Volunteers are needed to help out at Floriade 21: Films that shaped our nation, which will be the annual festival’s 21st birthday.
A range of positions are available including entry usher, marquee information assistant, program seller, roving information, volunteer support crew and gnomes assistant—which involves helping out with the famous gnome painting onsite.
Volunteering at Floriade is a great way to get involved with the Canberra community and comes with exclusive benefits like reserved parking close to the festival gates and participating in the bulb dig—which means taking home bulbs from the Floriade garden beds at the end of the festival. Volunteers will also have the opportunity to be involved with the inaugural Floriade NightFest from 24–28 September.
This is an ideal opportunity for anyone who is a gardening enthusiast, enjoys meeting new people and likes being outdoors. This year’s festival will run from Saturday 13 September to Sunday 12 October and volunteers are required to complete a minimum of six shifts.
To fill out an application form visit www.floriadeaustralia.com.au or for more information phone 6207 2294 or email [email protected]
What is the Baby & Kids Market?
The Baby & Kids Market offers a huge range of gorgeous & excellent quality preloved baby & kids goods. Running for over five years, it’s is the original & largest Market of its kind, and consistently praised for its high quality goods! From prams to cots, toys to books and clothes to shoes; the market has it all. Plus ‘handpicked’ local designers featuring their unique and stylish baby & kids goods. Join us for a day of fun & bargains with fantastic family entertainment and yummy food!
WHEN: Sunday, 22 June 2008
WHERE: The Carrara Indoor Stadium, Nerang-Broadbeach Road, Carrara – Entrance Gate 2
Always from 9am to 12noon.
Plenty of free parking.
Always indoors.
Cash sales only
For further information please go to our website: www.babykidsmarket.com.au
The Sydney Hotshots will be performing live at Queanbeyan Kangaroo Rugby League Club and Paparazzi Bar and Nightclub this June!Australia’s hottest show, the Sydney Hotshots, are back to set the hearts of ACT women racing this June. Following an amazing set of shows last year, Sydney’s sexiest six pack are back, with a brand new show and all new guys that are sure to treat the women of Canberra and Queanbeyan to a great night out!
The Sydney Hotshots 2008 show will be bigger and better than ever, and is sure to fulfil every girl’s deepest desires! The dazzling costumes and all new choreographed routines are sure to leave the audience captivated, while the games and fun will ensure a great night is had by all. With music spanning all generations, it is a show for women of all ages.
The two hour show is packed with live singing, dance, comedy and even a bit of romance. With all the right ingredients for a great girl’s night out, it’s no wonder that many hens and birthday girls choose to celebrate their special night with the Hotshots – and it pays off, with hens and birthday girls often recipients of some up close and personal attention from the men on stage!
This years 2008 show will see the Hotshots perform to crowds all around Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. “We love having the opportunity to perform to crowds all around the country – it doesn’t matter to us how big or small the town is, so long as the crowd enjoys themselves and has a great night!” states feature performer Shane.
Having appeared in shows such as Sunrise, and in magazines such as Australian Women’s Weekly and Cleo, the Hotshots have spent the last decade establishing their reputation as the number one show of its kind in the country, complete with professional entertainers. Women of all ages have shown their approval, with the Hotshots having the opportunity to perform in front of sell out crowds in some of Australia’s biggest entertainment venues, including Penrith Panthers, Sydney and Sky City Casino, Darwin. On the road for months at a time, this is a full time job for Australia’s premier male revue show who are definitely enjoying the challenge of entertaining and thrilling women across the country!
All in all, the Sydney Hotshots show is one of the best nights of entertainment for fun-loving ladies anywhere and it can’t get much better than this year’s all new show!
See for yourself when the Sydney Hotshots turn up the heat near you when they perform live at:
* Queanbeyan Kangaroo Rubgy League Club, Queanbeyan on Thursday 26th June 2008. Show starts 8.30pm. For tickets and show enquiries Ph:6297-6222.
* Paparazzi Bar and Nightclub, Manuka on Saturday 28th June. Show starts 8.30pm. For tickets and show enquiries Ph:6232-7888.
