I’m waiting for Nielsen to get the Canberra ratings online so that I can link to them and verify the data. If they haven’t done it by this afternoon I’ll press ahead with the ratings results anyway.
Samuel
June 16th, 2006 at 01:34am
Details of the first rating season in Canberra for the year are slowly seeping out. The results aren’t in general public circulation yet, but radioinfo is reporting that Mix 106.3 has won the ratings, followed by 104.7, ABC666 and 2CC. Radioinfo says that the biggest improver this time around was 2CC, which is hardly surprising given all of the bus advertising they had zooming around the city.
No info on the other stations as yet, but based on the details that are available at the moment, it sounds like my predictions may be more or less correct.
Time will tell…and more details as they come to hand.
Samuel
June 15th, 2006 at 05:18pm
According to page 4 of this document from Nielsen Media (the people responsible for radio ratings), the results from the recent Canberra radio ratings are due for release today. I’ll get the details online ASAP, which will probably be this afternoon at some stage.
And just for the record, the long forgotten Blog View Stats for last month will be online tomorrow. They slipped my mind as I was too busy concentrating on work…they appear to have a reduction in visitors compared to previous months, but that’s probably not such a bad thing.
Samuel
2 comments June 15th, 2006 at 12:30am
If metro ratings schedules are anything to go by, Canberra’s radio ratings should be out today. In metro areas, radio ratings are released on the 2nd Wednesday after a ratings period…today is that day in Canberra…fingers crossed!
Samuel
June 14th, 2006 at 07:07am
A long weekend that brings back familiar voices, a presenter on holiday during a major event, a new breakfast duo, and ratings due out this week…it’s all fun and games at Capital Radio.
Going back to Monday June 5, and with the radio ratings season over, 2CC breakfast host Mike Jeffreys went on leave for two weeks, leaving Mike Frame in charge…but could anybody have predicted what was to follow? From the moment the ACT budget was announced on Tuesday afternoon, the local shows on 2CC have been generating a telephone meltdown as people ring in to vent their anger. 2CC have done a wonderful job as the forum for that anger, but I’m sure it was not quite what they had in mind for last week, and probably the rest of this week. I’m pretty sure they would have been expecting the annual fireworks discussions in the leadup to the Queen’s Birthday long weekend…but Mr. Stanhope made sure that didn’t happen.
Speaking of the long weekend, who forgot to tell Mike Frame about it? Every single day, he was there, and he’ll stay there until midday on Sunday when he finally gets to have a break for five days.
Whoever forgot to tell Framey about the public holiday, yelled the information at 2UE, who decided that Monday should be part of the weekend, and as such brought some familiar voices back to the 2CC airwaves. Queen’s Birthday Monday went something like this:
12am-6am: John Kerr (via 2UE)
6am-9am: Mike Frame (local)
9am-12pm: George Moore and Paul B. Kidd (via 2UE…and a pleasure to hear them on 2CC again)
12pm-3pm: Glenn Wheeler (via 2UE)
3pm-5pm: NRL (via 2GB)
5pm-6pm: Highlights of the Mike Welsh Drive Show (repeat and local)
6pm-12pm: Mike Williams (via 2UE).
Thankfully most people wouldn’t have known that Mike Welsh’s highlights show was a repeat, as it originally aired at 6am on Saturday in the place of “Bits of the Mike Jeffreys Breakfast Programme”, which is difficult to produce without a show to base it on.
And what was that promo being splashed around during 2CA’s AFL coverage? It was the long-awaited promo for 2CA’s new breakfast show, featuring two people called “Paul & Lleyton”. It might be long-awaited (2 and a half months), but it seems odd to start a new breakfast show after a ratings season and before the results…but so be it, with any luck Paul and Lleyton will be Canberra’s most interesting and useful breakfast combination, which wouldn’t be hard with the terribly annoying and distrubing Mark and Lisa on Mix 106.3 and that trio of idiots on 104.7…and do 666 ABC Canberra have a breakfast duo any more? I can never keep up with their continuously changing schedule.
I will wish Paul and Lleyton the best of luck, it’s quite obvious that 2CA are trying to win back some of the youth market they have lost to the FM commercial stations…they might succeed, but will they retain their older audience? It’s a tough ask being on breakfast on an ailing station, but with two and a half months of preparation from 2CA management, you would have to give Paul and Lleyton at least half a chance…good luck boys!
Update: Whoops, looks like it’s actually “Paul and Leighton”!
Samuel
8 comments June 13th, 2006 at 08:49am
As planned I went along to the Dickson College Closure Protest last night. The protest was organised at short notice by a group of concerned parents and citizens, and it was very convenient that the college was having its open night as this provided a perfect opportunity to hold the protest. This small group of people did a fantastic job in publicising it, with press releases going out to media organisations, and notices being stuck on virtually every lamp post in the Dickson Shopping Precinct, with a similar notice being handed out in the college. Credit should also go to the local radio stations for continuing to run the story about the protest throughout the day.
