It was an extraordinary week for women in Australian politics.

On the one hand, Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister – albeit in an acting capacity while Kevin Rudd was at the Bali Climate conference. But as she told the Sydney Morning Herald "I think if there's one girl who looks at the TV screen over the the next few days and says 'I might like to do that in the future', well that's a good thing."

On the other hand, newly elected Labor MP, Maxine McKew - the woman who ousted former Prime Minister John Howard from his seat - was publicly humiliated by the Canberra Times’ decision to publish a revealing front-page photo of her which evoked Sharon Stones’ performance in Basic Instinct.

The photo opportunity was the official Australian Electoral Commission declaration of McKew’s victory in Bennelong. There she sat – elegant in a fawn suit with an enormous grin on her face, giving the appearance of mocking the man she defeated as she locked eyes on the disgruntled looking Howard whose body language highlighted his humiliation. The images seemed to sum-up the election aftermath. But one photo taken from a questionable angle stole the show. Taken front-on, apparently at the height of the seated McKew’s skirt (i.e. from perve’s eye view), the photograph appeared at first glance to suggest McKew was fond of going both ‘Brazilian’ and ‘commando’.

Most of the national print media ran an alternative tasteful, evocative photo taken by the same photographer while The Age ran the offending shot but cropped it above skirt-level. The Canberra Times, however, chose instead to run the sexist, demeaning shot, uncropped in a full frontal assault on its readership. What was the Editor, Mark Baker, thinking? Was it the day of the CT Christmas party? Did he join the darkroom boys in a few filthy jokes and agree to indulge in a ‘Chaser-style prank’? The joke was on him. Talk-back sessions on Canberra ABC station, Triple 6, were flooded by callers complaining about the photograph and the newspaper was inundated by Letters to the Editor – 11 of which were published yesterday under the headline “An Unflattering View of a Historical Political Moment”. Highlights included “Sharon Stone eat your heart out”, threats and promises from angry readers and advertisers to boycott the paper and this: “It looks like Maxine McKew was after the Brazilian vote." Another reader set Mark Baker a fair challenge: “Perhaps the editor could write us a learned piece on the difference between a perve using a concealed camera to film up the dress of a woman on public transport and a newspaper photographer using an unconcealed camera to try to do the same in a public place?"

While it could be reasonably argued that the photographer should have used greater discretion, the real problem is the editorial decision to run that photograph on the front page. It cannot have been unconsciously done but that’s exactly the defensive line being taken by Baker. He told AAP he maintained it was a "tremendous picture". He says it never occurred to him that readers might find it offensive. "There's nothing immodest or undignified about it”, he said. Er, nothing undignified about publishing a large colour shot looking up the skirt of a woman – the sort of photo that, if taken on a mobile phone in the CT newsroom of a female reporter, would likely result in charges of sexual harassment? Get with the program, Mark! In a memo he later sent to CT staff, he wrote: "It was not obscene. It was not voyeuristic. Those suggesting the picture shows more have vivid imaginations." Oh, so readers with filthy little minds are the problem? No, Mark, your lack of tact, discretion and respect for women is the problem.

What makes Baker’s decision to run the photo even more offensive is the fact that, redolent of misogyny, it undermined what should have been a story about female power – of a woman punching through the glass ceiling and claiming the most prized political scalp in the country. Instead, the focus shifted to the sexual exploitation of women and, once again, to the dress code of women in politics.

Until the media figures out how treat men and women in power equally, female politicians will continue to suffer the indignity of the treatment meted out to Maxine McKew – even on a day when a woman is in charge of the country.

UPDATE: J-scribe has learned a female sub-editor at the Canberra Times complained about the photo before it went to print saying she found it "offensive and wrong" but her objections were over-ruled. What would she know? She was obviously just an overly sensitive, hairy-legged feminist!(Seethe)

Below: The front page of the Canberra Times displaying the offending photo

   [read more]

It’s customary to whinge at this time of year about the hollow celebration of the birth of the central character in the Christian story…to lament the crass commercialism and the incongruous merger of a winter European-style festival and the Australian summer heat. Then there’s the family politics.

But I usually enjoy Christmas – merry-making, good food, seeing friends and family who slip through the year without crossing my path. I used to even secretly delight in the TV re-runs and the Chrissy carols. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s Christmas album would play on a loop on my ipod while I decorated the house and I put loads of thought into picking just the right gift for every person.

This year, though, I just can’t get into the spirit. Not sure why. It’s like someone stole my Christmas joy. People keep sending the Grinch after me on Facebook – maybe that’s got something to do with it? Maybe I’m just getting old? Maybe it’s because it’s been a year of deep lows and uplifting highs and I’m tired from the emotional upheaval? Maybe it’s because after months of soul searching and quiet intellectual reflection while on study leave I’m in a different head and heart space to everyone around me? Maybe it’s because Christmas came early on November 24th when John Howard lost both government and his seat in parliament?

Whatever the reason – the season just aint doin’ it for me this year. The really low point came when I was lined up at the David Jones perfume counter during a hit-and-run gift-buying expedition this week. The sales assistant said to the woman in front of me: “There’s really nothing worse than not having a perfume you like”. That comment hung there, cartoon-like, in a balloon emerging from the corner of her shallow mouth. Really - nothing worse? What about not having a roof over your head or clean water to drink? Rape? Child sexual assault? War? Famine? Chronic unemployment? Cancer? I wanted to reach across the counter and slap her. Instead, I made polite conversation and bought several bottles of designer label scent to put under the tree. It was at this point I realised I’d become just another consumer sustaining the commodification of a religious festival.

Christmas began as a celebration of the birth of a Jewish baby in the poorest of circumstances, who would rise to become regarded as one of the greatest prophets of all time and who many believe was actually the Son of God. Regardless of your faith, there’s much to appreciate in the Jesus story – he was a radical political activist, a friend of the ostracised, a rebel with a cause, an advocate for the sick, poor and marginalised. He spoke of love and justice and mercy, challenged prejudice and condemned the powerful and corrupt.

We could use a champion like that in our society – a social justice campaigner who advocates – across class, cultural and economic divides - for asylum seekers; the abused; Indigenous Australians; the permanently unemployed; the sick and disadvantaged

Maybe contemplating the original meaning of the Jesus story will help me rediscover my festive season joy? I think I’ll go and try to cultivate some authentic Christmas spirit.    [read more]

This post originally appeared on New Matilda

One of the early casualties of the Howard era was journalism with bite.

At the ABC, evidence of muted reporting and self-censorship emerged quickly as Aunty was harassed by Howard’s henchmen from day one. The National Broadcaster was beaten so viciously with the ‘anti-bias’ stick its managers and editorial staff began to recoil from challenging critique and tough interviewing. A form of self-censorship — conscious and unconscious — threatened the ABC's integrity at times.

Richard Alston’s official assault on the AM program via his abuse of complaints procedures, the stacking of the ABC board with ultra-conservatives and revisionist historians, and the appointment of seriously Right-wing commentators in an effort to create the impression of balance, all contributed to timidity and a palpable reluctance to criticise the Howard Government. There were of course stand-out performances from some during the Howard era — with Lateline being the star rebel.

