Rohan Fisher is one of northern Australia’s foremost experts in fire simulation and is an advocate for the technology’s use as a powerful educational tool.
I interviewed Rohan for Wildfire magazine’s ‘Fired Up’ initiative about how is work with fire simulation technology is helping us fight and manage fire.
Reporters, podcasters and public-information officers speaking at the communications and media panel at Fire & Climate 2022 discussed how readers and viewers are tired of overly negative coverage of wildfires, and want more positive, solutions oriented content.
Jennifer Fawcett is an extension associate at North Carolina State University and works closely with Prescibed Burning Associations.
I interviewed Jennifer for Wildfire magazine’s ‘Fired Up’ initiative about working with local communities to support prescribed burning efforts.
Michel Thériault is a restoration specialist with the national fire management division in Canada and the co-coordinator of it's fire management program.
I interviewed Michel for Wildfire magazine’s ‘Fired Up’ initiative about his work to regenerate the eastern white pine populations.
Núria Prat-Guitart leads the project and research area within Spain’s Pau Costa Foundation, and is an expert in peat-fires.
I interviewed Núria for Wildfire magazine’s ‘Fired Up’ initiative, and she spoke about her work with the Pau Costa Foundation and the Spanish fire season.
A Commander with the CFA in south west Victoria, Australia, Mark Gunning is a lifelong learner with an extensive history of education and over 35 years of firefighting experience.
I interviewed Mark for Wildfire Magazine’s ‘Fired Up’ initiative, and he spoke about his extensive career fighting fires.
As a Fire Line EMT, Molly Barker Bessey provides frontline medical support to personnel in the fight against wildfires in the USA.
I interviewed Molly for Wildfire magazine’s ‘Fired Up’ initiative, and she spoke about the importance and challenges of her work.
One of the most impressive sites on the Monash University Clayton campus is the Woodside Innovation Centre. Located within the gutter-striped New Horizons building, the research and development laboratory is where materials and engineering science meets academia, with amazing results.
Quentin Mattiske is the Operations Manager for Arconic Fastening Systems in Clayton. He sat down with Monash Tech School to talk about his 34 years at the company and to share some wisdom he’s picked up during his career.
Georgina Imberger at the Tempo Rubato construction site.
Nestled away in a Brunswick back street, renovation work is underway. Piles of building materials lie stacked on the floor, surrounded by graffitied walls. Among it all stands Georgina Imberger, one of those responsible for transforming this old factory into what will be Tempo Rubato. An anaesthetist by trade, Imberger is passionate about involving herself in the redevelopment work. She explains how attendees will flow in through glass doors to the performance area, and outlines where the bar and toilets will be. Whereas others may leave such work to tradesmen and architects, Imberger is determined to grasp the particulars of the project; a trait that persists in her charity work.
Once completed, the first floor of this cold and grey factory will become a warm and welcoming venue for musical performances. The funds raised by these concerts will go to the Piano Project charity, founded in 2016 by Imberger and her friend, Erica Martin. The charity works with piano teachers, English language secondary schools, and community centres to provide and pay for piano lessons for new immigrant children. Although neither are musicians, both are passionate music fans, and hashed out the original idea for Piano Project while at a gig together. “There was this sense of it being a practical thing, but philosophically it felt like a meaningful gesture from our part of good will, hope, and humanness,” says Imberger.
Co-Founder Erica Martin says that Imberger taking on such an immense project is nothing unusual. “She’s the kind of person that would always bite off more than she could chew, eat it, and then want more for her second course,” says Martin. “I think everyone’s always blown away not only by her vision, but her ability to execute as well.”
Despite describing herself as “hopeless” at the piano, Imberger is grateful for having learnt as a child. She picked up the piano again while living in Dublin, quickly recalling the basic scales and the joy that comes from playing. “No matter how much you’ve learnt, there’s something very therapeutic and beyond words about it for me.”
One of the piano teachers who works with the Piano Project, Georgina Lewis, says that Imberger’s passion for the charity is inspiring. “Even as someone who hasn’t gone on to be a career pianist, [piano] still means the world to her. I think that sort of broadens the picture of what you’re teaching in those lessons.”
Georgina Imberger co-founded the Piano Project Charity in 2016.
The Piano Project has recently received a $189,600 grant from the state government for Tempo Rubato. The funds were awarded through the ‘Pick My Project’ initiative, which allowed the public to vote on community programs to receive funding. Imberger recalls the night she found out they had won the funding. “It was a Tuesday, my day off, and I was looking after my niece and nephew who are seven and four. I was checking my emails and got one from someone who voted and it said ‘by the way, congratulations’. I was so excited. We did high fives.”
