Month: May 2019

Trainer Mark Newnham is hoping connections of Super Pins are rewarded for their patience when the gelding makes a belated debut at Gosford on Thursday.

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The three-year-old was purchased at the same breeze-up sale Newnham secured the smart youngster Deep Sea but some 12 months before. Deep Sea has already raced twice, so it’s been quite a waiting game.

But the wait will be over when Super Pins carries favouritism into his debut in the Konami Handicap (1000m) on the back of a couple of nice trials.

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“He’s always showed above average ability and it’s the right race to start him off in,’’ Newnham said.

“He’s a nice horse, he’s just taken a bit of time.’’

Super Pins had his first barrier trial back in August and is effectively in his third preparation. The latest of his two trials was a closing second over 1050m on May 6.

Newnham expects jockey Tommy Berry to be able to control his own destiny on Super Pins from barrier two.

“He can either take it up or take a sit,’’ he said.

“If we’d drawn wide we’d probably have to rush forward, and that’s what I wanted to avoid.

“He’s got good natural pace, but my issue has been trying to teach him to settle. I wanted to run him in a 1000m race and get him to relax because he does things in a bit of a hurry.’’

There’s a blueblood among Super Pins’ rivals in Godolphin filly Accoutrements, which also steps out for the first time.

Accoutrements is a full sister to multiple group 1 winner Helmet and a half-sister to another group 1 winner in Epaulette, both of which are now successful stallions. Like Super Pins, Accoutrements has had two trials leading into her debut.

Meanwhile, Newnham scratched the shortest priced favourite of the day, Shadow Hero in race two, to send him to Brisbane for a listed race on Saturday after he drew ideally in barrier one there.

“It was always my preference to go up there. I just wanted to see the make-up of the field,’’ he said.

Best bets

Race 3: (2) Super Pins

Race 8:(7) Chilled Rose

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Race 6: (6) Litzen

Anthony Pratt, the head of the Pratt family's packaging empire Visy remained atop the Australian Financial Review Rich List for 2019 with some help from a special friend: Donald Trump.

The US president's slashing of the corporate tax rate in the US helped boost the earnings of Visy's extensive US operations and ensured Mr Pratt's wealth increased from $12.9 billion last year to $15.6 billion.

"His slashing of the corporate tax rate and granting of instant write-offs for business investment has bolstered the bottom line of Anthony Pratt," said the Rich List editor Michael Bailey.

It was enough to keep a resurgent Gina Rinehart in second place with rising iron ore prices ensuring she hopped into second place on the rich list, ahead of property mogul Harry Triguboff with a $13.8 billion fortune.

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Mr Triguboff, who headed the Rich List in 2016, fell to third place despite his personal wealth rising $800 million to $13.54 billion.

Australia now has 91 billionaires, up from 76 last year and the cut-off point for making the list rose from $387 million to $427 million.

The collective wealth of Australia's top 200 people and families, grew from $282 billion in 2018 to $330 billion this year with property remaining the top source of wealth despite the housing slump.

Property was the source of wealth of 63 Rich Listers, followed by retail which was the primary source of wealth for another 29 individuals and families.

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Tech provided a record 14 rich listers and is now the fastest route to riches.

The biggest leap on the Rich List can be attributed to Australia’s top tech billionaires, the Atlassian founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes who are in fifth and sixth place, respectively, with Mr Farquhar slightly ahead with a personal wealth of $9.75 billion and Cannon-Brookes with $9.63 billion.

The Atlassian founders' wealth, which is closely tied to the software company – they collectively own 60 per cent of the company – has nearly doubled since last year and a leap of that magnitude over the next year could see the duo top the Rich List for 2020.

Rupert Murdoch's sale of most of the 21st Century Fox business to Walt Disney this year has seen his children re-emerge on the Rich List.

His eldest daughter Prudence MacLeod was listed with a personal wealth of $3.3 billion, making her Australia's third-richest woman. Son Lachlan Murdoch is 18th on the list with a personal wealth of $3.6 billion.

Bristol: Australian great Ian Healy has backed Alex Carey to have a strong World Cup but hopes there is no ill-timed injury to the only specialist wicketkeeper in the 15-man squad.