But Howard Government bullying of the media didn’t stop with the ABC. More recently, SBS has been in its sights. Commercial TV, radio and print operations also reflected the resultant lack of strident, opinionated journalism during an era where freedom of speech was under constant attack, government spin was on overdrive, and scandal after scandal failed to dent the Coalition’s electoral appeal. It’s not that there was a total absence of enterprising journalism during this period — ultimately, the Coalition was called to account by journalists over the Solon and Rau cases, Children Overboard, Tampa and Haneef, but the Government frequently got off lightly.

Take the media’s treatment of Howard’s justification for Australia’s involvement in the Iraq War. In a recent presentation at the Public Right to Know Conference at Sydney’s University of Technology, free speech advocate and former senior public servant Richard Mills criticised the national media for its unquestioning stance on the Weapons of Mass Destruction debate. According to Mills’ research, newspapers largely failed to link the tenuous security advice being claimed by Howard as justification for going to war to an assessment of the consequences of invasion and a longer term plan for Iraq.

One explanation for the media’s lack of censure of the Howard Government may lie in Mills’ identification of at least six well known techniques of media manipulation. He listed these as 1) Selectivity, 2) Denial of Fact, 3) Deception, 4) Fabrication, 5) Deliberate Misquoting and 6) Bland Deflection.

These trusted tools of spin-doctoring were put to very effective use on the Canberra Press Gallery which was under constant assault from Howard’s PR apparatchiks. Add to this the daily grind of journalism with its ever increasing deadlines, multiple platform reporting requirements and under-resourcing and you can further understand the diminution in quality of critique.

In the Howard years, those of us seeking serious critical analysis ironically turned to satire. In the aftermath of APEC, following the episode in which The Chaser drove a 'Trojan Horse' through the security overkill, I asked if it was the new model for Australian investigative journalism. The program is billed as comedy but at times it came close to the most confronting, critical TV journalism on offer.

The Haneef case, however, marked a turning point in the media’s attitude to the Howard Government. Finally fed up with the deception and spin, journalists seemed to put their teeth back in and used investigative skill to extract fact after fact with which they exposed the injustice, duplicity, bigotry and fallaciousness inherent in the Government’s case against the Gold Coast Doctor who’s still fighting to have his visa reinstated. This was a transforming moment in Howard Era journalism — an era which I believe required activism in combination with stringent investigative techniques and more enterprising journalism.

This is a controversial view in Western journalism because the model of Advocacy Journalism is eschewed in favour of outdated notions of objectivity which value and present arguments and perspectives equally, regardless of their validity. Is that ‘fair’ reporting?

This approach to objectivity allowed the Howard Government to beat journalists around the head with allegations of bias or a ‘lack of balance’ whenever the Coalition was critically scrutinised. This policy of media manipulation succeeded in part because journalists interpreted balanced reporting as equal measure of time and tone when democracy and social justice demanded a more strident approach. The ‘he said, she said’ model of reporting on which so many journalists rely, delivers the sort of benign societal reflection that conservative politicians would like to restrict journalists to — like a populist version of Hansard, instead of the critical analysis a healthy democracy demands of its independent media.

Those who rejected the activist, liberal model of journalism should consider the role that radical journalism played in South Africa during apartheid. In that setting, journalists who failed to critique the racist regime effectively aided and abetted the oppressors, and it wasn’t accusations of bias that stole their integrity and professional credibility. Those who toed the Government line soon found themselves confessing their sins — for helping to sustain official racism.

I’m not suggesting the pro-Howard sycophancy evident in much mainstream reporting of politics and social policy in the past 12 years equates to the succour given to the apartheid regime by weak and/or racist journalists in South Africa, but the ‘balance defence’ in response to coverage of Howard’s xenophobic politics and policies springs from the same well.

I’m advocating a model of journalism which values social justice and sees itself as a democratising force — a model informed by alternative international professional practice. I’m hoping the election of a Rudd Government will be a victory for free speech, unleashing journalism with bite in this country. We need more inspiring, brave, forthright, reflective and analytical reporting which challenges the straight-jacketed approach of the Howard years.

Update: Read this great article by Mark Davis for New Matilda for more detail on the impact of Howard's media management and his assault on Australia's public institutions    [read more]

Hands up if you think it's OK to copy someone else's work or to take credit for someone else's words? Those of you who have been to university or practiced journalism would be aware that appropriating another person's work and passing it off as your own is verboten. In fact, plagiarism is a serious academic and professional sin which has swallowed the careers of prominent journalists and Vice Chancellors alike.

That's why a story about apparent plagiarism in a popular international journalism textbook, broken in South Africa today (read original story here), is so shocking. Professor Guy Berger, the head of Rhodes University's Journalism School, has revealed tracts of the latest edition of Global Journalism (2004) have been lifted from an earlier version without alteration and attributed to other authors without acknowledgment. The cut-and-paste job has also rendered the content utterly out of date.

And rather than acknowledging the errors of their ways and issuing a public mea culpa, the book's editors (Arrie De Beer and John Merrill)and the publisher (Pearson Education) have employed the classic tools of media manipulation: stonewall,deny, deflect and threaten.

There are important lessons here for journalists, journalism academics and journalism students alike and some very worrying mixed signals about professional practice.

If a student committed such an act of plagiarism they may be expelled; if a journalist was so exposed they may find themselves unemployed. Double standards defence anyone?    [read more]

This article originally appeared on Crikey!

Kevin Rudd must make tackling the growing problem of Islamophobia in Australia a key priority in government.

After nearly 12 years of populist, race-driven politics under John Howard, racist and xenophobic Australians feel justified in vilifying minorities and believe religious bigotry is tolerable. This will be Howard’s enduring legacy - the price the country has paid for his retro-form agenda, highlighted by his war on so called "political correctness" which included appropriating Pauline Hanson’s agenda, decrying a "black-arm band view" of Indigenous history and demonising Muslim Australians, asylum
seekers and African refugees.

He also exaggerated the threat of terrorism to fuel fear of the ‘other’ and promoted anger towards law-abiding Muslim Australians for electoral gain. Think Tampa, Children Overboard, Haneef, the dishonest justification of the War in Iraq and claims African refugees couldn't "integrate".

The latent underbelly of Australian racism and nationalism tipped into public violence two years ago during the Cronulla Riots and the new Prime Minister needs to appreciate the danger of leaving Howard’s legacy unaddressed.

The vile attack on the site of a proposed Muslim School in South West Sydney, in the aftermath of Labor’s landslide win, soured the victory for tolerance and highlighted the potential for a backlash against resurgent multiculturalism by racists emboldened by the Howard years and an often complicit media. Police are continuing to investigate the incident, which involved an Australian flag being suspended between pigs heads impaled on stakes on the vacant lot in semi-rural Camden where there has been strong, organised local opposition to the school.

The new Labor government will need to show strong leadership in combating racism, particularly as it relates to Muslim communities – arguably now the most vilified group of Australians.

