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Democracy Sausage – A Rare Treat

democracy-sausage-elections — Parliament House in Canberra, image Simon Yeo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/smjb/9223049760/

When you go to vote tomorrow, be thankful we live in a democracy where we have freedom (up to a point) to choose who leads us.

Think about the 52 nations which are not a democracy. They are run either by a dictator or an autocratic regime. Within the borders of these countries, the general population has no say at all. In almost all those nations there is no free and independent press. Troublesome journalists are murdered or, more commonly, jailed. The 2021 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shows that journalism is completely or partly blocked in 73% of the 180 countries ranked by the organisation. RSF keeps a running tally of journalists killed since January this year: (26 journalists and two media workers) and 461 journalists and 18 media workers who are in prison for doing their job.

Safe to say these scribes were just trying to get the word out from one of the 52 nations that don’t have a democracy. They include China, North Korea, Myanmar, Afghanistan, many Middle East Kingdoms and a host of African countries. The 2021 survey by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit says that only 6.6% of the world’s population lives in one of 21 “full democracies”.

Australia operates under the Westminster system of democracy, that is, we’re not a monarchy, but the British monarchy plays a role. Just how much of a role was demonstrated in 1975 when the Governor-General John Kerr sacked the sitting Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam.

Every Australian citizen aged 18 and over (with the exception of prisoners serving over 3 years and those of ‘unsound mind’) gets a vote (voting is compulsory in this democracy), and a rigid system of checks and balances aims to stamp out cheating.

The electoral roll closed last month, so these figures are current: 17.793 million eligible voters (96.8%) will go to the polls. If you were wondering, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) estimates there are 564,240 Australian who are eligible to vote but are not on the roll.

Think about that for a moment.

The main advantage of compulsory voting is it allows certainty about the voter turnout and ensures there’s enough of everything to go around. It also means the Democracy Sausage* providers can estimate stock with minimum wastage.

Our election results are muddied by a confusing system of preferential voting. Rather than the first past the post system preferred by the US, UK, New Zealand, Canada and others, voters must number their choices by preference. If you don’t, or otherwise muck up the ballot paper, your vote will not be counted.

This farcical system forces rabid voters of the right and left to apportion part of their vote to a party they wouldn’t point the garden hose at if it were on fire. So rather than choosing the party/politician of your choice, voters must number other candidates in order of preference. When votes are counted, the distribution of preferences can be crucial in a tight contest.

The preferential voting system was introduced in the 1920s by Billy Hughes during the formation of the Country Party. Hughes saw it as a means of avoiding the two conservative parties splitting the vote (to the benefit of Labor).

This example collated by the ABC demonstrates how the preferential system can deliver unexpected outcomes:

“The Corangamite by-election on December 14, 1918 was the first Federal poll conducted under the new system. Previously, voting had been on a first past the post basis.

In a field of five, Labor led on primary votes. Future Labor Prime Minister James Scullin polled 42.5% of the vote. But a tight exchange of preferences between four competing conservative candidates saw Scullin’s vote rise to only 43.7% after preferences. The Victorian Farmers Union candidate came from 26.4% on primaries to win with 56.3% after preferences.”

(Ed and Scribe disagree on this point. Under the ‘first past the post’ system, a person can be elected even though the majority of voters didn’t vote for them Eg say there are five candidates in an electorate. Candidate A gets the most ‘first past the post’ votes with 37% Candidate B gets 35%, C, D and E the remainder. So ‘A’ wins, even though 63% of voters didn’t want that candidate and nearly as many preferred ‘B’. Under the preferential system, the winning candidate will be the one who gains the most first preference votes, combined with the second preferences of the unsuccessful candidates, meaning most people end up with their first or second preference as their representative. If this is clear as mud, you weren’t paying attention in Citizenship Education classes…)

If that seems wrong to you, that is the system we have inherited.

Consider the vote counts for the 2019 election. On a two-party preferred basis (after preferences are distributed), the Liberal National Coalition (LNP) received 7.34 million votes, a 51.33% majority against Labor’s 6.90 million votes (48.7%). It’s not often emphasised, but Australia’s Green party took just over 10% of the popular vote in 2019, amassing some 1.47 million votes. While the Greens still have only one Federal member, the party has nine seats in the Senate.

Australia’s best-known election analyst, Antony Green, said this about preferential voting, apropos the 2019 surprise result (polls had consistently said the LNP would lose):

“For all the talk of preferences deciding elections, in the end who wins depends more on whether Labor or the Coalition have the higher primary vote,” Green said.

“In the last two decades, Labor’s first preference support has trended down largely because of the growth in Green (party) support.”

Earlier this year Mr Green published a graph which illustrates the influence of preferences on election results.

The other factor which sways election results in this geographically vast and relatively under-populated land is electoral boundaries.

Our electorate, Maranoa, is impossibly large – almost 730,000 square kilometres – encompassing 17 Local Government Areas. The electorate is so large we have seen little of the Labor candidate, given that he lives in Barcaldine, about 1,000 kms North-West. The result is academic, apparently, with the seat being held by conservatives since 1943. Federal MP David Littleproud looks set for another term in Parliament, despite having to wrangle an electorate three times the size of Victoria.

Contrary to popular myth, political parties don’t redraw electoral boundaries. This task is carried out by the Australian Electoral Commission to maintain the concept of ‘one vote, one value’. Boundaries are frequently re-drawn in physically large states (Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland) as their populations shift and grow. On a Federal level, the same thing is done to ensure each State and Territory has seats in the House of Representatives in proportion to their population.

The one issue that has had little or no coverage in the election campaign is the apparent desire on both sides of politics for Australia to become a Republic.

Yes, I know we had a referendum in 1999 and the motion was defeated, but successive polls have shown political support for Australia to become a Republic (but not in Queen Elizabeth II’s lifetime).

I’m not suggesting that Bill Shorten’s stance on this topic contributed to his defeat in 2019, but he was on record as saying he would have held a plebiscite if elected in 2019. While Labor and the Greens support Republicanism, there is also support within conservative parties. We should not forget that the 1999 referendum was driven by one Malcolm Turnbull, who 16 years later served one term as Australia’s (Liberal) Prime Minister.

While your imagination is reeling at the thought of President Albanese, President Morrison or President Wong, you could donate a couple of dollars for your Democracy Sausage on the way out of the polling booth.

I’m not sure what happens in other democracies, but down here local community groups like Lions, Rotary, school P&Cs and such run barbeques at polling booths and offer voters a sausage on a bun or a piece of (white) bread.

I’d make two observations about this: 1/ the aim is to donate money to a good cause; 2/ you don’t have to eat it.

But it’s an Aussie tradition, eh, like two-up on Anzac Day and wrapping yourself in a flag on Australia Day. Who am I to put a dampener on that?

#bobforpresident

FOMM back pages

Climate Crisis on Election Back-burner

climate-crisis-election — Coal-fired power station in Germany – Catazul www.pixabay.com

My reading of election coverage (such as it is), is that both major parties have shuffled the climate crisis to the back burner. It must be crowded back there, with homeless people and refugees trying to stay warm.

What has been widely ridiculed as the ‘shouty’ debate (on Channel Nine) said nothing meaningful about the most important issue of all – the climate crisis. Such has been the pre-occupation with the election here, we haven’t seen much coverage of Canada’s wet, cold spring, India and Pakistan’s lethal heatwaves, or debate about whether our wet autumn is driven by climate change or something else.

People who deny climate change theory often dismiss it with ‘there’s always been climate change’. Well, yes, but it’s been accelerating since 1950 and in 2022 we have the technology to make material changes.

Andrew Wallace, Federal member for Fisher and Speaker of the House, recently told a public meeting in Montville he was not convinced that climate change was caused by emissions from human industry.

Sunshine Coast resident Gillian Pechey, who was at the meeting, wrote to the Glasshouse News after hearing this statement.

