Canberra Confidential (ATOM Study Guide)

The centenary of Canberra has generated a wide range of celebrations – a picnic day of festivities for Canberra's residents, serious academic seminars, sporting challenges, exhibitions, cultural and music festivals, and even a national conference of basket weavers. In attempting to approach the centenary from a different angle, director Ian Walker has produced an enthralling and often surprising documentary that successfully challenges most of the stereotyped images of the national capital.

Canberra Confidential – A Century of Lies, Spies and Scandals (2013) takes the viewer on a rip-roaring ride through some of the Canberra stories that have previously only been hinted at, or perhaps hidden altogether. Dressed as a 1940s–style female spy in bright red coat and jaunty hat, Annabel Crabb leads an examination of illicit affairs, suppressed scandals and dangerous liaisons with Russian spies at the height of the Cold War.

The documentary examines a number of specific incidents, including the Cairns–Morosi scandal and David Combe's risky dealings with Soviet spy Valery Ivanov. However, these events and scandals only serve as hooks around which a particular angle on the story of Canberra is woven. Themes that criss-cross the documentary include:

• The origins of Canberra
• The vision behind the national capital and the ways in which that vision has been altered and modified over the last century
• Popular conceptions and misconceptions about the city
• The nature of power and the role that secrecy plays in its maintenance or destruction
• The role of the media in keeping or revealing secrets

Canberra Confidential is a rich source of material and ideas that would be useful for students of History, Politics, Social Education, Civics, Ethics and English. It offers important insights into the Australian political system and explores issues that will help students to develop their political literacy.