Mood:  cool

We have decided not to take down the 2 year old story but simply add the relevant apology by News Ltd to Ms Tania Evers, Barrister. Not least because Ms Evers has advised us our stories are fine with her, and we already published the official News Ltd apology here:

Sunday, 14 February 2010

High class barrister Tania Evers wins defamation case against News Ltd?
Mood:  not sure
Topic: legal

at

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1990805/high-class-barrister-tania-evers-wins-defamation-case-against-news-ltd/

On re-reading the story in 2008 invited to take down we do think there is a broader interest in where the infamous blowtorch by The Terror has failed to achieve it's grim purpose of reputational destruction. Indeed Ms Evers appears to us be made of forged steel:

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Sydney Daily Telegraph lead story frozen out by tv big media peers as dodgy?
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: big media

 

A fairly incredible white knuckle ride in the 'back story' to this report here:

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Civil rights lawyer Evers gets the News Ltd blowtorch but is it a beat up?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: legal

According to our media monitoring yesterday the Sydney Daily Telegraph story applying it's (in)famous (melo)dramatic blowtorch on a pillar of society hit a brick wall of incredulity. Did the story ramp up through the day and onto the nightly tv news bulletins? Were peers in the relatively bigger TV news sector of the Big Media willing to back the trashing of a legal professional's reputation? Put themselves in the line of fire of a defamation action on the strength of the journalism of Janet Fife-Yeomans, and editor David Penberthy?

No, no, and no, they declined. What's  more the ABC TV prime time news sunk the slipper in to the SDT agenda with another legal angle altogether, which might be sobering discipline on both the Tele and the "popular authoritarianism" of the NSW Govt [to borrow a phrase of Quentin Dempster].

In summary as best we could tell:

- all the tv nightly news ABC and commercials stood off the story. So did the current affairs and 7.30 Report;

- what was most profound was the lead ABC 7pm flagship tv news led with an incredible repudiation of the Daily Telegraph agenda by

(a) ignoring the story totally, and

(b) running as no. 1 lead a related story about lack of safety/resources at Newcastle Family Court precincts - which is NSW AG Hatzistergos's ministerial responsibility and VERY embarrassing.

The Telegraph runs a smallish story today Thursday 17 April 08 well into the paper, no picture, cleaning up loose ends,  as if by way of belated 'balance' sourcing the instructing solicitor. Only it's way not proportionate or contemporaneous with the damage of their front page story against the barrister the day before. This might only mitigate fertile defamation action for the day before.

The blowtorch story against the harried barrister is virtually all over next day: It's not many people who survive the Telegraph blowtorch in such good shape. It's usually a one way street like John Brogden, others before, others no doubt in the future.  

We are impressed. Like James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life the civil rights lawyer Tania Evers obviously has got alot of social capital goodwill out there, including from such as this writer for her pro bono support of a disabled volunteer/friend of ours, at least within reasonable limits.

We can't comment on the facts of the legal case in the screaming front page headline because we don't know them well, and as a lawyer we are bound like everyone else by the court gag order. But we do note with a great deal of irony this other story running yesterday about the bad, sad fact of sexualised children being given implanted contraception in Qld:

Contraceptives allegedly implanted in Aboriginal girls

The World Today, ABC - Wednesday, 16 April , 2008  12:20:00 Reporter: Annie Guest

[with this concluding extract following]

ANNIE GUEST: But how do you decide whether they are making an informed decision about having sex given that they are needing to have this contraceptive implant? Perhaps it would indicate that they’re not making fully informed decisions?

MATTHEW BOWDEN: Because of guardianship laws. They would not be able to make that decision independently.

ANNIE GUEST: An anti-child abuse campaigner says she's shocked to hear young girls are being implanted with contraceptives, but the executive director of Bravehearts, Hetty Johnston, says she also gives the practice qualified support.

HETTY JOHNSTON: It has to have some sort of tattered support. It’s horrifying to think that those words are even coming out of my mouth but the last thing we want is 12-year-olds pregnant. But look, it could only be with education, it needs to get … we need to get some education into these communities.

LISA MILLAR: Hetty Johnston from Bravehearts ending that report from Annie Guest. 