The protest got underway long before the advertised start time of 6:30. It really got underway when multiple ABC news and current affairs crews arrived. People were filtering in from about 6pm, and this gave the ABC a good opportunity to interview some people and get footage of people waving placards (myself included on both counts) to send back to the newsroom for use during the 7pm news. The ABC did a live cross to the rally, although it had more or less wound up by then and people were talking amongst themselves and signing the multiple petitions.
The main protest attracted approximately 250-300 people (that is my estimate), many people prepared placards, roughly five people wrote songs, and some Dickson students (from memory they were year 12 students) wrote and performed a lengthy song which involved the entire protest group.
One person had the bright idea of bringing a megaphone, which was utilised firstly for a driveby support announcement (filmed by ABC crews) and eventually for the speeches. A few people had semi-prepared speeches to deliver, whilst a few of the rest of us just jumped on the microphone to add our two cents to the discussion. I made a point which I think has been overlooked in the outrage, and that is Dickson’s unique place in education for students with special needs (Secondary Introductory English Centre, Dickson College Alternative Program (now called SITE) for troubled year 9 & 10 students, etc) and what will happen to them if the college closes.
The protest speeches wound up just before the open night started, although I think the college staff would have waited (there were plenty of them in the crowd) if the protest dragged on a bit.
I was mildly disappointed to see somebody flogging “Green Left Weekly” at the protest, although it did show that even the most extreme traditional Labor/Greens supporters are coming out against the Stanhope Labor government.
The press turnout was very good also. The ABC sent two (possibly three) crews out, with resources appearing to be combined for ABC News and Stateline (ABC TV Canberra 7:30pm tonight, repeated in Canberra Midday Saturday, and repeated nationally on ABC 2 (digital) 2:30pm Saturday and 4:30pm Sunday). I wouldn’t have recognised the Stateline crew if I hadn’t spotted Stateline reporter Catherine Garrett in the crowd.
The Canberra Times also sent a journalist out. She took multiple photos of the rally and was writing plenty of notes, she also appeared to interview a couple people. I also spotted a camera man from Prime News, which was very surprising considering that they only run mini-bulletins with minimal footage, Prime obviously consider this to be an extremely major issue. I think I spotted Win News loitering as well, although keeping track of attending media was not my top priority.
I made an effort to thank the media people for attending, although I was unable to thank all of them. I would, however, like to publically thank the ABC for bringing along a very large light which helped to illuminate the protest in otherwise difficult lighting conditions.
I did make an effort to invite opposition treasury spokesman Richard Mulcahy to the rally, although in the end he was unable to attend due to what he described in an email as an “unusual late sitting of the Assembly”.
Overall the rally was very good, and I think it is going to be very helpful. At this stage I am led to believe that more rallies are to be planned, there was a suggestion from an organiser that they would try and get a list of interested helpers, although I didn’t see it actually happen.
The other protest of the day (another short notice one) attracted approximately 150 people to Flynn Primary around 1:30pm. This is extraordinary for a protest which was only publicised a few hours prior to the event. Both of these protests are, in my view, a very strong indication to the Stanhope government that the community will not accept these changes, and if they want any chance of being re-elected in 2008, then they better start paying attention now.
Although I had nothing to do with organising the protest, and merely took it upon myself to help publicise it, I would like to thank everyone that attended, your support is greatly appreciated.
I would also like to thank everyone who has been leaving comments about the budget on this site, and sending me emails. I haven’t got around to replying to all of them yet, but I am getting there, and I do appreciate both the support, and the constructive criticism.
Samuel
5 comments June 9th, 2006 at 03:00am
There will be a rally against the closure of Dickson College tonight in the Dickson College carpark 6:30pm-7pm. This will be just before the college open night.
The rally is probably going to get a pretty big turnout, and I am planning on attending. All comers welcome.
When: 6:30pm-7:00pm
Where: Dickson College Carpark, Entry via Phillip Avenue (between Antil Street and Majura Avenue).
Samuel
June 8th, 2006 at 12:50pm
The ACT budget, it’s big, it’s bad and it’s ugly, and there is a lot of ground to cover, so I think we’ll start at the all important bottom line.
Chief Turnip (and treasurer) Stanhope has announced a budget surplus of $120 Million for this financial year, and an expected budget deficit of $80 million at the end of next financial year. He has also announced a raft of cutbacks, school closures, and increased rates and taxes. This had me wondering, how can you have a surplus, cut expenditure, increase monetary intake, and end up with less money? Perhaps I should step back a bit in time to answer that.
Prior to the announcement of the budget details, information had been slipping out of the Stanhope office saying that there would be a surplus, and that the budget would be tough. The opposition were saying something along the lines of a $300 million deficit, and economic mismanagement by the Stanhope government. Yesterday morning I rang Mike Frame (who is filling in for Mike Jeffreys on 2CC’s breakfast show) to say that I was inclined to agree with the opposition about the deficit (and the implied creative accounting), as I couldn’t understand how we could have a surplus, as Stanhope was indicating, and yet need a tough budget with lots of cuts.