Imberger credits the motivation she had when returning from studying and working overseas for pushing her to start the charity. “I think when you come home after a long time there’s this extraordinary opportunity for adventure, because you have much more of a blank canvas than any other time, and this feeling of possibility before life starts to close in and these extra things start to feel ridiculous.”
Her brother says that she has always sought out such challenges as this. “She’s always had a very strong sense of who she was and what she’s about,” says Duncan Imberger.
“She’s got a big appetite for taking things on, and she seems to go from project to project, but this one is out of the box, and obviously means a lot to her. It sort of marries that love of music with wanting to do something generous for people who’ve only just arrived in the country.”
While studying and working in clinics and hospitals in Europe, Imberger immersed herself in the continent’s music scene. Although she spent most of her time in Copenhagen and Dublin, it was in Berlin where she found the inspiration for Piano Project, at an old factory housing restored pianos doubling as a concert venue named Piano Salon Christophori. “People wander in, it’s free, you pour yourself a glass of wine, and it’s amazing,” says Imberger.
“Just experimenting with personality, space and the musician is what I find fascinating, and I walk into that space and I hear something, and you know it moves you.”
Thinking back on her younger years, Imberger fondly recalls her high school German teacher, a Czechoslovakian immigrant simply known as Frau. “She had a big influence on my life at the time, in terms of the picture she painted of the importance of culture,” says Imberger.
“There was a spark I saw in what she gave us and an interest in the difference. As a teenager I saw this kind of entry into another way of thinking, and I’ve always been attracted to that.” While in Europe, Imberger visited Prague, and, when walking the city streets, she says she imagined her former teacher there. “I was in philosophical need of that pondering, and I found it there and I found it with music.”
Although she doesn’t relish in the attention that the project has brought her (“I’m an anaesthetist, you see. We’re very quiet”) she loves the challenge of the project. “I’ve always sought out what I perceive to be challenging and interesting things that don’t have a clear path,” says Imberger.
“There’s a Czech writer, Ivan Kilma, who has this quote: ‘When did I miss my chance? I can't answer that. People miss opportunities every day. One can only try not to miss them through laziness or fear.’ I like that idea, that you can’t control what happens, but if you do the pieces with your eyes open, you can take the steps and know what you’re trying to achieve.”
Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart (left) in Sully.
Clint Eastwood is known for being a tough man with little patience for fools; a reputation encouraged perhaps by his famous roles as no-nonsense, brooding anti-heroes. It’s no wonder then, that Eastwood was drawn to the story of Captain Chesley Sullenburger and his emergency plane landing on the Hudson River in 2009. Sully is the latest directorial display by Eastwood, this time bringing a grey and grizzled Tom Hanks along for the ride.
The story is a perfect fit for Eastwood’s catalogue of films about brave Americans doing amazing things, and Hanks brilliantly portrays Sullenburger as the silver haired veteran murmuring his resistance to the government suits, insisting that despite what their fancy computers say, he did the right thing. It’s hard not to see a flash of Eastwood in Hank’s portrayal of Sullenburger. Despite the weariness of age in the character, the human within still shines, and Eastwood makes clear that regardless of the scowls and grumbling, there’s still a warm man underneath that hard exterior. It’s not a stretch to consider that Eastwood wants us to understand this for himself too; that his tough skin doesn’t mean he has a heart of stone.
The film presents events in a non-linear order, keeping the audience at the same pace as the investigators as they slowly discover the truth of the accident piece by piece. This directorial decision by Eastwood maintains a riveting atmosphere of tension and self-doubt throughout the whole film. Even those familiar with the incident will be doubting themselves as the investigation unfolds, mirroring the internal turmoil of Sullenburger, who grapples with his own doubts about the crash.
The fateful flight begins at about the mid-point of the film, and the tension becomes suffocating as the seat belts are fastened. There are no embellishments with the portrayal, and care is taken to show the muted panic of the passengers as they escape the sinking hulk. Waist high camera work drowns the viewer in the rising tide, as the steady flow of icy water slowly envelops the plane and laps at the knees of the escaping passengers. The impact of this emotional sequence is compounded by the usage of real footage and photos in the credits, showing just how accurate Eastwood’s portrayal of the incident is. Eastwood effortlessly weaves real dialogue from the crew in with the fiction, so much so that you’ll be surprised to find out just how much dialogue was word for word accurate.
With such accuracy in so much of the film, it’s disappointing to see Eastwood fall back on the trope of having bumbling government officials, over reliant on their whiz-bang computers, being stumped by the veteran’s intuition and gut. It feels like a lazy way of creating antagonists for the film, but it at least serves to provide tension and conflict in the retelling.