We simply add that one reason things end up in court is because the facts are contested, and sometimes related to social situations quite out of the experience of normal reasonable people, which the courts and legal professionals are then given the frightening job of wrestling with into a framework of justice and truth - it's a hard job to be respected not trashed.

........................

Postscript from mid February 2010

Posted by editor at 1:23 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 2:08 PM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Author’s general introductory note   

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies in Big Politics and Big Media. Perhaps the greatest utility is the headline synthesis above of the 3 or 4 shows followed in this session.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Other sources of pollie talkies on Sunday include SkyNews paytv Sunday Agenda, Radio National Monica Attard Sunday Profile show. And of course Sunday night shows SBS Dateline, Sixty Minutes and now Sunday Tonight on 7.  

Media backgrounders.  

- Paddy Manning 1st ever reference to glorious, sublime "''first tool'' jump-cut in the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey" in a serious business story about Gunns Ltd and Forest Stewardship Council accreditation. A scene guaranteed to snatch the breath of any science graduate and many others.

- Astute analysis of Rudd Govt spin machine on nuke waste issues for Australia by Stephanie Peatling some weeks ago now here Rudd buries nuclear waste at bottom of bin February 28, 2010 . That story amongst others encouraged us to post last week a formerly confidential legal document with redactions about the famous Jabiluka protest victory in 1997-1998 similarly about indigenous and nuclear issues.

- We perceive the Tony Abbott pandering to conservative frictions over "Welcome to country" ceremonies hosted by the Indigenous as a deeper question of contested sovereignty from the invading British 200 years ago. Or to put it another way Tony's long known monarchism back to Mother England. Indeed when writing our honours legal thesis A Legal Foundation for Aboriginal Land Rights in 1989 we noted that Australia was of all colonies regarded as "sui generis" or one of a kind - neither conquered/treaty by orthodox military declaration of war, nor empty land simply annexed and "settled". Indeed our feeling racism allowed a creeping process of criminal violence effectively condoned but officially repudiated by the UK Colonial Office and British Govt in the first 150 years of Australia. It is too easy to view history with today's glasses, not least Irish convicts starved out of their land (while UKoverlords ran a net food export) with a million dead, and others shipped to Australia for a lethal competition with Aborigines. Which all makes the visit by the black president Barak Obama delayed to mid year so symbolic again.

- Coalition want it both ways on the whaling issue: Lambasting the Govt on lack of legal action so far against the Japanese, while deploring any damage to the trading relationship. As if the Coalition leadership cared about these intelligent mammals and the cruel slaughter.

- ASIO have another staff advert in Sunday Telegraph as questions of quality control in young service are aired. One wonders if ASIO are vindictive about refugees who refuse to collaborate in spying for them as argued by Mamdoub Habib. Another cute story about MP Lee Rhiannon with dodgy errors on her ASIO file as daughter of a prominent communist.

- Is Fairfax 'writing against the federal ALP' as The Australian is oft accused? How esle to explain burying the lead on the Peter Costello sledge of Abbott's parental leave economics to the bottom of an even page number on the SNH broadsheet when normally proud as punch on the main opninon page?

- Imre Salusinsky has written regularly on redgum forests controversy there in the conservative The Australian, Murdoch press. But as far as we can see not once mentioning that the logging of public land by private corporate interests has effectively been illegal for 31 years since passage of the Environmental Planning Act 1979. No EIS, no development approval, eventually exposed last year in the Land & Environment Court. Funny how conservative go soft and gooey on law and order depending on their logger friendly constitutency. Imre refers to this illegal political fix as permitting "firewood collection" like it was camp fire stuff while actually old growth logging of publicly owned natural heritage.

- Interesting to see Paul Gibson MP being embarrassed as member for Blacktown living on the Central Coast, currently not registered to vote in Sunday Telegraph today.

- Noel Pearson in The Australian counter intutively spits the dummy at his political ally Tony Abbott in support of welcome to country ceremonies. As commented here on SAM we feel the subtext is deeper questions of sovereignty never surrendered, never agreed. This calls up Abbott’s loyal monarchism to mother England where he was a student. It also calls up Pearson on the guest list to meet black president POTUS this year (?) as an Indigenous jurist with in the ALP choreography. 