“I asked him (Wallace) whether he had worries about the predicted ocean level rise, loss of the sandy beaches which tourists flock to holiday on. He smiled! His position is predicted to lead to global temperature rise of 3-4 degrees. Parts of Queensland will become unliveable unless you’re wealthy enough to live and work in a solid air-conditioned building.

“It is frustrating to see the lead political party turning its back on climate science which predicts that over this century we will continue to have destructive bushfires, floods, eroded beaches and gradual loss of the Great Barrier Reef.”

FOMM’s observation is that Andrew Wallace, elected in 2019 with a 62.7% two-party preferred vote, is obviously going to stick to the LNP’s position on subsidising fossil fuel at the expense of investment in renewable energy. He persists with this line even when campaigning in the Green-friendly towns of the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Whatever politicians are saying (or not saying) about the climate crisis, there is evidence that the general population has been trying to self-educate. The ABC found a researcher who uncovered a 5,000% increase in the volume of climate questions on Google since 2019.

The data has been ‘normalised’, meaning interest has increased relative to that of other topics. The use of ‘big data’ to reach conclusions is called ‘culturomics’.

For the past 18 months, social researcher Rebecca Huntley has been conducting focus groups to understand climate change concerns among Australians.

Dr Huntley said the Google search data broadly aligns with the focus group results. Various other polls concur – the climate crisis is a hot-button issue. The ABC’s Vote Compass shows an overwhelming number of Australians want more action to reduce carbon emissions.

“The basic theory as to why this is happening now rather than, say, three years ago, is stuff builds up,” Dr Huntley said.

She told the ABC the 2019/20 Black Summer fires were not enough on their own to “shift the dial” on climate concern. But they were followed by two other major climate crisis events.

Australia was criticised for inaction on climate change at the November 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Australia did present a net zero emissions plan, but it lacked detail and critics pointed this out.

The third event which may have tipped some Australians over the climate fence was the 2022 floods in Queensland and New South Wales. There’s no evidence yet to blame that individual weather event on climate change. But it was consistent with predictions of the type of epic natural disaster we can expect under global warming scenarios.

The ABC delved into the Google research to find that the top ‘searchers’ came from very small towns, which suggests the data may not be that reliable. A reporter asked Lawrence Springborg, Mayor of Goondiwindi Shire and president of the Queensland Liberal National Party, what he thought.

He suggested people were searching “because they don’t believe” climate change and wanted ammunition to disprove the science when the topic came up in conversation.

“I have absolutely no idea why they’re searching,” he added.

One of the common searches on Google is ‘when did climate change start’.

The latest research now suggests that atmospheric warming began in the early to mid-1800s, rather than the mid-20^th century. Until 1950, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had never been above 300 parts per million. Now the readings are over 400 ppm and rapidly increasing.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report says the current warming trend is unequivocally the result of human activity since the mid-20^th century.

“It is undeniable that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land and that widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.”

The Sydney Morning Herald said the Resolve Political Monitor found young voters (18-34) ranked climate change as the second-most important issue in this year’s election. Not surprisingly, the number one issue for young voters was keeping the cost of living low.

Meanwhile, the LNP is sticking to its target of reducing emissions by at least 26% by 2030. Labor’s target is 43% although climate experts warn Australia must cut emissions 75% by 2030. Both major parties want to keep on exporting coal, despite the US Environmental Protection Agency stating that the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Professor Stephen Bartos was recently commissioned by Farmers for Climate Action to prepare a report on the impact of climate change on food supply. Farmers for Climate action is part of the National Farmers Federation (which has 7,000 members).

Writing in The Conversation, Prof Bartos, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, explained his methodology. He reviewed research in this area, interviewed more than a dozen farmers, farmer representative bodies, and other participants in the food supply chain. Among the issues identified were the impact of drought, diseases and stress on livestock, the loss of food due to hotter weather, and shorter shelf lives.

“An unexpected finding was the degree to which everyone involved in the supply chain is affected by uncertainty caused by climate change. It is making future weather highly unpredictable, making planning harder for both farms and in transport networks.”

Climate change has made a further impact on lending and insurance, where unpredictability means higher costs for financial products. Some farmers reported that they were unable to insure due to climate risks. All these costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher food prices.

This concurs with the Climate Council’s findings that one in 25 Australian properties would be ‘uninsurable’ by 2030. The Climate Council says this is directly due to the rising risk of extreme weather and the impact of climate change.

The Climate Council created at interactive map so households, businesses and farmers can assess the likely risk. Queensland is looking vulnerable.

Finally, though this report is five months old and I’ve mentioned it before, it should be remembered that Australia ranked last in a survey of 60 countries on climate change policy. The Climate Change Performance Index, published annually since 2005, gave Australia a zero for its policy response to the climate crisis, citing ‘a lack of ambition and action’.

As we post this, the Condamine River has risen so much overnight authorities are about to close the bridge into town. The Cunningham Highway to Brisbane is closed and the road to Toowoomba must surely be compromised.

Climate crisis? What climate crisis.

Homeless people sleeping in their cars

homeless-sleeping-cars — Image: Lucas Favre, www.unsplash.com

Today’s headline about homeless people could well be an urban myth; that is, a story people tell each other, swearing that it’s true. The housing crisis in Australia – a combination of unaffordable housing and scarce rental properties – is forcing people to live in their cars. I’ve done a bit of fact checking on this, but hang around while I relate this story from Tasmania.

We’d stopped at Scottsdale, a high country town in Tasmania’s north-east. We’d chosen the town’s free camp, which provided toilets and showers (the latter powered by three one-dollar coins). We were settling in for the evening when it became obvious that the older woman next to us was preparing to spend the night alone in her small Japanese car. The overnight forecast was a minimum of 7 degrees. She’d hung towels in the side windows and fixed a screen over the windshield. She seemed to be withdrawn, so we respected her unspoken need for privacy. But as far as I could tell (being next door and all), she went to bed as soon as it got dark. I decided my penance for not engaging in conversation was to make her a coffee in the morning. But when I arose (at 7.30am), she had gone.

It’s not illegal to sleep in your car in Tasmania – I looked it up. In theory if you are homeless, you could free camp your way around Tassie and nobody would hassle you. Some free camps allow you to stay for up to a month. But it does get cold from April to November, and rough campers would have to travel to town to find a public shower.

In Queensland, it’s illegal to sleep in your car unless you are parked in somebody’s driveway (with their permission). In which case you’d probably be inside, on the couch with the dog. There are similarly tough rules in the Northern Territory.

As blogger Tim Beau Bennett discovered, many local governments have specific by-laws vetoing this practice, so it would pay to check.

The biggest problem with assessing the level of homelessness in Australia is that the most reliable data (the Census) only comes out every five years. It could well be Spring before we see the first results of the 2021 Census. We therefore rely on data that is six years out of date (116,471 in 2016). But what’s been going on in the interim?

Recent reports show that up to 44,000 women of all ages are vulnerable to homelessness, with domestic violence being a key risk. Homelessness Australia (the National peak body for homelessness in Australia) released an analysis of housing data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that showed that 1,600 women over 50 sought help from homelessness services in 2016. These women were either ‘couch surfing’ – that is, staying temporarily with friends or family members, or sleeping in their cars. The numbers had increased 75% and 81% respectively between 2012 and 2016.

Homelessness Australia launched a campaign in March this year calling for $7.6 billion to be allocated to long-term housing for women over the next four years.

The research identified a shortfall of 16,810 homes, the building of which would provide economic benefits of $15.3 billion and create 47,000 jobs across the economy.

The 2019-2020 research report Nowhere to Go, prepared by Equity Economics, showed that 9,120 women are becoming homeless every year. Women who had experienced family and domestic violence were the biggest client group seeking assistance. In 2019-20, 119,200 clients, or 41% of all such clients, sought assistance while experiencing domestic and family violence. More than half (55.8%) required accommodation. Alarmingly, the data also revealed that 7,690 women go back to abusive relationships, out of necessity.

It is perhaps illuminating to discover that Homelessness Australia was funded by the Federal Government until December 2014. Since then, it has been staffed by volunteers and has no paid staff.

