The Big Issue #528 – Battle in the Bush

SHAUN MICALLEF | ORIGAMI | THE BALLAD OF NICK CAVE

$7 No 528 13 – 26 Jan 2017 HELPING PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES $3.50 of the cover price goes to your vendor

BATTLE IN THE BUSH BEHIND THE FIGHT TO SAVE OUR KOALAS

NATIONAL OFFICE Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson National Manager Sally Hines Editor Amy Hetherington Chief Financial Officer Damian Atkins National Marketing and Partnerships Manager Emma O’Halloran National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart

The Big Issue is Australia’s leading social enterprise.

We are an independent, not-for-profit organisation that develops solutions to help homeless, disadvantaged and marginalised people positively change their lives.

The Big Issue magazine is published fortnightly and sold on the streets by vendors who purchase copies for $3.50 and sell them for $7, keeping the difference. Subscriptions are also available and provide employment for disadvantaged women as dispatch assistants.

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CONTACT US Tel (03) 9663 4533 Fax (03) 9639 4076 GPO Box 4911 Melbourne VIC 3001 bigissue@bigissue.org.au thebigissue.org.au WANT TO BECOME A VENDOR? If you’d like to become a vendor contact the vendor support team in your state.

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CONTENTS

528

COVER STORIES 14 HOW MUCH CAN A KOALA BEAR? Is our national icon under threat or just a pest?

17 KOALA-GAMI Fold your very own cute companion!

FEATURES 18 CREEKCHANGE When a woman retires with nothing, where does she go?

23 MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS The strange crime that gave Australia independence.

24 UP IN THE EYRE

THE BIG PICTURE Lighting up the desert from above.

28 LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF Shaun Micallef travels back to the future…

30 THE BALLAD OF NICK CAVE Nick Cave is back, and he’s just as mysterious as ever.

32 ROAR AND EMOTIONAL

Garth Davis on Lion, his film about an amazing IndianAustralian adoption.

34 WHO RULES THE WORLD? GIRLS! Could the Rule family be the next Kardashians?

REGULARS 04 EDITORIAL,

YOUR SAY 05 VENDOR PROFILE 07 STREETSHEET 08 HEARSAY 11 MY WORD 12 RICKY 13 FIONA 37 SELECT

38 FILM 39 SMALL SCREENS 40 MUSIC 41 BOOKS 43 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT 44 PUZZLES 46 CLICK

KATI THANDA-LAKE EYRE, FROM ABOVE, AFTER A RARE DOWNPOUR (P24). PHOTOGRAPH BY THE LIGHT COLLECTIVE.

EDITORIAL

YOUR SAY

SUMMER DAZE

GOOD AS GOLD

SO MANY OF my childhood memories

are seared by the Australian summer.

The long hot stretch of holidays meant freedom. Every year, we’d visit my cousins in Leitchville – a town of 400-odd people, one pub, a public pool, a fish’n’chip shop and no street numbers – in northern Victoria.

The land out there is flat and cracked and the colour of straw, the horizon a shimmering blur. You can dig up the melting tar with sticks, burn your bum on the slide in the park. The sun was so blistering, you’d feel the freckles forming on your face as you’d scream through the front-yard sprinkler or swim in the channel. We’d go yabbying by day, chase frogs around town at night. One year, Dad made us wade through Kow Swamp on a quest to find the remnants (perhaps aliens) from a giant fireball we’d witness fall out of that huge, open sky the night before.

We’d live on icy poles, watermelon and sandwiches made with the “plastic cheese” from the now defunct Kraft factory at the end of the street. It closed in 2010, and I feared the town would disappear. But it hasn’t. Young families have arrived in town, doing up old houses.

As Dr Merrilee Moss writes (‘CreekChange’, p18), this part of country has also attracted retirees: city-dwellers like herself escaping oppressive real-estate prices in the suburbs and setting up home among the gum trees.

In this edition, we also celebrate Australia’s favourite bush-dweller: the koala. With new land-clearing laws threatening their territory and numbers, Rhianna Boyle (‘How Much Can A Koala Bear?’, p14) goes behind the battlelines in the fight to protect our koalas. And, for a bit of holiday fun, you can get your craft on, and fold your own koalas thanks to our koalagami designs (p17).

Six months ago I was made redundant from a large insurer in the CBD. The Big Issue Christmas edition Today I caught up with some ex[Ed#526] was worth its weight LETTER colleagues in the city – before in gold. Beaut stories and OF THE meeting them I went to check wishes from so many vendors, FORTNIGHT if Nemo was still selling The Ricky French’s little literary Big Issue on the corner of King masterpiece ‘A Marked Deck’ and George streets. Sure enough was a gem, 13-year-old Caoimhe there he was, and we gave each other McCooey’s contribution was moving and a big hug with huge smiles on our brilliant and, best of all, my favourite dials. To reconnect and have a chat vendor, Bryce (Parliament Station), had made both our days. I will enjoy me in fits with his rendition of a South reading the latest edition of TBI. “Efrican” accent. Bryce always puts a Thanks Nemo. smile on many a morning face! God bless him and all at The Big Issue for Peggy Wobith, Rose Bay, NSW harnessing such a positive life force.

Charles Fivaz, Langwarrin, Vic I have been buying The Big Issue for several years now and I am constantly amazed at the content. I really love As winner of this edition’s the new Public Service Announcement Letter of the Fortnight, column by Lorin Clarke. It makes me Charles wins a copy of smile widely (I probably look quite Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre: silly). Thanks so much.

Interpretations from the Air (as seen in The Big Picture, p24).

This morning I was catching my train to Central in Sydney. It was very busy and I got distracted and left my work bag on the train. I didn’t even realise!

Then I got a text message from one of your Big Issue vendors Scott, to say he had my work bag, and would like to get it to me as soon as possible! I was so relieved and I met him at Town Hall, unaware that he was a vendor. I gave him the biggest hug and kiss imaginable!

What a lovely, honest, wonderful young man. I was extremely grateful. Scott, may karma be good to you now and always!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Maryanne Steinman, Gymea, NSW

Amy Hetherington, Editor

The Big Issue uses Macquarie Dictionary as our reference.

COVER #528 OUR COVER STAR IS EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BENNI. YOU CAN VISIT HIM AT HEALESVILLE SANCTUARY, VICTORIA. PHOTOGRAPH BY TRENT BROWNING, COURTESY OF HEALESVILLE SANCTUARY.

macquariedictionary.com.au

Tam Ringrose, Boddington, WA

Thank you for the Christmas issue [Ed#526], which is full of inspiring stories and interesting information. I enjoyed very much vendors’ Christmas messages. I hope Allan C found a family to have Christmas together.

I also enjoyed the funny and fantastic photographs of animals. There are no vendors near where I live, but I go to Ashfield every week outside school holidays. So in 2017 I’ll get off at Wynyard and buy the magazine from the lady who I got the Christmas issue from. This will be a New Year present to myself.

Fusae Hall, Turramurra, NSW

‘Your Say’ submissions must be 100 words or less, contain the writer’s full name and home address, and may be edited for clarity or space.

Have Your Say about The Big Issue: • email submissions@bigissue.org.au • post The Big Issue, GPO Box 4911, Melbourne, Victoria 3001 • facebook The Big Issue Australia • twitter @thebigissue • website thebigissue.org.au/your-say/

VENDOR PROFILE I ENJOY MY job selling The Big Issue. I’ve been doing it a long

time now, about seven or eight years, and it’s lots of fun. I try and interact with the customers walking past. I count down the lights for them, I spin my magazines (which is a trick I learned when I used to do pizzas years ago) and I try to make up spruiks that might make people smile or laugh as they go by. Seeing the customers happy when I talk to them puts a smile on my face.

Before The Big Issue I was looking after my daughter, who is in a wheelchair. She is 21 now, but it was a big challenge.

I also couldn’t find proper work because of my arthritis and all that sort of stuff. I did some part-time pizza work down in Campbelltown and used to do letterbox deliveries, but I changed to The Big Issue because I enjoy it.

I’m originally from Adelaide, but I moved to Sydney about 20 years ago. At the time my mum wanted to come to Sydney for work, so my daughter and I moved over. We decided to stay here when Mum went back to Adelaide.

I’ve been selling down at Central Station for a long time now.

Sometimes I do that with my partner, Eliza. I have also started doing Bondi Markets on the weekends with her. When I’m working with Eliza it puts a smile on my face, because she is a really nice girl and when she’s out with me she does a really good job. Sometimes my daughter comes with me, too. She loves speaking to my customers; they always put a smile on her face.

The best thing about selling The Big Issue is going out there every day. It’s a challenge, so you have to go out there thinking to yourself: ‘Okay, it’s going to be a good day or a bad day.’

Two-and-a-half years ago I had a rough patch. But I had a lot of support to help me through, especially from Eliza; she inspired me and told me to keep my chin up and keep going. Since I’ve met Eliza, life has just been happy. She’s changed my life, looked after me and welcomed my daughter.

Another good thing about this job is that you can GLENN F SELLS travel and work. If I go to another state I can work THE BIG ISSUE AT there, no questions asked, no interview. I’ve sold CENTRAL STATION in Adelaide and in Melbourne for periods over IN SYDNEY ON the years.

THE CORNER OF I do a lot of volunteer work at festivals, too. I’ve ELIZABETH AND done Sydney Festival and Motorsport, and I do the FOVEAUX. Easter Show and Vivid every year. It is nice to do something different and I can go out and meet people.

For the future I’m hoping that I’m still doing this. I’d like to say a massive thank you to all the local businesses that have helped me over the years. And I’d like to thank all my customers, some who I’ve had over the eight years, for all their support. I’ll be around for a while longer. interview by Sam Clark photograph by Peter Holcroft

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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STREETSHEET Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends A FAIR PRICE Hello, my name is Mary. I have been working at The Big Issue for three years and really enjoy it. I am usually a quiet vendor who always says good morning or good afternoon to people walking by.

I think that The Big Issue is a fair price and that pricing should be compared to other magazines in newsagencies, so that pricing remains fair across the board. What do you think?

Mary Y sells The Big Issue at Dome on Adelaide Terrace, Perth.

I would like to say thank you to all the sponsors for helping the vendors participating in the Melbourne Marathon, and I also want to say to the team who took part, well done!! Thanks also to Big Issue staff for being there.

Michael sells The Big Issue at North Melbourne Station.

RICH WITH LIFE

ME AND MY BRO

Sitting on the street just watching endless feet walking past not a face turns to look down at me. I am an invisible presence, ignored, forgotten, denied. Nobody wants to know the truth, and when I stand the people turn away. I know and they know that I am shame, something not to be spoken of. Occasional coins are dropped or a drink is offered. This comforts me.

Each day merges into another, I forget the days, I lose time sometimes. I don’t know where I am anymore. That is when I am really lost. As the sun goes down my hope fades into darkness, my thoughts plague my body and I cannot find rest. My mind is not still or quiet.

Lying down leaves me vulnerable so I spend the night sitting up against a lamppost watching bats fly – waiting for the street sweepers. The noise is almost a comfort because it is regular and familiar. My body aches but I no longer feel hunger because I can’t rely on food anymore – the same goes for a hot shower. My layers of clothes need changing, so I find a bathroom and try to order myself for yet another day.

To be happy I don’t need a lot I’m satisfied with the little that I’ve got My swag, some good clothing, shoes and such Life is pretty simple when you don’t have much I’m a nomadic man Enjoying travelling when I can The sights and scenery come for free The only thing missing sometimes, is me What makes me happy is a beautiful view Enjoying it, relaxing with a beer or two Australia has the most incredible places Every town and city has smiling faces I’ve sat on beaches with the whitest sand Been to some of the most isolated places in this land I’ve seen wonders of nature that not many have seen Been to places where no white man has been I’ve almost been killed by a fish And I’ve been bitten by a deadly snake Possessions mean nothing when your life’s at stake I might not have much, and seem very poor But I’m rich with the places I’ve been, and the things I saw

I have a good imagination and this is one of my stories (I’m good at makebelieve!): Me and my brother want to make money, so we decide to sell Avon products. We want to be at the top.

Sometimes we fight, but then we realise we are fighting over ladies’ perfume!

Then we decide to be bus drivers. We drive on the M44. We like it, but we crash! So we become train drivers on the tracks. You never know what we will become next!

Jai J sells The Big Issue in Glebe, Sydney.

David H sells The Big Issue in Melbourne CBD.

LOST IN TIME

Steve J sells The Big Issue in the Adelaide CBD.

BEAUTIFUL SOUL Dear Owen, I love you like a brother.

There was no other. My friend, I shared your pain. There is no gain, there never is with pain. Dear Owen, I hope God loves you for the beautiful man you’ll always be to me. Happy journey.

