‘Australiana’ 30 years on
How much can a Koala bear? If you have the stomach for it watch Austen Tayshus’s ‘Australiana’.
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My mate, Boomer, rang. Will Walla be there? Vegie might come. Let’s go, Anna. Only if Din goes. Nulla bores me.

Thirty years ago it was the nation’s best-selling Australian single. It may still be. Now Austen Tayshus has re-released ‘Australiana’ and its clip to coincide with its 30th anniversary.

Gone is the stand-up, replaced by rapid fire images of wombats, koalas, place signs and buxom barmaids where possible. Blokes in undies too. If it was politically incorrect the first time, he has failed to disappoint the second.

First released in 1983, the single was originally banned in Victoria for the B-side track ‘The Comedy Commando
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Tayshus told the Herald: “I certainly have been very lucky to have had ‘Australiana’ as my first hit. It made me famous all over Australia and the Carpathian mountains.”

Tayshus continues to tour – “Shaking up audiences, upsetting and unsettling them is so satisfying,” he says.

Asked if he had dined out on one song for 30 years, he replied: “Many of my friends have dined out on it too.”

Seriously, he has not been sitting idle since the ’80s. “I made a record for the Bicentennial in 1988, entitled ‘Highway Corroboree’ which charted, not as high as ‘Australiana’, which poked fun at white Australia and celebrated the great humour of the Aboriginal people.”

He hopes the new clip, on which he collaborated with Eduardo Guelfenbein and Marcello Cura, will introduce the single to a younger audience.

Austen Tayshus appears at Club Dural on June 8 and the Chatswood Club on July 5. Tickets at Moshtix

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australiana-with-a-21st-century-twist-20130516-2jo2s.html#ixzz2ToOnFwUn

Ross Fitzgerald (April 29) is right. We must have change in higher education and the issue is wider than just the role of regional universities.

We have created too many universities and (surprise) government provides insufficient funding, forcing them all into dependence on international students where pursuit of the “market” competes unhealthily with the pursuit of excellence.

The smart answer for Australia in the fiercely competitive Asian environment in which we live is to abandon pursuit of numbers, to focus on quality and give universities sufficient funding to do this. This would make them more sought after precisely because of their selectivity and focus on excellence. It would require that restructuring Ross Fitzgerald writes about, and more.
Stephen FitzGerald
Surry Hills

Tough choices benefit regional education

Professor Ross Fitzgerald is spot on – sustainable budgets for education require tough choices. The Dawkins reforms of the late 1980’s are past their use-by-date.

Regional vice – chancellors are not small business people standing on their own two feet, they are costly public sector positions.

I agree with Ross Fitzgerald: the university sector will benefit from some heavy pruning of VC’s.

In regional Australia, my kids need efficiently resourced schools and university campuses more than they need VC’s.

David Mazoudier
Nambucca Heads

The Daily Telegraph, May 1 2013 p 26

Professor Ross Fitzgerald and CQUniversity Vice Chancellor Scott Bowman discuss how the university could be improved. Allan Reinikka

PROFESSOR Ross Fitzgerald has made a trip to Rockhampton after penning a critical article about regional universities, including CQUniversity.

The well-known academic went on the offensive in an article for the Canberra Times, stating it’d be more efficient to restructure the tertiary education sector with fewer regional universities.

He also suggested having fewer vice chancellors as a way to save money.

CQUniversity Vice Chancellor Scott Bowman took this as an opportunity to invite Prof Fitzgerald to the campus. Prof Fitzgerald hadn’t set foot at the campus before yesterday. “I was impressed with the invitation … I’m quite open-minded.

“I didn’t know about the TAFE merger. I thought that was forward thinking for the uni.”

Meanwhile Prof Bowman didn’t shy away from Prof Fitzgerald’s criticisms in the article.

“Everyone has an opinion,” he said.

“It’s easy to see figures on paper and say they don’t look good, but you need to sit down and explain where money has gone and that we just underwent a refurbishment.

“Prof Fitzgerald has seen everything, all the books are open to him.”

The Bulletin (Rockhampton) 24 Apr 2013 p 4 & The Gladstone Observer 24 April 2013

Australia, May 2016. The Coalition has been in government for three years. Cardinal Tony Abbott is Prime Minister and honorary Archbishop of Warringah.