Limited funding in the recent Rudd Government budget for practical measures to address the burgeoning problem of mental health – places the burden squarely at the foot of employers and community groups to address the issue at the source.
Canberra businesswoman Jacqueline Stewart of WorkTopia is the founder of a new ‘Complex Trauma Research Centre’ and Co-Author of the Worktopia Training Program, soon to be rolled out in Australia. Jacqueline said recently: “A lot of international attention is being focused on the personal, social and economic costs of repeated trauma, especially in the workplace.
The Worktopia training package is a new generation of training that will address issues in the workplace not previously addressed by other training packages. Written by Jacqueline Stewart and workplace health specialist Dr Dion Klein, Worktopia seminars provide people with a powerful set of workplace tools to assist with the management of behaviour in the workplace and emphasises how the effects of our actions toward others can have quite a devastating result on their emotional and physical health.
Jacqueline said recently: "’Complex trauma’ puts a costly strain on the health, judicial and family welfare systems. It is also taxing on employers who bare the cost of lost time due to illness. It is estimated that ‘complex trauma’ affects more than 40% of the population, directly or indirectly through sufferers’ families and community. 1 in 5 Australians experience some form of mental illness each year and this affects performance and outcomes in the workplace".
Professor Russell Meares, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Sydney University is a contributor to the research centre. He recently said: “Complex psychological trauma is a major public health issue”. Jacqueline Stewart added that “Complex Trauma can be created in the workplace through people suffering the stress of covert bullying, harassment and constant devaluation of a person and their efforts.” She referred to recent studies from Comcare, the National Health and Safety Commission report that workplace stress in an upward trend. It accounts for the longest stretches in absenteeism.
‘WorkTopia’ is committed to providing people with workplace tools to help them deal with the workplace stress that can lead to ‘Complex Trauma’. "It’s about stopping illness at the source" says Jacqueline Stewart, author of WorkTopia.
‘WorkTopia’ will conduct a series of one day seminars commencing in June for Executives, Middle Managers and Employees designed to help them understand the some of the triggers of ‘Complex Trauma’ in the workplace and provide them with strategies to improve the attitude, performance and health of people in the workplace.
Prices for the seminars range from $220 for employees up to $450 for executives and proceeds from the seminars will be committed to funding the Complex Trauma Research Centre.
According to Jacqueline, ‘Complex Trauma’ is the umbrella term for a myriad of mental conditions like depression, anxiety, personality disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and manic depression.
For further information on the seminars or the Complex Trauma Research Centre, contact Jacqueline Stewart on 0409110051 or [email protected] or visit www.worktopia.com.au
New catering manager at Lake George Winery, Ian Curry’s previous experience includes managing garden parties at Buckingham Palace! Ian and his team have transformed Madew Wines, now owned by Lake George Winery. The cellar door will officially be open for business from Saturday morning and continue on a regular basis from 8am-5pm Wednesday to Sunday serving breakfast, lunch and snacks plus showcasing some fabulous local produce in a boutique style deli.
Ian’s eye for detail and his meticulous training in a Swiss cookery school are now providing a 5 star service at Lake George Winery for the restaurant and grander style functions.
For further information about functions including weddings at Lake George Winery, please call Ian on 0403 069 211.
From little things, BIG THINGS GROW
National Premmie Day
July 25th 2008
The National Premmie Foundation announces the
2nd Annual National Premmie Day
with celebrations occurring Australia wide for the births of
our smallest and most vulnerable newborns.
Each year approximately 42,000 newborns are admitted to Special and Intensive Care Nurseries across Australia and you can be their voice this year.
July 25th, 2008 is the day to celebrate with our Little Aussie Battlers –
Our premature or seriously ill infants as well as
remember those special babies who did not survive their journey.
The day coincides with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) season,
a common virus that causes cold like symptoms.
For prematurely born and seriously ill infants, RSV is a serious health threat
often resulting in re hospitalisation or forced isolation to families.
By the age of 2 all children will have been infected with RSV at least once and we want to make parents aware of the signs and symptoms of RSV.