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am 

2 minor state election results, ALP in SA holds on, Tas hung 10:10:5.  Redmond in SA is not conceding yet based on postals [often do slant conservative]. Footage of Question Time Abbott sledging Rudd on health “fake, phoney” diatribe.  Minister Emerson on Small Business is guest with footage of his weak vaudeville in QT. Press roundup re elections and Sydney property.

Cross to SAust journo in bright yellow. Emerson looks somewhat preened. Discusses “seamless national economy” deregulation. Humour out take St Pats celebration Rudd and Abbott. Panel is Van Onselen and M Grattan of News Ltd and Fairfax.

Q’s on federal implications of state elections, health package, leadership,  out take Keating and Costello as grouchy muppets cartoon. Senator Xenophon on SA result, health sign up. Scientology inquiry matter for the police? Says growing momentum.

Independents in other states for senate? Not trying. What about a Green Senate. Says Bob Brown and Co are measured, expects to hold balance of power.

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, from 8.40am 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend   

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.44 am 

LO with Lindsay Tanner Finance Minister. Moderate competent style on range of issues.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/oakes

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

State election round up. Long interview with Nick McKim for Tas Greens who is a straight younger version of Bob Brown. Breaking through the credibility gap with a 21% vote. Guarantee never block on supply. Yes , ‘all 3 parties in balance of power’.

Discussion of SAust result and Rann lacking reality or grace even anger in speech. Interview with federal Eric Abetz MP with some snide and cheap claims, and a howler on Tas result suggesting Peter Garrett MP (ALP) [on insulation troubles] shows what Greens Government would be like. Abetz indicates his blind bias?

Vox pop comic MPs and ex MPs. Panel on Abbott – did quite well in Parliament. General chat. Tony Burke speech footage about trust of Abbott [re Peter Spencer self harm speech]. Personal attack on Abbott in parliament.

Talking Pics amusing as usual especially David Rowe eyebrows on Rudd now, Gillard comment as a natural. St Pats day footage. Stutchbury does a soliloquy ‘we were right’ on range of news political stories [ignoring the pathetic barracking on the opinion pages]

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders

Inside Business with Alan Kohler  .

Evan Thorley on electric cars agenda – we know how the movie ends petrol is going up, battery prices are going down. Gunns downgrade lack of director disclosure requirements amounting to reverse insider trading. Senate vote on Telstra NBN split (?) extended 7 weeks to May 2010 sitting.

Refer http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/ 

Posted by editor at 12:24 PM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 21 March 2010 12:26 PM NZT

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Mood:  quizzical

Those hip folks at the Australian Liberal Party have emailed humble SAM community news blog about the Labor "lie" in the headline. It's something to do with how to characterise cancellation of funds budgeted in forward estimates, distinct from actual expenditure which rose says Big Tony. 

Should SAM publish Mr Abbott? We published a particularly embarrassing story about Abbott's aggressive student days recently, so it's probably a balancer.  And depending on if it's news and adds to the big media angle on things. Doesn't mean we endorse him. We promise not to parrot the guy, just as we have only reproduced Barry OFarrell's first unsolicited email here.

On the other hand we sort of 'agree' with Big Tony's concern over 'welcome to country' being problematic, as well as the right wing chorus line in Big Media (!) ......because it is about creeping recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty by regular Aussies, deeper than native title, much much longer lived than the relatively brief rein of the British Empire of a few hundred years. Which is all good, bring on Aboriginal sovereignty!

Yes folks that's a rhetorical "agree" in order to disagree - you see like Barak Obama as POTUS we believe the future is coffee coloured and folks, it's okay, don't stress. It's a natural progression in an increasingly hot world as we note the 2 stitches in our chest from a potential skin cancer removed earlier today. If only we did have more of that protective melanin.

Posted by editor at 7:54 PM NZT

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Mood:  energetic

From waking up on a bullant nest, willy willy through the kitchen tent, meeting the cream of idealistic Australian youth, hearing Jeff Buckley for the first time over the radio sadly drowned the day before. We slaved over a legal data base of 400 arrestees or so in the Environment Centre of Northern Territory in Darwin before flying back to duties as a single Green Party councillor at Waverley Council in Sydney. All in the suffocating real politik of the Country Party conservative NT govt. The Waverley ALP Mayor Paul Pearce, now MP, commended our hard work in open council as "brave" and for that we were gratified.