The seriousness of Australia’s moral decline towards official racism became starkly apparent to me during my attendance at the recent International Diversity Conference in Amsterdam. I anchored a discussion group about cultural diversity and the media and, in that forum, the distance we've fallen became patently obvious.

There were several Australians in the room and the discussion quickly turned to the coverage of multiculturalism in our country and, from there, to a critique of the political drivers behind what we agreed was increasingly narrow and racist reporting. This didn't surprise me - although there was catharsis in the shared disgust. What did unsettle me, though, were the reactions of other international contributors to the discussion. Most notably, two Afrikaner South Africans in the group. They sat with jaws open and gasped while we debated the issues. "Do you mean they've abolished multiculturalism" they asked incredulously. "Yes" the Australians answered collectively. As a young Canadian post-grad student astutely observed: "What you've told us reminds the rest of us just how quickly the gains can be lost and the clock turned back on tolerance."

Academic study undertaken during the Howard years offers further evidence of the way in which racism has become entrenched. As part of a study of media coverage of cultural diversity in which I was involved – Journalism in Multicultural Australia – research by Murdoch University concluded that:

While non-Anglo Australians are almost inevitably represented as "bad", "sad", "mad" or "other", in the current political climate, the focus of the fear has overwhelmingly been Muslim terrorism which has in turn led to a suspicion of all things Muslim. (Phillips &Tapsall, 2006)

Further, Professor Peter Manning, whose PhD research examined the print reporting of Muslims, has accused Howard era politicians of "stoking up the embers of racist hatred (in a nation) ... awash with misunderstanding about Islam". Meantime, Sydney academic, Scott Poynting argues that political opportunism and the sensationalist headlines triggered by it, led to, and gave licence to, racist attacks in shops, streets and workplaces. And, in a study drawing on his and others’ research which factored in the 2001 asylum seeker debate, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission concluded that:

The need for action is urgent. In the current environment of fear and suspicion fostered by terrorism and the ‘war on terror’, our multicultural values of social equity and respect for diversity are at risk of diminishing.

Kevin Rudd has a chance to arrest the decline: he must take a stand for tolerance and revive multiculturalism as official policy while using his role to educate bigoted Australians out of their irrational, terror-fuelled fear of all things Islam. This is not a job he can afford to put on the back-burner – it requires immediate action and serious investment if we are to avoid another Cronulla or worse.

The lessons of "home-grown terrorism" which thrives on disaffection, ostracism and bigotry should be motivation enough.    [read more]

Julia Gillard has become Australia’s first female Deputy Prime Minister – that’s an extraordinary achievement in such a ‘blokey’ culture and it’s been no easy ride.

Like dozens of women in high office before her, she’s been subjected to rampant sexism by her political opponents and competitors along with sexual stereotyping by the media. Her relationships and appearance are under constant scrutiny.She’s an inspiration to millions of women but her story is also an illustration of how much further Australia has to travel to reach equality between the sexes.

Questions have been raised about her sexuality – she was single for some time and doesn’t have children, you see. And just last year, John Howard’s chief ‘head-kicker’ the ‘colourful thug’ Senator Bill Heffernan condemned Julia Gillard, saying she wasn’t fit to comment on family issues because she was “deliberately barren”. That comment was as shocking as it was ignorant – even coming from a man as base as Heffernan. A week later he begrudgingly apologised but took the opportunity to re-offend. He is a dinosaur, yes, but his species is far from extinct. Others have described her as a “shrew” and a “fishwife”, alluding to her broad Australian accent.

And it’s not an exclusively male dirt-throwing competition. Women are guilty too of stereotyping Ms Gillard with the media and dinner party conversation awash with complaints about her hairstyle, her dress sense and her relationship status. Is this because some women are still so desirous of male approval and embarrassed about their own lack of progress that they seek to undermine and ridicule a woman who has broken through the glass ceiling? This is bitchiness at its most purile.

Now Julia Gillard has been given the biggest ministerial workload in living memory – Industrial Relations and Education - the new government’s two biggest policy priorities. The fact that Kevin Rudd felt obliged to defend her competence to handle such a workload rankled a little but it also made me wonder whether a man would have to work so hard in the second top job. Is this a governmental reflection of the unfair distribution of labour in the home along gender lines? Immediately I had this thought, I chastised myself for drawing on domestic analogies to analyse the situation but the symbolism does resonate. It’s just not enough for women to prove they are equal to men - they must make a case for superiority to be treated with equality and respect.

And if Julia Gillard does stumble under such an enormous workload, the knives will be out while the “If you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen” headlines are likely to underline the sexist discourse.

I’m really impressed with our new Deputy Prime Minister – on top of intelligence, competence and wit, she displayed dignity and humility on election night that seemed genuine. Such characteristics may be perceived as weaknesses in our masculinist society but they’re evidence she’s not afraid to be a woman and a strong leader concurrently and that’s the stuff of real feminist role models. She deserves cheering, not ridicule.

Note: Yes, the headline to this post is deliberately ironic    [read more]

I am a big fan of cake – but it has to be great cake…nothing out of a packet or covered in artificially coloured icing for me, oh no! It must be artisan-made or home-baked to sate my tastebuds. I’m fussy about cake, OK?

I am baking a cake tonight, actually. It’s in the oven as I type. And, it’s not just any cake – it’s Chocolate Mousse Cake! This is a cake that conjures up scenes from Like Water for Chocolate and Chocolat (not uncoincidentally!). It is a luscious, rich, seductive cake made with tonnes of Lindt chocolate, nearly a whole carton of eggs, a slab of butter, a whack of sugar and vanilla. It’s baked in a water bath and emerges from the oven with a crusty, sunken top and a molten, moist centre. It is mousse merged with cake and it’s to die for. In fact, I’ve watched people queue at parties for my Chocolate Mousse Cake and one man even told me he believed it was “better than sex”. Anyone who’s ever met a man will realise the superlative nature of that compliment!

This is indeed a very sexy cake. It comes from a Nigella Lawson cookbook – a woman whose lusty baking techniques require no further mention - and I always feel best making it while belting out ‘chick tunes’ to my ipod. Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”; the Dixie Chick’s “Earl”; Carole King’s “You Make Me Feel Like a Nat-U-ral Wom-An”; India Arie’s “Brown Skin" and "Video" - get the picture?

From sex to love. I realised tonight while baking this cake - with its edible batter and a mixing spoon that demands licking – that I must truly love the people I’m making it for. Why? Because I’m on a health kick – I’ve given up sugar and chocolate and wine and pretty much everything I love in the interests of cleansing and reviving this battered body. No, I’m not insane (well maybe a little) but I have gone 'cold turkey' after having had one of those conversion to healthy living moments in the doctor’s surgery that demanded an immediate and wholehearted response. And sure, I feel physically better for all the healthy living but how I miss cake and chocolate and…

So, my point is, I just tenderly melted and mixed and blended my way through this recipe but I couldn’t lick the spoon or scrape the bowl and now I can smell its heady scent wafting through the kitchen, as I blog at the dining table and watch the timer. But when it emerges it will be out of bounds. And tomorrow, when I serve it to my lunch guests, I’ll be denied a mouthful. That’s a definition of selfless love if ever I heard one!