The National Premmie Foundation invites parents of premature and sick newborns to hold a National Premmie Day event in their local community.
Support and information for families, carers and health professionals is available at www.prembaby.org.au or by calling 1300 PREMBABY 1300 773 622.
Reporter enquiries are welcome –
Please contact Amanda Lonergan on 0407 522 877 or [email protected]
From
Little Things
BIG THINGS GROW
National Premmie Day
July 25th 2008
The National Premmie Foundation is proud to offer the From Little Things Big Things Grow Fundraiser.
Simply purchase a Children’s Rose for $15 plus postage and you will be supporting this volunteer charity to provide ongoing free services and information to all families
who have been touched by these special infants.
Order a rose between April and June for delivery in July 2008 by
• calling 1300 PREMBABY 1300 773 622
• online at www.prembaby.org.au
• mail order to Box 2681 Bendigo DC VIC 3554
The National Premmie Foundation provides care, information and support to families of
Australia’s smallest and most vulnerable newborns.
Each year 40,000 newborns are admitted to Special and Intensive Care Nurseries across Australia and you can be their voice this year.
July 25th, 2008 is the day to celebrate our premature or seriously ill infants as well as those special babies who did not survive their journey.
Support and information for families, carers and health professionals is available at www.prembaby.org.au or by calling 1300 PREMBABY 1300 773 622.
Reporter enquiries are welcome –
please contact Amanda Lonergan on 0407 522 877 or [email protected]
Photographs of the Children’s Rose and premature infants are available.
Blue Light disco for all primary school kids in Canberra
The PCYC of Canberra invites all primary school age children to a Blue Light Dance Party to raise funds for the Kokoda Challenge Youth Program. Hayley Jensen will be performing, there will be a whole range of fun activities including rock climbing and a giant slide, fantastic DJs and VJs plus loads of giveaways!
When: Saturday the 28th of June, from 6:30pm to 9:00pm for primary school age children only.
Venue: Exhibition Pavilion at Thoroughbred Park off Randwick Rd. Lyhenam
Cost: $15 per child.
Family discounts and pre purchase discounts are available. Please contact PCYC on 6101 6937 for more information.
Canberra’s Country/Folk couple Craig and Simone Dawson will combine forces with Sydney based Country/Folk duo Pat Drummond and Karen Lynne for one night only this month to bring a spectacular night of music and storytelling that is sure to be a dynamic show to remember.
Pat Drummond and Karen Lynne first teamed up at about the same time as Craig and Simone did in the late 90s. Although their music and song writing styles draw upon different influences, there are some definite similarities. This is particularly evident in the way many of their more meaningful narrative style songs are written and delivered. The presentation of their music is also mostly based on delivering an often powerful and poignant message.
Pat Drummond, the main songwriter in his work with Karen Lynne is
based at Leura in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. His style is a cross between song writing and journalism. His well-documented songs about real people and places are drawn from interviews gathered on his erratic tours across Australia and present a composite picture of that country and her people.
Karen Lynne, also from the Blue Mountains area, is a multi award winning vocalist involved in many different musical collaborations including lead vocalist for the popular bluegrass band “Acoustic Shock.” She is also a popular singer/songwriter in her own right in Folk and Country music.
Craig and Simone are no strangers in folk music circles. Their original songs and instrumentals cover many styles that draw on a diverse range of influences including Delta Blues, Ki Hoalu (Hawaiian slack key), Celtic and Country. They are best known for their hard hitting ballads which explore a variety of political, social and even ludicrous topics.
Following support act “Divided by 3,” Craig and Simone (with special guest Peter Logue) will begin the show with a stack of new songs and some old favourites. Pat and Karen will take the stage after with songs from their long awaited new CD "The Long Journey Home." What happens in between, after or even throughout is anybody’s guess!!!
Appearing at “The Merry Muse,” Polish Australian White Eagle Club, David St, O’Connor on 13 June from 7:30pm. Tickets $12/$15.
