Latest news with #ANZACDay
West Australian
a day ago
- Sport
- West Australian
GEORGIE PARKER: Damien Hardwick's AFL legacy grows at Suns as Clarkson's wanes at North
Legacy is everything in the AFL. Clubs, player and coaches all pride themselves on it, and we have two coaches in the box seat to solidify their spot as the best we've had; Damien Hardwick and Alastair Clarkson. Hardwick's Gold Coast Suns delivered a demolition job on Brisbane in the QClash, and suddenly (I assume) much to the AFL's relief, the years of patience and promise are finally paying off. It's one win, sure, but the Suns are on their way to making finals for the first time and are putting their hand up as a team to watch on the verge of something special. Hardwick has brought a ruthless edge, relevancy and even a sense of desirability to a club long known for under performing when it counts. Premierships are hard to come by, and by no means do I think the Suns will win one this year, but when success does come he won't just be remembered as the architect of Richmond's dynasty. He'll be known as the man who made the Suns matter. Contrast that with Clarkson at North Melbourne. The four-time premiership mastermind was supposed to bring hope, structure and progress. But after almost two seasons, the Roos look no closer to anything resembling success. Is it the list? Is it fitness? Is it their mindset? Or, this feels almost sacrilegious to say given who I'm writing about, is it the coaching? Right now, the direction is clear. If Dimma's Suns keep climbing, his legacy will stretch far beyond Tigerland. But if Clarkson can't get North out of the doldrums, the legacy that once looked unquestionable will always carry an asterisk. The fixture debate has, once again, dominated the footy news cycle this week. Friday night blunders, overlapping match times, and prime-time-quality games being shoved into time slots usually reserved for the VFL. But to me, there's a deeper issue here, one that goes beyond bounce down times, broadcast bias, and it's slowly strangling the growth of the game's smaller clubs. The big clubs, Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon, dominate the free-to-air schedule. That's not a conspiracy; it's the AFL and its broadcasters chasing the biggest audience and advertising return. But look at the facts: Essendon, a team that hasn't won a final in over 20 years, leads the league with 12 prime-time games. Carlton, with more wooden spoons (five) than finals appearances (two) since 2000, follows closely with 1 1. Collingwood (at least a genuine contender) sits third with 10. I get it. Money talks. Broadcasters are footing the bill, and they want a say. But the trade-off is hurting the competition. The clubs that get seen more, get supported more strongly. More screen time means more sponsorship, more kids in jumpers, more members, more marquee matches. And in turn, more pull in recruiting players who want to play on the biggest stage. Think ANZAC Day, Dreamtime at the 'G, King's Birthday, these are all games that kids grow up dreaming about. Meanwhile, smaller clubs, often stuck behind paywalls or buried in overlapping time slots are struggling just to get noticed, let alone attract players without paying massive overs for them. This cycle feeds itself. The more invisible a club becomes, the harder it is to grow. It mirrors the same challenges women's sports have faced for decades: if you can't see it, you can't support it. Maybe that's part of the reason why Collingwood has twice the number of members of North Melbourne, a team often playing in front of a three-quarters-empty Marvel Stadium with barely a free-to-air slot in sight. Look, I'm not naive. I understand how the world works. But there's got to be a better balance. Because if the AFL keeps handing the spotlight to the same few clubs, then the rest will never get a look in, and we need them to if want the league to maintain (or find again) the competitiveness that we desperately crave.
