a map, it's easy to see that the suburb of Kambah is larger than most. The south Canberra suburb is around four times the size of the average suburb in the ACT. So why is it so big? And is it true that it's the largest suburb in the southern hemisphere? Reporter Sonya Gee attempts to answer this question from Graham Fuller, Aden Cotterill and Ben Chapman.
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June 1, 2017 • 6 mins
If you've spent any time on Canberra's roads, chances are you've spotted an abandoned vehicle or two. We've received a lot of questions about them - where did they come from? And why are there so many of them? Reporter Ewan Gilbert sets out to sort fact from fiction.
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May 25, 2017 • 6 mins
We're answering two questions this week, from Caitlin Williams and Max Brighton. Caitlin's a Sydneysider and when she visited the National Gallery of Australia she stumbled upon an unusual structure that she couldn't work out.
Photo: National Gallery of Australia
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May 20, 2017 • 7 mins
Dale Rheynolds moved to Canberra from Sydney and was shocked when she couldn't find anywhere to take her children to see a doctor and have it bulk-billed. ABC Canberra reporter Tom Lowrey investigates.
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