As we mark the eighth birthday of Friday on My Mind, those of you who have hung in for a long time would know I often write about this topic. Australia has had a steadily increasing homelessness problem since 2011. The elevation of housing from a place to live and grow a family to a wealth-generating asset is the key issue.

An Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) investigation from November last year found that up to two million renters aged 15 or over are at risk of homelessness. AHURI’s brief to researchers was to identify those at risk of homelessness in smaller regional centres.

The resulting paper shows just how close so many people are to becoming homeless, primarily because of rental increases and ever-tightening rental vacancies.

All it would take is one life crisis – a relationship breakup, a serious illness or losing work due to economic circumstances, the authors concluded. Many people found out at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic how circumstances can quickly change.

The survey was commissioned by AHURI from researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, University of Tasmania and Launch Housing. The task was to estimate rates of people at risk of homelessness for small areas (with a population ranging from 3,000 to 25,000).

Those interviewed were considered at-risk of homelessness if residing in rental housing and experiencing at least two of the following:

low-income;

vulnerability to discrimination;

low social resources and supports;

needing support to access or maintain a living situation;

a tight housing market.

The AHURI study is an important one at this fragile stage of the electoral cycle. It bridges the gap between what we officially know about the homeless and the ‘hidden homeless’ – those who are couch surfing, sleeping in their cars, house-sitting or doing the slow lap of Australia.

Even if you have a job, the next challenge is to find a rental property. This week our local paper, The Daily Journal, carried a report that the Southern Downs region has the lowest rental vacancy rate in Queensland (0.1%). The figure, a 10-year low, comes from a Real Estate Institute of Queensland survey of 50 local government areas.

While rentals in the Southern Downs are cheap compared to metropolitan cities (advertised weekly rentals start at $210 for a one-bedroom unit, to a three bedroom house in Warwick ($600). I am assured on at least an anecdotal level that the scenario is being replicated all over Australia.

The Federal Government’s main response to this shameful crisis was the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA). The scheme started on July 1, 2018 and provides around $1.6 billion each year to States and Territories.

The NHHA included $129 million a year for homelessness services. States and Territories must match the sum applied for when claiming this money.

The NHHA identifies ‘priority cohorts’, which is public service jargon for people most in need of a roof over their heads. (Dehumanising language is but one of the many issues when considering homelessness. They are not ‘cohorts’ – they are people. Harumph. Ed)

women and children affected by family and domestic violence,
children and young people,
Indigenous Australians,
people experiencing repeated homelessness,
people exiting from care or institutions into homelessness and
older people.

Yes, it’s a depressing topic, but better solutions and attitudes could be developed, starting by not demonising those who either can’t find work or can’t work. Then we need to stop stigmatising those who for whatever reason have nowhere else to go.

In Nomadland, Francis McDormand’s character Fern is asked: “My Mum says you’re homeless. Is that true? Fern: “No, I’m not homeless. I’m just houseless. Not the same thing, right?”

I’ll leave you with a ‘three chords and the truth’ country song, Somebody’s Daughter by Tenille Townes.

Impressions of Tasmania Part 2

impressions-tasmania-two — A lucky sunset shot coming in to Port of Melbourne

If you have a yen to go to Tasmania, here’s three key pieces of advice. Go in spring or autumn, take clothing and footwear for all seasons and, most importantly, allow more time than we had (18 days).

I’m taking up the travelogue as we arrived for three days in Hobart (having arranged to drop our car into the dealers to troubleshoot a faulty sensor). We checked in to the Hobart showgrounds, a spacious complex close to the city.

After luckily finding a good ‘local’ breakfast cafe in the city, we set off on a day tour of Hobart. The double-decker bus found its way into some tight spots (a lookout at Battery Point). Our driver informed us that Battery Point has the country’s most expensive real estate (per square metre). We spent an hour at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, a compact but very beautiful oasis with a Japanese garden (and an ice cream van we didn’t manage to find). We went to the Cascades and heard all about an early settler, Peter Degraves, who had a plan to use the crystal clear water from the Cascade springs to build a brewery.

He formed this plan while doing time in Hobart gaol for fraud. On his release in the early 1830s he set about building the Cascade Brewery, which is still operating, producing beers and non-alcoholic beverages. It is not only a working brewery but a tourist attraction.

In the afternoon we headed off on a catamaran which took us to one of Hobart’s modern curiosities, MONA (Museum of new and old art). The catamaran ride was splendid, sailing at speed under the Tasman Bridge, catching sight of Australia’s $529 million icebreaker, Nuyina, which is based in Hobart. (Ed: The boat ride was nice – MONA was pretentious, IMHO)

Saturday was a day of highlights. First a day trip through the beautiful Huon Valley to Geeveston where friends introduced us to a gourmet café, The Old Bank, which serves local game dishes. Go there! In the late afternoon we set off to Rosny, which is a nearby suburb of Hobart where songwriter Fred Smith was performing that night. Fred recruited a local band to present his latest concert about Afghanistan, which includes the evacuation of 4000+ people with Australian visas from Kabul Airport. It’s a harrowing audio-visual presentation with images, videos and Fred’s narration, coupled with his insightful songs about Afghanistan and Afghans.

On Sunday we set off for Port Arthur. Like all road journeys in Tasmania, the distances are short but the roads require more careful, slower driving than we are used to on the mainland. I’d not been to Port Arthur before, but the ruins of the convict colony are evocative and the guides are knowledgeable. This is one place where you could spend an extra day, as the ticket to the historic site is also good for the following day. There’s such a lot to take in.

On balance, our colonial forebears treated convicts as brutally as they slaughtered the indigenous people of Tasmania. The cat of nine tails, which was traditionally steeped in sea water so crusts would form on the knots, was a particularly barbarous instrument of punishment. It was not uncommon for convicts to receive 100 lashes. Some of them died as a result. It’s not hard to conjure up the atmosphere when this place was home to 2,000 people, including 1,200 criminals we’d call recidivists (re-offenders) today.

From Port Arthur we drove up the fabled East Coast with its scenic wonders and wildlife. On advice from a friend we stopped at Eaglehawk Neck, a narrow isthmus containing another convict relic. An officer’s garrison was built at Eaglehawk Neck to capture convicts trying to escape Port Arthur. The Dogline at the narrowest part of the neck is where a line of ferocious dogs patrolled to prevent convicts escaping. We also took in a couple of spectacular blow-holes which are common on the Tasman coast.

Mayfield Beach Conservation Area, east coast Tasmania

We were aiming for Swansea but accidentaily ended up at a lovely free camp at Mayfield Beach. The Mayfield Beach Conservation Area was quite popular but we managed to manoeuvre our van into a site under some trees. It was right next to the road but after 7pm there was so little traffic it was not an issue. The park is maintained by park rangers but is in fact a scenic reserve. There are loads of places like this around Tassie and the best part is that, unlike a lot of Queensland free camps, you can stay for 2, 3 or even 4 weeks. (The Mayfield Beach camp sign says in small letters that merely moving to a different site after 30 days is not permitted).

Next day we did tourist stops at Kate’s Berry Farm, a popular place for people who appreciate good coffee and blackberry jam. Then we went to a strange place called Spiky Bridge. It is part of the infrastructure built by convicts with the aim of thwarting overland escape from Port Arthur.

Later we took the steep walk to the lookout at Wineglass Bay, admiring the young couple who took a two-year-old girl and a baby in a backpack to the top and back again. Those kids will grow up loving the wilderness and never know why. The mother took our photo up there, while we were trying hard to look as if we had got our breath back, given the so-so cardio fitness of a pair of 73-year-olds. Friends who have done this walk in the past tell us it used to be a rock scramble to the top. No fancy lookout and safety barriers then.