Carey, 27, is the least experienced gloveman of all those expected to have frontline roles among the 10 competing nations but despite having only 19 one-day internationals to his credit – the second least of any of his teammates – he is the team's vice-captain.

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That shows the strong leadership credentials he has, not to mention the selectors' faith that he will have a key role to play, whether that be behind the stumps or with bat in hand in the lower order when power-hitting may be required.

Heading into Saturday night's Cup opener against Afghanistan, Healy, the wicketkeeping great who took part in the 1992 and 1996 World Cups, said Carey was "dependable" and "class as a teamman".

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"He rarely plays in a team that is not successful which is a great sign," he said of the South Australian.

Carey is the only frontline gloveman with less than 50 one-day internationals to his credit, his relative inexperience on show when compared to the likes of M.S. Dhoni (341 ODIs), Jos Buttler (129) and Quinton de Kock (106), who will have major roles to play for their nations.

The former AFL hopeful with Greater Western Sydney has been used in five different batting spots in his brief tenure, including as an opener at home last summer, but has been settled at No.7 since the successful tour of India.

Overall, he has 429 runs at 30.6 but has a strong strike rate of 83.46 runs per 100 balls.

"We have expected too much of his batting. It has been under pressure but he has still done enough for mine with the bat and we are going to see further improvements with the bat. He is going to be good," Healy, who will be part of Nine's coverage of the World Cup, said.

In terms of Carey's glovework, Healy has been impressed, adding: "His glovework is excellent. He is a hard worker. His technique is good and he has got the ability to do that job very well as well."

The roles of each Australian player have been clearly defined heading into this Cup defence.

Carey has stressed he "knows what I've got to do to help this team and it's not just about myself, it's about the whole squad".

That involves clean glovework to pace and spin and batting according to the game situation.

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The Australians will also hope he remains fit and healthy, for there is no natural back-up for the selectors opted to overlook Peter Handscomb in favour of Steve Smith.

"That is our one weak point, if Alex goes down in warm-ups. Peter would have been good as a back-up in the middle, too," Healy said.

Should Carey be hurt during warm-ups, skipper Aaron Finch would most likely have to fill in, for he has subbed behind the stumps for the Melbourne Renegades and Victoria.

Another option could be David Warner, who deputised briefly for Brad Haddin during a Test in 2014.

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Stan Grant has hailed the choice of The Australian Dream, a documentary about AFL legend Adam Goodes, to open the Melbourne International Film Festival as "a really powerful statement".

"Given that it's the home of AFL, and it asks some really hard questions of the AFL and how the [Goodes saga] was handled, I think it's really fitting that it's opening in Melbourne," says Grant, who both wrote the film and is interviewed in it.

This is not the first project to tackle the vilification that eventually hounded dual Brownlow winner Goodes out of the game – The Final Quarter, which also addresses the subject, will screen at the Sydney Film Festival in June – but it is the first with which he has cooperated.

In the movie, the former Sydney Swans great talks openly and in detail for the first time about the emotional and psychological impact the persistent booing of his every move had on him.

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He also revisits the incident that some believe sparked the campaign against him, when he called out a 13-year-old female Collingwood fan who labelled him an "ape" during the 2013 Indigenous round.

But what ultimately persuaded Goodes to speak was the fact the filmmakers wanted to do far more than merely replay the incidents leading up to his decision to quietly retire at the end of the 2015 season. It was, says Grant, that they wanted to place that story within the wider context of an examination of Australia's national identity, including the uncomfortable truths that underlie the assertion that "Australians all" are equally free.

"I think the whole Indigenous question in Australia goes to the heart of what it means to call yourself a nation," says Grant, whose writing on the subject provides the intellectual spine of the film. "And I don't think that journey is ever finished."

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And for all the footage of Goodes at his best on the footy field, that is what takes it well beyond the scope of a typical sports documentary.

"It's an accomplished piece of documentary filmmaking that tackles broader questions of who we are as a nation, together, in deeply affecting terms," says MIFF artistic director Al Cossar. "It's a film for all Australians, and a film for now."

Also among the first films announced for the festival is Sydney filmmaker Abe Forsythe's follow-up to Down Under. Starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave, Us) as a zombie-killing, ukulele-strumming kindergarten teacher, the zom-com Little Monsters will make its Australian debut at the newly-restored Capitol Theatre on Swanston Street, following its world premiere to strong reviews at Sundance in January.

