tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84191294680821292102024-03-05T04:47:49.952-08:00AfterthoughtsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-86492755120826567452018-06-14T02:44:00.000-07:002019-09-03T04:25:40.382-07:00The crushing feeling of failure when you can't be hypnotised<div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It's when I'm on his doorstep that I realise responding to an amateur hypnotist's dating profile calling for "open minded" guys might not be the safest idea I've ever acted upon.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace; font-size: 12pt;">My naturally curious and equally skeptical journalist brain has once again taken over. The only evidence I'm willing to accept when it comes to deciding whether hypnosis is real, I've decided, is if I go under myself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank* is well-mannered with a friendly, non-threatening presence. He got into hypnotism by reading books, watching videos and then experimenting on his friends, he tells me. Now he helps people with anything from focus on gym, to committing better to study, to getting their rocks off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">If it works, I can't be forced to do anything I'm morally opposed to doing, he reassures me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">The requirements for being put under are abstract: you can't actively fight it but you also can't try too hard to go into the trance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"It's like falling asleep," Frank says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"The more you try to fall asleep, the harder it is to fall asleep."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Above all, you have to want it to work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">We go into trances every day, he adds. Sometimes it's watching TV, or cooking, or staring at our computers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">I've probably been in a trance watching cat videos before, I tell myself. This should be easy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">We launch into some exercises to see how I react, each beginning with a focus on breathing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">I'm told to inhale and exhale to certain counts with my eyes closed. This continues for some time until I'm instructed to raise both arms up in front of me, palms towards the ceiling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank tells me to imagine a brick sitting on my left palm. It's heavy and makes it harder to hold my arm straight. He reinforces this idea repeatedly. Then more bricks are added.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">In my right hand, I'm to imagine grasping a string which is tied to a helium balloon above. The more I fight that, the bigger the balloon gets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Eventually, I'm allowed to open my eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"There's a bit of a difference there," Frank says, noting my left arm has somewhat dropped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">We go back to the breathing as I position my hands in a "gun" shape with the index fingers pointed up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">When I open my eyes I'm to focus all my energy on their tips. After that, I'm instructed to separate the fingers and stare at the gap in between.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank starts telling me there's a magnet in between, pulling my fingers together. It gets stronger the more I fight it. Then there's an elastic band, too. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Pretty soon I'm staring straight between my fingers and I can feel them move together very slowly. Eventually, they touch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">This could be interpreted as a response but I also remember doing a similar trick in primary school where you circle someone's index fingers with your own and claim magic was pulling them together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">At the beginning of another test, Frank tells me to imagine stress and tension leaving my body every time I exhale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Then I'm to visualise a place of relaxation - the more I resist it, the deeper I fall into it. I'm on a cloud, he says, which is drifting slowly lower and lower into this state. It feels good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"Imagine a house," he says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"You can see all the details of the front door, you start to drift through a hallway. There are different doors and rooms and as you pass each one, you leave stress and tension there and close the door."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Eventually I get to a staircase, he says, and at the bottom there's the most comfortable bed imaginable, with "a thick mattress, fluffy sheets and an open fireplace".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">When I make it down the stairs to the bed, my body begins to feel "like a rag doll - floppy, relaxed".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank says each inhalation should be like consuming "liquid relaxation" that fills my body from my toes to my neck.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">I feel my body becoming more relaxed and I'm trying hard to keep the focus on my breathing, but I'm also aware I'm distracted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"What should I meal prep for lunch tomorrow?" I think to myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"I really need to go grocery shopping."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank instructs me to imagine my right hand is glued to the couch. He reinforces the idea with clicks and different synonyms. It's fixed. It's stuck. It's glued.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">The guided meditation continues with further planting of this idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">He gradually asks me to return to the room and open my eyes before asking me how I feel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"I'm definitely more relaxed," I say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"Can you try to move your arm?" he replies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">I lift my hand off the couch. It's disappointing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank is determined. He moves to another method.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Eyes closed, I'm to imagine there is a mosquito in the room. I can hear the faint buzz from a distance, he tells me. It starts getting closer. With every click of his fingers, there is another mosquito added.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank tells me they start landing on my ear and I feel a need to swat them away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">I try hard to imagine this familiar sensation. I'm fully aware that I could swat at my ear if I needed to, but I simply don't feel anything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank says they then start landing on my feet and the itching is unbearable. Again, I can't really cross into physical reactions. He tells me to open my eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"I think we're going to have to call it," he says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">An hour has passed and usually by now there are signs of a reaction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">"I'm really sorry, I was trying to imagine everything," I tell him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Through the various guided exercises, I felt myself getting sleepy and relaxed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">However, I was also aware this feeling was punctuated by various thoughts about my upcoming week, stories from the past days, or even noises from outside the apartment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">As much as I tried to shut these out, they disturbed what otherwise felt like a mere guided meditation. I simply could not cross into the next stage of having imaginary barriers or objects force me to physically react.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">I start to feel there might be something wrong with my brain. Perhaps it's not as imaginative as I thought it was. Or maybe I can't focus properly?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Frank says there are a lot of different factors and I might respond differently to another session, having now been introduced to it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Not everyone can be hypnotised. In 2012 academics thought they were on the cusp of identifying a brain signature for of being able to go under.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">A study by Stanford University researchers showed the areas of the brain associated with executive control and attention usually have less activity in someone who isn't able to be hypnotised.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">Others claim everyone can be hypnotised with the right method for them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">My skepticism remains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: 12pt;">*not his real name</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-26757278982149872862016-06-30T23:29:00.000-07:002016-06-30T23:40:23.001-07:00Croc spottingThe spotlight catches sparse fog and insects hovering above calm water as it illuminates tangles of vegetation on the banks of the pitch-black Russell River.<br />
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As the light constantly sweeps back and forth, the only thing breaking the silence of a still Winter night in far north Queensland is the buzzing of the boat motor slowly pushing us downstream.<br />
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What we're looking for, Queensland's principal wildlife officer Matt Brien tells me, is the one "chink in the armour" of an animal whose reputation is largely centred on camouflage and stealth.<br />
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"There," he says quietly less than fifteen minutes after the boat entered the water.<br />
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"You've got a nice big eye shine down there, see that?"<br />
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A tiny, red reflection, no more remarkable than a dim laser pointer, is shining back as our "spotter", Dr Laurence Taplin, hovers his spotlight over an area near the bank.<br />
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"It seems to not stun them but make them stop," Dr Brien says.<br />
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"It's why we can catch them at night a lot easier."<br />
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This method for surveying crocodile populations hasn't changed much since the 70s. It's been used in Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and abroad.<br />
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Dr Brien has been appointed to lead Queensland's first comprehensive crocodile population survey in well over a decade and tonight his team is continuing its reconnaissance work ahead of the official study.<br />
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Just as we get closer to the red reflection, it dips underwater and vanishes.<br />
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"A lot of these rivers in the urban areas they tend to be quite wary," Dr Brien says, adding it's usually the small crocs that they can get closest to.<br />
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Dr Taplin, who worked on surveys in the 80s, can estimate the size of the animal based on its head, which is one seventh the total length.<br />
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After we've spotted our first croc, the red glow appears in the distance about every ten minutes.<br />
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I become acutely aware of the seemingly short distance between where I'm sitting near the side of the boat and the surface of the water.<br />
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The boat, at 4.3m, is not big enough to make an amateur like myself comfortable, particularly given horror movies have taught me that crocodiles won't hesitate in upturning a vessel to get a meal.<br />
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"In a boat like this, you're relatively secure," Dr Brien says before deconstructing my misguided fear that every croc in the river is waiting for its chance to pounce.<br />
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"They're not a lion or a predator that likes to chase down prey. I wouldn't say lazy, but they tend to wait for the food to come to them."<br />
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As long as your boat is moving, you're probably safe, he says, adding: "Bottom line, keep your arms and legs inside the boat."<br />
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While the crocs are certainly not stalking us, they can learn to associate people with food. A recent attack on Lizard Island by a 2.5m animal gave rise to the need for removal because the victim's injuries pointed to a predatory attack.<br />
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"When we located that animal he was still hanging around at the clubhouse near where people swim every day and he was raising himself out of the water, which is a sign of aggression," Dr Brien says.<br />
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"That animal was posing a serious threat ... it would have without a doubt attacked someone else."<br />
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It's not long before we get close enough for me to make out a croc figure floating in the water, unperturbed by the spotlight in its face. Most are only a couple of feet long, while some are mere hatchlings playfully demonstrating their buoyancy.<br />
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The need to survey Queensland's croc population was thrown into the public domain when NSW woman Cindy Waldron, 46, was taken at Thornton Beach, north of Cairns, just over a month ago.<br />
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The state government was forced to admit it didn't know "with enough scientific certainty" whether croc numbers were rising or falling. In the NT, annual surveys mean authorities have a handle on what the population is doing and can manage it accordingly.<br />
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"In light of a suspected crocodile attack in the Daintree we need to know," Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles said as he announced a $5.8 million crocodile management review just days after Ms Waldron's death.<br />
