About

Glen - Breakfast Host: …

I paid a quick visit to Sydney’s Eastern suburbs beaches last week to ask people what they made of the some of the news stories of the week.

I was working for ABC TV’s Insiders program - it’s not something I do for fun - for the ‘Your Shout’ segment that aired on Sunday morning.

The questions about the government’s move to maintain protection for the local publishing industry from parallel importing of possibly cheaper books drew responses mostly supportive of the government action.

Many were keen to support Australian authors and were therefore happy to continue paying the current prices for books. Some, of course, thought books were too expensive and thought the local industry needs to be exposed to the full force of the international market and all its pricing pressures.

What I was amazed by was the quite feral reaction to the move by certain media outlets. The Australian newspaper reacted like it had been personally fouled by the government’s refusal to adopt free market economic models for all areas of Australian business and culture. Front page headlines screamed betrayal, comment pieces angrily decried the government’s failure to act, and editorial writers complained it was a weak-kneed decision made to merely appease the ‘luvvie set’ of book reading lefties from well-off suburbs. (Yes, dear.) Not everybody agreed. http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2009/s2743137.htm

The reactions I received to questions about how people viewed the way the government had handled the asylum seeker stand-off in Indonesia were also interesting. Many saying it was sending the wrong signal and preferring the tougher stance of old. These different responses to separate issues from the same people shows you shouldn’t generalise about who might think what , no matter where they are from.

You can apparently be supportive of cultural protection and in favour of tough border protection at the same time. The story was moving at the time ( as were some of the asylum seekers), so the book issue was the one that ran on TV. The Sculpture By The Sea exhibition seemed to be meeting with approval as well, by the way.

___

Marius - Politics:

The past weekend for me involved a lot of socialising with other journalists, both print and broadcast.

That involved a certain amount of substantial policy debate on emissions trading, asylum seekers and more.

But there was also time for a look at politics as sport, and particularly the heavyweight contest for leadership. Not a lot to be said about the government leadership, although one well informed print colleague has seen what he thinks could be the beginning of the end of the Rudd supremacy.

He saw that in the battle over the protection of the local book publishing industry. The ministry was split on the issue and Kevin Rudd had excused himself from the debate on it, on the grounds his daughter was an author.

The crack in the Rudd facade was seen in the fact that a cabinet minister had leaked the Prime Minister’s non-role to Paul Kelly in the Australian, indicating, he felt, deep dissatisfaction with the leader at the top of the Labor government.

Well, maybe. It could be a straw in the wind, but you’d like to see a little more hay blowing around before drawing conclusions about any definite change in direction.

On the other side of politics there was no shortage in weekend conversations of people ready to write Malcolm Turnbull’s political epitaph. Peter van Onselen, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, pointed to the final weeks of parliament sitting and the long summer break that follows as being a traditional “killing season” for leaders.

And there were quite a few people at the weekend gatherings ready to predict that the Liberal leader will be gone by Christmas - even though nobody particularly wants his job at the moment.

Those predicting his demise see him going after losing in the party room on the emissions trading issue and being replaced by, probably, Joe Hockey or, less likely, Tony Abbott.

Hockey has the appeal of being a generally liked figure, but the disadvantage is that he shares the small ‘l’ Liberal views of the incumbent - the views that have put him at odds with party power brokers like Senator Nick Minchin.

Tony Abbott is more in line with the Liberal “hardliners” on issues like climate change, but there is a question in the minds of many over his ability to command support in the decisive centre of Australian politics.

Stay tuned, the next couple of weeks will see the battle over emissions trading reaching a climax. The debate will see a heady mix of policy, personality and power.

And there could be some high drama before the silly season begins

Mark - Breakfast E.P. …

You might have read my blog yesterday about getting my kids interested in current events - in this case the decision by the Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett to block the Traveston Dam in Queensland - by resorting to “bottom” references.

I mentioned the rare Mary River turtle which Mr. Garrett cited as one of the species that could be threatened if the dam went ahead.

As the “Australian” newspaper reported, the Mary River turtle “…has the extraordinary ability to absorb oxygen when underwater through gill-like structures near its cloaca (posterior)…..”

In other words, it breathes through its bum.

The kids couldn’t stop laughing.

But, hey, I got their collective attention for more than 60 seconds….and they now know about the Traveston Dam to boot.

My only dilemma was how I was going to top this effort?

I didn’t have to wait long.

This morning I opened my email inbox at work.

And one read: “ABC Science Updates: Do farts really smell worse in the bath?” and contained this link.
http://abcmail.net.au/t/709212/671179/10750/0/

Enjoy.

By the way, NewsRadio Breakfast’s Glen Bartholomew will be appearing on the “Your Shout” segment on the “Insiders” program at 9am on Sunday morning on ABC1.

And if you miss it…or sleep in….you can always catch the radio replay of “Insiders” at 11.05 am ADST on ABC NewsRadio.

Marius - politics …

As a political reporter, you don’t often feel sympathy for politicians and their recurring complaints that they being misrepresented.

Politicians spend so much of their time fudging, spinning and generally manipulating the information flow to their perceived advantage that they pretty much deserve what they get when things don’t come out as they intend.

A little “blowback” is only fair.

But I did feel a little sneaking sympathy for the Defence Minister, John Faulkner, over recent weeks.