Making its world premiere is the new film from Strangerland's Kim Farrant, Angel of Mine. Starring Swedish actress Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and written by Luke Davies (Catch-22, Lion), the film is a remake of the 2008 French movie L'Empreinte de l'ange (Mark of an Angel), about a woman who believes a young girl she meets at a birthday party is her own daughter, who has been missing for years. Richard Roxburgh, Yvonne Strahovski and Luke Evans also star.

Roxburgh will also be seen in H Is for Happiness, the WA-shot adaptation of acclaimed YA novel My Life as an Alphabet. The film will have its world premiere at the Family Gala at the Astor on August 11. Harry Potter's Miriam Margolyes heads the cast, alongside Emma Booth and Deborah Mailman.

Hardcore festival goers will have an endurance test worthy of their commitment in the form of the 14-hour La Flor, a six-part multi-genre metamovie from Argentinian writer-director Mariano Llinas. Starring four actresses who appear in each of the mini-movies within, it will screen across three one-off sessions.

Fans of virtual reality will also be catered to with a new home for the form at Arts House in North Melbourne, and a program that will be headlined by The Waiting Room, a collaboration between Molly Reynolds, Rolf de Heer and Mark Eland.

On the documentary front, Chinese-born, Berlin-based artist and activist Ai Weiwei continues to focus on the global refugee crisis in The Rest, the follow-up to his 2017 film Human Flow, while Charles Ferguson (director of the Oscar-winning Inside Job) turns his gaze on America's most famous political scandal in Watergate – Or: How We Learned to Stop an Out of Control President.

Musician PJ Harvey, meanwhile, teams up with Irish photojournalist Seamus Murphy for A Dog Called Money, an exploration of war-ravaged Kosovo and Afghanistan and the poverty-wracked parts of Washington, D.C.

Full details of the first glance program can be found at miff.com.au. The full program will be announced on July 9. The Melbourne International Film Festival runs August 1-18.

Duff McKagan may be a member of one of rock 'n' roll's most controversial bands, but the Guns N' Roses bassist is disputing the idea that several of the group's '80s hits were sexist.

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In an interview with Yahoo about his new solo album Tenderness, McKagan claims that several of the group's more notorious songs were misunderstood, including the "tongue-in-cheek" tracks It's So Easy and Used to Love Her (whose next line is "But I had to kill her").

McKagan also explains that One in a Million, the most controversial song in the Guns N' Roses discography for its eyebrow-raising slurs about blacks, immigrants and homosexuals, wasn't a display of the band's own views. Instead, he explains, it was narrated by a bigoted character.

"We were supposed to play David Geffen's big AIDS benefit in New York a couple months (after One in a Million was released)," he said. "We got pulled off of that. I remember getting on a plane flying back to Seattle, and an African-American flight attendant came up and sat down next to me and said, 'Do you really hate black people?' I'm like, 'Oh, (expletive).' "

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"Part of my family is African-American," he continued. "(Guns N' Roses guitarist) Slash is half (black). So, people didn't put that together. Hopefully now, later, people can examine that song. And I think it's brilliant and super-brave of (Guns N' Roses frontman) Axl (Rose) to step out and do that."

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The band recently omitted One in a Million from a recent 2018 box set that featured the rest of the songs of the EP the track appeared upon, 1988's G N' R Lies. The EP's original artwork famously featured an apology for the One in a Million lyrics, which read, "This song is very simple and extremely generic or generalised, my apologies to those who may take offence." (It's unclear exactly who's doing the apologising.)

"We collectively decided that it just didn't have any place in that box set," Slash told Rolling Stone about the band's move to cut One in a Million from the compilation. "It didn't take long. There wasn't a big roundtable thing over it."

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It didn't take long for Rose Cox's world to fall apart.

She was eight when a rare neurological condition left her mother paralysed and critically ill in hospital for a year.

Her father, suddenly responsible for two small daughters by himself, was made redundant from his job as a forensic post-mortem technician. He suffered a complete mental breakdown – no longer washing, cooking or caring – and succumbed to alcoholism.

Among Rose's strongest memories of that time is how emboldened the mice living in the kitchen became. The house was filled with garbage, filthy laundry and the stench of her unwashed father. Empty cases of wine were stashed behind the barbecue. The kids went hungry.