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But according to Matt Brien, preparation for a major survey had been underway for months before the tragedy in response to both growing community pressure and in the hope of funding being secured.<br />
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The department, he says, "copped a lot of heat" because there had been a number of reports of crocodiles in the Cape Tribulation area prior to Ms Waldron's fateful late-night swim. They were not removed.<br />
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"The interesting thing was the one that took the lady nobody ever reported to us, because they weren't worried about it," Dr Brien explains.<br />
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The animals that you see are the tip of the iceberg, he says.<br />
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"Quite often it's the one that you're not seeing that's going to be the problem."<br />
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Ms Waldron had decided to go for a risky beach adventure when she was dragged under the water as a friend watched in horror.<br />
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The incident prompted federal MP Bob Katter to call for croc-hunting safaris, while his fellow North Queensland MP Warren Entsch, in perhaps the most unsympathetic and ill-timed reaction, said it was not possible to "legislate against human stupidity".<br />
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Dr Taplin tells me croc safety messages haven't changed much since his survey.<br />
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"I think what has changed is the population in Queensland," he says.<br />
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"The human population in Queensland has grown a good deal over the years and so the extent to which people are likely to bump into crocodiles has increased."<br />
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"The need for public awareness has increased."<br />
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Dr Brien says if an animal isn't being aggressive, sometimes it's better to leave it because their presence works much better as a deterrent than the abundance of signs in the tropical north.<br />
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"Signs - they're towel racks to a lot of people, they just ignore it. But a big crocodile that's visible on a bank is a pretty good message."<br />
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There have been roughly 34 attacks in Queensland since 1971 and one-third have been fatal.<br />
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Since the mid-90s a rise in the number has been made up mostly of non-fatal attacks, but contrary to popular belief most of the victims - 75 per cent - aren't backpackers or tourists, but local men.<br />
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"We do a lot of schools and community groups, but when our primary statistic is local men, how do you better communicate the messages to them?" Dr Brien says.<br />
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"Maybe we can't, but we need to try."<br />
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President of the Queensland Crocodile Conservation and Protection Society Dean Adermann, who was one of a handful of stakeholders to take part in consultation sessions with Dr Brien this week as part of the review, says Queenslanders have become complacent.<br />
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"Because they don't see a croc there they think there's none here anymore," he says.<br />
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Tour operators up and down the coast have told him they've not noticed any increase in croc numbers in 15 years.<br />
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Mr Adermann pushed for better education measures during his consultation, including TV commercials and brochures in all hotels.<br />
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Back on the Russell, we've been out for close to two hours and have spotted about a dozen crocs over 10-12 kilometres, in line with what the team expected to find.<br />
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The population here is "healthy", Dr Brien says.<br />
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When Dr Taplin surveyed the same river in the 80s, he saw just two crocs over double that distance, but the results were highly variable and other waterways had much greater densities.<br />
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The population back then was only just recovering from commercial hunting. Another survey in the 1990s found it had made a "modest recovery". Since then, we've had no idea what the numbers are doing.<br />
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It's possible, however, to draw conclusions about the numbers based on attack data.<br />
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Across the rise in non-fatal attacks, the animal responsible has been about 2.5m. The average size for a fatal attack is 4m.<br />
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"What you can gather out of that is there's enough crocodiles of that size range and around people to result in that number of attacks," Dr Brien says.<br />
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"Is there an increase in the number of crocodiles?"<br />
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"There could potentially be that occurring and this monitoring will show us that."<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-8632905768576205642015-11-15T03:52:00.000-08:002016-05-15T05:53:54.314-07:00ParisUnder an eerily-dark Tour Eiffel, tourists pose for photographs as police sirens echo through the arrondissements.<br />
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Millions before them have taken exactly the same images, but when these people look back on their souvenirs, something will be missing.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The tower still dwarfs those meandering beneath. It's still stunning. But its famous lights no longer illuminate the grey sky above. It is a shadow.<br />
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"It's like it's dead," one tourist from Belgium says.<br />
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"Nobody is here. It's grey and I have a very strange feeling - I'm a little bit scared."<br />
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The city is numb from the deaths of over 100 people in six coordinated terrorist attacks the night before.<br />
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The sirens, which started as hundreds of officers rushed to respond to a complex and very fluid series of massacres late Friday, haven't stopped since.<br />
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As news of the attacks spread, the streets became a confusing and increasingly desolate place.<br />
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Districts that would normally be alive with the buzz of crowds heading from one restaurant, one club, one landmark or theatre to the next, are muted.<br />
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Parisians peek through apartment windows above the streets as strangers share information while rushing along foothpaths. It wasn't just a matter of giving directions and being helpful anymore, it was a matter of safety. There is a sense of urgency in reaching your destination.<br />
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Inside one bar close to the attacks, a TV broadcasting news of the unfolding horrors provides the sole soundtrack for a venue that would normally be filled with conversation and laughter. Customers sit staring. A woman pokes her late-night snack on her plate with a spoon, her appetite probably lost as her mind processes what is happening.<br />
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Police quickly set up a large exclusion zone and yell at anyone who comes close, signalling detours with weapons. They are rightfully on edge. Authorities warn everyone to stay indoors, but as Metro stations progressively close, finding your way there becomes difficult.<br />
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For tourists, language barriers that previously fuelled mere inconvenience instead stir stress and despair.<br />
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An online campaign from residents offering to temporarily house anyone stranded on the streets provides relief for lost visitors.<br />
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Throughout the night, the scale of the attacks becomes clearer. Well over 100 dead. Seven extremists killed, six of whom blew themselves up. Suicide vests. Open fire in restaurants. Kalashnikov rifles. The numbers, and the headlines, are staggering. The blatant and public nature of the acts defies belief.<br />
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On Saturday, the enormous police presence and the absence of the usual crowds turn Paris - one of the world's busiest tourist cities - into a near-ghost town. The wind is biting but the atmosphere is worse.<br />
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Museums, tourist attractions, schools and universities, gyms and markets are closed. Large gatherings are banned amid a declared state of emergency and events are cancelled. Visitors are advised by their hotels to stay indoors. There is no point being outside anyway - the city is in shock and in no state to entertain guests.<br />
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Barriers set up around the scenes of the attacks hold back the world's media as police stand guard. Later in the day these are removed and the proof of what has happened there - bloodstains, deserted belongings inside - is confronting.</div>
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Hundreds of those who do make their way outside pay their respects at the scenes of the murders.<br />
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At Le Carillon bar in the 10th district, a quiet candlelight vigil is held at the door. The building is visibly damaged by bullet holes.<br />
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International neighbours offer support at the beginning of France's pain.<br />
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"L'Argentine est solidaire avec la France dans sa douleur," one card reads.<br />
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Some leave flowers. Some people weep. Others just stand and stare. A teenage boy on a bike is frozen as he takes it all in.</div>
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A handful of Metro stations remain closed while the police investigation continues.<br />
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Everyone seems nervous.<br />
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Halfway between deserted stations, a power blackout plunges the carriages into darkness. Passengers are reassured by an announcement from the driver, but it's obvious anything out of the ordinary is a cause for concern.<br />
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Back at the Eiffel Tower, the usual street merchants are still pedalling cheap souvenirs.<br />
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A small carousal near the base of the landmark outshines its giant neighbour. <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Parents watch their children on the ride and I wonder whether they're thinking the same thing as me: </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">it's hard not to be envious of someone who's oblivious to the wider implications this weekend has delivered.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-90382848526609082562015-09-08T16:44:00.004-07:002019-09-03T04:27:38.887-07:00Asking For It<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Adrienne Truscott delicately places a rape whistle on the stool next to her gin and tonic, "in case anybody needs it".</div>
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Her vagina is in full view below a tight denim jacket.</div>
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"I'm new to comedy," she admits on several occasions to the Brisbane Festival crowd during her provocative one-woman show, <i>Asking For It</i>.</div>
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But her frank admission of inexperience betrays the skill required to pull off an act like this. She knows exactly what she's doing.<br />
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"Thanks for coming. I bet you didn't think you'd hear that at the rape show," she says, drawing nervous laughter.</div>
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She swills from her can and falters around the stage flicking her blonde wig in white platform heels, saying she agonised over the footwear decision because it's hard for women to pick the right thing to wear if they want to be taken seriously. She's confident she nailed it, she tells us.</div>
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Things feel a bit uneasy in the theatre in that first ten minutes. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Some people are there with their wives. Others are on dates. Some went alone.</span></div>
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Truscott addresses her nudity bluntly.</div>
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"I wish you could see the view from up here", she says, before describing one man's expression as a mix of terror and money well spent.</div>
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"How y'all doing, everybody okay?" she asks throughout the act. There is a sense she is nurturing us through this, as though she knows the social commentary is going to be hard to digest.</div>
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Her character is the endearing, giggly friend we have all watched go slowly downhill during a drunken night out.</div>
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A collection of framed comedian portraits sits on a table at the centre of the stage. All are guilty of the same crime. They have used rape, sexual violence or sexism as a tool of their craft.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Truscott toys with their pictures and takes particular aim at Comedy Central host Daniel Tosh, who during a set at The Laugh Factory fired back at a heckler who took issue with his rape jokes by suggesting it would be funny "if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now, like right now".</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Tosh, some supporters argued, was a comedian and therefore should be able to say anything.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
"He's a comedian, he should be able to say something funny," Truscott says, before holding up his photograph and declaring he looks like a date rapist.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
