Greens to preselect candidate for Richmond

 

I see from ABC North Coast that Mullumbimby  based comedian Mandy Nolan has announced she will be running for preselection as the Greens' candidate for the federal seat of Richmond. The map shows the current boundaries of the seat.

My eye was caught by the announcement in part because I had just written a refection piece triggered by two recent deaths, Reflections on the passage of time - deaths of Mungo MacCallum and Doug Anthony.  Journalist Mungo MacCallum moved to Ocean Shores in the electorate, while Doug Anthony was the former member for Richmond. 

The last part of the introductory course I have been running on the history of the broader New England includes an analysis of the demographic and cultural changes that took place over the last decades of the twentieth century. This included the rise of the counter culture and environmental movements and the sea change population surge to the North Coast. 

The political changes that have taken place in Richmond are part of this process. A once safe Country Party (now National Party) seat was taken by Labor. Labor member Justine Elliot who has held the seat since 2004 now faces a growing challenge from the Greens. 

The graph below shows the progressive decline in the coalition vote since 1983, along with the rise in the Green vote. The Labor vote has bounced around, but has also been reduced by the rise of the Greens. Green preferences have been important in maintaining Labor in power. 

To win the seat, the Greens really need to get in front of Labor. If they can do that, then Labor preferences will carry them to power. At the moment, I doubt that they can do that. 

   

Hopefully resuming posting

I hope that you had a happy Christmas. 

It's been slim pickings on this blog over the last twelve months with only nine posts. There have been particular reasons for that including time pressure on other projects. Some of those reasons I will explore here later. Hopefully I will do better this year

New England Renewable Energy Zone - projects in progress

Back on 10 July 2020, the NSW Government announced that  the New England Tablelands would become a NSW powerhouse, with a NSW Government $79 million plan to develop a second, massive 8,000 MW Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) in the region.

According to Deputy Premier Barilaro, “The New England REZ is expected to attract $12.7 billion in investment, support 2000 construction jobs and 1300 ongoing jobs – all while lowering energy prices and future-proofing the regions,”  You will find a little more on the zones here.  

The above map provides a status report on some of the projects. I hope that it's readable, You may need to blow it up. 

Calling those interested in tree change: Armidale based NERAM Launches "Come run our café" campaign.

The New England Regional Art Museum is now calling for applications from hospitality professionals with an outstanding culinary vision to operate the onsite cafe and has today launched the “Come run our café” campaign and video.

Thanks to the generous donation from Bruce and Rose McCarthy, the café has undergone renovations with a brand-new commercial kitchen now in place and an equipment fit out soon to come. The newly refurbished space will be ready at the end of September and we are now looking for fresh talent to become the operators.  

Our NERAM community knows how important the success of the café is to providing an outstanding visitor experience at the Museum. A great museum that offers a great dining experience creates a cultural and culinary destination and we think that the NERAM café has infinite potential.

Expressions of interest to be the café operator close on October 15th 2020. You will find details here. 

The above comes from the official NERAM release, but is actually fairly dry. What is it about NERAM that makes this an an attractive proposition? Why do we need you, people with skills and flair? Let me explain.

Armidale is a university city with a population of 23,000. It offers superb educational facilities, a varied life style combining metro and country, NBN to the premises connections, more sporting facilities that you can (to use an old phrase) poke a stick at. 

Armidale has more writers, artists,  publishers and intellectuals per head  than any equivalent city in the country. This leads to a vibrant intellectual life. 

Within Armidale, NERAM has a special place as the repository of some of Australia's greatest art collections including the Hinton and Coventry collections. It's openings and facilities are an integral element in city life. 

Interested? Then let's look at some nuts and bolts. 

If you take on the challenge, you have two key markets. 

Armidale autumn scene

The first and largest is the local and regional population who come to NERAM for openings, festivals such as the Black Gully Festival or just for breakfast, lunch or coffee. The second is the visitors who come from out of town as tourists, to visit family or for particular activities and who stay for a coffee or a meal. 

This includes a significant event component, making catering a major potential source of revenue.  

If all this sounds good, what might go wrong?  A bit, actually. 

To begin with, and as you might expect given my description of the city, Armidale has a large number of reasonable coffee and food places. 

As part of the museum precinct, NERAM is about a mile from the city centre. No foot traffic. While you will get some traffic from NERAM visitors, you will have to work to get locals to come to you. This will take time. 

You will also need to work with NERAM and with other bodies including the University to get people to come for events and occasions. The University has its own competitive facilities on campus, but will still cooperate in terms of special events. 