Bryce sells at Parliament Station and in Camberwell, Melbourne.

All vendor contributors to Streetsheet are paid for their work.

For the latest Big Issue news visit thebigissue.org.au or find us on: • facebook The Big Issue Australia • twitter @thebigissue • instagram @bigissueaustralia

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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HEARSAY WRITER RICHARD CASTLES

» CARTOONIST ANDREW WELDON

DON’T LOSE YOURSELF. IF YOU TAKE ENOUGH DOPE, YOU LOSE YOUR BODY, YOUR MIND OR YOUR LIFE. CONVERSELY, IF YOU DO EVERYTHING EVERYBODY ELSE TELLS YOU TO DO, YOU’LL BE MISERABLE AND LOSE YOUR SELFIDENTITY. AT SOME POINT YOU GOTTA FIGURE OUT THE BALANCE. Punk icon Iggy Pop, who turns 70 in April, offers some advice on finding the balance between drugs and conformity. To thine own heart be true in 2017.

– Rolling Stone (US)

– News Ltd

EAR2GROUND “There are three certainties in life: death and unfinished lists.”

A little humorous wisdom to start your to do list for the New Year, overheard by Jamie of Corrimal, NSW.

8

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

“I didn’t really know George Michael… But I knew he had had a public struggle and was trying to cope with some of the ‘shit’ that people I knew were coping with…

He knew the evils of addiction.

He knew the struggles. No-one has a monopoly of that struggle.

It can be shared and is shared by people in all stages of life… So George seemed a natural fit with The Big Issue.”

John Bird, the founder and editor-inchief of The Big Issue UK, on the death of George Michael, and the exclusive interview the star gave to The Big Issue in 1996 after a six-year media hiatus.

– The Big Issue UK “Grow up, Donald. Grow up. Time to be an adult. You’re president.

You’ve got to do something. Show us what you have.”

Outgoing US vice-president Joe Biden on the incoming president. Yes, finding yourself leader of the free world is as good a time as any to mature.

– PBS (US)

“We have condemned our young people to have no place in society, because we have slowly pushed

them to the margins of public life, forcing them to migrate or to beg for jobs that no longer exist or fail to promise them a future.”

Pope Francis on society offering no future for young people. Youth unemployment in Italy is at 36 per cent and stands at 18 per cent in the European Union. Blessed are the job creators.

– The Independent (UK)

“Employees are more and more connected during hours outside of the office. The boundary between professional and personal life has become tenuous.”

Myriam El Khomri, the minister of labour in France on a new law that allows French people the “right to disconnect” – that is, the right to not answer work emails after hours. Liberty, equality, disconnection!

– The New York Times (US)

“The official Titanic inquiry branded [the sinking] as an act of God. This isn’t a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking. It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors

PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY IMAGES

“It’s not a priority for the government. The state treasury office collects billions in stamp duty each year. There are people sleeping on the steps of the same office building.”

Tom Keel, property and real estate lecturer at Deakin University, on the Victorian state government’s lack of motivation to address homelessness, for which he believes there are many solutions for the willing. Keel is working to set up Sleep Station, a program that would see disused train carriages converted into shelters for the homeless.

coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence.”

Irish journalist Senan Molony, who has spent more than 30 years researching the sinking of the Titanic, on a theory, accompanied by new photographic evidence, that a fire on board the great ship may have been the root cause of the 1912 disaster.

Please, no remake!

– The Independent (UK)

“A few of the older ladies in front of us could not stop looking at the printed booklet. The people that realised were shocked at first but then took it in good humour around me. To be honest, I was bursting inside.”

Andrew Choksy, a Colombo man who attended “Joy to the World”, a Sri Lankan Christmas carol service.

The official booklet mistakenly printed

the lyrics to Tupac Shakur’s song ‘Hail Mary’ instead of the traditional Christian prayer, which does not contain the words “Some say the game is all corrupted, fucked in this shit, stuck, niggas is lucky if we bust out this shit…”

– The Guardian (UK)

“There are all kinds of traumatic aspects to a youth of being scrutinised...and I’ve been very reticent about the fame and the acclaim, because it’s rare that you get genuine, un-agendaed acclaim. There’s usually another shoe to drop: ‘This is good… but not as good as the last thing you did’, or, ‘You’re the toast of the town!’ And then the toast burns.”

Neil Patrick Harris, from the TV comedy How I Met Your Mother, on keeping

his feet on the ground as a former child star, most notably as teenage genius Doogie Howser MD, from the eponymous show that ran from 1989 to 1993.

– The Telegraph (UK)

“In the UK you seldom meet anyone from Western Australia.

The vast state is quite a secret.

I had a feel for it because I’m a big fan of the writer Tim Winton. Everyone’s quest is Sydney Harbour and Uluru but they should make their way out west.”

Actor Martin Clunes, best known as the Doc from Doc Martin, on the vast but internationally less known west, which he discovered while filming his documentary series Islands of Australia.

– The Guardian (UK)

» Frequently overhear tantalising tidbits? Don’t waste them on your friends – share them with the world at editorial@bigissue.org.au

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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MY WORD

FORGET ME

KNOTS

A NEW YEAR FINDS FIONA RUTKAY WONDERING IF IT’S FINALLY TIME TO START DANCING.

COLLAGE BY LAUREN CONTI

EVERY DAY I walk the same route,

carefully planned to avoid as many main roads as possible. Sometimes I notice the gardens changing: apple blossoms giving way to azaleas, Japanese elms turning red. Other times I enjoy the architecture.

Edwardian cottages fringed with wooden lace, steeply pitched roofs on fairytale houses, geometric leadlight windows set into Art Deco flats. There is one thing, though, that I must look at every time – a stone house surrounded by a fortress of microwaves, lawnmowers, broken chairs, shopping trolleys and old computers.

Day after day new items appear.

Machine parts, cooking pots, timber and cables are stacked, suspended, embedded and balanced, one on top of the other. Over the seasons the objects have merged into a thicket of junk, which grows up to the eaves like ivy.

Is it voyeurism that compels me to look each time? A sense of superiority?

Thank god I don’t live like that. But, really, how different are he and I? What about my boxes of writing projects, clothes that don’t fit, photos that might go in an album one day?

Of course, it’s not the same. My stuff isn’t a hoard. It doesn’t rob me of a normal social life or create fire hazards.

I can easily deal with my mess. So why then has “sorting out the boxes” been on my to-do list for years? Every new year, when I’m planning exciting artistic projects, I have to make time for “organising my stuff”. Can’t do so many exciting things after all.

No matter what method I try – tackling one box per month, taking a week out to deal with it, putting the boxes where I can see them – I never get it done. Sometimes I have to climb over the boxes to get to things. It reminds me of hoarders on reality TV shows trying to make their way from one end of a room to another. “Why don’t you just throw them out?” asks a friend. Well, I could, but I don’t want to because it’s absolutely doable. In fact, I could do it next week.

There are those who dance, and those who tie themselves in knots. This line written by Anaïs Nin has always haunted me. I want to dance, but I don’t. Of the millions of ways to distract yourself from living, one of the most common is filling your home with stuff and then spending time thinking about how to manage it all. Big knots or small ones, a lot of us feel safer weighing ourselves down than doing the things that matter.

I find it hard to relax in my flat. I wish I could come home from work, kick back on the sofa and see something other than piles of paper. Even when I can’t see the stuff I can feel it. Those boxes under the bed. I’m sleeping right on top of it. I need a holiday house just to get away from it.

So I walk every day. As I make my way through the local streets, I think about how different things could be. What if I had a studio in the room with the bay windows? I’d do loads of writing in there.

And wouldn’t life be sweeter in that loft in the gable of the steeply pitched roof?

On the other hand, I imagine how terrible it would be to live in the house with the hoard. He’ll never change, but I’m going to sort out my stuff.

Then, one day as I turn my head in the usual spot I see him flat up against a clean front wall, slack-jawed, wide-eyed, gaping at the newly bare space. He’s a tall, big-boned man with oily grey hair, wearing an old patterned jumper, the elastic all gone around the bottom and the wrists. For the first time I can see there’s a window on the facade.

I continue on quickly. Maybe the council wrenched his hoard away, or perhaps it was social services. My mind is ticking over with possibilities, but by the time I reach the next street I’m almost bouncing along. This could be a new start for him, and I could make a new start for me.

His front yard stays clean for months. Then, an oil heater appears.

A few weeks later, a fan heater. Now, piling up, are boxes of newspapers, two filing cabinets, a slow cooker, an eski, four brooms, oil drums, a pedestal fan, a washing machine and a fold-out director’s chair. One morning I notice the chair has been carefully placed in the middle of the lawn, facing the hoard.

I picture him sitting there, and wonder what he’s thinking as he watches his fortress grow once more.

» Fiona Rutkay is a Melbourne-based writer. She also creates theatre and teaches English as a second language.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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RICKY

Making the Moist of It

HERE’S TO A year of sitting still.

My New Year’s resolution is to plagiarise every disgraced politician and washed-up sports star by vowing to “spend more time with my family”.

They’ve been warned.

2016 was my year of departure lounges. I don’t even think they call them departure lounges anymore.

The phrase comes from a time when departing by air was a thrill, a rare privilege. But them glory days have gone the way of complimentary moist towels. I can only assume the towels got the boot around the time the word “moist” was no longer considered acceptable in boring society. Another sad loss.

And so all year I departed. I lounged.

I got the hell out of town. I was on a mission of sorts. Over the last decade I’ve hardly left the country – except for regular trips home to New Zealand to check that petrol was still $8.76 a litre. I’d stuck to my little corner of the world. Head down, bottom-dwelling.

Yes, you could say I got into journalism.

But it meant it was also time to get out.

My conditions were simple. I would go to places that no-one else would.

Where there was a piece of Australia no-one else could be bothered going to, I’d be there.

So it was I crawled up unknown mountains in north-western Tasmania, lugging both a heavy tent and a lightheaded feeling of foolishness as my water ran out. I lived long enough to report with much excitement to Big 12

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

Issue readers the continued existence of Burnie’s Menai Hotel. A stately edifice on a hill, timeless, vaguely creepy, not threatened at all by the ghastly prospect of progress, the Menai was the kind of place big cities had bulldozed years ago.

Like many hotels, the Menai had been the site of conception, and this particular one was quite immaculate. A haunting song, ‘Burnie’, penned by Midnight Oil as they sat up in the early 1980s in the closest thing Burnie had to a penthouse suite. It was the very song I played in the car as I drove into town, not knowing I would end up sleeping under the same grand roof, and looking over the same heap of woodchips on the docks.

“Last year seems as far away as those strange, far-flung places. I think I’ll sit awhile and nest, at least for the rest of summer.”

In spring I checked in to Kangaroo Island, South Australia, shunning all offers of luxury to walk the walk; in this case a 61-kilometre coastal trail, with Antarctica the nearest landmass over your right shoulder. A pair of scarlet robins accompanied me most of the way, and monstrous waves puffed themselves up and exploded on black rocks.

Things got desperate in November.

I went to Canberra. I interviewed a property developer for two hours, but things improved by the afternoon.

I penned a column about a walk through the A History of the World in 100 Objects exhibition, led by head curator of the National Museum of Australia, Michael Pickering. The exhibition told the story of time and place, but Pickering also told the story of how he likes to dress up in medieval clothes and re-enact battle scenes down the park on the weekend. I liked the guy. I even liked Canberra.

As well as going to places no-one else wanted to go, I sometimes went to places I didn’t want to go to. Like Cairns. But it was a great chance to spend time with a genuine Queensland publican, who genuinely didn’t like me very much. Not to worry, someone else paid for my barramundi, and again I got the hell out alive. So long and thanks for all the fish etc…

Last year seems as far away as those strange, far-flung places. I think I’ll sit awhile and nest, at least for the rest of summer. Or until the next chance comes up to visit some new, ignored corner of the country. I’ve long suspected the travel bug may be incurable. And New Year’s resolutions were meant to be broken, weren’t they?

» Ricky French (@frenchricky) is a writer and musician who’s been everywhere, man.

FIONA

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES BRAUND (RICKY) AND JAMES PENLIDES (FIONA)

Certified Gold

I HAD A hard lesson in making things difficult for myself last year, courtesy of taking 12 months to finish what was supposed to be a short intensive VET sector training course. Have you gone to sleep yet? Apologies for slipping in the unsexy reference to Vocational Education and Training. That was my entire 2016: an excruciating vortex of competencies and evidence, assessment and performance criteria, unfolding with the rich urgency of a sloth crossing an eight-lane highway.

What spurred me to finish, in the end, wasn’t the accruing self-loathing of Not Having Done It, although as the months slipped past like greased pigs I despaired and despaired often. No, it was the announcement that my office party would include a light-hearted look back at What We Achieved This Year. Oh that’s just great.