Since getting home from work yesterday I have spent a fair bit of time looking at budget reports and press releases, and it is now very clear to me that we do have a deficit, and a rather considerable one. At the moment the ACT government is using the “Australian Accounting Standards” accounting method, which indicates a surplus for this financial year, but the figures for future financial years (and future budgets) use the “Government Finance Statistics” accounting method, which is the standard (and more accurate) method for Australian governments. This means that the surplus figures which Mr.Stanhope is throwing at us are a furphy , and a smokescreen of good (albeit misleading) intentions. The opposition were correct when they said we have a deficit and that the government is using an unusual accounting system to make a surplus. The opposition have been saying this for many months, unfortunately it appears to have been buried in the other bad news in the budget.
Education
I rang Mike Welsh (on 2CC’s drive show) to discuss this portion of the budget yesterday afternoon, as Jon Stanhope had been on there deflecting criticism and painting a picture of himself as the unpopular magic safety fairy who knows exactly what we need, and ignores the fact that he is responsible for the mess he is cleaning up, and that his solution is awful (or in his words, responsible andneccesary ). Jon was followed by opposition treasury spokesman Richard Mulchahy who, naturally enough, raised the points about Stanhope creating the mess in the first place, but more interestingly went on to talk about how the government has run down certain services.Mulchahy raised the interesting point that his daughter is in primary school, and her class is a composite class of three year levels.
When I rang Mike I told him about primary school when I was there (1999), in which it wasn’t uncommon to have composite classes containing two year levels. This has problems, but can be dealt with as the developmental levels of the children in adjoining year levels tend to overlap. Generally mixing multiple classes of this type and sorting by skill level for certain classes where peoplenoticeable progress differently (maths for example).
Unfortunately this would not be as easy or as practicable with three year levels in one class. If I take an example of combining years four, five and six in one class (the senior primary years are more likely to be combined in my experience) then you have a mix of students who range from struggling to understand long division, through to nearly understanding algebra. Whilst it would be almost perfectlyfeasible to put a group like that in skill level arranged maths classes, it would be nearly impossible to deal with the difference in ages (from 9 through to 12 in my example) when you have sportingactivities , or the more practical science experiments. There is also a severe difference is psychology in this age range, which makes it harder for teachers to handle the class.
Whilst some of this could be attributed to smaller enrollment numbers, it also highlights the fact that the government consistently tries to get away with a bare minimum of funding, resources and teaching staff. They seem to forget that education is an essential service, and this cheapskatebehaviour , no matter how economically sensible it may be in the short term, disadvantages a generation of students, and effectively society as a whole when these students leave school and go into the workplace. It also makes it harder for students to progress on to tertiary education, as they have a harder time grasping concepts in primary and secondary schooling, which means they learn less, and have less time to practice and perfect concepts.
Unfortunately this budget takes this cheapskate behaviour to a new level. Over the next three years the ACT government plans on closing 39 schools. According to the ABC the list of school closures reads as follows:
Schools to close at the end of 2006:
Schools to close at the end of 2007:
Schools to close at the end of 2008:
This list is quite appalling and alarming, and not surprisingly the education union has vowed to block the closures with industrial action. I’m understandably upset about Reid Preschool closing as it is my preschool, and one of the oldest in Canberra (if not the oldest). I’m also annoyed about Dickson College closing, not just because I went there, but because the plan for distributing those students is ludicrous. More on that in a moment.
Looking at that list, a lot of the preschools and primary schools are in the Belconnen area, which isn’t surprising considering that the bad idea West Belconnen Super School is going ahead.
I outlined my reasons for disagreeing with the Super School concept in the linked article, but as I look at this list I see yet another problem caused by these consolidations and closures, health, both now and in the future. Again, more in a moment.
I’m annoyed about the closure of all of these schools, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to a bad situation, which doesn’t appear to even take census data about family trends into account. I’m going to highlight the example of Dickson College closing here, as I went there, I understand the area, and it is probably one of the more ridiculous closures.
Dickson College is the only college in the inner north of Canberra, and has a student population of 558 according to the last census. This does not include the multiple specialty programs which Dickson is the North Canberracentre of, including the Secondary Introductory English Centre, which brings the English skills of new secondary aged students from foreign backgrounds, with little or no English knowledge, up to scratch for mainstream schooling. Dickson is also responsible for the SITE program (I can’t recall or find the meaning of the acronym)
which caters for year 9 and 10 students who, for one reason or another, cannot handle mainstream high school, and instead use this system to get through years 9 and 10 and progress into College. I would estimate that these students add another 50 or so students to the college, which equates to 600+ displaced students.