Malcolm Turnbull, bleeding-heart liberal and no-longer-just-suspected-communist, is the leader of the Labor Party. Julia Gillard has left politics and married Tim Mathieson, who turned out not to be gay. They have adopted two Indonesian orphans. Julia works as a speechwriter/janitor for the new AWU. Julie Bishop has also left politics and become an ophthalmologist. Joe Hockey is Treasurer and weighs 400 kilos. Barnaby Joyce is deputy prime minister and John Howard (not the actor) is governor-general. George Pell has been arrested for vote tampering in the recent papal election. Journalist David Marr received a life sentence for treason for his Quarterly Essay, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. He is interred in Gulag 17 on Christmas Island.

Work Choices has made a big comeback. Now known as Work Choice – Or Else. The carbon and mining taxes are now administered by Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. The rich are getting richer and the boats just keep coming. Nauru is home to 500,000 refugees, who live in the most appalling conditions known to man or David Marr. Nobody seems to care.

Animosity between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition has escalated to open violence, with Turnbull’s witty repartee proving no match for Abbott’s devastating left-right combinations. It’s just like the old days.

You see, I was at university with Tony Abbott in the 1970s. This was before he became a surf lifesaver, theologian, skydiver, botanist, volunteer firefighter, bouncer, cardiologist, and newsagent. It seemed that every club I joined on campus, whether it was the photography club or the chess society, or even the sewing club, the president was Tony Abbott. Nobody else ever got a chance at the top job. Abbott was always elected unopposed. I remember him punching walls when he didn’t get his way … or when he did. Etched in my mind is the time he became president of the Bare Knuckle Boxing and Ayn Rand Appreciation Society. I can never forget watching TA shadowbox while reciting Rand’s love poetry. (OK, I’m joking about all that except the bit about the fact we were both at Sydney University in the 1970s.)

In 2010, I stood against him in the seat of Warringah as a candidate for the Australian Sex Party. He seemed to be deeply concerned that I had drawn No.1 on the ballot paper. Silly old Tone, he needn’t have worried. In the end, I was badly beaten. I also lost the election.

Renowned for his not-up-to-date attitudes towards homosexuality, Abbott regards marriage between a man and a woman to be the only true test of unhappiness. It seems to me, that even if your religion forbids it, the inevitability of gay marriage is something all politicians need to consider. It’s going to happen no matter what Pope Schwarzenegger says. The inflexibility of the conservative mindset on this and other issues should have been a good indicator of how they would govern. When Turnbull gets out of hospital from the right hook injury inflicted by Abbott, I hope he continues to fight for gay rights.

In the 1980s, when the Bjelke-Petersen regime reigned supreme in Queensland, I was arrested with other comedians for using ”obscene language in a public place”. To wit: I was charged and convicted many times. One magistrate labelled my act ”the filthy, disgusting ravings of a mindless and depraved human being”. This in a state where almost all the politicians were later found to be corrupt. My crime? Swearing. My real crime? Satirising conservative zealots. Geez, it’s like I was David Marr or something.

This used to be the Lucky Country. We had everything, including an open-minded attitude and an enviable indifference to xenophobia. Janitor Gillard made mistakes, but she had the interest of the working class at heart. She was for better education, and I’ve even heard it said that she thought that some children could attain employment outside of the mining industry. Boy, that seems a faraway, dirty communist dream now in 2016.

Under a Coalition government we have returned to the dullness and the responsibility of the Howard model. Business trumps society and public statues of B.A. Santamaria now outnumber gum trees. Prime Minister Rabbit has blended into the beige background of his parliamentary offices. Campbell Newman’s Queensland government looks positively socialist by comparison. Lovers of the arts and opponents of xenophobia and social injustice are throwing themselves off cliffs, or are being pushed. I myself have applied to operate one of the new Australian Customs and Border Protection’s Muslim Detector Vans. It’s not comedy, but it’s a living.

Comedian Austen Tayshus (Sandy Gutman) is performing this month as part of his 30th Anniversary of Australiana National Tour. His biography ‘Austen Tayshus:Merchant of Menace’ is written by Ross Fitzgerald & Rick Murphy.

The Canberra Times & The Sydney Morning Herald, April 18, 2013, p 29

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. I will be running against anyone who stands in the way of a progressive, liberal and compassionate society. As the September election nears, I may have to narrow my target somewhat.