I’m familiar with this definition. I had a Nanna who was a consummate cook but her complicated health problems meant she could never eat anything she baked for us. And she had a way with Melting Moments, Cream Puffs, Strawberry Patch Cheesecake, myriad Italian delicacies... (I could go on but it’s making me miss her and my stomach is protesting). She would sit there and soak up our praise, watching us devour her efforts with a satisfied smile on her face, while she munched on a dry cracker. I know now how much she loved us.

Ooh, there goes the buzzer!

Aftermath: I overcooked the cake. Misjudged the timing. It must have been the impact of denial. So now cake is more more mudcake than mousse. Oh well, that'll teach me to be smug about my baking skills! Maybe it was some subconscious attempt to curtail my lunch guests' enjoyment of the delight I'm denied?

A week later: So, here I am again, late on a Friday night with the Chocolate Mousse Cake in the oven, having yet again sacrificed licking the spoon and scraping the bowl in the interests of aforementioned health kick. This "kick" is really starting to hurt! I just hope tomorrow's lucky lunch guests appreciate my self-sacrifice! Next week's guests can bring their own bloody dessert! :)

Confession: I succumbed to temptation. I had a slice of my cake and I wish I could say I feel guilty and remorseful...but I don't! I savoured every morsel and it was more delicious than I remembered!! How am I going to resist that second piece?    [read more]

I don’t understand the Liberal Party.

Arrogance, backward social policy and a record characterised by lies, deceit and spin did the Howard Government in - in spectacular style - less than a week ago. So, when Peter Costello made the surprise announcement that he wouldn’t contest the party leadership and would soon retire from politics, Alexander Downer indicated he’d spare us another turn as Opposition Leader and Tony Abbott failed to get his campaign off the ground, I expected the party room to install Malcom Turnbull in the top job.

Turnbull is an eloquent, erudite, self-made millionaire with a social conscious. He possesses environmental awareness, republican tendencies and an accessible appeal – just what the doctor ordered for a fractured, out of touch, roundly defeated party, right? Well you’d think so. But instead of getting what the doctor ordered, the Liberal Party ordered a doctor – Dr Brendan Nelson to be precise.

Dr Nelson was a media pin-up boy in the 80’s and early 90’s when he was a doctors' advocate and rose to become president of the Australian Medical Association. In that guise, he sported a trendy hairdo, an earring and credentials as a solid Labor man. He grew up in a staunch Labor family - his dad was a trade unionist, his granfather a Communist - he’d been a Labor Party member and was even captured on film screaming into a loudspeaker at a rally “I’ve never voted Liberal in my life!!” That was 1993. The following year, he joined the Liberal Party. He was a turncoat then and, as his ascendancy to the Liberal Party leadership along with his manufactured conservatism in his first days in the job show us, nothing’s changed.

Dr Nelson defeated Mr Turnbull – the richest man in the Australian Parliament - by only two votes and his win was the product of a backroom deal which required him to sell out on social issues. He’s believed to have won the backing of a block of West Australian conservatives brought to the party by newly elected Deputy Leader, Julie Bishop. The price for his victory? A more conservative line on social issues and industrial relations. He's now publicly rejected the notion of a national apology to Indigenous Australians which Mr Turnbull had embraced as part of his pitch for a socially progressive new Liberal Party. He’s also hardened his stance on the new Labor Government’s plan to roll back ‘Workchoices’,indicating there may be trouble ahead in the Senate. This is stupid politics. The vast bulk of Australians forcefully repudiated Howard’s failed Industrial Revolution at last week’s poll but before the gloss has even begun to wear off the victory, Nelson’s lot are challenging Labor’s mandate for reform. It reeks of arrogance and is a major first misstep for the new Opposition.

Malcom Turnbull would have invigorated the Liberal Party leadership with life, freshness and new direction towards a more progressive conservative party. He’d have been a neat foil to Kevin Rudd’s moral high ground. Instead, the Party room elected a man who won the job on the back of a deal which denies his conscience. Not a good path to redemption for a party perceived by the electorate to be morally bankrupt and disingenuous. His discomfort with the deal he’d done was palpable during his first appearance on the 730 Report last night.

With a complete lack of conviction, he claimed a national apology to Indigenous people wasn’t necessary, arguing the Howard line – that the current generation of Australians has no responsibility for the “largely well intentioned” policies of the past. He later acknowledged that he’s shed tears about the violent history of white-black relations in Australia and spoke of his deep respect for and empathy with Aboriginal Australians. Incongruous. He looked and sounded like the formerly progressive Howard Minister, Phillip Ruddock, used to when trying to justify the government’s handling of issues like Tampa, Children Overboard and discriminatory immigration policies – grey and hollow, like he’d sold his soul.

The doctor has swallowed a bitter pill. His locum is waiting in the next wing – only two votes away and ready to prescribe Dr Nelson some of his own medicine.

Update: Nelson's already on notice from Turnbull. Read Sam Maiden's article here    [read more]

Evidence of the manifestation of a new national springtime triggered by the passing of Howard’s 11 year winter (shades of Narnia):

Early Sunday morning: Walking 10 blocks home in inner-city Sydney with a friend and not noticing the time pass or fearing dark alleys. People milling outside pubs -laughing, hugging, smiling and waving at random passers by. People looking at the sky instead of the footpath...

Monday morning in peak hour traffic: A cab driver, overcome by my enthusiastic political commentary, asked me to marry him as he drove me to a seminar on media coverage of multiculturalism. “You’re wonderful…are you married? I’m serious!” I politely declined the generous offer but the mood and appealing flattery made me reassess the stories I’d heard of the marriage of total strangers on VE Day at the end of WW2.

Tuesday afternoon after a delayed flight out of Sydney, mechanical problems with our aircraft and the usual Qantas rudeness: A fellow passenger at the Canberra airport baggage claim belt beamed at me and yelped "isn't it wonderful?"

Today: When the gloss should be wearing off, friends are emailing messages about their politically triggered depression lifting and adjusting their Facebook status to reflect their sanguine moods.

I know the wedding night euphoria won't last but geez it's a good honeymoon!    [read more]

Dear Kevin,

OK, I’m just going to come right out and say it: I think I love you! I feel very vulnerable admitting that. You say you love me too but I don’t know whether to believe you. My heart’s been broken before and I’m scared to trust you.

I’ve just ended a very damaging relationship, you see. He was a bully and he stole my heart – kept it locked up for 11 years. It felt like the longest winter. But I finally got the courage to lop off the dead wood and the promise of a second springtime is really tempting. I’m ready to bloom again.

But before I can commit to you long term, I need you to be honest with me. I need you to tell me what you really believe…what you really think…how you really feel about me and life and the world. Can you do that?

And please don’t use your lines on me…they were appealing in the beginning but I’m already growing tired of them. I don’t want a revolutionary or a mandarin. I need a man who’s not afraid to think with his heart; who speaks freely and turns his words into action.

I want a brave, compassionate, empathetic man who’s strong enough to stand up for what’s right and carry me against the tide when I falter under the weight of others’ expectations. I need a man who tolerates difference and treats me as his equal. Can you be that man?

