Published writing

• A feature I wrote on Brisbane/Toowoomba artist David Hinchliffe, published in the Autumn 2018 print edition of Highlife Downs Living magazine, and online.
• A feature I wrote on Brisbane tailor and gentleman Ferudun Avar, published in the Autumn 2018 print edition of West End magazine, and online.
• My review of director Stephan Elliot’s film Swinging Safari, published online for West End magazine.
• My review of director Ryan Coogler’s film Black Panther, published online for West End magazine.

Record Renaissance

(This is a feature on the renewed interest in vinyl records I wrote for university in June 2014.)

The rebirth of the vinyl LP

It quietly slunk away into the shadows, but never died. Those still buying and collecting it cringed every time somebody said “Hey, remember records?” Vinyl is having its day again, but in an age of digital music formats, who is behind the revival of the LP?

“I think it’s really the hipsters,” says Phil Thomson, staffer at iconic Brisbane record store, Rocking Horse. “They really are one of the biggest motivators of it all, and I think a lot of the record labels have really foreseen that. Particularly some of the cool stuff they’re reissuing. I guess kids want to connect with their bands and the cool stuff that their favourite bands are into, like older soundtrack stuff, 60s psychedelic, things that are influences.”

“And with the way the internet is, you can listen to anything now, and I think these kids have got a rich understanding of music. These kids can go, ‘Wow! I really want this and I have to have the original thing, or as close to the original thing as possible’,” Thomson says.

“It’s this identity thing, to be not just an observer, but a curator as well.”

Many vinyl aficionados argue that one of the format’s enduring appeals is an immeasurable, analogue “warmth” or “depth” of sound said not to be reproduced on CD. Some say this intangible sound quality is lost to modern digital recording and mastering techniques. Andy Rantzen, solo musician and member of pioneering Australian techno duo Itch-E & Scratch-E, best known for their 1994 rave anthem, Sweetness and Light, is adamant this quality exists. “I’m always struck by the transition from vinyl to mp3 or wav in my house,” he says. “It seems to me that when we go from wav to vinyl that vinyl is undefinably fuller and richer.”

The larger-format cover art and the tactile experience of handling the LP, having to turn it over to listen to the other side, is also part of the appeal to record lovers. Limited, coloured pressings, hand-numbered pressings and picture discs have all seen a comeback too. US independent label Polyvinyl records, home to internationally-regarded bands of Montreal, Japandroids, Braid and Asobi Seksu, releases nearly every new LP as a limited run of coloured vinyl, creating instant appeal for the collectible factor.

Tied to the collectability of vinyl is the relatively recent phenomenon of crowdfunding. It’s a model for funding a project, such as a limited-run LP pressing, or the recording costs of a new album. Put simply, it involves the artist “asking” fans via crowdfunding websites like Pozible or Indiegogo, for a commitment of financial help. Those who pledge assistance often end up with a unique reward, like a silk-screen printed record cover, or a signed copy of the LP.

Andy Rantzen had success crowdfunding his most recent solo album The Master Drummer in 2012. For a minimum commitment of $20, backers received a lathe-cut (a specialised LP production method), clear polycarbonate LP, housed in a handmade sleeve with artwork by his partner, Rachael Lafferty.

“It was something we thought we’d try,” Rantzen says. “We’d heard of a very low-brow, low-rank pressing technique, called a lathe-cut. My label and I wanted to try it out, because it’s cheaper and you can order quantities based on need. Neither of us could afford it, so we thought we’d give crowdfunding a go, and press based on how many orders we’d received.”

Phil Thomson has also recently seen rapid success with crowdfunding for the vinyl pressing of Kraka Boom!, the new album from his group Monster Zoku Onsomb. Thomson sees it as a practical model for getting music released. “Using it as a pre-order thing is pretty cool,” he says. “Look at Earache Records, big metal label, and a few other labels, asking the kids what they want re-issued and then they start crowdfunding to just do a pressing of that one album.”

Flat, round discs as a format to store and play back recorded music have a long history, from the very first in 1888 made of vulcanised rubber, to what became popularly known as 78s, produced from a mixture of shellac (a raw material extracted from a beetle) and slate dust.

The 12” or 30cm vinyl LP as we know it today was introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, and quickly revolutionised the recorded music industry. Vinyl was there for the Baby Boomers in the 50s and 60s, and for Generation X it sat comfortably side-by-side with cassettes through the 70s and into the 80s, until the CD arrived in 1982. The first commercially released CD album was Billy Joel’s 52^nd Street in 1982, through Sony Music in Japan.