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According to non-government organisation Kookaburra Kids, more than 700,000 Australian children live with a parent suffering mental illness. Many also care for them, as Rose did.

Kookaburra Kids offers respite to children aged 8-18 in families affected by mental illness.

The organisation was founded in Sydney in 2002 with 16 kids on the books. It now supports more than 2500 children in Brisbane, Darwin and Canberra. This week, thanks to funding from the Department of Veterans' Affairs and Medibank, it expanded into Melbourne.

It will begin by offering respite to about 20 children of current and former Defence Force members who are experiencing mental illness.

Kookaburra Kids gives children a break from home in fun, positive and safe environments through camps and age-appropriate activities. They also offer young people mental health support services and early intervention.

Chief executive Chris Giles said it cost about $2000 to support a child through the organisation's program for a year.

"There's a growing body of evidence that shows that children living in families with mental illness are 50 per cent more likely to develop mental health problems themselves," Mr Giles said.

Many children in this situation struggle with guilt, believing their parent's behaviour is somehow their fault.

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"It's about prevention and early intervention, and providing them with tools and tips to build coping skills and strategies at home."

A middle-class kid, Rose had been well-versed in child safety messages before her family structure fell apart. So she was frightened to raise their plight with authorities lest she and her sister be taken from their home and separated.

With her father consumed by anxiety, depression and alcoholism, and her mother in and out of intensive care, Rose tried her best to cook and care for herself and her four-year-old sister, Stella. She estimates she and Stella ate cheese pasta with chopped cucumber, and maybe tomatoes, for two months.

After several months of this, the family's community stepped in, with neighbours cooking the children meals and organising free daycare for Stella.

When her mother recovered enough to be sent back home in a wheelchair, Rose found Kookaburra Kids.

Today, Rose is a smart and articulate 19-year-old university student who volunteers with the organisation and also holds down a good job.

She says Kookaburra Kids saved her by teaching her that her father's sadness and anger were related to his illness, and were not her fault.

The organisation also gave her the chance to go to camps with other children her age, and just be a kid.

"Someone had hope in me and now it's my turn to provide hope to another."

Former Newcastle Knights player Jarrod Mullen will face court next month charged over his alleged involvement in a cocaine ring operating in Newcastle.

Mullen has been charged with allegedly supplying cocaine in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie areas between September and December 2018.

The 31-year-old was arrested on Wednesday morning and taken to Wollongong Police Station where he spent several hours in custody.

He was later charged with three counts of supplying cocaine and one count of supplying a trafficable quantity of a prohibited drug.

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Earlier this year 9News revealed the 31-year-old was at the centre of an investigation into a drug ring operating in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area.

Detectives attached to Strike Force Castlestead arrested Mullen on Wednesday morning, making him the eighth person to be charged in relation to the alleged drug syndicate.

"Strike Force Castlestead was formed in September 2018 to investigate and dismantle an alleged drug supply syndicate operating across the Newcastle City and Lake Macquarie Police Districts," NSW Police said in a statement.

Mullen is serving a four-year ban from rugby league after testing positive for steroids in 2017.

The troubled player was once the face of the Knights on a $1 million-per-year deal, and played one game at halfback for NSW in the State of Origin.

Mullen is expected to face Newcastle Local Court on June 20.

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Tim Clipsham wasn't prepared for a phone call from Atlassian inquiring about buying his start-up.

"I was really surprised, it wasn't something I had considered," the founder of analytics company Good Software says. "I had a 10-year vision ahead of what I wanted to achieve."

The 31-year-old software developer launched Good Software just over two years ago and sold the business to Australian software giant Atlassian for an undisclosed sum last month.

Sydney based Good Software created applications that worked with Atlassian products.

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Its most popular product was an app called Analytics for Confluence which provided statistics and insights for users of Atlassian's popular Confluence product, a content collaboration tool.

Starting as a side hustle

Clipsham started Good Software after seeing an opportunity in Atlassian's marketplace, particularly on the cloud side to help solve customer problems.

"I have always had a desire to build a business and I saw Atlassian's marketplace as a great way to do this," Clipsham says. "It started as a side hustle doing a couple of hours every morning to chip away at the problem and test the ideas before making the jump [to running the business full time]."

