Geelong Advertiser, Saturday, 12 January 2008, p. 95. Melbourne Victory defeated Wellington Phoenix by three goals to nil in its last game at Telstra Dome for this A-League season, watched by 25,498 fans. Victory had to win and hope that Newcastle Jets fails to get a...
Journalism 2008
Shaking up the universities
Published as 'New lessons', Geelong Advertiser, Monday 22 December 2008, p. 19. The Bradley Report into Australia’s higher education handed down this week is a weighty document at 304 pages and with 46 separate recommendations, so it is not to be taken lightly or...
Happy and upwardly mobile
Geelong Advertiser, Monday 15 December 2008, p. 17. My wife is profoundly deaf and even with two hearing aids finds oral communication, particularly in areas where there is high ambient noise, very difficult. So when she takes part in quiz games, she can’t hear the...
Competitive education: Is that what we want?
Published as 'Lifting the bar', Geelong Advertiser, Monday 1 December 2008, p. 17. Isn’t it fascinating when you have Rupert Murdoch and Julia Gillard singing from the same song sheet? Rupert Murdoch’s fourth Boyer Lecture was aimed directly at ‘our public education...
Human capital and technology
Published as 'Battle of carrot versus stick', Geelong Advertiser, Thursday 13 November 2008, p. 23. Rupert Murdoch’s second Boyer Lecture on the ABC ‘Who’s afraid of new technology?’ was a challenging call to Australians to embrace the opportunities of the new rather...
New ways in history
Published as 'Balancing act', Geelong Advertiser, Monday 20 October 2008, p. 15. By Roy Hay While most attention has focused on the provision of computers to students in our schools as the key element of the proposed education revolution, perhaps a more significant...
Experience: Is it all it is cracked up to be
Published as 'Vice squad', Geelong Advertiser, Monday 6 October 2008, p. 15. Much is being made in the United States election campaigns of the relative levels of experience and inexperience of the candidates for president and vice-president. Yet if history is anything...
Dealing with Telstra
Published as 'Quality first', Geelong Advertiser, Monday 29 September 2008, p. 17. I hold no shares in Telstra, but I have been a customer of the telco and its predecessor the publicly owned company since we arrived in Australia in 1977. Back in July this year we...
The United States financial crisis and Australia
Published as 'China Syndrome', Geelong Advertiser, Saturday 20 September 2008, p. 33. I wonder about the implications of the financial and economic crisis in the United States and the impact it will have on the Australian economy and in particular on our larger...
Climate change policy in an era of uncertainty
Published as 'Pollution is nothing new', Geelong Advertiser, Wednesday 6 August 2008, p. 00. The debate on climate change policy is becomingly increasingly strident and certainly baffling to many Australians who seem to be well disposed to the idea that we ought to do...
History and mythology in education
Published as ' Footy facts', Geelong Advertiser, Thurday 31 July 2008, p. 21. The Newspapers in Education column of the Geelong Advertiser is one of many excellent services this paper provides for teachers and their students. Presenting issues in the news and setting...
Learning from the tour
Geelong Advertiser, Monday 28 July 2008, p. 21. Like many people I have had a flickering interest in the Tour de France for many years, especially when someone one knew about was taking part. Long ago in the UK it was guys like Tommy Simpson and the continental...
Economics of climate change, part one
Published as 'Reality check', Geelong Advertiser, Friday 11 July 2008, p. 21. The 500-page Garnaut report on what Australia should do about climate change is not your average bedtime reading, but we will all have to come to terms with its arguments, sooner rather than...
Who says sport and politics don’t mix?
Geelong Advertiser, Saturday 21 June 2008, p. 43. Who says sport and politics don’t mix? At the personal level they definitely do. In Geelong we have had a number of political representatives who owed a great deal to their previous sporting careers. Sir Hubert...
Australian myopia and the origins of football
Published as 'Evidence the key to our game's origins', The Age, Saturday 31 May 2008, Insight, p. 9. Perhaps we might make a little more sense out of the arguments which have been going on about Aboriginal influences on the origins of football in this country if we...
Footy celebrations and origin myths
Published as 'PC Footbrawl', Geelong Advertiser, Saturday 17 May 2008, p. 37. Here in Australia we have one of best games of football on the planet. That’s not just my judgment. Way back in 1883, Richard Twopenny, who had played rugby union, soccer and footy...
The real cost of Australian sport
Published as 'Untold story of sports rorts', Geelong Advertiser, Wednesday, 14 May 2008, p. 23. Have you ever wondered how much our national obsession with sport costs us? As a died in the wool sports nut, I sometimes wonder myself. There are issues which worry me and...
Baffled by strange errors
Geelong Advertiser, Thursday, 20 March 2008, p. 19. I was in my favourite local computer store the other day picking up some new software and discussing the glitches and behaviours which my machines display from time to time. ‘Intermittent strange errors’ is how my...