And the government’s idea? Expand Campbell High School so that it caters for years 7-12. I have a news flash for the government, Campbell does not have room for extra students. To start with they would need to expand the buildings…but there’s no room for that unless we plan on removing the space required to fit the students outside during breaks, or perhaps the government intend on removing the school oval, which destroys the P.E. program, and makes it even harder to fit in students. Admittedly Reid Oval is just across the (busy main) road, but Campbell has enough trouble keeping students on school grounds without requiring them to cross the road at lunch time if they wish to use the oval.
This actually looks like the beginning of the end of the college system in the ACT, as it is virtually impossible to cater for two different school attitudes (strict, formal high school & casual, student oriented and relatively relaxed college) in the one place, especially when college students have free lines and don’t need to wear a uniform, which removes the “easy to spot intruder on high school grounds” principle of high school playground supervision.
It is also impossible to realistically fit years 11 & 12 in to the existing Campbell facilities. The Gym is in use constantly with the high school students as it is, the assembly hall is not big enough to cater for the extra students…and did anybody consider how the heating system will be extended from supplying just the existing Campbell buildings to also supplying the extra buildings required with extra students.
I can guarantee you that the government forgot that students in year 11 and year 12 tend to start driving cars, and need a parking space. Campbell’s existingcarpark is only big enough for staff and a couple visitors, Dickson’s student carpark is bigger than Campbell’s existing carpark, and Campbell doesn’t really have room to build an extra carpark , especially if they are going to build extra building for the student influx. Traffic in that area is a nightmare on a good day, and I highly doubt that the Australian War Memorial will be overly impressed if it is harder for people to get in and around that area if the high school next door gains a few hundred drivers who want to use the tiny street which runs between the two and is the only entry/exit.
I was also going to mention health. All of these school closures mean more that students will be crammed into less space. In school this may make it more difficult for teachers to take expanding classes outside for some physical activity, especially as larger classes are harder to control, and mixed year level classes pose an even bigger challenge. Outside of school, combining schools makes independent sport less attractive.
For example, suppose that at the moment a student lives 15 minutes walk from their primary school, and they have soccer practice at 5pm, at a location 20 minutes drive away from their home. In this case the student may finish school at 3pm, get home at 3:15pm. A working parent may be able to get home at 4:30, and be able to drive the student to soccer practice.
Now, with a combined school system the school is likely to be further away from the student, and this may make it more feasible for a parent to drive their child to school (especially seeing as this would stretch and already stretched school bus system over the breaking point). In this case we will assume that the school is two suburbs away, and 15 minutes drive from home. In this case the parent has to be at the school by 3pm, which cuts their income as they have to leave work earlier (especially if a parent needs to drop the child off at school as well). This decrease in family income, and increase in car costs through increased distancetravelled will probably push many families to the point where they decide that they can’t afford to pay for sport after school.
The result here is children who are less inclined to be active, and therefore have more health problems when they are older, and become more of a burden on the health system than they would otherwise have been.
I’ll leave the final word on education to Clive Haggar, president of the Australian Education Union (ACT Branch), in an ABC news article.
The head of the ACT branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU), Clive Haggar, has questioned how public school teachers will be able to maintain education standards given the cutbacks.
“Tasmania is at the bottom of the pile when it comes to national outcomes in education and our schools in secondary are going to be staffed on the same basis as Tasmania, so it’s a dreadful outcome for our secondary schools,” he said.
“It is going to take us years to get over this Budget, if in fact we are ever able to do it.”
Mr Haggar says it is the worst Budget since the introduction of self-government.
“It in fact destroys all of the gains that we’ve made over the past five years,” he said.
“It certainly puts the Stanhope Government on a par with Jeff Kennett in Victoria and the damage he inflicted on the public education system down there.
“But the key point for us is how are we supposed to drive a quality system with $12 million worth of job losses in our schools?”
Rates and Taxes
Another factor which is going to make life more difficult for the public is a raft of increased rates, and new taxes. Kerces at The RiotACT had this concise summary of the increased rates and new taxes:
The revenue raisers in the budget are:
* a 6 per cent increase in rates as well as future rate rises being indexed to the Wage Price Index. Mr Stanhope said this would amount to an average increase of $1 a day per household;
* a new fire levy of $84 per year which will be included in each household’s general rates notices. It is expected this will raise $20 million a year. People on low incomes will only pay half of this;
* changing the eligibility criteria for the Home Buyer Concession Scheme (presumably meaning less people will be eligible);
* a new call-out fee for false alarms for the fire brigade of $200 per residential and $500 per commercial building;
* an increase in the ambulance levy currently charged to health funds for individuals and families who have ambulance cover. This levy will now be $85 per individual and $170 per family. People on pensions will not be charged this levy;
* full cost recovery for ACT Workcover’s services and successful prosecutions;
* a Utility Land Use Permit will be introduced for sewerage, water, electricity, gas and phone lines;
*development application fees will be raised; and
* a water fee will be introduced “through an increase of 30 cents per kilolitre in the water abstraction charge” (I couldn’t work out what this meant).
All I can add to this is “ouch”.
