The Hobart Chronicles V: Overworked and underpaid

“Why should I complain when everybody else is overworked and underpaid?”
- Powderfinger, Hindley St Parade (1998)

Week 5 ½.

* NEWSFLASH *

I found the sofa legs!

The packers cunningly hid them in one drawer of an otherwise empty chest of drawers, wrapped in paper. It wasn’t until I got around to putting the Reg Grundys away after a giant load of washing that I stumbled across the concealed legs.

No good gossip this week, due to the enormous whirlwind created by the TasNarnia elections being called. The Good Ship Auntie has had to go from zero to Warp 5 in the space of a visit to the Governor: public forums, outdoor broadcasts, counting coverage (right to the second, mind), allocated airtime for policy announcements, and of course, getting together the broadcast from the tally room on election night.

The venue was only finalised yesterday. After an unseemly tussle between the Derwent Entertainment Centre and the Wrest Point Casino for the right to host the tally room, the Casino’s track history as previous host won out (consideration given, I suspect, to their bars, restaurants and the prospect of a little gambling on the side when the One Big Gamble in the main auditorium gets a bit wearing).

In fact it’s election night itself that has proved the logistical challenge. You see, the South Oz election is on the same day – but because their terms of government are fixed and the election date known well in advance, all of Auntie’s radio & TV election resources were shipped over there months ago: laptops and PCs, PABXs, TV sets, even ‘Red Kezza’ O’Brien and Antony Gnome the Election Guru are already sewn up by the Sandgropers. You can see the thought ticking over in Tech Services and senior management heads: How can we pry these coveted items from their clutches? TasNarnia offices echo with veiled threats; meetings are heavy with ideas for resource-pilfering from various states and departments, and other dark schemes. Negotiations are tense. Whispers of “my preciouuusssssss” hiss across the Bight.

Team TasNarnia has had one win to date: we've enticed Antony Gnome over to our event by touting it as being the more interesting of the two elections. He agreed, which many reckon is less to do with the actual candidates and result, more that the fantastically convoluted Hare-Clarke representational system (which allows for multiple members per electorate on a sort of quota system) proves such an interesting challenge for his Election Gnome statistical software that he could not pass it up.

Elections wouldn’t be such a problem in themselves, were it not for everything else. There’s the switchover of the North TasNarnia from AM to FM, to be celebrated by a glittering official event on the 6th of March, and a big fair day and concert on the 13th – all of which has been in planning for more than a year. Then on Election Night, the 18th, there’s the simultaneous Commonwealth Games coverage for which Auntie has the radio rights. Election night is swimming finals night, possibly the only event joe public is really interested in. AFL pre-season cup finals? Take a back seat, my footy friends.

Holiday to NZ? You must be kidding. Take a raincheck.

It’s 6.30pm on Friday night, and I’m waiting for the 7pm news to pass, to ensure the lines work and our outdoor broadcast from the Clarence by the River Jazz Festival gets up at 7.10. Then it’s across the bridge and over to the eastern shore to run with the roving mic until 10pm.

So, must dash! Talk to you again next week.