I suppose in all this that the biggest question is just how you to define your competitive edge. How do you build on the facilities and location that you have?  I suppose, and this is based on my own experience, that you localise and regionalise. The region has a plethora of wine and produce. Why not sell that as well?

I am not an expert in hospitality, but I do think that this option now presented is worth a serious look! 

 

Musings on the end of New England's local and regional media

On 17 April 2020 (Reflections on the suspension of the Armidale Express and other ACM mastheads) I discussed the implications of the suspension of newspaper publication by Australian Community Media. I concluded:

I hope that this break in printing might actually force us to ask what we want from our papers, to challenge the papers and especially management on the service they provide, to answer the question why they are important to us. I accept that this is naive view, but I am tired of managements that treat papers as simply another masthead.

Following that post, we learned that as part of its changes, ACM had closed the Express office in Armidale. It had been the Express office since the early part of the twentieth century. To recover capital, Fairfax had sold the office in 2015. The office was sold on the basis of a secure lease to 2019 plus 3 x 5 year options until 2034. Now the office was unceremoniously exited. The local historical society managed to save some of the bound back copies now stored in the meeting room.

On 18 May 2020 in a post on my history blog I provided a consolidated list of posts on the history and changing role of the media in Australia's New England. In that post I also mentioned that I was writing a series of columns on the history of the New England media. These will start to come up shortly.
 
In my 17 April post I mentioned the suspension by News Corp of publication of most of its community and regional media. Now the company has announced the next stage of restructuring. The following table provides details of New England newspapers that will now be digital only or have ceased publication entirely. 

Tweed Daily News	Digital only
Ballina Advocate	Digital only
Byron Shire News	Digital only
Coffs Coast Advocate	Digital only
Grafton Daily Examiner	Digital only
Lismore Northern Star	Digital only
Newcastle News	Digital only
Coastal Views	Ceasing publication
Northern Rivers Echo	Ceasing publication
Richmond River Express Examiner	Ceasing publication

To this list we can add two Queensland newspapers with strong historic connections to New England. 

Warwick Daily News	Digital only
Stanthorpe Border Post	Digital only

I am not blind to the challenges posed by evolving computer and communications technologies including most recently the internet. On and off I have been writing about it since the 1980s. However, I am also very conscious about the ways in which the metro centred corporates with their focus on maximising gains or minimising losses across empires have effectively destroyed the ethos of the country press including the capacity of papers, radio and TV to provide a broader regional voice. In so doing, they have eroded the loyalty of the very audiences on which their commercial survival depends. 

This is not a new process. It began more than fifty years ago. In 1950, every newspaper and radio station in the broader New England was locally owned. When TV came, local or regional ownership was mandated as well, Staff at all levels identified with their communities, saw their roles in local and regional terms.   

By 2000, local ownership was restricted to a few independent newspapers. The ability of local media to define local roles, to cooperate on broader regional issues while being extremely competitive, slowly vanished. Their capacity to grow people diminished too. A remarkable number of New England people across the media have gone onto significant careers.

I suppose that I am in an unusual position. 

My family has had connections with the New England media for many years. As a sometimes political and community activist I have worked with the local and regional media in the North and in Canberra, Queanbeyan and Eden Monaro to try to achieve community objectives. To use an example outside New England, I was constantly in and out of the offices of the Queanbeyan Age carrying press releases and talking about particular concerns. I expected the paper to carry this material and indeed it did. 

As a regional historian, I rely on the newspaper records. As a regional historian, I have written on the history of the New England media and the country media in general. As a regional historian, I have read the board papers of Broadcast Amalgamated, of the Armidale Newspaper Company, of the early days of TV New England. I have seen the way in which they responded to commercial problems including isolation, small scale and access to advertising. The story of the Country Press Association is an example of response, one which enriched Australian life far beyond the local. 

As an analyst and commentator on New England issues, I have watched the way in which the combination of localisation with corporate processes has slowly destroyed my ability to report and analyse. I have watched the way in which the rise of pay walls has diminished the richness of the New England media environment, the capacity to report properly. I have watched the way in which individual outlets have lost all independence. 

At times, this process has brought tears to my eyes. I did not expect to be monitoring and writing about the end to so many dreams. I did not expect our past, the very structures of local and regional life, to be swept away. 

I don't know where to go from here. 

At a micro level, what happens to the internet archives of closed outlets? I know that newspapers are no longer the source of record in the way that they once were, but they are the only record we have. The internet may have improved our access to information, but it has also destroyed the survivabilty of the very information on which we depend. 

More broadly, now that our newspapers have abdicated their local and regional roles, now that they have effectively given up, what might take their place? How do I as an activist committed to our local and regional past, present and future get my message across? How do I communicate? How do my older friends find out what is going on? How do we find the resources to create the information and structures to that people depend on?