The Arboretum Goes Ahead
Around this time last year the Chief Turnip announced a really big tree garden (he must have a thesaurus to have found the word “Arboretum”) right in the middle of a really big drought. I rang Mike Frame (who was filling in for Mike Welsh on 2CC’s drive show at the time) to object to this silly idea, and thankfully I wasn’t the only one in Canberra who didn’t like it. Twelve months on, and the arboretum has escaped the public conscience in amongst a supposed cancellation and other bad news for the government. Unfortunately the Chief Turnip continues to show his arrogance byignoring the wishes of the public (and showing his ignorance for the term “public representative”) by committing money to the arboretum. Apparently he is going to spend $6 million over two years on it, and will even be having six different species of tree planted there in the coming months (credit to Kerces for spotting that one…many newsorganisations misunderstood the funding and thought the arboretum was shelved).
We’re not technically in drought any more, but there is still a water conservation effort being pushed by the government, and just yesterday The Canberra Times reported that Stanhope wants Canberra’s gardens to only contain native plants, which are generally less thirsty. Oddly enough, I could be sure that a big tree garden would consume a lot of water…I guess logic doesn’t come into decisions for unpopular magic safety fairies.
Health
The ABC picked a very interesting statement from health minister Katy Gallagher (loopy lady, silent g) to use in their TV news last night. Effectively she said that the government would find ways of saving money in health by removing free services and cutting spending. It’s hard to tell whether or not that was in context, or whether it was even accurate, but looking at the $752 million being given to health this year, and the various projects which that will fund (most notably $416,000 for buyingtamiflu, just in case the unpopular magic safety fairy has to save us from a bird flu outbreak). There does appear to be a lot of money being thrown around for no apparent gain. Katy pledged “additional funds” for cutting elective surgery waiting lists, but couldn’t elaborate on how they would do it. There is also $3.15 million being wasted on what looks like an advertising blitz about mental health, surely that money would be better off going to Beyond Blue or the mental health system.
Other Things From The Budget
It was interesting hearing Chief Turnip Stanhope on the radio talking about an increase in police numbers, and getting the cost wrong. The error was pointed out by Richard Mulchahy. It is also interesting to see that the budget papers seem confused about the issue as well, being unable to decide if they are adding 60 or 107 police officers.
The Turnip’s obsession with pointless public artworks is highlighted in this budget. Something in the range of $250,000 will be wasted on this. I’m sure it’s nice to have a city that has nice things in it, but wouldn’t it be better to have a good budget and working essential services?
More funding for fixed speed cameras (raises money, doesn’t solve speeding though…only mobile camera operated by police who are willing to chase can do that), more money for security cameras (hopefully these work a tad better than the ones in Civic).
500 public housing properties to be sold (although more will be bought…apparently…I just can’t trust that assurance).
Public service to shrink.
Superannuation contributions for new public servants to be lower than everywhere else in the country.
And many many things which escape me at this time.
Summary
You know something is very very wrong when the unions all come out and blast a Labor government over the same issue at the same time, and with such a wide range of subjects. Chief Turnip Stanhope has been saying that he is willing to accept that people will not be happy with the budget, and for once I agree with him. I don’t, however, agree that this is as responsible as he asserts. It isblatantly obvious that the Stanhope administration has been an economic disaster since taking power in 2001, and there is no doubt that the government is in financial trouble, but surely there is a better way than this abomination of a budget. I’m not surprised that former treasurer Ted Quinlan quit, he was always the odd man out in the Turnip government, an advocate of common sense and economic responsibility, unfortunately he was surrounded by a pack ofspendthrifts who “lived beyond their means” (to use the Stanhope quote), and now the public is going to have to pay for the mistakes.
It is now up to the public to appeal against this budget, to make as much noise as possible, and to ensure that the government know how the public feels.Stanhope may be happy to be the unpopular magic safety fairy for now, but history has a habit of repeating itself. Last time Stanhope said to blame him, he turned around and tried to derail the inquest which would probably find against him (hmmm, when are the findings due from that?), Stanhope may be happy for you to blame him for the budget now, but what’s the bet that he announces a massive cut to rates and taxes prior to the 2008 election in an attempt to wipe the slate clean, and derail the ultimate ballot box assault on his terrible leadership?
This budget is a shocker, as Clive Haggar said “It is going to take us years to get over this Budget, if in fact we are ever able to do it”. The federal government is already working to stop some ACT government legislation, and as the ACT is a territory, perhaps they would be willing to come to the rescue of Canberra over this budget. The federal government has the ability to sack the Chief Turnip and appoint an administrator…perhaps that is what this city needs.
Samuel
14 comments June 7th, 2006 at 03:43am
You may recall that a couple weeks ago legendary race caller Tony Campbell passed away after a battle with cancer.
Well I’m pleased to be able to bring you the news that Tony’s amazing contribution to racing and the community will not be left to disappear in the pages of mass public history. Instead the Canberra Racing Club have decided to name a day and feature race on their new racetrack after the late Tony Campbell.
