26 APR 2018
Communications should be at the heart of decision making
My first exposure to local government was reporting council meetings as a cadet journalist in country Victoria during the 1980s. A lot has changed in newspap...
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15 APR 2017
Stop bashing Canberra and take pride in the capital
Bashing the national capital is a uniquely Australian pastime. Capital cities elsewhere sometimes draw critical attention for being the seat of government an...
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13 FEB 2016
Honeymoon Gap and Simpsons Gap
A lovely bike ride from Alice Springs is a 50km loop down the Ilparpa road south of town, across to Honeymoon Gap, north to Simpsons Gap and back on the seale...
Read article → 31 JAN 2016
Heyfield Girl resonates
Thanks to a review by Tony Hillier in The Australian yesterday, I discovered Maffra-born singer Michael Waugh, who is about to release his first album, What We...
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29 DEC 2014
Tribute to Aboriginal sportsman Harry Hewitt
Extract from the South Australian Register, 1 June 1891 History has a way of turning up unexpected treasures and I feel fortunate to have discovered one ...
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14 SEPT 2014
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
If you can possibly imagine a cross between Thomas Hardy and Wilbur Smith you might begin to conceive the grandeur of Ken Follett’s epic work “The Pillars of ...
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5 SEPT 2014
Havoc in its Third Year
Havoc in its Third Year is a powerful, moving novel set in the religious turmoil of 1630s England. Written by Ronan Bennett, it was only after beginning this...
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30 AUG 2014
Book of Fame
Lloyd Jones has immortalised himself in New Zealand literature through his outstanding 2000 novel “The Book of Fame”. It traces the story of the famous 1905 ...
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25 AUG 2014
Peter Gorey eulogy
Dad with me in 1967 Dad would have been 79 years old today. Instead, he died of pancreatic cancer on June 17, 2008, aged 72. I’ve recently uploaded the ...
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21 AUG 2014
Georg Balthasar von Neumayer
I discovered during my genealogical research that two of my great-great grandparents, Daniel Burgdorf and Augusta Springer, arrived in Sydney from Germany aboa...
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