With Eastwood’s brilliant directing and a stunning portrayal of Captain Sullenburger by Hanks, Sully is a thrilling and surprisingly accurate ride, but sometimes leans too heavily tired on cinema tropes.
David Ryan, Captain David Clarke, Andrew Butler, Anthony Hudson and Nathan Campbell of the Seville CFA.
(This article was originally written for The Swinburne Standard in October 2018)
A siren blares, shattering the peaceful quiet of a warm Sunday morning at the Seville Rural Fire Brigade station. There’s a fire. A flurry of activity breaks out, but this is all routine. Bright yellow uniforms are donned, helmets fitted, and the volunteer firefighters loaded up into the truck. ‘Tanker 2’, its red sheen glistening in the country Victorian sun, rolls out of the station with flashing lights and a screeching siren, off to do its duty for the people of Seville. All this within minutes of the first alarm. Such a quick roll out is routine for the brigade. Frequent training and a passion for helping the community drives the all-volunteer team at Seville.
Out in the Yarra Valley, a CFA firefighting brigade is a crucial part of any community, and with reduced rainfalls and rising temperatures expected to continue, the brigade is wise to be prepared and well-practiced. The fire season in the south of the country is “likely to commence earlier than usual and be more active than normal”, according to the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, which states the cause of this is “warmer and drier than average climate conditions and outlooks”.
In Seville, the brigade is taking notice of such predictions. “Every season is a bad season and we’re anticipating a bad season, obviously with the rainfall we haven’t had and the way the weather’s been,” says Captain David Clarke. A volunteer firefighting veteran of 20 years, Captain Clarke has been in charge of the Seville brigade for nearly a decade. “I’ve lived around here all my life. A lot of brigades throughout the state are like that. They’ve got a lot of families of second and third generation.” Captain Clarke’s family has deep historical roots with the brigade; his grandfather was its founding captain. “It’s a bit of a family thing, in the blood.”
Captain Clarke says that the dry conditions are obvious to those in the Yarra Valley, and he expects them to continue. “Reality is it’s drying up. We don’t have the rain. Usually October is a fairly wet month, but there’s no significant rain predicted,” says Captain Clarke.
“The canopy’s dry, the undergrowth is dry. It’s still green, but everything’s dry.”
The Seville brigade is no stranger to severe fire seasons. Established in 1941, the brigade has fought against such infernos as those on Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday. Captain Clarke grimly recalls the latter, which ravaged Victoria in the summer of 2009. “It was shocking. Terrible. I never want to go through that again in my life.”
On that day, ‘Tanker 2’ was sent to Dixons Creek, while ‘Tanker 1’, driven by Clarke, was ordered to Gruyere. There they battled a large grass fire, trying to stop it from getting into the Warramate Hills. Captain Clarke credits an afternoon wind change with saving them that day and redirecting the fire. The ferocity of the blaze has stuck with him, and he recalls the dread of being in the truck and seeing fire all around. “Nothing was going to stop what happened that day.”
Ever wary of another such disaster, the volunteers train extensively. The brigade runs through practice fire scenarios with other brigades, participates in burn-offs, and completes drills for situations such as a ‘burnover’. The ‘burnover’ drill trains the firefighters on how to survive in the truck if the fire changes direction and traps them. Introduced after Black Saturday, crews can hunker down in their trucks, which are now fitted to spray a curtain of water around the vehicle while the fire passes over. Another method of training is the use of fire pods; large containers with a steel car or replica workshop inside of it, rigged up with gas burners, and set alight and dealt with as a real fire situation.
All these preparations are essential, but they aren’t able to recreate the atmosphere and circumstances of actually fighting a bushfire. For practice under those conditions, crews join strike teams, in which organised groups of brigades travel to fight a fire outside of their area. David Ryan, a volunteer firefighting veteran of 25 years and a member of the Seville brigade for the past six, believes that going on strike teams provides experience that can’t be taught from training scenarios. “You get to feel the heat, and one of the biggest things I found was the smoke. You can do all the scenarios you want, but it’s not the same as when you get into a situation where you’re on the back of the truck, and you can’t see the front of the truck through the smoke,” says Ryan, who is also the brigade’s recruitment officer. “You’re coughing and choking on it because it flared up out of nowhere, and you didn’t have time to get your mask or your goggles on yet, so you’re coughing your guts up.” Andrew Butler, who has been with the brigade for six years, agrees.
“You learn a lot about what happens, fire behaviour, how to respond to it, and how to attack a fire. It’s very different on the fire ground”.
David Ryan, Captain David Clarke, Anthony Hudson and Brendan McGill outside the station.
