What’s old is new again
Dear Readers of the Fergus Report,
I will be starting a new blog soon. Thank you highly kindly for your commitment in relation to the Fergus Report.
Going forward,
Fergus
The Fergus Report
BrisConnections (Part 3)
To be sure, Sydney has had its share of headaches with tunnels. But The Fergus Report is not about to become yet another smart alec outlet for should-have-known-better comment from south of the border.
BrisConnections has been great fun for the media. What could have been a dry business story made the front page thanks largely to a young man with crumpled trousers, not to mention important behind-the-scenes work from at least one major media personality.
And so, in conclusion, I return to my earlier unresolved questions - how and why? If big infrastructure projects really are of the nation-building significance some say, why do governments so willingly entrust them to the private sector? Is this really the best way to raise capital, to get these projects off the ground, and to reach the job creation and economic stimulation outcomes the nation needs?
Thank you, Good Night, and Good Luck.
BrisConnections (Part 2)
2008 rolled on. The Global Financial Crisis came along and did what all good global financial crises do. BrisCon’s stock plummeted from its opening price of $3.00 per unit to somewhere around $0.001 per unit. The shareholders’ outstanding liability, meanwhile, remained at two more instalments of $1.00 per unit.
So that’s a taste of the who, the what, the where and the when of the BrisCon story. But here’s where my credibility as a business journalist starts to waver. I just don’t get it: HOW and WHY did this happen?
I asked a keen stockmarket investor why she or anyone else would invest in a tunnel. She said that infrastructure is normally a good investment but no stock has remained immune from the G.F.C.
It seems that many mum-and-dad investors saw the dramatic drop in BrisCon’s share price and jumped at what looked like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At one tenth of a cent a share, hell, why not buy half a million of ’em?
What they missed, apparently, were the two outstanding $1 instalments attached to each share. At the bargain price of $0.001 each, $500 worth of shares came with a debt to BrisCon of a cool $1 million.
Think Before You Upload
The producers of a new online animation warning teenagers of the hazards of uploading sensitive personal information, images and videos to social networking sites are to be congratulated on an outstanding piece of Adobe Flash animation.
An initiative of various Asia Pacific privacy authorities, Think Before You Upload is an artistically bold and musically daring portrayal of the potentially detrimental knock-on effects of injudicious postings to social networking sites.
Irate football coaches, startled relatives and disgruntled employers all feature in the compelling drama as hapless teens upload digital footage of themselves in a range of compromising situations.
Think Before You Upload is destined to become an implement of behavioural optimisation of an efficacy seldom seen since the days of the Ludovico technique. The insistent moog pulsations of the soundtrack will not fail to wear down the resolve of even the most recalcitrant teen perpetrator of online faux pas.
BrisConnections (Part 1)
Now this is a tricky story. If only toll road tunnel projects in NSW ran this smoothly.
Last year the Queensland government awarded the concession to build a new motorway to Brisbane airport to a company called BrisConnections.
In July 2008 BrisConnections was listed on the Australian stock exchange at a price of $3 per unit. Jaded by their experiences with the Sydney Harbour, Lane Cove and Cross City tunnels, Sydney-based speculators may well have steered clear of BrisCon.
But the fledgling road builder seems to have had little trouble finding other investors with assorted financial world heavyweights such as Jim Byrnes, Nicholas Bolton and Fang He all buying up large numbers of shares.
The deal seemed sound. After all, it was underwritten by financial market pillars Macquarie and Deutsche Bank. But there was a small catch that perhaps only the eagle-eyed would have discerned from the product disclosure statement. In addition to the buy-in price, investors would be obliged to pay two additional instalments of $1 per unit.
Queensland one-ups kiwi-shaped feijoa
Following this extraordinary report from ABC news …
… the Fergus Report brings you an exclusive first look at an unusual pineapple discovered in a Toowoomba backyard late this evening:
Photo credit: Ben Phillips, MSNBC
Kodi next Brando says Viggo
[The following is based on an article which appeared in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. The article has been rewritten for the purposes of a class exercise.]
Kodi Smit-McPhee is an Aussie legend in the making according to Lord of the Rings star and accomplished Danish speaker, Viggo Mortensen.