I have a desk in a small, grown-up suite of offices occupied by creatives who do stuff like, say, produce the award-winning film The Dressmaker.

Or direct the Melbourne International Film Festival opening night showcase The Death and Life of Otto Bloom.

Or write and illustrate children’s books and award-winning cartoons. You get the gist. I have very little shame in terms of acting the goat, talking to strangers, or getting naked for a good cause or even a bad one, but even I recognise a line when I see one. I was not turning up for a glass of quality bubbles and artisanal cheese with the conversational gambit of, “I frittered

away an entire year not doing my Cert IV in Training and Assessment”.

My Cert IV, all 196 pages, was handed in on the morning of the office Christmas party, complete with a red ribbon bow. I’d say the problem wasn’t that I didn’t want to get it done, but my pants would need to be made of asbestos. I did not want to do it one cockamamie bit. I thought I should, which is a very different kettle of seafood, and I was leading a very

“Now the metaphoric ankle weights are off, now I’ve stopped wading thigh-high through a lake of toxic porridge, anything feels possible.” unwilling horse to water. The idea of getting the Cert IV out of the way and smashed at the beginning of last year was a good one. I may never need it, but what a brilliant start to the year!

Achieve! Pow! Addition to the CV! Job possibilities opening up like flowers in the sun! She’s off and running!

What transpired was the shadow of achievement. I stared blankeyed and sore-arsed at the screen, chewing Skittles, nutting out how to create an instrument to provide evidence of performance criteria 1.4 in unit of competency CUAAIR301.

I crawled through it ungraciously and whimpering, a hard year of spending hundreds of hours on tasks that hurt me in the face. Handing in the 57,269 words (dammit, that’s 3000 words off a Masters), I felt like I’d just climbed Everest, if Everest were made of broken glass and I was wearing ankle weights.

This is not, btw, to diss the VET sector. I’m not “too good” for the Cert IV. Even as I lament the distressing volume of admin and tedium, I acknowledge the training has purpose.

It’s intended to guarantee that students get the training they pay for. Tick.

What I realise is that I have done a year of resistance training. Reluctantly, to be sure, but now the metaphoric ankle weights are off, now I’ve stopped wading thigh-high through a lake of toxic porridge, anything feels possible.

Because nothing I’d genuinely like to do can be harder than a year where the only way out is through.

Most of us have a challenge we’re putting off. A “should” rather than a “yes please”. It’s a new year. Get it done, get it done, get it done. And if it helps, come round to my place for a glass of good champagne, and tell me what you’ve been up to lately.

Because – did I mention? – I finished my Cert effing IV.

» Fiona Scott Norman (@FScottNorman) is a writer and comedian who’s as happy as a pig in grease.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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COVER STORY » BY RHIANNA BOYLE

HOW MUCH CAN A KOALA AS LAND-CLEARING LAWS CHANGE, THE FATE OF OUR CUDDLIEST NATIONAL ICON IS ONCE AGAIN BEING HOTLY DEBATED. BUT, AS RHIANNA BOYLE DISCOVERS, THE FIGHT TO PROTECT KOALAS CAN GET A LITTLE COMPLICATED. 14

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

GROWING UP IN regional Queensland,

A KOALA-TY PLACE TO SNOOZE. PHOTOGRAPH BY iSTOCK

I never saw a koala. Instead, I heard them. The koala mating call, audible at night during the breeding season, is a terrifying sound. Halfway between a grunt and a scream, it hits bass notes more appropriate to the mythical drop bear than to a small cuddly herbivore.

Juxtaposed against all those postcards of doe-eyed darlings lolling in tree forks, the sound was particularly disturbing, as if we had stumbled upon Blinky Bill’s sex tape.

Some wild animals suffer from an image problem, but the koala’s public persona is so stripped of unsavoury animal characteristics (like their mating grunt) that they appear little different to their plush toy doppelgangers.

Their immense appeal has at times been ascribed to their humanoid features, which include forward facing eyes and the lack of a muzzle, and a body size similar to that of a human child. Their habitual stance – arms wrapped around a tree trunk – may have evolved to stop them falling out of the canopy, but when tree is substituted by tourist, it’s difficult not to see a hug. While most adored species seem indifferent to us, we have photographic proof that koalas love us back.

But if Australia has a love affair with the koala, there’s evidence that the relationship is a difficult one. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, koalas were hunted in large numbers and their skins were turned into fur coats for export, leading to dramatic population declines.

Gradual legislative change, culminating in a federal ban on koala fur exports in 1933, allowed numbers to bounce back. Koala populations are considered stable in South Australia and in Victoria, where strict new rules have just come in to protect the animals from logging in plantations. But the decline in Queensland and New South Wales has increased again in recent decades, with an estimated 65-80 per cent drop over 25 years in the worst affected regions.

And now the rate of decline is expected to increase. Both states have relaxed land-clearing restrictions on private property, meaning some farmers will be able to clear native vegetation without approval. The NSW

government’s current policy is to extend licences for logging in native forests that begin to expire next year – something environment groups have been fighting.

A report by Eco Logical Australia, commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund, found that the changes in NSW alone could open up 2.2 million hectares of koala habitat for clearing.

Population size, and our need to drive, eat and build houses, exerts a passive pressure on koala habitat.

Professor Clive McAlpine, a conservation biologist at the University of Queensland, says land clearing is a major threat.

“Queensland is clearing 300,000 hectares a year, NSW is probably clearing about 51,000. Those are fairly high rates, all of which impact on koalas, especially in western areas.

Their preferred habitats are the more fertile soils, with high water content in the leaves of the eucalypts. That’s where the majority of populations occur, so it’s the clearing of those habitats which has really been the major issue historically, and more recently it’s urbanisation in coastal regions.” McAlpine says that with urbanisation comes additional dangers, such as dog attacks and vehicle strikes.

Along with these threats, koalas have a high incidence of chlamydia, which can cause blindness and infertility, and of an AIDS-like retrovirus that can cause immune deficiency. The symptoms of both diseases are exacerbated by the physical stresses of life in a modified environment. Climate change is predicted to cause a contraction of the koala’s range, and in a particularly cruel twist, to make eucalyptus leaves both more toxic and less nutritious.

But in any discussion about koala conservation, the cute factor is difficult to avoid. Commentator Phil Bagust writes that we have entered an era in which animals’ survival is determined not by natural selection, but by “media selection” and that the koala’s “mediagenic” qualities are a sign of value. This cynicism about conservation priorities is a more caustic version of concerns that have been raised within the scientific community for decades. NGOs and charities raise funds by fronting their campaigns with tigers, rhinos and other THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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“TABERT HAS RESPONDED TO CRITICISMS WITH THE STATEMENT... ‘KOALAS ARE BEING PUNISHED FOR BEING TOO CUTE’.”

Meanwhile, koalas don’t just have their own charity – they are also the only species to be the subject of a Senate inquiry (2011’s The Koala – Saving Our National Icon). The purpose of the inquiry was to assess koalas’ conservation status, which was subsequently listed as “vulnerable” in Queensland and NSW. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also changed the koala’s status on their red list from “least concern” to “vulnerable”.

Threats to northern koala populations are serious, but the privilege conferred by the koala’s public profile means it gets attention that many other species don’t. Unusually for scientific papers, those on koala conservation commonly make reference to the animal’s iconic status. When political action on conservation can be hard to come by, it’s easy to see why scientists might put aside qualms about the use of flagship species and embrace koalas’ celebrity status as a rare route to the hearts and minds of politicians.

This fact is not lost on some in the farming, forestry and mining sectors, for whom the koala stands in the way of profit. In a recent article entitled ‘Too Many Koalas, Too Little Science’, forestry scientist Vic Jurskis delivers a scathing critique of the koala’s status as a “green icon”. In Jurskis’ opinion, koalas are just a tool used to push other concerns – for example by a grassroots organisation that is opposed to the logging of a catchment. He believes that, contrary to the opinions of “green ecologists”, koala populations have exploded in developed areas, as dying eucalypts become more palatable, and that koalas are now contributing to the “death of another icon, the eucalyptus tree”. Estimates of koala populations are difficult to make – while the IUCN lists the adult population at between 100,000 and 500,000 koalas, the AKF gives an estimate of 87,000.

While the majority of scientific literature cites evidence of a decline, a few published papers dispute this. Jurskis writes that “koalas only became icons after they became pests”.

Against such opposition, it might seem that conservation biologists and environmental activists would be natural allies. While this has often been the case, the intricacies of koala conservation have driven a wedge between the two groups.

Scientists’ willingness to buy into the positive public image of some species has the capacity to backfire.

At a handful of locations in southern Australia, including Kangaroo Island, South Australia, and other places in which koalas have been introduced, populations did increase to the extent that by the 1990s biologists advocated a cull to protect native vegetation and prevent the koalas starving to death.

The CEO of the AKF, Deborah Tabert, described the plan as “murder”, and has said that she questions the credentials of any scientist who supports culling.

After a public outcry, the cull on Kangaroo Island was called off in favour of an expensive sterilisation and relocation program, although some culls have since taken place, including one on Victoria’s Cape Otway in 2013–14.

Tabert has attracted her own criticism from some scientists and

commentators for the AKF’s appeal to emotion and anthropomorphism. This perception probably isn’t helped by her AKF blog, which details her activism and fundraising activities, and is narrated by her pet labrador, Mr Darcy, who refers to her as “Mum”. Tabert has responded to criticisms of her anti-culling stance with the statement that “koalas are being punished for being too cute”.

Paul Bloom, author of Against Empathy, makes the radical case that empathy provides a poor basis for moral action. Bloom argues that when we act from empathy, altruistic acts are directed at a narrow group with which we feel a personal connection, and that resources are not necessarily allocated to do the greatest good. This has some bearing on koala conservation. A recent cost-benefit analysis of koala conservation found that while many believe hospitalising injured koalas is important, the money would be better spent on habitat protection. There is a cold logic to such analyses.

But while funding, research and political attention may be directed disproportionately towards koalas, it’s debatable whether such allocation detracts from the conservation of species that we empathise with less. It may not be that we are funnelling resources towards these charismatic media darlings while a worthy – if boring – fungus dies from neglect, but that without koalas’ public appeal, such resources would never exist in the first place.

Conservation biologist Clive McAlpine rejects the suggestion that koalas receive a disproportionate level of attention.

“I don’t think they get enough, actually. There’s still a big gap in what needs to be done. Conservation funding across Australia is below what is required, and koalas may get a lot more than other species, but it’s still a lot less than what is required. If we can’t conserve an iconic species, then we’re going to struggle with a lot of other species.”

Ultimately, wildlife conservation depends on politics. And it may just be that the maximum dollop of sentimentality is also the most pragmatic.

» Rhianna Boyle is a Melbourne-based science writer and scientist.

ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL VIZZARI. ORIGINAL DESIGN © MARIO & STEVE ISHAM, ORIGAMI AUSSIE ANIMALS (BANDICOOT BOOKS)

photogenic animals. Koalas have their own dedicated NGO, the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF), which uses the koala’s lovable image to conscript the public into its “Koala Army”.

Conservation biologists refer to tigers, koalas and their ilk as “charismatic megafauna”. Some ambivalence exists about their status. In general, biologists prefer to prioritise whole ecosystems over individual species, and value ecological role and population health over looks and charm. But a recent review found that Australian conservation research prioritises animals over plants; vertebrates over invertebrates; mammals, birds and amphibians over fish and reptiles. It’s been suggested that if research and funding are any guide, fungi are the least charismatic organisms of all.

ARE YOU WILD ABOUT KOALAS? NOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN! ALL YOU NEED IS TWO SQUARE PIECES OF PAPER, A PEN AND SOME GLUE. PAPER ONE

PAPER TWO

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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CREEKCHANGE PEOPLE OFTEN MOVE WHEN THEY RETIRE: FOR A NEW SCENE; A BREATH OF FRESH AIR; A REALLY GOOD VIEW. BUT MERRILEE MOSS IS PART OF A GROWING GROUP OF WOMEN FOR WHOM A MOVE IS PURE NECESSITY.

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I personally identified (with the help of my pamphlet) a freckled duck, two species of cormorant, several types of ibis, a royal spoonbill, a Eurasian coot and lots of black-winged stilts.

I also saw a flotilla of pelicans drift by, clacking their bills as they fished.

At times I pine for the vibrant, multicultural, queer-friendly inner city where a loud bang might signify a car backfiring, rather than the sudden death of a duck. In my urban rental accommodation, I was just another ageing lesbian vegetarian feminist bike-riding greenie with a tattoo. In this town, I don’t feel comfortable using the “L” word. But my new homeowner status is some compensation.

