Monday, 19 March 2007

Sword out of hiding as Queen's woman reopens dream bridge, The Australian, 19 March, 2007.

Sword out of hiding as Queen's woman reopens dream bridge: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Peter Lalor, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 19 Mar 2007: 3.
At yesterday's anniversary celebrations, Premier Morris Iemma set things right, stepping back and asking the Queen's representative, Governor Marie Bashir, to cut the ceremonial ribbon.
After the official ceremony the dignitaries walked across the bridge with the crowd, with Iemma holding his children's hands. Apart from the cameras, he could have been any other parent. State Opposition Leader Peter Debnam marched anonymously with his family.
"Let us never forget the bridge was built at a very heavy cost in lost lives and shattered families," Mr Iemma said. "These workmen made the supreme sacrifice for industry. Sixteen deaths was a terrible toll. Today such a loss would be regarded as appalling and unacceptable. At the height of the Depression, 16 lives was considered acceptable, even a point of pride."

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SEVENTY-FIVE years ago today, an incensed monarchist on horseback infamously beat the NSW Labor premier to the punch at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Jack Lang had defied king andconstituents by insisting on cutting the ribbon himself, only to be upstaged by the sword-wielding Francis de Groot, a member of the right-wing paramilitary New Guard.
At yesterday's anniversary celebrations, Premier Morris Iemma set things right, stepping back and asking the Queen's representative, Governor Marie Bashir, to cut the ceremonial ribbon.
Sydney's traffic was stopped for the massive birthday party, and an estimated 200,000 people walked across the bridge, proving time has not dulled the attraction of the world's greatest arch.
The day went smoothly until a commuter fatality at North Sydney station, where marchers disembarked for the crossing, caused southbound trains to be cancelled for a short time.
In 1932, 750,000 people marched, three people died, many were injured when a vantage point collapsed and thousands fainted during the festivities.
Most who crossed yesterday had registered and followed instructions to come prepared. At the last minute, authorities allowed all to march without displaying their file numbers.
Professor Bashir cut the ribbon and echoed the words of Lang, re- dedicating the bridge to the people of Australia and Sydney.
"It is a bridge of dreams," she said. "Purchased by the coins of our people, it has paid us back a hundred-fold. It is our landmark, our achievement, our conquest, our bridge."
She said it had been a beacon for migrants who had arrived by ship, and more recently, a witness to the powerful People's Walk for Reconciliation in 2000.
Relatives of De Groot, Lang and the father of the bridge, chief engineer John Bradfield, were among yesterday's crowd.
After the official ceremony the dignitaries walked across the bridge with the crowd, with Iemma holding his children's hands. Apart from the cameras, he could have been any other parent. State Opposition Leader Peter Debnam marched anonymously with his family.
Also in yesterday's crowd was Bruce Boddington, 79, from Bathurst, who first walked across the bridge when he was four. He says he was the youngest to cross. "I can remember the crowd, I remember De Groot cutting the tape," he said. "It was my first living memory.
"It's a great feeling to know I'm alive and kicking and able to experience a similar feeling again. It was a wonderful experience for a young bloke, and is a wonderful experience for an old bloke."
Dawn Fraser carried her three-year-old grandson, Jackson, on her shoulders. "It's a wonderful atmosphere," she said. "This is a great day for Australia."
The Premier later unveiled a plaque in memory of the 16 men who died in the bridge's construction. In 1932, authorities thought any mention of the dead would take the edge off the ceremony.
"Let us never forget the bridge was built at a very heavy cost in lost lives and shattered families," Mr Iemma said. "These workmen made the supreme sacrifice for industry. Sixteen deaths was a terrible toll. Today such a loss would be regarded as appalling and unacceptable. At the height of the Depression, 16 lives was considered acceptable, even a point of pride."
The family of John Alexander Faulkner, who was 40 when he was killed during the construction, witnessed the ceremony.
Granddaughter Rhonda Loughnan, 53, said the family were immensely proud of what he had done. "It was a very hard life for all the family -- it was very hard for my grandmother with the four children," she said. "She is as much a hero as he was."
And after many denials, Bridge Climb boss Paul Cave finally acknowledged on TV last night he had bought De Groot's sword.
Editorial -- Page 17
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Saturday, 17 March 2007

Cultural dimension of tomorrow's leadership, Future Summit, The Australian, 17 March, 2007.

