In case you hadn’t heard, there’s an election on.

From yesterday’s Sunday Age “Heckler” page:

THE DIRT: Politicians are trying to stack the outspoken Public Transport Users Association. The association is facing elections and there has been a flurry of nominations by Labor and even Liberal political staffers. What happens if Team Brumby takes over the PTUA? First press release might read something like “why Melbourne has the best public transport system in the world”, followed by “Overcrowding, what overcrowding?”

It’s worth pointing out that yesterday after some discussion, four of the Labor people withdrew their nominations (though as of now, only two have been received in writing), when they realised how bad it looked, but there are still at least two running.

Of course, all these people may well have a legitimate interest in public transport issues, but even if it’s not a deliberate stacking attempt, the effect would still be the same if a number from either side got in — a loss of the organisation’s independent voice.

While it’s good for any organisation to get new blood, new ideas and new perspectives from time to time, I’d argue that bashing down the door and booting out other active people is not generally the best way to do it.

It’s going to be an interesting week.

PS. I’ve spoken to Leo McGarry, and I have no trouble believing that the minister’s office has nothing to do with any of this.

Update Friday morning. All those directly party-linked withdrew, and it was a relatively peaceful AGM. Two motions were passed unanimously by the membership to highlight the importance of the organisation being independent, and to ask the committee to look into strengthening that.

I was tagged by Clay for an animal meme. Though I suspect these answers won’t be terribly interesting.

An interesting animal I had…

I don’t currently have any pets. In the past it was goldfish and cats, and when I was very young, budgies. The one I had the longest was Sooty the cat, who was around from about the age of 12 until a few years after I left home — we got her as a kitten, to accompany my sister’s cat Mischief (who was later renamed to Eric).

I don’t know if I’d even contemplate arguing that any of them were “interesting”. It’s not like we ever kept elephants or anything.

An interesting animal I ate…

In York in ‘98 I tried black pudding for breakfast, which apart from being the basis of a weapon for Lancastrian revolutionaries in The Goodies, is notable for being made of blood. I haven’t had it since, and don’t recall what it actually tasted like, other than that it wasn’t unpleasant.

Other than that, not being overly adventurous with food, I don’t have any good stories like Clay’s live calamari tentacles. Though some of my work colleagues have indulged in eating chicken feet on occasions.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal…

Eh? Oh. Walking Marita’s dog Maisie? Putting the cat into a pillowcase to get a pill down her throat? I did help herd sheep once.

An interesting animal at a museum…

Does everybody cite dinosaurs for this? The Natural History Museum in London has (or had, in 1999 when I was last there) a memorable animatronic dinosaur exhibit.

I really liked the picture I took of mountain goats at Sydney Zoo.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat…

How about roos in Seymour? Rabbits in Footscray Park? (Does that count as natural habitat?) Squirrels at the Grand Canyon? Cows wandering around Plockton, Scotland? Possums in my roof and bats in my street?

Sorry, but me and animals haven’t really mixed.

Tags? Oh, anybody who wants to jump in, really. I’m sure most will have more interesting answers than me.

I must be getting more domesticated… I look outside and see it’s a warm and windy day and think “wow, what a great day for washing.”

I was quite fascinated to listen to the start of The Conversation Hour on 774 Melbourne last Friday (MP3 available). Co-host Waleed Aly is very witty, and has a gift of being able to explain his Muslim beliefs and practices in terms that even the most ocker Aussies can understand.

(01:15) Jon Faine: Is it still Ramadan?

Waleed Aly: Last day.

Faine: Today?

Aly: Last day. It’s the Grand Final.

He goes on to talk about how Ramadan works, and the impact it used to have on his cricket skills. And he remarks of Faine’s question about whether water is allowed:

(02:30) Aly: The water question is the most commonly-asked question … My wife has decided what she wants to do is print a t-shirt that she wears around during Ramadan that just says “No, not even water.”

And the rest of the hour, with boxer Kosta Tszyu and former refugee Akoc Manheim is worth listening to as well, as is the Triple J Hack brief interview with Aly.

Monday

Perhaps ironically given a story in yesterday’s Herald-Sun about public transport causing stress, I got a bit narky on the train yesterday morning when a gaggle of De La Salle boys started mucking about with the train doors at Caulfield.

With apparently no consideration for the other thousand people on the train, they blocked the doors from closing not once, but twice. I had images in my mind of that night in Ormond when the drunk man doing the same thing eventually caused the train to go out of service, and all the passengers to be kicked off. Gawd knows why the damn doors on the Siemens trains are so sensitive, but this time I got proactive.

“Guys, leave the doors alone!”

A brief squeal of blame-laying and finger-pointing between them, but they left the doors alone after that and we were on our way.

For all that, I don’t really believe PT is that stressful. It’s entirely subjective of course, but I reckon the feeling of a cancelled or packed train is more one of despair than stress — unless you’re running late. But I find being stuck in traffic when in a hurry to be far more stressful. On rare occasions I’ve found myself close to road rage when in a rush and stuck behind slow drivers.

As for the physical health benefits, nobody can question the health benefits from walking to and from the station/stop. All helps contribute to daily exercise. There’s also been research that suggests you pick up a lot more pollutants from cars by being inside them than outside them — not to mention the indirect benefits of living in a less-polluted city.

But anyway…

Tuesday

Carriage 5 of the 9:13 from Glenhuntly to the city was pretty crowded due to a car vs train accident on an adjacent line. But we were managing okay; Sardine Index 7, perhaps.