I know the Alphabet People (LGBTIQ) have colonised a few quaint historic towns closer to the

something in my old city suburb. So here I am by Gunbower Creek, being teased by a riot of kookaburras.

THEY TELL ME to be a local you have

to live here for at least 40 years. That would make me over 100, so I’ve given up on that. But it won’t stop me trying to fit in. I’ve learned to lift one finger nonchalantly from the steering wheel as I pass anyone. I smile at everyone and, despite my city misgivings, drive short distances (you can always get a park). I no longer kiss people in public – not even on the cheek (country people need paddocks of personal space, and everyone is watching).

I’ve been invited to attend a few gatherings, such as a launch at the community art gallery, the Neighbourhood House barbecue

“AT TIMES I PINE FOR THE VIBRANT, MULTICULTURAL, QUEER-FRIENDLY INNER CITY WHERE A LOUD BANG MIGHT SIGNIFY A CAR BACKFIRING, RATHER THAN THE SUDDEN DEATH OF A DUCK.” city, but I seem to be a lone explorer who has, by economic necessity, ventured a few hundred kilometres further afield.

I know I can’t be the only gay in the village, but so far no-one has flung the closet door open to embrace my company. The truth is I’m a statistic: a single-mature-woman-with-no-super.

I’m the one-out-of-three who missed out due to the gender pay gap.

And I’m not alone. Four-out-of-10 retired single women live below the poverty line.

I have the job seekers’ allowance, but there are no jobs. Next month I will be promoted to the age pension, but not enough for a sea change, or even

and a Men’s Shed afternoon tea. The “ladies, please bring a plate” commandexpressed-as-a-request is still seriously in place, and although the word “ladies” is sometimes dropped in a tacit nod to equality, it is always implied. I have yet to see a man enter an event with his neatly covered plate in hand, or step forward to accept congratulations for a tasty plate of fudge.

I listen attentively at these occasions, asking questions like an eager student.

Who made these sandwiches? This lemon slice is divine! Did you make these cheese puffs/marshmallow slices/ mini pavs/mini quiches/this choc cherry fudge..? Each creator clearly enjoys her well-deserved accolades.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LUCI EVERETT

SOMETIMES I FEEL like I’m in another country, despite having moved only three hours from Melbourne. To my city senses, this is the real Australia – hot and dry, with a broad blue sky and tenacious brown creek. Men wear big hats and big dogs speed past on the back of trucks. My mini foxie watches them with city eyes, wondering if they want to play.

The other day, I was standing between the bowling green, the tennis courts and the footy oval, wondering about all the space that’s allocated to running about with balls, when a woman and her dog approached me.

“Do you play golf?”

“I’m not really a sporty person,” I said cautiously, knowing this was blasphemy in a sports-centred town. Even to my ears, my voice sounded a little sharp, almost rude. I’m working on acquiring the jovial, nasal country drawl, but it’s not easy. It seems there’s a different accent here – even though Professor Google tells me Australia is renowned for its lack of regional differences.

It’s not just the way people speak; it’s what they say. Yesterday I was walking the dog when a man snarled, “Ahgarn?” I slowed it down in my mind and responded with a smile, but for a moment I doubted my first language.

“You should go bird watching,” the woman said, giving me a pamphlet for Breakfast with the Birds.

“You’re very kind,” I said, immediately regretting my tone.

I arrived at the swamp at six in the morning, imagining I’d find a few yawning people sipping hot tea, but there were buses lined up on the dirt track.

After a minor clash between the Coalition Against Duck Hunting and Field and Game Victoria, we collectively raised our binoculars to study the water birds.

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She maintains humility, but is smiling and proud. But where do they find the time? It’s a known fact that the maker of the cream cakes works in an office all day and helps out on the farm. One woman always makes a buttered, cayenne-laden scone that is very addictive and generates much applause, but she finds herself caught in the bind of expectation and must provide her dish into eternity. As is the way, these extraordinary women’s skills are undervalued and taken for granted, but I am in awe.

Earlier this year in my endeavour to fit in, I decided to try something completely different and joined the annual fun walk. I arrived just as the sun was emerging. The fun joggers jostled out front and we fun walkers surged forward. We were off. Well, everyone else was off. I was moving, but at a snail’s pace. It was like strolling beside a moving walkway at the airport.

Old people (even older than me), fat people, women with pushers, and kids were all in front shouting and laughing and charging ahead. Very soon I was last. There were two women behind me, but they turned out to be marshals who weren’t allowed to pass. One competitor was wearing thongs, but she passed me too. She drifted back every now and again for a chat, and then passed again.

Perhaps I lost time when I paused to accept a lolly from a kind lady outside her house. Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that plastic cup of water or a wee at the halfway mark. Perhaps I could blame that cyclist who nearly ran me over in his rush to the finish. “I’ve never walked 6.5 kilometres in my life,” I announced to no-one in particular as I crossed the finish line. I looked for the crowds clapping and cheering, but it was all over red rover. People were more interested in eating egg-andbacon rolls and browsing the Farmer’s Market.

THEY SAY THIS is a retirement town.

The estate agent who sold me my house thought so. He showed me the clinic, the hospital and the Retirement Village before the house. “I like to walk my dog,” I said, so he showed me the walking track, the forest and the creek.

“You can ride a bike if you prefer,” he said. “It’s flat as a tack.”

He’s right. This land is so flat; they say you forget how to walk on hills.

I’ve heard tales of local folk struggling to stay upright in alpine country.

They stagger about like sailors on sea legs. It’s said they lean too far into the hills, like a motorbike on a curve. Visiting Melbourne’s CBD is a strain on the calves, particularly up Collins Street.

Like many women, my path has been determined by economic necessity, but I’m starting to imagine a future for myself here. I’ve fallen in love with the glittering Milky Way at night and the screech of corellas in the morning.

After the squash of the city, it’s a thrill to plant trees in my quarter-acre block and watch them grow.

But I am still caught between two worlds. I can no longer refer to myself as a “city person” and yet I am in a perpetual state of not-being-alocal, despite a growing repository of local knowledge (I could tell you, for example, a thing or two about blue tongues, red-bellied black snakes, bluegreen algae, yellow rosellas, clearance sales, walking tracks and where to find the library).

It’s a delicate balance, straddling two worlds, living here on the border between the bustling metropolis and life in this peaceful country town. I have to admit that, despite regular visits, I’m no longer “in the know” in the city – not up with the latest cafe, play or fashion trend. Nor am I au fait with the latest dairy farming techniques, water debates, trends in tractors or crocheting – let alone the intricate details of who’s related to whom.

I have my L-plates for country living, but like all learners, I will sometimes swerve off the road. At a barbecue I looked up at the darkening sky and, with naïve delight, said: “Oh, look! The moon!” But it wasn’t the moon, was it?

It was a roadside lamp.

Naturally, my local friends broke into hysterics and pounced like a pack of gleeful dogs. “Know-nothing city slickers! Wouldn’t know a moon from a lamp.” But here I am, a country woman, whether I like it or not.

Yesterday, in the main street, I saw an elegant lady hunched on her scooter, hair as white as cottonwool. She nodded politely at a man speeding the other way, his Australian flag flying.

I imagined myself at their age. This town is so flat; I’ll be able to scoot to the shops in no time.

» Dr Merrilee Moss

(known as Moss) is an award-winning Victorian playwright who moved to the country a few years ago.

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MURDER ON THE

JO HN RI L E Y AL BER T GO RD ON

ED WA RD EL IAS

HIGH SEAS

BACKGROUND PHOTOGRAPH BY iSTOCK; PHOTOGRAPH BY THE PRINT COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

IN ED#522, MICHAEL EPIS MENTIONED THE CRIME THAT LED TO AUSTRALIA’S TRUE INDEPENDENCE. AFTER SEVERAL REQUESTS, WE BRING YOU THE FULL, STRANGE TALE. ON THE NIGHT of 12 March, 1942, the HMAS Australia was gently slicing its way through the waters to the east of New Guinea. Just before 8pm a commotion was heard on deck. At first the sailors who heard the noise dismissed it as skylarking, but the repeated cries, growing more urgent, drew them up.

They found three men. One was stoker John Riley – lying in a pool of blood. With him were two other men, fellow stokers Albert Gordon and Edward Elias – covered in blood.

Within two hours Gordon and Elias were placed under arrest.

Riley was carried to sick bay, where doctors found he had been stabbed 14 times, through the lung, liver, back, stomach, chest and diaphragm. His wrists were hacked through to the bone, leading others to surmise he had been clinging for dear life to the ship’s railing, trying not to be thrown overboard.

Lapsing in and out of consciousness, suffering from shock and loss of blood, he told the investigating officer that Gordon had attacked him. “Why?” he was asked. Riley answered: “Because I found out he was a poofter.” He then named Elias, too. The three were supposedly in a love triangle together.

Within 24 hours of the attack, the 19-year-old blue-eyed boy from Tasmania was dead. Gordon and Elias were charged with his murder. Within a month they were tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. And it’s there that our story begins.

THE MURDER WAS an inconvenience to the war effort. The ship had to dock in New Caledonia to conduct the trial. Then it set sail for Sydney, where the guilty men were transported to Long Bay jail. They could have been hanged at sea, but it seems Captain Harold Farncomb did not want that. Indeed Farncomb, the prosecutor in the trial, wrote a letter begging for the two men’s lives. He said they were “not in full possession of their faculties at the time”, citing “the circumstances of war, in which life seems to be held so cheap”. At the time, sodomy was a crime, and taboo, so the navy was happy for the sexual nature of the crime to be kept quiet.

The Naval Board then put it in the hands of the Attorney General, HV “Doc” Evatt. The defence took things to the High Court, arguing that under Australian law, a court martial could sentence men to death only for treason, mutiny or desertion.

But the High Court ruled that actually, under an edict from November 1939 during the first prime ministership of Robert

Menzies, the Royal Australian Navy was still under British control. So the verdict – and death penalty – stood.

By now the matter was political. Edward Elias’ mother, a widow, petitioned MPs to save her only son. The matter came to the War Cabinet. It was a national embarrassment, with historical echoes – Australia had insisted during WWI that its men were not to be executed by the British. The execution of “Breaker” Morant in the Boer War still left a bitter taste.

But the War Cabinet soon realised there was nothing it could do. It had no legal power to commute the sentence.

Doc Evatt was appalled. A former High Court judge, he saw where the problem came from: Australia had failed to adopt the Statute of Westminster in 1931. This act let dominions of the British Empire make their own laws, even if at odds with Great Britain’s, and forbade Britain to make laws for Australia. It was the last piece of the jigsaw to make Australia independent.

In Ireland, Canada and South Africa, it was immediately law. But four successive prime ministers had failed to enact the statute here. Australia’s independence was not complete.

That is why Menzies declared in September 1939 that because England was at war with Germany, “therefore” Australia was too. And why PM John Curtin, having declared Australia at war with Japan, informed Britian it was, too.

Evatt set out to persuade Cabinet that Westminster statute had to be passed. “It is necessary to get rid once and for all of the idea that Australia’s international status is not a reality and that we were to remain adolescent forever,” he said in 1944.

In the meantime, to be on the safe side, King George VI was petitioned to save the lives of Gordon and Elias, which he did in August 1942, commuting their sentence to life.

The Statute of Westminster was adopted in October 1942 and backdated to September 1939. Forty-one years after federation, Australia was finally an independent nation.

That was not the end of the matter for Gordon and Elias.

An inquiry set up by Evatt reduced their sentence to 12 years.

Another case brought it down to eight years, and they were released in 1950.

And that’s how Australia became truly independent – to stop two gay murderers being hanged.

» Michael Epis is a contributing editor at The Big Issue.

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THE BIG PICTURE » SERIES BY THE LIGHT COLLECTIVE

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THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

UP IN THE EYRE

FROM HIGH ABOVE, THE AUSTRALIAN DESERT CAN LOOK VERY DIFFERENT.

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THE IMAGES HOLD all the inalienable qualities of fine artworks – Rothko’s abstract brushstrokes or Fred Williams’ landscapes. The uncertain snaking lines, the bold colours spattered across the canvas and the deep, contrasting hues give them a strength of presence that would make these images the centrepiece at any gallery.

But what you see here are not paintings at all. They are aerial photographs of one of Australia’s most renowned national parks: Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre.

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A group called The Light Collective formed with the goal of taking on largescale projects that couldn’t be achieved by any one photographer.

Their book, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre: Interpretations from the Air, features a series of aerial images of one of our most iconic landmarks following a rare and unexpected downpour.