Last month, he was asked the question all defence ministers are asked any time there is a lull in the conversation: “How long will Australia stay in Afghanistan?”

This time, it was in Parliamentary hearing and John Faulkner took a deep breath and rolled into the stock standard answer which is roughly……”I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but it is my firm intention to have the troops there not a day longer than we have to.”

A quiet day and a journo or two in need of a lead promoted that into a ground-breaking commitment to an early withdrawal from Afghanistan.

This then followed the Minister across the world and he had to explain from Canberra to a NATO ministers meeting in Bratislava that - No, Australia was not changing its policy. There were no plans for an early exit.

It was a nuisance for the Minister, but then again all those years in a profession where ducking and weaving with the truth is the norm could see it as a self-inflicted injury.

Australia has variously been told it has troops fighting in Afghanistan to establish democracy in that country, free it from the Taliban, bring western values, prevent a repetition of the Bali bombing, train local military until they are able to “do the job themselves”, fulfil our treaty obligations with the United States and more broadly, pay our defence insurance dues to our “great and powerful” friend.

We have also been told that not only are our forces doing a good job, but they are succeeding and there is even at times talk of “victory.”

Experts on that part of the world take a different view, overwhelmingly dismissing any talk of “victory” and saying that even a more limited success would require a minimum doubling of international forces.

Afghanistan is a swamp of half-truths and lies and the Defence Minister can’t be surprised if he finds himself a victim at times.

—

Glen - Presenter …

Being a complete sucker for music documentaries, especially those that give you a peak backstage and into the production or rehearsal process of a band or artist, I was one of those keen to see the Michael Jackson film “This Is It” . With the promise of a state of the art concert production that includes extravagant short film backdrops for some songs, wild pyrotechnics and a fabulous light show, it was always a film best seen on the big screen.

The hype in the US when it was launched two weeks ago was immense, but I had other distractions at the time and may have missed my chance if I wasn’t prompted by a friend in Melbourne.
She said it was a ‘must see’ and that after you got past his freaky appearance, you settled back and enjoyed an insight into the artistic process behind one of the world’s great entertainers.

I may not have used those words before seeing the film, but having witnessed the combined vocal, musical, and choreographical skills of the man, it’s hard not be impressed. He was simply one of the best at combining those arts into a compelling mixture that still managed to excite right to the very end. He’s completely engaged in the process - politely coaching vocalists, correcting musicians and changing dance routines - and finds it hard to refrain from giving his all even while trying to rest his voice for the coming gruelling concert season.

It’s an ‘Elvis On Tour’ doco for this generation. One that does recalibrate the man as a rare artist who was about to give the world one of the great rock shows of all time. Away from the hype, the weirdness, and the entourage he emerges as a man ready to silence critics and exhaust fans with a performance that soars thanks to a fantastic band and staggering production values. It’s only near the end that you realise that it isn’t going to culminate- as these films often do - with some of the real concert, a slice of the end result of all this hard work that would take your breath away.
But it doesn’t come - can’t come. And you have to wonder about the effect on all those so caught up in helping him create what was going to be a once in a lifetime production. What a shock . What a loss.

Don’t let anyone tell you he wasn’t fit or up to it.
Thank God he filmed it all, because we mightn’t see its like again.

—

Debbie - Sport …

You can file it in the “Could’ve been more Appropriately Phrased” category. Yes, I called Tiger Woods “the great white hope” for Australian golf on air this morning — and I need to tell you Glen Bartholomew very nearly fell off his chair in response. All I can say in my defence is that sporting clichés are colour blind!

The point I was making at the time stands, even if it was perhaps lost in your “What did she just say!!!?” reactions.

Australian golf has struggled for sponsorship and media attention in recent years and bringing Tiger to our shores has given the game more coverage than it’s had in a long time. Except when it comes to the actual tournament.

How wacky is it that, after a whole week of wall-to-wall Tiger, that when he actually plays in the first round of it’s, ahem, a media blackout?

Woods is playing in a morning group today and the television coverage, on both free-to-air and pay-tv, starts five hours after his tee-time. So unless you’re actually at Kingston Heath, you’re not going to see him play on day one.

What a wasted opportunity for Australian golf!

And while Glen and I were talking about the absence of Tiger from the TV we were able to look up and watch tennis’s answer to Tiger, Roger Federer, live on our screens from the Paris Masters.

To compound matters, following the un-televised action from the Australian Masters was not possible on the official website of the tournament. Early this morning, there was a notice on the tournament home page (http://www.australianmasters.com.au/) saying the leader board would be “live” from 7am.

Shortly after 7am, that section of the page went blank and by the time of writing (at 9am) there was an announcement where the leader board should be saying “Service Unavailable”.

Sigh. Somebody needs a boot up the backside. I’d do it, but I’m still trying to get my foot out of my mouth right now.

By the way, frustrated fans wanting to follow the scores online can get them at the Australian PGA website (http://www.pgatour.com.au/).

—

Mark - EP …

My kids are 5, 8 & 11. They’re a boisterous lot and with kindy, school, various after school activities and general sibling arguments, they’re busy, busy and busy.

It’s usually hard to get the attention of all three at once for more than a nano-second….especially on Wednesdays, when dinner is usually a15-minute affair sandwiched between picking my son up from swimming and dropping him at Scouts.

But I did manage yesterday.

