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Daily Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
I moved from the UK to Australia two years ago. Aussies tell themselves a big lie - the real, infuriating truth about this country is clear, writes MAX AITCHISON
Long before I arrived on these sun-kissed shores, I thought I had grasped the idea of the Australian soul. The tolerant, open-minded, 'she'll be right, mate', approach to life Aussies like to show to the world. It was, my reading informed me, the great land of larrikins – a proud tradition of holding a healthy disrespect for rules and order that drew its inspiration from the legendary outlaw Ned Kelly. A nation of plucky underdogs who viewed their former British overlords with contempt. A land where rugged individuals laughed in the face of authority and forged their own meritocratic identity. A people who valued common sense, who fought for their own beliefs and scorned the establishment's stuffy rules. It seemed to me that Kelly and his heroic last stand embodied what it was to be Australian. Yet, having lived in this country for over two years, I now realise how naive I was. For it is painfully – infuriatingly – obvious that a very loud minority of modern Australians have much more in common with the men who strung Kelly up, than the mythical outlaw himself. As the late, great Australian critic and journalist Clive James once observed: 'The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts, but that so many of them are descended from prison officers.' I see this slavish adherence to rules and pettifogging everywhere, at all levels of society, from the individual to the state. I see it in my multi-millionaire banker neighbour who rang the council to send out a ranger to fine me $350 for parking four inches across his driveway, rather than leaving a note, which would have achieved exactly the same thing. I see it in the council rangers who not only demanded that a family pour out the champagne they were drinking to celebrate Christmas day onto the hot sand of Bondi Beach, but also to pop and pour their unopened bottles too. I see it in the surly staff at the Avoca surf club restaurant who, on Good Friday of all days, refused a table to a young couple and their two children, both of whom were under the age of three, because the toddlers had committed the inexcusable sin of not wearing shoes inside. I see it too, more times than I care to mention, in the power-hungry bouncers staffing Sydney's pubs and clubs who seem to relish in ruining any decent night out. 'How many drinks have you had?' – the question to which there is no right answer, honest or otherwise. I see it also in the intensely passive aggressive note left on my windshield after I had the temerity to leave my car parked in the same, entirely legal, spot on the street I live on for two weeks, which read: 'Has this car been abandoned? We will call the council and have it removed – residents.' I had half a mind to flip the paper and write: 'Hi resident. Also resident. Why don't you get a life and mind your own business?' (And yes, I am starting to wonder if there is something wrong with my neighbours). Regardless, I see it everywhere: this curtain-twitching, joy-extinguishing, fun-sponging desire to pursue conformity at all costs. And it's not just confined to neighbourhood spats, officious hospitality staff of lowly council bureaucrats. This rotten, rule-making insanity runs right through the heart of state and federal governments across the country. Of course, it plumbed new depths during the pandemic. State premiers, drunk off power and acting like Communist dictators, families unable to say goodbye to loved ones and the appalling case of a pregnant woman in her pyjamas being taken from her home in handcuffs for daring to stand up to the tyranny. But it didn't end there. Take the upcoming social media ban for children under the age of 16 or the $420,000-a-year eSafety Commissioner whose job seems to entail telling social media companies to remove mean posts, sometimes made by people in foreign countries. You hear politicians praising these measures as 'world leading', as if being the first country to do something precludes any discussion over whether it's actually a good idea in the first place. Because they're not. The eSafety Commissioner is about as useful as a chocolate teapot and if anyone sincerely thinks that children aren't going to get around any ban in a matter of seconds then I have a good bridge to sell you. No, what these laws are all about is pandering to Australia's obsession with policing other people's lives. And nowhere was this more apparent than in the case of Sydney restaurateur Nahji Chu, whose Lady Chu eatery in Potts Point was visited last Friday by unsmiling council bureaucrats who were unhappy with her potted plants. In an explosive showdown, filmed by a staff member, Ms Chu unleashed on the council employees: 'This is 'f***ed up, this whole city is f***ed up! 'I'm not a f***ing naughty school kid, so don't speak to me like that. 'I'm paying f***ing taxes and I'm paying your wages, so f*** off. 'I'm trying to activate this f***ing dead city, so don't shut it down.' While a family website such as this one cannot condone Ms Chu's colourful language, I applaud her sentiment wholeheartedly. Here is an Australian hero, willing to stand up for herself and others in the face of joyless officials. This is a woman who fled the communist Pathet Lao regime as a child in 1975, only to then be thrown into a Thai jail cell with her father where she caught TB and languished for three months. Her family then bounced around Thai refugee camps for three years before they eventually became among the first Vietnamese refugees to settle in Australia. Ms Chu has worked in the varied worlds of fashion (where she once helped dress Kylie Minogue) banking and hospitality, a sector in which she has built and lost an empire before starting all again from scratch with the popular Lady Chu in 2021. She was gloriously unapologetic when she spoke to my colleague Jonica Bray earlier this week. 'There is no fun in this city, you can't do anything or you face a fine,' she said. 'No one even leaves their house anymore - they just work to make money and go and spend it overseas where they can get culture and have a good time.' And she's right. If the average Australian allows the small but powerful minority of rule-lovers to win, then the country must drop any pretense to being some kind of laidback nirvana and must face a reckoning with its true identity. I urge all proud Australians to follow Ms Chu's lead and resist loudly and openly – to stand up for the values and the spirit that makes this country so great.
