solid.
On that was
gleeful.
Hello and thanks for joining us for the last show for this week.
There have been some amazing developments today in the Queensland quest to save the
steam car.
People everywhere have responded in the most dramatic way imaginable.
Miners are auctioning stock to donate money.
Miners at Kaleida are starting collections and they hope that all miners in the state
will do so.
And at the other end of the technological scale, the 482 F111 Squadron based at Amberley
had a whip round this morning and they've collected $150 and they brought it up to us
this afternoon.
They're just a few.
The campaign to save the steam car seems to have had a steam roller effect.
It has caught the imagination of Queenslanders everywhere.
And it's proposed that those who donate will become shareholders in a public company the
organisers will form in conjunction with the Pritchards.
Now the other developments today are that Ted and Marion Pritchard have decided to
hold on to their Melbourne factory for another month.
That is a direct result of Queensland's action.
And late today, the Office of the Defence Minister, Jim Killen, got in touch with Vince
Lester asking him to put a submission to the Defence Minister which he would put to the
Federal Government.
It appears as though the Federal Government might now be wishing it hadn't dumped the
Pritchards.
Well that's enough of the steam car for this week.
We'll certainly tell you some more next week.
John Hire is a veteran Australian film director and his latest work is called The Reef.
And for the first time, somebody's traced The Great Barrier Reef from its discovery
to the present day.
And truly it's a superb film about Australia's great asset.
Not bad for a man who was one of the originators of the Australian film industry and now makes
films for the Arabs.
So after two years on our reef, how does John Hire see it?
A wilderness without parallel in my experience.
Great untouched, fantastic beauty.
Great varieties of activities.
Fish or kind of animals and things.
A great sense of freedom.
It's a very inspirational place in my view.
In what way is it inspirational?
The sheer beauty of it.
When I first saw the swain, I found it quite unbelievable.
Swain of the reef down at the south end.
And then when you get further north up past Ribbon Reef, one thinks of the reef as being
well sort of containable in your eyesight.
You see it and that's it.
We flew and flew and flew.
And then still this reef going to the horizon.
Extraordinary sight.
It's beautiful.
Oh,
my god.
Oh,
You've spent two years making this film, On the Reef. What do you think its message is
or should be?
Well, I hope the film's not... it's not really a message film in the sense of informational
documentary film. It's a film that we hope people will enjoy and will love The Reef because
of it. And loving The Reef, they will respect it and will want to know more about it and
look after it.
Are we loving it and respecting it now, in your view?
To a certain extent, but I would like to know more about it. And I think man could spend
a lot more attention finding things out and a lot more research work to be done to make
sure that in fact we're not doing things that may be interfering with it.
What sort of things might we be doing then at the present time that is interfering?
We may be overfishing, we may be too many people on it in parts, there could be run-offs
of insecticides and things from the mainland. These may not be of importance. The point
is, as the Duke of Edinburgh says in the film, we must find out to make sure we're not doing
any harm. I hope I've told the story of The Reef, the drama of it, the beauty of it, the
sadness, the adventure of it, and in doing so people will say, my goodness, we've got
something on our doorstep.
Can you imagine a world, an Australia, without The Reef? Because a lot of people in the past
have pointed to the fact that if we continue to destroy, that there won't be a Reef. Can
you imagine that sort of time?
It could happen if we are in fact doing harm, yes. The point is we don't know.
Even after two years of research and making this film, you don't know.
Two years of research is nothing. It's nothing. You want a lot more research and you want
years of it.
When people see this film, what sort of reaction would you like them to have?
I would like them to say, well, that was a good experience. I didn't realise we had
such a magnificent thing on our doorstep. I'd like to see it and enjoy it and I'd look
after it.
John Hire, thanks very much for coming in.
Very good.
John Hire and Brisbane recently and The Reef will be shown in our cinemas next month with
another of John Hire's masterpieces, Back of Beyond, and from a beautiful Queensland
Reef to beautiful Queensland men in a moment.
Up until now, beauty quests have been exclusively the domain of women. And I say until now because
this week the search for the most beautiful Queensland man started. The organisers use
another word for it though, spunky. But it doesn't matter how you describe it because
it's all in the aid of some very needy people, those who suffer from multiple sclerosis,
and are no less than spunky Colin McCrae reports.
Well let me say from the outset, when the boss called the volunteers to come and cover
this beauty contest, of course I volunteered. Far be it from me not to pull my weight.
And he might have told me a little bit more about what type of beauty contest it was.
Tell you a little bit about Jack while he's doing his thing over there. His occupation
is a store supervisor. The Nundle Auxiliary is sponsoring Jack in the Mr. Spunky quest.
I know that you're dying to hear a few words from Jack.
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be here tonight through the help of people
by joy and my sponsor who was not able to be here tonight, Doug Redding as you know,
a very sick man. But I got conned of this situation one night in a milk bar.
Once something like this was being acted out. That was once on the Arabian to that day.