On the other side of the Yarra Valley, there is shared concern about the coming season. John Schauble, the President of the Sassafras-Ferny Creek Fire Brigade, believes that not only will this fire season be longer, but it will be what he refers to as “the new normal”.
“What’s gone on in the past is no longer a fantastic guide to what we’re going to see coming in the future,” says Schauble. He believes that climate change is a major cause of this shift, as well as changing patterns of settlement and land use. “I’ve been a volunteer firefighter for 35 years, and if you look at it over that period, we have more frequent fires, they burn differently, and there’s more intensity to them.”
Schauble says that efforts to keep the community informed have improved greatly over recent years, but he is concerned that too much information might overwhelm communities. “While I’m a great believer that you tell people as much as you can, sometimes people tend to turn off with the ‘boy who cried wolf syndrome’.”
He says that while it’s a good thing plenty of information is being given out, it can be a “double-edged sword”.
“A real risk is that people don’t take responsibility for themselves, and they’re not proactively managing their situation. They’re just waiting for someone to tell them what to do.”
Back in Seville, Captain Clarke vents similar frustrations with some misconceptions held within the community. “Most people in the area are pretty good, but there’s people who aren’t, like those who move out from the city and aren’t prepared. They’ve come out from the inner burbs, and they still think we’re paid staff and they‘ll have a fire truck knocking on the door if they’re told to evacuate, but that’s not the case.”
Rolling back up to the station, ‘Tanker 2’ has completed its job. Today’s call out was nothing major; a tree fire on a property out in Wandin East. It’s a routine job that the brigade is used to dealing with. There’s still hope that the coming season will be just that; routine.
Anthony Fitzpatrick sits at the restaurant across from the gallery.
(This article was originally written for The Swinburne Standard in September 2018)
It is easy to overlook the immense amount of work put into every detail on display when visiting an art gallery exhibition. The artwork might be the star of the show but every aspect of the display is a deliberate decision made to enhance the art - from the deliberately coloured walls to the ambient music flowing through the rooms. At the TarraWarra Museum of Art, those decisions are made by curator of the exhibition.
Walking through the gallery, Anthony Fitzpatrick, the curator of the Museum of Art, seems at ease divulging the details of the artworks. Describing the process behind a display of stacked stones, a wall covered in an array of melted bronze chunks, and a large black tarpaulin sculpture which seemed to resemble a dolphin, Anthony takes great pleasure in walking among these artworks and discussing each one. The gallery’s current exhibit, ‘From Will to Form’, which was created by guest curator Emily Cormack, displays work from artists from across the country and explores the process of how initial ideas or emotions of artists manifest themselves into artworks. “One of the premises behind this current show comes from this idea from a French philosopher, that art isn’t so much about representing or inventing things, but of capturing forces,” says Anthony.
Anthony has been the curator of the TarraWarra Museum of Art since 2011, having previously honed his curating skills as the collection manager of the Cunningham Dax Collection, and then as the assistant curator of the Maroondah Art Gallery. He originally studied literature and classics, and imagined himself exploring museology as a career path. However after meeting his now wife, an artist, he started to frequent contemporary art exhibitions, and was drawn back into a love of art that he had not fostered since his school years. Overlooking the Yarra Valley and surrounded by vineyards, the TarraWarra Museum of Art houses its collection of modern Australian art within a striking, nest shaped structure, with concrete pillars jutting from the central courtyard and towering above the valley below. The gallery was founded by philanthropists Eva and Marc Besen, and opened its doors in 2003.
Anthony Fitzpatrick in and amongst the art in the gallery courtyard.
In the restaurant next to the gallery, Anthony strikes up conversation with the estate manager. They speak of how the concrete surface of the courtyard has recently been cleaned, but now the discolouration at the top of the massive concrete pillars stands out more. Despite being just across the courtyard from the gallery offices, Anthony says he doesn’t usually grab lunch at the restaurant. “I usually just eat ‘al desko’”. His herbal tea arrives with a comically large metal tea-leaf infuser in it, and, in between sips, he explains his process of curation. “When we curate exhibitions here, we try not to necessarily present a typical, chronological exhibition, where you start with the early works, then trace particular developments, and then move through to what’s happening now. Instead, our approach is to look at the past through the filter of the present, and the different ways artworks correspond or are in dialogue with each other, even if not made in a similar context.
“For instance, when I curated an abstract art show, it was more based around particular ideas or thematic concerns, as opposed to movements,” says Anthony.
Mim Armour, Registrar of the gallery, says that Anthony’s dedication to thorough research is one of his great strengths as a curator. “He’s able to really delve into an artist and what an artist is about, and he tends to delve to an archival level.