Clipsham says he was not concerned at the dependency of his entire business on Atlassian.

"I think it's really important to focus on a specific niche as a business and do well at it and I saw a huge opportunity on Atlassian marketplace," he says. "With any business there are many risks you have to face whether on a platform like Atlassian or whether it is other competitors, but I believed the benefits outweighed the risks."

His costs of starting up the business were minimal with Clipsham initially working from his home.

"In terms of a software start-up there are not many large upfront costs you just need a laptop which I already had," Clipsham says. "The main challenge was how to reduce personal expenses to put more into the business, rent was a big expense so my wife and I moved house to a cheaper place."

Clipsham says while there were challenging moments building Good Software but demand for its apps grew steadily enabling him to hire a team of four.

Things were going according to plan until Atlassian "reached out" to him.

Reaching out

"The Atlassian team really talked through the circumstances we were in and the benefits of joining a greater team," Clipsham says.

"I was looking at what is the best outcome for the customer and for my team, I wanted to make sure they were looked after, and obviously for my wife and me for all the hard work we put in. The more I thought about it, the more Atlassian made so much sense. I thought the way to have maximum impact with what I had created was to join the team."

Clipsham and his team moved across to Atlassian just over a month ago and he has been given a role as a senior product manager.

"It's been surprisingly smooth to tell you the truth because we really knew the Atlassian culture from being part of the ecosystem," he says. "I am really excited for the growth opportunities that are here not just for me but also for the team members."

Clipsham won't disclose how long he is contractually required to stay but says the sale was "a really good outcome" for him.

"It wasn't my goal to be acquired, it wasn't something I was thinking of," he says. "There is benefit to having a plan but the most important thing is building a really good team and doing great work for your customers. If it distracts from that then you are working on the wrong area."

Fuelling Atlassian's growth

Good Software is Atlassian's most recent acquisition with the Australian tech giant paying $US295 million for OpsGenie last year and $US166 million for planning software provider Agile-Craft in March this year.

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With a valuation of more than $US30 billion, the workplace software business continues to grow, both through acquistions and organically.

Atlassian's marketplace is one of the keys to its success with over 25,000 developers on the ecosystem, many more than the number of developers in the company.

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Atlassian co-founder and co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes is enthusiastic about the Good Software acquisition.

"The Atlassian ecosystem is full of brilliant ideas and products," he says. "Companies like Good Software understand our customer needs inside out, and it’s great to welcome them to our team."

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Hong Kong: Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has told an Australian audience it was “speculation” and “absolutely untrue” that Hong Kong would lose its distinct identity as the Chinese Communist Party pushes ahead with an economic plan to link the former British colony with nearby mainland cities.

Lam will travel to Australia to promote the Greater Bay Area, the Chinese government’s plan to create an economic hub linking Hong Kong, Macau and China’s technology centre of Shenzhen, among nine mainland cities.

She will call for Australian companies to invest in the project, which has already seen China build the world’s longest sea bridge to link the islands by road with the mainland.

Tax concessions that would allow professionals living in Hong Kong to work under the same conditions within the Greater Bay Area on the Chinese mainland have been announced.

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But the push to create the Greater Bay Area comes as anxiety is rising in Hong Kong among the public and business community that Beijing is eroding the “One Country, Two Systems” principle that gave Hong Kong unique freedoms, including a separate legal system and police force.

Lam said that One Country Two Systems, and Hong Kong taking advantage of commercial opportunities in the Greater Bay Area, were not mutually exclusive.

“Any worry and rumour and speculation that once we cooperate and take a greater part in the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong will lose its unique characteristics, and the 'One Country, Two Systems' principle will be eroded, is absolutely untrue,” she said in a keynote speech to the AustCham annual awards.

Lam said she “will safeguard fiercely” the rule of law in Hong Kong, and said Hong Kong will continue to appoint overseas judges in a system that highlighted the independence of the judiciary. Four of 14 overseas judges in the Hong Kong court system come from Australia.

Her keynote speech to the AustCham dinner also comes after a noisy public debate in Australia last year over whether Hong Kong companies should be regarded as a national security risk on the basis of Hong Kong being subject to Chinese communist party rule.