Two more weekends and I’ll be going home
My home’s a nowhere
But a nowhere where I’m known
Where the sheep are nervous
And the men are all good blokes
Take me back to where the people get my jokes
From ‘American Guitar’, Texas (2008) by Fred Smith
So saying the above (or rather, singing the above), Fred Smith did literally start heading home, from the USA to Australia. His first chance to play the song live came on his last night after three years in America, coincidentally in a town called Frederick (his first gig three years earlier had been, even more coincidentally, in Fredericksburgh). The next morning he hopped on a plane and returned to Australia via a two week tour of Canada.
In the intervening time, Fred had tripped around the USA: from house-husbanding to house concerts, from suburban conventionality to folk conventions, and to a string of gigs, festivals and song contests along the way.
Fred has now been back in Australia for about six months and he’s appreciating the return to his old neighbourhood. Launching his ‘Texas’ album at Tilley’s Devine Café in Canberra last month, Fred relates a quote on topic: ‘”Home is the place you go where they’ve got to let you in.”’
‘It’s good to be home!’
How does Fred sum up his time in North America?
‘There’s twenty times more opportunities there but also twenty times more artists looking for a place in the sun. Though there are far more developed structures over there for artists to build a career: folk conferences, folk DJ lists, song contests and promoters ready to help the interesting performers find their feet.’
Fred won the Ploughshares Song-Writing Contest in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania and was chosen from a field of 380 songwriters for an “Official Showcase” at the North American Folk Alliance Conference.
‘The conferences and contests are a strange environment to play your heart out in, but they certainly helped kick start things for me over there and I made a lot of friends doing them.’
‘There are far fewer festivals here but I think the ones we have are better. They are more about getting people involved and less about providing an altar for the worship of a handful of artists.’
Back home and Fred has slipped easily back into gigging and festivals. In late April he was one of the headline acts at St Albans where he played a ‘no repeat’ weekend over several main stage performances, involving a number of confederates and guest artists.
‘It was nice to go St Albans and be billed for five shows on the main stage to an audience that knows me. I really felt free to play the full breadth of my repertoire from the comic to the melancholy.’
‘In most festivals and gigs the sets are short and the temptation is to play my own ‘hits and memories’ but in the long run there’s no risk or growth in that. And it underestimates an audience.’
‘It also gave me a chance to rope in friends like Penelope Swales and Chris Gillespie so that I could present a different aspect of my work each gig and experience the joy and edginess of playing with new collaborators.’
‘Having done a lot of solo gigging over the last three years, that felt great.’
Having survived three years of living in Washington, interspersed with touring and gigging, Fred has collated his experiences, observations and a dash of US history and produced the ‘Texas’ album. It’s a meandering journey that’s the epitome of the performer himself: from the frivolous and light-hearted to the emotive and emotional.
Or the purely wry and observational, as in ‘God Bless America’:
Detox boys watch botox girls
Meet for sushi on 7th Avenue
Fred sets out across the country this winter to play a string of dates (mostly with Liz Frencham) to promote ‘Texas’, following a couple of preliminary shows in home town Canberra over the Mothers Day weekend. The pulling power of Fred in his own neck of the woods is palpable: the Saturday night gig at Tilley’s is sold out a couple of weeks beforehand, and he still manages to pack an overflow gig in a church hall the following afternoon, with a 3pm kick-off and on Mother’s Day, no less.
‘I wanted to do a second gig where people could bring their kids. After three years in USA, I came back and all my friends have got kids.’
Given the demographic, Fred promises to tone down a few racier lyrics for the second show (“I’ll do the American versions!”). But he has at least one little slip up and has to quickly correct a lyric to, “This ship is going down”.
And there was proof positive that the word “jolly” can quite nicely substitute for another more expressive and emphatic adjective.
To underscore the appeal that Fred has among Canberrans, it was noticeable that some faces from the Saturday gig had turned up for more on Sunday afternoon. One punter held her arm out to be tagged by the door dragon and offered: ‘You might as well put the stamp in the same spot as last night!’