About 700 kilometres north of Adelaide, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre embodies Australia’s reputation of being a country of arid, sun-drenched plains

stretching far beyond the horizon. But every once in a while, the normally dry and inhospitable lake is flooded with water, creating a symphony of life atop the salted crust and cracked earth.

Photographers Adam Williams, Paul Hoelen, Luke Austin, Ignacio Palacios and Ricardo da Cunha established the collective in 2014, and are now capturing Australia’s vast and varied landscapes, extending from its baked red heart to its life-laden coasts and reefs. Taken from over 300 metres in the air, it is difficult

at times to identify what it is you are seeing. The earth and water become something far more ambiguous.

“It’s not a literal, traditional landscape project,” says Paul Hoelen.

“It’s not about documenting a place, it’s about interpreting a place and allowing ourselves the freedom to do that however we want to.”

While this intention is clear in the title Interpretations from the Air, it’s also in the deliberate omission of the horizon from any of the shots in the book.

It stops the viewer from being able to gauge just how much space is really being pictured, ranging anywhere from a few hundred metres to kilometres of land in a single image. This beautiful mesh of photography and art allows for a unique experience of our landscape, offering Australians a connection to the land based not just on discernible landmarks, but also on a more abstract level through its vivid colours, shapes and textures.

Most Australians cloister around

the metropolitan hubs that play host to a lot of our country’s art and culture. Through these images we are given something different: an artistic connection to the natural vistas that are so uniquely Australian. The chance to gain a new perspective of home.

by Liam Harding » Interpretations from the Air is available at thelightcollective.com.au. Black Eye Gallery in Sydney will be hosting an exhibition of these images, 10-29 Jan. THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF » SHAUN MICALLEF

BACK TO MICALLEF 1 SEPTEMBER, 1885.

Dear Shaun, If my calculations are correct you should receive this letter immediately after you saw the DeLorean struck by lightning.

First, let me assure you that I am alive and well and have been living very happily these past eight months in the year 1885. The lightning bolt that hit the DeLorean caused a gigawatt overload, which scrambled the time circuits, activated the flux capacitor and sent me back to 1885. The overload also shorted out the time circuits and destroyed the flying circuits. Unfortunately, the car will never fly again.

I set myself up as a blacksmith while I attempted to repair the damage to the time circuits. But this proved impossible, because suitable replacement parts will not be invented until 1947. However, I have gotten quite adept at shoeing horses and fixing wagons.

I have buried the DeLorean in the abandoned Delgado Mine, adjacent to the Old Boot Hill cemetery, as shown on the enclosed map. Hopefully, it should remain undisturbed and preserved until you uncover it in 1955. Inside you 28

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

will find repair instructions. My 1955 we are heading to Clayton/Eastwood counterpart should have no problem Ravine. So, I would strongly recommend repairing it so that you can drive it back that you avoid the whole thing. to the future. Once you have returned to Mind you, I guess there is a second 1985, destroy the time machine.

DeLorean (still buried in the Delgado Do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt mine) so maybe we can syphon out to come back here to get me. I am the gas and replace the fuel tank. It’d perfectly happy living in the fresh air certainly save us having to hijack and the wide-open spaces, and I fear Locomotive 131, not to mention destroy that unnecessary time travel only risks it by having it plunge into the ravine further disruption to the space-time after you disappear. Then again, as continuum. Of course, given I am your I was later able to somehow build a future self, I know full well you will time-travelling steam locomotive that ignore my instructions and immediately can fly, perhaps my original concern use the DeLorean to come back and get about not being able to repair the time me – and in doing so, and flying circuits on the “WHEN YOU DO FULL other DeLorean because rupture the fuel tank while escaping some of the unavailability of FRONTAL, DON’T DO rampaging Indians. parts was ill-founded.

BLACK FACE TO Because gasoline has Of greater concern, not yet been developed though, is your greatPLAY EDDIE MURPHY for the automotive great-grandmother on IMPERSONATING combustion engine, your father’s side. Why JERRY LEWIS – SOME on earth does she look you and I and Clara (I’ll explain when you get THINK IT BAD TASTE.” like your mother? And here) will then need how does Old Biff get to arrange for a steam locomotive to the DeLorean back to the unaltered push the DeLorean for it to reach the version of 2015? Surely, after he returns necessary flux capacitor ignition speed to 1955 Hill Valley and gives himself the of 88mph in order to send you back to Sports Almanac, he erases the original the future – and this is where it gets 2015 and the only future he could return very dangerous, particularly when to is one in which you and I and the

SHAUN MICALLEF PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ABC; FILM STILLS FROM MOVIESTILLSDB.COM

WEILDING HIS WELL-KNOWN COMEDIC ZANINESS, SHAUN MICALLEF WRITES A LETTER TO HIS YOUNGER SELF (OR IS IT TO MICHAEL J FOX?), FROM THE YEAR 1885. GREAT SCOTT!

DeLorean were never there in the first place. And what about our father’s bestselling 1985 sci-fi book? If it mentions “Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan” then isn’t he going to be sued by both George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry?

And speaking of plagiarism, what about Chuck Berry? Could he have lived with himself after stealing ‘Johnny B Goode’?

And where did that hairdryer come from? But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, aren’t I? Please take care of Einstein. I know that you will give him a good home.

Remember to walk him twice a day, and that he only likes canned dog food.

These are my wishes; please respect them and follow them.

And so Shaun, I now bid you farewell and wish you godspeed. You’ve been a good, kind and loyal friend to me. You’ve made a real difference in my life. I will always treasure our relationship and think of you with fond memories, warm feelings and a special place in my heart.

Your friend in time,

Your Future Self.

PS. When you end up making Micallef Tonight, for god’s sake listen to the network’s suggestions (talking to Livinia

Nixon in the opening segment was not such a bad idea).

Also, when you do Full Frontal, don’t do black face to play Eddie Murphy impersonating Jerry Lewis – some people will think it in bad taste.

(While we’re at it, give Welcher & Welcher a miss – and that awful New Year’s Eve special for Channel Ten).

Finally: beige Ciaks are NOT a good idea; don’t mistake validation for love; and don’t grow a moustache when you start university.

» Shaun Micallef’s Stairway to Heaven begins on Wednesday 18 Jan on SBS. THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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THE BALLAD OF

NICK CAVE ANDREW P STREET CONFRONTS THE MELODIOUS MAN BEHIND THE MYTH.

longevity by reinventing themselves.

David Bowie was a master. Madonna turned it into an art form. Even Bob Dylan has assiduously redefined his non-image persona over the years, to near mystical levels.

Nick Cave is no different. Throughout his career he has embodied a range of identities, disappearing into his songs like a method actor. But this quite suddenly changed last year with the release of his most achingly personal album yet, Skeleton Key. In July 2015 Cave’s son, Arthur, fell to his death from the cliffs near his family’s Brighton, England, home.

Most of the album was complete by the time the tragedy occurred, although a

“CAVE WAS ALREADY AWARE OF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE MAN AND THE WORK.” grieving Cave rewrote some of the lyrics in the aftermath. And thus we have devastating lines like: “A long black car is waiting ’round/I will miss you when you’re gone…I need you, just breathe.”

And there’s not even sentimentality to leaven the loss. “[People say] he still lives in your heart,” Cave says of Arthur in the record’s accompanying documentary One More Time With Feeling, designed in part to prevent Cave having to relive his agony in a thousand interviews. “He’s in my heart, but he doesn’t live.”

We’ve never seen such an unguarded appearance of the man behind the myth. It’s almost too real to bear.

Which presents fans with a challenge: 30

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

How do we face the Black Crow King without his robes?

Nick Cave has always had an uncomfortable relationship with his own mythology, which didn’t really start to evolve until his first band, Boys Next Door, left Australia in 1980. By this stage he was becoming the maniac punk, his black explosion of backcombed hair predating The Cure’s Robert Smith by years. He despised the term and almost all of the music, but the gothic rock genre owes Cave a mighty debt.

The move also saw the band change both their sound and their name.

The confrontational, abrasive and brilliant Birthday Party was born, and the sometimes shirtless, occasionally blood-smeared Cave was the force in the middle of the storm. The Party was over by 1983, at which point Cave began to explore his growing obsession with the blues, Americana, religion and the pitch-black side of human nature.

Appropriately enough, Cave had been given the okay by his label Mute Records to do a solo project under the somewhat tongue-in-cheek name Man Or Myth?

This eventually became the Bad Seeds, but it’s an indication that Cave was already aware of the distance between the man and the work.

Cave’s new look – dark suits, monochrome shirts, bird’s nest hairdo – characterised him through the 80s, which ended with the band fracturing and the drugs taking over, even as the Bad Seed’s fifth record, Tender Prey (1988), hit a creative high-water mark.

Not long after, Cave finally kicked his decade-plus addiction to heroin, as well as settling into a new life married to journalist Viviane Carneiro in Sao Paulo,

“I DON’T FEEL AS COCKY ABOUT DEATH AS I USED TO.”

Brazil. The change rejuvenated him, with The Good Son (1990) and Henry’s Dream (1992) showing more focus on piano and songcraft. The year 1991 also saw Cave become a father twice: Jethro was born in Melbourne, while Cave and Carneiro welcomed son Luke.

Fatherhood brought with it an increased discomfort with his own image. “Before I was able to write things like, ‘I’m not afraid to die’ [in ‘The Mercy Seat’],” he told Triple J in 1995.

“And kids come up to me and say, ‘Hey, that line means so much to me’. And I have to sort of say I don’t feel that way

PHOTOGRAPH BY KERRY BROWN

ALL GREAT ARTISTS create their

any more. I don’t feel as cocky about death as I used to. I wake up in mad panics about death approaching.”

This was made clear with Murder Ballads (1996), a concept album that explored the more violent side of Cave’s muse, and brought three very significant new figures into Cave’s life even as his marriage was falling apart.

The first was Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis, whose role as collaborator was to grow dramatically over the coming albums. Second was PJ Harvey, who began a short-lived, but intense, relationship with Cave (inspiring the

subsequent album, The Boatman’s Call).

And the third was Kylie Minogue, whose vocal turn on ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ gave the Bad Seeds their first honest-to-god pop hit.

But when stardom beckoned, Cave demurred. He married model Susie Bick in 1999, with twin sons Arthur and Earl appearing in 2000, and his next creative reinvention – the moustachioed, open-shirted Lothario of side-project Grinderman in 2007 – seemed designed, at least in part, to repel the casual fan.

Then in 2013, there was another reinvention: Cave presented himself

as something softer and more human.

Push the Sky Away had little of the bombast of previous Bad Seeds albums, replaced with minimalist soundscapes (created mainly by Ellis) with Cave speak-singing over the top.

That simplicity and intimacy was amplified on Skeleton Key, and that is perhaps what makes it such a challenging listen. We always believed in the myth, but now we are confronted by the man.

by Andrew P Street (@AndrewPStreet) » Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tour Australia, 13-31 January.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

31

ROAR & EMOTIONAL FROM INDIA TO HOBART: AUSTRALIAN DIRECTOR GARTH DAVIS’ NEW FILM LION TRAVELS THE WORLD. IT WASN’T UNTIL Garth Davis was standing on the platform of Howrah Station in Kolkata, India, that he finally understood the journey of Saroo Brierley.

At five years old Saroo accidentally boarded a train in rural Burhanpur which, 1500 kilometres later, abandoned him in another world: a frenetic transit hub to rival Grand Central or Shinjuku Station, where a lost child screaming for help in Hindi was drowned out by the Bengali-speaking crowd.

The Australian director is tall and gangly, but he felt Brierley’s dislocation.

“I was standing there imagining a five-

Drawing analogies between a firsttime feature filmmaker and a lost child is tempting, but Davis isn’t your usual debut director. He’s a rock star in the world of advertising, where his commercials have taken out top prizes at Cannes. His Emmy Award-nominated co-direction of Jane Campion’s miniseries Top of the Lake (2013) now sees him widely recognised.

“Movies, for me, had to be really special. It had to be my art. I wasn’t interested in doing something small…

I probably should’ve done it earlier,” he laughs.

DEV PATEL AS SAROO BRIERLEY (ABOVE) AND ON SET WITH GARTH DAVIS (BELOW).

“THIS IS A PORTRAIT ABOUT LOVE, AND THE POWER OF LOVE.” year-old child getting off that train,” he recalls. “I have kids as well…and it totally changed the way I saw the story.”

It makes for a heartbreaking scene in Lion, Davis’ adaptation of Brierley’s 2014 memoir: a tiny boy at sea in the bustle of commuters, shooed away when he tries to get a return ticket. After a treacherous few months sleeping rough, Brierley was taken to an orphanage and eventually adopted by a Tasmanian couple.

Telling Brierley’s story who, after 25 years, found his way home through a needle-in-a-haystack search on Google Earth, was a huge ethical responsibility.