And there was a chocolate milkshake I was drinking and Dougie came up to me and he says,
Jack, I'm going to call you Mr. Spunky. I said, you can call me what you like. They said,
but don't make it too hot, will you? And he said, I'm going to nominate you for Mr. Spunky.
I said, do you nominate me for anything if you like, mate? So I come in Monday night,
he said, you're nominating me. I said, what for? I said, Mr. Spunky. He said, what the
hell are you talking about? And I said, I just told him. I said, listen, mate,
don't nominate me. He said, no, I'm not having a nominate. You're stuck with it.
So that's the way I've been. I've been stuck with it, but I've really enjoyed it.
But the rattles we have down there, boy, I've won some birds down that pub, I tell you.
I would like to thank everyone that has supported me and I hope the MS goes a real long way
next year. Thank you, Jack.
Thank you, Jack, and people like you we cannot thank.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease which we should all help. At times in a fundraising
thing like this, which I've never been involved in, but I now know how Miss Australia,
Miss Queensland, anybody who is out there trying to make money, I know how they feel
and I feel sorry for them. Thank you very much and I wish the MS every success in this
promotion. Thank you.
But while the evening turned out to be a lot of fun, neither the entrance or the organisers
forgot the real reason for the quest, multiple sclerosis.
Thanks to Jack from the Milk Bar and all the other Mr. Spunkies in Queensland for trying
to help MS. Back in a moment.
You may remember, I certainly do, the program we had with Spike Milligan a couple of months
ago. One of Spike's campaigns has been to get rid of doggy doings from the footpaths
and nature strips. It's a problem that's not special to the United Kingdom, though.
All Australian cities have it and their pedestrians have stood in the stuff. Well, the town of
Maryborough in Victoria has come up with an answer, a dog toilet in the centre of the
city.
I don't see dog did that very well. Does he use the toilet all the time?
Not all the time.
What do you think of the idea of a dog's toilet?
Well, there are...
Hang on. What does he mean?
He thinks my leg is involved in it.
There are many advantages because it makes sure the streets are kept clean, but the trouble
is you can't time a dog with such exactitude that he is sure to perform at the right time
and the right place.
I see.
Come on, you silly muck. Come on. You know what to do. Oh, that little doggy knows what
to do. Come on. Quickly. Come on.
He's not so sure about all this. Come on. Quickly.
Nah. You're just too much.
Oh, and you do it then.
I've got my best now. I just cannot get anything like that.
Tail the tail.
What does your little doggy think of the dog toilet?
Well, I don't think she quite knows what it's there for.
How do you train your dog to use it?
Well, I suppose you just keep on bringing her up here every day and she learns by rote,
I suppose. I don't know.
Or other dogs. What's it, I suppose?
Yes. That's it. Yes.
What do you think of the concept of having a dog's toilet in a town like Maryborough?
Can you see the idea catching on to other parts of Australia?
No.
In a word, no.
I ain't silly.
Why?
Well, it's a sort of free country and if dogs have got to go to a certain place to go to the toilet,
it's a bit stupid.
They're not going to use it anyway.
You don't think the dogs will use it?
No.
Why not?
I don't know. They're just used to going anywhere.
Just so they can go where they please.
It's not as if people are going to be walking all across dogs' doings on the ground.
It's bad.
It's got its good points and its bad points.
All right. What are they?
It keeps the dogs from urinating on the swings and all that for kids,
but also it entices the kids to play in the sand.
Yes. I imagine that's a problem.
Yes. They actually play in the sand before.
They think it's a sandpit and come play in it.
It's rather unique, isn't it?
It's very unique.
What about the sort of sand? Has that been treated?
It's been treated with some special material.
Special material to attract dogs?
Well, that's an easy imagination.
I can imagine what's in it.
What are the little rubber rings there for on the post?
Well, I imagine they're there to assist the dogs to keep its leg in position.
Allegorous.
Allegorous.
It's the three rings to the different heights.
Yes.
Obviously people are using them.
Very good.
I don't mean people are using them.
They're gradually being used.
The dogs have to learn to sniff around.
If they get the right smell, they'll go there.
They're also providing the publicists with another avenue of promotion for the city.
Would you put a bumper sticker on your car with a dog sitting on a toilet?
Of course I would.
Do you think it's better than the dog that sits on the tucker box?
Well, the dog that sits on the tucker box is a bit old hat now, isn't it?
The dog that sits on the toilet seat, something different.
And no more will I roam because I'm a head and right for home along the road to.
Can be a guy, here we go.
Finally they got one.
And it is a Friday night, so thanks very much to Mike Walsh for allowing us to pirate that from him.
We thought you'd enjoy it.
A couple of items we've had recently talked about to up and growing popularity of country music.
Well, Johnny Chest has probably been in the forefront of the Australian country music scene for many years,
which is not bad for a singer, songwriter who grew up in the city.
But Johnny's heading for the bush in a rather novel way.
And one of the songs he'll be highlighting is I Walked Out of Black Town, a country music song about to up.
My daddy came home from the war with Japan and I was just seven, but a real little man.