The CD was introduced to Australia accompanied by a great deal of hype, with claims it was virtually indestructible, couldn’t be scratched and wouldn’t skip. Looking back, it was laughable that television news networks ran footage of a truck driving over a CD, then a demonstration that the same CD would still play. Sure, it may have played, but not without a whole lot of skipping.

We’ve since learnt that all such claims of the hardiness of CDs were unfounded. It was the hard sell of an industry keen to kill off vinyl, in Australia at least, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Incidentally, the first Australian CD was John Farnham’s 1986 album Whispering Jack, also the first Australian recording to sell over a million copies in Australia alone.

By the early 1990s the major record companies in Australia had stopped pressing vinyl, and dramatically limited the numbers of records they were importing from the larger markets of the US, the UK and Europe. The 12” single was still the format of choice for club DJs throughout much of the 90s, but ended up relegated to specialist record stores such as the Central Station Records chain. DJs increasingly began to give up on vinyl through the remainder of the 90s into the 00’s, as CD DJ systems, followed by mp3-based technology, became far more portable, appealing, and more practical than lugging crates of records to gigs. The slowdown in vinyl pressed for DJs also saw the closure of many small record labels around the world.

Then, six or seven years ago, something extraordinary began to happen; vinyl LP sales began to climb in most of  the world’s largest recorded music markets, except Japan, where music sales overall have declined rapidly over the last few years.

Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) statistics show that in 2013 digital formats, for the most part mp3s, overtook physical recorded music sales, CDs, for the first time. At the same time, vinyl record sales were up nearly 77 percent on the previous year’s sales in Australia. In the US, while CD and digital sales declined in 2013, vinyl sales continued to rise to 6 million units from 4.55 million in 2012. While vinyl now accounts for only 2% of album sales in the U.S overall, the increases are still meaningful.

Thomson says LP sales at Rocking Horse have increased over the last three years or so, driven by a new generation appreciative of vinyl’s virtues.  “I think there’s a generation of kids who want to identify with the music a bit more,” he says. “There’s a vintageness that goes with it as well.”

A vinyl buyer for another Brisbane retailer, who asked not to be named, says sales in his store are up 70 percent on last year. “I think a lot of the people who are into it are people in their 40s who were there when vinyl ceased in the first place. A lot of those people have got kids as well, and as a result the kids are interested in vinyl,” he says.

“There’s a romance and collectability to it, and for people who are a lot more into music in a real way and want to have a tangible thing, it’s a lot more exciting to look at than a CD.”

Thomson says some of this new generation of record buyers won’t actually play their vinyl purchase, instead accessing the digital album download included with many new and reissued LPs today. What then, has become of the turntable, the essential piece of vinyl-playing equipment?

In the late 90s and early 00s musical instrument retailers in the UK claimed turntables were outselling guitars for the first time. The rise of the superstar DJ saw teenagers becoming more interested in emulating their new heroes than the guitar gods of the past. Subsequent progress in DJ technology and the shift to digital saw turntable sales level out, then decline along with vinyl sales.

Now however, as LP sales continue to grow, turntable sales will rise accordingly. Some major electronics and music retailers have begun stocking entry-level decks again, and reviews of turntables are appearing more frequently in print and on the net.

For the time being, the vinyl LP is a genuine entertainment choice for a new generation. Like all recorded music formats, its time will pass, again, but for the moment there is a renaissance to be celebrated.

Will Australians vote with a conscience?

This piece was written in September 2013 in the lead up to the Australian Federal Election for KJB121 Journalistic Inquiry during my studies at QUT for the Bachelor of Mass Communication (Journalism Major, Media and Communications Major). 

As Australians prepare to vote on Saturday, the asylum seeker policies of both the major parties have come under fire.

Australians are likely to vote for the Coalition’s “stop the boats” policy on Saturday, despite criticisms of the major parties’ refugee and asylum seeker policies as unworkable.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has been highly critical of the Rudd Government’s Manus Island plan for asylum seekers.

In a 26 July 2013 media release, the UNHCR said it was “troubled by the current absence of adequate protection standards and safeguards for asylum seekers and refugees in Papua New Guinea”.

Based on their recent assessment visits to Manus Island, the UNHCR said “there are currently significant shortcomings in the legal framework for receiving and processing asylum-seekers”, which could be “harmful to the physical and psycho-social well-being of transferees, particularly families and children”.

Queensland Labor Party media spokesman Greg Milne declined to comment on the matter.

Tony Abbott’s recent announcement of a scheme to “buy the boats” in Indonesia so they could not be used by people smugglers has met with derision, most critically from a senior member of President Yudhoyono’s coalition.

In an article in The Australian on 26 August 2013, the head of Indonesia’s parliamentary commission for foreign affairs, Mahfudz Siddiq, told AAP that the Coalition’s policy had implications for Australia’s relationship with Indonesia.