A Tasmanian devil, posing ever so nicely

We stopped the night at Bicheno at a caravan park because the Coles Bay national park camp site was full. The bonus was we could spend a good few hours at Natureworld, with its well-stocked aviaries, local fauna and a disease-free colony of Tasmanian Devils. We got there in time to watch these ugly critters fighting over a kangaroo tail. Been there, got the T-shirt. (Ed: they were a bit cute – like a Staffie!).

We ended up staying in a caravan park again at St Helen’s when, if we’d thought about it, we could have travelled into the Bay of Fires and stayed at one of the many free camps on the beach. Ah well. We had a jolly fine day trip including a walk along the beach from Walsh’s Lagoon. You can walk the whole 11km from Binalong Point to Eddistone Point along the the Bay of Fires. The walk is mainly along the beach but the trek implies a bit of organisation in a group with a car at either end. Bay of Fires is distinguished from other beaches by its orange granite rocks (the colour is caused by lichen. There are also ancient middens along this trail, evidence of indigenous settlement. We reached the northerly terminating road (The Gardens) near sunset which is the right time to be there although there was a bite to the wind.

We got chatting to a guy with a vintage Chev truck built on a Holden chassis with a V8 engine. He was on his way to a hot rod rally at Ulverstone near Devonport. The things people spend money on, eh!

Next day we set off on a hilly winding road to Scottsdale, stopping along the way at the Pyengana Cheese factory (recommended) where we had freshly made scones with home-made butter and cream. We bought our rellies some cheese to go with their Huon pine cheese board.

From there we drove on to one of Tasmania’s famous short walks – St Columba Falls. It is a short, east walk apart from a bit of downhill to the lookout. Because Tassie’s been in a drought the tallest falls in the State were not roaring like they usually do. but spectacular none the less.

The 15 minute walk goes through myrtle and sassafras groves with an under story of ferns, moss and fungi. Later on the drive we stopped at Weldsborough to check out an ancient myrtle grove with the ubiquitous understory of moss, fungi and ferns, Very dark and prehistoric.

impressions-of-tasmania-two — Old growth forest in north-east Tasmania

Not everything in Tasmania looks like that. Earlier in the day I tried (and failed) to take a ‘Tasmanian Mullet’ photo – where the lower slopes of a steep hill had been clear felled for pasture, leaving forest remnants clinging to the top, like a monk’s tonsure.

The hilly drive to Scottsdale, east of Launceston, goes through the town of Derby which has become famous among mountain bike enthusiasts. There are several bike shops there which hire bikes and take riders in tour buses to the many organised trails through the hills.

We stayed at a free camp in Scottsdale, Northeast Park, which is named after George Northeast who first established a community pool and reserve there in the 1930s. The project was taken up again in the 1980s by the local Lions group who did a lot of work establishing picnic facilities and tracks for walkers and cyclists.

On our way to Devonport we stopped in at Sheffield, known as the town of murals, to catch up with friends. Saturday morning we queued to board the Spirit of Tasmania for a day voyage. The thoughtful people at Devonport provide a toilet for people sitting in their cars waiting to board. Four stars! And five stars to Bass Strait which turned on one of its swell-less days for a smooth voyage. We arrived in Melbourne at 8.30pm and then navigated our way through the suburbs to a caravan park in Coburg. (Ed: night driving on a Melbourne freeway not recommended when towing a van). t was the weekend of the Grand Prix so the van park was full and it took a while to sort out where we were supposed to park. But by 9.30 were set up – exhausted and ready for bed.

The journey home was Melbourne to Albury, then to Cowra which has a Japanese prisoner of war cemetery and a Japanese garden. On to Dunedoo where we ran into friends who were on their way to the National Folk Festival. Somewhere along the road I got a call from well-known folk singer Bob Fagan to say that my song, ‘When Whitlam took his turn at the wheel’, was this year’s recipient of the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice award. It was presented at the National Folk Festival’s closing concert (in my absence). My songwriter friend Ross Clark who accepted the award on my behalf, has since been sending me photos of the award (like a garden gnome) posed in various locations as he travelled back to Brisbane.

I’ll leave you with this image, from Cowra Showgrounds, with a flotilla of road rigs (ours on the left) lined up ready for a 5am getaway. These are just a few of the 800,000 registered recreational vehicles on Australian roads. As the ABC reported this week, those on the road include families seeking lifestyle changes and ditching the school system after lengthy pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Many are on the road permanently, both for reasons of lifestyle and necessity (more on that next week).

So that’s our land and sea return journey to Tasmania, some 6,500 kilometres in 30 days. Now you know why we needed to shout ourselves a night at Armidale’s Moore Park Inn and dinner at Archie’s restaurant on the last night. Hang the expense.
(all photos by Bob & Laurel Wilson)

PS: Last Saturday I got a call from an 03 number. I ignored it, as you do, but the number left a voice mail. It was a friendly young woman from TT-Line Company, better known as the Spirit of Tasmania. Had I lost anything on my recent holiday, Sally asked? ‘Ah, yeh, I still haven’t found my teblet’, I said, realising that when I’m anxious I revert to Kiwi. After a few key questions (make, size, colour), Sally asked for my pass code. It must be a different one to the one I use at home because it wouldn’t open. Not to be thwarted, Sally asked me if I had another email address (I do). I deduced she’d spotted my Gmail address when she tried to turn it on. I’m expecting it back any day now.

Goodwills Trio at the Bug May 24

goodwills-trio-the-bug — Laurel and Bob Wilson with Helen Rowe

We’re making a rare trip down from the mountains to perform at the Brisbane Unplugged Gigs weekly event at New Farm Bowls Club on May 24. We’ll be performing as a trio with Helen Rowe on fiddle and vocal harmonies. We are the first of the booked acts, performing at 8.15pm, followed by The Argonauts.

This popular weekly event always kicks off at 7.30pm with musicians who put their names on the blackboard, so you just never know who will be there.

We’ll take a run through some of our better-known material and a few songs written in the two years since we moved to Warwick. As you may have heard, Bob’s song ‘When Whitlam Took His Turn at the Wheel’ is this year’s winner of the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice award.

This means you will get to hear it live and, depending on the election result, sing along with the chorus (or not). Bob notes with some satisfaction that his most recent royalty cheque indicates that our original songs are still being played on the radio, somewhere.

New Farm Bowls Club is at 969 Brunswick Street opposite New Farm Park. Admission is $10, the venue is licensed and there is a raffle.

Impressions of Tasmania Part 1

impressions-tasmania-travel — Trying to get our breath back at the Wineglass Bay lookout, eastern Tasmania.

As promised, the new few weeks will recap our month-long sojourn from Warwick to Melbourne then Tasmania and the return trip. Enjoy the respite from the hostilities of the election campaign. This is a special edition (longer than usual – a 5-minute read).

Before the memory of our lovely trip fades, we thought it would be good to jot down some of the highlights.

Not that we’re superstitious or anything, but we left it until the day after the Ides of March to set off on our month-long trip to Tasmania and back.

The first night was spent at one of our more familiar camping spots – the Goondiwindi Showgrounds. It’s only about two hours from Warwick, but we didn’t want to do a long drive on the first day. In fact, most of our drives were less than 350km in a day, and even less than that in Tasmania, where the roads are often quite winding and hilly.

When caravanning, our preferred stop-overs are generally Showgrounds campsites, as they are less formal than standard Caravan Parks as well as being quite a bit cheaper (around $20-$25 for a powered site). The nights were often quite chilly, so it was good to be able to plug in our little fan heater. We do brave the occasional ‘free camp’, but they are usually fairly primitive, with toilets only and no showers. Next stop Narrabri and another Showgrounds campsite. We stopped off at the Visitors’ Information Centre, usually a ‘must do’ when travelling to a new place. There was a video running there showing some of the local Aboriginal people with interesting tales to tell. We also knew of a good ‘birding spot’, birding being one of our interests when on the road.

The townspeople had developed a large artificial lagoon and wetlands in the 90s and the area now attracts a variety of birds – the more common (to us, anyway) Wood Ducks and Corellas, but also large Spoonbills and Herons ‘fishing’ in the shallows.

