Speaking lovingly of that with which we work

The inimitable Alexander McCall Smith is as we speak in the South Australian outback mining town of Coober Pedy. At this very moment -- and since he's getting a signal I guess he's come up out of his underground motel -- he's tweeting about the town and the opal miners he's meeting there:

Here in this remote mining town I met a miner who loves her job. Laconic, but amusing, she loves using dynamite. Loves opals too. ... We can all speak lovingly of that with which we work: the grain of wood, the thrill of figures; my miner: rocks and explosives. 

 

South Australian Labor: same old same old

Memo to Premier Mike Rann and the Labor Party of South Australia:

1) If you want things to change, you have to change things.

2) Slightly more than half the voters of South Australia are women. Only slightly, but in the two-party preferred system, 'slightly' might as well be the whole enchilada.

In today's news that the SA Treasurer and Deputy Premier Kevin Foley has resigned after a series of unfortunate incidents, here in alphabetical order are the names of those affected by these changes: those who have been promoted, or reshuffled, or are struggling to hang on to their current portfolios and positions.

Bernie
Jack
Jay
John
Kevin
Michael
Mike
Paul
Tom

This situation didn't happen overnight. Much of it is the behind-the-scenes doing of a second Tom, whose attitude to women is well known. And while the recruiting of one token high-profile woman (as part of a wider strategy of nobbling charismatic Adelaide outliers so they'll be inside the tent) and then keeping her in cotton wool may not have worked out so well, that's no reason not to have another go.

I could understand it if, in the wake of the scandal last year over the Premier's long-ago fling with a pneumatic blonde waitress whose husband subsequently, at a public dinner, beat him about the head and shoulders with a rolled-up wine magazine (and oh my, that's a pure Adelaide detail I'll never get sick of), Rann had decided to simply cut his losses with women voters, knowing that's ground he will never make up. But hey, if ever there were an occasion for whipping up a bumper sticker saying I HAVE A VAGINA, AND I VOTE, now would be the time. Except that I'm sure it's been done.

Lots of luck in 2014, dudes.

For all the good it will do ...

The Hon. Mike Rann, Premier of South Australia
The Hon. Jack Snelling, Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education
The Hon. Jay Weatherill, Minister for Education and Children's Services


Dear Messrs Rann, Snelling and Weatherill,

The Women's Studies Resource Centre has been in touch with women across South Australia asking for our help, as your government's funding has been withdrawn as from July 1 and that will force the closure of the Centre.

Observers like myself are aware of the stealth by which the Howard Government conducted a war of attrition against women throughout the eleven years they were in power: programs, organisations and resource centres like this one were slowly, steadily, almost unnoticeably discontinued, dismembered, disbanded, abolished, demolished and/or defunded, quietly, one by one.

It may be that it is the State Labor Government's policy to continue this demolition job done at federal level by its ideological opponents. But as a Labor-voting South Australian woman, educator and scholar who deplores the closure of any library, I would like to think not.

South Australia has a proud tradition of practical promotion and support of women's rights stretching back to their pioneering granting of the vote to women in the 1890s, only the second place in the world to do so.

This tradition was reinforced and much enhanced by the progressive social policies of Premier Don Dunstan's Labor government in the 1970s. It has always been my understanding that the current State Labor government is particularly proud of that era in its history, and regards Don Dunstan, rightly, as a hero. All of this surely suggests some respect for his beliefs and a willingness to honour his legacy.

I would draw your attention to these two elements in particular of the Resource Centre's work:

• The WSRC is a not-for-profit organisation that has contributed to the practical promotion of gender equity and the improvement in the status of women in Australian for 35 years.

• The collection is used by DECS, TAFE, ACE and university staff and students, both locally and nationally, by private schools and colleges, registered training providers, researchers and community borrowers.

I hope that the Government will see fit to re-think this funding decision.

With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Etc

Only 8 days to the SA election, but who will save us from Lara Bingle?

If I see the mindless expression 'spin over substance' trotted out one more time with reference to SA Premier Mike Rann and his government, I'm going to have what my grandmother used to call A Turn.

But alas, there's only one thing journos (and apparently their readers) love more than alliteration, and that's a nice simple false dichotomy. Those who keep saying 'spin over substance' believe, or would have us believe, or both, that the relation of spin to substance is the same as the relation of black to white, good to evil, night to day, you get the picture. I don't know which is the more annoying, the woolly-mindedness or the sibilance and sussuration.

Because as any South Australian with eyes in his or her head is perfectly well aware, Rann has both spin and substance in abundance. You may not like his substance, but you cannot deny that he has it. He may have less of it in some areas (like water), but he certainly has more of it in others, like the healthy state economy, the low unemployment rate and the massive improvements in Adelaide's roads and traffic flow in half a dozen different places over the last eight years. Everything except the really intractable problems (like water) appears to have gone pretty smoothly throughout his two terms thus far, in spite of his, erm, strange team and his apparent ongoing, erm, disagreements with the legal profession.

But the brutal populist Laura Norder policies, even in their weird ideological disconnect from the Social Inclusion Unit headed by a priest appointed by fiat, are a different thing from a lack of substance. So, even, is this silly business with the former waitress, she of the 'funny, flirty friendship' (and if you believe that, then I've got a nice bridge you might like to buy -- though 'funny' is appropriate, if not in the way Rann meant it). Take down their pants and their brains fall out, as my baby sister is wont, tersely, to observe, but that doesn't indicate 'lack of substance' either, whatever else it might be a symptom of.

Unfortunately, shapely blondes are right up there with alliteration and false dichotomy when it comes to what the meeja likes most, so the non-story about the alleged long-gone affair with the waitress is the one we keep hearing over and over again, not least because said waitress keeps popping up behind microphones and in front of cameras -- not unlike that other shapely blonde whose non-story is taking up so much space not only in the sports pages but also in the news pages at the moment. The SA election is only eight sleeps away, but who knows how much longer we're all going to be subjected daily to more breathless, sleazy fluff about the hapless Lara Bingle?

