- Saturday 18 May 2013
- My Account
- Logout
- Register
- Login
- News
-
Voices
-
Find by writer
- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
- Rebecca Armstrong
- Memphis Barker
- Terence Blacker
- Chris Blackhurst
- David Blanchflower
- Archie Bland
- Ian Burrell
- Andrew Buncombe
- Ben Chu
- Patrick Cockburn
- Laura Davis
- Mary Dejevsky
- Grace Dent
- Robert Fisk
- Andrew Grice
- Philip Hensher
- Ian Herbert
- Howard Jacobson
- Ellen E Jones
- Alice Jones
- Owen Jones
- Emily Jupp
- Simon Kelner
- Dominic Lawson
- Donald Macintyre
- Lisa Markwell
- Comment
- Campaigns
- Debate
- Editorials
- Letters
- IV Drip
- Archive
- Our Voices
- Commentators
- Columnists
- Democracy 2015
- IV Drip Archive
-
Find by writer
- Sport
- Tech
- Life
- Property
- Arts & Ents
- Travel
- Money
- IndyBest
- Blogs
- Student
Sunday 2 August 1998
Sydney Diary: Of water bugs and taxi bubbles
Robert Millken's Sydney Diary
Labor's grand veterans had gathered for the launch of a biography of their successor, Kim Beazley. Mr Beazley is the leader of the Labor Party opposition and, if opinion polls are any guide, he could be Australia's next prime minister. He is also a mate of Tony Blair, whom he met when he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Indeed, Mr Blair has given his friend's biography a leg up by writing its foreword on Downing Street letterhead.
"Even at university, Kim was streets ahead in terms of political savvy and intellect," Mr Blair writes. "Later, as I was still struggling to get on in the Labour Party, he made huge efforts to help me with advice, friendship and encouragement." For his part, Mr Beazley tells his biographer, journalist Peter FitzSimons, a former Wallaby rugby player, that Mr Blair once told him at Chequers: "Kim, I cannot believe that I am Prime Minister of Britain".
It may not be riveting stuff, but timing is everything in politics. Beyond a reputation for brightness and decency, Kim Beazley is still largely unknown to Australians. With the country on election countdown, and with disenchantment with the incumbent government mounting, HarperCollins, the publishers, have seized the moment.
ELECTION countdowns are nothing compared to the Olympics countdown that seems to rule daily life in Sydney. The host city of the 2000 Olympics is busy rebuilding and preening itself. So the city's four million people were brought up with a shudder last week when they were told that their water supply was polluted with parasites called Giardia and Cryptosporidium, and that they could no longer drink it unless they boiled it first.
Wait a minute. Isn't this the city that boasted it would stage the world's first truly "green" Olympics? And whose water company, Sydney Water, bragged that its product was so pure you could bottle it? Yes, it is, and you can imagine the blow to the city's ego that the unprecedented crisis caused. By Friday, Sydney seemed like a city besieged. At my local coffee shop, the Tropicana, which serves some of the best coffee in Sydney, they had turned off the water supply. At the supermarket, people made a run on the mineral water. Cats and dogs were declared to be as much at risk as their owners from drinking tap water. Newspapers published survival guides, splashed headlines like "CONTAMINATED" across front pages and drew maps showing the parasites invading from the west and engulfing the entire city, from Palm Beach in the north to Botany Bay in the south.
The authorities located the source of the bugs in a state-of-the-art filtration plant and announced that the war would be won in 48 hours. But all this is the last thing Sydney's Olympics' planners need, not to mention the rest of us who have been taking the sort of precautions normally confined to holidays in Third World countries. I couldn't help wondering what the New Zealanders made of it all. Sydney was so smug when Auckland's electricity supply collapsed a few months ago, but now I bet the Kiwis are laughing.
WHEN THEY get the water sorted, the authorities should turn their attention to Sydney's taxis. Getting around one of the world's most liveable cities by cab should be a laid-back affair, but my stress levels rise every time I step into one. Nowadays, many drivers speak little or no English, and you have to direct them to most destinations. Then they insist on playing radio phone-ins fortissimo from speakers located just behind your ear. And now, they are getting bubbles installed to protect themselves from an alarming increase in knife attacks.
The transparent, knifeproof bubbles are so bulky that they take over the whole cab, and they have killed the national, egalitarian habit of sitting up front with the cabbie. Only a midget could fit in the front seat now. All very un-Australian.
CAN PEOPLE have the same status as objects? The National Trust of Australia, whose task is to conserve heritage buildings and landscapes, thinks they can. It has compiled a list of 100 people whom it has declared the country's "Living National Treasures". Predictably, sporting heroes feature strongly - 15 in all - but they are outnumbered by 33 cultural icons, including Barry Humphries and Germaine Greer. And what has happened in the nine months since, with great fanfare, the list was announced? Very little. Like the Great Barrier Reef and the Sydney Opera House, they just go on being there.
-
Gove’s lesson: spare the comma, spoil the child
Mark Steel -
The Oxford sex ring shows how the sexual manners of a new place can be tragically misinterpreted
Philip Hensher -
The penis size study: How do British men fare?
Laura Davis -
The Daily Cartoon
-
It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking's Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more
Howard Jacobson
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Visit York
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
ROBERT MILLIKEN
Related Articles
Get the best in opinion from Independent Voices, straight to your inbox every Thursday lunchtime.
Subscribe
Amol Rajan
A weekly update from the Editor
iJobs General
PHP/ Drupal Developer - £35k - WC
£30000 - £40000 per annum + BENS: Progressive Recruitment: Drupal Developer A ...
C# WEB DEVELOPER
£45000 - £50000 per annum + bens: Progressive Recruitment: C# WEB DEVELOPER Le...
WPF Developer (C#, VB.Net) - North East - 6 Months
£240 - £260 per day: Progressive Recruitment: WPF Developer (C#, VB.Net) North...
KS2 PPA teacher
£85 - £120 per day: Randstad Education Cheshire: KS2 teacher needed to do PPA ...
Day In a Page
The price of pacifism
Jason Isaacs: Groupies, theatre bores and James Bond
Sealand: 'Micronation' or illegal fortress?
One man returns to Argentina's town that drowned
Gordon Ramsay's worst nightmare: A restaurant he cannot save
Why bitters are back on the bar
The 10 Best barbecues