My credentials are well known. In 2010 I ran against federal opposition leader Mr Rabbit in his electorate of Warringah. I was with the Australian Sex Party, a civil rights organisation with a somewhat misunderstood though not entirely incorrect reputation. The contest was close … very close. I demanded a recount, and received 2200 votes. Abbott got 55,000. I couldn’t understand it. After all, I had campaigned in the budgie smugglers, and from time to time completely naked. We even erected the “Abbott Proof Fence” around the entire electorate, but as with the Australian coastline, we couldn’t keep the unwanted out.

Denied my rightful place in the House of Representatives, I returned to the barren wasteland of clubs and pubs and theatres around Australia.

Politics is a seductive mistress, however, and I feel the lure of her siren song. This year I will be taking on Dr No once again. I have learnt many valuable lessons and will be applying them to a more successful campaign this time around. But this is not Italy, and Tony Abbott is not Silvio Berlusconi. The two men are as different as chalk and Cheezels. One dyes his hair and treats women as inferior objects. The other is an Italian billionaire.

Julia Gillard is definitely not on my hit list. Sure, she formed an alliance to topple Kevin Rudd. Granted, she delivers speeches conceived by grey, faceless bureaucrats. True, she is a suburban lawyer prone to lust for power. However, unlike a lot of politicians, there is a sense that Julia could break free one day, that somewhere deep down there is that OTHER Julia who could unshackle herself in the next term and become the Robyn Hood of Australian folklore, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Yes, that’s it! A sort of direct opponent to the Liberal Party, whose motto is “squeeze the poor so that the rich might one day feel a little more comfortable”. So far, the Prime Minister has been let off the chain just once, and look at what happened. Thanks to Julia, young Australians now know that Misogyny is not just a death metal band from Sweden.

Right now the knives are out for the PM, and they are flying in from every conceivable direction: from the Murdoch press, to Fairfax Media, to her own party. The coalition parties, who can taste power like a shark tastes blood, are promulgating the hate, and it’s infectious. Even progressive commentators, who grew up with posters of Trotsky and Che Guevara on their bedroom walls (remember that?) are lining up to sink the Battleship Julia Potemkin. Labor is on the nose, and NSW Labor is a rotting fish.

And now for the conservative viewpoint. She lied about the carbon tax. Imagine that, a politician deceiving the electorate. It’s unthinkable! It just goes to show what an unmarried, childless woman will do if she is given an inch of power. We’d be better off with Julie Bishop. Now there’s a chick you can count on. Not for Julie any of this namby-pamby NDIS rubbish, or mining taxes, or outrageous gun-to-the-head-of-business-carbon tax. Our Julie will do whatever it takes to hang Julia with her own parliament and install Tony as Sheriff of Nottingham. The Coalition understands that economics is more important than life itself. What about the arts and sciences and education, I hear you ask? Don’t make me laugh with your weak Guevara posters.

And now, back to the criminally socialist perspective. It’s now or never Prime Minister. Unleash the dogs of socialist hell before it’s too late. Mining magnates are paying almost one cent in the dollar tax. Why don’t we make it 2 per cent, whadya’ reckon? Take a leaf out of Vladimir Putin’s book. He listened to the complaints of Russian mining oligarchs. He listened very closely, and then he took their companies and turned them into state ventures. Now, I’m not saying we should do that to Twiggy and Gina and Clive. Communism doesn’t work, never has. But, by god, it would be great to see the look on their faces, wouldn’t it?

Make the move now Julia or the battle is shot. We’ll have Tony as PM, Barnaby Drudge as deputy sheriff, and John Howard (not the actor) as Governor-General. Malcolm Everywhere, the member for Wentworth, is the only Liberal Party candidate who doesn’t like strangling kittens as a way of improving the economy. As a weak-willed suspected leftie, he will end up with a minor ministerial portfolio and be fitted with a 24-hour-a-day muzzle, a la Hannibal Lector. And it will be ALL YOUR FAULT JULIA.

Austen Tayshus is a comedian.

For PA2, Marr interviewed at least one prominent (non-Catholic) Australian commentator who spoke favourably of what Tony Abbott would be like as prime minister if the Coalition wins the September 2013 election. But the person is not quoted or even mentioned in the author’s second edition. Instead David Marr found a new source who is critical of Abbott. Namely former Liberal Party leader – and long time Liberal Party critic – John Hewson.

Media Watch Dog, April 12 2013

Professor David Battersby’s letter to the editor (April 4, p12) shows just how right Ross Fitzgerald (”Regional conundrum: slash universities, keep the campuses”, March 28, p15) is to highlight the conundrum of loss-making regional universities: too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

A pertinent example that Professor Battersby does not mention is this week’s decision by Central Queensland University to wind up C Management Services at the expense of at least 100 teaching and support jobs.