Will you promise to keep the channels of communication open and listen to me when I talk? Will you comfort me when I cry and laugh at my jokes? Will you admit your mistakes, take responsibility for your decisions and apologise when you’re wrong?

And will you help me to become a better woman? I know I’ve got faults – I need to be more tolerant and take better care of my garden for a start. You tell me I’m charismatic, beautiful and cultured and that's really flattering but I can also be complicated and I’ll probably be a burden at times too. Are you willing to embrace me warts and all? Will you go the long haul in this relationship?

I’ve taken a leap of faith and exposed my heart to you. I’m begging you not to stomp on it or discard it. And I’m pleading with you not to lie and cheat your way through this relationship.

Finally, a word of warning: I’ve rediscovered how brave I am and I won’t hesitate to throw you out if you don’t pull your weight in this partnership.

Yours (for at least the next three years)

Australia

PS Can you please lose that Kevin 07 t-shirt. It's a shade of overkill
   [read more]

Canberra
24/11/07

Dear John,

There’s only one way to say this: you’re dropped.

You’ve humiliated me; degraded me; disrespected me; denied me my rights; depleted my resources. I've had enough!

You promised to protect me and nurture me and make me comfortable in my own skin. Instead, you exposed me to threats, abandoned me when I was low and made me embarrassed to be in the world.

You never listened to me. I stood up to your bullying at work and I protested against your decision to annexe our neighbour’s garden and make enemies of people who meant no harm to us. But you are like one of those abusive men who believe no sometimes means yes.

And your biggest failing is your refusal to say sorry when you’re wrong. I can’t have a relationship with a man who won’t acknowledge his mistakes and apologise from the heart.

Speaking of heart…I’ve come to realise yours isn’t big enough to love those who are different from you and if there’s one thing that really turns me off, it’s a racist.

You didn’t like people visiting from overseas but I loved having international house guests. I spoke to you in many languages but you just replied with a forked tongue. Donald Bradman is your hero. Bernie Banton is mine. It was never going to work out. I don’t know what I was thinking.

When I look back, you never really did it for me. But in the past year, you actually started to repulse me. I guess I stayed with you for 11 years because you seemed strong and kept telling me I could trust you. I wanted to feel safe and secure. But I’ve finally woken up to your tricks and your unfaithfulness and I’m standing on my own two feet at last…brave enough to dump you.

I wish I could say I’ll miss you. Maybe if you’d made an effort to change and paid more attention to me. But I’ve already moved on and now I just can’t wait for you to move out.

Australia

(Acknowledgement: This satirical post was inspired by a letter carried on the Clarence Environment Centre website)    [read more]

I’m betting Rupert Murdoch had money invested in a Kevin Rudd victory. The new PM is a headline writer’s dream.

Watching the election coverage at a party full of journalists in Sydney on Sunday night, the 'punny' headlines were coming thick and fast under the influence of vast quantities of champagne.

And, it’s with amusement I note that the (hopefully) soberer sub-editors on the nation’s newspapers have already employed some of our suggestions.

From the list of slightly drunken party-goers’ contributions:

“It’s a Rudd-Slide”; “Ruddy Hell, We Won!”; “It’s a Kev-olution”; “The Libs are Rudd-erless”; “The Kev-inator”.

How about we start a repository of ‘punny’ headlines here to ease the burden of the inevitable corniness on our comrades at the subs desks? Come on, have a go!    [read more]

So, where were you the night of Howard’s ignominious end?

I celebrated the end of his era at a party in Sydney’s west in a way the former PM would have characterised as ‘un-Australian’. It was a night that summed up my national identity and gave me hope for my country’s heart.

Thrown by an SBS journalist, the party played host to the multicultural network’s multilingual broadcasters, who cheered Howard’s demise in five languages, while we ate the food of myriad nationalities who now call Australia home. “You’ve come to a party at the home of an Italian woman – did you really think you’d go hungry?” quipped the host, as she unveiled a plate of donated empinadas which she placed between veal scaloppini and dolmades.

The demise of the architect of the military incursion into Aboriginal communities euphemistically termed the ‘Northern Territory Intervention’, Mal Brough, brought chanting from party-goers crowded around TV's. The news Howard looked likely to lose his own blue ribbon seat to a fellow broadcaster (former ABC journalist, Maxine McKew) brought the house down! The Prime Minister's seat of Bennelong has become more multicultural since its boundaries were re-drawn and the electorate was home, this election, to an organised revolt led by the Indian community in the wake of the Dr Haneef scandal. There was payback in this result for perceived Howard Government racism.

In this colourful lounge room, where social demarcations writ large under Howard – sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity – had no place, strangers laughed, embraced and cheered together. Tears of relief and joy were also shed. This was a night where hope for a national future which tolerates difference, celebrates diversity and embraces alternative experiences was reborn.

This was not just a vote about change for the sake of change. Voters were saying they were fed up with the fear, fed up with the intolerance, fed up with the lies and deceptions that fuelled racist, divisive events like the Cronulla Riots.

It’s time for a new beginning. It’s time to reclaim Australian culture and national identity for all Australians. It’s time to demand real change…in every tongue spoken in this drought stricken land where the rain has finally started to fall.    [read more]

Voters will not just be casting their ballots as a judgement on economic management today; they should also be judging the Howard Government’s performance on social justice – that is, if they vote with their hearts and their consciences and not just with their hip pockets.

Tampa, Children Overboard, Rao, Solon, Haneef, Tran, the Iraq War…these familiar names and events are the consequences of Howard Government intolerance and injustice which should affect the Australian conscience enough to influence the election outcome. But these issues have barely rated a mention in the Opposition’s campaign, or in media coverage of the election. Where is the heart in this race?

It’s the absence of heart in Howard’s Australia that frightens me more than terrorism, more than rising interest rates, and much more than the prospect of a Labor front bench with several members who were once union officials!

This used to be a country that confidently defined itself through identification with equity, fairness and multiculturalism. Now our identity is characterised by greed and bland, monocultural representations of a faded, inglorious past. To refer back to my first j-scribe post: we all suffer from Howard's socio-cultural 'retro-form'. We suffer because the ostracism of minority groups further entrenches feelings of isolation and resentment within the communities affected. And, we suffer because we are collectively diminished by our tacit acceptance of new, narrow definitions of what it means to be Australian – definitions that make us more insular and culturally bland. We suffer because our government divides us rather than unites us.

I hope Australians listen to their hearts, not just their hip pockets in the polling booth today - for the sake of our collective soul.    [read more]

I’m not big on cultural icons and nationalistic hero-worship, but I count one man as a genuine Aussie hero: Bernie Banton who today settled a landmark compensation case with just days to live.

Here is a man who lies dying in a hospital bed from a terminal lung disease he contracted at the hands of his negligent former employer who, even as he strained to catch his last breaths, continued to fight for justice and workers rights. And it is not in death that Bernie will be remembered, but in life.

