Some questions about ‘The Boy from Poowong”

Bob’s taking a week off as we are booked to perform at a folk festival this weekend. More about that next week. It seemed the right time to give this contribution a run. Norm originally presented this as a talk to a U3A group in Brisbane. We thought it merited wider exposure as the subject is a journalist who reported vital news from the frontline yet was suspected of being a spy. This should remind…

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Fifty years of Cabinet secrets and media leaks

The Australian Federal Police ‘raids’ on the ABC and a lone News Ltd journalist have been taken to signal a new era of scrutiny when confidential government files are leaked to the media. The media has gone overboard on the ‘journalism is not a crime’ front. As a former journo, I have adopted the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) Facebook frame in solidarity. But it is interesting to learn that that on June 5,…

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Keeping Cabinet secrets safe

Zounds, it’s only the ninth day of February and some records have been set, including the biggest ever accidental leaking of Cabinet secrets. In un-related news, the weather bureau said last Saturday (the 3rd) was the coldest February day in 100 years. We didn’t have a fire on because we had no dry wood, but some Hinterland folks were better organised. BOM said it was 18 degrees but with the rain, fog and all-day and…

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