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
A single incident brought Sydney's train network to a standstill – again. Here's why it keeps happening
Once again, vulnerabilities of Sydney's rail network have been exposed, bringing the city to a standstill. Unlike train systems in most global cities, almost all rail lines converge over a short stretch in the city's west. Complicating the issue further is a reliance on hand-delivered paper communications between train staff. At peak hour on Wednesday morning, buses were packed with frustrated commuters who normally rely on trains to get from Sydney's north shore into the city. 'Nah, mate, I'm on a bloody bus,' a banker from Roseville wearing a three-piece suit said into his AirPods as he tried to explain why he was late for a meeting. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email It was 18 hours after a live wire with enough voltage to instantly kill a human fell on the top of a train, trapping 300 passengers onboard and grinding all heavy rail lines – with the exception of the Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra line – to a halt, but train riders across the city had still been warned to avoid using the network. Some lines had resumed, with heavy delays, but where exactly they were running was unclear. The banker from Roseville had checked the TripView and Google Maps apps but was unable to ascertain if trains were even running from Roseville station, a short stroll from his home. Instead, he walked roughly half an hour to an arterial road to catch a bus into the city. Bus after bus whooshed past, too full to pick up passengers. 'Sydney, it's the best city in the world, until the trains cark it again,' he said. While transport chiefs and the state premier, Chris Minns, swiftly apologised to commuters and promised a fare-free day next week, the pattern felt all too common. An independent review into the incident and train unreliability more broadly will soon begin. However, experts, including former senior rail department leaders, say there is little that can be done to prevent city-wide outages from recurring. While technical issues are unavoidable on a rail network that hosts 400m trips each year, the latest outage has reignited the nagging question on the minds of millions of Sydneysiders: how can just one incident on one train at a station with multiple tracks bring down an entire city's rail network? Increasingly, another question is front of mind: how can communications from transport authorities be so poor when the worst does happen? The answer to the first question is easier to comprehend, and dates back to plans made in the early 1900s – including a famous vision for new lines from Sydney Harbour Bridge engineer John Bradfield – about how to expand the rail network to cater to a growing Sydney. Rather than a master plan for new lines independent of each other – as modern metro and underground systems were increasingly being built throughout the 20th century – the approach for Sydney was to take advantage of the huge capacity of the six tracks that comprise its main western railway between Central and Strathfield. In cities such as London, commuters can avoid a bottleneck or outage on one line by switching to another to dodge a problem section of track. But almost all heavy rail services in Sydney's suburban network – including trains to the Central Coast, Blue Mountains, City Circle or Airport – are routed to pass through the Central-Strathfield corridor. 'A lot of our lines are tangled with each other,' Sydney Trains CEO, Matt Longland, said. 'At this critical pinch point … one incident in a location like this can bring down a significant part of the network.' In the case of Roseville station on the North Shore line, city-bound trains do not traverse the Central-Strathfield stretch before reaching the CBD, but services then continue on the same tracks to the western suburbs past Strathfield. Once any track is closed, the conga-line of trains using it must halt, and city-wide timetables go out the window. Attempts have been made in recent years to detangle the train lines, and on Wednesday, Longland said 'simplifying' the network would be examined as part of the review. The Eastern Suburbs line, constructed in the 1970s, and new Metro lines are independent and weren't harmed by Tuesday's outage – the more complicated task is restructuring the network's overall design to avoid a single point of failure. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Other issues are easier to address. Communications to passengers on Tuesday evening were frenzied and inconsistent. A snap press conference was called for 4.30pm and commuters urged to 'plan ahead' to make alternative travel plans home. There were chaotic scenes at Sydney's Central station as thousands of commuters heading home flooded platforms to board trains that were mostly not running. Departure information screens did not display up-to-date information and station staff gave conflicting messages about how commuters should get home. Widely used travel apps which rely on government data were rendered useless as timetabled services were abandoned in favour of shuttle train services not reflected in apps. This, however, did not stop station staff relying on Google Maps and TripView to give travellers incorrect advice. Minns has said that communications will be examined in the snap review of the incident. '[Even] if there's no information because the problem hasn't been diagnosed yet, well that's still information that would be valuable [for commuters] to have,' Minns said. 'Even if it is inconvenient, even if it is sometimes embarrassing for the government, it's still crucial for commuters to know.' However, improving internal staff communications will also be essential. Multiple rail sources speaking on the condition of anonymity have told Guardian Australia that in some parts of the network, information about disruptions is delivered to staff on trains by hand-delivered notes, including writing on carbon paper to replicate messages. 'Parts of the system remain very archaic, hand-delivering paper to drivers and guards,' one source said. Another added: 'This is a network that started in 1855 and many parts of the network operate under historic practices. It's hard to update all at once when you're dealing with thousands of kilometres of track.' For now, before the review can be conducted and findings implements, Sydneysiders should not be surprised by more city-wide train failures. After months of industrial action-related outages, and with the memory of a horror run of similar rail outages in the weeks before the NSW Coalition lost the 2023 election and Labor formed government, Minns appears under no illusions about the importance of ensuring trains run smoothly. 'I stay up at nights worrying about this,' he said.
The Sun
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Identity of Deal or No Deal banker revealed after years of mystery – and it's a familiar face to soap fans
THE identity of the banker on Deal or No Deal has been revealed after years of speculation and mystery. The hit television gameshow, which originally ran on Channel 4 from 2005 until 2016 with Noel Edmonds at the helm, was revived in 2023 with Stephen Mulhern as the host. 5 5 5 But now the identity of the banker, who served on the show during Noel's stint, has been unveiled. Soap fans will know who actor Glenn Hugill is, but might be shocked to learn that he was in fact the banker on the show for 11 years. Glenn, who is now 55 years of age, was a famous Coronation Street star who was even embroiled in a very memorable storyline. From 1996 until 1997, Glenn took on the role of Alan McKenna on the cobbles and even starred in a whopping 86 episodes. In the Manchester-based soap opera, his character was a detective and he dated Fiona Middleton played by Angela Griffin. In the soap, Alan and Fiona were due to get hitched but Jim McDonald Charles Lawson exposed his one-night stand with Fiona. It remains unknown who took over from Glenn as the banker for Stephen , but it's believed he stayed in the role for a year. Reboot host Stephen Mulhern 's era of the show. The comedian previously said how he didn't know who the banker was. "I don't know who the Banker is, so I wouldn't be able to recognise who it was," he said previously. "So, he could walk past me at any point." He added that the voice on the end of the phone is that of a "male", but didn't reveal anything else as he doesn't know anymore information. "Supposedly, he goes into the hotel and listens to the contestants and what they're up to. "So when he comes on the phone to me, I've got to repeat what he says," he said. Glenn was speculated as the banker more than 15 years ago. In 2009, one person on X, formerly Twitter, said: "wikipedia seems to be hinting at Glenn Hugill as the banker ..care to confirm??" Another added at the time: "true or false is the banker Glenn Hugill?" Then, in 2015, former Pointless host Richard Osmon seemingly accidentally revealed that Glenn was the banker. Speaking about his show Two Tribes, Richard said at the time: "[It] was an idea that Glenn Hugill – the Banker on Deal or No Deal – and I had been thinking about for a long time." Then, more recently, fans have speculated whether or not Glenn might still be the banker. "I wonder if the banker on celebrity Deal or no Deal is still Glenn Hugill aka Alan McKenna Quite funny given that it's Steve McDonald on," said one during a celebrity special episode. 5 5
Zawya
19-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Financing roars back on tariff truce: IFR