Thoroughbred News informs us of the following:
Canberra to honour Tony Campbell
1 Jun 2006Canberra Racing Club announced on Thursday that it will honour its former legendary racecaller, the late Tony Campbell, by staging a new feature race meeting in his name on the Club’s exciting new Acton track.
Friday, 25th August 2006, will see the inaugural running of this event which will be highlighted by a new feature race; the Tony Campbell Cup. Additionally, to honour the great skill of all racecallers, the second feature race on Tony Campbell Cup Day will be known as the Racecallers Cup.
The Canberra Racing Club is planning for this meeting to become a very special annual event and one that will grow into the premier meeting to be conducted on the Acton track each year.
The last Canberra meeting that Tony called was on Melbourne Cup Day 2005. On that day two races were conducted on the Acton Track. To date only three racecallers have called races on the Acton Track; Tony Campbell, Ian Craig, and Josh Fleming. Both Ian and Josh have been invited to call at the inaugural Tony Campbell Cup meeting.
Craig, Sydney’s premier racecaller, and great friend of Tony Campbell, has agreed to be the inaugural caller of the Tony Campbell Cup. Josh Fleming will call the Racecallers Cup and a number of other supporting races on the day.
A number of other great racecallers from around the country will also be invited to attend the meeting and to call a race in Tony’s honour.
Chief Executive of Canberra Racing, Damien Foley, said: ‘Canberra’s Acton Track, Australia’s first synthetic racetrack, has performed brilliantly since being opened for racing and it is fitting that the first feature meeting to be conducted on this surface be named in honour of one of Canberra racing’s greatest ambassadors, the late Tony Campbell. This annual event will ensure that Tony’s contribution to Canberra and region racing will always be remembered.’
The Chief Minister & Racing Minister for the ACT, John Stanhope, will be invited to present the trophy to winning connections of the first running of the Tony Campbell Cup.
The 2006 Tony Campbell Cup, an Open handicap run over 1280m, will offer $40,000 in prizemoney and the 2006 Racecallers Cup, a 1206m Class Three Handicap, will offer $22,000 in prizemoney.
I might just have to try and make my way out there on that day. It may mean not being paid for a day, but it is something I would like to cover here on this site, especially seeing as Tony Campbell is one of the few people to ever receive the prestigious Samuel Salute.
Samuel
1 comment June 5th, 2006 at 10:38am
A little birdie has informed me that their spies say Clive Robertson will be filling in for Glenn Wheeler (who is filling in for Stan Zemanek) on 2UE, 2CC and network stations tonight from 8pm-midnight.
Probably not a bad idea considering that good ol’ Glenn has been having some issues with his voice lately.
It is also interesting to note that Stan is one of 2CC’s big ratings attractors and was plastered over the back of a heap of Canberra buses for the ratings season…with three nights (including tonight) left for him in this ratings season to appear on the airwaves, he is yet to appear, instead being replaced by both Clive and Glenn. 2CC’s ratings will be very interesting indeed.
Samuel
5 comments May 31st, 2006 at 07:31pm
Ballumbir Street and Cooyong Street in Civic have been merged into one big street called Cooyong Street. Apparently this is an effort to eliminate confusion where one road is Barry Drive, Cooyong Street, Ballumbir Street and Coranderrk Street all within the space of a few kilometres.
Here is what it looked like before the change
.
Barry Drive turns into Cooyong Street at the intersection with Northbourne Avenue, the red dot marks the point where Cooyong Street becomes Ballumbir Street, and the blue dot represents the point where Ballumbir Street becomes Coranderrk Street. The only change is that the entire area between the red and blue dots is now Cooyong Street.
Ultimately this doesn’t solve much, as Cooyong Street is still wedged in the middle of Barry Drive and Coranderrk Street on the one bit of road. The better thing to do would be to just have Barry Drive as the main road up to Northbourne Avenue, and then have Cooyong Street as the semi-suburban/metro street from Northbourne Avenue to the termination of the road at Parkes Way (not show on this map).
To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t understand why the stretch of road from the blue dot to Parkes Way is Coranderrk Street when Coranderrk Street also comes out of the right of the blue dot, which is a T-intersection between Coranderrk St (white road) and Cooyong/Ballumbir/Coranderrk (yellow road).
If you’re confused, well you’re not the only one. The street signs were recently upgraded in this area and they refer to Ballumbir Street, which is odd considering that the idea for the change has been floating about since 1998 and received support in “public consultation” in December, which seemed to form part of the whole street sign upgrade process.
Here is a press release from the ACT Planning and Land Authority which should help to confuse the issue a bit more for you (original press release here).
City street renamed
The ACT Planning and Land Authority has approved the renaming of Ballumbir Street in the City Centre to Cooyong Street.
Chief Planning Executive Neil Savery said that geographically, Ballumbir Street is a continuation of Cooyong Street.
“Travelling along the two, it is logical to interpret them as being the same street,” Mr Savery said.
“The change is about helping people find their way around the City and reducing confusion where street names currently change along the length of a street.”