We drove to Coonabarabran the next day but didn’t go out to the Warrumbungles National Park this time as we had a fairly long drive to do (long for us, anyway – over 360km). We normally drive no faster than 95kmph when towing and often somewhat slower, as many of the roads have been cut up by floodwaters. We keep an eye out for what is following us – this is made easy by having a camera on the back of the van which sends a signal to a screen in the car. If we start developing a ‘tail’, we pull over when it’s safe to do so. I’m a bit surprised that so few vehicles acknowledged this bit of grey nomad courtesy with a toot of the horn, but perhaps I’m just old-fashioned.

Sometimes we come across quite an impressive ‘free camp’ – the one at Wyalong being an example. There was plenty of room as well as some interesting displays such as a reproduction miners’ hut. We stopped there for a lunch break on our way to Narrandera. This area is in the ‘Bland’ shire (named after an early European settler, rather than a description of the surroundings). Someone there has a sense of humour, as they have combined with the town of ‘Dull’ (a village in Scotland) and ‘Boring’, which is in Oregon, to form the ‘League of Extraordinary Communities’) Their slogan was ‘Bland- far from Dull and Boring’.

The next day we drove through Ned Kelly’s old stamping ground – Jerilderie, where he committed a rather famous/infamous bank robbery. The bank in question is now a B&B with a rather impressive rose garden in front. We obtained a map of the town which pointed out many of the buildings/areas relevant to Ned’s exploits.

Then on to a rather unusual ‘free camp’, in that we parked the caravan in the yard of an old friend in the town of Kyabram – North West of Melbourne. Penny and Randall were very hospitable hosts who gave us dinner and then Randall treated us to Bach’s cello concerto, played on guitar by memory – a rather extraordinary feat, we thought.

Then on to Coburg, a suburb of Melbourne which has the closest Caravan Park to the Tasmanian Ferry Terminal. This is the only ‘full on’ caravan park we stayed at. It’s termed a ‘holiday park’, which means Kiddies’ playgrounds, swimming pool, etc. and vans parked rather close together. It did have a laundry, though, which we made good use of, after several days on the road.

Our Ferry ride to Tasmania wasn’t until the next evening, so we had a whole day in Melbourne to do some sight-seeing. We were rather thrilled to have a celebrity tour guide. Margret RoadKnight took us first to the Van Gogh installation. This had been to Brisbane, but we didn’t see it there, so it was a treat to experience it in Melbourne. Several of his paintings were projected video style along the walls of the exhibition space, interspersed with information about his life. Van Gogh sold very few of his works during his lifetime, but he said he was sure that one day his paintings would be worth more than the cost of the canvas and the paints he put on them. Very prophetic of him.

Next stop was ‘The Vault’ where there is an exhibition of major Australian performers. Margret had donated her first guitar to the exhibition and I spotted a festival poster where she featured. (Ed: There’s also Missy Higgins’ first songbook from her days at Geelong High).Then on to the National Gallery where we saw an exhibition of bark and pole paintings from Arnhem Land. Of course, one could spend hours at the Gallery, but time was limited, so we continued to a spot that for some time has been my ambition to visit, but not for entertainment. Our Federal Government, to its everlasting shame, has been incarcerating several asylum seekers who were sent to Australia for medical treatment. Instead, they were locked up in a shoddy hotel for years, with no access to fresh air or outdoor exercise. We stood there for some time as a small gesture of solidarity. (Just prior to the announcement of the next Federal election, the remaining detainees were released – not out of compassion, but most likely because some ‘focus group’ has told the current regime that incarcerating innocent people was not popular).

We were using public transport, so Margret walked us through Carlton, where we caught the bus back to her place, after having the ritual coffee in an Italian cafe.

After a long delay boarding the Spirit of Tasmania, we set sail about 11pm. We had a cabin, so after a sentimental rum and coke for me (the drink to drink when sailing), we headed off to our cabin for the night. The passage was quite rough, but not too uncomfortable, as we were lying down and could look out the porthole if we wanted to.

Next morning saw us in Devonport. We took a slow drive to Stanley, stopping at Ulverstone for breakfast and at the little town of Penguin, where Bob posed for the obvious photo alongside the giant penguin statue. Stanley’s main feature is ‘The Nut’, a large flat-topped rock – remnant of some ancient volcanic activity. There is a walking track to the top, but we were satisfied with walking half-way up the very steep track, stopping several times for photographs (or to catch our breath – probably the latter). There is a chair lift to the top too, but it was not operating on the day because of the strong wind gusts. I suspect I may not have partaken of it at any rate.

From Stanley, we drove to the small West Tasmanian town of Waratah. Its claim to fame is a waterfall right in the middle of town. In the past, it had been harnessed to provide hydro-electric power for the nearby tin mine, but this was no longer operative. I happened to see a notice on the wall of the Post Office advertising a singing session on Thursdays. So that was serendipitous, as we arrived on the very day. The group was very welcoming and we enjoyed a two hour singing session with them.

The other useful thing about Waratah is that it is a relatively quick drive to our next destination – Cradle Mountain National Park. There is a caravan park just outside the National Park itself. The cost of staying there reflects its proximity to a world class National Park, rather than the quality of its amenities. There had been quite heavy rain for a couple of days before we arrived (fortunately to a lovely sunny day) and there was quite a bit of construction happening in the caravan park, so the access roads left something to be desired. The van site was very tight, but fortunately a helpful fellow guided us into the spot.

We were in Tasmania to do some walks, so walk we did – around the circumference of Dove Lake. This is classified as a grade 3 walk, so quite do-able for the average person, but I wouldn’t say it was a walk in the park (Ed: bahaha). Actually we were pretty fatigued by the time we got to the end and hopped or staggered back on to the bus to take us back to the campsite. Groans on getting aboard the bus were fairly common, so I didn’t feel too conspicuous.

From there, it was on quite a scenic route to Strahan, a fishing port on the West Coast of Tasmania. It is also a major tourist attraction, as it is from there that tourists can catch the boat trip up the Gordon River. It was another beautiful late summer/early autumn day with barely any wind and a very smooth sail on the large passenger boat. Definitely a ‘must do’ if you’re touring Tasmania. The cruise included a passage through the narrow ‘Hell’s Gates’ – named either for the difficulty of the passage in a sailboat and/or the feelings of the convicts transported to the notorious Sarah Island penal settlement. On the way to Sarah Island, we passed several Salmon and Trout ‘farms’ anchored in the harbour. The ecological wisdom of these has been disputed, particularly by famous author Richard Flanagan whose title for his work about the salmon farms is ‘Toxic’. Sarah island has some very good interpretive signs indicating the original buildings that are now in quite deteriorated condition. The cruise included a stroll through remnant rainforest – trees of such ancient lineage that their ancestors grew before birds were part of earth’s ecology. A silent forest.

The road from Strahan to Queenstown is rather challenging when towing a caravan as it has steep uphill sections and frequent blind corners. It’s a good advertisement for diesel all-wheel drive vehicles, though, as the Hyundai Santa Fe was very sure-footed on the road, which apart from the steepness and the blind corners, was somewhat slippery from recent showers.

Queenstown is no less dreary than it was last time I was there, some fifteen years ago. Closed shops and pubs everywhere, no doubt the result of a dearth of tourists over the past two years when Tasmania was cut off from the mainland owing to the unfortunately necessary Covid protocols. Hopefully things will look up now that tourists are again welcome. (Ed: not that this counts as election comment, but the first thing we saw in Queenstown was one of those union billboards depicting Scott Morrison: “Mate, it’s not my job’).