“Peter Garrett……” , I began.

“The Federal Environment Minister?” interrupted my son. (He knows about Peter Garrett because his Grade 6 class has been doing a unit on Parliament)

“Peter Garrett today said a planned dam in Queensland could not go ahead…”

(My 5 year old interjected at this stage, complaining that she didn’t like her dinner)

“…..because a number of endangered animals live in the valley near Noosa where the dam was going to be.”

(My 8 year old rolled her eyes; she was bored already)

“One was a lungfish….not unlike some of the fish around in the time of the DINOSAURS.” (my emphasis)

The deliberate use of the word “dinosaurs” prompted a bit more interest.

“What’s a lungfish?”

(Lengthy explanation.)

“I really hate this dinner. ”

“Stop hitting me!”

“I am NOT hitting you.”

“Pass the butter.”

“What’s the time? Where’s my Scout shirt?”

I ignored all these interruptions.

“The other animal was….”

“Dad! Mia’s hitting me again!”

“…a turtle who breathes through its BOTTOM.”

Instant silence. Forks poised in mid-air. Alleged sibling assault forgotten.
“What did you just say?”

“A turtle that breathes through it’s bottom”, I repeated with great satisfaction, having confirmed my suspicion that this killer fact would finally get their full attention.

(Much sniggering and guffawing later….)

“How does THAT work?”

There’s actually a very good anatomical explanation in this morning’s “Australian” newspaper of the respiratory system of the Mary River turtle:

“…has the extraordinary ability to absorb oxygen when underwater through gill-like structures near its cloaca (posterior)…..”

The Oz’s senior Queensland writer Andrew Fraser knows a good top-line when he sees one too:

“The needs of a turtle that breathes through its bottom have been put ahead of the needs of more than four million people who will live in southeast Queensland within 20 years”, he rages in his column this morning.

Meanwhile, I’m now under extreme pressure to come up with another bottom reference to the news for my most ferocious critics….

Glen - Breakfast presenter …

I see the Australian distributor of strollers recalled in the United States over safety concerns, says there won’t be a recall of the products locally.

British company Maclaren is recalling one million single and double umbrella strollers in the US after 12 cases were reported of children slicing off their fingertips in the hinge mechanism.

But the Australian distributor, CNP Brands, says that none of the injuries happened while a child was seated in the stroller, rather when safety instructions weren’t being followed on opening and closing the strollers.

It says the products won’t be recalled because they meet stringent safety standards, but has offered to supply a free elbow joint cover kit to Australian customers who remain concerned.

That’s for the stroller not the child, I presume.

Despite the strollers being made in the UK, Britain isn’t participating in the recall either. One view out of Britain today claimed the different approaches centre around the more litigious nature of the United States compared to the rest of us. Lawsuits are a way of life there and liability is always a big issue.

A British comment this morning pointed out that the injuries occur when children’s fingers have been caught in the mechanism while it was being assembled.

They instead suggested that the British approach would be to perhaps recommend not putting your kid’s fingers anywhere it while you were assembling it.

Who’d have thought ?

___

Meanwhile, in unrelated news from the wires:

In Brazil, famed for its tiny bikinis and carefree attitude, a university student has been expelled after violent protests by students outraged at the short outfit she wore on campus.

The Universidade Bandeirante (Uniban) said it had expelled the student, Geysi Villa Nova Arruda, 20, for “flagrant disrespect of ethical principles, academic dignity and morality.” ( In Brazil ??)

Her dress sparked student protests on October 22 in this largely Roman Catholic country.

A video showed Arruda sitting in a classroom in a mid-thigh length red dress, then six military police officers protecting her as she left the campus wearing a white jacket. A line of students stood by chanting “whore.” ( a bit of an over reaction perhaps ? )

Another video showed a mob stopping and kicking her car and blocking her when she tried to escape on foot. ( IT’S BRAZIL !!! )

Comments on Brazilian websites pointed out the irony of the hatred directed at Arruda by fellow students in a nation obsessed with physical beauty and said the university’s actions were unfair.

“Pure hypocrisy … Once February and the Carnival comes round everyone will be naked and no one will find it abnormal,” said one comment posted by a reader on the O Globo news website. ( Indeed )

Uniban said it had also suspended a number of students identified by video footage and witness accounts of taking part in the violence last month. The university’s legal advisor said Arruda had been expelled for “gestures” and “attitudes” she had manifested rather than because of her short outfits. He would not give details.

You’ve got to watch those ‘manifest attitudes’.
—

Marius - Politics & the Berlin Wall: …

This week’s 20th anniversary celebrations of the toppling of the Berlin Wall took me back not to Berlin November 1989 - when I was in Australia - but Berlin 1999.

I was then a few months into a four year stay in the German capital

And it’s worth remembering through the hazy mists of celebration now that Germans and the world had mixed feelings about reuniting the city and the country.

In 1999 the anniversary was a welcome story for me as a freelance journalist in a city where the news tide had gone out a decade before. Official celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate provided a peg for stories on how the new Berlin commemorated its moment of redefinition.

Australian papers made it clear they were ready for stories of how the people’s joy ten years on matched the official party. At 60 cents a word I was ready to match that expectation at length, but not one private party could I find.

East and West I could find no celebrations and no sense that there was anything to celebrate.