Mr Savery said the idea to change the name of Ballumbir to Cooyong Street – and also Binara Street to Allara Street – had been identified in 1998 during previous planning studies and, in 2005, the Canberra Central Program revisited the issue due to its street sign replacement project.
“As part of the Government’s Canberra Central Program, street signs throughout the City are being progressively upgraded to make them easier to read.
“It is an important part of the Canberra Central Program to ensure the city is easy to get around in and street signs are one of the fundamental ways we can achieve this.”
The public was consulted in December 2005 about proposals to change the names of Ballumbir and Binara Streets to Cooyong and Allara Streets respectively.
The Ballumbir/Cooyong name change received positive support, but significant objections were raised about the Binara/Allara change.
“Consequently, Binara Street’s name will not change,” Mr Savery said.
“To help people through the transition of Ballumbir Street’s name change, new street signs are being arranged for Cooyong Street that will have a second sign below them containing the words ‘formerly Ballumbir Street’.
“These secondary signs will remain in place for the foreseeable future.”
More Information: George Rummer 02 6205 4715
So they want roads to have one name for their duration, but still have three names for this one road…and I wonder how they went about consulting the public, one can only assume that it was the usual “place an ad in the Canberra Times Classifieds and then go ahead anyway” scenario. (Although if they would like to prove me wrong then I’m all ears).
It is worthwhile noting that the PDF version of the press release (linked above) contains ACT Planning and Land Authority’s “vision”, namely:
Canberra, a city like no other; an ideal city.
Well, one out of two ain’t bad…
Samuel
14 comments May 30th, 2006 at 02:27pm
Well the underground cabling (previously reported here, here, here, here, and here) has been progressing nicely, as has the construction works on the building that the cables are providing electricity for. ActewAGL now appear to be finished with the cabling holes, and have now dug over them, and removed the fences. I will see about getting some photos soon.
It occured to me that I forgot to mention the email I got from Carol, from Cord Excavations, one of the companies involved in the underground cabling project. This email came in on March 28.
Hey there
Love your photos and running commentary on the Binarra feeder project at Ainslie- keep up the construction digi-dramas!
…few concerns about the roofies though…
Cheers, Karen.
Hmmm, the roofies…
They might want to move a bit back from the edge I think.
Also, on Thursday May 18 I spotted the people from UEA (the company responsible for the horizontal directional drilling in the underground cabling project) working on another project near the corner of Athlon Drive and Drakeford Drive (close to Tuggeranong).
Samuel
4 comments May 29th, 2006 at 02:42pm
Remember the loonies who took offence at my opinion of Summernats? Well they seem to have long memories.
Yesterday afternoon I was returning to work at the end of lunch, and walked the long way back in to the office (as I was a tad early) which involved walking around a corner on to the footpath on one side of Northbourne Avenue at a busy major intersection (this did not involve crossing the road). The vehicles travelling southbound on Northbourne were stopped at a red light, which meant they had plenty of time to see people walking, and potentially recognise them.
Anyway, as I was getting closer to my building, the cars travelling southbound received the green light, and as such, started moving, it was around this time that I started to hear a rather rowdy noise eminating from one of the vehicles…I turned my head to take a look (I was walking in a southbound direction) and could see somebody yelling from one of the cars, as they got even closer and passed me it became apparent that it was actually a tirade of expletives and excessive use of the word “nerd”. It also became apparent that it was more than one person yelling from the car, and that the tirade was directed at me, as one of them pointed directly at me.
You’re probably wondering what makes me think that this was the aforementioned loonies…well quite simply it was a group of young males in a “hotted up” vehicle exhibiting similar behaviour to what the loonies did last time, with similar language.
I have to wonder why they continue this nonsense…after all the last time they were of any concern as a “hot topic” was February, and it is now May. Are they really that far off the planet that they think yelling expletives at me will make me change my mind or give up blogging? Do they really think that the ten or so other people in the area were looking at them favourably? Perhaps they would have liked to take a closer look at the looks they were getting from the other people in the area.
I do have a message for them (although I fear the above text may be too much for their puny minds and they may miss the message as a result), next time around I will be taking a note of your registration plates, a description of your vehicle, the language that you use etc, and I will be pressing charges of harrassment (or whatever the legal term for it is). I will also (more than likely) have a number of witnesses, especially where I was at the time of yesterday’s incident…so if they would like to try it again, they have been warned.
In related loony news, I received an email yesterday afternoon from one “Sam Granleese” (his samgranleese@mac.com address didn’t bounce, so it might be legitimate) who said
Dear Samuel,
As we both share the same name, I thought it was my duty on behalf of other Sam’s and Samuel’s around the world to give you a good talking to.
Are you a mental patient? If so, please start taking your medication again. If not, please unplug your computer, take a deep breath, and call ‘000’ on your phone. Do not attempt to tune into 2CC whilst you wait for the ambulance to arrive, and if possible, please put on your spare straight-jacket which is surely still lying around the house. This would be very considerate.
