Today, The Outsider reveals high level tiffs, debates how we feather-bed our hometown heroes, and uncovers the crucial sleeper issues of the federal election campaign.
Ooh la la
Which local media executive had a stand-up fight with a key advertiser in the foyer of a prominent Adelaide office building?
That’s a rhetorical question. We know exactly who they were, as both are highly recognisable fellows around town and the entire media organisation’s staff is talking about it.
The advertiser flamboyantly ripped off his name badge and threw it to the ground, shocking (or, maybe more accurately, amusing) onlookers.
No doubt they’ll sort out their problems when News Corp take their big advertisers on the overseas trip that’s thrown in as an annual sweetener.
This year the destination is France. A nice Bordeaux should soothe the trouble.
Home town heroes
We love our local heroes in Adelaide, and won’t hear a word against them.
Of course, we’re happy to pummel the life out of outsiders –but not our own.
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Take Stuart O’Grady. Top bloke. Deserves a second chance.
Ok, he did admit taking the banned substance EPO before the 1998 Tour de France – and then put in a performance that set the scene for the rest of his remarkable and lucrative career.
Ok, he did deny doping – until this year, when the French senate released details of riders who had returned positive or suspicious results in tests conducted during the ’98 tour.
Ok, before his admission, he did insist that doping was the furthest thing from his mind throughout his career.
“It’s never been a thought, never been an option,” he told The Advertiser’s Reece Homfray.
“I consider myself a pretty good bike rider and I’ve been happy with what I’ve been able to achieve with my natural ability.”
In last week’s Sunday Mail, Homfray – who got the scoop that O’Grady had admitted to one-off, isolated, never-before and never-again EPO use – was talking to O’Grady again.
This time, our Stuey was thanking the South Australian public for supporting him after he admitted to doping. He was particularly chuffed with the results of an online poll that showed the punters don’t want the State Government to rename the Stuart O’Grady Bikeway in the northern suburbs.
The interview included this quote: “I understand you must pay consequences for your action, but everything has to be taken into account,” he said.
Like what? Really, really, really wanting to win?
The South Aussie public might be forgiving, but the handful of cyclists at the ’98 Tour who weren’t on the juice might have a different view.
Senator Teflon
While we’re on hometown heroes, has any politician in living memory had an easier media run during an election campaign than Senator Nick Xenophon?
There have been positive profile pieces, self-penned articles, glowing Tweets from journalists, fact-boxes detailing his many popular achievements and so on, and so forth.
His judgement is rarely questioned. Which is where we come in. Of course.
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What other politician would have got away with his interesting use of parliamentary privilege, when he named a Catholic priest in the Senate and accused him of sexual crimes, only to have the Director of Public Prosecutions decide there was insufficient evidence to justify prosecution?
Kevin Rudd was photoshopped by a newspaper as a comedy Nazi because his colleague Anthony Albanese had a beer with Craig Thomson. Tony Abbott’s been pilloried for kissing people on the campaign trail.
But a substantive issue to do with Xenophon’s decision-making? Tumbleweeds.
Meanwhile, Xenophon’s gun campaign recruit, former Liberal member for Adelaide Michael Pratt, is working the phones.
Pratt, who has jumped ship from the Libs and now calls himself a “Xenophon man”, called in to FIVEaa very early today to lament the passing of Football Park.
What a waste, he opined.
We’re fairly sure he was joking, but his idea for the Footy Park lights shows that the eastern suburbs dweller isn’t too keen on Adelaide’s westies.
He suggested the Footy Park lights should be relocated to Adelaide Airport so flights can continue to land all night and “really give them the shits”.
Keen hypothesisers
One of Nick Xenophon’s more notable bequests to South Australian polity is local upper house MP Ann Bressington.
As this upright online organ has reported in the past, Bressington is very concerned about a United Nations non-binding action called Agenda 21.
The program has been in place since the early 1990s and encourages countries to commit to sustainable and equitable development as part of an effort to accommodate growing global populations and economies.
Bressington has a different take.
“Agenda 21 is about controlling every aspect of our lives,” she told an Adelaide audience earlier this year. “How we eat, what we eat, how much we eat, how we move around, food production.”
A video of Bressington’s speech – which was essentially an introduction to a talk by controversial British climate skeptic Christopher Monckton – has gone viral amongst internet conspiracy theory websites, and has racked up more than 100,000 views on YouTube.
Bressington is also deeply concerned about fluoride in the water which she says may be the biggest “health fraud” of out time.
We only raise these issues, as they are bubbling away in the campaigns of fringe candidates in this federal election.
Agenda 21 has been raised by Palmer United Party candidates, and fluoride is also on the agenda for more off-the-beaten track candidates.
One Nation Senate Candidate for South Australia, Kym Dunbar, is worried about both issues.
Dunbar, who describes herself as an author, writer, editor, photographer and Animal Energy Healer, says she stands for: “NO MORE forced mass medical slavery through fluoridation of our water – give people a choice about drinking industrial waste.”
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