Other kudos came from middle class activists rotting in a Jabiru gaol cell who "loved" the work we did, providing a shield against the harshness of the legal system there until NT Legal Aid got their act together. (McLoughlin is gaelic for shield apparently.) And there were further loose ends back in Sydney due to a s*xual assault complaint by a protester (at the lower end of the scale) against an unidentified security officer (police or mine staff was never resolved).

Now as we hear in 2010 about a controversial uranium dump at Muckaty Station in the NT, and U mine proposed near Alice Springs, and 4th U mine at Honeymoon in South Australia, we think this document is of public interest, as well as nostalgia value. We have redacted (in the legal jargon) the identifying surnames except for the most public of figures like former MP Jo Vallentine.

Suffice to say many of these folks are now serious professionals in Australian society and no doubt hold similar beliefs today and God bless them for that. Now this reader needs more of that goodwill too as we contemplate re-commencing a legal career after an at times bruising phase in the green ngo sector under the heel of a cunning and often cruel, dishonest ALP Govt in place for 15 years in NSW.

The handwritten labels indicating "db" were an accounting device in the  transfer of 118 names and details here into a much bigger computer database of 400 plus arrestees built up by this writer in the next 2 frenetic weeks.)

Posted by editor at 10:38 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 18 March 2010 7:27 PM NZT

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Mood:  loud

Note our early story based on a personal interview in the family home below. We rang and spoke to Peter's father and have located Peter in general terms off on another of his adventures doing aid work actually.

We noticed this picture on the web too:

Monday, 8 January 2007

Why did student activist now minister Tony Abbott punch Peter Woof?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: election Oz 2007

[...]

The editor had an interesting interview recently with long time qualified high school teacher here in NSW, and Canada, Peter Woof, a long time supporter of environmental causes.

He tells an interesting story from his parents lounge room in Killara  (a pretty exclusive north shore suburb of Sydney):

In 1978 25 year old Woof stood up to student politician, now federal government health minister, Tony Abbott who he says was allegedly caught doing unethical or perhaps illegal things like changing the locks on the student union offices and other things.

Woof says Abbott, a well known boxing enthusiast now if not then, punched Woof in the face. Woof was a 24 year old technician employed at Sydney University.

The date can be corroborrated by reference to civil assault suit documentation against Abbott presumably created for Woof in the Glebe local court at the time. Woof represented himself but was totally out muscled financially, he says, by 'half a dozen' barristers and lawyers who turned up at the preliminary hearing turning the civil suit into a high risk of huge legal costs against the alleged assault victim Woof.

Woof assumes these expensive lawyers taking a student activist dispute to another level were paid for by Abbott's 'rich father'. (It also suggests a serious fear of a  blossoming conservative political career almost destroyed at birth.)

This legal bullying tactic arguably at the expense of justice has the echo of the vexatious legal suit by Gunns Ltd bullying of Tasmanian environmentalists in the last few years.

Woof withdrew the civil suit he says under financial duress.

Peter Woof is a very experienced and qualifed person. He has an engineering degree. He is a qualified radio operator and mechanic who ws driving an LPG 4 cyllinder sedan in the early 1980's years before LPG was so popular. He owns his own house.

Woof is no shrinking violet. He is a friend and colleague of anti pirate whaler Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd fame.  Woof has participated in environmental protests including conviction for entirely peaceful protests against a nuclear warship in Sydney Harbour and the docking of a rainforest timber ship in the 1980ies and 90ies. During this period in 1986 Woof held down a high school teaching job in Bombala, a well known 'Timber Town' in NSW.

The Canadian teaching accreditation authority are aware of this lively history and have endorsed Woof's employment as a talented and committed non prosletising high school teacher. He is flying out today to continue his teaching job in remote Saskatchewan Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_and_territories_of_Canada

Woof notes that global warming has massively contracted the viability of traditional 'winter roads' (over frozen swamp and bog) in remote Saskatchewan, such that only one month mid January to mid February is now safe for high volume road transport during winter. This is too small a window he says to properly provision remote areas prefacing a depopulation of large swathes of North America in the future.