RNZ News
a day ago
- Sport
- RNZ News
Midday Sports News for 29 July 2025
The Warriors will play in Wellington for the first time in three years next year, with the club playing at Sky Stadium on ANZAC Day in April. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Sky News AU
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Australians push back on Welcome to Country ceremonies, new poll from Institute of Public Affairs reveals
The majority of Australians believe Welcome to Country ceremonies have become divisive, according to new polling released by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). According to the survey, conducted by research firm Dynata, 56 per cent of people believe the ceremonies have become divisive. Twenty-seven per cent of people said they were unsure while 17 per cent disagreed that the ceremonies had become divisive. Half of all people (49 per cent) said Welcome to Country ceremonies should not be performed at sporting matches. Thirty per cent supported the ceremonies at sporting matches while 21 per cent were unsure. Among younger people, aged 18 to 24, 48 per cent agreed the ceremonies are divisive - more than double the 22 per cent who disagreed. Deputy Executive Director of the IPA Daniel Wild said the findings reflected widespread frustration with what he described as 'divisive and pointless' cultural rituals. 'Australians have had an absolute gutful of divisive and pointless Welcome to Country ceremonies,' Mr Wild said on Sunday. 'Only one-third (of people said) they want the ceremonies performed before major events such as ANZAC Day and sporting matches,' Mr Wild said. 'Even younger Australians, who the political class insist are left-wing and woke, by a two-to-one margin believe Welcome to Country performances are divisive.' The survey comes after the official Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne was protested with members of the crowd booing and yelling during the Welcome to Country. According to the survey, 46 per cent of Australians do not want Welcome to Country ceremonies at ANZAC Day events. The release of the polling coincides with new Opposition Leader Sussan Ley adopting an Acknowledgement of Country in her first National Press Club address. She practiced the ritual after former opposition leader Peter Dutton argued they were overdone, and said he would not use aboriginal flags if elected prime minister. Ms Ley told journalists she supported Acknowledgement and Welcome of Country ceremonies when they were 'meaningful'. 'With respect to Welcome to Country, it's simple: if it's meaningful, if it matters, if it resonates, then it's in the right place,' she said, after being elected as opposition leader. Mr Wild criticised Ms Ley's approach, arguing it remains out of step with public opinion. 'Her stance on holding welcome to country ceremonies 'in significant moments' is at odds with modern Australia, with just one-third backing the practice,' Mr Wild said. 'Common-sense, working-class, mainstream Australians understand something that the highly credentialed elites do not. "Australians do not want to be divided by race, and we do not want or need to be welcomed to our own country."
Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Stan Grant launches an explosive attack on the ABC
Stan Grant has revealed his deep 'sadness' over how the ABC failed in its 'duty of care' to him when he and his family were the target of relentless racist abuse and death threats. The veteran broadcaster and journalist also shared his thoughts on the failure of the Voice referendum, the future of treaties in Australia and the recent boing of the Welcome to Country ceremony at the Melbourne ANZAC Day dawn service in a wide-ranging and nuanced interview with TVNZ's Jack Tame. Grant, 61, quit his role as host of the ABC's Q+A in May 2023 after being subjected to 'relentless racial filth'. In a parting shot, he accused the ABC of 'institutional failure' over how he was treated when he was being bombarded with abuse during the Voice referendum. 'I became a target, my family became a target and the level of abuse just grew louder and louder and louder,' he said. 'Being misrepresented, hateful comments made to me, my wife, my children, my parents. And death threats against us. And a person arrested and charged. 'And throughout it all, I have to say with some sadness, a failure on the part of my employer to handle that and to be able to show proper duty of care to someone in my position who was exposed in ways that I couldn't control.' Grant said his decision to quit was to protect his family and his own sanity. But he insisted he held no one at the ABC personally responsible. 'I didn't feel protected and supported as I should have done with my employer. I don't necessarily blame them,' he added. 'I think they were swimming in waters that were far too deep for them.' After leaving the ABC, Grant said he retreated into Yindyamarra, an Aboriginal philosophy encompassing respect and sitting in silence as a way of trying to understand others and the world around you. The period of deep contemplation allowed him to change how he viewed the failure of the Voice referendum. 'There was something existential about this vote for us as Aboriginal people,' he said. 'It wasn't just a constitutional amendment, it felt like a vote on us. Inevitably, it does. 'We live in a country where we are three percent of the population. We are the most disadvantaged people, we are the most impoverished, we are the most imprisoned. 'We come out of very hard history. And that's almost unknowable to many Australians because Australia is a postcard, and it's beautiful, and it's rich and it's successful, and it's multicultural and it's peaceful. And they're phenomenal achievements.' He said he now saw the Voice as a a 'political failure, rather than a moral failure'. Grant also praised New Zealand for its approach to reconciliation with the Maori people. 'It's interesting being in New Zealand and the ease people move in out of the shared space. 