One day I’ll calibrate a scale that can record the response an artist gets by measuring the attention they command by their presence and stagecraft. It will be gauged by the ‘Pin-Drop-O-Meter’. In Fred’s case, it just takes one man, one softly played guitar, and the gentle opening lyrics of ‘Into My Room’ to drop the needle down to zero. And we’re talking a room with more than its fair share of very small children with balloons and other distractions.
Several songs later and the twilight zone factor returns as the crowd seems to instinctively and intuitively join in on mass on the first chorus of a song. Then the penny drops, and the reverentially-bowed heads remind me, that they are all singing off the same hymn sheet: lyric sheets with choruses to a selection of Fred Smith songs which went out around the crowd before the gig.
And in the ecclesiastical surrounds of St John’s Church Hall, it’s all the more appropriate when Fred later announces, ‘God Bless America: that’s hymn number four’.
Playing songs of American history and culture to Australian audiences. How does that play out then? And how does it compare to playing to US audiences?
‘American audiences responded very warmly and I learned not to underestimate them. But in the end I feel Australian audiences really understand my songs- the language, the humour.’
‘By the end of my time there I had over an album’s worth of songs written about America. The more I sang about them the more they responded but that’s not unusual; people respond to music they can relate to.’
‘Australian audiences seem to be really responding to the ‘Texas’ songs notwithstanding their American focus. Maybe they just enjoy a yarn and I certainly came home with a few of them.’
‘But also from our immersion in American TV and music we all have a strong sense of America combined with an appetite to take the piss out of Americans. That’s definitely where I started from but I like to think I got beyond that in the end because it’s a beautiful and complex country full of spirited people.’
There’s a palpable sense of the landscape political in ‘Texas’, reflective possibly of the fact that Fred arrived in the US the day after the 2004 US presidential election, then left in late 2007, as Barak Obama’s star was on the rise, arriving back in Australia in time to vote in the 2007 federal election.
‘[America is] an amazingly diverse country and at the moment, divided and traumatised. The Iraq intervention has polarised the body politic viscerally and everyone you meet there is passionate about it one way or the other.’
As a musical development exercise, America was undeniably beneficial for Fred: ‘I have come back from the US with a stronger sense of myself as an artist. Having played the same stages as the likes of James Keelaghan and Dave Francey, I know my writing is up there.’
And right about now, his music is out there. Fred Smith’s tour kicks off with a screening of ‘Bougainville Sky’ (a film about his peace-keeping work on Bougainville from 1999 to 2003) in Margaret River, WA on 13 June, and then it’s on to gigs in all points west thereafter.
The aforementioned ‘American Guitar’ song is one that wraps up the ‘Texas’ album, and indeed, Fred’s two Canberra shows, with a deft little coda on his time in the US:
Made a name a little fame now wealth
Made some friends and learned a lot about myself
Good enough reasons to come this far
Just to play on an American guitar
Hello and welcome again to your Weekly Wot’s Wot in Folkus & around the traps…
ed…. the past week’s headlines in Folkus
PORNOGRAPHIC ROCK FORMATIONS FOUND ON MARS! … POLICE SEIZE LANDER’S CAMERAS!
NASA DENIES HISTORY OF SERIAL ABUSE OF YOUNG HEAVENLY BODIES!
KEVIN & BRENDAN LABEL MARS "REVOLTING" and "DISGUSTING"!
MALCOLM DISAGREES WITH BRENDAN!
MALCOLM’S TWO PICTURES OF MARS DOUBLE IN VALUE!
those persistent scaremongers & harbingers of DOOM, the wowsers and insurance companies, are taking over our world….
AND politicians prove they know nothing about art or science… nothing new at all really
INDEX
1. This Week in Folkus
2. Next Week in Folkus
3. Parish Notices
4. The Comics
5. Sport
1.
This Week In Folkus – THREE BIG SHOWS and they’re all BEST quality to the core …
The Folkus Room, (operates out of The Serbian Cultural Centre & Club) 5 Heard St. MAWSON ACT .. eastern side of Southlands Centre and just off Athllon Drive.. CHECK OUT OUR NEW MAPS PAGE…. www.thefolkus.org.au and follow the links
Friday 30 May .. King Curly and The Doomsday Piano fresh from a very successful National Folk Festival, this fabulous band was picked up to tour with K D Lang…. ’nuff said …… PLUS Jordan Best
Saturday 31 May .. Sat Arvo Jazz – 2pm to 5pm … with Judi Pearce & The Arrangement
Sunday 1 June .. The Yearlings; PLUS Doctor Stovepipe
2. …….