Cultural dimension of tomorrow's leadership -- FUTURE SUMMIT 2007 - CREATING A BETTER FUTURE: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. Weekend Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 17 Mar 2007: 26.
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Victorian Opera's general manager [Anne Frankenberg], 39, says technology is helping elite art forms such as opera assume their rightful place in the lives and living rooms of ordinary people. Frankenberg was one of 50 people given a Future Summit Leadership award last year.
To demonstrate her thesis that opera has often been revolutionary and remains so today, Frankenberg points to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and to Australian Richard Mills's The Love of the Nightingale. The Marriage of Figaro, which packed in the crowds like an AFL match, was radical for its day because it was about servants rather than royalty: servants who were smarter than their bosses.
Centuries later, Mills's Nightingale has also been packing in the crowds. It is, says Frankenberg, a powerful, shocking and transcendent opera about violence, revenge and the silencing of innocence that creates astonishing emotional effects and leaves the audience wanting to change the world. Yet it is a reworking of an ancient Greek story about a young woman who is raped and then has her tongue cut out to stop her revealing the name of her attacker.
Opera will continue to transform lives, Anne Frankenberg tells John Stapleton
THE flickering hi-tech lounge rooms of the future will have one thing in common with the simple mud-floored rooms of 5000 years ago: music. Art has always transformed and enriched people's lives, and that is not about to stop any time soon.
Victorian Opera's general manager Anne Frankenberg, 39, says technology is helping elite art forms such as opera assume their rightful place in the lives and living rooms of ordinary people. Frankenberg was one of 50 people given a Future Summit Leadership award last year.
She holds a bachelor of music and bachelor of arts from the University of Melbourne, a graduate diploma in musical performance and an MBA. She was manager of OzOpera for Opera Australia until taking on her present role last year, starting the company after a spirited campaign from Victorians for an opera company of their own.
Frankenberg says the Future Summit, an outflow from the World Economic Forum, has provided opportunities for intense interactions with people in leadership positions. "When you work in the arts it is easy to have most of your contacts with others in the arts: it can be a little enclave."
Being among so many high achievers challenged her own views about the place and importance of art and, indeed, of her own job. "Whoever I sat down beside had opinions about everything," she recalls.
On the summit's first day last year, there was a session on Australian identity, without a single representative of the performing arts on the panel. "It made me think about the ability of the arts to give you a different frame for identity. You only have to think of theplays that Australians have written, the paintings, the music, the films."
Frankenberg is a believer in the transformative and revolutionary power of all the art forms. She thinks this power will spread and deepen as new technologies make art accessible to everyone. She says it is impossible to take art away from Australia: even if all funding for orchestras, galleries, museums and opera companies were to stop tomorrow, art would continue to transform lives.
"The surveys all show that Australians are widely involved in and value cultural experiences, from singing in a community choir to going to see a movie. You don't have to be an opera performer. You are not going to stop people drawing or putting on a community play in someone's drawing room. People have a fundamental compulsion to express themselves."
Part of the power of art in a complex, multi-ethnic society such as Australia is its ability to force the appreciation of other people's viewpoints. "To have creative people who will not necessarily accept what is put in front of them makes for a better country."
To demonstrate her thesis that opera has often been revolutionary and remains so today, Frankenberg points to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and to Australian Richard Mills's The Love of the Nightingale. The Marriage of Figaro, which packed in the crowds like an AFL match, was radical for its day because it was about servants rather than royalty: servants who were smarter than their bosses.
Centuries later, Mills's Nightingale has also been packing in the crowds. It is, says Frankenberg, a powerful, shocking and transcendent opera about violence, revenge and the silencing of innocence that creates astonishing emotional effects and leaves the audience wanting to change the world. Yet it is a reworking of an ancient Greek story about a young woman who is raped and then has her tongue cut out to stop her revealing the name of her attacker.
"Music has a power to speak to people and that power is not going to fade," Frankenberg says. What will change, of course, is thetechnology. Cheaper access via radio and television has changed the demographics of music and art consumption over the past century, but technology will change the way it is experienced.
"Art is part of enriching a culture and telling that culture's stories ... Opera's appeal will continue to broaden. Technology ... is creating new ways for people to experience those cultural activities. Art will be disseminated in different ways.
"Recently there was the first live telecast of an opera performance on the steps of the Opera House and at Federation Square in Melbourne at the same time as it was being performed inside a theatre. That's an example of how the technology is spreading and changing the experience."
The Future Summit 2007 will be convened by the Australian Davos Connection and supported by The Australian. It will be a platform for the discussion of strategic trends and directions by Australians across all sectors of society. Dubbed New World Order 2.0, the summit will be held on May 14 and 15 at the Melbourne Grand Hyatt Hotel.
Each year the Future Summit announces leadership awards for rising stars in their fields. Nominations are invited by March30 and can be emailed to info@futuresummit.org. Further information can be found onwww.futuresummit.org/summit2007-lsawards.htm.
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Thursday, 15 March 2007