“People find that really interesting because they want to know more about the artist, how the artist is thinking, and how those artworks are created.” Tony Dutton, General Manager of the gallery, agrees that Anthony’s devotion to in-depth research makes him a brilliant curator, and the results are appreciated by visitors to the gallery. “For the Howard Arkley exhibition that we had a couple of summers ago, which Anthony was the curator for, he didn’t just have the paintings and drawings by Arkley, he actually had the music that Arkley was interested in playing.”
“A number of visitors really appreciated the extra things he did for that exhibition.”
The sheer amount of research and preparation that is involved in conceptualising and creating a gallery exhibition is an often underappreciated aspect of curation. With the average exhibition at TarraWarra taking two years to put together, Anthony explains that some of the work that a curator does can go unnoticed. “I don’t think necessarily everyone who goes to an exhibition is thinking about how they’ve done the lighting or why they’ve painted the walls a particular colour,” says Anthony. For a recent exhibit on Welsh-Australian artist Edwin Tanner, Anthony delved into the engineer-turned artist’s personal letters and estate archives. “He had a lifelong correspondence with one of our greatest poets, Gwen Harwood, and her letters to him have been published and I’d read those, but his letters to her were just housed in a library and largely unread.
“In the letters there were some really interesting discussions about particular works he made, or he would be talking about a piece of work as he was making it. So you’ve got these incredible insights into the processes behind some of the works that appear in the exhibitions.”
Artwork by Dale Harding and Jordan Upkett, displayed at the TarraWarra Museum of Art as part of the ‘From Will to Form’ exhibition.
For the Tanner exhibition, Anthony had to consider the layout of the entire gallery floor, and organise it so as to give visitors the best appreciation of the art and artist possible. “Sometimes an artist’s biography can be sensationalised to the point where it overshadows their work, and people just want to talk about this life they lead,” says Anthony.
“So in the first room of that exhibition, I tried to give people this kind of sense of just how complex, layered and remarkable he was, and then after that, people look at different themes within his practice and how they shifted as he went along.” Forming a narrative throughout the exhibit so visitors can best appreciate the artist’s work is an important part of curation, says Anthony. “It’s about trying to communicate clearly and concisely. It doesn’t mean the ideas have to be simple or watered down, they can be very complex, but they need to be communicated clearly.” Anthony notes that his favourite aspect of curation is engaging with visitors to the exhibition. “Often the best things are when you have someone say something about the work that you hadn’t considered before.
“Everyone brings a different set of experiences and subjectivities to their reading of an artwork, so for me, even though I’ve spent a couple of years working with it, people can reveal aspects of a work that make me go ‘why didn’t I think of that?’”
As empty tea cups are taken away from the table, Anthony mentions his musical past. “I was a musician and a DJ for a while before curating, which will probably sound more interesting than hospitality and customer service!” After explaining his past success as a DJ and lack thereof with his old band, Anthony notes the natural progression of his creative passions. “Someone pointed out to me that being a DJ is a bit like curating in a way, selecting songs and creating an atmosphere and environment, responding to what’s going on around you.” On the prospect of a return to his old musical ways at TarraWarra: “There’s been talk of a staff party. Maybe.”
I was fortunate enough to speak with Konrad Marshall, Staff Writer at Good Weekend, about his career in journalism for The Swinburne Standard.
Pastor Lee Kohler and Michelle Laukart in the Templestowe Baptist Church auditorium.
(This article was originally written for The Swinburne Standard in May 2018)
A failure by religions to modernise is causing a continued decline in followers, says a Monash University academic.
Dr Julian Millie, an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Monash University’s School of Social Sciences, says that religious participation among Australians shows a clear downward trend.
“Religious organisations that don’t accommodate change risk suffering badly from that decline,” says Dr Millie.
In the period between the 2011 and 2016 census, there was a decline in followers among most major religions.
The census reported that in 2016 the number of people identifying as Jewish fell by nearly 16,000, as Eastern Orthodox by around 56,000, and as Catholic by almost 150,000.
Dr Millie does not anticipate a change in this downward trend anytime soon.
“It’s difficult to see that there could be any great change to patterns that have been there for such a long time,” says Dr Millie.
“I’m inclined to think that those patterns will continue.”
Dr Millie says that immigration is a key factor in why some religions, such as Islam and Hinduism, saw an increase of followers in the 2016 Census.
“The established religions that are doing worst are those that can’t take advantage of migrant populations.”
Adel Salman, Vice President of the Islamic Council of Victoria, agrees that immigration has been significant in the rising amount of Muslim Australians, but it is not the only factor.