Once we got to Lake St Clair caravan park, we were rather dismayed to see the narrow site which had to be negotiated around a bend while avoiding several large trees. Watching people park their vans is usually good entertainment for those who are already set up. Our general method for the trickier sites is for Bob to drive while I stand outside the car and direct him left/right/ back/ forth, in my usual dulcet tones. (Ed: bahaha – haha)

The two hour walk at Lake St Clair was well worthwhile and not quite as challenging as the Dove Lake walk. Fewer tourists too, which made bird-watching more feasible. Birdlife was plentiful, but not co-operative with the amateur photographer, so no photographic proof. I did get a photo of the Tiger Snake which was lying curled up near the walking track. Tassie’s Tiger Snakes are black with pinkish bellies, similar to the mainland Red-Bellied Black Snakes, but the former are reputedly much more aggressive and toxic, so we were glad this one appeared to be pretty sleepy!

As we only had a month for this trip to Tassie and back, there were some time constraints, so we had planned most of the overnight stops in advance in order to minimise the amount of time searching for suitable places to stop. However, we also managed to be a bit flexible, so when we saw that there was a National Park (Mount Field) quite near Hobart, we decided to stay there overnight instead of the stop we had originally planned. I was a bit puzzled how I had overlooked an obvious National Park, but I came to the conclusion that it must have been in the crack of the map. This was one of the few overnight stops where we didn’t have a powered site. However, the van is equipped with a solar panel on the roof and an Andersen plug from the car to the van, so the ‘house battery’ in the van is usually fully charged by the time we stop for the night. We had replaced the old battery before we left as it wasn’t charging properly. The fridge and stove in the van run on gas. Lights, charging points, the fan, radio and the TV can all run on 12 volt and all are pretty efficient, so a few days without 240v is no real hardship, as long as we have plenty of blankets in the winter.

The volunteer caretakers at Mount Field looked rather familiar. Turns out I knew them from Maleny, where the husband volunteered at the Maleny Information Centre when I was there.

Of course the trip was not all beer and skittles, whatever that means (Ed: a life of indulgence). Although we had the car serviced and a warranty issue attended to before we left on the trip, what I refer to as the ‘bloody little orange light’ made its presence felt again on our way to Hobart. This light is a ‘Malfunction Indicator Light’ (MIL) which indicates something amiss with the oxygen sensor – part of the emission control system on the car. And now I’ll stop pretending I know what I’m talking about… We had this problem before, and it ended up being a faulty sensor itself, rather than a major issue with the vehicle. However, it doesn’t do to assume this is the case, so we contacted the Hobart Hyundai dealer, who, to his credit, agreed to look at the car the next day while we were off sight-seeing in Hobart. They concluded it was another of the oxygen sensors that was malfunctioning but sort of indicated that unless the car started acting strangely (e.g. losing power, using excessive fuel, smelling like rotten eggs), it was probably OK to drive. Not terribly comforting, as we had some 2000km still to go. But as Shakespeare said at some stage, ‘All’s well that ends well’ – no further issues with the MIL on the rest of the Tasmania leg or the drive home to Warwick.

To be continued…(all photos by Laurel or Bob)

Postscript from Bob

Thanks to those who commented on my Facebook post about my Whitlam song receiving the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice award.

Bob’s Whitlam song wins Alistair Hulett award

Bob Wilson’s song, When Whitlam took his turn at the wheel, is the 2022 recipient of the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award.

The award was presented at the closing concert at the National Folk Festival in Canberra on Easter Monday. Bob was unable to attend so deputised Ross Clark to accept the award on his behalf. The concert was live streamed to a large audience to raise money for the UNHCR in Ukraine.

We affectionately refer to the song as “Whitlam”, a summary of the many social policies and new laws enacted by Gough Whitlam in the first months of his election on December 2, 1972.

Whitlam introduced free healthcare and free tertiary education, abolished conscription and took the last of our troops out of Vietnam. Whitlam introduced a new Family Law act; no fault divorce and an associated single parent’s pension which made it possible for people to leave bad marriages. He abolished capital punishment, started drafting land rights for indigenous Australians and, as the song says, was the first PM to lavish money on the arts.

Bob wrote the song late last year after realising there is a whole generation in Australia who probably take these social initiatives for granted.

Listen to the song here: https://thegoodwills.bandcamp.com/track/when-whitlam-took-his-turn-at-the-wheel

The Alistair Hulett award is now in its 12^th year. It was started in 2011 after the Scots-born Australian songwriter died in 2010. A fund was established to perpetuate an annual event where songwriters could submit works which fit the theme of social justice. Previous recipients include two other Queenslanders – Paddy McHugh (2015) and Karen Law (2020 in a dead-heat with Newcastle songwriter John Sutton).

whitlam-songwriting-award — We were hiking in Tasmania when we got the news (about to walk around Dove Lake)

The song was recorded at Restless Music studios in Stanthorpe by Roger Ilott. Musicians on the track include Roger (banjo and mandolin) his brother Tony (bass), Laurel Wilson (vocals), Bob Wilson (guitar and vocals) and Mal Webb (brass).

As per the terms of the ‘grant’ which comes with the award, Bob is planning a limited release CD by The Goodwills which will contain “Whitlam” and some of our more recent songs. The award brief is to ‘disseminate the song” so you may well see sponsored Facebook posts and other promotions in the following months.

If you happen to be at Brisbane’s acoustic music venue, The Bug, on May 24 (New Farm Bowls Club), we’ll sing the song for you.

Albo in poll position to win election

albo-poll-election — Image: Australians casting votes, circa 1940s (who were the flowers for?) Wikimedia CC.

Now there’s a headline that could come back to bite me on the bum – election polling being the unreliable artifice it always has been.

Polling is a mainstay of Australian electioneering. Various polls take the social temperature of a broad cross-section of the community. From this, they distil the information into numbers which they hope will predict who will win the election.

Before we get into that, I consulted my preferred pollster, on-line bookmaker Sportsbet. Labor was and still is a clear favourite at $1.55, but this has eased somewhat from $1.35 a month ago. The LNP has tightened from $3.00 to $2.55 with ‘all others’ at 67-1.

Pollsters meanwhile have the Labor Party holding onto a 53/47 lead (it was 57/46 a few weeks ago) over the Liberal National Party (LNP). But polls are notoriously unreliable. In 2019, most polls were predicting a win by then-Labor leader Bill Shorten, even though Scott Morrison was the preferred leader.

As we now know, Shorten lost to Scott Morrison, with analysts falling over each other in hindsight to explain that ‘the people’ didn’t like Bill’s long and complicated list of fiscal policies.

The first week of the election campaign reminded me of those Three Stooges movies where the so-called comics trip each other up and mash cream pies in each other’s faces. First there was the ‘gotcha’ moment when a journalist asked Labor leader Anthony Albanese if he knew the official interest rate. Albanese said he didn’t, then later gave an incorrect answer to a question about the unemployment rate. The Honest John approach then morphed into a press statement that if he (Anthony) made a mistake, he would fess up to it (not berate his minders for not predicting the obvious).

Albo’s not quick on his feet. He could have dismissed the question as trivial and suggest that the reporter do what we’d all do (look it up on our phones). I never thought I’d agree with John Howard about anything but I admire his coming to Albanese’s defence.

Howard was asked by reporters in Perth if he thought Albanese’s incorrect answer to unemployment rates was unsatisfactory.

“Is that a serious question? Okay, well Anthony Albanese didn’t know the unemployment rate. So what?” Howard said.

Howard himself had a similar pre-election bungle over interest rates in 2007, in an on-air interview with A Current Affair.

It’s time we moved on from the “gotcha’ question, where journalists try to put campaigning politicians on the spot by asking them if they know the price of milk or what the inflation rate is. Who could forget John Hewson’s failure in 1993 to work out the GST on a birthday cake (he was at the time promoting GST as a saviour for the economy). The ‘gotcha’ questions, I suspect, are set by editors of my vintage, who revelled in the black humour of Monty Python.

Why else would they want to promote these pointless public gaffes as front-page news. It’s like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the bridge keeper casts people into the abyss if they cannot answer questions.

As he asks Arthur (King of the Britons):

“What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?” (It’s 20.1 miles an hour, apparently).

Arthur thinks about this for a moment and asks: “African or European swallow?”