It's not just comedians in her crosshairs. It's rappers who rhyme about sexual violence. It's politicians who delve into the debate with ridiculous theories of "legitimate rape". It's religion for proclaiming that pregnancies arising from a rape are a gift from God.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Truscott admitts the nudity is a gimmick, and perhaps unsurprisingly it's not the most confronting thing about this "rape comedy", if there is such a thing.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
She shifts seamlessly between attacking and reflecting, spurting out sexual violence statistics, joking about her own rohypnol experiences and reciting her list of things women shouldn't wear if they don't want to be seen as "asking for it".</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
It's long. So long, in fact, that there doesn't appear to be a situation where a victim can't be blamed.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
But Truscott isn't playing the victim. Her end game is deeper.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Condemning the prominence of sexual violence in our culture is one thing, but repurposing the topic away from sniggering male comedians - who use it for laughs while ignoring the absence of any wider conversation about why it's so taboo in the first place and how it could be addressed if there was a mature dialogue - takes courage.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Which begs the question, why does a woman need to take her pants off to deliver a serious point like that? And would this have been as effective if she hadn't?<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-88404381134888551532014-03-23T15:47:00.000-07:002018-04-04T21:42:54.593-07:00Morcombe<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">It looks like an autopsy table, but where there
would normally lie an entire human body, there are just 17 fragments of bone.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span><br /></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Although they’ve been carefully laid out, they’re
small, dirty, and most are incomplete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Forensic experts say they are also scratched,
decomposed and some appear to have been chewed on by a carnivore before being embedded
in the ground for nearly eight years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I’m staring at this photo, tendered to the
Brisbane Supreme Court as evidence, when the unspeakable horror this trial is
delving into becomes real to me.</span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">For an entire afternoon in the first week,
the court is shown photograph after photograph of bones. Yet it’s only when I
see the entire group of 17, laid out in the clinical setting of a laboratory
with all its metallic sterility, that my mind is overwhelmed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">This was someone’s little boy. A boy whose
body has been treated with a shockingly inhumane disregard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">And this was all that was left of him.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">+++</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Covering the trial of Brett Cowan, the man
charged with and eventually found guilty of what is easily Queensland’s most
high profile crime, is the biggest story I have been assigned and I am under no
illusion it will be easy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I approach the trial as the enormous
challenge I know it will be, but I doubt I could have prepared myself for the
complexities of the case, or the graphic and disturbing nature of the things I
will hear over five weeks in February and March.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">The court has accommodated the high level of
media attention with a designated room for reporting, complete with TV screens
showing multiple camera angles of the court, and separate screens to show all
of the exhibits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Other journalists who have been assigned to
the trial are, thankfully, very helpful and approachable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I aim to file a story every hour, creating a
sense of continuity while also being mindful of maintaining context for those
who are not following the trial closely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">A pattern quickly forms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Each 60 minute block consists of 45 minutes
of frantic typing as I create a near-transcript of the testimony. 15 minutes
prior to each bulletin, I begin to pull together a script, and when I am
satisfied I leave the media room to record it on my phone, before returning to
the proceedings to make sure I didn’t miss anything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">The time restriction of between 30 and 40
seconds per report quickly becomes my biggest frustration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The trial moves through several distinct phases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We begin with testimony from Daniel’s parents, Bruce and Denise,
who bravely recount their movements on December 7, 2003. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s something they must have done countless times in the past
decade, retracing their steps and contemplating what could have been done
differently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Soon enough, the evidence shifts focus to the Glasshouse Mountains
search zone where Daniel’s remains were found in August and September of 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dozens of witnesses then recall what they saw during a few
fleeting moments while driving past the overpass on the day Daniel vanished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Brett Cowan’s inner circle gives an insight to his double life as
a family man, with his ex-wife, former girlfriend, and even his drug dealer giving
evidence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A convicted child sex offender testifying from jail denies any
involvement, and the defence counsel hammers away with lines of questioning
that suggest otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the final weeks, the court hears of an undercover police
operation so complex, so meticulous in its execution, that it trapped a
monster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">What fascinates me most about the way the information
is emerging in court is seeing how the stories of over 100 people are
intertwining to form a complex main narrative.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Dozens of people recall seeing things at the
overpass on that day.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">There’s a group of teenagers on their way to
the movies, lucky enough to already be on the bus that would eventually drive
straight past Daniel.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Couples who are returning from, or travelling
to, lunches and functions, saw his red t-shirt.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">A neighbour who was rushing to get to work
after a morning trip to the beach recognises Daniel.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">The operators of a service station who are closing up
shop for the day see him walking to the overpass, and remember him as a regular
customer.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Some go further.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Some recount stories of feet being pulled
into cars, of struggles in the back of vehicles, and of men punching sheets
that appeared to be concealing a person.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Regardless of whether their memories have
embellished the facts, what gets me thinking is that all of these people could
have seen Daniel’s last moments of freedom.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Others are more closely involved.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">SES volunteers recall the moments they found
bones embedded in the mud during a painstaking search, on hands and knees, of a
Beerwah Macadamia Farm.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Scientists explain how they traced the
origin and DNA profiles of the bones, confirming the worst fears of Daniel’s
family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">I quickly realise that attempting to cover
more than one of these plot strands in any one report is an unrealistic if not impossible goal.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">As the story comes together, the most crushing thing to consider is that so many factors lined up on that day, to bring a little boy into
the gaze of Cowan, the 44 year old former tow truck driver who, unbeknownst to
the jury, has a hideous record of child sex offences.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">Daniel was meant to be in Brisbane at a
Christmas party with his parents, but a morning shower delayed his fruit
picking shift, throwing out the timing. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Daniel’s bus broke down just minutes from where he was waiting,
meaning a second bus would pass with orders to travel express without picking
up passengers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Daniel was standing at the overpass during the exact period that Cowan
was returning home from collecting mulcher from his boss’s father, and at that
moment Cowan, the self-professed opportunistic offender, saw his chance.</span> </div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">+++</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Over the course of the trial, my heart repeatedly
breaks for the Morcombe family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">They see photos of their son’s bones, his
muddied, disintegrating clothes, and the grubby demountable where his terrifying
last moments played out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">In candid secret recordings from the
undercover police sting, they hear his murderer explain what exactly he did to
the 13-year old, along with what he was planning to do, had Daniel not tried to
get away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">It's in these tapes that Brett Cowan repeatedly opens
up, speaking matter-of-factly about how he murdered Daniel, and callously
dumped the boy’s body down an embankment at a Macadamia Farm on the Sunshine
Coast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">In the later weeks of the trial, literally
hours worth of these recordings are played to the court, with details that
would make anyone’s skin crawl.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I sit in the media room of the Brisbane
Supreme Court, typing madly as a transcript of the audio is displayed in front
of us, while my mind processes the sickening details.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">At one stage an</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"> undercover operative questions him about
what exactly happened when Daniel realised he needed to escape, and fought
back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.
I had a hold of his pants – and when he went ‘oh no’ and pulled his pants back
up and tried to get away that’s when I went (noise) and we both went to the
ground and, yeah, just pulled me arm in tight and heard a ‘ch’ (makes noise).”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">That ‘ch’ noise may very well have been a
bone breaking, and afterwards, Daniel’s body went limp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not ashamed to admit I’m far from a
hardened journo, but I’m not easily disturbed. In my short career so far I can
count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt the emotion of a story get the
better of me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">My eyes are fixed on the transcripts as my
brain begins to work overtime, considering what I’ve just heard and how it must
feel for Daniel’s parents to also hear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">The details emerging from these secret recordings
are so depraved, so utterly and incomprehensibly inhumane, that at times I feel my eyes
begin to water. But I have a job to do and I push those feelings
down out of the way so that I can focus on telling the story in the most
compassionate, sensitive and accurate way I can.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">It can be viewed as a negative, being
affected by a story to a point where you feel such sympathy for those involved.
But in cases like this it places this great sense of responsibility on my
shoulders. I know the details have affected me, and if I can capture what made
me react that way well enough, it will hopefully have the same affect those who
hear the story re-told.</span><span style="line-height: 17.15pt;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When the jury retires just after midd<span style="line-height: 17.15pt;">ay on Wednesday of week five,
it marks the beginning of an anxious calm before the storm.</span></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Journalists count the hours as they finalise preparation work for
each possible outcome. We know it’s likely to fall one of three ways; guilty,
not guilty or a hung jury.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Outside the court complex, a growing camp of cameramen and backup
journalists congregates in readiness for the frantic scenes that could be
unleashed at any time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4QvP5Fl5xCB14u79F2MGtQUuZZboIG3lI3xQ-K0DjaDPkLV-bWU2wHsLWeMRqh7-3avcVyK1T-ycQ0XXPd5ZonhHuBoFWgN3FsOjWiJiXgK1x7dbJWi4PkG2o6w4KY-Ybw9AUGi39Bo/s1600/birds+eye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4QvP5Fl5xCB14u79F2MGtQUuZZboIG3lI3xQ-K0DjaDPkLV-bWU2wHsLWeMRqh7-3avcVyK1T-ycQ0XXPd5ZonhHuBoFWgN3FsOjWiJiXgK1x7dbJWi4PkG2o6w4KY-Ybw9AUGi39Bo/s1600/birds+eye.jpg" width="225" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wednesday is not the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Speculation grows. Is the jury divided? Is the dissention
widespread or is there only one or two people on the outer? Are they merely
being meticulous and reviewing all of the evidence?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just before one o’clock on Thursday, a sudden wave of chatter and
activity is whipped up in the media room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the live feed, we’ve heard the bailiff utter a sentence that
included the word “a decision”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Initially there is confusion. The conversation that immediately
preceded this sentence was a discussion about the jury’s lunch. Have they
reached a decision on lunch, or a ‘decision’ decision?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We quickly establish that the decision is regarding a verdict.