Next Week In Folkus … MORE GREAT AFFORDABLE ENTERTAINMENT
Friday 6 June .. Queen Juanita & Her Zydeco Cowboys ….. there will be dancing !!
Sunday 8 June .. Harry Manx & Yeshe Reiners …. bookings going fast
3.
Parish Notices…….. who said Canberra hibernates in winter????
3a. The Folkus Room is offering annual subscriptions. Click HERE for details… WE NEED YOU!
3b. ON STAGE NEXT WEEK – Sunday (dress rehearsals) to Thursday ….Make sure you see the Irish Community Players latest production of Bernard Farrell’s "therapeutic" comedy, "I Do Not Like Thee, Dr Fell", which will be on at the Canberra Irish Club, 6 Parkinson St, Weston, from 2nd to 5th June at 8 pm. Tickets cost $20 for Adults and $15 for Concessions, and bookings will be available at the club in a few week’s time on 62887451. Don’t miss the play that helped launch Liam Neeson’s career…
3c. Folkus on Blues is about to get happening. If you are a bluesy performer we would like to meet with you or your representative at The Folkus Room (Serbian Club, Heard St, Mawson) at midday on Saturday 31st May. If you can’t attend, or arrange a representative, and would like to be part of the Folkus initiative, please email me to that effect and I’ll see that your act is included. It would help too if band reps could come armed with a list of available dates – your diaries ladies and gentlemen.
3d. The notice with depth & C21…. Arlo Guthrie is on Friday week (13 June) at The Canberra Southern Cross Club. There are still a few seats left…. phone 02 6283 7200 for bookings
3e. There’s a very good reason to go along to The Front Cafe in Lynham on Saturday night (31st of May – 8pm). You’ll get to hear the new and scintillating Moonlight Rooftop Revellers (don’t try to say that too many times out loud!). A love child of Dr. Stovepipe, who as you may know are the very talented Ed Radclyffe, Pablo Shopen and Jim Sharrock. To concoct an elixir for a Moonlight Rooftop Reveller, one only needs to extract a Jim (temporarily, as he attends to other doctorly duties) and add a Krista (Krista Schmeling formerly of the Honeybells). You could imagine the jazzy, westerny, swingy, gospelly, old-timey possibilities – OR you could go along and hear it for yourselves!
4.
Sometime in the future, George Bush has a heart attack and dies. He goes to hell where the Devil is waiting for him. "I don’t know what to do here," says the Devil. "You’re on my list but I have no room for you, but you definitely have to stay here, so I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ve got three people here who weren’t quite as bad as you. I’ll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I’ll even let YOU decide who leaves." George thought that sounded pretty good, so he agreed. The devil opened the first room. In it was Ted Kennedy and a large pool of water. He kept resurfacing over and over and over, gasping for air. Such was his fate in hell. "No!" George said. "I don’t think so. I’m not a good swimmer and I don’t think I could do that all day long."! The devil led him to the next room. In it was Tony Blair with a sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time after time after time, and more rocks appeared. "No! I’ve got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day!" commented George. The devil opened a third door. In it, George saw Bill Clinton lying naked on the floor with his arms staked over his head and his legs staked in spread eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky doing her thing. George Bush looked at this in disbelief for a while and finally said, "Yeah, I can handle this." The devil smiled and said… "Monica, you’re free to go!"
Child
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate–
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star………… Sylvia Plath
Stay Well & Truly Silly Gentle Folk
Bill Arnett
The Folkus Room
Canberra’s Acoustic Preference
61-2-62627265
0407 434 469
"No Strangers Come Here – Just Friends We Have Not Yet Met"
May 19, 2008 — The world is in the midst of an horrific global food crisis. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) lists 82 nations as in “food deficit”, 37 of which it classifies as “in crisis”, while 850 million people are in dire need and over two billion suffer daily hunger. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued an urgent appeal for aid, warning that, “Without these funds, we risk the specter of famine, malnutrition, and unprecedented social uprising.” Food riots have already broken out in over 40 countries.