Davis immersed himself in Brierley’s world, travelling to India and spending time in Hobart with Brierley and his adoptive parents, Sue and John.

“I had to emotionally and spiritually absorb their story so I wasn’t just looking at a headline in an article,” Davis explains. “I had to really try and understand how these people lived in the absence of their son.”

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Making up for lost time, Davis is now perhaps the busiest “debut” director around. When we chat he’s just returned home to Melbourne from Italy after completing shooting on Mary Magdalene, a controversial biopic starring Rooney Mara as the fallen woman and Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus, before jetting back to the US to publicise Lion’s international release. Since then, Lion was nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Picture.

Still, Lion is an ambitious first feature for an Australian director. It was executive produced by the Weinsteins, shot across several locations worldwide, and brings together David Wenham and Nicole Kidman (as John and Sue) joining Dev Patel as the adult Saroo and Rooney Mara as his girlfriend, Lucy.

Davis demanded a similar immersion from his actors, which brings out facets of Patel audiences have never seen before.

You wouldn’t recognise the bumbling hotelier of The Best Exotic Marigold NICOLE KIDMAN PLAYS SUE – SAROO’S ADOPTIVE MOTHER. PHOTOGRAPHS BY TRANSMISSION FILMS

YOUNG SAROO (SUNNY PAWAR) MEETS HIS NEW PARENTS (KIDMAN AND DAVID WENHAM) AND IS TAKEN FAR FROM HIS LOVED ONES.

Hotel (2011), who’s not only beefed up for the role but also nailed an Aussie accent.

“I just put him through boot camp,” laughs Davis, recalling a four-hour screen test in London. “Dev’s got a lot of nervous energy, which is what everyone loves; he’s got this sense of humour, this kind of extroversion, which I had to take away from him. I had to go, ‘Sorry, you’re not allowed to throw that energy away, you’ve got to retain it.’ He just started to tune into it and went to some really beautiful places.”

When I ask Davis to describe his approach as a director, he defers to the words of an actor from Mary Magdalene. “She said to me, ‘I understand how you work now, Garth…

You give the actors a lot of space – a lot of space. But you’re like a painter, so you gently allow the actor to paint that colour, and then you suggest another colour and then the scene is formed in this very free but painterly way.’”

This intuitive assessment makes sense. When Davis talks about why he chose Lion as his first feature, he uses words like spirituality; Brierley’s story thrums with some strange sense of providence. “This is a portrait about love and the power of love,” says Davis.

“Saroo would say to me that he would go to sleep every night and he would just fly home – like an out-of-body experience. He would imagine himself going back to India, he would imagine the landscape, he would go down the laneways and he would find his little house. He’d go inside and he’d tell his mother that he’s alive, he’s okay and he loves her.

“His birth mother, Kamla, she always felt like she could hear him and feel him… Everyone thought that she was mad, but she’d go, ‘No, I know he’s alive, I know he’s alive.’ They’re psychically connected.”

Kamla was talking with a friend about Saroo on the fateful day a neighbour knocked on her door.

“Kamla,” the neighbour said, “I think your son has returned.”

by Rebecca Harkins-Cross (@rhacross) » Lion is in cinemas 19 January.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

33

WHO RULES THE WORLD?

GIRLS! IS THIS INDIGENOUS FAMILY AUSTRALIA’S ANSWER TO THE KARDASHIANS, OR JUST A REGULAR FAMILY WITH AN IRREGULAR STORY?

“ALEISHA, GET OFF social media and come help clean up!”

The first episode of Family Rules opens with a classic fount of family spats: doing the dishes.

The voices of the other Rule sisters form a shrill chorus of admonishment: “No cleaning, no wi-fi!”

Aleisha eventually trudges to the kitchen, but only when her older sister follows through with her threat and turns off the wi-fi. The scene is full of tossed tea towels, clattering dishes and teenaged eye rolls. In short, it’s a scene observed most nights in family homes across the country.

The Rule family maintains they are just a normal Perth family. In the show’s intro, the mother of the family casually says: “I’m Daniella, and these are my girls.” One by one, a series of pretty young female faces pop onto the screen and state their place in the sibling order.

“I am the eldest.”

“I’m second.”

“I’m number three.”

“Number four…”

And they just keep coming.

“Number five…number six…number seven…number eight…I’m the last one.”

The daughters of the Rule family make up a formidable group of nine, aged 12 to 29.

Daniella met her husband Kevin Rule when she was 16. They started to build their family very quickly – Daniella was 17 when she had their first child, Angela. But in 2004, when their youngest daughter Hannah was just a few weeks old, Kevin was killed by a coward’s punch.

“It was a difficult time. It was about all being there for each other,” says Daniella.

“Everyone had a role to play, everyone 34

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

had a responsibility for each other.”

Over time, the family has become used to their unique story attracting a lot of attention. “When people meet the girls, they are like, ‘What?! You have eight sisters? And your dad passed away?’” says Daniella. “But we’re just a family doing what we can do, living life, just trying to do the right thing.”

The fifth sister, Kiara, 22, acknowledges that things can get “a bit crazy” with nine sisters, but agrees she wouldn’t like to have brothers. “Every sister has their own qualities: one sister for advice; one sister for going out; another for something else. They’re my best friends,” she says.

Safe to say, the Rule women were

“ONE SISTER FOR ADVICE; ONE SISTER FOR GOING OUT; ANOTHER FOR SOMETHING ELSE.”

COUNT THEM: THE RULE FAMILY.

pretty shocked (“Are you for real? Us?”) when producers approached them with the idea for the show. But it was an opportunity they didn’t want to pass up.

“One of the key reasons why I wanted to do it, personally, was because there’s so much negativity put out there about big Aboriginal families, assumptions and all the stereotypes, and people who have a lot to say when they don’t know what it’s like,” says Daniella. “The message we want to get out there is just to be open-minded with people.”

And Family Rules quickly shows that – despite the rooms seeming a little more crowded and family dinners looking like the festive feasts that most of us would

put on once a year – the Rule family is pretty normal. They feud over clothes, they vacillate over the right dress for the school formal, they get frustrated with each other, they look out for each other and wi-fi is the ultimate bargaining chip.

The show has the enthralling chaos, mundaneness and kitschy glam of reality TV’s original family show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians. When this comparison is mentioned to Daniella and Kiara, they hoot with laughter – especially because that would make Daniella the infamous family matriarch (and talent agent), Kris Jenner.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

“We don’t like to consider ourselves like the Kardashians, by no means. It’s not easy to be in front of the camera. It’s just us telling our story,” says Daniella.

Both women talk about the difficulties in adapting to having a camera crew in your house, filming your life.

A big focus for the show is education, a subject very important to Daniella.

Her parenting style, at least as far as the program shows, is pretty relaxed.

But when it comes to school, there is no compromising. She is the Indigenous Education Officer at the same school her youngest daughters attend, and the

biggest Family Rule is that you have to finish high school. After that, Daniella says, your path is up to you.

“I just think that our kids have more opportunities when they have an education behind them,” she says. “I had to go back and finish my schooling, that’s probably where it came from.”

The post-school paths of the Rules have branched out in all directions: one is a musician, another a model, one works on an oil rig, another lives in Melbourne studying a double degree in Anthropology and Business, and there have already been five grandchildren

added to the sizable family.

By the end of our conversation Daniella and Kiara seem giddy – about the show, the interview, the whole thing.

“We’re just enjoying the moment, we just want to share these six episodes with the rest of Australia,” adds Daniella. “All I see for my girls in the future is that I just want them to be happy.” Even over the phone, you can tell that she is smiling – a big, proud, parental smile.

by Katherine Smyrk (@ksmyrk) » Family Rules will broadcast on NITV from 9 January. Also on SBS On Demand.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

35

SELECT

Covering the standouts in film, music, books and home entertainment

THE SPY PAULO COELHO 

THE HISTORICAL FIGURE of Mata Hari

has long been mythologised. Most of us are familiar with the spangly-costumed exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a double agent and executed by firing squad under charges of espionage for Germany in WWI. What then, could Paulo Coelho, best known for his self-help, inspirational novel The Alchemist, have to add to her story? Not a great deal, as it turns out. His slim novel begins, dramatically enough, with a re-enactment of her final moments in Paris on 15 October 1917, whereupon the 41-year-old Dutch national (whose real name was Margaretha Zelle) refused a blindfold and remained impassive in the last seconds before death. Straddling truth and fiction, The Spy then goes back in time and re-creates her life in a long, rambling letter to her lawyer. The reader learns in quick succession about her privileged family life; how being raped as a teenager led her to associate sex as a loveless, mechanical act; and her impulsive marriage to an abusive army officer in the Dutch East Indies.

After a quick mention of childbirth (and several melodramatic losses), Java is soon left behind. She buys a one-way ticket to Paris (the “city of dreams”) and then dances and strips for large audiences and jumps into the beds of various influential men.

Given the slim size of the novel, it’s odd what Coelho chooses to include and omit. He devotes, for instance, four pages on the contents of her luggage when she was arrested (16 blouses… eight hairnets…three fans), but doesn’t actually answer some more interesting questions. Why, for example, did she choose the stage name Mata Hari?

(Indonesian apparently for Eye of Dawn, but you won’t find that out in

RIGHTEO PAULO.

this book.) And why did she casually abandon her young daughter to her volatile husband’s care? Though it was widely accepted in the years to come that her conviction for treason was based on the flimsiest of reasons, the events that led to her arrest are shrouded in confusion in The Spy. That she traded military secrets seems a far-fetched accusation, but Coelho is determined to contrive a feminist

mouthpiece for his protagonist. She proclaims that the greatest crime she’d committed was to be “an emancipated and independent woman in a world ruled by men”. The overall impression of her here, though, is of a clueless victim rather than a femme fatale.

by Thuy On » The Spy is out now.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

37

FILM JACKIE JOEL IS VERY LOVING.

 While Pablo Larraín’s biopic of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy opens with a familiar narrative conceit, the Chilean director’s English-language debut is worlds apart from your standard Oscars fare. Jackie recounts the week following that fateful day in Dallas. The chronology is entirely non-linear, however, reflecting the fractures of a grieving mind, but also the impossibility of capturing this largerthan-life figure. Natalie Portman’s performance is majestic: her silk-stocking socialite is by turns fragile and fierce, wide-eyed and commanding. From her remodelling of the White House to the opulence of her husband’s funeral, Jackie is shown as a woman in control of her own myth-making. Beyond the iconic Chanel suit is the reality of a woman spattered in her husband’s blood, struggling to keep the world from falling apart while the cameras keep rolling.

Like in Larraín’s political drama No (2012), history is a palimpsest written and rewritten by its mediated images. REBECCA HARKINS-CROSS

REBECCA HARKINS-CROSS > Film Editor A FEW YEARS back, the notion that

Coming Up in 2017

superhero figurines would take to the screen seemed too far-fetched even for satire. We were all so naive. In 2017, the studios have finally stopped pretending there’s any division between commerce and cinema: in March we’ll see merchandise fight it out in The Lego Batman Movie, which I’m sure we can purchase as soon as the credits roll. Luckily, there are also some bright lights on the horizon. In the Oscars lead-up we’ll finally get to see America’s critical darlings: the black coming-of-age drama Moonlight (26 Jan), Kenneth Lonergan’s long-awaited return Manchester by the Sea (2 Feb), controversial remake Birth of a Nation (2 Feb), and Jeff Nichols’ lauded take of the groundbreaking case that overturned miscegenation laws, Loving (9 Mar), starring our Joel Edgerton. There’s also offerings by big guns like Martin Scorsese, with his religious epic Silence (16 Feb), as well as docos from Terrence Malick (Voyage of Time) and Werner Herzog (Lo and Behold). In Australian fare, Cate Shortland’s Berlin Syndrome will return home after a Sundance premiere. But it’s foreign releases (which I caught at festivals this year) that I’m most excited to share: resplendent performances from Sonia Braga in Aquarius and Isabelle Huppert in Things to Come, as well as the unforgettable German comedy-drama Toni Erdmann (Feb), which had me laughing and weeping simultaneously. Fingers crossed there are a few giggles to be found amid the tears when we’re forced to endure The Lego Batman Movie.

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THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

COLLATERAL BEAUTY 

Collateral Beauty mixes pop psychology, genuine heartache, insultingly glib humour, one-note characterisations and some WTF plot turns to create a brackish brew.