Nobody wanted to go back to the old divisions, but for different reasons both sides looked on the reunification with little joy. West Germans resented the cost and they had a reminder of it in every pay packet, which included a tax to cover the cost of uniting the country.

And for people from the old East, while they were glad to be driving an Audi rather than a Trabi, any euphoria was punctured by the clear sense that they were the defeated side in a war.

The “East Berliners” I knew best were our nanny, Petra, her husband Lutz, a building worker, and their family. They were, in the tradition of the old East, reserved, but when you became part of their circle you were in forever.

Born in the mid-fifties, most of their lives had been lived in the divided city

On one memorable occasion we invited them around for Christmas drinks with our neighbours, at our house which was in the heart of Berlin’s leafy West.

After about ten minutes of not mingling with the “Wessis” Petra came up to me and said with “Ossi” directness: “We are going…we don’t like your friends.”

The wall had been down ten years but the difference between the old West and East - the “Wall in the Mind” - was very marked.

The West Berliners were equally separated from the East.

Many of our neighbours, in a suburb which was just 15 minutes drive from the Brandenburg Gate, had never, in ten years, been to the old East Berlin beyond the city centre. And they certainly had not travelled to enjoy the now available attractions of the former Eastern Bloc.

“We travel East for work and West for fun,” one neighbour explained.

And more widely Germans did not universally look to Berlin as their long lost capital returned.

It was reinstated as the national capital only by a slim vote in parliament. Germany is not one uniform country, it’s only been a nation since 1870 and Bavarians and others certainly don’t look to Berlin as their spiritual capital. The city is half way to Siberia in their view.

And the West at large was ambivalent about the new Germany too. Margaret Thatcher was one of many who welcomed the end of the communist bloc, but she was also one of many who opposed the reunification of Germany.

The war was still too close for many to feel unmixed joy at the prospect of a greater Germany being recreated.

Now it’s twenty years and the old east-west divisions have blurred but the “Wall in the Mind” is still real for those who grew up in a divided city.

___

Mark - Breakfast EP:

Hopefully you heard a rather wet but cheery Hardy Graupner this morning on NewsRadio Breakfast, talking to Glen from near the Brandenburg Gate as he watched the celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.

Hardy is a voice many ABC Newsradio listeners will be familiar with, via his reports for the numerous Deutsche Welle Radio programs we broadcast from our German partner.

He brought an interesting perspective to the Berlin Wall anniversary.

You see 20 years ago, on the night the Wall started to come down, Hardy was bunkered down at work in East Berlin at the hq of Radio Berlin International, the overseas mouthpiece of the former G-D-R.

The question there that night was not “how should we report this huge breaking story” of people crossing freely over the barrier that had divided their city for 30 years, but rather “should we report this story that the Anti-fascist Rampart has been breached at all?’

Hardy’s blog on this dilemma, life as an “Ossi” in the New Germany, and his first impressions of West Berlin is terrific: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4809726,00.html

It was also interesting to note that at the official ceremonies to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall overnight, both Chancellor Angela Merkel and Berlin’s Mayor Klaus Wowereit pointed out that the night of November 9-10 is also the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht — the so-called “night of broken glass” — the anti-Jewish pogrom by the Nazis in 1938 which saw at least 400 Jews murdered, thousands of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues ransacked or destroyed, and thousands interned.

Marius talked a lot about the differences in demeanour and attitudes between East and West Berliners.

Another variation you do pick up if you spend any length of time in Germany or with Germans is the difference between “Wessis” and “Ossis” towards the nation’s Nazi past.

I got a stark illustration of that myself.

About 9 years ago I took a break from the ABC and worked for a time as a senior producer at Associated Press Television News in London.

It was a wonderful experience, working with in a large newsroom with young jounalists, collating video material from all around the globe, re-packaging and editing it and sending it out to just about every major tv network in the world.

One of our top producers and editors was Ute — a young German woman who’d migrated to Britain with her camerman husband.

She had an infectious smile and a wicked sense of humour.

Everyone seemed noticeably more cheerful when Ute was on-shift.

The other guys and I on the production desk knew we could get away with teasing Ute mercilessly, so we’d always resort to the lowest common denominator in the joke department - Fawlty Towers.

“Shhhh… Ute’s coming”, we’d say, “Now what ever you do, don’t mention the war!”

Ute took it all with terrific humour, and was quick with some withering put down about Brits and Aussies.

Until the day when she had the best come-back of all….and this time I could tell she wasn’t exactly joking.

“What war?” she said drily, “I’m from the East”.

___

Debbie Spillane - sport

Marat Safin is playing the final tournament of an extremely colourful tennis career this week at the Paris Masters and it was good to see him get through the first round this morning.

Larger than life personalities are in short supply in sport these days and that’s why Marat Safin will be sorely missed. I guess I knew that in theory before I went to the Shanghai Masters last month, but seeing the big fella first hand, really underlined it for me.

Never having had the opportunity to see him live I scurried across from Centre Court at the Qizhong Stadium to the Grandstand Court when I saw Safin had been taken to a third set in his second round match against Czech player, Tomas Berdych.