Australia can and must play a big role in addressing this crisis. We are amongst the world’s largest exporters of dairy, barley, wheat, beef and lamb, and, up until recently, rice. A few years ago, we produced enough rice to feed almost 40 million people a meal a day for 365 days, and Australian rice was exported to 72 countries. We are the world’s second largest wheat exporter, with 14% of the global export market, and we export about 20% of the global feed barley trade. We are also the world’s second largest exporter of both beef, and lamb and mutton. Our dairy exports make up 12 % of world dairy trade.
Within the next four weeks, almost all broadacre farmers in Australia will make decisions on how much acreage they will sow, and thus how much food will be harvested not long after. Leaving aside intermediate and longer-term measures, we must commit to the following immediately:
The Government must move to purchase existing wheat and other food reserves, to provide immediate food aid to the FAO and the World Food Program.
The Government must cease all subsidies for biofuel production, and instead send the equivalent quantity of food/grain overseas to countries in distress.
The Government must immediately regulate domestically-manufactured fertilizer prices, and subsidise imported fertilizers (relative to world prices), so that farmers pay no more than what they did in January 2006, when the current hyperinflationary spiral really took off.
The Government must slash the cost of all petroleum products for the agricultural sector, by suspending the hyperinflated international pricing for domestically-produced oil, and by eliminating the fuel excise.
The Government must immediately regulate domestically manufactured agricultural chemicals, especially weedicides and herbicides, and subsidise imported agricultural chemicals, to January 2006 prices. These chemical costs have soared just like the cost of fertilizer and petrol. The hyperinflated costs of these three items, together with the slashing of water allocations in the Murray-Darling Basin, form the immediate chokehold stopping Australian farmers from making a dramatic contribution to the world food crisis.
The Government must guarantee a minimum floor price for the resulting harvests.
The Government and quasi-governmental agencies must immediately cease all “environmental flows” of water in the Murray-Darling Basin, and cease government purchases of water, which is driving the cost of it to $1000 per megalitre or more, this in one of the richest agricultural areas in the entire world, which provides more than 40% of our agricultural production, and over $20 billion per annum in agricultural exports.
The Government must take immediate steps to keep our pig, sheep and dairy industries alive and producing, by imposing a significant tariff on pork imports, by subsidising hay and other feed grain for our diminishing sheep flock, and by reinstating water allocations to farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Government must enact an immediate moratorium on all farm foreclosures, (as provided for in the CEC’s Homeowners and Bank Protection Bill ). It also must either provide or guarantee low-interest credit to primary producers to finance this year’s crop.
There is no excuse for inaction on any of these points. Given that the budget surplus estimate for 2008-09 is $21.7 billion, the Government has more than adequate funds to implement all of the above. And, if it can create a $20 billion investment fund largely for the benefit of British mineral cartel giants Rio Tinto and BHP, as it has just done, it can certainly find the resources to feed starving human beings.
See www.cecaust.com.au for instructions on how you can mobilise with the above statement.
For the past 15 years, the Irish Community Players have presented Irish culture through theatre. They have performed a wide mix of Irish-written plays, from turn of the 20th Century dramas to contemporary comedies.
Tonight they are going back to the 1970’s, the days of jumpsuits, flares and spandex, to present an Irish take on American psychobabble, in the comedy, I Do Not Like Thee, Dr Fell, from the pen of acclaimed Irish playwright, Bernard Farrell. This is the second of Farrell’s plays staged by the Players, the first being another comedy, All in Favour Said No, which they presented in 2006.
This play is a perceptive and mind-expanding comedy that pokes fun at the concept of American therapy groups which thrived during the late 1960’s and for much of the 1970’s. Six participants are locked in a bare room with only a few chairs and beanbags to undertake a “therapy’
session, with no way out until morning. As the night progresses, the
personalities, phobias and relationships of the characters emerge and change – with hilarious results.