It’s simultaneously sickly sweet and unpleasantly bitter, misguided and wrong to its very marrow. A charismatic marketing guru (Will Smith) is depressed since the death of his daughter. To save him from himself – and the business from financial ruin – his partners (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Peña) hire insufferable actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, Jacob Latimore) to portray embodiments of death, love and time. It’s designed to be a kind of existential intervention to help him snap back to reality, confront his grief and recognise the “collateral beauty” that continues to thrive. But in a move director David Frankel clearly considers clever, the actors learn a thing or two from their meddling. The only lesson anyone should derive from Collateral Beauty, however, is to avoid watching or indeed making movies like Collateral Beauty. GUY DAVIS

BALLERINA 

Young orphans Félicie (Elle Fanning) and Victor (Dane DeHaan) have big dreams. He wants to be a great inventor; she’s wants to be a dancer.

But they’re not going to achieve them stuck in an orphanage in Brittany, so they break out and head for Paris.

There, Félicie ends up at the Paris Opera, where caretaker Odette (Carly Rae Jepsen) reluctantly gives her a place to stay. Soon she’s taken on the identity of a spoilt rich girl to audition for a role in The Nutcracker, but with no formal training what chance does she have? A sports story where a talented newcomer triumphs against the odds, some energetic action sequences (mostly involving Victor’s inventions) and a bubbly performance from Fanning keep things from feeling too predictable. The animation in this French-Canadian project is solid without being spectacular; the dance sequences are mostly plausible and down-to-earth (two star dancers at the current Paris Opera were used to help animate the dance sequences), which gives the story real stakes.

ANTHONY MORRIS

CINEMA RELEASE

STREAMING

SMALL SCREENS PETE’S DRAGON 

You have to give Disney kudos for their recycling program. Not content with conquering the world’s box-offices with sub-zero princesses and Polynesian demigods, they are now refreshing their catalogue to introduce a new generation of choc-top munchers to their classics.

Pete’s Dragon was a lesser known 1977 live-action movie that featured a cartoon dragon. Now the fire-breathing basilisk is a whiz-bang CGI creation, complete with kid-friendly fur. The rebooted Pete is a youngster stranded in the forest after his family is killed in a car crash.

Six years later he is found by Bryce Dallas Howard’s ranger-with-aheart-of-gold and she decides to investigate how a boy could survive in such environs. The answer? He met a dragon called Elliot who took him under his impressive wingspan. David Lowery’s family fable should tug at the emotions, but the Spielberg-by-numbers storytelling – despite a charming cast that boasts a wide-eyed Robert Redford and Karl Urban as an evil lumberjack – never soars. DAVID MICHAEL BROWN

THE AVENGERS: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION 

One of the advantages – or curses – of the current era of home entertainment is that if you’re a fan of a show with an established fanbase then re-releases of series you already own with new extra features is a constant possibility. But at least with this collection of classic UK spy adventure series The Avengers (no, not the Marvel superheroes), it seems unlikely you’ll ever have to purchase it again. Collecting all six series from the 60s, most remastered from original elements, this is packed with extras, including commentaries, vintage footage and shorts, a stills gallery, interviews and scripts. The show itself has never looked better, featuring a winningly offbeat mix of spy action, surrealism and – from co-leads Steed (Patrick Macnee) and his female partners – some of the most charming banter ever put on screen. The whole series is a delight, though if the complete box set is a bit steep price-wise, each series is also available separately: the show takes off with Diana Rigg as Mrs Peel in series four and five. ANTHONY MORRIS

ANTHONY MORRIS > Small Screens Editor IS THE GOLDEN age of television drama over? Not

BLU-RAY

STREAMING

With films like Signs and The Sixth Sense, M Night Shyamalan proved himself the master of suspense on the big screen. Now he’s taking his slow-burn approach to serial drama. Season one starred Matt Dillon as an FBI agent who finds himself in the tooperky-to-be-true small town of Wayward Pines investigating the disappearance of two colleagues. After the gradual reveal of the real story behind the town over the course of that season, viewers might feel little was left unsaid. This time around, Jason Patric plays the newcomer who wakes up in the confines of Wayward Pines. Unfortunately this season lacks the hook of learning the town’s secrets along with the protagonist. Previously central characters are hastily written out, and in one notable case, a character disappears without explanation. The fresh talents ably playing new roles largely make up for the missteps with the original cast, though, while the writers valiantly muster up further threats to the town’s residents from both inside and out.

REBECCA DOUGLAS

Coming Up in 2017

really. Commentators have been predicting the end of the current run of smart and serious television since the end of The Sopranos. No matter how much hype a new show gets, a long-running show’s demise will always grab attention. And a lot of long-running shows are winding down, from the never-quite-made-it Masters of Sex to the improved-too-late Halt and Catch Fire. Quiet gems are ending this year, too, like the always astonishing Rectify, while the final, now-filmed-in-Victoria season of HBO’s The Leftovers is on its way. That just leaves more room for new series, whether it’s the much-anticipated adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (starring Elisabeth Moss), Marvel’s latest superhero series Iron Fist, the longawaited Star Trek reboot or Drew Barrymore’s new series The Santa Clarita Diet. A lot of favourites are returning, too, from the reality TV satire of Unreal, to Donald Glover’s outstanding series Atlanta, to more high-profile series like Better Call Saul and Fargo. Game of Thrones will be back

DVD

WAYWARD PINES: SEASON 2 

WESTWORLD: WITH US FOREVER.

mid-year (with only seven episodes), but 18 episodes of allnew Twin Peaks (directed by David Lynch) should more than make up for it. And some things never change: while Western Hell on Wheels finally grinds to a halt, the Wild West lives on in Westworld, which divided critics but was HBO’s biggest hit in years. It seems bad guys wearing black and high-noon shootouts will always be with us.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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MUSIC OCZY MLODY THE FLAMING LIPS 

The Flaming Lips are unlikely survivors, making it through about three psychedelic revivals now.

Under Wayne Coyne The Lips are outlasting many of their contemporaries, albeit with a couple of lineup changes. The latest was the loss of drummer Kliph Scurlock, whose clatter and clang brought chaotic order to Embryonic (2009), one of their better late-period albums. Steven Drozd takes up some slack on Oczy Mlody, but Scurlock’s absence is felt when tinny beats kick in on ‘The Castle’.

Same with the genre-shifting ‘The Galaxy I Sink’, which includes a Spaghetti Western soundtrack and a swelling classical piece, but bookends them with lightweight martial thumping. Oczy Mlody references hip-hop, yet has none of its concern for beats. Otherwise this is by-the-numbers Lips: unicorns and wizards, Coyne lifting his voice in bruised amazement and hippie-dippy lyrics about “legalising it”. On lead single ‘The Castle’ Coyne sings, “the castle can never be rebuilt” and maybe that’s true of the band as well. JODY MACGREGOR BEYONCÉ: REWRITING THE RULES.

SARAH SMITH > Music Editor

Coming Up in 2017

FOLLOWING THE DEATHS of Bowie, Prince, Sharon Jones and Leonard Cohen, it would be easy to write-off 2016 as music’s annus horribilis. But this was also the year in which Beyoncé rewrote the rules on Lemonade, and The Avalanches defied the naysayers with Wildflower. In fact, as the world cracked up, it was music that rose to the top.

How is 2017 possibly going to beat it? Kicking off with Run The Jewels’ RTJ3 (13 Jan) is a good start. Featuring collaborations with Danny Brown and Kamasi Washington, the rap duo’s third LP promises to be their most experimental yet. After a five-year hiatus The xx return with I See You (13 Jan; see review, right), as will Canadian punk-rock duo Japandroids when they drop Near to the Wild Heart of Life in late January. And a decade after reuniting, Scottish trailblazers The Jesus and Mary Chain have confirmed the release of their first album in 18 years, Damage and Joy. Locally, we can expect debuts from Brisbane jangle-pop slackers Dag, and also Sydney folk band All Our Exes Live in Texas. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard will back up a huge 12 months with their ninth album in five years, Flying Microtonal Banana (24 Feb). Thundamentals and Holly Throsby both have new LPs due in February. To top this off, it’s looking likely that 2017 will bring with it long-awaited comeback records from LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire and Gorillaz.

Good riddance, 2016!

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THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

MIGRATION BONOBO 

DJ/producer Simon Green has a longstanding reputation for amorphous mood music that blurs the lines between genres. His sixth album as Bonobo continues to mingle electronic textures and live instruments, adding a handful of guest vocalists for more variety still. The results can border on soothing wallpaper, but the best moments can’t help but grab (and hold) one’s attention: see Rhye’s delicate guest turn on the luminous ‘Break Apart’ and the lush cinematic flourishes on instrumental gems ‘Grains’ and ‘7th Sevens’. Australia’s own Nick Murphy (formerly known as Chet Faker) takes Bonobo’s down-tempo vibe to the club on ‘No Reason’, while lead single ‘Kerala’ stokes a jumpy vibrancy around a low-key Brandy sample. Migrations feels just as global and transitory as its title suggests, flowing through a range of bubbling melodic currents, twinkling ambience and lovely percussive bursts. Its only weakness is a tendency toward cleanness over harsh edges, making some of it too neat by half. DOUG WALLEN

I SEE YOU THE XX 

The latest LP for British minimalists The xx begins with a fanfare: a blast of brass, five notes in total, that heralds the arrival of their third album. On both that opener, ‘Dangerous’, and single ‘On Hold’ the trio – guitarist Romy Madley Croft, bassist Oliver Sim, producer Jamie Smith – deliver double-time beats and sampled joy; Smith’s solo career as Jamie xx trickles into the band. But that fanfare doesn’t set the tone for the whole album. I See You may not be as stark as Coexist (2012), but it’s still a haunted work. “Every beat is a violent noise,” Sim sings mid-album, ill at ease in the club. On ‘Replica’ he laments the repetition of tour. Sim and Croft swap mournful verses about lives on stage and longing for absent lovers. And though Smith brings more samples, bigger synths and restlessness to his production, he still preserves the negative space in which The xx’s music forever exists.

I See You is another bashful shrine to nocturnal loneliness. ANTHONY CAREW VINYL

CD

DOWNLOAD

BOOKS THUY ON > Books Editor THERE IS PLENTY in store for the book world in 2017. Having won 2016’s

Coming Up in 2017

Miles Franklin award for Black Rock White City, AS Patrić returns with a new novel, Atlantic Black. Set in 1939, it takes place over a day and a night and follows the path of 17-year-old Katerina as she travels on an ocean liner from the Panama Canal to Europe. Speaking of the Miles Franklin, multiple winner Kim Scott is back with a new book after a five-year absence, while the perenially short-listed Brian Castro has a new offering, a verse novel this time, Blindness and Rage. Caroline Overington’s The Lucky One is the very on-trend psychological thriller, JM Green has a new crime fiction, Too Easy, while Eva Hornung’s The Last Garden is a historical novel. And The Big Issue’s very own small screens editor Anthony Morris is teaming up with fellow writer Mel Campbell to present a romantic comedy, The Hot Guy. In non-fiction there’s going to be a companion book to Jimmy Barnes’ memoir, JM Coetzee’s Late Essays will hold forth on various Australian authors and funnyman David Sedaris will be revealing his diaries for the first time. Meanwhile, Kate Grenville’s The Case Against Fragrance looks at the perfume industry, while Briohny Doyle surveys the trials of being a millennial. Look out for the big guns, too: John Grisham, Stephen King, Nora Roberts and Janet Evanovich.

GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS 2017 EDITED BY CRAIG GLENDAY AND STEPHEN DAULTREY 

In a time of constant change, it’s reassuring to know this book still exists in heavy hardback form – accompanied, as always, by glossy photos.

The latest version covers the usual categories of sports, science and animals, but there are also intriguing new sections: “Do Try This at Home” and, conversely, “Don’t Try This at Home”. The first category includes random records like most eggs cracked with one hand in one minute (32), and most hula hoops spun simultaneously (200); the latter includes things such as the heaviest road vehicle pulled by teeth (a 13,713 kilogram bus), and highest bungee jump into water while on fire (65.09 metres). Made for casual flipping, the joy of poring through this compendium is discovering some of the weird things about our world and the people in it. Reactions will vary between genuine amazement (most ice-scream scoops balanced on a cone – 121) and shocked disbelief (longest duration balancing a chainsaw on the chin – 1 min 42.47). THUY ON

KILL THE NEXT ONE FEDERICO AXAT 

Ted McKay is moments away from pulling the trigger of the gun pressed to his head when his doorbell rings, and he is faced with an intriguing proposal: become part of a suicidal daisy chain. In exchange for killing two men who deserve to die, he will be killed in turn, leaving his family to grieve a victim of random violence rather than a suicide. But all is not as it seems, and Ted’s already fragile mind begins to crack as Axat’s relentless narrative drives him over the edge of a twisting mountain trail, dodging first this way then that, with the reader pulled along down into the darkness. A psychological thriller of the first order, Axat’s work is reminiscent of Umberto Eco at his best, though with a morbid underbelly that is entirely its own. With translations into 33 languages, and a film deal already signed, Kill the Next One marks the arrival of an astonishing new author on the world stage. CRAIG BUCHANAN PRINT

E-BOOK

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED EDITED BY MICHAELA McGUIRE AND MARIEKE HARDY 

Signed, Sealed, Delivered is the seventh anthology from the Women of Letters.