“This is really a crazy idea, unfriendly, derogatory and it shows lack of understanding in this matter,” said Mr Siddiq.

In contrast to those of the major parties, the Greens’ policy on Immigration and Refugees outlines Australia’s “humanitarian and legal obligations to accept refugees and reunite families”.

The Greens were seeking a model of “greatly enhanced regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific to provide safer pathways for asylum seekers”, and “consistent, timely and fair processes” in the assessment and settlement of arrivals from offshore.

Greens candidate for the Federal seat of Brisbane Ms Rachael Jacobs described the election campaign of the major parties as a “race to the bottom over the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia”.

“We have one party who is in government saying ‘If you arrive by boat you will never be allowed to set foot in Australia even if you are legitimately seeking asylum, even if you have identification papers, even if you are with children, even if you are an unaccompanied child’. And we have another party saying ‘Regardless of your status you’ll never be allowed to settle here’.

“So what it is, is ‘get tough on refugees’ policy in a bid to buy votes. This is about people releasing policies in election time that will do nothing to stop the flow of refugees, which will do nothing to stop people getting on risky boats, but all it will do is shore up some votes in some marginal seats where people are quite concerned.”

Prominent barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside QC has publicly endorsed the Greens, based on what he said was “bullying” of asylum seekers by the major parties.

“The two major parties are promising to outdo each other in cruelty to a selected group of human beings,” said Mr Burnside.

“That is intolerable in a civilised society, and dangerous in any society.”

Mr Burnside predicted the Coalition would win the election, and that Scott Morrison would be “awful” as Immigration Minister.

“We might just end up looking so horrible that people will prefer to stay and face the Taliban.”

The Coalition has stuck to its hardline stance over boat arrivals, continuing to refer to refugees and asylum seekers who arrive by boat as “illegal”.

Federal Member for Brisbane and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement Ms Teresa Gambaro said more than a thousand people had died at sea as a result of “Labor’s failed border protection policies”.

“If arrivals continue at the current rate, more than 100,000 could turn up in a third term under Labor,” said Ms Gambaro.

Ms Gambaro said under a Coalition Government none of the places in their immigration programme would go to “someone who has arrived illegally by boat”.

“The best way to ensure that people offshore get a chance at protection in Australia is to quarantine our humanitarian intake, and actually stopping the boats as only the Coalition will do.”

The only humanitarian choice for voters on Saturday may be that of the Greens, but it remains to be seen if that will make any difference.

Queensland trade and tourism likely to benefit most from G20

(This piece was written and submitted in October 2014 for KJB337 Investigative Reporting, while I studied at QUT for my Bachelor of Mass Communication, Journalism Major/Media and Communications Major)

Queensland trade and tourism likely to benefit most from G20

They are the Group of Twenty (G20), a consortium of 20 of the world’s wealthiest and fastest-developing nations. The G20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. Together they account for around two-thirds of the world’s population, and their economies constitute around 85 per cent of gross world product (GWP) and 80 per cent of world trade.

The G20 Leaders Summit, to be held at the Brisbane Convention Centre over the weekend of 15 and 16 November, will be the most important gathering of world leaders in Australia to date. Along with the G20 leaders, around 4,000 delegates and 3,000 media will come to Queensland for the summit.

Until hosting the World Expo of 1988, it is generally acknowledged that Brisbane was little more than a big country town, isolated from her southern cousins by distance and, to a degree, by the state’s conservative politics under Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. However, preparations for World Expo 88 saw massive development and investment in the lead up to the event, particularly at the Expo site, now remodelled as South Bank, one of the city’s leading entertainment precincts.

Since 1988, Brisbane has been on the up-and-up, and is now being seen as one of the world’s most desirable cities to live in. With the slogan “Australia’s new world city”, the Brisbane marketing campaign began well ahead of the G20 summit. Touting the benefits of a $135 billion economy, being the closest Australian city to Asia, and with an award-winning airport 20 minutes from the CBD, Brisbane has also been marketed as a global research hub specialising in groundbreaking research and innovation. The marketing of the city is also heavy on our outdoors lifestyle and unique natural and Australian experiences.

And so the leaders of the G20 and their entourages will converge on Brisbane in November to discuss and attempt to steer the future direction of the global economy. The two major issues on the agenda are greater world economic growth and better transparency of tax systems. However, in the current uncertainty of the world’s economic climate these goals have be seen as long-term, and only feasible with the cooperation of most, if not all, parties attending. Past G20 meetings have perpetuated a reputation for much discussion and plans for action, but very little achieved to benefit international economies. In an article for international policy thinktank The Lowy Institute, Mike Callaghan said the Brisbane G20 required “a headline outcome, engaged leaders, a minimum of rhetoric, a focus on implementation, and clear evidence of cooperation between members.”