Peter Woof can be contacted by email on:

[pwoof dot bigpond dot net dot au]

Woof whose eyesight is suffering long sightedness in middle older age is no longer able to do much close work but obviously has some very interesting tales to tell still in his career of environmental advocacy back to the Franklin River blockades and earlier.

The alleged assault by Tony Abbott was openly discussed at a recent reunion of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club in 2006 and there are likely to be several sources to corroborate this version of student activist history of the 1970's here in Sydney.

One such witness in the 1970's approached Woof (attending with his elderly parents) at the dinner and said words to the effect of "It's a pity Peter you didn't knock Tony Abott's block off when you had the chance."

Obviously the student politics back then was very willing. Woof's social companion who made this comment unprompted is now a senior executive with a NSW Govt agency (details held by the editor).

Posted by editor at 9:51 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 13 July 2012 9:03 AM NZT

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Mood:  quizzical

Every few years we have a public debate about preservation of the Snowy Mountain Parks due to wild horse populations. Just like feral camels damage the landscape.

We have been involved in this debate since the early 1990ies when 3 state MPs Smith, Schultz and Cochrane made it their mission to attack the NSW Wilderness Act 1987. The Act passed with bipartisan support but these rednecks believed in logging of public lands, high impact recreation and opposed anything proposed by the green movement. Our job was state organiser with the Wilderness Society at the time.

We caught via excellent local detective work of regional environmentalists Cochrane & Co misleading the Fahey Coalition Cabinet with a diagram showing townships and air strips in so called proposed sterilised wilderness areas. Not that we were in Cabinet, but sharp eyed Tumut residents took a photo of a diagram on local tv news and noted the false map boundaries and briefed us on the alarmist sham. We had a nick name for the land use sleaze "Horse Rorts" (a play on words of the infamous federal Minister Ros Kelly "Sports Rorts" scandal).

Cochrane MP in particular has been associated with horse riding commercial tourism interests in Kosciuszko National Park ever since.

We have kept the above cartoon and letter that ran in the News Ltd paper The Australian  from15 years ago because it tells another side of the colonial story, when you remove the white arm band view of history.

That is that most horseman in the bush were Aboriginal blokes on low or no wages, and they weren't in the moutains but the plains. Second that "in the ranges horses had a very limited role" and the pioneers mostly walked. This puts a whole different view on the legendary fiction of the poem called The Man From Snowy River.

Horses, it appears, were never an integral part of the Australian Mountain heritage, they are a modern popular construct of film and literature not real history.

Posted by editor at 9:06 AM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 March 2010 9:14 AM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Author’s general introductory note   

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies in Big Politics and Big Media. Perhaps the greatest utility is the headline synthesis above of the 3 or 4 shows followed in this session.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Other sources of pollie talkies on Sunday include SkyNews paytv Sunday Agenda, Radio National Monica Attard Sunday Profile show. And of course Sunday night shows SBS Dateline, Sixty Minutes and now Sunday Tonight on 7.  

Media backgrounders.  

- away from Canberra beltway it’s been a boring as batsh*t week with the big media defaulting to Lara and Clarky trivia on the front pages selling vicarious sex as news, as if.

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am 

Press round up, talent is Greens leader Bob Brown, with Hugh Riminton in the chair. Social welfare policies in focus – dental, parental leave, support from the Greens.

Brown – we need a population policy after 430K increase in one year without an [official] govt policy [what a scandal] Brown is staunch again saying this “is not a green government’ whether it’s forests, climate etc. Humour out take is cartoon of Abbott from The Australian.

Panel is Stanley 2UE, Stephanie Balogh Courier Mail/News Corp.

Second guest is Heather Ridout, lampooned by the Coalition in previous times as Heather Sellout, but she picked the winner of the 2007 election. Waffles on about parental leave. Ridout waffles about nuclear, and energy security in northern hemisphere. [Highly ignorant about safety issues of nukes after child cancer study in New York State of 2002 proven by 8 reactor closures].

