Burning issues for @TonyAbbottMHR: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on #DirectAction

CLIMATE change efforts in Australia have become a matter of simple mathematics. With the Coalition’s Direct Action Bill in place just this week, after a deal struck with the Palmer United Party and Senate crossbenchers, Australia is now attempting to reduce its carbon emissions by 5 per cent by 2020. It’s official: we’re trying, and […]

The man who dismissed dismissal: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on #GoughWhitlam

Gough Whitlam got conservatives in Australia on the move in the late 1960s and they have never stopped running. IT took me almost half my lifetime to work out what I owe Gough Whitlam. The second son of a NSW grazier and a nurse from Sydney’s north shore who gave up her career to have kids, I was […]

Secrets of a Hollywood king from Kiama: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on Orry-Kelly

JUST about everyone I knew as a kid went to Kiama for the school holidays. Apart from its famous blow-hole, through which the ocean mysteriously forces a geyser-like spray to the delight of tourists, there is nothing extraordinary about this sleepy town which has all the caravan parks, bait shops and holiday rentals of every town […]

It’s too late for #MarriageEquality in Australia: @burgewords #CreatingWaves

IN April 2013 Guardian Australia journalist Gay Alcorn declared the culture war was over for marriage equality and confidently asserted that after “a year or two” LGBTQI couples would bask in the same connubial rights as straight Australians. She declared the debate “interminably dull” and credited lobby group Australian Marriage Equality’s (AME) latest pitch for support – […]

Voyage to the new news world: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on online media

Margo Kingston asked me to kick-off a new series on No Fibs about the experiences of citizen journalists working with professional journalists in online media. Here is my response. A WEEK after the 2013 federal election I was driving to my casual sub-editing job on a Fairfax weekly newspaper when I let a brilliant photo opportunity go. […]

Call an end to HIV/AIDS weasel words: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on #AIDS2014

THE world has been watching Melbourne this week as the city hosts the 20th International AIDS Conference. Despite initial reports from the event focusing understandably on the delegates killed by the missile attack on their flight over eastern Ukraine, the conference agenda hit the airwaves visibly on this week’s episode of QandA. As a result […]

Thorpie did not have a Sweet Sixteen: @burgewords #CreatingWaves for @IanThorpe

  I WASN’T going to write about Ian Thorpe’s coming out. What more can there be to say about this moment in his life, which has huge ramifications for him but should have none for us? But then I read one article which got me angry, the kind of piece I’d hoped to avoid but which I knew […]

A Murdoch-free household is a galaxy too far: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on #NewsCorp

  NEWS sites are getting harder to access for free of late. Paywalls are up and apparently profitable for News Corp and Fairfax. Crikey had one for years and recently Wendy Harmer’s flagship site The Hoopla shut the gate on free reads with its 34 cent per day subscription. Media-hungry online consumers are faced with a choice about […]

Opera, give it to me straight: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on @Tamar_Iveri

Amid the ongoing flurry about Georgian opera singer Tamar Iveri and the comments she made in the social media about a protest march in Georgia on International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) in May, 2013, there is an assumption the soprano is just one homophobic voice in an accepting international opera industry, an aberration who must be […]

France, a country driven by différence: @burgewords #CreatingWaves

  It’s safe to assume our Treasurer Joe Hockey would not have enjoyed a trip to France with Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier this month. There’s just too many wind turbines across the French landscape. Hockey would have been offended every few kilometres. I should know, I spent hours admiring the French commitment to clean wind-generated […]