Then just out of Malvern, squealing from most of the (female) occupants of a set of six seats. Some of them actually climbed onto the seats, others vacated. I think they said it was a cicada on the loose. The giggling and chatting about it lasted into the city — one of the more pleasant and amusing recent communal PT moments.

Can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.

And before you ask, I doubt the cicada had a ticket, but it was probably under four years old and didn’t need one. (Though whether it had a parent or guardian with it, I don’t know.)

A Greenpeace report that came out last week says, among other things, that eating more kangaroos is better for the environment than eating beef, on the basis that less land clearing is required, and kangaroos don’t produce the methane gas released by cattle and sheep. I assume they’d also consume less water.

So the other day in Coles I picked up some Kanga Bangas to try. (I don’t recall seeing them in Safeway.) From the looks of it, apart from any environmental benefits, they also have much less fat than conventional snags (something like 90-95% less, if I have my sums right), so they’ll actually be healthier too. They’re also surprisingly cheap, for something I would have thought might be a niche product.

I know Jen tried them recently and liked them… but the real test is: do the kids like the taste?

No they didn’t, not very much. And I wasn’t that keen either to be honest. Perhaps it’s not that they’re bad, but that they’re not the usual taste. But there might be some other brands out there, and I can also try frying rather than using the grill, so I’m not giving up yet.

For his birthday, Andrew asked for a few bloggers to post something on a topic of his choosing. He asked me for:

The time you had such a bad experience on public transport that you rang the minister or one of his minions, or similar.

I had a think about this, and I don’t think I’ve directly had a whinge to a contact about something that only affected me. But I’ve certainly seen and been annoyed by plenty of things which were more systemic problems that needed fixing, and have passed that feedback on.

For instance, my brother-in-law catches the train from Bentleigh to South Yarra (zone 1) but can’t catch the connecting 703 bus to the station without paying a premium because it only accepts zone 2, even though it connects to two zone 1 stations and a zone 1 tram. I’ve raised that and other cases with the fares people.

On New Year’s Morning last year at about 1am I noticed about 30 people waiting at Footscray for the 82 tram, which unlike most others, wasn’t running all night. I called to the people to say it wasn’t running, but they’d heard all trams were. Maybe after an hour or two of waiting they eventually did believe me. That got fed back to the CEOs at Yarra Trams and Metlink: either run all routes all night, or be very very clear about what is and isn’t running.

The lack of bus services in the evening and Sundays, despite shopping hours at the big centres like Chadstone and Southland hampered me for years. With recent upgrades, this has now been mostly resolved, and although they’re infrequent (mostly hourly) you can at least now go shopping at those places on Friday night or Sunday afternoon and not have to deal with the parking.

A friend drives to Epping Station (and sometimes all the way to the city) because the South Morang rail extension still hasn’t been built, despite being promised in 1999. A lot of local residents are up in arms about that. I had them all in mind when I raised that with the (previous) minister one time I ran into him at a function.

And one Sunday morning last year I was with the kids on the train, and it was a short train, and really crowded. Not the first time I’d seen that and complained about it, but this time, I got my camera out to document it, and gave it to Channel 7 the following week.

I blogged about it here, and have followed-up by raising it in meetings with Connex and the government. Connex don’t have a good excuse for it (eg it really is just cost-cutting), and some bureaucrats are quite appalled that this sort of thing occurs, but can do little about it. It’s actually a really good example of why privatisation in its current form doesn’t work. Will keep pushing.

For all the problems you see around the world, Melbourne has, I think, been generally peaceful when it comes to race relations. Indeed, there are plans afoot to permanently implant some cultures’ businesses into particular city streets — an extension of the concept already used in Chinatown that would spread to the Greek precinct, the Lygon Street Italian district, and possibly others.

But it seems the Sudanese community is under a lot of scrutiny just at the moment, not helped by immigration minister Kevin Andrews, who has cited lack of integration as a reason for culling the African migration quota. Why he did this is unclear, with the opposition pointing out that the decision was actually made on the basis of which refugees are in the most need, and that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has determined that the focus has moved to the Middle East for now.

The cynics might say Andrews is playing the race card coming into the election, that it’s this year’s Tampa.

Following the tragic death of Liep Gony at Noble Park, 17-year-old Ajang Gor was assaulted by four white men in Melton, who then used his phone to SMS abusive messages to his family. Gor summed up the situation with Kevin Andrews’ comments and the subsequent tabloid frenzy beautifully (and a hundred times more eloquently than his attackers):

“It’s been said that we Sudanese are misbehaving and that there is a higher rate of crime, but I’m not sure if all these accusations are right.

“I cannot deny that some Sudanese are misbehaving, but not all Sudanese are doing it. In every community there are bad people.”

Indeed, the UNHCR noted comments from Victorian police that “that Sudanese people are under-represented in crime statistics”.

Then yesterday morning it was reported a policeman in Noble Park had been bashed by at least one of a group of drunken youths (but notably helped by some of the others in the group).

Kevin Andrews weighed into this one, saying that the incident did not reflect “the Australian way of life”. But as police Assistant Commissioner Paul Evans pointed out to Jon Faine, “last night for example in Melbourne, at Maribyrnong and Mornington Pensinsula, similar sort of things happened”, and remarked that the common theme was not race, but young males and alcohol. Evans noted that the other two incidents wouldn’t get reported.

Faine went on to talk about it with Pat Dodson, making the points that breaking down the walls and celebrating different cultures, particularly with newer groups of immigrants such as Africans, is the way to encouraging harmony.

Bravo. Which reminds me, there’s an awesome Ethiopian restaurant in Footscray I can’t wait to get back to.