Everyone rushes to feed this information back to their various newsrooms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The storm has arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The anxious energy pulsing through court 11 just fifteen minutes
later is like nothing I’ve experienced before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m clumsily cradling a notepad, tablet, keyboard, microphone,
recorder and phone amongst a group of journalists and members of the public
crammed in the doorway area, because there are no seats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bruce and Denise Morcombe, their two other sons Bradley and Dean,
along with supporters, are only metres to my right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Crown Prosecutors file in before exchanging some last words with
the family, and defence barristers make their way to the bar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cowan is led to the dock, wearing the same grey suit he’s worn for the past 20 days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His face is void of emotion. He’s not giving anything away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He rarely has.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My attention is split evenly between keeping my eyes and ears
finely tuned for the slightest reactions, and passing this information on
through tweets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The jurors are led into the courtroom, and the judge’s associate
initiates the process everyone has been waiting for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Guilty”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sighs of relief echo around me, and several people let out a cry
of “yes”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tears flow. Family members comfort each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Metres away, Brett Cowan sits, separated only by panels of glass,
frozen, accepting his fate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Between sending updates to the internet and noting reactions in my
head, I scramble to write down some brief notes about what was said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My hand shakes so much that I struggle to write clearly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKi1e_XDtuyodu9pyFDByGKRVQMW__A3G7iPthmfxW0O0giwA14n-7CrDmlReD5KEkEj0D608BZ-ogl7nE6HMu-q40FzSwqWIDR6AseynyJCbLdh4N6S0eHKgulEqIIr9VUmZJpkmpwY/s1600/notepad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKi1e_XDtuyodu9pyFDByGKRVQMW__A3G7iPthmfxW0O0giwA14n-7CrDmlReD5KEkEj0D608BZ-ogl7nE6HMu-q40FzSwqWIDR6AseynyJCbLdh4N6S0eHKgulEqIIr9VUmZJpkmpwY/s1600/notepad.jpg" width="180" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN">As soon as I walk out of the courtroom and
rush to the lifts with a group of other journalists, my phone begins to ring.
It’s the start of an avalanche of live crosses.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I walk out the main entrance of the Supreme
and District Court complex with my phone already up to my ear waiting to go to
air, but am momentarily startled by the enormous collection of cameras, lights
and microphones pointed at the door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">A wall of media equipment, cameramen, photographers
and journalists blocks the area immediately outside the main doors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANVNHcYnSkM17cyxwt-yiURN6GZWzWXfwRuca_DfsvAuUwgq-pyQm2Xmw_TZH2yBUAPb51IosZ5by5tfh4KfRt7a-ZNem78zaNIlRtnOuReNO1SlhKeGmcwKoGrGRaoBz7y-dPhzpRKU/s1600/entrance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANVNHcYnSkM17cyxwt-yiURN6GZWzWXfwRuca_DfsvAuUwgq-pyQm2Xmw_TZH2yBUAPb51IosZ5by5tfh4KfRt7a-ZNem78zaNIlRtnOuReNO1SlhKeGmcwKoGrGRaoBz7y-dPhzpRKU/s1600/entrance.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">It’s an intimidating sight that will
eventually greet Bruce and Denise, as well as police spokespeople, child safety
advocates and lawyers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Time passes as a blur. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">When I’m not doing live reports explaining
exactly what has happened and what is happening in front of me, I’m typing as
fast as I can and emailing reports for the top of each hour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Some are fired off with minutes to spare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the most pressure I’ve been under to
date.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Thankfully I have two colleagues amongst the
enormous media contingent who are able to do crosses with other stations when I’m
already on the phone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">At one stage I finish talking to our Sydney station,
and a colleague who has been speaking on air with our own Brisbane station
hands me his phone mid-cross so that I can continue with more detail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">The afternoon is intense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">+++</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I lose track of what my phone is doing, as it
vibrates incessantly with a tidal wave of missed calls, voicemails, text
messages, emails, and internet notifications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">The court proceeds straight to sentencing
submissions that afternoon, where victim impact statements among other matters,
are dealt with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Bruce Morcombe reads his own statement to the
court, describing in haunting detail just how this crime has ripped his family
apart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">He addresses these powerful sentiments
directly to Cowan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">“It makes me nauseous thinking about the
total lack of respect you showed for a child’s life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We now have to live with the images of wild dogs devouring our
son's remains<span lang="EN">” he says.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Bruce says
they are no longer the same people.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Each
statement describes elements of the family’s pain a way that is so raw, so cutting,
that even the stoniest of hearts would break from hearing it.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Cowan sits
in the dock, cold and unemotional, as he is condemned as an “evil, evil unhuman
thing”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Daniel’s
older brother Dean tells him “I’m glad you have been exposed for the murdering,
sexual predator you are”.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I will
never understand where this family’s courage comes from.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">I am
continually doing live crosses while translating this incredible amount of
detail into hourly reports that will hopefully do it justice.</span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.15pt;">Bruce and Denise Morcombe bravely face a
media scrum that could only be described as daunting in its scope. They are not
just surrounded, but encapsulated by a crush of journalists all struggling to
hold microphones in their general direction.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.15pt;">I can do nothing but marvel at their strength
and composure during such an emotional milestone.</span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1kbZ3CYOK77x6FZWsv5LAVSHTY7UIDv_e87ELgsxSlf4YAX18jS7zmN7mafXKzidYBoSK4y1PzRYEK8gh6B2joo0gkf6LX6Y_n8PYys9KOH7PtG4lG95SzSCRU7lGkE9yOsMRBnTec2s/s1600/ca-morcombe-wide-20140313212840780456-620x349.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1kbZ3CYOK77x6FZWsv5LAVSHTY7UIDv_e87ELgsxSlf4YAX18jS7zmN7mafXKzidYBoSK4y1PzRYEK8gh6B2joo0gkf6LX6Y_n8PYys9KOH7PtG4lG95SzSCRU7lGkE9yOsMRBnTec2s/s1600/ca-morcombe-wide-20140313212840780456-620x349.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Photo: Brisbane Times</span></i></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">Things don’t
slow down until well into the evening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.15pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Friday is sentencing day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That morning, we learn that Supreme Court Judge Roslyn Atkinson’s
sentence will be handed down after the court has dealt with an application by
media outlets to film the proceedings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve previously joked with other journalists about ten to the hour
being the least ideal time for developments to break, in terms of filing radio
news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Judge Atkinson’s sentencing remarks begin at 11:50.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite the timing her address to Cowan is, in a
word, mesmerising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: 17.15pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.55pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Judge Atkinson points out Cowan used a ‘plausible story’ to lure
the 13 year old into his car, before the horror unfolded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You didn’t look like a monster, you didn’t look like a paedophile,
you looked like an ordinary person” she says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The judge describes Cowan’s every action, how he killed the
teenager to avoid being caught, how he dumped Daniel’s body down an embankment,
and how he returned over a week later to check whether it was gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Everything you did to that child is horrific and disgraceful” she
says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">She points out the crime has impacted not only Daniel’s
family, but the wider community, which fears that a child may be taken by a “predator
like you”.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">For twenty minutes, Judge Atkinson denounces Cowan’s
actions, his character, his lack of remorse, and his criminal history, with
stunning acerbity.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Bruce and Denise are not in court to hear these scathing verbal
attacks on the man who killed their son. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">They spent the day at an annual fundraising event for the
organisation named in Daniel’s honour, no doubt in a far more peaceful
atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Friday afternoon is only slightly less hectic than
Thursday afternoon, each 60 minute block dissolves quickly from cross after
cross, before I hurriedly record reports, edit audio and email the newsroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Time again becomes a blur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">When I finally make my way home, I am a zombie. I’m on
the verge of being unable to string a sentence together.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">My brain won’t slow down, it continues to relay quotes, facts
and figures over and over again. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">There is no off button.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">+++<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">What I enjoyed most about this period is the sense of
continuity that came with being assigned to the one job for so long. It’s an
unfamiliar luxury, given our newsroom is hardworking but quite small. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">What it affords me is an ability to build a bank of
knowledge and back-story that can be drawn on at any given time, whether it be
while writing reports, doing live crosses or predicting where the evidence will
head next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">At the same time, this growing collection of names, numbers
and facts means I become completely blinkered, oblivious to the details of most other events.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">It also means that even outside work hours, my brain is
busy recapping all of these details, making sense of everything, sometimes
dwelling on things. It’s highlighted the importance of finding an outlet to
unwind.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Reviewing the coverage over the five week period makes me
realise just how challenging it was. During that time I filed 177 voice