From the Bureau of Meteorology

FIRE WEATHER WARNING FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Issued at 6:55 am CDT on Thursday, 19 November 2009.

Thursday, 19 November 2009 is forecast to be very hot and dry for all of South Australia. Fresh to strong north to northwest winds over the west of the state, will shift fresh southwesterly with a change reaching Ceduna mid afternoon and a line Tarcoola to Adelaide around midnight.

Catastrophic Fire Danger [100+] is forecast for the West Coast, Eastern Eyre Peninsula and Lower Eyre Peninsula Total Fire Ban districts.

Extreme Fire Danger [75-99] is forecast for the Northwest Pastoral and Flinders Total Fire Ban districts.

Severe Fire Danger [50-74] is forecast for the Mid North Total Fire Ban district.

The Country Fire Service advises that fires burning under these conditions are likely to be fast moving, unpredictable and uncontrollable. You should action your Bushfire Survival Plan now.

The forecast maximum temperature for Adelaide today is 43 degrees. Ceduna and Leigh Creek are expecting 45, Port Augusta 47.

Yesterday was the first day on which the new system of identifying fire danger in South Australia made use of the category Catastrophic. 'Catastrophic', aka 'Code Red', basically means 'Leave now, flee, run for your lives.' One of the regions listed under this red code is Lower Eyre Peninsula, the site of an uncontrollable bushfire in January 2005, a fire in which nine people died and dozens more were rendered homeless, penniless, and/or permanently damaged in some other way. The events of the fire had a long tail of depression, PTSD and suicide.

On the news last night they were interviewing people from the affected rural areas. Obviously the TV station (Seven, I think) edited their footage to suit their own purposes, and who knows what agendas lurk in the hearts of producers of commercial TV news, but everyone whose interview made it to the screen responded with that combination of steely and laconic that I remember so well from having grown up with it, in a slightly (but only slightly) kinder, gentler part of rural South Australia. (UPDATE: here, in fact, where the only SA bushfire of the day so far has broken out two paddocks across from the house I grew up in. Fark.)

Two fortyish, weatherbeaten male farmers said they wouldn't leave unless there was an actual fire. A young woman with kids was cross that the schools had been closed, not because it meant she had the kids at home (most country people regard that as an advantage; they can help with the work) but because she felt her kids were unnecessarily missing out on a precious day of education. One dear old hatted dude in the pub, a man of at least 80 and probably older, scorned the idea of leaving. 'There's no fire. And,' he added, looking the camera in the eye, 'I wouldn't be scared or worried if there was.' It was very obvious that he didn't necessarily mean he thought he was safe. Country people live with death on a daily basis and learn to look it in the eye.

My guess is that in the endless quest for ratings the station was pandering to the prejudices of urban viewers by trying to make country people look too stupid to come in out of the rain. If so, it sort of backfired; they looked at least as brave as they looked silly. I wasn't sure whether to admire them or scream at them. But I guess those two things aren't mutually exclusive.




The Curramulka fire started about a mile back over where my right shoulder would have been when I took this photo, which faces south. The paddock you can see to the right of the tree in the middle of the picture would have been one of the first to burn. My childhood home is a couple of hundred metres down this road on the left. The township is down where you can see the land dipping into a hollow like a saucer or a nest, about 5 km south of here.

The fire passed by very close to the town and headed south-east. It's now been contained, but about an hour ago there was supposed to be a wind change that might push it back towards the town along a projected path that would lead it directly towards the cemetery where my great-grandparents and great-great grandparents are buried. If those gravestones are damaged my father is going to be very seriously dark.

UPDATE UPDATE, 10.30 pm: Yep, here we go; the cemetery and further north what used to be our family farm are smack in the middle of this danger area. I've been watching that dry lightning in the western sky across the gulf ever since it got dark.

In December 1869, great-great-granpappy got forced over the cliff and into the sea with his son John and the horse and cart by a bushfire that unbeknownst to them until hours later had already killed the shepherd, the shepherd's son and over a thousand sheep. G-G-Granpa and his boy trod water while bits of burning debris rained down on them, along this same stretch of coast that's now under threat again, in the same bay where I learned to swim. The fire will probably pass over all four of their graves, and they'll be shaking their heads skulls and saying Oh great, here we go again.

This region is family heartland. Not happy.

UPDATE #3, midnight:

Okay, that was scary.

It's still filthy hot here, oven-hot, so I got in the car and drove the ten minutes to the same beach where the boy from the Bruce Springsteen song held his girl so sadly while the sun set into the sea and the kids rode the water slide and the merry-go-round a couple of nights ago. It's another Springsteen night tonight, the sea roaring and shadowy couples in shorts and sundresses lined up in cars along the edge of the dunes or trailing down to the beach with ice creams and tinnies.

I'd thought I might be able to see some sort of glow from the fire across the gulf. But I wasn't prepared for the actual line of golden, flickering flames where my and my father's and his father's and his father's childhood beaches were on fire in the dark, due west across the water. A few miles south of the fire I could see the faint lights of a town that must have been Port Vincent, now quite a big town, full of apprehensive people all still up with the lights on, thinking about what to do: full of women alone, still up, still dressed, making cups of coffee and cups of tea, checking on the kids, watching the phone while their blokes were out at the fire, waiting for their blokes to come home.

I pulled up on the esplanade and wound down the car window. Under the heavy complicated smell of the incoming tide and the wind in the pines and the cars along the foreshore and the warm spitty rain hitting the hot road in tiny drops and steaming, under all that, there was the faintest note of smoke.