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, from 8.40am 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend   

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.44 am 

Julie Bishop on so called people smuggling. Missed a chunk of it. Increasingly looks like the talking skull.

LO takes a mild tone – softly softly catchee monkee on complex tax, parental leave.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/oakes

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

“Fascinating week” says Barry. [Actually away from Canberra beltway it’s been a boring as batsh*t week with the big media defaulting to Lara and Clarky trivia on the front pages selling vicarious sex as news, as if. Lenore Taylor is right it’s “scatty” “even sillier”  in her piece this weekend about “season’s bleatings” this last week.].

Film package has terrible shallow pop music.

More interesting discussion and footage of tense atmospherics with Premier Keneally. Her personal popularity is noted by Fran Kelly, says definite rudeness by PM. [Might be misunderstanding PM on right side of people view of NSW Govt.]

Swan is the guest by remote screen and conceptual discussion of Henry Tax review, sophistry about refusing to release the Henry Report.

Amusing package of Groucho Marx on Abbott oppositionism. Talk about Julia Gillard heir apparent. Ruddock and Howard still in profile pulling strings, Ruddock in particular angling for one of his daughters to go into politics.

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders

Inside Business with Alan Kohler  .

Refer http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/ 

Posted by editor at 10:34 AM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 March 2010 10:01 AM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

But there are many possible metaphors to draw from the sport of surfboat racing. Earlier today Adam Spencer abc 702 amplified a story about state parliament being like The Muppets. It was funny.

This got us thinking in some tangential creative fashion about those days of rowing (not paddling!) a 415kg tub around the bay in Warrnambool. Indeed PM Malcolm Fraser dropped in one day to have a go in the same seat as ours 2nd stroke oar, as per the pictures in our old scrap book above and below.

Now the boats are 210kg speedsters out of fibreglass and hollow carbon fibre oars, apparently including women's crew. Not in my day but it's all good moving with the times.

We went to a 29th year school reunion (not 30th, go figure) and recounted with pleasure an anecdote of the 1980 Austalian Titles - the only junior boat crew to finish our heat. And this is where the prime ministerial metaphor kicks in:

There we are at Wanda beach, Sydney, all the way from the Bass Strait, South West Victoria. A young crew with 2 years left in the age bracket. It's all good experience. The surf is running high.

Bang goes the starter pistol. Leap over the gunnel like jumping a barb wire fence, feet to land on the foot straps on a diagonal board. Easy to say, hard to do. Slide on the seat with your togs wedged up bare arse. Dig in hard to overcome the monolithic inertia of boat on shallow water, like a cockroach with 5 legs: 4 rowers and 1 sweep oar to steer.

Only - as rarely happens - Lee the sweep calls out "DIG IT IN" abrupty. It's all on trust.  Our backs are to the waves. We know the drill. If a wave is breaking in front of us, we have to stop to avoid being crunched, then start again which lifts the bow safely over the theshing whitewater and on again. In this sense it's a race of skill with ourselves never mind the other 5 crews.

We trust Lee as only teenage lads can investing in our sports coach. And he delivers us out of the jaws of the thrashing broken wave. Off we go again with "PICK IT UP!". But in seconds  he screams "DIIIGGG IT INNN!" a second time. Uh oh, not good. Never done this twice before. We are in the crunch zone now. It's pure faith. We should be rowing hard not making like a sitting duck. The curling water smacks the ocean surface, like a low mortar round deep in earth going "WHOA-UMP". As it breaks just in front we manicly pull on the heavy oars simply to hold position and prevent being swatted all the way back to the beach - the ulitmate embarrassment - going backwards. Teenage forearms and fingers strain to hold the boat in place. Not a word though. In the moment. It's bodies and training, and trust and teamwork. And Lee screams over the din "PIIICCKKK IT UP!"

We peek at the crews at left and right struggling beside us as we raise the blades out  of the water and literally point them at our rivals before dipping them back in. One at least is blown away as the line of surf varies along the shore line. But the real foe of we puny human beings has not finished with us yet.

Can't remember if Lee called out. Can't remember if we cried "Come on" 20 years before Leyton Hewitt ever won a grand slam. Probably we did like all those times before at 1/4 time and 2 goals down in local VFL (later AFL). The time was now, the players were us.