In my own way I am trying to fill the gap especially through Facebook groups. But I just don't know what might fill the gap in a real sense. I am just one person! In the end, perhaps, we are going back to the nineteenth century and the rise of the newspaper press. 

Just as there was a gap then, now we need new localised mechanisms. I wonder what form they might take? 

  

   

Reflections on the suspension of the Armidale Express and other ACM mastheads.

ACM's daily newspapers. Source Canberra Times

Covid-19 has claimed another victim. On 14 April, Australian Community Media (ACM) announced that as a consequence of the impact of covid-19 and associated shutdowns, it:

• was temporarily closing its printing sites in Canberra, Murray Bridge, Wodonga and Tamworth  from April 20 until June 29 2020
• was suspending publication of a number of non-daily newspapers. Limited news coverage would continue on websites of publications affected by the temporary shutdowns  
• had given notice to landlords of more than 30 small offices around the country that it intends to exit lease arrangements
• had stood down staff affected by the suspensions of printing and publication.

The printed editions of ACM's 14 daily newspapers including the Northern Daily Leader and Newcastle Herald would continue, along with the weekly editions of the company's leading agricultural publications, such as The Land in NSW, Farm Weekly in Western Australia and Queensland Country Life.

The suspended newspapers include the Maitland Mercury and Armidale Express, the second (1843) and third (1856) oldest newspapers in NSW.

The ACM changes followed the earlier decisions by News Corp Australia to pause production on 60 community newspaper titles in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia from April 9 and by the Nine group  to cease printing several of its magazines and lift-outs. In making the changes, News Corp offered a migration strategy to try to encourage readers to switch to the the electronic version.

During this same period regional commercial TV broadcasters signaled their intention to cancel regional news services in the absence of direct financial assistance.

The Commonwealth Government has apparently announced announced a $50 million package to support public interest journalism across TV, newspapers and radio in regional and remote Australia.  This appears to be a repackaging and extension of an existing scheme. At this point, I have been unable to find any real details on either Communications Minister Fletcher's or the ACMA websites.

Discussion

 I suppose that I should begin with a declaration of interest and indeed bias. I have been a columnist for the Armidale Express for many years and have a long family connection with the New England media. Those who follow my blogs will also know that I have been very critical over many years of the strategies adopted by media groups and especially those owning country media in responding to changing technologies and markets. One side effect has been loss of market position and relevance within the communities they serve.

I make this point now because in direct personal and on-line discussion I have found to my consternation that while some agree with me that action is required to preserve local and regional media, others say why does it matter? They haven't provided real news for years.

I know that some of my colleague will bristle at this. They have tried to provide reporting and maintain focus in a world of constant corporate shifts, of big city and enterprise games, a world in which the purpose of local and regional media as defined by people like Ernest Sommerlad has been lost. One measure of this is the sheer discontent among a significant proportion of their present and ex customers.

I have tried to explain to my sceptical friends and contacts why I regard the preservation of local and regional media to be of fundamental importance. To extend my argument, I am going to take a city and then a country example.

The Southern Courier, a previous weekly free News Corp paper with print now suspended, services south eastern Sydney. It's fairly typical of the breed, full of glossy real estate ads and promo advertorial along with some local news stories. It must sound an unlikely example for me to pick to illustrate my point.

For my present purposes, the population in south eastern Sydney can be broken into three groups.

The first is those who just live there, They may like their area, but their focus is elsewhere. They have little interest in local news. To them, the paper is just junk mail that ends up in their letter box or as waste on the lawn.

The second somewhat smaller group is those who have some connection with the area. Their children may go to school there, they may be involved with some local group, they may have some interest in what's on, what the councils are doing. They will pick the paper up and then put it in the trash.

The third and by far the smallest group is the community activists, the ones who are really interested in general and in particular causes including council activities. To them, the Southern Courier has been critical. How so? Well, the paper with its local focus provides a vehicle that is read by councillors, state and federal parliamentarians and by those in the mass media interested in stories with a local flavour.

Save Astrolabe Park demonstration

Astrolabe Park lies at the end of the street I used to live in in Daceyville, Sydney. It's an open space area that is also one of the few leash-free dog areas in Sydney.

With space now so scarce in Sydney for playing fields, the proposal was that the Park should be taken over for sporting fields. This was a serious challenge involving major sporting codes who wanted to establish high performance facilities.

For some obscure reasons, the locals plus dog owners from elsewhere were outraged. I became involved about twelve months before I returned to Armidale when I was, quite literally, bailed up be a neighbour that I knew in the street: "you will help won't you, Jim." I did so and in so doing met more people in that little suburb than I had in the previous five years. I am still a member of the Friends of Astrolabe Park. 

