Writing

Featured Articles

A selection of my recently published work.

Theatre review: The 20s, and All That Dissonance

In The 20s, and All That Dissonance, revered cabaret performer Meow Meow weaves a masterful narration around the relationships between the social and aesthetic discord and breakdown in the early 20th Century.

From the beginning of the first act she frames the history, making a point about the year 1922. It is no coincidence she is marking the 100th anniversary of this era. All the components of the show – the poetry which dissolves language, the historical details, and the shattering tonalities

Million-dollar injection to treat region's nursing aches

Minister for Training and Skills Gayle Tierney said the funding would create state-of-the-art training facilities for up to 160 students enrolled in South West TAFE's diploma of nursing.


Minister Tierney said some equipment had already arrived in preparation for the 2023 year and would help entice students to stay in the region.

"We need our young people here in a critical mass so we have strong capability and capacity in our regional towns and cities.

"...We need young people in particula

'Grey army' flocks to city's aged care sector

REWARDING WORK: Carers Sandra Meehan and John Benington at a Christmas in July lunch. They said they enjoy giving back to the community by working in aged care. Picture: Morgan Hancock.

"We've had an influx of people in their late 50s and early 60s coming to work for us. They are the most wonderful people," she said.


"After what we've seen during the pandemic, no one wants their loved ones inside a residential aged care setting if they can help it," she said.

A majority of Australians aged

Mortgage pressures hitting hard later in life

Almost 37 per cent of private dwellings in Warrnambool in 2021 were owned outright compared with 41.6 per cent in 2001. Victoria-wide there was an almost 11 per cent drop in outright home ownership since 2001.


Significantly, the amount of 55 to 64-year-old Australians with a mortgage more than doubled from 15.5 per cent to 35.9 since 2001. The number of people of retirement age with a mortgage increased to 9 per cent.


Warrnambool mortgage broker Rod Donnelly said he had witnessed a socio-d

Theatre review: Disgraceful

Lucy Best’s one woman show, Disgraceful, is a prototype for over-sharing. It is a charming comedic autobiography about going too far, with too much sex, too much swearing and way too many drugs. In fact, it was hard to keep track of how many times the words ‘sex’ and ‘drugs’ were uttered.

The Melbourne-based British writer, producer and performer’s show was cancelled in 2021 due to the pandemic but it is back, and Best says she has since developed it further.

The Butterfly Club is a fitting ve
Photo by Michael Tuszynski on Pexels

Australia's house prices are through the roof. How did we get here?

How did we get here?

The most lauded of all Liberal prime ministers, Sir Robert Menzies, in his famous Forgotten People speech of 1942, speaks of “homes material, homes human and homes spiritual”. Menzies positioned the home as a symbol of moral character, expressed though the virtues of “frugality and saving”.

This established the home at the ideological heart of post-war Australia. For Menzies, the home was also the bulwark against the evils of trade unionism and socialism. Economist Richard

Federal Court decision puts academic freedom in the spotlight — The Swanston Gazette

In the previous case last November, Federal Court judge Thomas Thawley upheld the university’s decision to terminate Anderson’s employment on the grounds he had engaged in serious misconduct.

The judge ruled Anderson’s social media posts were “deliberately provocative”, but did not amount to a “genuine exercise of intellectual freedom” and so were not protected under his employment contract .

Curtin University lecturer in law Pnina Levine, said the case brings into question what power, if any,

Features

Photo by Michael Tuszynski on Pexels

Australia's house prices are through the roof. How did we get here?

How did we get here?

The most lauded of all Liberal prime ministers, Sir Robert Menzies, in his famous Forgotten People speech of 1942, speaks of “homes material, homes human and homes spiritual”. Menzies positioned the home as a symbol of moral character, expressed though the virtues of “frugality and saving”.

This established the home at the ideological heart of post-war Australia. For Menzies, the home was also the bulwark against the evils of trade unionism and socialism. Economist Richard

The heritage-listed Nicholas Building is up for sale - here's why it means so much to the local creative sphere —

On quiet weekend afternoons, Bronwyn Kamasz likes to take her shoes off and walk through the corridors of the Nicholas Building. She likes the feel of the cool, undulating surface on the bottom of her feet. Sometimes she dances.

“I can totally just be myself there,” she said. “It’s like a second home.”

Kamasz is an artist and dancer from Melbourne who has rented studio space at the Nicholas Building for several years.

She uses it for her art practice and as a place to connect with other artis

Women's trauma, the body and the failure of language

Laura Hartnell’s eyes shift from left to right as she gathers her thoughts. It is as if she is searching inside her mind rather than looking outward. She stops and looks straight at me. “There’s still a real lack of tolerance in public for women’s experiences of trauma that doesn’t fit into a certain shape.” Hartnell has spent years researching female trauma. The 28-year-old PhD candidate is using feminine writing. It is a technique from feminist philosophy to explore new ways of dealing with fe

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