The voice of the people

Most Saturdays, the Kid and I head to Bunnings for our weekend stroll around the garden department with big dreams of the changes we’ll make at home. In the end, we usually leave with a cactus planted in a ceramic boot and a delicious sausage sandwich. The first Saturday of the recent school holidays was different as, like the rest of the country, we instead picked up our ‘democracy sanga’ at the local polling place.

I’m from a family who is, what I would consider, politically aware. Every election Bob Hawke ever won I remember where I was and, even at a young age, being genuinely invested in the outcome. To this day my favourite household item is a red plastic drink dispenser in the shape of the former PM’s head. Although I’m not sure that last part has as much to do with political awareness as it does with being a kitsch collector.

I did my best to explain the electoral process to the kid. We would be there a while, she was told, as mummy chooses to vote below the line on the senate paper – some people deserve to be last. This year’s form was as long as Ben Hur’s extras list. While standing beside me, I’m sure looking slightly bored, a nice man walked past the Kid and said, “Takes a long time, doesn’t it?” I glanced up from my cardboard booth to see the kid reply, “It’s about who looks after my school and the hospital where Ma Ma works. It’s important you know.” I smiled to myself and continued to number every box, all 151 of them.

Later I was glued to the election results on the ABC and reaction on social media. I was shocked, even among my friends, by the number of people who didn’t vote or seemed to have no clue about the parties they voted for or their policies. There is no excuse not to be informed these days.

We are incredibly lucky in Newcastle to still have local news outlets, that not only bring us the stories of national importance but also explain how they impact us locally. I decided at that moment, that since our project is really about spending time together and learning new things, that one of our budget friendly holiday activities would be taking my favourite tiny human some of those news outlets and spending the travel time talking about how they work.

Since my late teens, I have either worked in or with media outlets and there is nothing like being in the building when a huge story breaks. One Wednesday morning in September, 15 years ago while working at KOFM & NXFM, I was woken by a 3am phone call from a friend. Without even saying hello, she screamed: “We’re all going to die!” Not the news you want to wake up to. I turned on my TV to see footage of the two planes flying into New York’s Twin Towers.

I got dressed immediately and drove to the station, not because there was anything I needed to do but because being there where information was flowing into the news room felt safer than being home alone.

The Breakfast Team on morning radio are traditionally there to entertain while you go about your morning routine and commute, but that day was different. The crews stayed on air hours longer than usual. Some had members of their immediate family just blocks from the world trade centre and we knew one young staff member was in Washington, where a third plane crashed. The announcers’ first role was as news providers but, just as importantly, they were a community counselling service. On-air teams and their support crew were outstanding that day and in the days to follow.

Equally awe-inspiring is seeing a well researched, powerful story shine light into the darkest of places and become a catalyst for action and change. Newcastle Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy wrote a series of investigative stories about abuse inside the Church. Her fearlessness and hard work, with the unwavering backing of editor Chad Watson, led to an historic and long overdue Royal Commission. I have no doubt that the heartbreaking subject took its toll not only on the writer but other staff members. However difficult, it was a story that needed to be told and may never have happened at another paper.

In 2001, being online wasn’t part of our social norm. In Australia today, 15 million of us use some form of social media. This means in one way or another everyone has the means for their own public platform. But just like my friend screaming wildly into my phone on that warm September morning, rants on Twitter and Facebook by someone on our friend list should not make up the sum total of our knowledge about an important subject.

It should be a catalyst, a heads-up that there’s something you should probably look into. It should be your opportunity to dig a little deeper and form an opinion based on facts found from reputable sources.

I hope when the Kid comes to cast her first vote that she does so well-informed and with a sense of social responsibility, the way we all should. Let’s face it, you don’t want to go in with big dreams for the country and end up leaving with a cactus in a ceramic boot.