In the end the Park was saved, at least for the present. I'm not sure that it would have been without the Southern Courier because that provided the initial platform. In treating the Southern Courier as just another masthead, in thinking that it can provide the same service with subscription behind a paywall, News Corp has guaranteed its extinction at least as an effective voice and probably its very survival itself. 

Not unexpectedly, Armidale is my second example.

Many of the points I made about the Southern Courier apply to the Armidale, but more so. For many and especially older residents, the print Armidale Express is their only source of local news.  Most are not active on-line. They may listen to the radio or TV news which carry some local stories but the print Express whatever its imperfections is central especially when it comes to things such as hatches, matches and dispatches.

Like many people in Armidale I am active in the on-line world.  It is quite a vibrant world that does give me a lot of local news, allows me to promote my own causes, but it's quite imperfect because it is actually quite limited.

I was talking to friends today in town who belong to the it does not matter if the print Express closes group. I challenged this, pointing out that so many people still relied on it. I asked them where they would get their news? You see, one issue is that the news pyramid actually depends on the existence of a solid initial source point. Take that away and you have a gap that cannot be filled.

Can the e-edition of the paper substitute? If we ignore the older people who will die out, it may at least partially in the longer term. But it's not there yet and may never get there. I am drifting into strategy questions that link back to the start of the post. So keeping things simple.

If at this point the print edition vanishes, then it will leave a gap that cannot be easily filled, that will impoverish local life in ways that cannot be easily seen. This applies to other papers as well.

I hope that this break in printing might actually force us to ask what we want from our papers, to challenge the papers and especially management on the service they provide, to answer the question why they are important to us. I accept that this is naive view, but I am tired of managements that treat papers as simply another masthead. 

Stockton Beach revisited

Back in 2008, I carried a post, New England Story - Stockton Beach, telling a little of the story of Stockton Beach.

Photo: Cabins threatened following erosion at Stockton Beach near Newcastle. Photo Save Stockton Beach

I was reminded of this by an ABC story Newcastle beachside cabins in danger of toppling into sea after wild weather. There have been erosion problems for some time.

I was glad to have been reminded of my original post for its quite a good yarn. Some of my points were challenged in comments and especially the existence or otherwise of Tin City. I haven't resolved this. However, Tin City remains a recognised shooting location for some of the scenes in the first Mad Max movie.

Introducing Armidale Diaries

One ABC National Radio programs that I really like is The Fitzroy Diaries: Dispatches from the inner-city suburbs of Melbourne. The ABC describes the program in this way:

Award-winning audio fiction series from the ABC. Walk the streets of Fitzroy, Melbourne, shaped by gangsters, migrants, Aboriginal activists, the working poor. Now, it’s fancy shops and hipster bars. Until you really look.

Now I'm not totally sure about the fiction part. I think that its more observations, imaginings and anecdotes that paint a vivid picture of life in Fitzroy. I find it fun. Having just moved back to Armidale, I thought that it might be fun to try the same thing here. I also thought that it might be a break from the historical or analytical stuff I normally write, something that would give me more freedom to experiment and roam.

The first episode, Armidale Diaries 1 the smoke rolls in, appeared yesterday on my personal blog. My old friend Noric Dilanchian wrote on my public face book page:

Jim’s mise en scène. The style works. Recalls quirky French rural townlife films of old, one from the 1980s that I recall by Claude Chabrol. Awaiting this style’s evolution. 

Stretch target, find a videography and music researcher to deliver audiovisual justice for the smoky scene you set.

Mise en scène literally means the arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of a theatrical production or on the set of a film or, alternatively, the setting or surroundings of an event. That's not a bad definition, but I think of it in terms of the texture of life within a frame. 

I am going to try to run the series every Thursday. in terms of Noric's challenge, think of it as something like a script that audio can be added later.  

Stories Connect - Armidale, the Ezidis and creative expression

Back in August 2017 (Armidale to settle 200 refugees - overview and discussion) I reported that Armidale long fight to become a refugee resettlement centre had finally been successful.

Khalid Adi and his family colouring in. Photo Armidale Express.

Two years later Armidale is home to some 400 Ezidis.

Earlier in 2019, the New England Writers' Centre launched Stories Connect, a major program focussed around encouraging creative expression and making connections between newly- resettled Ezidi refugee families and other members of the Armidale community, through the sharing and creation of stories, pictures and music.