“The Australian Muslim community is very young, and that leads me to assume there will be ongoing growth,” says Salman.
One of the reasons Salman believes Islam will continue to grow in Australia, is that as people learn more about the religion, they discover what he sees as its traditional and compelling qualities.
“When people actually read about Islam, they find out its completely different to what they’ve been conditioned to think,” says Salman.
“I think people are attracted to Islam’s simplicity, its guiding principles, and its values.”
Lee Kohler, the Senior Pastor of the Templestowe Baptist Church, believes that applying the church’s teachings to a contemporary context is essential.
“We teach the scripture and apply it to a modern day setting very practically,” says Kohler.
Baptists recorded an increase of 1000 followers in the 2016 Census, making up 1.43 per cent of the population.
Offering services in other languages and incorporating different genres of music are some of the ways that the Templestowe Baptist Church seeks to stay relevant.
“It doesn’t mean were going to change the message in any way, but it does mean the context in which that’s communicated will change,” says Kohler.
According to Kohler, identifying as a member of the church is not as much a priority for Baptists as it is in other faiths.
“For a lot of Baptist churches, the membership is not necessarily reflective of how many come,” says Kohler.
“I think they would see their identity more as a Christian, rather than a Baptist. It’s about being a follower of Jesus.”
Michelle Laukart, the Youth Pastor at the Templestowe Baptist Church, says that organising and hosting events and programs for the local community is key part of the modern Baptist approach.
“We’ve opened this facility and just encouraged anyone to come,” says Laukart.
She is involved in organising youth engagement programs, such as the upcoming community youth space named ‘The Drop’.
“The idea is for a space for young people that is safe, drug and alcohol free, and where they can get connected to different services,” says Laukart.
“If they want to go down the religious line and find out what we believe, they’re welcome to, but they’re also welcome to just come and play Xbox or hang out in the gym.”
Stephen Beers shows off 3AW’s vinyl collection.
(This article was originally written for The Swinburne Standard in April 2018)
Walking into the 3AW offices, faces smile at you from the walls. Steve Price. Tom Elliot. Neil Mitchell. The faces greet you with a familiar friendliness. Familiarity is the goal for radio in a modern Melbourne, and creating a community where the listeners feel at home is what they strive for. I’m ushered into a meeting room, the walls of which are covered by shelves full of old vinyls. The collage of coloured sleeves lining the room form an irreplaceable collection, and a record player sits in the corner to make use of them. Such technologies as vinyl have been largely left in the past, but not radio. In a world of rapid technological advancement, the radio industry has shown its flexibility in embracing new developments while still delivering familiarly formatted content.
I spoke to three figures in the Melbourne radio scene, who shared their experiences of the adaptive nature of the industry, the community-driven principles that shape it, and their views on the future of the radio industry in Melbourne. Stephen Beers is the station manager at 3AW, which boasted the largest audience in the latest GfK survey of Melbourne radio listenership. Shaun Gough is the content director of Triple M, Melbourne, which is part of Southern Cross Austereo (SCA). Bryan Madigan is the operations manager at Australian Radio Network (ARN), which operates stations such as GOLD 104.3 and KIIS 101.1.
Building a community
Creating a community of loyal listeners is a priority for modern radio stations, and finding new ways to interact with the audience is a driving force in the industry.
3AW’s Stephen Beers believes that understanding your audience is one of the most important aspects of modern radio. “It’s a community of people” says Beers.
“We serve that community, and we know who they are.” Beers mentions how live and local content is essential to growing the station’s community. “It’s got to be live,” says Beers. He proudly mentions how only an hour of broadcast a week is pre-recorded. “As soon as you go pre-recorded, you’ve lost the ability for you audience to interact.” He is adamant 3AW would never nationalise their popular breakfast shows. “The breakfast program is just Melbourne, it has to be,” says Beers.
“If something happens out in the street right now, we want to talk about it.”
Triple M’s Shaun Gough is also a strong supporter of local content, and believes it is an important part of the content offered by radio, especially in breakfast programing. “(Local content provides) opportunities to reflect the city that these people live, work and play in.” In building a community around their station, Gough believes that being able to “relate and connect” with the hosts is essential. “If you’re not familiar with something … it inhibits connection” says Gough.
“You need to have an affinity with something before you can love it”. He believes that a station’s audience should be its first consideration. “You should be putting your listeners at the centre of what you do with your shows and your music format.” Gough believes that getting a balance between familiar and new when choosing music is a “science”.
“The trick is picking the right new stuff. If you want to attract a larger number of listeners you want to be playing music that’s familiar, and talking about things they can relate to.” Gough mentions how the Triple M Club, an online community for Triple M listeners, is used to gain feedback, as well as build loyalty through engagement and special offers. He says the club has more than 100,000 members, and is a core part of building their community.