reports, did over 50 live crosses, and my notes alone added up to 75,000 words.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Despite all the stress, all the pressure, all the moments
where I felt like it was impossible to condense the story into a radio-friendly
report, it has been the most fascinating news event to watch unfold.<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-19664679147357218082013-10-26T01:00:00.001-07:002013-10-26T01:56:55.815-07:00'Where do these hillbillies come from?'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
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He sat in the back row of the public gallery in the Magistrates Court, combing his whispy black mullet, visibly nervous as he awaited his moment in the spotlight.</div>
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I'd been sent to the court to monitor the developments after a string of bikie arrests, but out of a room literally full of social misfits, it was this mullet guy that held my attention.</div>
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For most people, going to court can be a nerve racking affair. Most are unfamiliar with the setting, unaware of the process and apprehensive about the whole prospect of running into the law.</div>
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For others, it's a novelty.</div>
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Mullet man was pretty vocal about his enjoyment of the morning's session. He was chatting to his fellow alleged miscreants, rather inappropriately asking what they were appearing for, trying to make the whole thing less awkward than it needed to be.</div>
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It didn't work.</div>
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When an accused pothead was let off with a mere fine, he had to restrain himself from clapping and congratulated the friends who were there for support. </div>
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"Great! That's a great result. Well done" he chirped as they left.</div>
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You successfully avoided going to jail after being charged with possession. </div>
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Congratulations indeed.</div>
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Soon enough, it was his turn. But before he was called up, he sat there readjusting his ratty black t-shirt, in his skinny jeans and boots, toying with an over-sized wooden crucifix necklace.</div>
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When he whipped out the comb, I started thinking maybe that was his idea of how to show respect. I need to look respectable for the magistrate, I'll comb my mullet.</div>
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As soon as his name was called, he jumped up with all the enthusiasm of a grade one kid at an end of year concert, accidentally kicking a chair with clumsily placed strides.</div>
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He was a little too energetic throughout the mention, bantering with anyone who asked him a question.<br />
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It was at that point that I heard a Gold Coast bikie turn to his girlfriend and scoff. </div>
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"Where do these hillbillies come from?"</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-72968915444144246622013-08-07T04:44:00.000-07:002013-08-17T23:57:56.805-07:00A skeptic's guide to a ghost tour<div style="text-align: justify;">
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About half an hour into a ghost tour through one of Australia's most prominent historic sites, I'm adjusting my gloves as my sister sneers "are you a little bit scared?"</div>
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Her predatory sarcasm seems to be designed to scare me if I'm not already, but it fails.</div>
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"No, I'm just cold" I reply.<br />
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"On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most scared, I'm about minus five" she whinges.</div>
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"I'm as chilled as when I'm watching Grey's Anatomy. Which is more bored."</div>
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I've revisited the home island of Tasmania for the first time in over a year, but it's the first time I've seen it through the eyes of a tourist.</div>
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Port Arthur is hailed as one of the most haunted sites in the country, with stories of people being touched, pushed, scratched and grabbed in many of the 1830's cottages. I am genuinely excited about the prospect of going on this tour, but I still know it's unlikely to alter my wildly skeptical mind.</div>
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At the halfway mark, I've come to realise a journalist and a psychologist may not have been the best combination of people to go on a ghost tour. There's also a more open-minded nurse rounding out our trio.</div>
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Our guide is knowledgeable, theatrical and a little bit alternative. Several of her stories are punctuated by an evil snicker. "I've got the best job in the world" she boasts.</div>
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At the beginning of our tour, the group is told the number one rule is no running. If 'something' happens to you, you're to stay where you are. An exception applies when the guide herself is running, and it becomes a case of every man for himself.</div>
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I scan our group of about fifteen people and estimate that I can outrun all but one or two. If the translucent poo hits the translucent fan, I'm covered.</div>
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Our guide informs us that during her eight years working at Port Arthur, she's had 17 'experiences.' </div>
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That's about two a year. I'm going into this with the view that unless a ghost extends a powdery hand for me to shake, I'll continue to be a skeptic. My shoulders slump when she tells us there are no guarantees.</div>
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The guide carefully points out an 'experience' does not involve the ghosts we see in the movies, with chains and moaning, but it could involve our sense of sight, hearing, touch or smell. </div>
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I begin to wonder what ghosts taste like.</div>
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"The stories I'm going to tell you are all true and have either happened to visitors or to staff" she says, before addressing those on my own train of thought.</div>
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"If you're a skeptic, that's cool. I'm not here to convince you of anything, I'm just here to entertain you."</div>
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We weave through the site on pebbled pathways lit by four volunteers wielding lanterns. The air is icy and crisp, and the night clear enough to see a speckling of what is undoubtedly a handful of different constellations.</div>
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At each cottage or building, the guide recounts a mix of historical information about convicts and residents who met with an unfortunate end, as well as encounters involving people on the tours themselves.</div>
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We gather in the foreboding shell of the unfinished church to examine its walls, where a worker apparently cracked his head open during a fatal fall, spilling blood down the bricks and onto the ground. </div>
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We're told after the construction was abandoned, the walls became overgrown with ivy, but it never grew on the space that was splattered with blood.</div>
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I begin to ponder all the possible logical explanations as we make our way to the Parsonage, which carries the ominous title of Australia's second most haunted building.</div>
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We're told a story of a six year old girl who was too petrified to enter the building during the day, telling her mother she was scared of 'the big man in the window.'</div>
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"Her description of the man was amazing," the guide explains, inferring it was the ghost of Reverend George Eastman, who died in the upstairs bedroom.</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reverend George Eastman and family.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source: State Library of Tasmania</span></i></div>
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"Not only did she have grey flecks throughout his beard, but the 'thing' [she described] around his neck was his clerical collar."</div>
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My journalist brain kicks in. A six year old is a terrible source. Children have overactive imaginations at the best of times. </div>
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We're told stories of guides who've had things thrown at them, had ghosts walk towards them angrily, even poltergeists with sticky fingers and penchant for mobile phones.</div>
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In the basement of the senior surgeon's cottage, we're told of secret, illegal dissections performed on sandstone slabs, using a primitive understanding of anatomy and lanterns.</div>
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The room is small, and as a lantern flickers on the slab, I begin to consider how the power of suggestion may provide at least a partial if not full explanation for many of these stories.</div>
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We're told of a woman who, upon visiting the dissection room, had a sensory hallucination of blood on her face and raced outside screaming.</div>
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My journalist brain continues to interfere with my enjoyment of the stories. I have no way of knowing whether this information was verified by a second or third witness, which renders it useless to me.</div>
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It appears my psychologist sister is having a similar problem.</div>
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"Where's the evidence-based stuff?"</div>
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Flash photography is encouraged, no doubt in the hope some will end up on the trophy board featuring more blurred, skewed, and flare-affected shots than a year six photography exhibition.</div>
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I'm snapping away taking photos on my phone, and am disappointed there is a distinct lack of ghostly features in all of them. But then again, maybe I wasn't smudging the lens enough.</div>
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Our guide has dismissed the Hollywood version of ghosts, yet as I consider the stories we've been told as a collection, I can't help but think they all involve the same situations we see in the movies. </div>
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Someone hears footsteps behind them, but there's no one there.</div>
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Someone hears children laughing and running from one room to the next.</div>
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Someone is stalked by an invisible entity and chased out of a building before the door slams shut.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieDZmF93J-pUsPzt8LD4fnkSRbwzche5fhtE-fYoBSCxXLnyl6eyFtEh9NVuf1_JYI8WtMMEDXa4zrRNt6wIRwQbjlFoehb5SXyet_cBB9ds2GKdXhTfoVdlOazCMsHeUVYRQnyHwKNNY/s1600/IMAG1164.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieDZmF93J-pUsPzt8LD4fnkSRbwzche5fhtE-fYoBSCxXLnyl6eyFtEh9NVuf1_JYI8WtMMEDXa4zrRNt6wIRwQbjlFoehb5SXyet_cBB9ds2GKdXhTfoVdlOazCMsHeUVYRQnyHwKNNY/s320/IMAG1164.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Although I'm thinking about alternative explanations that don't involve ghosts, there seems to be an equal number of times where I consider what it is about my mind that's completely closed the door to this possibility. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In many ways, my job requires me to be skeptical and question everything. It's how we test the strength of stories. But I'm convinced I was already closed off to the possibility of an afterlife prior to choosing a career.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I'm framing this whole thing as a joke, but I should be clear: it's in no way a reflection of the guide or the company. She said she aimed to entertain us, and she did. </div>