Mortensen and McPhee play father and son in the movie version of The Road, a post-apocalyptic thrill ride due to hit Australian screens before the year is out.
Mortensen’s most recent outing was Good. He says Kodi Smit-McPhee reminded him of jazzed-up hoodlum, Marlon Brando, because his acting style was instinctive.
Veteran Hollywood legend and The Road co-star, Robert “Smells-Like-Victory” Duvall, concurred, saying, “Where’d they get the kid?!”
X-Men fans would probably find it hard to believe that Smit-McPhee dropped out of Wolverine to be in The Road. But Mortensen is sure it was a good move. “I think it will be a big deal for Kodi,” he said.
The Road also stars Guy Pearce, who previously worked with director John Hillcoat on The Proposition, the screenplay for which was written by Nick Cave, whose film career includes an appearance alongside Brad Pitt’s hairdo in Johnny Suede, 1991’s offbeat paean to classic rock and roll featuring Ashley Gardner in a supporting role, who in the same year played Susan in He Said, She Said, a romantic comedy about journalists starring the then 33-year-old Kevin Bacon.
Bird-related pun headlines post about Twitter
I recently read an interesting article about Twitter by Will Leitch in the SMH’s Good Weekend magazine. (I can’t find Good Weekend online but here’s a link to the magazine that GW got the story from.)
Twitter seems to be a particularly hot topic for those of us interested in the future of the media and the role of social networking tools.
Leitch spoke to Twitter’s co-founders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and reported that Williams in particular is “wary of all the publicity Twitter has generated, mostly from nervous journalists striving to stay relevant in a free-information age”.
Leitch went on to say, “You can forgive journalists their Twitter obsession. If you haven’t noticed, we’re in an economic clusterphooey of historic proportions, and many analysts are blaming the media’s failure, in particular, to create info-sharing services like Twitter.”
That’s all well and good but how does Twitter relate to Queensland politics?
If a candidate’s proficiency in the use of Twitter were a guide to their prospects of electoral success, then Anna Bligh’s win should come as little surprise.
The Premier set up her micro-blog Premier_Bligh on 18 February, five days before announcing the March election. From that day forward, voters were provided with a steady stream of 140-character posts, featuring policy announcements woven through a travelogue of shopping centre visits and links to various other dernier cri forms of self-expression such as YouTube videos, Tumblr posts and Flickr albums.
Lawrence Springborg lagged almost two weeks behind Anna Bligh in setting up his Twitter account. Although he deftly described Twitter as “a very powerful engagement medium”, the Opposition Leader’s feed never caught up with the Premier’s in terms of either quantity of output or multimedia razzledazzle. The result on election night mirrored the candidates’ form on Twitter. With some 2,000 followers Bligh was simply too good for Springborg with just under 700.
Having been returned to office, Premier Bligh now shows little sign of slowing down her contributions to the twittosphere. The Premier has wasted little time in recalibrating her Twitter presence: Premier_Bligh is now defunct and has been replaced with a title more properly in line with Bligh’s accession to the corporation sole – TheQldPremier.
But by using Twitter, have politicians simply found a (new) way to expose themselves to ridicule? Credibility may indeed be impaired by such contributions to public discourse as Anna Bligh’s “I’m in Mount Isa. It’s looking very green” or Lawrence Springborg’s “Loved Johnny at sound relief”; but I suspect an even bigger threat to gravitas lies in the Stephen Conroy effect – the potential damage that can be done by having one’s Twitter identity faked by a party intent on malice, satire or just playing silly buggers.
Lawrence Springborg, whose Twitter alias assures us he is TheRealBorg, suffered the indignity of having at least two Twitter impersonators: springborg and iamtheborg. Both of the fakes were set up weeks before TheRealBorg, potentially derailing the Opposition Leader’s chances of establishing a credible presence in the micro-blogging medium.
Anna Bligh, meanwhile, is shadowed by at least two fakers of her own: premierofqld and PremierBligh. Unlike Springborg, however, Anna Bligh appears to have got in first, establishing the authentic Premier_Bligh page before either of the two fakes.
With just 12 followers and no posts at the time of writing, little can be surmised about the future, or indeed the authenticity, of what appears to be the Twitter page of former dentist, Member for Surfers Paradise and now Leader of the Opposition, John-Paul Langbroek. All eyes are on JPLangbroek.