Bridge keeper: “What? I don’t know that!” (then he is cast into the abyss and Arthur’s convoy proceeds).

Gotcha questions aside, much is made of ‘preferred PM’ polls, the numbers from which will vary depending on whether you read The Guardian and listen to the ABC or read The Australian and watch Sky News.

What is clear about personal polling is that Scott Morrison has blown the 68/32 advantage he had in April 2020 (when he was creating the JobKeeper and JobSeeker schemes and doling out relief payments to all and sundry).

Morrison’s personal popularity has now slipped to 44% or so, but still ahead of Albo at 39%.

The latest two-party preferred polling has Labor slipping from 57% to 53% with the LNP at 47% (up from 43%). Despite Labor slipping in the polls, the party is in front in all six States. Albanese might still be Labor’s best chance of winning government since Kevin Rudd in 2007.

The major problem for both parties is that neither the PM nor the Opposition leader can muster personal support of 50% or more.

This simply means that the voting public are not inspired by either party leader, at least not in the way they responded to Rudd, Hawke, Howard or Whitlam at the peak of their powers.

Bob Hawke’s popularity peaked at 75% in November 1984, Kevin Rudd commanded 74% in March 2009 and John Howard 67% in January 2005. Gough Whitlam, the great reformer, was polling 67% in 1973.

If you don’t trust polling, don’t understand the UAP’s billboards and still have no idea who to vote for, there are several things you can do. The first is to make sure you are on the electoral roll. You need to do it by 8pm on Easter Monday (April 18). To enrol, complete the online form.

If you are confused about who to vote for, the ABC’s Vote Compass will give you a fair idea. I completed mine this morning and was chastened to find that 6/10 was the best I could do for a preferred leader.

My Vote Compass result was identical to 2019 when polling showed Scott Morrison (46%). ahead of Bill Shorten (34%) as preferred Prime Minister. Even though that poll was on the money, polls like these can be decidedly inaccurate.

Paul Keating went into 1992 with a personal approval rating of just 25%, ebbing to 17% just before he won the 1993 election. Other PMs who failed to garner support as preferred leaders (at their lowest point) include Julia Gillard (23%), Tony Abbott (24%) and Malcolm Turnbull (34%). Yet they all prevailed at various points in the political cycle.

I cited the online magazine www.startsat60.com earlier and now remind you of a survey from a 2019 FOMM. The survey asked readers to rank Australian PMs between 1968 and 2018.

John Winston Howard won in a hand-canter with 58.3%; despite saying he’d never say sorry, despite the children overboard mistruths, despite following George Bush Jnr and Tony Blair into an unwinnable and unjustifiable war. Bob Hawke ranked second in the over-60 survey with 17%, just behind Gough Whitlam (15.2%).

The other nine leaders all scored less than 5%. Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd polled equally poorly with 0.6% while with Malcom Fraser and Scott Morrison attracted no votes at all..

This survey is what we would call a ‘straw poll,’ meaning it has no real authority or influence. But it is illuminating to find that this one small segment of the over-60s cohort rated our former leaders so poorly.

We were driving from Melbourne to Warwick this week so will bring you our impressions of Tasmania next week. The election circus can keep rolling on without us, what do you say?

Last week: Wayne Goss lost the Queensland election in 1996, not 1989 (when he broke the Gerrymander and beat Joh Bjelke-Petersen). Thanks to Ted for the alert.

FOMM back pages

Confessions of a Tree Hugger

tree-hugger-confessions — Tall timbers at Heritage Landing, Gordon River, Tasmania.

Our whistle-stop tour of Tasmania (18 days) reminded me much of my teenage years in New Zealand as a fledgling Tree Hugger. Tasmania itself reminds Kiwis of the home country, with its hilly roads, sparse population and evidence of man’s attempts to harness the wilderness. Tassie’s north-west coast in particular looks like the rugged beech forests of the South Island’s west coast.

(Photo: tall timbers at Heritage Point on the Gordon River.)

There are other reminders; the valleys cleared for cattle and sheep farming and small crops, and roads lined with poplars (a species introduced as a wind break), just starting to put on their golden autumn coats.

After just a week in the World Heritage Listed north-west national park, I could see why people keep coming back to the Apple Isle (to see and feel the magic things they missed the first and even second time).

It could all so easily have been lost to industry and development.

The informative day tour on the Gordon River from Strahan reminds us of the 1970s conservation battle to save the Franklin and Gordon Rivers from a proposed dam and hydro scheme. It is extraordinary to contemplate today the mind-set of those who opposed conservationists’ efforts to block the dam and hydro complex. It was not until Bob Hawke’s newly elected government took the Tasmanian Government to the High Court that the dam was stopped.

The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is one of the largest conservation areas in Australia, covering 15,800 square kilometres – about 25% of Tasmania. The cherished north-west attracts serious hikers, bushwalkers, bird watchers, botanists and nature lovers from all over the world. Serious walkers make the 80 kms trek from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair, which takes six or seven days. Hikers carry everything they need on their backs, stopping at national park huts along the way. Recently (2020) a marathon event was started, with runners completing the trail (which is considerably up hill and down dale), in eight hours or so.

Having walked the six kilometre undulating track around Dove Lake, reading about the ‘run’ reinforced my personal goal to cap bush walks at 6kms (up and down) or 10 kms flat. You have to know your limits.

You might think that Tasmanian conservationists, having managed to save a quarter of the island from mining, logging and development, could rest easy. Not for a minute. There has been ongoing activism and opposition to logging and mining in the Tarkine (Takanya) for a decade or more.

The Tarkine in the north-west corner of Tasmania is the largest temperate rainforest in the southern hemisphere. Veteran conservationist Bob Brown is leading the latest challenge to the Tarkine, home to ancient native forest and threatened wildlife species. Brown’s latest campaign centres on a newly discovered valley which contains a grove of 2,000-year-old Huon pines. These particular trees are threatened by the activities of a mining company which has an exploration licence in the Wilson River catchment, where Brown and rafting companions discovered the Huon pines. As an article in National Geographic explains, this is a big deal because Huon pines are now rare in Tasmania after decades of logging by “piners”. Logging was banned in the 1970s, but you can never say never where mining companies are involved. Activists are trying to stop the mining company clearing trees (as part of its exploration licence).

There are a lot of minerals under the ground in Tasmania. The early miners came with pan and shovel for the gold but later the serious money came for iron ore, copper, zinc, lead and tin. There were always tin mines in Tasmania which went in and out of operation as the international price of tin rose or fell. Today tin has become a valuable commodity because of the advent of storage batteries for electric cars and solar farms.

Tasmanian activists are mounting a legal challenge against Venture Mining’s plan to mine iron ore in the Tarkine, Likewise, there is a protest against plans by a majority-owned Chinese mining company, MMG, to build a tailings dam in the Tarkine. Tailings dams are where mine operators store the liquid waste from mining operations. As you may have read over the years, there have been numerous occasions when tailings dams collapsed or started leaking toxic sludge into local rivers.

If you want an insight into the doggedness of the Tasmanian activist, check out Ben’s blog from the Tarkine front line. Ben and his friends are serious about their mission, willing and able to shackle themselves to trees and bulldozers to stop logging before it starts.

Since I started this week’s missive with the word Tree Hugger, I should explain that the word Tree Hugger is a disapproving term used to describe someone who is ‘too concerned about protecting trees, animals and other parts of the natural world from pollution and other threats’. (Britannica dictionary).

My Tree Hugger days started in the 1960s with a track-marking programme in Te Urewera National Park (New Zealand’s North Island). Volunteers helped rangers to cut paths for the growing numbers of tourists who wanted access to the North Island’s biggest stand of old native bush. It covers an area of 2,147 square kilometres and is a refuge for rare birds and native timbers like Kauri, Remu and Totora that once covered the entire country.

As an election looms, politicians of all persuasions should remember the times that governments fell, partly due to so-called Tree Hugger campaigns. The Franklin blockade and Bob Hawke’s promises to stop the dam helped him win government in 1983. Also remember Queensland Premier Wayne Goss’s defeat in 1996 was, in part, attributed to plans to build a highway through a koala habitat.