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It's a reflection on my brain and its stubbornness to accept the possibility of things existing outside my understanding. </div>
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That's the real joke.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419129468082129210.post-69011066771361032322012-04-10T00:00:00.000-07:002013-04-21T05:48:01.127-07:00On the campaign trailAs I get on a bus that's parked on the runway at Brisbane Airport, part-way through what will soon become a 77 hour week, I feel an overwhelming sense of joy sparked by what would be, in any other circumstance, an unremarkable sight.<span lang=""></span><br />
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The bus has a toilet.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Not only does the bus have a toilet, but I have a spare two minutes to take a leak.</div>
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You wouldn't expect this to be a moment to mark in your personal history books, but this is one of the times that has begun to stand out, when I think to myself ... this is what it feels like to be a journalist. </div>
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Not having time to relieve yourself, or eat, or drink, or change clothes, or close your eyes for more than thirty seconds, until you're absolutely sure that you have extensively covered the issues of the day. That's when you know.</div>
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Three regional tours with major parties have led up to those final few days, and it's left me in a coffee-fuelled political bubble, with a significantly depleted sense of my whereabouts, that's bred both a vapid nonchalance for the lack of control over my life and zombie-like modus operandi to write story after story, regardless of what hour of the day it is.</div>
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Election day is fast approaching and the job is not over, despite my tolerance running at a now dangerously low level. But it wasn't always like this.</div>
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I'm told I'll be sent on the state election campaign through an emphatic email from my boss, which explains where I'll need to be and when, through the following:</div>
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Location: unknown</div>
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Destination: unknown</div>
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Duration: unknown</div>
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What my boss has just done, albeit in a rather melodramatic, CIA-esque way, is summed up the forward planning information I'll be given not just for that day, but for the entire campaign.</div>
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Likewise, the information dished out by campaign organisers isn't much help either, often the text messages consist purely of "Pack for 3 nights. Bring wet weather gear"</div>
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That lack of information makes packing a bit of a challenge.</div>
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<em>Turns out, I wasn't far off the mark</em> </div>
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The itineraries of political parties are a closely guarded secret. This obviously helps minimise protests and unfavourable interference, but from the point of view of the journalists, it creates an annoying and inconvenient question mark to work around. Not unlike a Russian roulette contiki tour. It's particularly annoying for radio journos, who are generally expected to contribute a story for every hour.</div>
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As a relatively green journo, the thought of being sent away outside the state's south east for the first time is something that provokes anxiety for me. I have the overwhelming sense that my employer is actually investing money in a trip, and I have to do a good job to justify the expense. But while at times it's unsettling, it quickly becomes the steepest learning curve I've been on since I started working ten months ago.</div>
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The first trend I notice is the race amongst journalists to be the first to tweet. Tweet the location, tweet the policy, tweet what you eat, whatever. The party leader begins by holding a press conference about his economic strategy in a Brisbane high-rise, and before bags are even put down, people are racing to the window to snap a twitpic.</div>
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It's part of the reason why it's better to follow journalists on Twitter instead of news services. They're the ones being sent to the job, so if they're invested enough in social media, you'll get parts of the story from them before they even file information.</div>
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Once the 45 minute press conference is over, we're given a window of time to file stories before a flight, the destination of which is still undisclosed.</div>
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This is where the journalists tend to be broken up into their respective fields. The TV journos rush off to film their pieces-to-camera and edit vision, and the print journalists begin bashing away on their keyboards, while intermittently throwing back coffee like 18 year olds with mouthfuls of Bacardi Breezer at a One Direction concert.</div>
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If you're a radio journalist, depending on how close to the top of the hour it is ... you just shit yourself, and start cutting up audio grabs like Edward Scissorhands on crack. </div>
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You basically need to condense the work you'd normally complete across the entire afternoon, into a few hours. The story needs to evolve across the afternoon, and you need to think ahead and compensate for the three or more hours you'll be in the air.</div>
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At those early stages, it's a kind of two-speed work environment, of either working frantically to file as much as you can, or sitting around at airports, on the bus, or in hotels waiting for the next announcement.</div>
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+++</div>
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We touch down in Cairns in the first leg of this unAmazing Race, are each given our room keys, and that's basically it for the day. The hotel is on the more expensive side ... but one feature in particular takes my eye from the moment I walk in the door.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>I'm later advised work does not reimburse </em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>us for alcohol, but it was worth it</em></div>
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At night, you're sent sly text messages that will generally look like this:</div>
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"Meet the bus outside the hotel at X-o'clock"</div>
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The mystery tour continues</div>
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The next morning, Cairns turns on a great display of split personalities in its weather.</div>
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From this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk0OW_zRcA96mgIPjeoN1egwAOzBDZWCHDJ9CSf_QYXeL5DRYluS_erDBcEap_gTfa2MApz823c5gpoG6gzmtC0sWlmB2wLUBBR_6BBzW6b8-upl5IORzJ3ssv4KsMfnlAWCKeOyHAHyY/s1600/IMAG0458.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk0OW_zRcA96mgIPjeoN1egwAOzBDZWCHDJ9CSf_QYXeL5DRYluS_erDBcEap_gTfa2MApz823c5gpoG6gzmtC0sWlmB2wLUBBR_6BBzW6b8-upl5IORzJ3ssv4KsMfnlAWCKeOyHAHyY/s320/IMAG0458.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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To this:</div>
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Within the space of 15 minutes</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ironically enough, the day's announcement will be around tourism. It's at this point where I realise the shameless extent to which political parties will plan their announcements around the interests of TV crews and photographers.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkI9iBaObBZ5k6Nvg7NV3_quzMnbraEcPSSt600-ViSiyRDjKp9Pkna9J3JnC4s2TyYkpLY4c2clcKTInbbRaQJKrCw8XA_rcsF1tjB-FFw5PGL672htI-GDheUfr3ZyzVlimCFy-Jrs/s1600/IMAG0465.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkI9iBaObBZ5k6Nvg7NV3_quzMnbraEcPSSt600-ViSiyRDjKp9Pkna9J3JnC4s2TyYkpLY4c2clcKTInbbRaQJKrCw8XA_rcsF1tjB-FFw5PGL672htI-GDheUfr3ZyzVlimCFy-Jrs/s320/IMAG0465.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The press conference takes place on the upper deck of a small boat, in front of a cruise ship. The vessel bobs up and down and journalists eventually find their feet as the wind blows in the rain from outside, and the mere sight of the cruise ship makes me yearn for a holiday.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwyrkuyGEL1mkWkfgLWyGicQke3i4QMbsHIDXgsfgdmOj8U7eOnS6c24s3OUQAoGiTTXi_3V6lpPmsiCLX7UfNhY4tH4kCv7JEJjvhXiUd6uNCa0Gqj5C0iQNk75QRvpProTaI-DX3NA/s1600/IMAG0467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwyrkuyGEL1mkWkfgLWyGicQke3i4QMbsHIDXgsfgdmOj8U7eOnS6c24s3OUQAoGiTTXi_3V6lpPmsiCLX7UfNhY4tH4kCv7JEJjvhXiUd6uNCa0Gqj5C0iQNk75QRvpProTaI-DX3NA/s320/IMAG0467.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The main thing is, there's a ship in the background.</div>
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It's this kind of photo-opp electioneering that attracts criticism of our leaders. They spend sometimes only a fleeting few hours in our regions, unveil a policy targeted at a local issue, and jet-set off to the next town to put on the next hat.</div>
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And the journalists have no choice but to follow them.</div>
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The rampant photo-opping is far from over.</div>
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In Mackay ... the mystery bus tour takes us out of town</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQP5YmeFcO8aJKvfnpmjNEo2YfdqwJTKQyJxLxAXAgHavocpx2Ho_bTxIGKp0qxWIRYHOP9w-tZoSUbuyEh30b_nwkg6EGwgMBpTQZo47ad8Eqfy6iXtdx3lGJBKuU69bueaztGw51AHA/s1600/IMAG0496.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQP5YmeFcO8aJKvfnpmjNEo2YfdqwJTKQyJxLxAXAgHavocpx2Ho_bTxIGKp0qxWIRYHOP9w-tZoSUbuyEh30b_nwkg6EGwgMBpTQZo47ad8Eqfy6iXtdx3lGJBKuU69bueaztGw51AHA/s320/IMAG0496.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And off-road</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQSgHLOCS0VoONRvuThKvByAK8gpS8k64eqC4W48gxnZfOyMb0kq1MRjLMz8w3okBHS1jHcqqmmBbzQZOqo7T9DxOo99i4emvwL_AIdPd0wqreop_odGQ-9UyStqRhU-t2BhyphenhyphenfYI2Zsg/s1600/IMAG0497.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQSgHLOCS0VoONRvuThKvByAK8gpS8k64eqC4W48gxnZfOyMb0kq1MRjLMz8w3okBHS1jHcqqmmBbzQZOqo7T9DxOo99i4emvwL_AIdPd0wqreop_odGQ-9UyStqRhU-t2BhyphenhyphenfYI2Zsg/s320/IMAG0497.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We're in the middle of a cane farm, approaching midday in the sweltering sun, and it's all for this shot.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqmCvepijKDx9QGyNv7rFv_AQbqSq-Pf5iqdSckSF3K8TqTo6lqk5Sjde7UBNAoIxqA2yCDiF8rRvo5NeA0_UNN8eWihI0YGmI7Lmn0M9gfdmf17gwXWXcE0ixeDCr1qjZaUG6xlbzg5s/s1600/IMAG0498.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqmCvepijKDx9QGyNv7rFv_AQbqSq-Pf5iqdSckSF3K8TqTo6lqk5Sjde7UBNAoIxqA2yCDiF8rRvo5NeA0_UNN8eWihI0YGmI7Lmn0M9gfdmf17gwXWXcE0ixeDCr1qjZaUG6xlbzg5s/s320/IMAG0498.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Versatility. That's what it's about. Whether it be farmer, fisher, businessman, scientist, boatie, tradie, teacher, parent, nanny, pizza chef, waiter, factory worker, baby-kisser, the leaders will wear any hat in their bid to snatch the votes of that particular demographic.</div>