Another headache as thousands are left stranded, The Australian, 15 March, 2007.

Another headache as thousands are left stranded: [3 All-round Metro Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 15 Mar 2007: 4.
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Last night's problems, coming just 10 days before the state election, resulted in severe delays for an estimated 35,000 people. A police spokesman said it had been "a nightmare with crowds trying to get home". NSW Transport Minister John Watkins issued an apology, describing the power failure as unprecedented. "Unfortunately this one not only occurred right on peak hour, but in the middle of the Harbour Bridge, making it difficult to fix and almost even harder to move passengers safely," he said.
THE Iemma Government was last night battling its third transport crisis in three weeks, with more than 4000 commuters trapped on trains following a power failure on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
An overhead wiring problem brought one train to a halt as it approached the bridge. The fault then cascaded through the system, stopping a further 15 trains, including two in tunnels and three between stations.
Some passengers were trapped for more than 2 1/2 hours, with ambulance crews called to treat those suffering panic attacks as a result of claustrophobia. On February 20, much of the city was brought to a standstill when tens of thousands of people flocked to the harbour to see the arrival of the Queen Mary II and Queen Elizabeth II cruise liners. The Government later admitted it had been caught by surprise.
The chaos was repeated two days later when a visit by US Vice- President Dick Cheney led to road and tunnel closures.
Last night's problems, coming just 10 days before the state election, resulted in severe delays for an estimated 35,000 people. A police spokesman said it had been "a nightmare with crowds trying to get home". NSW Transport Minister John Watkins issued an apology, describing the power failure as unprecedented. "Unfortunately this one not only occurred right on peak hour, but in the middle of the Harbour Bridge, making it difficult to fix and almost even harder to move passengers safely," he said.
He described the failure to inform commuters across the network on what was happening as unforgiveable and said he was not satisfied that enough was done to help those affected.
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Wednesday, 14 March 2007

Whiteley vista sells for $1.5m, The Australian, 14 March, 2007.

Whiteley vista sells for $1.5m: [2 All-round First Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 14 Mar 2007: 5.
Bidding in the grand ballroom of the Sofitel Wentworth Hotel, in Sydney's CBD, rose rapidly in $50,000 lots to reach $1.25 million -- that's $1.5 million when the 20 per cent buyer's premium is added.