Supported by generous grants from the Regional Arts Fund, the Country Arts Support Program, Create NSW and Settlement Services International, with much-appreciated support from Armidale Regional Council, Arts North West and NERAM, Stories Connect launched in June. Over several months it featured a range of activities and events, from creative workshops for school age children and teenagers to community storytelling sessions; from the creation of documentary photographs by emerging photographers.

Stories Connect showcased the wide range of local talent and potential, both within the Ezidi and wider segments of the Armidale community. It’s been a great success, culminated in a popular exhibition at NERAM (the New England Regional Art Museum). Now a short documentary film has been released showcasing the project. It's rather good.

I have been asked not to embed the video because the Centre wants people to view it on its website. You will find the link here. The Armidale Express story on the launch of the NERAM exhibition is here. 

Fires, drought and climate change within New England

The land has been on fire. Across the broader New England fires have raged with loss of property and life. ABC Coffs Coast reproduced a poem by Armidales' Troy Gerdes based on I love a sunburnt country that caught the situation.

"I love a Sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains.
But I’ve gotta tell ya mate, I like it better when it rains.
The countryside is dying and there’s just no end in sight, and just to rub salt in the wounds, the bush has caught alight.
The landscape is on fire from Brisbane to the Gong
And everybody’s asking “where the hell did we go wrong?
But we can get through this one if we help each other out, take care of your neighbour , that’s what Aussies are about.
The rain is going to fall again , the good times will return. But living in Australia means at times it’s going to burn.
So if you need a helping hand, just give a mate a call. We’re all here to help you out and catch you when you fall.
The RFS, the SES, the Firies, and police, all put their lives upon the line to help to keep the peace.
So hats off to these heroes and thanks for all you do
And I hope when this is over we can make it up to you!"

The fires have been dreadful. Last night's NBN News, (the link is to NBN News general site; I couldn't find the specific story), contained some of the most gripping and dramatic coverage that I have ever seen. They deserve an award for the coverage.

Community reaction to the fires has been truly remarkable in terms of those who fought and those that responded to events in whatever way they could. 

I would have followed the story anyway, but now living back in the area  I followed with particular interest. Exactly where were the fires, what did it all mean, who did I know who lived in the immediate area? I followed the social media feeds from people I knew especially on the Tablelands wondering if changing wind directions would bring the fires towards them.

The fires have become caught up in the debate about climate change especially among the political warriors of left and right, but also among worried citizens.

The fires have been hailed, if that's the right word, as exceptional, a much misused word, evidence for climate change. This has led to responses pointing out, correctly, that there have been worse fires and that the fires of themselves prove nothing.

The problem with these generalised discussions is that they lack practical content. If anything, they sidetrack discussion on the problems we face.

To avoid becoming caught in unnecessary arguments over climate change, I suppose that I should make my own position clear. 

As an historian, I am well aware that climate varies over time. As a simple example, sea levels have varied by around 130 metres over the last 100,000 years. I therefore have no problem with the idea that the climate may change. Indeed, I would expect it.

I also find the idea of human induced climate change intuitively plausible because I find it hard to see how the pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution could not have an effect. I accept too, if cautiously, that part of the effects of climate change is likely to be increased variability in climate, more extreme events. However, this is where my problem with some of the discussion on the New England fires comes in.

Climate change is a macro problem and has to be dealt with first at that level. This requires action to limit the emission of green house gases.

My personal preference here has been some form of carbon tax because it provides a market mechanism. The tax could have been set low and then adjusted as more evidence became available. Among other things, this would have taken a lot of the heat out of the debate over coal.

This is a macro debate. Accepting that climate change is happening, it is already clear that the effects will be a geographically distributed, creating a pattern of winners and losers. If one is going to respond in a sensible way to things like changes to the risk of fire in a particular area, one has to know what the changes might be. Otherwise discussion becomes sound and fury signifying nothing. Generalised statements won't cut it except at a very high level of generality. 

This is where the debate over the Northern fires come adrift. They lack real policy content because we just don't know what the specific effects of climate change might be in the broader New England. Here I want to put forward a specific hypothesis based on history over the last few thousand years that is potentially testable by those more knowledge in climatology than me.

Northern NSW is generally wetter than Southern NSW. The reason for that is that the area lies in the overlap between northern and southern weather systems. The dividing line is traditionally based on a line running inland from around Port Macquarie. South of that line, southern patterns dominate. North of that line to the Queensland border, systems overlap. Further north, northern weather patterns dominate.

I accept that this simple analysis is a gross generalisation. I stick my head up with a degree of trepidation. However, given all this, what happens if the effect of climate change is to move the northern systems north, the southern systems south? The result is likely to be a drought/fire zone in what was a previously a relatively well watered area.