By the time I arrived Safin had suffered one of his typical implosions and was down 1-4 in the deciding set. But with the crowd desperately cheering him on he fought back to level it at 4-4. Even though it’s been some years since he was at the top of his game, Safin seemed to have more dedicated fans in Shanghai than any other player. Two or three girls were courtside on this occasion holding up a sign saying “Marry Us Marat”. They didn’t look old enough to remember the time in 2002 that he turned up for the Australian Open in Melbourne with not one supermodel style girlfriend in tow, but three.

I thought they were going to cry when Safin eventually lost to Berdych. After the match there was an on-court presentation from the tournament organisers to mark his farewell appearance in Asia.

There was a musical slideshow package shown on the big screen. As the PA blasted out “Wild Thing” we saw pics of Marat in action, smacking balls, smashing rackets, smooching women, and smirking with Boris Yeltsin. I couldn’t help noticing the photo with Yeltsin really seemed to amuse Marat as he stood there on court watching the tribute. Of course there were speeches. But what amazed me most was when the courtside announcer took a microphone into the crowd and invited a fan to speak on behalf of the spectators. Speaking in English the Chinese woman said she’d been turning up to watch Safin since his first appearance in China and that she was going to miss him.

Safin then spoke, thanking his Chinese fans, and saying that every time he’s arrived in China they’ve been at the airport to greet him and waiting for him outside his hotel. Then, with perfect Safinesque lack of logic he added with a grin: “Personally I would not do this for myself”. He then signed several dozen autographs as he made a slow exit from the court.

I felt extremely grateful to have been there for such a genuinely emotional moment. But I was even more grateful that I got back to the media centre in time for the Safin post match media conference. Marat really held court in that setting. Self-deprecating but forthright, he sure gave the media plenty to work with.

When asked why he refused to shake Berdych’s hand at the end of the match, the big Russian launched into a rant about the fact Berdych had responded to losing the first set by calling a medical timeout. This was nonsense Safin seethed. He said there was nothing wrong with Berdych who’d been moving around the court without any problem immediately before calling for treatment on a supposed leg injury, and then resumed immediately afterward without any restriction in his movement.

The cynical use of injury timeouts has really been a pox on tennis in recent years to my way of thinking as well and it was good to hear someone finally call players on what is essentially unsporting behaviour. And dear old Marat didn’t hesitate about putting as fine a point on it as possible.

His comment went something along the lines of:

“If you’re injured, get off the court. If you’re fit, shut the f*&% up and keep playing.”

Yes, he will be missed.

Looking at the schedule of play for tonight/ tomorrow morning it appears Safin’s next — perhaps final match — will be on either Wednesday night or Thursday morning against Juan Martin Del Potro. You’ll definitely hear all about it on NewsRadio brekkie Thursday morning. Our presenter Glen Bartholomew is also something of a fan, having experienced some Marat memories in his days covering the Australian Open.

Glen - Breakfast Host:…

So Kevin Sheedy is to be the man to bring AFL to the Rugby League heartland, as coach of the new Western Sydney team.

It is a great coup for the putative club, as not only is he obviously one of the best coaches of his generation, but he is also proven to be a master promoter of the game.

His consistent and often provocative efforts to build Essendon into a national sporting brand have been widely acclaimed and shamelessly mirrored by clubs such as Collingwood.

The Bombers were great ambassadors for the AFL, on and off the field, and Sheedy’s creation of, and involvement in, initiatives like taking the game to the Northern Territory, the encouragement and recruitment of indigenous players, and the annual ANZAC Day battle with the traditional rivals Collingwood all helped Essendon, and the AFL more broadly, come to stand for more than just sport. They expressed the role and effect sport can have on Australian culture and life, while also bringing some much needed perspective to those involved in the game.

Reading his autobiography and interviewing him after its release reminded me of his long campaign to grow the game and spread its popularity and reach all across Australia.

He has long spoken of his support for clubs in the Eastern states and expressed frustration at the media and the AFL’s approach to making sure NSW and Queensland have every opportunity to be exposed to and embrace the game he’s always held so dear.

Now, after the Richmond Tigers confirmed that their ineptitude this year was not restricted to efforts on the field but also to the club’s boardroom by not grabbing the former Tiger player to coach his old club, Sheedy has put his life where his mouth is and apparently agreed to move to the foreign lands of outer Sydney to spread the gospel of Aussie Rules according to St Kevin. He’s a man of great integrity and wide knowledge and may well help show the troubled NRL competition how a coach and sporting club is supposed to behave.

Good luck to him. They’ll know he’s in town.

____

Marius - politics

A very simple grammatical analysis may help explain some of the Prime Minister’s woes over asylum seekers.

In his many statements on the issue he has hammered four words: “calm, methodical, humane, tough.”

Four adjectives in search of a verb and a subject.

The criticism of the PM’s media torrent in recent days was that he kept talking while saying nothing. While vividly describing the government’s course of action with the mantra of the four adjectives he never said what it was. He was describing an attitude not a course of action.

To the extent that he has set out a course of action - co-operation with Indonesia after his personal intervention with Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - it has not yielded results.

Mr Rudd got SBY on side but that did not guarantee the crucial support of local authorities, so the Oceanic Viking had to roam from port to port. And even more critically he failed to realise that the 78 refugees would, in their own words, rather die than land in Indonesia.

The Australian Prime Minister’s powers do not extend into Indonesian waters. And Kevin Rudd’s best efforts to persuade those over whom he has no direct power have so far been ineffective.