So he started to teach me all that could be taught about cheating that to up without getting caught.
Have you been cheating it to up?
No, actually I've never even played to up.
I wrote that song without really any background.
I don't know that I did my research all that well really to use your sort of terminology,
but I don't know that you can cheat it to up, but it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
Why did you choose Black Town? I walked out of Black Town for that song.
Well, I figured it was more a suburban situation,
and I felt that I needed a suburb that you wouldn't immediately relate to any city because it needs to be,
I mean, to up's a very Australian game, and I felt that if it was just to be related to,
like if I made it walk out of Footscray for instance, people would immediately think you're a Melbourne audience.
You get an Melbourne audience, yeah.
And so they'd think, oh, well, that doesn't relate to us.
Yeah, why ask you that, John? Sorry, why ask you that?
Because a lot of your country and western music is based in suburbia, isn't it?
It is, yes. Well, you know, I wrote a song called Glory, Glory, I'll Be Back to See the Story Bridge,
and that was very much a country song as far as I was concerned, and yet of course it was set in Brisbane.
I wrote a song called Highway 31, which admittedly it mentioned Gundagai and it mentioned Townsville in the lyric,
but it also mentioned Sydney and Brisbane. So I guess it's because of my experience and the fact that I was born in the city,
and I haven't yet been able to get out to some of the areas that say Slim Dusty writes and records about.
Your press release talks about you being, you've walked out of an Australian legend,
you're well on the way to becoming a brand new one. Are you a legend?
No, I wouldn't think so. In fact, I haven't read that. Is that what it says?
Gee, well it sounds impressive, but no, I wouldn't consider, I think I'm a long way from ever being a legend
if I'm ever going to be a legend, whatever that means.
Johnny, just tell me about this coming country tour, where you are going into the back blocks of Australia.
Well, we're going to leave on the 28th of July. We're taking, at this stage, one and a half busloads,
it could be as many as two busloads of people on a Sea Australia with Johnny Chester and Hot Spurs.
You're taking people on tour with you?
It's going to be one of those camp out tours, you know, everybody gets their own tent and their own little enamel mug
and their whatever, and it's completely all supplied, all the food and accommodation and the travel.
And we're going to do a tour built in around this situation, and the people will come on the road with us,
but they'll also be entertained at bush camps and things like that, as well as the concerts that we will do,
which they can come to or otherwise, and it will go from Victoria right up the back
through Mount Isa.
Pretty well all the states.
Yes, up to Darwin, back down to Weller Springs and back to Melbourne again eventually.
Well, Johnny, thanks for coming in here before you go, and before you do go, let's go back to Blacktown.
Well, thank you.
Johnny Chester, perhaps one of the reasons for the growing popularity of country music
across Australia.
We'll be back shortly.
At this stage of the program, end of the week, let me tidy up a few things.
First, I want to thank the police for some quick work.
Wendy Reed, you'll recall she was attacked on the Bruce Highway with a broken bottle.
A man has been charged over that and another incident that night.
And with the Lord family also harassed on the highway,
another man's been placed on summons charges.
You'll remember last night's story on Daymar Furniture going to the wall.
As we reported, the staff have stuck by their boss, so have many creditors,
including the taxation department.
Well, today, Daymar's boss, David Boucher, picked up a sound order from a major furniture retailer
that will help put him back on his feet.
And to help him stay in touch with his customers by phone,
a lady viewer today offered to pull out her entire savings of $450 to pay his overdue phone bill,
which is more than telecom would do.
They told us today, no way are we going to react to someone who has a shocking credit record
or react to a biased TV report.
Not bad from a statutory body that last year made a profit of $111 million.
All telecom will do is offer to discuss the phone account with their customer services manager.
Last night we also referred to the cancellation of an order on Daymar by AMART.
We're assured now that no order was cancelled and that AMART is quite happy to do business with Daymar,
provided the price and quality is right and that the relationship between the two is amicable.
Well, it's been a busy week for us and probably for you,
obviously for us and probably for you the highlights being the steam car.
People that report UFOs and even if they've got good evidence,
it will be explained away by so-called experts as being natural phenomena.
Music
My dad just looked at me and he said, well, you know, if you don't change your attitude, you know,
well, it'll be her.
Oh, this is, he'd probably gathered his dice out
and there's only a few people silly enough to be up at this hour in the morning.
Music
Bird calls
I was absolutely furious when I heard about it.
22, 22, 24 on my right, 24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 25, all right.
I'm staggered at the continued overwhelming response that we've had to your plea for assistance from Queenslanders.
We found when economical times are bad, we find that people are a lot more careful with their money in fact.
I'm told that this cup alone, you know, is worth around about 850 bucks and the saucer around 200.
So I'm drinking out of about a thousand dollars worth of tea set.
So you can see obviously you've got to be pretty careful when you...
Glass breaking
Oh no.
Michael's done it again. By the way, that collection is at David Jones in the City.
And from all of us today tonight, thank you for being with us and I'll catch up with you on Monday night.
Good night.
Music