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A bid by a prominent Hong Kong company CK Group to purchase a major gas pipeline was rejected on the grounds it was contrary to national interest for any foreign company to acquire sole ownership of critical gas infrastructure.

Since the decision, CK Group has joined the board of AustCham Hong Kong. Hong Kong has also signed a Free Trade Agreement with Australia, which Lam said she hoped would soon be ratified by the Australian Parliament now the election was over.

AustCham had told Lam’s government that Hong Kong’s advantage lay in upholding One Country, Two Systems and this would be important to the island’s continued success.

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Australian Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong chairman Andrew MacIntosh said the business community was “optimistic about the promise” of the Greater Bay Area.

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The latest flashpoint for concern over Beijing’s reach into Hong Kong has been an extradition bill proposed by Lam’s government.

On Monday 30 foreign consuls held a meeting with Hong Kong politicians where they expressed concern the proposed extradition law would allow suspects to be handed over to mainland Chinese authorities.

Lam said earlier on Tuesday she would meet with foreign envoys to explain the legislation.

The business community in Hong Kong has also expressed its concern.

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The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce met with Hong Kong’s security secretary on Monday to ask for more safeguards in the bill, saying the law would have significant and far reaching implications for Hong Kong’s criminal justice system “which is a vital contributing factor to the city’s reputation as an international city”, the peak business body said.

Human rights safeguards should be improved and Chinese provincial governments banned from making extradition requests, the chamber said.

AustCham’s Macintosh said: “The chamber has been watching the issue very closely.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said protests against the extradition law by foreign governments were “clearly an interference in China’s internal affairs”.

Alan Jones has re-signed with Macquarie Media after protracted  contract negotiations that have dragged on for months.

On Tuesday, Macquarie Media announced the Sydney shock jock had been given a two-year contract. Formal contract negotiations kicked-off in late February.

Macquarie Media chairman Russell Tate said in a statement he was pleased that Jones would be staying with the station for at least another two years.

"Over his already extraordinary radio career, Alan has dominated Sydney radio with 218 ratings survey wins, including 15 consecutive years at number one on 2GB," he said. "With Alan's current ratings share of the Sydney radio audience amongst the highest it has ever been, his dominance shows no sign of slowing down. All of us at Macquarie are delighted that we will continue along with the ride with one of Australian media's most outstanding performers."

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Macquarie Media is majority owned by Nine, the publisher of this website.

Jones' future at 2GB has been the subject of intense speculation in recent months given the broadcaster's age as well as a string of controversies. In September 2018, Jones was found to have defamed prominent Queensland family, The Wagners, which triggered $3.7 million in damages.

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Many, including Media Watch host Paul Barry, have suggested the defamation case played a part in the long negotiation period.

Sources close to Macquarie Media have also cited possible succession planning as another issue that had to be worked through. Jones turned 78 last month and has spent long periods away from the microphone in recent years due to complications with his health.

Late last year, Jones was also forced to apologise to listeners after dropping the N-word live on air. Then, in October, the shock's on-air treatment of Opera House chief executive Louise Herron triggered protests and another on-air apology.

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Jones first appeared on Sydney airwaves in a full-time capacity in 1985 as a replacement for longtime 2UE morning host John Laws. He famously left 2UE in 2002, causing the station's ratings to plummet. His new employer, 2GB, quickly cemented itself as Sydney’s most popular station on the AM band.

According to Gerald Stone’s 2002 biography of John Singleton, Singo, Jones was lured to 2GB with a “staggering offer that included a one-fifth share of ownership in 2GB … worth perhaps $12 million, plus a salary of $4 million a year over seven years”.

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Jones currently holds a 1.27 per cent stake in Macquarie Media through his private company Hadiac Pty Limited. At today’s valuation, those shares are worth around $4 million. The radio broadcaster’s former contract was due to expire on June 30.

The shock jock has been no stranger to controversy over the years. In 2012, he told a Sydney Young Liberal fundraiser that former prime minister Julia Gillard’s father “died of shame”. In the wake of the comments, 2GB took the unprecedented step of temporarily suspending advertising on Jones's breakfast show after more than 70 sponsors turned their back on the program.

Apart from his long and distinguished radio career, Jones has been a teacher, political candidate, speech writer and a coach of the Australian national rugby team [for which he was awarded an Order of Australia in 1988].

with Karl Quinn