THE TWEED
What’s New
www.tweedecho.com.au Volume 3 #44 Thursday, July 14, 2011 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au 21,000 copies every week CAB AUDIT
Special feature – pages 10-12 LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Tax renews calls for Tweed rail link Steve Spencer
Graeme aims to put colour back in art Kate McIntosh
Graeme Stevenson says a new reality art series he developed has the potential to put Tweed artists and the region’s natural beauty on the world map. Put Some Colour in Your Life currently screens weekly on community television in Brisbane and Perth and is due to be rolled out nationally across the network in coming months. Graeme, who hosts the program, travels on his Harley Davidson across the Northern Rivers, Brisbane and Sunshine Coast to interview artists about their work and the creative process. The Murwillumbah-based artist describes the program as Billy Connelly meets Master Chef and The Hairy Bikers.
Graeme Stevenson is taking art to TV. Photo Jeff ‘See Arty’ Dawson
‘It’s a form of entertainment, but it’s based around art,’ he said. Graeme says he has had interest from airlines wanting to screen the series as part of their onboard entertainment, as well as major TV stations who are keen for him to take the program national. All of the artwork featured is for sale, with episodes stored on the website as part of an online database of artists.
Library of minds ‘The idea is to build a library of the minds of artists,’ he said. ‘Artists don’t leave a legacy of their minds; they leave their pictures but not the creative process.’ The Northern Rivers has the highest proportion of artists per capita in Australia, yet Graeme says many struggle to make a living due to tough competition and a lack of resources. Art gallery closures across Australia in recent years had also limited the
opportunities for artists to promote and sell their work. The series has also been backed by Destination Tweed, which sees it as a potential showcase for the region. Graeme, himself an artist of international repute, is well known for his colourful surrealist-style oil paintings. He spent 10 years in the United States where he made regular appearances on an art show on the US cable network which screened to an average of 60 million viewers every year. After returning to Australia, he was inspired to create his own reality art show as a vehicle to help other artists harness the enormous potential of new technology and market their product to a wider audience. Graeme poured his own savings into the project and also returned to college to study film and editing to help get the series off the ground. He says the art world had long suffered due to perceptions of snobbery and academic elitism. continued on page 2
The creation of a carbon tax has sparked renewed calls for the Murwillumbah to Casino rail line to be reopened. Abandoned by the Carr Labor government in 2004, the line was once popular with young people as a cheap way to travel to Sydney and between towns on the far north coast, with stations at Lismore, Bangalow, Byron, Mullumbimby, Billinudgel, Stokers Siding and Murwillumbah. But after the Greiner government replaced the Gold Coast Motor Rail with the faster and more expensive XPT service in 1990 it became less popular, with most younger commuters deserting the service only to have their seats taken by half-price paying pensioners. Rail activist Karin Kolbe said that with a price now placed on carbon it was the right time to spend the $70 million needed to recommission the rail line. ‘To put the $70 million into perspective, it is costing $321 million to build the Banora Point bypass,’ said Ms Kolbe, of the Trains On Our Tracks (TOOT) group. ‘We have 132 kilometres of track between Casino and Murwillumbah. It would be money well spent. The rail is still in excellent condition but the bridges need work. ‘It would be a wonderful way for tourists to explore our region and leave a low-carbon footprint. It would sit well with our green-clean image and would be something tourists could do when it rained.’ Ms Kolbe said that with petrol excluded from the carbon tax, the rail link would be a quick way of remov-
ing thousands of vehicles from north coast roads. She said councils were finding it financially difficult to repair roads, with a large percentage of the damage (up to 40 per cent) caused by tourist traffic. ‘The myth is that it was closed because no-one used it,’ she said. ‘The truth is the XPT train schedule was designed for Sydney commuters and locals stopped using it. ‘Before the XPT the old Gold Coast Motor Rail was used by locals to travel from town to town. They called it the “Surf Train’’ because people from Murwillumbah and Lismore would take it to Byron so they could go to the beach. ‘The late-night XPT timetable might have suited Sydneysiders, but not locals. ‘It was similar to running a children’s movie at the cinema at midnight. Nobody would go to see it.’
‘Extend rail to airport’ Tweed Shire Council deputy mayor Barry Longland predicted the rail link would only reopen if funding was found to extend the line to the Gold Coast Airport so it could be linked to the Queensland rail network. He said the rail line could have a future as a commuter service rather than a route for high-speed trains to Sydney. ‘You have to have a service that will attract mainstream commuters and encourage them to leave their cars at home,’ said Cr Longland. ‘The bulk of Tweed workers travel across the Queensland border in cars to go to work.’ Cr Longland said the future of the
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