Like the corners of my mind…
This is one of my favourite memories from last month’s election campaign in Queensland:
Flying in the face of a recent report that, due to the Australian Electoral Commission’s archaic pen-and-paper registration system, a “staggering” one in five young Australians is not enrolled to vote, this compelling footage from the University of Queensland reveals a prescient youth constituency well-and-truly engaged with the political process.
“I don’t even know what his name is – that’s how much I don’t care about him,” says one student of soon-to-be-three-time loser Lawrence Springborg.
The ABC election website
DO YOU RECOGNISE THIS MAN?
Antony Green began working for the ABC as an election analyst on the Queensland state election in 1989. Twenty years later he is still going strong for Queensland and various other parts of Australia.
He made his first election night TV appearance covering the 1993 federal election (Keating vs Hewson).
FACTS AND FIGURES – Antony Green’s twin skill sets
Antony Green’s work is characterised by a highly-detailed understanding of the maths behind elections. He combines this with an historically informed perspective on the Australian socio-political landscape.
Antony Green’s CV reveals two distinct yet complementary skill sets:
- He has a science degree in maths and computing and an economics degree with honours in politics.
- Prior to joining the ABC he worked as a data analyst and for a polling company.
- He designed the ABC’s election night computer system.
- He writes for other media outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald and Crikey.
- He co-authored The Electoral Atlas of New South Wales, a comprehensive record of every election result in the state since responsible government began in 1856.
ORIGINAL CONTENT
All of the content on the ABC’s election website is original. The ABC’s election team is present in the tally room on election night posting live updates as results come in.
The site for the recent Queensland election credits Antony Green with compiling the commentary and analysis provided on each electorate. He is also the author of an Election Blog which provides regular updates on the facts and figures behind the election.
Two examples of posts to the blog – Pauline Hanson and preferences and Green preferences – illustrate Antony Green’s unique insight into electoral matters. They also show that responses are provided to many of the public comments posted on the blog. The tone and style of these responses suggest an author who is generally enthusiastic about engaging and pursuing discussion with readers.
MERITS AND SUCCESSES
- Have I mentioned Antony Green?
Antony Green’s expertise and enthusiasm for the subject of elections is undoubtedly the driving force behind this website’s success and, quite possibly, the success of the ABC’s broadcast election coverage too. - How much detail is enough?
What I particularly like about this site is that the information is organised in a way that allows users to access exactly what they want at the level of detail that suits them.
Do you just want the bare essentials?
Who won the Queensland election? The key information is front and centre on the first page…
Are you after hot Queensland figures?
Q: How many seats did the Liberal Party win in 2001?
A: Three – their lowest ever tally as Peter Beattie led Labor to its most decisive victory in Queensland history.
Q: When did Queensland’s longest serving premier finally resign?
A: 1 December 1987 – after 19 years, 3 months and 24 days in office.
Q: Why did he go?
A: Don’t you worry about that! - From practical guidance for the uninitiated…
The site makes it easy to get information about the Queensland election no matter what your angle or level of background knowledge.
When news of the Pacific Adventurer oil spill story finally washed up on New South Wales’ shores, I typed ‘Moreton Island’ into the Electorate Finder to learn more.
The site responds with an embedded Google map and a link to a profile of the relevant electorate (which the ALP narrowly retained despite the mess).
… to a concise history of all things electorally Queensland from the man himself.
WARNING: Fire up your printer or e-paper display device, or risk serious eye strain, before tackling Antony Green’s eleven-page Queensland Election Summary. - Celebrity photos
(No actual celebrity photos here, I’m celebrity photos just using the words celebrity photos for celebrity photos SEO celebrity photos purposes.)
• Want to find Warwick Capper? Click here.
• What about Pauline Hanson? The Candidates A-Z shows the way to Beaudesert where at least 1 in 5 voters made their mark for Honest Abe.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE…
Hours of fun with to be had with the Queensland Election Calculator…
AND IF YOU’RE STILL NOT CONVINCED…
Check out the Queensland Electoral Commission’s effort. Same data but OMG WTF!!! IMHO it sucks. Like severely, ok.