'You know that you are in a place that is founded on something that is very vertical, very deep and very shared - contested, yes and not evenly distributed - and I think the treaty goes a long way to that,' he said. He was referencing the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document in New Zealand's history which established a relationship between the Maori and the British Crown. 'Australia doesn't have that. We don't have treaties. We don't have a constitutional recognition,' Grant said. 'There is still the overhang of Terra Nullius (meaning 'nobody's land' in Latin) that it was claimed because we simply weren't there in a legal sense. They are existential wounds that we have no dealt with.' Grant said that he was faced with a choice between having to 'imagine the Australia that I want or live in the Australia that I have'. 'To imagine a treaty, the likes of which you have here (in New Zealand), in the Australian context is just not possible. We are not made that way.' 'I navigate this now as more of a question of The Voice being a political failure rather than a moral failure.' Grant was also asked about the ugly scenes during the ANZAC Day dawn service in Melbourne where the air of reverence was broken during Bunurong elder Mark Brown's Welcome to Country, when loud heckles and boos threatened to drown him out. 'The wonderful thing about that is that the people who applauded the welcome and showed respect, far outweighed the small number of neo-Nazis, which is what they are, who had booed that Welcome,' Grant said. He said his immediate, gut reaction was to think 'Australia hates us' but his considered response allowed him to realise those who opposed the booing far outweighed the minority who were doing it. But he criticised Peter Dutton for trying to score political points by seizing on the national discussion to say he thought Welcome to Country ceremonies were sometimes 'overdone'. He accused the former Opposition Leader of a 'moral failure'. To take that and land that in the midst of a culture war where once again Aboriginal people were a political football and it backfired.' He added: 'The conservative side of politics sought to inflict a moral injury out of what was a very hateful act from a very small number of people.' Grant went further, claiming that opposition and criticism of Welcome to Country ceremonies was actually a 'failure of Conservatism'. 'What deeper conservative tradition could there be than a Welcome to Country that is thousands of years old? That is joined with an ANZAC service that is a solemn acknowledgment of sacrifice for the greater good,' he said. 'And to put those two beautiful traditions together creates a sacred space that we can all share in and any decent conservatism would seek to preserve that as a common good.' Grant also turned his sights on the media in general, which he claims is responsible for 'generating conflict and polarising debate'. 'I really had to confront what I was doing and what I saw, I thought, in the complicity of media in the conflicts of our age,' he said of his decision to quit the public broadcaster. 'I started to see that the media in many ways was the poison in the bloodstream of our society.' Since he quit the ABC two years ago, Grant has written a book about the failure of the Voice called Murriyang: Song of Time and has served as the Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.
NZ Herald
27-05-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Tairāwhiti multicultural council, music, museum and more supported by nearly $200,000 in grants
'This role is crucial in helping migrant families to navigate essential services, access resources, and build meaningful connections within Tairāwhiti.' The Haven Senior Citizen Association will receive $25,230 to help replace its current van. 'The van transports pakeke [mature people] from Tokomaru Bay to essential services, medical appointments, social events, and community gatherings in Gisborne and along the coast,' Trust Tairāwhiti wrote. 'The van has served the community for over 20 years, but has experienced significant rusting and general deterioration, making it no longer fit for purpose.' Other recipients in May Gisborne International Music Competition: $23,500 for its annual programme, which focuses on rangatahi education and empowerment in music. East Coast Museum of Technology: $15,000 for heat pump installation to help preserve artefacts while improving comfort for visitors and volunteers. Manaaki Tāngata | Victim Support: $15,000 to support the recruitment and specialist training of local kaimahi, providing free, 24/7 support for people affected by crime and traumatic events Te Aitanga a Hauiti Centre of Excellence Trust: $15,000 for a series of community events in Ūawa, including ANZAC Day commemorations, a Matariki festival and other gatherings, activities and events that enrich and foster community and cultural pride. Te Ha Ora – the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation: $15,000 for 15 school vape education workshops and a Train-the-Trainer programme equipping local educators to deliver vaping education to rangatahi. Braemar Dancing Club: $5,000 to support the delivery of the Braemar annual competition, an inclusive dancing event that encourages dancers of all abilities to perform and grow. Nona Te Ao: $5,000 for three wānanga across Tairāwhiti, engaging 237 rangatahi across 10 rural schools. These wānanga empower rangatahi Māori to overcome barriers associated with rural living by providing exposure to educational and career pathways. Te Kura Poutama Charitable Trust: $5,000 to support Ngāti Porou Rugby League (NPRL), which seeks to build on its 2024 successes. Gisborne District Council (on behalf of the Tairāwhiti Pasifika Leadership Group): $1,222 for venue hire to host a fono (gathering) for the Tairāwhiti Pasifika Leadership Group (TPLG), established after Cyclone Gabrielle to unite the diverse Pacific Island communities in Tairāwhiti.