Animal spirits are starting to influence deal financing again after concerns about market volatility stemming from US president Donald Trump's gyrating tariff policy are starting to recede. On May 12 the US and China, which has been hit particularly by Trump's changes in tariff policy since 'liberation day' on April 2, reached an agreement to roll back from tariffs of as much as 145% on Chinese imports into the US to 30%, subject to further review after 90 days. 'We recently lost out on a mandate as a competitor was prepared to go ahead with M&A financing for a client without asking for any conditions,' said a senior corporate advisory banker at a major lender. The banker said his institution's policy was more cautious and would only finance deals on condition the market did not become overly volatile, such as if the S&P 500 Index fell 10% or government bond yields rose significantly. 'This explains why M&A has been on hold a bit so far this year. People are still keen to do, and support, deals but only with contingencies,' the banker said. An advisory banker at a US institution said the fact that a bank was beaten to a deal by a rival less worried about the downside threat showed that things are already 'coming back and people are willing to accept more risk'. He had been telling clients that the extraordinary volatility seen during April was more a temporary blip than anything lasting. Indeed, it appears the appetite for deals has picked up after the initial pause. In the past week in the US, Dick's Sporting Goods agreed to buy Foot Locker for US$2.37bn and Texan utility NRG Energy made a US$12.49bn offer for several natural gas power stations from LS Power. On Friday, cable operator Charter Communications said it would buy Cox Communications for US$21.9bn. Outside the US, Canadian oil firm Strathcona launched a C$5.9bn (US$4.25bn) hostile takeover bid for MEG Energy. The total value of announced M&A deals to May 15 this year was US$1.34trn, up 20% from the same period a year earlier, according to data from LSEG. Domestic US M&A was up 9% so far this year to US$875.5bn. 'This was not like Covid or the financial crisis, when the economic outlook was completely uncertain. OK, there was lack of clarity on where things might end up but Trump had put on tariffs in his first administration but that turned out to be a manageable consideration,' the second banker said. He pointed to what major corporates had said during their first-quarter results. 'Earnings were pretty resilient and dividend and buyback policies have generally remained in place and been unaffected by tariffs,' he said. 'There is not a lot you can do with your supply chain in the short term but companies have been reviewing their capital expenditure. Those cuts will improve margins and provide capacity to do deals or reshore facilities.' Investment bank bosses at Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered on Thursday said there had been 'a sense of relief' among clients in recent days following the thawing in the US-China tariff dispute, after deal activity had paused after April 2 as the scale of tariffs had come as a shock. Dollar diversification Although dealmakers generally have now brushed off the tariff tantrum, those in charge of making asset allocation decisions at institutions do seem to be changing their outlook and diversifying where they invest or park their assets beyond the US dollar, which has long been the dominant destination. Isabelle Mateos y Lago, chief economist at BNP Paribas, said it was important to distinguish between 'return-seeking' investors and those, such as central bank reserve managers, who held US dollar assets for safety reasons. The former had increased their exposures to the US compared with Europe after the pandemic but a readjustment was now happening. 'Since March, that has started to reverse. It has contributed to the depreciation in the dollar since the start of the year,' she said. That was already detectable but the picture was less clear among reserve managers, since the official data lagged events. 'There is no evidence yet that treasurers using dollar assets such as US Treasuries as a safe haven have changed their portfolio allocations, but anecdotally they seem to be asking questions whether they can continue to do this as firmly as before due to policy uncertainty,' she said. 'US Treasuries are behaving more as a risk asset than a safe one in recent weeks.' George Saravelos, global head of FX Research at Deutsche Bank, said he was detecting a change already. 'Our high-frequency foreign inflow data is continuing to show very tepid inflows into the US. There is persistent reporting of investors and countries reconsidering their dollar asset exposure, most recently in Taiwan," Saravelos said. The second banker said M&A should continue to be reasonably strong for the rest of the year, but said the outlook for next year was unclear at this point. Source: IFR