People who progress from nature lovers to conservationists to activists inevitably don’t notice the conflicts inherent in their actions. Just like developers who never give up on a development approval, no matter how much opposition there is, protesters can become just as bloody-minded.

There was a photo on social media a few years ago of hundreds of kayaks clogging up a harbour. The flotilla was protesting deep-sea petroleum extraction. Someone commented that it should dawn on the protestors that their kayaks were made from petroleum products.

I was dwelling on this sort of irony while pumping $116 worth of diesel into our SUV, one of Australia’s five million registered diesel cars. The other 15 million private vehicles in Australia are fuelled by unleaded petrol (the majority) with a small proportion powered by LPG or electricity. All, apart from electric vehicles, exacerbate the planet’s serious climate change crisis through their emissions.

After a round-Australia tour in 2015 we worked out our carbon footprint and converted it to a sum of money which we donated to a Landcare group. The idea is that the $300 or so be used to re-plant trees and replenish the carbon sink. It’s a noble gesture but probably futile on the scale of land clearing still going on in all states and territories including Tasmania (which has only 11% of its rainforest left). As we always say (when shaking our heads at the latest flood-plain housing development) – “Who the hell approved that?”

She Who is Also a Tree Hugger says it’s a battle between people who give a shit about the environment and people who don’t. She expanded on this to describe that many of the people who don’t subscribe to environmental principles are fundamentalist Christians whose view is that they were put here to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth.

Amen, sister.

Maize and the quest for gluten-free food

maize-gluten-free — Photo of maize mill courtesy Corson Grains.

As you’d know, we have been in the Tasmanian wilderness. Here’s something I prepared earlier (and posted on Thursday night!).

I’d no sooner starting thinking ‘Where do gluten-free products come from?’ when I found the answer right under my nose, a kilometre from home. The Warwick Mill, which incidentally has been trading for almost 150 years, processes maize into maize flour and other products which manufacturers use to meet market demand for gluten free breakfast cereals, breads, snack foods and brewed products.

In case you did not know, the FOMM team largely depends on a gluten free diet for various health reasons (not coeliac disease). We are always encouraged when finding palatable new products that have joined the GF club. I cite as examples GF beer and that staple spread of Australian pantries – Vegemite.

The Warwick Mill was once owned by the Toowoomba-based Defiance Group. The mill was bought in 2003 by New Zealand family company Corson, which also has mills at Gisborne and Tuakau in the north island.

The Warwick-based company, Corson Grains Defiance Maize Products, processes on average 35,000 tonnes of maize a year. The cobs are bought direct from Southern Downs growers and stored in silos for six to eight weeks to dry before milling begins.

The maize kernels are milled into two different types of ‘grits’ from which the mill produces six products including flakes (for cornflakes), maize flour, semolina and super fine polenta flour.

In January, Corson bought the Freedom Foods gritting mill at Darlington Point in south-west New South Wales.

Warwick-based Corson Grains General Manager Australia Shawn Fletcher said the Darlington Point mill would allow the company to expand into different products such as rice, sorghum, buckwheat and quinoa flours.

“This is something a number of our business customers have been asking for,” he said. “We see it as a real opportunity for growth and to get some geographic spread along the eastern coast.”

In 2018, the company started a major on-site storage project, adding six new 1800-tonne silos, manufactured in Allora. This took the storage capacity of the mill from 3000 tonnes to 13,800 tonnes.

If you are one of the estimated 260,000 people in Australia who have coeliac disease or the estimated 1.8 to 3 million who are gluten-sensitive, this is a story you need to read. It’s not that many decades ago when people with coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity had the devil’s job finding food that didn’t have gluten in it.

Now there are many companies manufacturing GF cereals, bread, pasta, biscuits and snack food. They are all supplied with the raw materials from mills like the Warwick operation, which employs 26 people.

We have noticed since we first started taking a caravan around rural Australia, how small towns have recognised the importance of catering for people who are shopping for GF products. On our most recent trip, I found a loaf of GF bread in the freezer of a grocery store in a small New South Wales town.

People who have coeliac disease become unwell after eating foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Over time, the immune reaction to eating gluten creates inflammation that damages the lining of the small intestine. Medical complications can follow, including malabsorption (prevents some nutrients being absorbed by the body). Many people have no symptoms but the classic one is diarrhoea. Other symptoms include bloating, wind, fatigue, low blood count (anaemia) and osteoporosis. Healthline says the mainstay of treatment is a strict gluten-free diet that can help manage symptoms and promote intestinal healing.

A few of our family members in Canada are afflicted with this auto-immune disease. Cousin Glen put up with a mixed bag of symptoms before a naturopath suggested in the mid-1980s he was gluten-intolerant.

“Back then the condition was totally off the radar of conventional medicine. I have never been diagnosed as coeliac and march under the banner of the gluten intolerant.”

Glen’s brother was formally diagnosed with coeliac disease, as was a young relative of She Who Is Also Gluten Sensitive. All agree it was good to identify the cause and the cure (a gluten-free diet). Cousin Glen said the improvement in his overall health once off gluten was “immediate”.

Having said that, it is important to have some tests and get a GP or nutritionist to verify whether you have coeliac disease or are gluten-sensitive. There’s a difference.

Officially it is known as non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), a condition which belongs in a cluster of food allergies including lactose intolerance. The numbers of people who are choosing to go GF has risen steadily over the past five to 10 years – in Australia it is estimated to be between 7% and 12% of the population.

The US National Library of Medicine refers to a survey that showed the market for gluten-free products grew at an annual rate of 28% between 2004 and 2011. Today it is a market worth more than $6 billion in the US alone.

Some of the GF retail drive has come from celebrities and athletes recommending it for weight loss and improved performance.

The proliferation of ‘free from’ products has created a marketing push, with many supermarkets devoting entire aisles to products, be they GF, dairy free or foods that avoid serious allergens like nuts and egg.

Although I’m not a drinker, I was in a bottle shop one time with SWIAGS when I spotted a six-pack of GF beer. As is often case with GF products, it was more expensive than standard beer. But SWIAGS (sometimes known as Ed), said it was quite palatable.

According to VinePair.com (which maintains a list of GF beer brands) gluten-reduced beers are brewed just like regular beer, with malted barley, wheat, rye. The beer is then exposed to an enzyme during primary fermentation, a filtration agent that has little if any effect on beer’s flavour. Or the beer can be made directly from gluten-free cereals.

It’s easy (if you do not suffer from food allergies), to be flippant about so-called lifestyle diets. In Richard Osman’s amusing Thursday Murder Club, he invents a vegan café in a up-scale retirement village called, Anything with a Pulse. Then there was Tom Waits telling David Letterman he’d passed a street protest on the way into the studio. “What was it about?” Letterman asked. “Free the glutens,” said Tom.

Multinational food producer Unilever estimates that 12% of Australians avoid wheat/gluten while 10% of New Zealanders are gluten intolerant.

The latest research on NCGS suggests that a test could soon be developed. Research from Columbia University has found people with gluten sensitivity produce high levels of antibodies to gluten, different from those measured to diagnose coeliac/celiac disease. Although they have symptoms, those with gluten sensitivity do not have the blood markers or intestinal damage of coeliac disease. The antibodies could be used in the future to help doctors more easily detect who has gluten sensitivity.

While that’s happening, I guess people will try the hit and miss system of eliminating certain foods from their diet and then introducing new ones. It’s great to see food retailers responding to this growing ‘trend’ with a line of ‘free from” foods (not just GF-free but lactose free, including ice cream and milk). It can be a bit of over-kill, though, when the label ‘gluten free’ is attached to such products as plain potato chips. Marketers are always looking for a trend to latch on to. (Let’s hope our ‘marketer in chief’ doesn’t find a winning one prior to the next election. Ed.)

Next Week: Confessions of a TreeHugger