Election!

This week has been a busy one. Juggling election saturation with the first week back at uni with work and with SYN has meant it's my studies that miss out.

But, using my consistence, I am able to justify the hell out of that.

For SYN, I've been doing two shows, Below the Line \, which airs from 8:30 am - 10 am on Saturdays, along with Panorama, 4:30-5pm Fridays.

On the Below the Line page you catch pretty much all of last Saturday's show including interviews with Labor's candidate for Melbourne Cath Bowtell and the Greens candidate Adam Bandt.

Also, Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon came to SYN at around midday on Saturday to announced the locations of 10 new Headspace cetres to help young people with their mental health. Before her press conference, I talked to her along with Headspace's CEO Chris Tanti about the announcement.

That's all folks.

I think they listened!

So yesterday I was looking for an election, and that's what I got!

And even more websites have popped up since then.

The ABC, so far, are taking the cake with their Election Pulse site, full of tweets, bets, polls and a countdown.

The Australia's site is okay but just doesn't have the interactivity of the ABC's but I'm sure will improve as the campaign goes on.

The ABC's 24 hour news channel is also set to start up at 7:30pm next Thursday (22nd July), meaning the media's election excitement will be available any hour of the day.


But perhaps the best place to follow the election, straight from the journalists' mouth (in 140 characters) will be twitter, which has already show speedy potential for information dissemination of politics.
This morning, @latikambourke, @annabelcrabb, @samanthamaiden and @lyndalcurtis just to name a few. But if all else fails, the hashtag for the election has pretty much beend decided on: #ausvotes (or #aus2010)

Other fun tags are #mofo (Labor's 'Moving Forward' slogan) #gospeltruth (Tony Abbott's 7:30 report bungle)

More to come, I'm sure :)


Also, SYN's Federal election coverage is sure to begin this Monday on Panorama 430-5pm weekdays, and a special election show Below the Line, possibly on Saturday mornings.

Election time, let's inform the politicians.

We're all ready for a Federal Election. Everyone, that is, except for those who can call it.

With bets over when the election will be called, held and who will win already in full swing.

Not only are the bets in, but most media sites already have a section dubbed 'election 2010' or thereabouts. Now, the election could, theoretically, not be called until April 2011. While this may be extremely unlikely (both as a betting man, and logically), they may all have it wrong. It also would mean that the Labor party lost their chance at another catchy slogan, that of Kevin11.

And it's not only journalists who are ready, wikipedia already has a page dedicated to the yet-to-be-announced election. And, as we all know, if it's on wikipedia it must be the truth.

So my question is, election 2010, where the bloody hell are you?

If we, the Australian public are ready, and pretty much decided. If the media is already gung-ho with their twitter accounts, web pages and ABC's news 24/7 is nigh where is the cherry on top?

Julia Gillard, a PM for all waiters.

Well, it is clear and for all to see. If you work in hospitality, under a Gillard Government wait staff everywhere will be treated equally.

While most of the media reported on the hint of an election within the next week, Ms Gillard has really made it clear that maltreatment of waiters will not be tolerated.

She said in a speech in Adelaide today, "It's wrong to view yourself as better than the person who waits on you in a restaurant".

And if the PM says it, it must be right. (or at least a core or non-core truth)

Nostalgic list/ideas of people I could have been.

As with any middle-class white female, reflections upon my childhood leave me with few things to lament about. No trauma, hard life tales of woe or split up parents. But as a human being, as we all do, I want you and others to empathise with the hardship I have felt from past decisions. Hardship in this case being in the context of a cushy and not-really-so-hard-when-you-look-to-the-third-world kind of way.

So, there's not being allowed to watch TV as a child, meaning piles of pop-culture references from the Simpsons, Seinfeld and whatever else was on TV in the 90s.

Being allowed to quit piano, hockey, acting and dance to cut off my potential of being a musical master-child, goal-defending padded goalie, the next botox-infused Australian maiden of the screen.

I'm sure I had so much potential to be the genius kid that is envied for being so damn good at everything.

But on the flipside I am glad my parents allowed me to make my own decisions about education. As I am pretty sure my decision to go to a co-ed public school ensured a safe passage to where I am today (as opposed to the single sex private school my mum wanted me to go to). Nothing against the latter type of school, but my impressionable 13-year-old self would, I believe, may have made decisions in (hindsight of the possible) that may have resulted in a significantly different person.

There are many parts of life where, unknowingly, we make decisions that effect us in ways we would never have comprehended at that moment. You meet someone, who knows someone who could change, screw up or enhance your life.

Bleedingly obvious? Yes!
But by-god it certainly continues to astound me.

(and I hope it astounds you too!)

Getting my rang-on

It's the season to be a red head, and yes I am (as of 6 hours ago) part of that exclusive club. Exclusive in the sense that it could cost a mere 10 bucks and an hour of your life.

I think my decision was primarily (rationalised by myself at least) due to serving a girl who had excellent hair, and I thought why not. But increasingly I'm thinking it my be in my subconscious, given that some of my journalistic heroes (Leigh Sales, Kerry O'Brien) and the most recent PM are all part of the red-club.

Whatever it is, I wonder about all of those redheaded stereotypes, and whether they apply to me, even though it was a cocktail of toxins and colourants that made me so.

Are blondes dumber?
Are red heads more freckley/nerdy/deserving of nick-names?
Are brunettes... actually what are the stereotypes surrounding brown hair?

Ginger Spice made the rang sexy in the 90s and Christina Hendricks (of Mad Men fame) is bringing it round again in the 10s.

Well, at least I know I will have Julia Gillard's approval!

Can you top that?

Birthday parties for parents are one of the biggest social competitions of your child's upbringing. They are a public showdown to prove how much you really love and care for your little Charlie or Suzie.
Whose fairy bread is fluffier? Whose balloons float for longer? Where is the clown? Whose cake has more sugar?
Well, at least that's what most of the birthday parties I attended between the ages of 6-11.
But I have come to realise since my days of party poppers, things have changed.
I mean, really, picture this:
Your daughter is turning 10. She really likes MasterChef and TV Chefs such as Gordon Ramsay. So what is the logical answer?
Hellenic Republic for lunch, Press Club for dinner on the Saturday and on the Sunday Maha for Lunch and Maze for Dinner. For 20 people each time.

That is a lot of fairy bread.

Once more?
At 13th Birthday?
Your precious pumpkin takes a hot pink stretch limo from home to the up-market restaurant you've booked, where she and a table of 20 kiddies eat lamb spit to their heart's desire.
She is a adorned in a hot pink feather boa. Those feathers make it everywhere around the restaurant.

If parents are spending thousands of dollars on 10th, 13th, 1st birthdays or christenings, how much more will they spend on their kid's 21st or 18th?

Buy a jumbo jet and fly to LA where Miley Cyrus is waiting, hot pants and whiny voice at the ready?

Make her the first 16-year-old girl to fly into space in an aircraft sponsored by Ella Bache?

I understand you love them, but tell me how you're going to tell shnookums where their inheritance has gone, just in time for them to actually need something, like a house?

Show your children some self-restraint and say 'no' once every now and again.


It feels good to get that out.