Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Ahoy there from the good ship Terrier and a Happy New Year + 17 days!

What lies ahead for The Terrier in 2021? New voices, a new project and tackling unfinished business.

I spent the summer break recovering from last year, which was exhausting and exacting and yet full of so much change, and also thinking a lot about this year.

After much thinking and sleeping and walking and talking and more thinking, I am ready for a year of diving deep into unfinished business and setting sail into new waters.

There are a couple of important stories that remain unfinished for me.

These stories take time, often a very long time, and I never know for sure where they might end, but I always know when I have reached the end, and I am not there yet.

There is also unfinished council business from last year, including the sacking of former Warrnambool City Council chief Peter Schneider, which goes before the Supreme Court on 1 February to determine if he was denied natural justice and should be reinstated.

Running alongside this is the Local Government Inspectorate investigation into the acting WCC CEO Vicki King being re-hired – by delegation – for another five years to her old job.

The outcome of both cases has the potential to change the face of the new council, and will tie off – one way or the other – the shadow that has lingered over 25 Liebig St since July last year when Mr Schneider was given the boot.

I plan to share other voices, including that of Jim Burke, who many of you will remember ran in the WCC election. Jim is a long-time council watcher and a guy with an overflowing bookshelf and a brain to match.

Jim will continue to write on his own Facebook page about council issues and analyse what it all means for Warrnambool with the intelligence and insight that comes from watching every  council meeting, and poring over the hundreds of pages of documents that lie behind every worthwhile story.

I am rapt that Jim has agreed to let me share his work as the new council is given a chance to settle and find its feet.

There are other writers I also hope to bring into the fold to help me tackle other unfinished business, such as the $40 million Wannon Water treatment plant upgrade near Thunder Point which has been on pause since the EPA responded to public concerns and demanded a raft of extra information.

I hope in 2021 that The Terrier can be a platform for many voices, not just my own, as we continue to dig into the issues and ask the hard questions and keep pressing for answers.

I also have a new project, which is actually a project I have been quietly working on for years, but this year it will finally come to the surface – the restoration of Alf Altmann’s kayak and my revisiting his journey for a book that I have been wanting to write for at least a decade.

Alf was my uncle who, in 1970, attempted to be the first person to row solo from Tasmania to Victoria in a kayak he built by hand here in Warrnambool. He nearly made it, drowning just 1.5 miles offshore from the Gippsland Lakes.

I now have his kayak and this year it will be restored by boatbuilder Garry Stewart in Port Fairy and, thanks to Dean Montgomery, will eventually be displayed in the Warrnambool Motor Museum at the former Fletcher Jones factory.

So this year I will also be spending some time in Tasmania, building and writing a story that is worth telling.

My younger brother and artist, Graeme Altmann, has donated one of his incredible “steam punk junk ships” (pictured above) to help me raise funds for the restoration which I will be documenting here. You will have a chance to own this gorgeous boat and be a part of this story.

Welcome to Terrier 2021.

It is so great to have you on board.

https://youtu.be/YrlBObep0jE

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

The Terrier has won a major grant to help turn up the volume on indigenous stories from our region, and to help this site survive and thrive.

The grant is one of only nine funded in the first round by Sydney billionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson’s Institute for Journalism and Ideas and it will allow me to hire and mentor a cadet Indigenous journalist.

As if there wasn’t enough adrenalin pumping through the veins of The Terrier this week, this news has just come through today and, I tell you, I had to have a small lie down when I saw the other recipients:

the ABC, The Australian, The Guardian, The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Schwartz Media (The Monthly/The Saturday Paper), Ngaarda Media and… drumroll….The Terrier, in Warrnambool.

So what does this mean for The Terrier?

Well, it means I can fulfil my hope of being able to better tell the Indigenous stories of our region, including those of the colonial invasion and those that are unfolding as we speak, such as Budj Bim, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Area, and the mind-blowing research around Moyjil.

I want these stories to be told by an Indigenous voice, not only my voice, and in so doing I want to empower the next generation of journalists.

The south-west can do so much more to celebrate, respect and listen to the Indigenous voices in our region, and with the support of the Institute, I can help that to happen.

The second part of the 12-month grant will allow The Terrier to explore different funding models, which basically means finding ways to encourage readers to be as loyal as a Cairn, a Maltese or a foxy, by contributing what they can, when they can.

Through the $100 million Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas, Ms Neilson* – who owns the White Rabbit gallery in Sydney – is breathing life back into the lungs of a struggling media landscape.

And she is making sure that this air is pumped not only into the big cities, but into regional towns, where journalism is at a crisis point.

We all know that before The Terrier, investigative journalism in Warrnambool had become almost non-existent and yet, as the Warrnambool City Council credit card scandal has shown, it is absolutely critical.

The Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas gets this.

As its director Mark Ryan says, “the Institute believes that the best way to champion quality journalism is to help journalists do more of it“.

You got it Mark!

If The Terrier can develop a group of loyal supporters who, between them, help cover the costs of sniffing, digging and writing, then The Terrier will not only survive, but thrive.

We have made it this far, on the back of a Tip Jar, but there is still much more to do.

After the huge events of this week, and the outpouring of support that has followed, I reckon we can do it.

On we go.