The biggest wave in the set was now heading straight for us and there was only one way out, forward, and over the top. And we pulled frantically short choppy strokes to get momentum. Not enough time or open water. Already sweaty. Breathing hard. And up we turned.

The body knows what the eyes can't see behind us. And up. And up. The length of a 25 foot boat at 45 degrees and then air. Like forever with oars swinging useless in mid air but only really a second or two.

Like a race memory it flashed before us, first time out in novice C grade seniors at Jan Juc carnival year before, relocated from Torquay because the surf was too big. We flipped, with oars flailing wildly. We knew what to expect when it all turns to custard.

And then another THUMP more wooden this time of boat and ocean reconnecting.

We look around to see if arms, legs, boat, crew were still intact. Lots of shouting. Some scrambling going on at first stroke oar. What the f*ck? Ricky is jumping into the sweep position with his curved blade. Where is Lee? The horror dawns on us - we lost the sweep in the deluge. Goodbye Captain! More shouting. There are no other boats either side. Smited. Everyone of them, and good riddance too. The Victorian wannabes were in town!

Was it schadenfreude that spurred us on? Was it crazy brave? Off we went, like a side winding crab, 2 versus 1 imbalance in the oars and Ricky steering. I rowed alone on my side the rest of the 500 metre course. Half way to the bouy we realised there was a time limit on each race. And we had to navigate the swell back onshore too. We made it in a race of one.

I had a photo of our boat flying over the 3rd cruncher wave but it got spoiled by spilled coffee a few house moves ago. I will always remember a comment back on the beach - "you guys are too smart to be boaties". This is a sly variation on the old self mocking boast of boaties around the club "we're not very smart but we can lift heavy things".

We got eliminated very next race by bigger older rowers in crews out of the central machine of the surf life saving movement in NSW and Qld.  But it didn't matter. We had a memory we could hold dear for decades, at school reunions and blogs and stuff. The beer tent was looking good, another thing that's changed over the years.

Which brings us to Mal Fraser PM and Member for Wannon going for a row down on a flat, flat day at Warrnambool beach with the senior boat crew in 1982. He copped a rogue wave which even made the cartoons.

It seems to us insulation is like a big wave set. Getting wet is okay, just don't let it wash you onto the beach going backwards.

* This story dedicated to Lee Oakley (sweep), Ricky Clissold (1st stroke),  Lewis Atkinson (2nd bow), Tom McLoughlin (the writer, 2nd stroke)), and  Peter Ryan (bow), Victorian State Title holders junior boat crew 1981-82 for Warrnambool Surf Life Saving Club.

Posted by editor at 11:08 AM EADT

Updated: Friday, 12 March 2010 11:44 AM EADT

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Mood:  energetic

What wicked ways the state ALP have with their financial, access and careerism hooks in the NSW green movement. But even umbrella groups dependent on govt grants spit the dummy every so often.

Here is a letter you won't read on the unreal, sanitised so called "real dirt" blog of James Woodford based on the south coast of NSW. It was forwarded via a non signatory (ironic) being the convenor of ChipStop being Harriet Swift, an authentic regionally based (Bega) authority figure on forest conservation, former journalist, tree changer, artist with blowtorch (literally). H confirms just now that the omission was incidental and it's "a good letter".

And so it is, only it's somewhat hypocritical too, in varying degrees, given the same lead green group (former staff and board) and Jeff Angel still current mentioned in the letter, were financed by the Carr Govt to reach exactly this corrupt "resource security" outcome for industry in publicly owned forests. We know because we resigned from the board of the same Nature Conservation Council over this very issue in 2000, having been elected twice to the position. Notice this sent recently:

Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 6:25 PM

Subject: resource security and shuffling deck chairs ... Re: [chipstop] 40 NGOs ask the Premier to save the Mumbulla koalas

If and when the koalas are saved it will be at the price of other forest and other animals in the absence of broad logging industry reform. It might even be Brown Mountain in East Gippsland across the border depending on how litigation goes there. Or forest in the Upper Deua catchment which was once identified wilderness quality. Or giant brown barrels in Coolangubra. No one really knows. But it will mean shuffling the deck chairs.