Bernie Banton has stuggled for years with an asbestos related lung disease caused by his exposure to the deadly dust when he worked at a James Hardie insulation plant in the 60’s and 70’s. But Bernie is a natural born fighter – not just for survival, but for justice. After a long battle for compensation for his original diagnosis, he led the campaign against the recalcitrant company which embarked on offshore assets shifting and myriad other ploys to avoid its obligations to thousands of asbestos victims. That battle was finally won last year when James Hardie was forced to agree to pay billions of dollars in compensation to future victims of the asbestos it knowingly exposed them to.

But the long road to victory took a big toll on Bernie Banton’s health. Earlier this year he was diagnosed with a terminal form of Mesothelioma, a disease known to be caused exclusively by exposure to asbestos. He had watched his brother and countless friends die long, agonising deaths after receiving the same diagnosis. However, he refused to just lie down and die quietly. Just three weeks ago, he entered the Federal Election campaign after being thwarted by the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, to whom he was trying to present a petition for the registration of a drug believed to assist sufferers of asbestosis. Abbott attacked Bernie as a trade union stooge but was later forced to apologise. As his defenders indicated at the time, Bernie Banton is the human face of the need for trade union membership and presence in the Australian workplace. It wasn’t the government or corporate Australia who came to the rescue of dying workers, but one of their own backed by the union.

Then, in an effort to pave the way for other victims, Bernie Banton filed a civil action against James Hardie for his secondary diagnosis, including punitive damages. Despicably, after it was revealed that Bernie had only a few days to live, the company tried to drag out proceedings, which are required to be concluded within a claimant's lifetime. Then, when that ploy was thwarted by the Dust Diseases Tribunal, they continued to fight the case, challenging his very diagnosis. Bernie gave evidence in the case from his hospital bed earlier this week and it looked like the corporation would literally fight him to the death.

But this afternoon, as his wife, his tireless co-campaigner, Karen Banton, and former ACTU chief, now Labor Party candidate, Greg Combet waited to give evidence, settlement negotiations began between the parties. The deal was quickly sealed and although the terms are confidential, Karen Banton told a press conference held in the aftermath that it was an acceptable settlement. Fighting back tears, she, Bernie Banton’s lawyer, Tanya Segelov and Mr Combet fronted the media together to explain that this was not about money but justice.

The settlement is Bernie’s dying gift to other victims – it is an important precedent for them which should make it easier to claim secondary and exemplary damages. No, it won’t cure their disease, but it will recognise their pain, secure their families’ futures and serve as a warning to other recalcitrant employers. That’s an extraordinary gift from an amazing man who has led an exemplary life.

You’re an inspiration Bernie and your star will never die.    [read more]

The Howard Government has played the Race Card in the last desperate days of the federal election campaign as predicted – but this time, it’s backfired spectacularly.

When 16 Indonesian asylum seekers were stranded in a sinking boat off Australia this week I held my breath – here we go, I thought, they’ll try another Tampa. But the Howard Government hardly bit. Now we know why – at Liberal Party headquarters, where they’ve been trying to bail their way out of their own sinking ship, the strategists were working overtime in preparation for a race scandal about to hit the government.

The growing storm surrounding a racist, deceitful letter box drop in Western Sydney by senior Liberal Party officials - including the husbands of both the outgoing MP Jackie Kelly and her pre-selected replacement - will not be quieted by the Howard ‘quickstep’ two days out from polling day as he discovered this afternoon following his National Press Club address.

The scandal revolves around the distribution of a leaflet to householders in the seat of Lindsay being vacated by Ms Kelly, the frivolous Liberal MP whose praises John Howard has sung through four terms in office. The leaflet was a despicable piece of racist propaganda designed to capitalise on Islamophobia. It purported to be the work of a non-existent Muslim organisation called the ‘Islamic Australia Federation’ and urged Muslim voters to support Labor at the poll because “we gratefully acknowledge Labors (sic) support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings”. The leaflet also carried the picture of controversial Sydney Sheik al-Hilaly and claims Labor supports the construction of a (bogus) mosque in the electorate. This is the stuff of Neo Nazi/National Action style propaganda campaigns. And what’s extraordinary is that it wasn’t perpetrated by conspiracy theorists but senior ranking officials within the Prime Minister’s own state party apparatus.

The guilty parties exposed to date include Jackie Kelly’s husband, Gary Clark, the husband of her pre-selected replacement, Greg Chijoff and the biggest scalp to date –Jeff Egan, a senior member of the NSW Liberal Party executive who’s been accused of masterminding the plan. The three have been dumped from the Liberal Party and while John Howard is refusing to apologise to voters about the scandal (typical response from a man who can’t say sorry) he’s condemned the act in the most strident terms, telling the Press Club audience in exasperated tones : "What more can I do? I've condemned it, I've dissociated myself from it, I think it is stupid, it's offensive, it's wrong, it's untrue, I mean for heaven's sake get a sense of proportion.'' That was like a red rag to a bull – the Press Gallery journalists, finally jack of Howard’s racist two-step, kept firing question after question even as they were heckled by Liberal Party supporters in the audience.

The reporters were righteously angry. Howard used his speech to declare his belief in traditional Australian values and hammered the validity of Australia’s involvement in Iraq while mentioning terrorism several times and congratulating himself on his achievements vis a vis sending the military into Aboriginal communities and winding back ‘political correctness’. He may have openly distanced himself from the scandal in Lindsay but here he was blowing the dog whistle again - in between claims of fiscal responsibility.

To make matters worse, earlier in the day, Jackie Kelly told the ABC it was all just a big joke – a drunken ‘Chaser-style prank’ gone awry. She insisted the episode was really rather funny and there was nothing ill-intentioned about the ‘prank’. Legitimate Muslim groups failed to see the funny side. Family members of the victims of the Bali bombings were appalled. John Howard wasn’t laughing either. And, for their part, the Chaser responded on Radio National with Julian Morrow saying that while he didn’t enjoy the gag he thought Jackie Kelly may like to audition for the Chaser now that her political career is officially dead-in-the-water.

What is funny, though, is that it was a Liberal Party insider who, disgusted with the plan, tipped off Labor about the letter-box-drop and Labor Party workers caught the guilty ones on camera, leaflets in hand, before delivering the story to the Prime Minister’s favourite newspaper, the popular tabloid, The Daily Telegraph.

More pertinently, Jeff Egan has retained a defamation lawyer and issued the following statement: “"I have been falsely accused of distributing unauthorised material. I categorically deny distributing any unauthorised material. I intend to clear my name.'' Now, he’s not denying his involvement in the fiasco, his point is that the material WAS authorised by the Liberal Party despite the Prime Minister’s assertions to the contrary.

And, the Liberal Party has form on this. As reported by the The World Today (TWT) minutes before the PM took to the podium. Ken Higgs, worked on Jackie Kelly’s election campaign in 2001 and he claims he was instructed to distribute fake ‘how to vote cards’ by Liberal Party officials at polling booths in the tight electorate. The cards, he says were designed to trick supporters of a resident’s action group campaigning for the retention of the Australian Defence Industries (ADI)site into voting for Jackie Kelly. According to Mr Higgs, Liberal booth workers were also instructed to change out of their ‘Vote Liberal’ t-shirts and into ‘Save ADI’ t-shirts while distributing the fake how to vote cards which told ADI supporters to ‘vote 1’ Jackie Kelly. Mr Higgs claims the plan to distribute the false cards was cooked up at a meeting he attended where a member of the NSW Liberal Party Executive and members of Ms Kelly’s campaign team were also present. Asked why he was going public at this point about the issue, Mr Higgs told TWT “I thought it was over but I see today that they’re still up to their same manipulative little tricks…it’s just wrong; totally over the top!”

