Buying time
I am overwhelmed at the response – from friends and strangers alike – to this feature, published this weekend in Fairfax Media’s Good Weekend magazine. The reaction has been deep, gentle and sad for me – I hadn’t expected my words to touch people as they have, or to be so familiar to so many, … Continue reading
You’ve got mail
There are few more gentle and harsh places than Australia’s outback and most extreme rural reaches – and Kimberley dwellers in north east Western Australia are at the remotest end of a daunting spectrum. There, rains cut communities off for six months a year, provisions must be meticulously stockpiled and all mail – because who … Continue reading
Australia’s $1 billion debt
European countries that refuse to take in their proportion of forced migrants will face a financial charge of about €250,000 per refugee, according to Brussels’ plans to overhaul the bloc’s asylum rules. That’s about $400,000 per person. Given Australia today has 30,037 people seeking asylum (according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre), it would be … Continue reading
These are a few of my favourite pings // 9.7
I was at a prime minister’s funeral on my birthday. I watched the sun set over Uluru with a prince and princess and was thrown sideways in a ute next to a sheep sheering display. I’ve climbed masts, thrown axes, driven fast cars, had a police escort, been chased by a dingo, waded through flood … Continue reading
Supermarkets, I // 6.6
Supermarkets, I This shiny, Heavy, green apple. Scalloped teeth, Puncturing leathery skin. Breaking into Year Old Flesh.
On the inconsistency and contest of toponymy // 2.5
Last year, I visited Uluru for work. It doesn’t mean much in the Pitjantjatjara language, but the word belongs to its people. It existed long before any half-drawn maps were rolled out on tabletops in cities on the other side of the planet. Yet, the gateway to the region for visiting whitefellas is still called … Continue reading
Like Ice in the Sunshine // 4 April 2015
It was as refreshing as the subject matter to be asked by the lovely and talented Simone Rosenbauer to help with the press push for her current photographic exhibition, Like Ice in the Sunshine. Dripping, melting, elusive and fragmentary, our selves are constantly evolving, being shaped by the elements we are exposed to and taking … Continue reading
I can hear everything inside my little heart // 17 Sep 2014
She held the pen precisely, with force, control. Her left hand is spread, holding down her diary’s fiddly, springy pages with their golden edges, fingerprints pushing on a well trodden spot. There were words above where she hovered, crossings-out, capitals, not cursive. Thoughts, perhaps, or more accurately, memories. Small pieces of a past that was … Continue reading
2013 Federal Election Campaign Diary
My take on 2013’s Australian Federal Election, published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Buckle up, it’s campaignarama time… 6 August The money comes for Coalition 7 August Best laid plans 8 August Poster boy slips up 9 August Rupert dictates 12 August Just oozing their imagination 13 August Out for a duck 14 August Did … Continue reading