People will say you have to make a stand somewhere. I agree. But I know this is no lasting solution either. The loggers will move to the next forest, with quolls, Yellow Bellied Gliders etc. This is the terrible terrible consequence predicted as far back as 1991 by this text in this leaflet here

1991 The Wilderness Society - Briefing note to media and legislators on 'resource security'

which was the covert price NSW NCC chair and director of the TEC signed up to with 20 year logging guarrantees as per the Regional Forest Agreements. It was also implied in the peace plan agreed by select players in the 1995 state election campaign. These were pre emptive buckles by the green movement. Under duress no doubt.

According to Dailan Pugh/NEFA quote in The Australian weekend magazine in 2008, only 1/4 of the forest identified by the scientific process for a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system was achieved by the NSW Govt decisions 1998-2000.

Tom.

So here is the official greenie letter and below that again is a screenprint from the dirty Woodford blog waxing lyrical about in his words "one of the nation's most loved creatures" in the extinct form ..... but not on the Woodford blog when it involves loggers from the spouse's former employer (NSW State Forests as a PR officer).

Below that a speech from Harriet Swift to a public meeting at Tathra town hall earlier this month which is actually the real business free of ALP land use corruption.

[PDF file from ChipStop website]

Woodford ommission of this koala logging furore, yet he dares write about extinct koalas here:

The last word to the admirable Harriet Swift SE NSW town hall meeting last Monday night:

If this hall had a back window, in a few months or weeks from now we could look out from here and see this logging. What are we doing about it?

1. SERCA reps have met with the State Minister for the Environment, local MP Mike Kelly and advisers to the federal Minister for Forestry and the Environment.
2. We have approached all Japanese paper companies asking them not to buy native forest woodchips from the Eden chipmill because it cannot guarantee that they don’t come from koala habitat. 13 Australian ENGOs signed. We have a strong group of major Japanese groups approaching Nippon Paper asking for the same thing.
3. A group of all the major conservation and animal welfare groups in Sydney is making a joint approach to the State Premier and Ministers. For many of these groups this will be the first time they have involved themselves in forests and logging issues.
4. Those stories about the SE koalas that have been in the national media over the past couple of weeks are not just good luck. They represent an enormous amount of work by many people.
5. Well over 1,000 people on Facebook have signed on to a group called Save the Mumbulla and FF koalas
6. Local groups are forming to resist the logging, but – importantly, working together. I’m not one of those who sneers at people for looking after their backyards. On the contrary, I believe we have a special responsibility to. If we don’t, who will? It was logging in Tanja State forest on our boundary many years ago that first got me into the forest campaign in a serious way and I’d like to think I have given FNSW a few headaches in that time. However, as a forest campaigner I have also always been strongly opposed to arguing for my backyard at the expense of somewhere else. My local forest at the expense of the one down the road or Australia’s forests at the expense of those in some other country. It’s not an ethical message. Forests NSW always tries to force us into that paradigm and we mustn’t fall for it. They always offer what appear to be “concessions” in terms of what they call “resource neutrality.” That means the forest must yield the same amount of woodchips whether they get it from one place or another. If they make a provision for a powerful owl, it doesn’t mean less forest is logged, it just means it’s logged more intensively in the places that don’t have a powerful owl roost.
7. Right now, the industry doesn’t need most of this wood. The woodchipping industry is still suffering from the GFC. In 2009 it spent most of the year on a 4 day week. For weeks at a time it was closed altogether. Its stockpiles of chips and logs were enormous. It was asking contractors to store logs in the forest rather than deliver them to the chipmill because it couldn’t store them. It had to clear bush inside the chipmill to expand its log storage area. Forests NSW has take or pay contracts with SEFE that can force them to keep on taking logs even when they don’t want them. We might even be doing them a favour if we could persuade State Forests not to take any pulplogs from these forests.
8. One final thing: there has been some suggestion that we will do better if we pretend we are not greenies. I take issue with that. I am a greenie and why should I be ashamed of that? In the longer term, the more politicians realize that greenies are well informed, ethical and energetic and numerous, they’ll start to pay more attention to the environment.

 - Harriett Swift

 

Posted by editor at 9:10 AM EADT

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