He has appealed to Indonesia’s sense of international obligation by pointing to Australia’s rescue of refugees off the Cocos Islands. They were picked up by the Australian ship and brought to Christmas Island because they were encountered in Australia’s search and rescue zone.

Just as - please note Jakarta - the 78 now on board the Oceanic Viking were Indonesia’s responsibility because they were collected that nation’s search and rescue zone.

The Oceanic Viking saga is now being counted in weeks not days and it has been a bad for the government’s standing in the polls.

Whatever action Kevin Rudd takes will be disapproved of by some part of the electorate. But taking no action, allowing an issue like this to drag on for weeks, diminishes the government in all eyes.

Mark - Breakfast E.P. …

Thanks to Anna Hipsley for filling in again for Glen this morning.

No - our regular host did not have such a good time in New York recently that he hopped back on a plane to the Big Apple.

He’s currently undergoing the delights of the dentist’s drill.

I hope you notice that we tipped another winner in this blog yesterday.

Racing Editor Helen Thomas was dead right with her tip for the Oaks at Flemington.

Not that you would have made a fortune.

Faint Perfume must be about one of the shortest price favourites to go around at Flemington since the days of Phar Lap!

Never mind.

And her tip for tomorrow’s Emirate Stakes? SO YOU THINK
The ABC boss has been busy this week.

As well as outlining his grand vision to turn the ABC into an international news organisation to rival the BBC and CNN, Mark Scott’s also been attending the Media 140 conference, being held at the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters in Sydney.

It’s a summit organised by the journalists union, the MEAA, exploring the future of journalism in the age of social media.

I was a bit puzzled by the reference to “140″.

“What on earth’s that?” I asked

“Oh”, a colleague kindly explained, “That’s a reference to Twitter.”

“Que?”

“140 is the maximum number of characters you can have in a Twitter message”, they explained patiently.

That of course got me think about the profound things I could tell listeners in 140 characters in this blog.

I wracked my brain and wracked my brain…..

And this is what I came up with:

“Avagoodweekendandtalknextweek”

Glen - Breakfast Presenter: …

It’s not been a particularly happy anniversary for Barack Obama.

The White House has downplayed Democratic defeats in two key state elections, saying the polls were fought on local issues unrelated to President Obama.

Democrats have been quick to say the defeats were not a reflection of a loss of support for Obama, who was elected exactly a year ago.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs admitted the losses to the Republicans in gubernatorial (my word of the week) races in New Jersey and Virginia are disappointing, but are not a reflection of the level of support for Obama.

“The data from the gubernatorial races demonstrates that voters went to the polls in those two contests and talked about, and worked through very local issues that didn’t involve the president,” he said.

“If you look at the exit polling, which is pretty clear on this, people went to the polls and voted on local issues not to even register support for or opposition to the president.”

Gibbs said Obama had got updates from the elections, but did not watch the returns.

Republicans have been bouyed by the victories of Chris Christie in New Jersey and Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, as the party struggles to regroup after Obama’s historic White House victory on November 4 last year.

Exit polls conducted by television networks backed the White House argument, with 55 percent of Virginia voters and 60 percent of New Jersey voters saying Obama did not factor into their decision.

But how is the first year of the Administration regarded ?

The most recent Newsweek magazine cover accompanied a photo of Obama with the line ‘Yes he can ( but he sure hasn’t yet)’.

It’s sign that one year on, the Administration isn’t travelling as well it could and is being viewed by many as not delivering on its promise.

Two views I picked up on my visit last week:

The black cab driver in Washington who didn’t like Obama, saying he was a skinny socialist who doesn’t get that Americans are special and don’t want health or welfare systems that other countries have. ( He was curious whether Australia’s universal healthcare system meant that we ‘pulled the plug on grandma’ to make sure the money stretched far enough ).

Another view from a man who ran a stockbroking firm in New York City :

‘This Government is the same as its predecessor - nothing’s changed; there’s still a Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay is still operating, the US is still in Afghanistan, the economy is still crippled, it is still the same hopeless Congress.’

I can’t help thinking Obama didn’t spend his early political capital well. He left health care to Congress and effectively gave the Republican opposition a platform when he should’ve been out there taking his strong poll ratings out for a walk and challenging people to obstruct his mandate.

The feeling in the US was very much one of too little, too slow.

Mid-term elections are next and incumbent governments usually lose ground.

Yes he can? Now would be a good time.

___

Marius - Politics: …

The Prime Minister’s appointment of Peter Costello to the board of the Future Fund seemed to generate the splenetic response Kevin Rudd must have anticipated.

He seemed as pleased with Paul Keating’s disapproval of the move as he was Malcolm Turnbull’s.

And why wouldn’t he be happy?

The move is simultaneously a demonstration of his confidence as leader, evidence of his non-partisan pursuit of skills and another dispiriting moment for the coalition which had hoped their own future might be forged under a Costello leadership.

And he has the gratifying sensation of having an old enemy and rival as his notional employee.

It is also confirmation of the nature of our democracy and the essence of modern politics. Politics is now the domain of the professionals whose skills are applied to the issues of management regardless of party allegiance.

Only at the margins does the label matter.

That’s an obvious point, but it’s one worth remembering, particularly as we move into an election year. In the months ahead the Prime Minister, the opposition leader, ministers and shadow ministers will wind up the rhetoric.

Someone, at some stage, will certainly say this is the most important election in some implausible length of time.