ARN’s Bryan Madigan believes that to make the listeners feel a part of the station’s community, the station need to frequently engage with them. “We try to make them feel a part of the stations as much as possible.” Part of this is delivering the content they need, specifically local news, weather and traffic, which “will always be a priority for listeners.”
Adapting to technologies
The Melbourne radio industry has been quick to embrace emerging technologies, utilising such arrivals as the internet to expand their stations and the communities around them. Stephen Beers is far from worried about the increasing prominence of the internet; he welcomes it. “Going back historically, the internet was going to kill radio” says Beers.
“It’s actually made it stronger”. He says the increasing prominence of the internet has created more opportunities for the radio industry to thrive. “What’s really helped is that it’s easier for people to get us,” says Beers.
“If you haven’t got your radio with you”, Beers gestures to my mobile on the table, “this is now your radio.” These improvements in technology have only helped build a community around the station. “We’ve actually branded ourselves as ‘the original social media’” says Beers. The immediacy of radio is something he believes new formats such as podcasts can never replace. “If you’re in traffic and Ross Stevenson says something funny, and you look and four other people are laughing, you feel a part of a community.”
Shaun Gough holds a firm belief that the flexibility of radio is what has helped it continue to thrive. “(The radio industry) can easily shift and take advantage of innovations that present themselves” says Gough. “The great thing about radio is its ability to react and its immediacy, whether that’s on air or in the embracing of technology. It’s the same principle.” He believes that other media forms like print have been “militant” in their resistance to change.
“We can’t just say ‘we’re going to continue to execute broadcast radio the way it’s always been done’” says Gough.
“We need to identify opportunities and adapt to them.”
Bryan Madigan says that ARN is aware of the increasing prominence of technologies such as digital radio, and has aligned themselves with digital broadcasting service iHeartRadio to stay “on top of the ever changing landscape.” Diversifying distribution and reach is essential in Madigan’s view, and he says ARN seek to utilise emerging technologies to get content across. “Limiting ourselves to radio (broadcasting) as a means to get our content across would be a big mistake”.
Looking to the future
There is positivity in the future of radio in Melbourne, and optimism in radio’s ability to thrive by adapting to whatever may come. Stephen Beers is confident in future success of the Melbourne radio industry, citing a national growth of 200,000 listeners last year. “Radio is still the most consumed media in the mornings,” says Beers. He also believes that though the delivery method of radio may change, the concept of a radio program will remain. “It’s one person talking to one person, but it’s not. It’s one person talking to 200,000 single people at any one time.”
Shaun Gough believes the outlook for radio is strong because of its ability to adapt to new technologies on the horizon. He believes that SCA’s practice of development and succession planning for talent is part of the innovative approach the Melbourne radio industry is heading in.
Madigan is of the personal opinion that radio will continue to evolve into a more personalised content provider, and integrations with music streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify are possible. “Eventually radio will not program music for the audience, the audience will program their own music.”
Sitting in the office used by the foreign secretary of Emperor Napoleon more than 200 years ago, it is difficult not to be amazed. This beautiful Parisian building, across the street from the Italian Embassy, is now host to Marco Maria Cerbo, head of the permanent delegation of Italy to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
With historical importance radiating from each room, this meeting with Signor Cerbo was a highlight of my political study tour of the European Union.
Europe is the birthplace of politics as we know it, and as part of my studies at Swinburne University I was able to travel there November 2017 for an intensive study tour of the European Union.
Accompanied by fellow Swinburne University politics students, I visited the key institutions of the European Union, and learnt about the crucial political connections between Australia and Europe.
My tour took me across the Continent, allowing me to visit such historical cities as Prague, Berlin, Brussels and Paris.
The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
As I travelled I learnt about the different roles each European institution plays in the political superstructure that holds so much of Europe together.
From the grand chamber of the European Parliament in Brussels to the expansive corridors of European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, each visit gave us a wealth of knowledge about a different aspect of the European Union, and how they all work together to keep the Continent running.
The European Parliament, Brussels
Walking through the halls of institutions and seeing their operation with our own eyes brought what we learnt to life, making for much more exciting lessons than would have been had in a classroom.
As well as the politics, we were awash with culture in each country visited, sampling the food and learning the customs of all the localities.
Visiting monuments such as the Brandenburg Gate and the Eifel tower never cease to disappoint. A personal highlight for me was the tomb of Napoleon in Paris. A huge golden domed roof protects the emperors tomb, in the centre of which sits Napoleon’s gargantuan coffin.
