Can You Help?

This website is in imminent danger of being shut down. It has been online since 1995, but the personal circumstances of the owner, Malcolm Farnsworth, are such that economies have to be made. Server costs and suchlike have become prohibitive. At the urging of people online, I have agreed to see if Patreon provides a solution. More information is available at the Patreon website. If you are able to contribute even $1.00/month to keep the site running, please click the Patreon button below.


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New Feature: Opening up the Audio Collection

Five-a-Day

My audio archive contains broadcasts relating to current events, politics and elections. It includes speeches, interviews, press conferences, election night broadcasts and myriad radio programs dating back to 1972.

As of today, my finalised audio collection consists of 1.23 terabytes of 64,476 separate items. These are all labelled and sorted into 3,150 yearly, monthly and topic folders.

Another 2.67 terabytes of digitised material exists in 5,521 files which have yet to be edited into standalone items.

Audio data

Over the years I have endeavoured to digitise the earlier material from the 1980s and 1970s. Some of this exists in master files in WAV format that have not yet been edited into standalone items.

A massive collection exists from the turn of the century. The arrival of the digital age meant that bulky tapes could be dispensed with. From around 2000, the collection exploded. Now, everything I gather is stored on hard drives and secured in the cloud. I still marvel at the thought that I can listen from anywhere on a mobile phone to any recording from my collection.

Whilst much of the collection has been digitised, several hundred audio-cassette tapes remain to be converted. These include much political material and election coverage from the 1990s. The picture below shows two bedroom cupboard compartments currently housing the undigitised tapes.

Audio data

Over the years, I’ve worked my way through Dropbox, OneDrive, Amazon S3 and SugarSync cloud services. Backblaze is now my service of choice. All the audio on the websites is served via Backblaze B2, a service four times cheaper than Amazon S3.

Opening Up the Collection

As of today, I’m planning to upload five audio clips per day, chosen from random months over the past six decades. Each of these will posts will appear on the home page of AustralianPolitics.com.

Many of the audio files I have will never be used on posts or pages on the websites, so this is a small attempt to open up the collection whilst so many other things remain to be done.

The collection includes video and audio items. There are many thousands of these to process. It also includes a massive collection of political ephemera (election literature, how-to-vote cards, etc), documents, booklets and newspaper clippings.

I’ve now been officially retired for nearly ten months. The adjustment from a working life has been more difficult than I imagined. At this stage, the plan remains unchanged: for the next few years I will work on digitising, scanning and posting online as much as possible. I know that this is a very niche interest and I don’t kid myself that many people will be interested in it. Nevertheless, if I don’t collate it, no-one will. At least now my time is my own.

Today’s Audio Clips – March 2003

1. March 20, 2003: Prime Minister John Howard addresses the nation on the war in Iraq (9m)

2. March 21, 2003: Opposition Leader Simon Crean addresses the nation on the war in Iraq (9m)

3. March 22, 2003: ABC’s 7.45am radio news bulletin reports the beginning of the “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq (12m)

4. March 22, 2003: NSW Liberal Opposition Leader John Brogden concedes defeat in the state election (7m)

5. March 22, 2003: NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr claims victory in the state election (6m)


Deborah O’Neill Appointed To Fill Bob Carr’s Casual Senate Vacancy

Deborah O’Neill, who lost her seat at last month’s election, has been chosen by the NSW ALP to fill the casual Senate vacancy created by the resignation of Bob Carr.

O'NeillO’Neill is the defeated member for the House of Representatives seat of Robertson. She won Robertson in 2010, after defeating Belinda Neal in a preselection challenge. She was defeated on September 7, suffering a 4.93% drop in her primary vote to 34.83%. There was an overall two-party-preferred swing against the ALP of 4%, reducing it to 47%. The new Liberal member is Lucy Wicks.

O’Neill reportedly won the ALP endorsement by 36 votes to 1 at a meeting of the NSW ALP Administrative Committee today. She was endorsed last night by the Right faction. Reports say that Belinda Neal and her husband, John Della Bosca, attempted to thwart the nomination at the meeting.

Mike Kelly, the defeated member for Eden-Monaro, pulled out of the contest yesterday.

O’Neill will serve out the remainder of Bob Carr’s term until June 30 next year. The position was originally held by Mark Arbib who resigned in February 2012. O’Neill will then serve the full 6-year term Carr was elected to on September 7. She will not face election by the voters until 2019-20.

A former education teacher at the University of Newcastle, O’Neill is 52. She is aligned with social conservatives in the ALP and is regarded as an opponent of issues such as same-sex marriage.

Casual Senate vacancies are made under Section 15 of the Constitution.


Bob Carr Resigns From The Senate, Abandons Promise To Beat Strom Thurmond

Senator Bob Carr, Foreign Minister in the Gillard and Rudd governments, has announced his resignation from Parliament.

Carr

Carr’s resignation will take effect tomorrow. It allows the NSW Parliament to appoint his replacement before the Senate sits again on November 12. The defeated member for Robertson, Deb O’Neill, is likely to be appointed as his replacement. The defeated member for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly, has also expressed interest in the position. [Read more…]


New Liberal Party Advertisement: Labor Connections

With the 2013 federal election campaign now in its final eight days, the Liberal Party has highlighted ALP sleaze and corruption in its latest television commercial.

Titled “Labor Connections”, the advertisement positions Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s picture amongst a network of NSW connections that link Foreign Minister Bob Carr and new Labor Senator Sam Dastyari to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) findings against Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald.

  • Watch the ad (30s)