An outcome of the summit which can almost be guaranteed however is the short-term economic boost for Brisbane, and the longer-term gains for the state and the nation. Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the city stands to benefit to the tune of around $100 million in the long term. Public sector expenditure, spending by visitors, benefits of “free” media coverage, security and emergency management planning, infrastructure: all were beneficial outcomes for the host cities and regions of previous G20 events.

The economic benefits that the G20 looks set to bring to Queensland are enormous, and with planning and foresight a group known as the Q20 (Queensland 20) was formed to showcase Queensland to the world.  The Q20 was appointed by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, set up with an interest in the commercial advancement of the state.  Mainly made up of corporate CEOs, the current membership also includes political, educational and community leaders.

David Fagan, Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at Queensland University of Technology was appointed to the Q20 whilst Queensland Editorial Director of News Corporation. Mr Fagan was asked to join by then Q20 chair Catherine Tanna, recently-appointed managing director of Energy Australia, and a current member of the Reserve Bank of Australia Board. “She asked me to join because she thought it was important that there was someone who would be mindful of the public impact of what the G20 was, and be able to offer some advice on how to get the most public impact out of the investment opportunities,” he said.

Mr Fagan said the main objective of Q20 was to ensure Queensland directly benefits as host of the G20, by bringing people from key industry groups together to act as ambassadors in directing potential investors towards opportunities in the state.

He said if the G20 achieves its goals everyone will benefit. “Queensland probably more so than most because our economy is so pegged to economic development. If there’s growth in the world, there’ll be more demand for what we produce.”

“I think there’s a benefit in having the economic decision-makers, and the financial decision-makers of the world focussing for some time on the G20 being in Queensland, and that inevitably raises the questions, ‘What is Queensland?’, ‘What goes on there?’

“There is a knock-on benefit from Queensland being featured on the world stage in this way. It helps focus decision-makers’ thinking around what they can do here, but it also relies then on Queensland being able to stand up and say, ‘Ok, so you’re interested; how can we convert that into some investment, or opportunity?’”

With a population of 150 000 in its local council area and its economy reliant for the most part on agriculture, and tourism and hospitality, the far-north Queensland coastal city of Cairns could be seen as a yardstick of sorts to measure the short-term economic successes of the G20.

Cairns hosted the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting on the weekend of 20 and 21 September this year. Publicised as a $10 million win for the local economy, the Cairns talks focussed on strategies to create global economic growth of two per cent, equivalent to $2 trillion over four years, and in turn create millions of jobs.

Warren Entsch, Federal Member for the seat of Leichhardt, which takes in Cairns, said hosting the meeting had been “a massive coup” for the city.

“It brought around 2,000 people to our city, including the finance ministers and treasurers of the world’s strongest economies, international and domestic media, and staff and representatives of organisations such as the United Nations,” said Mr Entsch.

“We saw thousands of rooms booked at the five top hotels in Cairns for the heads of delegation, delegates, and Queensland Police Service, Comcar and Commonwealth staff, in contracts worth more than $2 million. Most of the local jobs working at the event were with Cairns-based service providers – including venues, catering providers, accommodation, labour hire and interior design.”

In reply to some local small business owners who complained that business had been slower than usual during the meeting weekend, Mr Entsch encouraged them to see the broader, long-term benefits of hosting the G20. He said thousands of visitors from some of Australia’s closest global trading partners would return home to speak of Cairns as “an exotic and exciting destination at the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.”

Mr Entsch said his forecasts of long-term paybacks for the Cairns region were based on a 2010 report which measured the economic benefits of previous G20 and G8 conferences, finding that the host city benefitted in the long-term from business investment in particular. The report, titled Economic Benefits of Hosting G8 and G20 Summits, was produced by G8 and G20 Research Groups at the University of Toronto. While the study found that many of the benefits for a G20 host community were difficult to quantify, the gains were generally bigger for smaller communities and cities which did not have the visibility and infrastructure of the larger cities of the world such as London, Shanghai, New York or Tokyo.

“It would be unrealistic to expect the G20 to create a sudden, extreme increase in tourism just a few weeks after the event,” Mr Entsch said. “It takes time for those visitors to return, to talk to friends and family, for them to get time off work, to book a holiday and then to come. We need to understand that the overall economic impact of hosting the G20 will be seen in the months and years to come.”

As for overall outcomes of the G20 2014 for Brisbane, the only absolute certainties are that local business, hospitality and tourism in particular, will see the greatest immediate gains. If they are to come, the greater boons for the state and the nation will take time. However, as the reports of planned civil disruption and destruction by protest groups increase, the rest of us might benefit most by just staying home that weekend.