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For 20 minutes, the journalists huddle round the leader with their microphones, while the heat claims at least one life. The media advisor's recorder goes into meltdown as the screen is baked.</div>
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On the TV that night, there is a tractor in the background. Mission accomplished.</div>
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Likewise, certain things are more likely to get on the news than others. Children, for example, are always a big winner.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6z3z9v4UoWt1yDdM5rMeAVUM3nGWPcmYfQelnjxJSiMwwRifKpmkAnOScJAdYS7gzeLJGw_F8wQExn0YzibIlszt8ixo9nVj4331tJzoma4gXGkuvPPa79O30oJYAzMEKvdczsyVQdc/s1600/IMAG0519.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6z3z9v4UoWt1yDdM5rMeAVUM3nGWPcmYfQelnjxJSiMwwRifKpmkAnOScJAdYS7gzeLJGw_F8wQExn0YzibIlszt8ixo9nVj4331tJzoma4gXGkuvPPa79O30oJYAzMEKvdczsyVQdc/s320/IMAG0519.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdIIjolGLl-Bt_OYsBRKcIKm9q2NuFKq-28KJg39ZRRWAJ2KKd5eJmDcvhToXShB8HvzKuqvqr2WlDIGqvFWZXSMY17TCNB5-RS9Tjn643H8f6Yv6yhYgW9Q32dwEVsmiZnSq7E7R4K-I/s1600/IMAG0560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdIIjolGLl-Bt_OYsBRKcIKm9q2NuFKq-28KJg39ZRRWAJ2KKd5eJmDcvhToXShB8HvzKuqvqr2WlDIGqvFWZXSMY17TCNB5-RS9Tjn643H8f6Yv6yhYgW9Q32dwEVsmiZnSq7E7R4K-I/s320/IMAG0560.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>I can hold more babies than you</em></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjoadU9l7jA7T05aK4YLlHWCTld_MI5vXkpgueGwzjImOBMh_uU1dMyf3dIA6O_wmWTOFsdzQgo1IiUdBwEWYBhZNibVbMpvuk7VlvOherhiUWhfjZGXUlTWSwm4__4TpAFU9g5Qbhp4A/s1600/IMAG0520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjoadU9l7jA7T05aK4YLlHWCTld_MI5vXkpgueGwzjImOBMh_uU1dMyf3dIA6O_wmWTOFsdzQgo1IiUdBwEWYBhZNibVbMpvuk7VlvOherhiUWhfjZGXUlTWSwm4__4TpAFU9g5Qbhp4A/s320/IMAG0520.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xSHqMzNXv1-Uj0N1OQyoPzKyQR4TEzfnBTmRkJrqdmhqsa-RyHkLj3dW6wm5z2D737W_MMAONO8oPMsZaYLPt69GfLI6LznVJGD-94bwyaWW7Ihap9kSFUzQhT8ITCpnQgw8JdcE_fQ/s1600/IMAG0531.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xSHqMzNXv1-Uj0N1OQyoPzKyQR4TEzfnBTmRkJrqdmhqsa-RyHkLj3dW6wm5z2D737W_MMAONO8oPMsZaYLPt69GfLI6LznVJGD-94bwyaWW7Ihap9kSFUzQhT8ITCpnQgw8JdcE_fQ/s320/IMAG0531.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>I can teach more pupils than you</em></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQGDJtsKGEWlAZ6DdVZ_RNWgrJdERRKSsMLFWOD7bXN5pt97PnwP0JopWkrEKlTVlORxcUWe_efbSW9Md9giW-UJMGeOR9uthbWWC2G31S92Yfmu8IjSMfdeKzHdn7nBJXnYM1JpbDFV8/s1600/IMAG0562.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQGDJtsKGEWlAZ6DdVZ_RNWgrJdERRKSsMLFWOD7bXN5pt97PnwP0JopWkrEKlTVlORxcUWe_efbSW9Md9giW-UJMGeOR9uthbWWC2G31S92Yfmu8IjSMfdeKzHdn7nBJXnYM1JpbDFV8/s320/IMAG0562.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<em>Who are your parents voting for?</em></div>
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As are fluffy animals.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZDifMiE3IsYRU3yuCnscNQK7GxIs1eu_DdIcHAMc1_Zw31HW4wQZn83DJxaico6l1UzDal5nW2aJfTCK0XpCOEGc5Mmch42whgAmogZjUC9eh73I_Eiwf9v_Zep860sq-UMt68_I1XA/s1600/IMAG0572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZDifMiE3IsYRU3yuCnscNQK7GxIs1eu_DdIcHAMc1_Zw31HW4wQZn83DJxaico6l1UzDal5nW2aJfTCK0XpCOEGc5Mmch42whgAmogZjUC9eh73I_Eiwf9v_Zep860sq-UMt68_I1XA/s320/IMAG0572.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Giant novelty items</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__6z7ge48j2qiYVu9_aU7Ux7QneHHVEBCIgzTXWUPRo5V1DRsPGeWgJozb0VTrMdwa-_BSznDBjB12zGmJFArPyIDkh9unj7X3OzQNZwcMP_gW_5du22WcD7rGK-w3AJYzqJQ9VVfsQY/s1600/IMAG0485.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__6z7ge48j2qiYVu9_aU7Ux7QneHHVEBCIgzTXWUPRo5V1DRsPGeWgJozb0VTrMdwa-_BSznDBjB12zGmJFArPyIDkh9unj7X3OzQNZwcMP_gW_5du22WcD7rGK-w3AJYzqJQ9VVfsQY/s320/IMAG0485.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Although unfortunately protesters are onto that one as well.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGpFwS2Yf8WUJ99Rh8FmvvSQ4u5jqEvRVibIvk0qnys9AgaNv1A7LtAlirMNSmpm-DcVceT-c0aZC0zTPApXTsq30Y75B7k00CKrlcdOVmBH6NyfGjiOyjrDvSK3smZjyinZP7YYZQdeE/s1600/IMAG0569.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGpFwS2Yf8WUJ99Rh8FmvvSQ4u5jqEvRVibIvk0qnys9AgaNv1A7LtAlirMNSmpm-DcVceT-c0aZC0zTPApXTsq30Y75B7k00CKrlcdOVmBH6NyfGjiOyjrDvSK3smZjyinZP7YYZQdeE/s320/IMAG0569.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Uni students are not exempt</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj5bdAyGxzyK3Aq7qxW1-4Aq_JRRW6MPwqdN8sKpIPwrMa9grFBAS5VD3jfJEMQ_EOQIYSbs2Qn9gWrzd6FGd5-udET52KkjV8PoewIB1mWs2xjM6UJCVTSrN_Rg6vtLLz_Di_LV1kFyo/s1600/IMAG0482.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj5bdAyGxzyK3Aq7qxW1-4Aq_JRRW6MPwqdN8sKpIPwrMa9grFBAS5VD3jfJEMQ_EOQIYSbs2Qn9gWrzd6FGd5-udET52KkjV8PoewIB1mWs2xjM6UJCVTSrN_Rg6vtLLz_Di_LV1kFyo/s320/IMAG0482.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>I was later told this microscope wasn't turned on</em></div>
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Every announcement is carefully planned with TV crews in mind.</div>
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Less so, radio journalists.</div>
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During the travel, I attended press conferences in some locations that made for stellar radio, including but not limited to:</div>
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- Industrial tin sheds in the rain</div>
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- Community halls with the ambience of 90-odd people gabbering in the background</div>
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- Less than 10 metres from the ocean on a stormy, windy day</div>
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- A small boat in torrential rain</div>
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- Main roads</div>
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- Rock concerts</div>
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(okay, that last one was a lie. But if it had pretty lighting effects and/or puppies, it really wouldn't surprise me.)</div>
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+++</div>
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<strong>The Holy Grail</strong></div>
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The mother of all opportunistic photo planning situations, the unicorn of the media advisor's world, the most sought after by far, is the natural disaster. </div>
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The final week of the campaign delivers a rather savage storm that rips through parts of Townsville, creating a photo-opp no electioneering political leader worth their salt could afford to ignore.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3vDtLA9B-kT0foRR5_TwSZV_W7cexEEWoVjfG4D11S9JiiQmLNKDYAb5E7ORElPDeYIm5bWJjLIBr2DLTvhisGDFdQkdZPb6Zqht7QJVmWqQpGkVdDj3Berrgjj8KrcGhxefxAhRpN30/s1600/IMAG0549.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3vDtLA9B-kT0foRR5_TwSZV_W7cexEEWoVjfG4D11S9JiiQmLNKDYAb5E7ORElPDeYIm5bWJjLIBr2DLTvhisGDFdQkdZPb6Zqht7QJVmWqQpGkVdDj3Berrgjj8KrcGhxefxAhRpN30/s320/IMAG0549.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The stop over in Townsville was almost certainly a diversion from the planned itinerary, given its rushed nature. It was also deemed the low point of the campaign.</div>
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The visit formed the low point of the campaign for me, for somewhat selfish reasons. As the party leader hurriedly made his way through a swamped junior rugby club, a handful of overzealous, competitive journalists followed him with their microphones. I was stupid enough to trudge through ankle-deep water in a bid to make sure I didn't miss even the faintest murmer of "that's terrible."</div>
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At this stage, being in the final days of campaigning, the party was trying its absolute best to squish in as many events and appearances as it could, so providing journalists with actual allocated time to file stories, dropped to the bottom of the priorities list.</div>
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I sulked and trudged around in cold, wet shoes and socks in the rain and wind before writing stories for the rest of the day, and it was only until almost 8pm that night that I got a chance to dive into my suitcase and change them.</div>
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It sounds awful and I know it's selfish given what the residents of that suburb have to deal with. But my tolerance is wearing thin, and I begin to hate the campaign with every squelching step.</div>
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+++</div>
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<strong>When the photo shoot backfires</strong></div>
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There are times when the carefully constructed plans of a team of media advisors are sent flying out the window, and the more cynical reporters amongst the media scrum rub their hands with glee. </div>
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While it's arguably a little facetious to gain enjoyment from these electioneering misfires, it stems from the resent journalists feel from being dragged to carefully planned event after event, like some kind of colour-by-numbers journalism that will manufacture a feel good story. </div>
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With this in mind, it's understandable that watching a political leader awkwardly deal with a mishap to the cringes of media advisors arouses at least a slight smirk from the media scrum.</div>
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One such misfire occurred outside Rockhampton, during an announcement of new funding for volunteer emergency services.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdlfYsS6RqEKxXF1lp0aVGZD7K3sfVreW38vo_vZpz5uK8O0FoubQtUBFj3O8XB3yvwIqGJsfxx20mX0DxDd46yRRxFQZ4KvA4EUMOqwxIFHV3JxZ0qt9xcQyh_9ru1tU4-CVQc9KGb0/s1600/IMAG0526.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdlfYsS6RqEKxXF1lp0aVGZD7K3sfVreW38vo_vZpz5uK8O0FoubQtUBFj3O8XB3yvwIqGJsfxx20mX0DxDd46yRRxFQZ4KvA4EUMOqwxIFHV3JxZ0qt9xcQyh_9ru1tU4-CVQc9KGb0/s320/IMAG0526.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Sorry, where are we?</em></div>
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The press conference takes place at a rural fire brigade, but it's quickly hijacked by a disgruntled volunteer who persues a line of questioning about bureaucratic deficiencies in the services. He is frustrated that the proposal will do little to fix the problems.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxRNb_KxOc8Q-BdGuz_6Gwd0RiwZ4Bvdu-jwdXbse77GwiwR0HAdTNlw7JdQSg_bwuUCC9SIz_bvClyuLcD2ql4nzm9ONXIAt50cJCdIqlAoDzkjW9budmeHYY7vA4C2wQ_z219tq2ck/s1600/IMAG0527.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxRNb_KxOc8Q-BdGuz_6Gwd0RiwZ4Bvdu-jwdXbse77GwiwR0HAdTNlw7JdQSg_bwuUCC9SIz_bvClyuLcD2ql4nzm9ONXIAt50cJCdIqlAoDzkjW9budmeHYY7vA4C2wQ_z219tq2ck/s320/IMAG0527.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The moment the cameras turn their lenses away from the leader, there is panic amongst the party's organisers. The headline is no longer "Leader Pledges $X-million for Emergency Services" ... but "Leader Accosted by Disgruntled Firey."</div>
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Almost every day, the announcements are upstaged by not only a physical distraction, but events happening elsewhere in the state. Be it a candidate who's never stepped foot inside his electorate, a candidate who's posted racist Facebook status updates, a candidate who's been to a swingers party, or a candidate who ran a porn site, there is never a day when the leaders are questioned only on their policy announcement.</div>
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Similarly, the leaders sometimes have to grin and bear having cameras shoved in their faces at the most inopportune times. The price of relying so heavily on the media as a vehicle to portray their tightly controlled image, is seemingly having those same cameras follow you round when you'd prefer privacy.</div>
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It's not until voting day, when the race for the best picture has intensified, that this focus on the leader's every move delivers some palpable awkwardness.</div>