The entire trip truly was an amazing experience, and one that I was very privileged to be a part of.
Dôme des Invalides, tomb of Napoleon I, Paris
Check out my latest article 'Research helps fire protection in Bangladesh', which was published in Fire Australia earlier this year.
(This article was originally written for UniPollWatch in April 2016)
A lack of government support for the integration of refugees is creating divisions in the Dunkley community, says a local priest.
Phil Hurwood, a priest at St Luke’s Anglican Church in Frankston, says that cultural division is being created in the community by the government’s inaction.
“The government could do more to help integration,” says Hurwood.
He wants the government to encourage ‘grass-roots’ efforts to bring together the community.
“A lot has to happen at grassroots level”, says Hurwood. “It’s up to us, the people, to embrace our nation.”
Bringing together the diverse community should be a key focus in the upcoming election according to Hurwood.
“You need politicians that are prepared to represent all the people, even if they don’t agree with all the people.”
Hurwood believes current Dunkley member Bruce Billson excels at this.
“He’s been someone who tries to stand for the whole community. Generally people think well of him. There’s a sense that he is there for whole community.”
Bruce Billson, the former Liberal minister for small business, is retiring from politics at the next election.
The new Liberal candidate is Chris Crewther, whom Hurwood says has visited the church multiple times.
“The first time he came here would have been before the pre-selection. He was just chatting with people and being friendly. He wasn’t campaigning.”
According to Hurwood, the government’s overemphasis on multiculturalism risks nurturing divisions within the community of the Dunkley electorate.
“It’s important for people to learn English and social customs here,” he says. “As well as that, we can be enriched by the social customs that they bring with them.”
The large number of refugees from Islamic countries is causing concern for his parishioners, he says.
“Many of those countries have a very different understanding of how life should operate,” says Hurwood. “It is quite alien to what we’re familiar with.”
He believes that a fear of offending people prevents those unfamiliar with Islam from learning about it.
“If you raise issues or questions about Islam, you may be called phobic about that.”
Even approaching the issue with courtesy and respect is met with offense according to Hurwood.
“We need to be an open society. We need to have a dialogue with all communities.”
He sees an unwillingness to listen as an obstruction in cultural understanding.
“People need to listen to other people, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them.”
(This article was originally published in The Burn in May 2016)
The Melbourne games industry can seem chaotic from the outside, but there is still a healthy community for developers, according to an industry veteran.
Daniel Visser, founder and Managing Director of Wicked Witch Software, believes the entire Australian development scene is on the up.
“We’ve got a good reputation and we’ve got some government support, so it’s better than it could be,” says Visser.
Despite this, Visser believes that the development industry needs more support. “We’re lucky to have the support we have, but it’s not a big amount.”
Film Victoria is one institution offering financial aid to game developers in Melbourne.
“They’ve been super supportive of the games industry. It has helped us, and heaps of studios in Victoria.”
Visser has been developing games since childhood, making his start on a Commodore Vic-20 Computer.
“Those computers came with a basic programming language on them, and I just started typing in the examples out of the user manual and kind of just figuring it out.”
Visser worked at Melbourne studios such as Torus Games before founding Wicked Witch Software in 2001.
Beginning in Visser’s house, Wicked Witch Software now has over 40 employees with a large catalogue of titles, such as Catapult King, released in 2012.
The Melbourne games industry has changed drastically since Visser started out.
“There used to be a fair few big studios around, but they all started imploding and exploding.”
Visser says that the Global Financial Crisis led to the closing of many Australian developers, such as Krome Studios Melbourne.
The large costs and experience requirements of console development have led many Melbourne studios to develop mobile games instead.
“If you want to release a game on console, you’ve got to buy the development kits, and they cost thousands of dollars,” said Visser. “With mobile, you can start using Unity or Unreal for free.”
Visser believes that breaking into the industry can be difficult due to the number of games flooding the market, with nearly 400 mobile games being released every day.
“Your game has to be in the top 1 per cent of originality or quality in order to stand out,” says Visser. “Accessibility has gotten easier, but making money has gotten harder.”
Passion is the most important quality for a budding game designer, according to Visser.
“You really have to have a genuine love and passion for what you’re doing, because it’s pretty difficult and laborious.”
Besides passion, Visser says programming and artistic skills are essential to becoming a successful developer.
“At the end of the day, a game is a computer program,” says Visser. “It’s easy to design something cool, but you need to know how it’s going to work”
According to Visser, designing games is the best part of the job, but the actual production of the game can be quite difficult.
“Making video games is like coming up with some cool ideas, and then solving the million problems that come after that to make it work.”