Bernard Farrell was born in Sandycove, County Dublin and now lives in Greystones, County Wicklow. He was awarded The Rooney Prize for Literature in 1980, The Sunday Tribune Comedy of the year Award for Forty Four Sycamore in 1992, and in 1998, Kevin’s Bed was nominated as best Irish Play in the Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards. He is a member of Aosdána and in 1996/1997 was the Anglo Irish Bank Writer-In-Association with the Abbey Theatre. His work has been performed in almost all of Ireland’s leading theatres, and has been produced overseas in the USA, Canada, the UK, Belgium, Holland, Germany, New Zealand and Australia.
I Do Not Like Thee Dr Fell was Farrell’s first full-length play and it proved to be an instant success in Ireland. It premiered in 1979 on the Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre (Amharclann na Mainistreach) in Dublin and featured a young Liam Neeson in the cast,
Liam couldn’t make it to Canberra for this show but you’re sure to enjoy a night of comedy, confusion and bad fashion from a bygone age. You may learn something about yourself in the process – hopefully it’s something you’ll want to know…
MS Australia is encouraging children to have fun reading to change the lives of Australians living with multiple sclerosis (MS) by taking part in the annual MS Readathon.
Each working day five people are diagnosed with MS, a disease that affects the body’s central nervous system producing symptoms such as blurred vision, loss of balance, pins and needles and speech difficulties. With no known cause or cure for MS, this annual event has become one of the largest fundraisers for MS Australia.
Each year the MS Readathon inspires children to help people living with MS by collecting sponsorship from family and friends for the books they read in the month of June. All participants who complete receive a Certificate and reading rewards.
Children are encouraged to race to register either via the MS Readathon website or a registration form from their local school or library. For more information, visit www.msreadathon.org.au or call the State/Territory office on 1300 677 323.
A huge thank you to all the individuals and organisations that have extended their support for the 2008 MS Readathon and its official launch in the ACT. We look forward to the continuing support of the local communities, teachers, friends and family members who will get behind an ACT student and sponsor them during the month of June to help to improve the quality of life for people living with MS and their families.
Thank you to all the wonderful Volunteers and Community Representatives who have extended their help in the program this year and are now preparing to motivate all our wonderful participants to Read for a Reason in 2008. They will be seen in your classrooms, assemblies and libraries across the ACT and its surrounding areas.
With the launch of the 2008 MS Readathon in ACT, the stars are ready to bright once again. Here is what some of our stars from 2007 have to say –
– Teagan Louise Norman from Wagga Wagga raised $1,130 and read 22 books in last year’s MS Readathon and she has already registered for 2008. Teagan says, "I did the MS Readathon because I want to help find a cure for people with MS like my mum and others around Australia. I also like reading so much I thought this was a good idea to show how much I like reading and raise some money for people living with MS. I am lucky to have a mum who even though she has MS tries to do the best she can to stay strong. I want to help other children whose mum or dad are less fortunate than my mum and are in a wheelchair."
– 2007 ACT Top Fundraiser, Cameron Cox raised $ 10,000 and read 32 books in last year’s MS Readathon and has already registered for 2008. Cameron says, “I like to help people and I like to read and doing the MS Readathon I get to do both. I also try to raise more money than I raised the year before, that is my goal this year." In support of the MS Readathon & its team, Cameron’s mum Dianne Cox adds, “I would like to thank all the people who work for the MS Readathon without you doing a lot of hard work the MS Readathon would not be a success it is. As a parent we get the enjoyable part of reading with our kids."
Thank you once again.
2007 was a fantastic year with the MS Readathon being able to help raise awareness and sponsorship for the 18,000 Australians living with multiple sclerosis, thanks to the hard work of community-minded children, parents and schools in ACT and its surrounding areas.
The challenge is set for 2008! The game’s afoot for 2008! Start preparing for an even bigger and better MS Readathon. We look forward to even greater participation to make an even bigger difference by Reading for a Reason in 2008 – are YOU ready?!