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Campbell Newman arrives with his wife to cast his vote, and the dozen or so journalists all merge into a 12-headed monster with camera lenses for eyes and microphones for arms. The couple is denied even one second of privacy during their entire visit which, thanks to a rather long queue for absentee votes, turns out to be longer than they had anticipated.</div>
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After the deed has been done, they sit down at a picnic table to enjoy the traditional election day sausage, as a wall of cameras flash in their eyes, and the tiny red lights of news cameras remind them every bite is likely to end up on the evening news.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIUNgh3Js66WYT8afeCZCdCAEnmAnTZDfKABqCwD2B1f1KKIJqbVljypyn-4PLk8J6a-DwO5QJFajTkIXVIJzcSACKf-JO0rFqv19aBV7Hpm4rkMQCjG2Ozr2jjxzOLNwvrlvJJ3MLfw/s1600/IMAG0577.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIUNgh3Js66WYT8afeCZCdCAEnmAnTZDfKABqCwD2B1f1KKIJqbVljypyn-4PLk8J6a-DwO5QJFajTkIXVIJzcSACKf-JO0rFqv19aBV7Hpm4rkMQCjG2Ozr2jjxzOLNwvrlvJJ3MLfw/s320/IMAG0577.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>It tastes like ... awkwardness</em></div>
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<strong>No time to file</strong></div>
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It's in those final few days that things get hectic. There are rapid-fire appearances at functions, along with multiple announcements every day, with zero opportunity to file stories.</div>
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At this point in the campaign, I am becoming frustrated with the way the leaders are pandering to television journalists, creating time for them to file and dropping them off at appropriate locations, while the rest of the bus is left to their own devices.</div>
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I get used to filing stories in transit, on the bus, in a pub, or while walking from one place to the next. I begin to resent not being afforded time to do my job and file a story at the airport in Rockhampton as I'm being rushed onto a plane.</div>
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As the last of the media team board, I am on the phone to my studio yelling a report down the phone on the runway, knowing that I will likely be in the air for a good three hours.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56QHhsoyID2FH3K_NfdQE6Wz3cPTo0wg-7OdURQRC8lHZKWiSsvIPWocvQ7gAXoEgUpD2fEGQ_saHGUUPspQ2tAe0CHj7oOeEVxONiK3oKRfpExKJUl6Cc7yY3HKt3IautM_0lEHh7QU/s1600/IMAG0452.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56QHhsoyID2FH3K_NfdQE6Wz3cPTo0wg-7OdURQRC8lHZKWiSsvIPWocvQ7gAXoEgUpD2fEGQ_saHGUUPspQ2tAe0CHj7oOeEVxONiK3oKRfpExKJUl6Cc7yY3HKt3IautM_0lEHh7QU/s320/IMAG0452.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>The portable office becomes a familiar site</em></div>
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<strong>Photographers Vs journalists</strong></div>
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Throughout university, I was warned of a competitiveness between journalists, and have since found this to be generally a complete crock. The campaign trail was the first time I've come across a kind of professional lack of courtesy, but it was only in the more high-stakes environment of the final few days.</div>
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Photographers don't take kindly to the sight of microphones in their shots. If you ask me, in such a public event as an election campaign, this attitude is bizarre and unjustified. It's not a portrait shoot with absolute control over the lighting and scenery. Likewise, I'm not enjoying the benefits of a soundproof booth with complete control over background noise.</div>
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So when you can flick your camera to silent and cease clicking through my audio, I'll happily remove my mic flag from your shot. Until then, just ... suck it.</div>
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While I do love a good bitch, truth be told it was really only one photographer that consistently got narky about the mic business. In those instances my Where's Wally-like game of spotting my mic flag on each station's evening news and in the subsequent paper coverage was stepped up a notch, and angry motioning for me to lower the equipment was met with a blank stare as I moved it slightly higher.</div>
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<strong>The two camps</strong></div>
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There emerged a common theme of gossip amongst journalists about the difference between the way the two parties approached the campaign. It was impossible for me not to notice when I switched busses mid-way through. Anna Bligh's entourage conducted a generally well-oiled affair, with travel arrangements running according to plan and events that ran smoothly.</div>
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Likewise, the Premier seemed at ease on her bus, and seemed to be relishing the travel. This triggered criticism that she was indulging in a farewell tour, and there were times when I found myself expecting things to be more frantic, given what was at stake. But it wasn't just the way the campaign was conducted, but her rapport with the journalists. There seemed to be more opportunities to grab a one-on-one chat, as well as unplanned press conferences in response to breaking news. On the whole, Anna Bligh was consistently accessible. In fairness, this could easily be attributed to her status as a seasoned politician.</div>
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In contrast, the LNP ran what seemed to be a tighter ship. While Campbell Newman made the effort to chat to journalists on the private flights, he very rarely caught the bus, opting instead to be driven by car to each location. There was very minimal opportunity to request comment outside the 'official' press conferences ... and even they seemed to be limited. In the final days, to fifteen minutes or so.</div>
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Brisbane Times journo Bridie Jabour summed it up best when she said "<span lang="EN-AU">There is one overarching thought that is constantly at the forefront of his and everyone in his team's mind: "Don't stuff it up." "</span></div>
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It's not until the final days of the campaign that Mr Newman seems to let go and show more of himself on the campaign trail. There was a particularly strange incident where he played Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' over the plane's PA system, which got me thinking maybe it's best if he didn't personalise the campaign.</div>
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In those final few days, I started having unusual thoughts. As a journo, we're constantly detaching ourselves from the situation and trying to remain impartial. This is particularly important with political reporting. </div>
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But in the closing days, as I watch Newman engage with members of the public at barbecues and morning teas, I don't see a political figure, but a charismatic <i>person</i>. I quickly slap myself out of that frame of mind and remember, that's his job.</div>
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I combat my mild Stockholm Syndrome with a drink as I trawl through public comments on internet articles that night, and remind myself of the vigorous debate from both sides that is being stirred up be his every move.</div>
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+++</div>
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<strong>When is it over</strong></div>
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Thanks to the way things work out in the final week, I am allocated to stalk Mr Newman on election day, along with election night at the party's function at the Hilton in Brisbane.</div>
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Despite my fears of a 24 hour shift, it's a relatively subdued day, with the afore-meantioned awkward sausage-eating and some general campaigning.</div>
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Surprisingly, the evening takes a similar turn, but it's an interesting environment to be embedded in.</div>
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Scores of LNP supporters gather around monitors at the Hilton, scoffing between swigs of champagne and patting each other on the back before the race has even been called.</div>
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There's not really a need to call it though, with polls pointing to a bloodbath that turns out to be worse than anyone thought.</div>
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What will soon become a victory stage is prepared in the ballroom as the crowd grows louder and more boisterous.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9F75cDyACS0biC0EA5-CCHMGRa0NkFQICNdK6nTJcYUfqbv8bodHBpJ1Fkh8u1eg2d0oVSOJ8AMhrk0v8ZWhzvvh-6Th2JKwi_QKsz8R99A31vo_QBX7vTeo34VCvUTuKzqmTg5w7U6I/s1600/IMAG0578.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9F75cDyACS0biC0EA5-CCHMGRa0NkFQICNdK6nTJcYUfqbv8bodHBpJ1Fkh8u1eg2d0oVSOJ8AMhrk0v8ZWhzvvh-6Th2JKwi_QKsz8R99A31vo_QBX7vTeo34VCvUTuKzqmTg5w7U6I/s320/IMAG0578.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The Labor seats are dropping like flies, as they cheer and applaud.</div>
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The inevitable eventuates, and as Anna Bligh makes her concession speech, there is jeering and loud heckles.</div>
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"Oh piss off" yells one man.</div>
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She thanks her media advisors who have worked so hard.</div>
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"Yeah now they don't have a job" jibes another.</div>
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"You lied" snarls another.</div>
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Soon enough, the crowd seeps into the ballroom and I try to move to the front, knowing that I cannot record audio from the split.</div>
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After waiting a good ten minutes amid chanting and slow-clapping, I am elbowed and squashed by a crowd of about 600 Liberal National supporters, and realise it is not consistent with my definition of a good time.</div>
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But as I notch up my 76th hour of work for the week, I realise it's soon going to be over, and I am just hours away from shotting enough alcohol to erase at least some of the memories.</div>
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+++</div>
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<strong>The collective sigh of relief</strong></div>
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It sounds ungrateful, but I have to work quite hard to prevent the final few days from tarnishing the entire campaign.</div>
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I haven't had that feeling of being so hopelessly out of depth since my first month on the job saw me sent to cover the Floods Inquiry. There are constantly times when I feel out of depth, but not Mariana Trench out of depth. And I think that feeling is important. It reinforces that I am still learning.</div>
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I'm approaching the one year mark since I began full time work, and it's refreshing to know the long list of things that are new and scary has only grown marginally shorter. </div>
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There were times when I hated sleeping in another hotel bed and just wanted to be home, and the long hours fed my general cynicism for the world like petrol on a fire, but it's an amazing thing to be able to put on my resume. Not only that, but being able to travel to new parts of the state is something I've failed to do after being in Queensland for more than five years. It gave me a huge sense of satisfaction being able to do it on the job, and witness a significant event in Queensland's political history.</div>
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I just never want to hear the Can-do theme song on a fifteen minute loop again.</div>
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