Labor will say the planet will burn under the Libs and flourish into a verdant, post-carbon paradise under them. The coalition will paint an apocalyptic vision of a jobless nation where the masses will be peering enviously at the few who can afford the $100 roast.

Labor will promise equity, the Coalition small government and opportunity. In reality the gap between rich and poor widened under Hawke and Keating and the size of government did not shrink under 12 years of John Howard.

It’s all theatre with the performers delivering lines they don’t believe.

Change the government and you do change the nation.

But not that much.

There is some real logic in the more definite voting patterns. Union officials will always vote Labor and the richest suburbs will always vote Liberal. That’s a reasonable reflection of real political differences.

The parties are not the same, but the difference is not chalk and cheese.

It’s Pepsi and Coke.

___

Helen - racing editor …

Despite his three runners finishing mid-race (and worse) in the 2009 Melbourne Cup, now is not the time to be giving up on JB Cummings.
In fact, his record in the VRC Oaks Day is pretty daunting - and this year, the word is that Bart has unearthed another filly he might well be moulding into a terrific staying mare.
Remember little LIGHT FINGERS, his very first Cup winner?
The Oaks was part of the path she took, early on in her illustrious career.

So let’s watch and learn again this afternoon, when FAINT PERFUME goes round on Ladies Day at Flemington.

And know the master trainer’s mind is already focused on Spring 2010!
___

Mark - Breakfast E-P: …

$5.2 BILLION a year.

It’s a staggering amount of money.

But that apparently is the value of the food Australians throw out each year.

Glen spoke this morning to David Baker from The Australia Institute who totted up the numbers:

* $1.1 Billion of fruit & veg - chucked away

* Almost as much in restaurant and take-away food - ordered but not eaten

* Almost a billion dollars in fresh meat and fish - discarded

The figures were released to put some meat on the bones (sorry, bad pun) of “Foodwise”, a campaign by the Institute and the environment group Do Something to reduce the amout of wasted food.

Do Something’s founder Jon Dee says that as well as the unecessary expense of all that wasted food, “the millions of tonnes of food waste left rotting in landfill give off methane - a greenhouse gas 22 times more potent than the CO2 that comes out of car exhausts.”

I must confess that while I do attempt to be as dilligent as possible about using up all those bits and pieces in the fridge, there are times when I have lapsed and have put food - past its prime - into the bin.

And the reason?

I’m just absolutely hopeless at estimating how much people will or won’t eat.

I suspect many of you are the same.

Classic example the other week:

Decided to make fried rice, using up all the bits of veggies, ham & bacon (probably a lot of it well past its prime) and the cold rice from two nights before in the fridge.

After all, the kids like it, it’s quick … and hey, I’m saving the planet by not throwing out that manky spring onion at the bottom of the crisper!

Cooked up the veggies and was about to add the rice……when I had a crisis of confidence.

“Not enough rice”.

So get out rice cooker, overestimate amount of rice needed as usual, and plow on.

Realise I have now cooked too much plain rice. Damn!

Add only two spoonfuls of freshly cooked rice to the cold stuff I already had.

Make fried rice. Yum!

Put remaining rice in a container in the fridge…where of course it gets forgotten about for several weeks.

Throw it out on garbage night.

My extra cooked rice goes into a landfill site where it gives off the killer gram of methane that will trigger the so-called climate tipping point.

Planet doomed.

Now you know who to blame.

Mark - Breakfast E-P: …

Well … we got HALF the Exacta here on ABC NewsRadio yesterday.

Firstly — with help of National Australia Bank’s Dave de Garis — we faithfully promised you a quarter-percentage point increase at 2:30pm Eastern Summer Time.

And the Reserve Bank of Australia duly delivered.

Bit of a different story in the Melbourne at 3pm.

Deb Spillane & our Racing Editor Helen Thomas said “Go Bart”.

Ah well, it’s not like we were alone in tipping “Viewed” & “Roman Emperor”….with “Allez Wonder” as an outside chance.

Not that any of that should take away from a terrific run by “Shocking”, a faultless preparation by Mark Kavanagh and a brave ride by Corey Brown.

But what really struck me about yesterday was the “Australianness” of it all:

+ The tormented jockey who finally cracked the Cup on his ninth attempt

+The long queue around the corner in the ABC Newsroom as young and old lined up to get their horses in Cup sweeps.

+The idiot-proof Melbourne Cup betting slips in the TAB for the once-a-year punters.

+The glasses of cheap champers passed around in plastic cups in offices all around the country.

+The nation glued to a TV set or a radio for an agonising three minutes.

+The frocks and fascinators at Flemington.

+The early starters crashed out in the car park.

+My 5-year old winning the “Best Dressed Lady” award at her sweltering kindy Cup Day BBQ.

A great national celebration.

What got me thinking about all this?

I was listening to the BBC via ABC NewsRadio last night and I heard that in France, President Sarkozy’s government has launched a “grand” debate about what it means to be French.

“The national soul-searching will bring together students, parents, teachers, unions, religious leaders and others to mull over such questions as whether youths should be required to sing the national anthem at least once a year, how to integrate immigrants, and whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear veils”, according to Ireland’s Independent newspaper.

The aim, according to the Christian Science Monitor, is “How to define French tradition at a time when France faces burgeoning African, Arab, and Asian immigrants, and other changes in a globalising world.”