At the very least, the pamphlets constitute another breach of the Commonwealth Electoral Act and the matter has been referred to the Australian Federal Police by the Australian Electoral Commission for further investigation.

Meanwhile, John Howard told the Press Club inquisitors he was satisfied with a statement from one of the exposed pamphleteers that the Liberal Party candidate in Lyndsay, Karen Chijoff, was not aware of the plan and therefore would not be disendorsed. And, to think he disendorsed Pauline Hanson in 1996 for uttering anti-Aboriginal sentiments he later adopted as policy? Ironically, given the Prime Minister's anti-feminist stance on women in the workforce and his 1950's world view of marriage, he chastised reporters for suggesting Ms Chijoff should be judged by her husband's behaviour because to do so would be to undermine her independence. Mr Howard also failed to specifically respond to questions about just who knew what and when at Liberal Party headquarters.

Lies. Deception. Broken non-core promises. Racist propaganda. Who do you trust?    [read more]

Illegal Facebook ads designed to win Liberal Party votes have been pulled and other political advertisements on the popular social networking site have now been properly authorised in the wake of j-scribe reports about the breaches.

The ads – which the Commonwealth Electoral Act requires to carry the name and address of the authorising person/s – could constitute a federal offence. This is a fact acknowledged by Phil Diak, spokesman for the Australian Electoral Commission, who told the Sydney Morning Herald "There is a penalty of 10 penalty units and, if a paid electoral advertisement on the internet is not authorised then that would appear to be something that is not in accord with the Commonwealth Electoral Act."

The Liberal Party seems to have adopted one of J-Scribe’s foreshadowed defences: the “We didn’t pay for the ads” defence. Liberal party spokesman Jim Bonner told the SMH the ads were unofficial and paid for by someone else. However, the Party may still be in breach if it is found to have authorised, permitted or caused the ads to be placed. Nevertheless, the pro-Howard Government ads have now disappeared altogether from Facebook.

The Greens, on the other hand, have taken appropriate action and re-written their Facebook ads to include proper authorisation.

The AEC says it will only take action over the breaches if a written complaint it received: mine is winging its way to the Commissioner as I type and I will await the investigation with interest.

Meantime, further questions need to be asked about political advertising on the Internet. I believe it’s time the AEC extended the blackout affecting the broadcast media, which takes effect the Wednesday night before polling day, to the Internet. Today, online editions of news publications are being bombarded with high rotation political ads which would thoroughly breach the Electoral Act if they appeared on TV or Radio. The Internet is just as influential as these traditional electronic mediums. Why is it still exempt form this law?    [read more]

The Liberal Party has been caught out apparently breaching Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) rules on political advertising.

Facebook – the Web 2.0 social networking phenomenon (see earlier posts) – is the latest battleground for voters’ hearts and minds and it’s also the site of a political advertisement for the Liberal Party which appears to be in breach of the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

According to the AEC, “Section 328 (1) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (CEA) requires all electoral advertisements to include the name and address of the person who authorised the advertisement”. But the ad you see below, which appeared when I navigated to the homepage of one of my Facebook friends this evening, provides no such attribution – just the carriage of the word ‘sponsored’. Given its obvious pro-Howard government spin and appreciating the laws of political advertising, this ad piqued my interest. When I clicked on the image I was redirected to the homepage of the Liberal Party of Australia (http://www.liberal.org.au/). Mystery solved. This is a Liberal Party advertisement, sans mandatory acknowledgement of authorisation. Twenty minutes later when I randomly visited another FB friend’s page the ad appeared again – it's presumably on high rotation.

The ‘Seinfeldian’ bent of the ad and its subtlety were no doubt designed to appeal almost subliminally to the youth market – the demographic where the Coalition is fighting its biggest losing battle. But it is clearly still a political advertisement and there is no loophole for social networking sites in the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

Perhaps the Liberal Party will deny they placed the advertisement – maybe some well intentioned Facebook-savvy sponsor linked the ad to the Liberal Party website without informing the boss? I strongly doubt it. Perhaps the Coalition is hoping Facebook users aren’t politically savvy enough to notice such breaches? Big mistake – I have Canberra Press Gallery journalists and a host of other reporters in my FB network…the media cottoned on to the power of social networking sites long before the politicians did. And, it’s a stupid politician who underestimates the intelligence of young voters. Perhaps the Liberal Party will argue that the fact the link, if clicked on (not that there's any invitation to click on the image), identifies the government’s handiwork. Spurious argument: do TV advertisements rely on viewers investigating the source of advertisements? No. The Act is explicit – it REQUIRES ALL such advertising to carry details of the person/s authorising the plug.

In fact, the Howard Government actually ensured the Internet was captured by the Act by legislating in July 2005 for its specific inclusion. At the time, the Special Minister of State, Eric Abetz told the technology news website, Zdnet Australia, "the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has adopted a policy of recommending to all political parties and the public who contemplate electoral advertising on the Internet that electoral matter conforms with the provisions of the Electoral Act.” Ironically, it was a website exposing Howard government 'lies', which failed to acknowledge political affiliations, that was the trigger for the legislative action clarifying the powers of the Act in relation to the Internet. It would appear the boot is now on the other foot.

Complaints about political advertising make up the bulk of matters referred to the AEC during an election campaign and the Liberal Party is probably counting on the fact that a written complaint is required to trigger an investigation. Four days out from an election, perhaps they’re willing to take their chances. But my next move after signing off here will be to write to the AEC. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The Greens are also running political advertisements without official attribution on Facebook but the ads witnessed tonight are at least clearly identifiable as promotional material for the their party.

FURTHER UPDATE: Crikey is now running this story (read it here)and two Facebook groups have been started to mobilise against the abuse of political advertising on FB. They are "“Libs and Greens are Running Illegal Facebook Ads” and “Don't Put Liberal Party Ads on My Profile” – they have about 160 members between them so far. There have been no sitings of any unauthorised political advertisements since the story was run nationally this afternoon (20/11).    [read more]

I live in a quirky little village called Bungendore on the outskirts of the National Capital and at times I feel like I’ve been transported onto the set of one of those bucolic BBC comedy/dramas.

The arrival of a genuine French chef in this little town has set the scene nicely. Christophe Gregoire and his lovely Australian-Italian wife called - wait for it – Josephine, have fled Canberra’s fine dining district and settled in ‘Bungers’ (as we locals like to refer to the town). Their new venture, ‘Le Tres Bon’, is indeed ‘very good’. It’s also a source of enormous amusement for villagers like me seeking a spicier country life.