Many thanks,
Sam
Was Sam having a bad day and just wanted to vent on somebody? Perhaps…I felt like venting on him after the previous loonies, but I refrained from doing that and instead sent him a polite email to which he is still yet to respond.
Sam,
You provide all these solutions, but you don’t identify what they are
there to solve. What exactly are you trying to acheive?Samuel
In further related loony news, the Queen’s birthday long weekend is coming up, which means that local loonies get to blow things up for a while (and continue doing it when they aren’t allowed to). I’ll have another editorial on that subject in the coming weeks.
Samuel
12 comments May 26th, 2006 at 09:12am
It is with a heavy heart that I must bring you the news that race caller Tony Campbell, the legendary stalwart of horse racing and associated sports in Canberra and surrounds, has died of cancer, aged 58. Tony passed away yesterday morning just before 8am.
I really don’t know what to say, it’s just very hard to believe that he is gone, especially when he looked so well only two months ago (as seen in the picture above).
Oddly enough, Telstra Bigpond Sport covered the sad news fairly well, so I will leave the words to them.
The NSW racing industry is deeply saddened with the news this morning that the ‘Voice of Canberra Racing’ Tony Campbell passed away just before 8am today after a courageous battle with cancer.
Tony Campbell, 58, had been associated with the Canberra Racing Club for 29 years in roles that range from Nomination Clerk to Master of Ceremonies. But, of course, Tony was best known for his role as racecaller for Canberra for 26 years.
During this time Tony called 25 consecutive Black Opals and is well known for his thrilling call of the 1992 Black Opal in which his great mate Frank Cleary’s Clan O’Sullivan became the first locally-trained winner of Canberra’s premier event.
Whilst Tony was well known as one of Canberra racing’s best ambassadors, he was also a passionate Canberra Raiders supporter and was the ground announcer at many of the Raiders home games in the early days of the Raiders.
In a long career Tony regularly called many Sydney races for the ABC and occasionally as on-course broadcaster for the AJC. Tony skills were very diverse, as demonstrated by the fact that he also called harness races including three Miracle Miles at Harold Park.
Tony was also a great community man giving up countless hours to entertain the residents of numerous Canberra nursing homes belting out some of his favourite old tunes on the piano. Tony always made himself available to charity organisations helping with many roles such as MC and was always happy to provide animated phantom calls when requested, and even acted as Santa Claus on the odd occasion.
Chairman of Canberra Racing Club, Howard Powell, said: “Canberra Racing and the Canberra community have lost one of their greatest ambassadors today. We are deeply saddened of Tony’s passing.
“Tony was known as ‘The Voice of Canberra Racing’ for 26 years and not only have we lost a great supporter of racing we have all lost a dear friend. Tony will be sadly missed; his passing will leave a void in our industry”.
While details are yet to be confirmed, it is likely that the funeral service of Tony will be held at St Brigid’s Catholic Church, Cnr Bancroft & Whilshire Streets, Dickson, on Friday, 26th May 2006 commencing at 10am, followed by a private burial, and Queanbeyan Racing Club will host a wake following the service.
At Canberra Racing Club’s meeting this Friday jockeys will wear black armbands and a minutes silence will be observed. The Canberra Racing Club Committee will announce a fitting tribute to honour the contribution that Tony made to Canberra Racing in coming weeks.
I suppose the best thing I can do for Tony is to award him with a Samuel Salute, quite possibly the greatest honour I can bestow on someone.
Rest In Peace Tony, you will be missed.
Samuel
May 23rd, 2006 at 06:26am
As Nattie and I went for our Wednesday evening walkies we passed by a location where leaves were in the process of being cleaned up (whilst Autumn is pretty, it sure is messy). As I didn’t have the camera with me (it rarely comes out on walkies), and the light was fading anyway, I decided to come back the next day (yesterday, Thursday) and take photos.
When I got around to visiting the location in Reid again, I noticed that the leaves were still in their little neat piles, and I could hear the sound of leaf blowers in the distance.
The scene reminded me of one of the animated scenes in “Monty Python And The Holy Grail” where seasons change rapidly, and a tree is used to demonstrate it.
Anyway, on with the story, the leaf cleaning people had parked their vehicles on one side of the block. Judging by one of the vehicles they intended on mulching the leaves. The business dealing with the leaves appeared to be BurHor Horticultural Services (PH: 02 6238 1930).
On further inspection there was a great big pile of leaves inside the block.
Some of the people involved seem to take the dust factor of leaf blowers seriously…in some cases to the extent where they look like robots or aliens. (I can understand their need to cover up though, as a hayfever sufferer I know that leaf blowers are a cause of hayfever).
Overall they appeared to be doing a good job, but I had other things to do, so I left at this point and did what I needed to do.
And before you ask, yes there does eappear to be something wrong with the camera…I’m still trying to work out exactly what has happened.
Samuel
1 comment May 19th, 2006 at 03:37pm
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