This loss-making, non-Commonwealth funded enterprise was able to sign long-term leases on its rented metropolitan campuses only because payment is guaranteed by government.

David Mazoudier, Nambucca Heads, NSW

The Canberra Times, 6 April 2013

Ross Fitzgerald’s exaggerated and satirical opinion piece (”Regional conundrum: slash universities, keep the campuses”, March 28, p15) might have been better run on April 1. According to Fitzgerald the way to effect real savings and to create sustained structural reform is to have fewer regional universities and fewer vice-chancellors.

For Fitzgerald every regional university in Australia is equivalent to a taxpayer-funded fiefdom. Economies of scale would be achieved by dethroning the vice-chancellors at regional universities. While Fitzgerald advocates the importance of the market in driving reform, he then suggests a rationale for placing controls over regional universities. Had Fitzgerald researched his piece a little better he would have quickly realised the vision for a national university for regional Australia, emanating from the Bradley Review, was unachievable and unrealistic. Fitzgerald highlights the activities of the Regional Universities Network (RUN) indicating that it has got some things right in its advocacy of government. But he suggests RUN needs to be more proactive and champion what he calls ”real change” at regional universities. This is occurring. The RUN Accord, signed off last year, facilitates collaboration across regional universities in learning and teaching, research, international activities and support functions. One aim is to boost the range of courses available to regional students by pooling teaching resources.

Course units available at one university are offered via distance education and online delivery to others, broadening the scope of offerings available in a cost effective manner. Fitzgerald is clearly unaware of this, even though this information is available on the Regional Universities Network website.

Collaboration on research and the pooling of resources and expertise among the regional universities and with their metropolitan partner universities is now commonplace and widely lauded as a great success. If Fitzgerald had bothered he would have also seen that at each of the regional universities there were significant examples of non-Commonwealth funded enterprises creating jobs and producing wealth for the regions.

Professor David Battersby, chairman of the Regional Universities Network and vice-chancellor of the University of Ballarat.

The Canberra Times, 4 April 2013

ROSS Fitzgerald’s piece on indigenous education in the Northern Territory fails to address the fundamental challenge – teacher recruitment (“Giving indigenous children access to education should be a bipartisan priority”, 30-31/3).

Until federal funding supports the employment of experienced and competent teachers, and provides them with incentives to remain in remote communities for at least three years, the situation is unlikely to improve.

Boarding is not the answer. The provision of culturally appropriate residential supervision and support in remote settings 24 hours hours a day, seven days a week, is just too hard.

Bob Teasdale, Penneshaw, SA

‘The Australian’, April 3, 2013 p 11

The 1983 hit comedy single, written by Billy Birmingham and performed by Sydney comedian Austen Tayshus (real name Sandy Gutman) enshrines every iconic Aussie reference you could ever think of.

Some of the lines are now classics:
Sittin’ at home last Sunday mornin’ me mate Boomerang, said he was havin’ a few people around for a barbie, said he might kookaburra or two “Do you wanna Goanna?” She said “I’ll go if Dingos.”
“Now, I don’t like to speak Illawarra, but I was shocked. I mean how much can a koala bear?”

This year marks the 30th anniversary of ‘Australiana’ and Sandy Gutman, aka Austen Tayshus, is still touring and ‘Australiana’ is still part of his act.
“I was in Queensland not that long ago and I performed it on North Stradbroke Island and at the Currumbin RSL,” Gutman says.
“It still works although I do it differently now, I deliver it the same way that a race caller calls a race, so it’s pretty fast.”

It propelled Gutman’s stage persona, Austen Tayshus, into the national psyche and he’s still there, though perhaps a little forgotten.
He likes provoking audiences and is particularly successful at doing that in north Queensland where he was once knocked out on stage.

He’s an Aussie treasure according to historian and author Professor Ross Fitzgerald, who co-wrote the 2011 book ‘Austen Tayshus: Merchant of Menace’. “I think Austen Tayshus is Australia’s most talented comedian and ‘Australiana’ was the biggest selling Australian single ever,” Fitzgerald says. “He’s quite subversive and was once arrested and thrown off a cruise ship for insulting the captain.”

But he’s always on a winner with ‘Australiana’ and, when he tours Queensland again in August, audiences will lap it up as usual.
austentayshus.com

‘The Sunday Mail’ (Brisbane) 31 March 2013