‘Chef Christophe’ (yes, ladies, he does have a French accent and he is a little dishy ;) was France’s 1986 apprentice chef of the year and whatever you do, don’t call him a cook! He produces the most delectable classics. One of my favourites is a melt-in-your-mouth venison casserole with porcini mushrooms in a sauce laced with dark chocolate. The aromas are like foreplay – they arrest your senses and leave you desperate for a taste. And the good news is, you won’t be disappointed by the flavour! Then there are the desserts…I’m very partial to the passionfruit crème brulee. It’s the stuff of culinary fantasies - toothsome caramelized crust, velvety smooth on inside, just the right balance between sweetness and sharpness. Tongue-tingling yumminess!!!

Christophe was inspired to make food his profession by his grandmother - a traditional cook from Lorraine who did everything the long, hard way. He and his partner are members of the Slow Food Movement – the worldwide collective pushing for a return to traditional methods of growing and preparing food with dividends in flavour and nutritional value. This passion manifests in Christophe’s cuisine and the way he and his partner talk about food. I had a wonderful discussion with Josephine recently about films that celebrate food as the stuff of life…we talked wistfully about Babette’s Feast and Like Water for Chocolate during the first of their new cooking school classes, while Christophe mesmerized his students with his recipes for Quiche Provencal and Tarte au Fraises. (Strawberry tart for those of you without Alexander Downer's mastery of the French language).

This class was a great experience, I refined my tart-baking technique while commentating on the process and quaffing French champagne – I was like a pig in mud! When it was time to cook, Chef Christophe donned his enormous white hat, with ceremony, and I shocked him by asking "Is it true - the bigger the hat, the better the chef?" But I was serious – I read that somewhere – French chefs have a hat hierarchy!

When we'd finished baking, we ate together as a class and Christophe took the floor. He's been trying to grow his own vegetables but the possums, cockatoos and other wildlife are frustrating his efforts: "Zey joost mow my vegies down!" And his attempt to use eggs hand-collected from his chickens have also been thwarted – by a 2m long King Brown snake (Australia's deadliest and a local nasty we have to contend with) which took up residence in his chook shed. He described killing it like this: "Zis snek was sooo big and eet ad my schicken in eez belly and I joost tuk my shuvel and swung like zis and zat and zis (he was gesticulating wildly) and cut im in 'alf but ee was still moving…I only killed 'alf of eem ".

The fun continued this week when I went to a French wine appreciation class hosted at Le Tres Bon. I really didn’t need a class to learn to appreciate the fruits of the appellations but I learnt a lot of interesting stuff about French agrarian politics and got to sample close to a dozen spectacular examples, drinking my way from the Loire to Bergerac, accompanied by Christophe’s fine food - which came out in dish after dish as fresh wine was poured. And Christophe wasn’t the only Frenchman in the room…it turns out there’s another French resident of Bungendore – a scientist called Xavier who’s almost as passionate about food and wine as Christophe. Xavier had me in stitches as he ranted about an article in one of the local newspapers (yes, we have two rags in a town of 5000!) which he believed to be an assault on French culture equivalent to English occupation. The offending article contained a recipe from another local ‘chef’ “ee is not a chef…ee is joost a cook!!!”. But the real travesty was the recipe itself, according to Xavier. Purporting to be for crème brulee, the method required only that whipped cream be baked in the oven before being topped with sugar and grilled. Apparently this is actually a recipe for mortification. Xavier’s voice became shrill, he shook his head, pointed his finger and let out exasperated French-accented yelps. All I could do was laugh despite the fact he was righteously angry – a brulee is an egg-based dish that in no way resembles the ‘dessert’ featured in the article. Look out for the Letter to the Editor in the Bungendore Mirror he’s threatening to pen – it will likely leave you with a taste for authentic brulee!

But Bungendore’s French connections don’t end there. One of the reasons I moved here from inner Canberra eight years ago was the allure of a little French Bistro which previously occupied the site of Le Tres Bon. Run by a woman known to her customers only as ‘Madame’ and her husband. 'Madame' informed us she was once a "famous Parisienne ‘airdresser" and she had the certificate on the wall to prove it. Her husband was equally engaging. One night she flitted about the restaurant (which back then sported the requisite red and white checked tablecloths and wine-bottle candles) wearing her ubiquitous hairnet, exclaiming “it’s a busy service and my ‘usband ‘as only one arm!!”. My partner and I looked at each other in disbelief: “Did she say her husband has only one arm?” I asked him. Moments later, Madame’s husband emerged from the kitchen with my partner’s Steak au Poivre in pan – and sure enough, he was missing an arm! Yes, here was a one-armed chef about to flambé a steak. He pulled it off with panache and I wondered whether this could be a new Paralympic sport – ‘one-armed chefing’.

So, don’t let anyone tell you Australian country towns lack amusement and sophistication – Bungendore alone has enough laughs and culture to keep me engaged for decades to come!    [read more]

Regulars to this blog will already be aware of two things: 1) I’m a hopeless romantic and 2) I’m a big fan of ABC TV’s ‘The Chaser's War on Everything’ – the satire that plugs the gaps in enterprising journalism.

But this week I had a conflict of interest. The Chaser’s endlessly talented Andrew Hansen – renowned for his witty musical skits – had the temerity to lampoon Julie Andrews! I know! And not just in any old role…as Maria Von Trapp in the Sound of Music!! And not just in any scene…in one of my favourite scenes!!! Yes, I’m a tragic SOM fan…seen the movie umpteen times, recently sat in the second row of the Palladium performance in London, own the DVD…even went on an SOM tour in Salzburg way before it was popular to be a daggy fan of 60’s musicals.

So, back to the scene in question. Surely you know it: “These are a few of my favourite things – when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad…I simply remember my favourite things and then I don’t feel sooooo bad” Julie/Maria sings to the Von Trapp children as they crowd onto her four poster bed to seek comfort in the middle of a thunderstorm. It’s a thing of celluloid beauty, that scene…a memory of childhood innocence. Stop it, I’m serious! Which is why I was so appalled by that Hansen bloke I almost couldn’t laugh at his skit.

Dressed as Julie/Maria, he impersonated her vocals (rather well, I have to say) and inverted the lyrics – it was like listening to back-masking…twisted, perverted man. Then he danced around the set strangling the kids one by one before fantasizing about his favourite thing…exploding Julie/Maria on the top of that green Austrian hill just as she’s about to launch into “The hills are alive…” Sacrilege!

Don’t you get it, Andrew? Against her will, rebellious novice Julie/Maria is turfed out of the convent to care for the emotionally neglected Von Trapp children, but discovers it’s their father – the damaged, withdrawn Captain Von Trapp – not God, she wants to marry. She awakens the children’s sense of fun, wins their love and then wins the heart of the Captain who’s impervious shell she’s unintentionally cracked – what’s not to love!?!?! Oh, and how could I forget? There are Nazis! Everyone loves to hate a Nazi…even when they sing. Then there's the escape from the Nazis over the Alps in the dead of night! Romance, high drama, Austrian hills, happy songs, a fight against injustice - this film's got it all!

So, I say hands off Julie Andrews ‘Chasers’ or I may just have to move you down my list of favourite things.    [read more]