Here, There, Everywhere

These are the boys from 2UE and 2GB, the two most popular talkback stations in Sydney, with the girl from the Daily Tele in between. They're typical of the new breed of reporter, young, educated, clean cut, professional, good at their jobs. The old days when reporters were assumed to be drunken misfits who wandered into the job because they didn't belong anywhere else are long gone. Now they're all very nice, and what I guess I notice most, clean cut. They might sneak a cigarette, not even that most of the time. They're certainly not dashing down the pub in between filing their stories. Becoming a reporter isn't part of some doomed, tragic destiny; it's a career choice like any other.

This is in the park at the end of a street in Ultimo wherein a seige a man held the police at bay for 29 hours. I've been a bit riled the last 24 hours, for some reason or other, over the government's disgraceful whitewash of the despised Child Support Agency. It's the duplicity, the blatant dishonesty of this government, which disappoints me so. Not that the Opposition would be any better, worse probably, but that is not the point. It is a failure of democracy, a failure by self serving public servants to pay any credence to the people who pay their wages. I should be suprised? It's like being surprised when someone lies to me; it's ridiculous, but true.

Many of the same gang see each other at similar events all over Sydney, asbestos scare, we're all there, man dead in apartment for six months, his skeleton at the kitchen table, we're all there, interviewing the junky neighbours, swapping notes. Apartment block collapses into tunnel. Michelle Lesley, the model charged with ecstasy possession in Bali; returns to Australia. The country's richest man dies, we're all there, outside Kerry Packer's house, as if there was much to get in many of these situations. It's the stake outs that get boring. The absolute hopelessness of some of the scenarios. Four kids dead in burnt out house, drunken mother near by, the usual ratty defacto mouthing off. They've no idea, the smug pricks that run this country, how deeply spread the unease is; how difficult life is for many, how futile the struggle to stay on top. The fat cats couldn't care less. Our taxes pay the fat cats and everything gets worse. That everything works is the biggest lie. That the judiciary have ethics the biggest lie. That bureaucracies such as the Child Support Agency are not corrupt to the core the biggest whitewash. That's the world we've created. I never belonged. I don't belong now.