Is one of the world’s great cultures, with its amazing tradition of gastronomy, literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy and political thought really facing such a crisis of confidence that it feels the need to define exactly what it is to be Gallic?

That it feels that there’s no symbol or occasion that everyone in France could rally around and celebrate?

Maybe they could start by declaring a national holiday for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe…..

Helen Thomas - Racing Editor: …

A day is a long time in the life of a racehorse, especially at this time of year.

Anything can and often does go wrong before a race, which makes the fact that our grand trainer Bart Cummings has three runners in the 2009 Melbourne Cup even more astonishing!

The two miles will test every runner, but Bart’s trio - VIEWED, ROMAN EMPEROR and ALLEZ WONDER - have a genuine chance of giving him his first trifecta in the event.

Of the three, VIEWED is aiming for consecutive victories - a huge task.

But it’s fair to say he’s the best horse in the field; Reg Fleming, Bart’s foreman in Melbourne, says he’s the toughest horse he’s ever worked with.

So the stallion should create yet another piece of history for this wonderful stable!

But watch for the mares DAFFODIL and LEICA DING to be flying home too…

___

Debbie Spillane - Sport ..

This may well be one of those blogs that, around 3:05pm (EDST) today I’ll wish I hadn’t written. But here goes.

It really has me puzzled how some good horse racing judges I know (yes, I’m looking at you Scott Wales and James Coventry!) can be talking up the chances of Alcopop in today’s Melbourne Cup.

Nobody loves a romantic racing story more than I do and it’d be wonderful stuff if the horse trained on a beach in South Australia by rookie trainer, Jake Stephens, could win Australia’s greatest race after an unconventional career that’s involved being used to muster cattle and having a stint as a polo referee’s horse. What would make it even more real life “National Velvet” is that his jockey Dom Tournier has never ridden in any race at Flemington, let alone something as high-pressure as the Melbourne Cup.

If this was the story behind a 50-1 chance I’d be tempted to have few sentimental bucks on Alcopop myself, but I’m sorry, having a dollar on a horse with a CV like that to win maybe $6 when he’s up against three horses prepared by the old master, Bart Cummings just doesn’t seem like value to me.

The case for Alcopop is that he’s unbeaten this campaign and was very impressive in winning the Herbert Power Stakes on October 10 over 2400 metres. That form was made to look even better when Shocking, the horse who finished behind him in that race, streeted the field in the Saab Quality at Flemington on Saturday.

But the question for me is, how does a rookie trainer prepare a horse to be ready for the Cup’s 3200 metres? Two mile races are such a rarity most trainers don’t know until the race is run whether their horses can last the distance, they just learn from experience what sort of preparation gives them the best chance. That’s what makes Cummings so formidable. Everyone’s talking about his 12 Melbourne Cup winners, but there would be dozens and dozens more that he’s prepared over the past four decades that haven’t won that he’s learned just as much from.

Alcopop’s trainer is undoubtedly an experienced and accomplished horseman, but he’s facing an incredibly specialist challenge today. Alcopop is undoubtedly a horse with an amazing turn of foot, but plenty of horses who’ve been brilliant over one and a half miles haven’t had the stamina to win over two. Jockey Dom Tourneur says he’ll treat the Melbourne Cup as just another race but tell that to sports stars of all stripes who’ve felt the paralysis of big occasion nerves.

If you really like the Alcopop form line go with Shocking who looked great in the Herbert Power and was sharp as a tack in his win on Saturday. He’s prepared by Mark Kavanagh who’s at least trained a Cox Plate winner and will be ridden by the very experienced Corey Brown.

Me, I’ve had a bit on both Roman Emperor and Viewed, so it’ll probably be Bart’s third runner, the mare Allez Wonder, who wins. Or Alcopop. If he does, then I’ll learn something I suppose - namely whether losing face hurts more than what I usually lose: money.

___

Marius Benson - Politics …

If you are keeping a diary of Australian politics you should circle Melbourne Cup Day 2009.

It is the day things changed. The day that after two years of spinning their wheels and slipping further and further into the electoral mud, the opposition finally got some traction - Newspoll finally showed the numbers changing.

It was apparent the day before the Newspoll came out that something was up.

Government ministers are a daily part of the NewsRadio news diet and it is my happy task to line them up each evening for interviews the next morning. Those requests meet with general but far from universal success.

What almost never happens is that ministers volunteer themselves for a chat. On Melbourne Cup eve that general rule was broken.

And the enthusiasm of the ministry to get the message out was dwarfed by the Prime Minister who managed five radio interviews in an hour before heading for the studio to do the 7:30 Report.

There was a clear sense of “all hands on deck” and you’d suspect that was prompted by an early word on the Newspoll reversal.

Kevin Rudd has been under pressure from some quarters to use some of the political capital which he holds as Mr 70% to take some moral leadership on the asylum seeker issue. Union leaders have been urging him to bring the 78 people on board the Oceanic Viking to Australia.

The PM has rejected the calls to scale those moral heights, but the issue has still seen him come if not crashing to earth to at least settle into a terrestrial orbit. He has become Mr 59% without winning any praise from the moral high ground advocates.

And if there was any chance of the 78 refugees at the eye of the storm being brought to Australia, it vanished with the Newspoll numbers.