*I did, by chance, see Ms Neilson in the distance while filming the above video at her Sydney headquarters. I showed restraint…okay, I admit it, I had to be restrained. I hope I do get to thank her personally one day, as what she is doing for journalism via her philanthropy is game-changing.

You can see the full list of grant winners and the fabulous projects here.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 35px; color: #8cc7d0;”] M [/dropcap]ost of you will remember Bluestone Magazine, a small start-up that brought an online, fully independent magazine to south-west Victoria in 2013.

By the time it closed in late 2016, Bluestone Magazine was making a name for itself as a place where you could enjoy a quality read about people within your community and also find out what was really going on, as we were not afraid to dig deeper into local issues.

Sticking your neck out in a small community is not an easy thing to do, but I think it is something that journalists and writers have to do if they are true to their profession, so I am sticking my neck out again. (You can find out more about my background here.)

This website is an experiment to see if south-west Victoria still wants an independent voice.

I have been lucky to harness some great writers to help me out, including experienced former Fairfax and Crikey journalist Lee Nicholson who will specialise in writing about the local live music scene (picking up where she left off more than 20 years ago when she started a music column with the local newspaper).

Local identity and passionate op-shopper Bill Abrahams will write an occasional, humorous column on the world of collecting, op-shops and the joys of finding that irresistible bargain.

I will also be bringing you stories about people, politics and guest writers who will air their spleen on all manner of topics. Yep, I like a bit of variety!

There will be no ‘editions’ as such, instead I will publish small batches of fresh stories as they are written.

If you would like to have the story links sent straight to your inbox, join the mailing list here.

I am not going to charge to read the stories, but if you want to make a donation you can do so here:

Make a donation

So here we go, starting again, stretching the arms, legs and heart.

I hope you enjoy it.

Something very troubling is happening in our community when it comes to the local media’s scrutiny of those in power.

Since returning to Warrnambool in January, I have watched with growing disbelief at the apparent reticence of our once-proud local newspaper, The Standard, to go in hard and ask the tough questions of our leaders.

This is what journalists do. This is the role of the so-called ‘Fourth Estate’ – to be the watchdog of the powerful and give voice to the powerless.

It is an essential part of our democracy and ensures that we retain an open, transparent and accountable government – on all levels.

This past week, we saw national scrutiny of MPs’ spending, sparked by revelations that Prime Minister Abbott had claimed allowances for trips to weddings, triathlons and cycling events.

Was our local federal MP Dan Tehan asked by our paper to detail the $873,992.35 that he spent from 2010-12? No, instead this figure was not even mentioned, but rather the paper’s story (10/10) reassured us that he had claimed $321,000 in ‘legitimate government entitlements’. End of story.

There is no suggestion that Mr Tehan used his allowance improperly, but nor is it improper for a journalist to forensically examine this spending. This is exactly what independent journalist Margot Kingston did when she broke the story about Tony Abbott claiming more than $9000 in taxpayer funds to promote his book.

It is only by drilling down into the detail that all the facts can come to light.

Earlier this year, Warrnambool Mayor Michael Neoh visited China as part of a Sister City relationship with Changchun. Shortly after his return, The Standard ran a story (29/6) about Mr Neoh visiting his ancestral home in China and catching up with relatives.

Was this part of the official tour for which ratepayers paid $3500 for both Mr Neoh and Council CEO Bruce Anson?

Did Mr Neoh pay for this portion of the trip himself? Again, there is no suggestion of impropriety by Mr Neoh, but we don’t know the answer to these questions because, it appears, they weren’t asked.*

And when others do ask the prickly, difficult questions, the response is sometimes extraordinary.

Last month, Cr Peter Sycopoulis and several council colleagues questioned whether Mayor Neoh and Mr Anson needed to attend a Sister City function in Japan – expected to cost ratepayers $4000 – given they had just been to China.

For this, the councillors were chastised by the newspaper as being ‘party poopers’ (11/11). What?

And let’s not forget the infamous ‘Wilma Wright’ letters to the editor. These were published by The Standard for four years – four years – without anybody apparently checking the identity of the author, who was revealed as Mr Anson’s son and who at one point used the cover of his pseudonym to openly attack several councillors, including Cr Sycopoulis, in the lead up to a council election.

(Mr Anson, it must be noted, was cleared of any involvement in his son’s activities).

The names in this column – Mr Tehan, Mayor Neoh, Mr Anson – are irrelevant: it is the public, important positions that they hold that makes them open to scrutiny and a higher standard of accountability.

This is the hard work of journalism.

It is much harder, more time consuming and nerve-wrecking than writing story after story about courts and crime (ie. the powerless) where all of the leg work has been done, yet it is critical if we are to have faith in our media as the watchdog it is intended to be.

If it fails in this task, it is nothing less than our democracy which suffers.

*  The Warrnambool City Council has since confirmed to Bluestone that Mayor Neoh did fund this portion of his travel.

Disclosures:

• I began my journalism career as a cadet at The Standard in 1989.
• I was an open supporter of ALP candidate Michael Barling during the last federal election because I thought he was the best option for Wannon. It was the first time I voted Labor in many years: I normally vote Green.
• I know Cr Sycopoulis through his family: his older sisters and I went to school together.