Consisting of letters read at their monthly all-female show, and at their Men of Letters and People of Letters events, the collection is an entertaining and insightful assortment from some of Australia’s most interesting minds. Lisa Dempster, the director of Melbourne Writers Festival, delivers a powerful letter; Melbourne DJ Whiskey Houston reflects with hilarious honesty on the time she just knew who she was; writers Bob Ellis and Anne Brooksbank speak to each other as they near the end of their journey together. Reading letters originally delivered verbally to an audience creates a new dynamic. Some have big messages that hit home and a few have big agendas that seem forced – which raises the question: what is lost and gained by reading privately what was once performed? Above anything, the vulnerability and intimacy shared connects the reader to the writer, but more broadly to the human condition. SAMANTHA JONES THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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LOOK UP STOP LISTENING. STOP watching. Stop the noise. Stop shopping. Stop working. Stop planning. Stop the to-do list. Stop the feedback. Stop second-guessing.

Unclench. Drop your shoulders. Don’t hurry. Don’t read the comments. Pause. Everything is going to be okay. And even if it isn’t: pause. For one moment, think of just one little good thing and hold onto it.

Like that thing where you can’t speak because you’re laughing too hard but you’re not sure if you’re laughing at the original thing or if you’re laughing at the fact that you’re laughing…then you make the mistake of looking at the person you’re laughing with and it’s hopeless and oxygen preservation is all your body can deal with for a good three minutes, then for the next 10 minutes every now and then you do a little recovery laugh or a laugh-sigh and life is absurd and excellent for a bit.

Or that moment when you suddenly look up while walking a well-worn route and see something new or something you had never noticed. Someone on a top-floor balcony. A bird.

An ornate architrave. The sky. (What even is the sky? I mean, obviously it’s the atmosphere and stuff, but check it out! It’s been up there your whole life, changing colour and throwing water at you and what have you ever done for it?)

Or how sometimes the words “Excuse me? I think this is yours?” can reverse a really average life subplot. Like when they are delivered alongside your own humiliatingly familiar, somehow revealing and embarrassing wallet.

Or how babies sit up really straight, their posture perfect and hopeful and strong – usually with a delightful back-ofhead fluff explosion that undermines the devout seriousness of their expression.

Or how birds do that sideways head thing where they look all human and you find yourself wanting to say “You right there?” and then you remember it’s a bird and you feel like an idiot and that kind of makes you like the bird more.

Or the way a chilled glass beads and sparkles when the sun is belting through it.

Or bare feet in the grass.

Or the feeling of rising to the surface after that first dip in the sea – it’s just you, grinning, suddenly, silently, inside your own head. You’re ageless. You’re unattached. You smell

of sunscreen and salt. You’re realising there’s a strong chance you forgot your towel.

Or a really delicious, ludicrously complicated salad – made by somebody else.

Or the sound of cutlery clinking on plates and bowls from high-up balconies and low-lying backyards on a hot night: a classic summer symphony.

Or a dramatic moment in the cricket, overheard from a parked car whose inhabitants are listening, feet on the dashboard, leaning towards the sound like a cat pre-pounce.

Or an ongoing, slowly developing in-joke with a local barista.

Or those words just for the summer that you can’t say without an Australian accent: Grouse! Cicadas! Jacaranda!

Or the silly truth that cupcakes become posh when they’re on a kind of three-tiered stage.

Or the feeling of losing yourself, two hours at a time, in movies or plays or galleries – your mind dipping and diving on a new trajectory, pausing other information like where you parked the car and whether or not you’re going to get that thing done for work by Friday.

Also lovely: Rows of things! Plants, lights, buttons, books, people dancing in formation. There’s something about the order of it that makes you feel sorted. Let it feed your subconscious.

The cool change.

Sleeping beneath a sheet.

A surprise drift through the edge of a well-placed sprinkler in a park.

Watermelon with mint.

How the tiny lines in leaves look like a map of rivers from the sky, which looks like a spider’s web, which looks like the path a bug makes across the young bark of a tree, which looks like a hand-written note.

They’re all there. The small lovely things. They persist when everything is hot and terrible. So hold onto them for a moment. Take off your shoes in the grass. Look up.

» Lorin Clarke (@lorinimus) is a Melbourne-based writer and co-host of the Stupidly Small Podcast.

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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PUZZLES

2016/7 - Puzzle 8

JUST THE FACTS (AND ONE LIE) ABOUT… KINGS

Can you find the lie among the truths?

1 There have been many “kings” in music. Elvis Presley was called the King of Rock’n’Roll, Michael Jackson was the King of Pop and James Brown was the King of Soul.

2 There are many countries that are ruled by kings, including Sweden, Belgium, Jordan and Lesotho.

3 Billie Jean King is a legendary tennis player who won 39 grand slam titles.

In 1973, she beat male tennis player Bobby Riggs in a match that was known as “The Battle of the Sexes”.

4 Inge King was a sculptor, who died in 2016. Her best-known work is Forward Surge, which stands outside the Melbourne Arts Centre.

5 The “king” of Australian TV was Graham Kennedy. His screen career spanned an astounding 37 years.

by Michael Weldon James Brown is known as the Godfather of Soul.

Answer: No 1. While the first two are indisputable,

2016/7 - Puzzle 7

SOLUTIONS #527 ADDER’S COIL

BY LINGO! LOVE In tennis, love means nothing. There’s a common tale that this is an anglicisation of the French l’oeuf (egg) because a score of zero looks like an egg.

Such satisfying stories are rarely true. The sense of love as “no score” in various games goes back to at least 1742. It most likely comes from the sense of playing “for love”, that is, for no stakes, which dates back to at least the 1670s. But the true story can, sometimes, be the wacky one; the similarity between zero and an egg is exactly where the cricketing duck comes from. In the 1860s schoolboy cricket players referred to a zero score as a duck’s egg, which was later shortened to a duck.

by Lauren Gawne (superlinguo.com)

ADDER’S COIL

by Wylie Ideas wylieideas.com.au

HOW TO PLAY Place a number in each empty square to make a path through squares of the grid following the numbers 1 to 9 in order, repeated as many times as necessary.

After 9, start again with 1.

The path tracks through adjacent squares horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally, to form a continuous loop that does not cross itself, split or reach a dead-end at any point.

Solution next edition!

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THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

CROSSWORD » by Siobhan Linde 1

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CRYPTIC CLUES

CARTOON BY (TOP RIGHT) ANDREW WELDON; (TOP LEFT) MICHAEL WELDON

ACROSS

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Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas

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1. Demolished our temple to find fuel (9) 2. Appeared to lock man into higher degree? (7) 3. Consuming roasted giant tortoise’s tail for starters (6) 4. In secret, he met those people (4) 5. Found new videos when drinking cold wine (10) 6. Endures most awful aches but loses energy (8) 7. Buttrose meets pin-up from Europe (7) 8. Rigid back (5) 13. Criminal arrested, held in and handcuffed (10) 16. Divided squash, pear and dates (9) 17. Company vehicles carried fashionable 23-across guests (8) 19. Weird stones, garnets (7) 21. Energy company has no money, outwardly displaying thrift (7) 22. Mamma removed jacket, wearing her best (6) 23. 14-across told stories… (5) 25. …about crossing the Sahara; starts book? (4)

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QUICK CLUES ACROSS

1. Showed (9) 6. Twirls (5) 9. Cinema (7) 10. Warehouse space (7) 11. Instruments (6) 12. Spot (8) 14. Finishes (4) 15. Rings (10) 18. Deadly insects (10) 20. Maintain (4) 23. Final stop (8) 24. Work (6) 26. Lamp (7) 27. Soothe (7) 28. Stairs (5) 29. Ruined (9)

DOWN

Art Direction & Design Gozer (gozer.com.au) CONTRIBUTORS Film Editor Rebecca Harkins-Cross Small Screens Editor Anthony Morris Music Editor Sarah Smith

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The answers for the cryptic and quick clues are the same.

1. Introduced Dotty, Peter and 14-across (9) 6. Twirls Saint Nick around (5) 9. Eat with Romeo in the cinema (7) 10. Put on or put in warehouse?

(7) 11. Liver and kidney, perhaps, or sausage turnover (6) 12. Spot big cat biting old cat (8) 14. Finishes hems of eleven dresses (4) 15. Elopes, then tosses rings (10) 18. Islamic leader to visit mosque with first of several flyers (10) 20. Look around house (4) 23. The Grampians: frequently a lepidopterist’s first and final stop (8) 24. Leaders left after buying our work (6) 26. Learnt about Northern Light (7) 27. Ease into sitcom for television (7) 28. Walks in grassy plains, reportedly (5) 29. Razed southern Greek city in action film (9)

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Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink

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Deputy Editor Katherine Smyrk

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EDITORIAL Editor Amy Hetherington

1. Fuel (9) 2. Appeared (7) 3. Consuming (6) 4. Those people (4) 5. Found (10) 6. Endures (8) 7. European (7) 8. Grave (5) 13. Checked (10) 16. Divorced (9) 17. Affairs (8) 19. Unfamiliar (7) 21. Thrift (7) 22. Beat (6) 23. Stories (5) 25. Behaves (4)

Books Editor Thuy On Cartoonists Andrew Weldon Michael Weldon Zev Landes ENQUIRIES Advertising & Subscriptions Contact Jenny on (03) 9663 4533 jennylabrooy@bigissue.org.au subscribe@bigissue.org.au Editorial Tel (03) 9663 4522 editorial@bigissue.org.au The Big Issue, GPO Box 4911, Melbourne, VIC 3001 thebigissue.org.au © 2017 Big Issue In Australia Ltd All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

PUBLISHED BY Big Issue In Australia Ltd (ABN 61 071 598 439) 227 Collins St Melbourne VIC 3000

PEFC/xx-xx-xx

PRINTER Offset Alpine 42 Boorea St Lidcombe NSW 2141

SOLUTIONS #527 ANSWERS TO CROSSWORD ACROSS: 1.Pioneer; 5.Fastens; 9.Wifi venue; 10.Rural; 11.Sororal; 12.Graphic; 13.Canines; 14.Ties cut; 16.Upstart; 19.Balfour; 21.Theatre; 23.Succeed; 25.Opine; 26.Epicurean; 27.Network; 28.Reentry DOWN: 1.Pawns; 2.Offerings; 3.Environ; 4.Rankles; 5.Freight; 6.Surname; 7.Earth; 8.Solicitor; 13.Countdown; 15.Close vent; 17.Art deco; 18.The Jerk; 19.Bustier; 20.Lecture; 22.Exist; 24.Dandy

THE BIG ISSUE 13 – 26 JAN 2017

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CLICK WORDS BY MICHAEL EPIS » PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY

Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher, 1972

CARRIE FISHER’S CHILDHOOD birthday

parties were held in the lot of MGM Studios, where her mother, Debbie Reynolds, made films – except on Friday afternoons, when she took time to lead her daughter’s Girl Scouts group.

It sounds wonderful, but having a famous parent is never easy. Fisher had two – her father was Eddie Fisher, who sold more singles in the early 1950s than anyone. He and Reynolds were the Brangelina of their era – then he left her for her best friend, Elizabeth Taylor, when Carrie was two. These days, Fisher is a footnote in the lives of these remarkable women. When he released a tell-all memoir, Carrie said, “That’s it. I’m having my DNA fumigated.”

Carrie Fisher was destined for stardom, achieving it in 1977’s Star Wars, even if it was not always her desire. “I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter,” she told Oprah when mother and daughter appeared on her show in 2011.

Fisher paid the price. She started smoking marijuana in the hippie era, coke-binged her way through Hollywood, descending the drug tunnel to heroin and painkillers. By the early 80s, aged 28, she was in rehab, suffering bipolar disorder.

But her nearest-death experience came from almost choking on a brussel sprout, which Blues Brothers co-star Dan Aykroyd removed with a Heimlich manoeuvre.

Hard as it was on her, it was harder on her mother, who lived with the fear that the ringing phone would bring news of her daughter’s death. “I always feel, as a mother does, that I protect her. Who will do that when I’m gone?” Reynolds asked Oprah. That moment never came. When Fisher died on 27 December after a midflight heart attack, her mother followed within 24 hours, just after telling her son Todd, “I want to be with Carrie”.

Throughout all, Carrie Fisher retained perspective. “Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time. Eventually all things will disappear,” she said.

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