About Ian Bushnell
Ian Bushnell is a career journalist and a former News Editor and Chief of Reporting staff at The Canberra Times, where he was at the centre of some of the capital’s biggest stories.
A Canberra resident since 1995, he and his partner have raised three children here and takes a keen interest in politics, urban development, health, education and sustainability issues.
He has found Canberra to be the most liveable city in Australia, and that it’s a reputation worth fighting for.
He enjoys the ACT’s bush environment and its rich cultural offerings including music, theatre and sport, although as a Collingwood supporter the Giants will always be that other Sydney team.
A lover of fine reds, he believes Canberra is blessed to have so many great wineries on our doorstep.
All Articles
News
The number of overseas and domestic visitors to the ACT continues to grow, with the ACT Government touting the year ending June 2019 as the most successful for tourism on record. Tourism Research Australia Visitor Survey data released on Wednesday shows 2.90 million Australian overnight visitors, 2.31 million Australian day-trippers, and 266,278 international visitors came to the capital in the...
News
The University of Canberra is now a top 10 Australian university and is ranked in the top 200 universities in the world for the first time, according to the 2020 Times Higher Education World University Rankings released on Thursday (12 September). The University of Canberra (UC) is now placed 193rd in the world and 10th in Australia, continuing its rise up the global rankings. The Australian...
News
Floriade Head Gardener Andrew Forster may have lost count but Canberra's annual celebration of spring starting on Saturday remains his favourite time of the year when he sees all the hard work of the previous year come literally to a head, and then opening up into a kaleidoscope of colour. Andrew thought it might be No 23 but he has...
Opinion
Only a few weeks from now we were booked in to the Binna Burra Mountain Lodge on the Gold Coast hinterland but now our holiday dreams are like the historic rainforest resort - in ashes. For 90 years local, interstate, and overseas visitors - no doubt many from the Canberra Region - enjoyed the resort's old-world charm and the surrounding...
Opinion
In what is becoming a disturbingly familiar scene, Australian Federal Police officers turned up at a Griffith home last week, searched the property for evidence and left hours later carrying garbage bags and cases of material. An AFP spokesperson would not say who the target of the raid was, only that the search warrant was related to a Commonwealth official....
News
A new communications station at the ANU's Mount Stromlo Observatory will unlock data from space at super-fast speeds and talk to future space missions. The ANU says the $2.4 million Quantum Optical Ground Station, a first for Australia, will help researchers and industry better access unused data about our Universe as well as enable better monitoring of our own planet....
News
Labor bit off more than it or the voters could chew with a leader that failed to convince them that the Government should change, according to a new ANU research on the 2019 federal election. As part of the ANU poll series of surveys, Associate Professor Nicholas Biddle from the Centre for Social Research and Methods examined voter volatility –...
News
The ACT Government has joined with Austrian-based fire fighting equipment maker Rosenbauer to develop an Australian-first plug-in hybrid electric fire truck for ACT Fire & Rescue by 2022. The ACT Emergency Services Agency (ESA) will work with Rosenbauer to pioneer the engineering of the Concept Fire Truck to suit Australian fire services. The Rosenbauer Concept Fire Truck technology offers a...
Opinion
It is entirely fitting that in the week that our daggy Dad Prime Minister delivered his folksy homily to the cream of the Public Service that the biting TV satire Utopia returned to the screen with the bumbling infrastructure agency grappling with spin masters and all manner of political dodginess. For all the PR and political can do, nothing much...
News
More low cost carriers, connections with China, and the continued growth of Canberra Airport as a freight hub are on the radar in the Preliminary Draft of the Airport's 2020 Master Plan. Over the next 20 years, the Airport envisages passenger numbers growing from the three million now using the facility to more than nine million, with built-in capacity to cater...
What's On
They may look cute and cuddly but alpaca farming is a serious business, servicing growing export markets and providing a kinder grazing alternative for the fragile Australian landscape. The industry, now 30 years old, will be on show from Friday to Sunday at the Australian Alpaca Nationals at Exhibition Park, returning to Canberra after many years. The flagship event will see...
News
The Australian National University has dismissed a report claiming Australia's universities have exposed themselves to undue financial risk by ramping up the numbers of international students, particularly those from China. The Centre for Independent Studies report, The China Student Boom and the Risks It Poses to Australian Universities, says universities are taking a multi-billion dollar gamble with taxpayer money to pursue a...
News
Public servants have been told to look outside the Canberra bubble so they can focus on the quiet Australians whose voices can be drowned out by lobbyists and interest groups, and win back their trust. Prime Minister Scott Morrison in an address to the Institute of Public Administration in the Great Hall at Parliament House on Monday also said the Australian...
News
A man, aged 71, has died following a motorcycle crash near Queanbeyan on Friday. Police have been told about 1.30 pm, a man was riding along the Kings Highway, near Captains Flat Road, Carwoola, when the bike left the roadway and crashed into a street sign. The man was treated at the scene before being taken to Canberra Hospital in...
News
Australian War Memorial Director Brendan Nelson has launched a broadside against critics of the institution's $498 million expansion, calling them a facile minority out of touch with the rest of the country. Dr Nelson took the opportunity of announcing his retirement from the position at the end of the year to lay down some withering fire on those who have...
What's On
Twelve of the nation's most iconic motor vehicles can be seen in action in Goulburn on Saturday (17 August) when they take to Wakefield Park Raceway in a first for the National Museum of Australia. A Chequered Past will feature the 1967 Brabham Repco BT23A-1 V8 racing car, built and raced by Sir Jack Brabham; the conserved 1948 Daimler DE...