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BRETT Whiteley's triptych View From The Sitting Room Window, Lavender Bay sold for $1.5 million at auction in Sydney last night.
The painting, completed a year before his death in 1992 from a drug overdose, depicts the scene from the window of his studio, with Sydney harbour coloured a deep wine-red.
Bidding in the grand ballroom of the Sofitel Wentworth Hotel, in Sydney's CBD, rose rapidly in $50,000 lots to reach $1.25 million -- that's $1.5 million when the 20 per cent buyer's premium is added. The pre-sale estimate had been set by auction house Deutscher- Menzies at $1.2 million. The buyer opted to remain anonymous.
Russell Drysdale's Red Landscape, painted in 1958 and depicting an Aboriginal hunter in a harsh red landscape, sold for $1.08 million, including buyer's premium.
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Tuesday, 13 March 2007

Outside the cities, owners go to town in real estate boom, The Australian, 13 March, 2006.

Outside the cities, owners go to town in real estate boom: [1 All-round Country Edition]

John Stapleton, Maurice Dunlevy. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 13 Mar 2006: 5.
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The trend is no more apparent than in NSW. Margaret Dixon paid $76,000 for a 0.80ha block outside Otford, just south of Sydney, in 1976 and expects to get more than $2million for her hilltop property.
Waterfront prices at Thirroul, on the outskirts of industrial Wollongong, are on par with beachfront homes at suburban Cronulla. "It doesn't matter if it's Thirroul or Cronulla, because both cost $1.2million," he said.
Major city property markets continued to show signs of recovery over the weekend. Australian Property Monitors said clearance rates in Sydney were at 54 per cent, a jump of almost 14per cent, with total sales worth $71million, compared with only $54 million for the same time last year.

WHILE residential real estate markets have stagnated in five mainland capitals, once shunned near-city towns are experiencing a bonanza.
Bunbury in Western Australia is one of Australia's fastest- growing areas, with some prices doubling while Perth struggles.
South Australia has Mt Barker, a rural community with metropolitan house prices.
Buying near Geelong, Victoria, can mean paying as much as you would in Melbourne's best suburbs -- 80km away.
Prices have stalled in Brisbane, but the boom continues on the Gold Coast and along most of the Queensland coast.
The trend is no more apparent than in NSW. Margaret Dixon paid $76,000 for a 0.80ha block outside Otford, just south of Sydney, in 1976 and expects to get more than $2million for her hilltop property.
Mrs Dixon, 59, said the property had seemed remote at the time -- with no milk, bread or mail deliveries and no running water. "I wasn't working, I had three children under five, but my husband worked enormously hard to pay it off," she said.
"If someone had told me I would be living in a $2million property I wouldn't have believed them."
What was once seen as remoteness is now branded as valuable privacy, and what used to be a long trip to the city is little more than standard commuting time today.
Helensburg PRDnationwide director Doug Svensen said he expected a 25 per cent increase in the next 12 months for the best properties just south of Sydney.
Waterfront prices at Thirroul, on the outskirts of industrial Wollongong, are on par with beachfront homes at suburban Cronulla. "It doesn't matter if it's Thirroul or Cronulla, because both cost $1.2million," he said.
Major city property markets continued to show signs of recovery over the weekend. Australian Property Monitors said clearance rates in Sydney were at 54 per cent, a jump of almost 14per cent, with total sales worth $71million, compared with only $54 million for the same time last year.
Clearance rates in Melbourne were a high 60 per cent, up 10per cent on the same weekend last year and, with a dollar value of $48million, more than double thevalue of properties sold in the same weekend last year.


Also published in The Sunday Times and the Townsville Bulletin.

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Bridge walked booked out, The Australian, 13 March, 2007.

Bridge walk booked out: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 13 Mar 2007: 3.
ORGANISERS have closed bookings to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday after more than 200,000 people registered online for the opportunity to celebrate the bridge's 75th anniversary.

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ORGANISERS have closed bookings to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday after more than 200,000 people registered online for the opportunity to celebrate the bridge's 75th anniversary.
Official celebrations begin at 9am, then from 10am until about 8.30pm those who have registered will be able to walk across the famous landmark.
Events spokesman Scott Crebbin said yesterday the registration process had begun when the project was launched in January.
"Demand has increased over the past few days with increased publicity," he said.
"The evening slots were the last to go and they all were booked by early afternoon."
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