Shredding the news (it is good for worm bins)

I didn’t read an Australian newspaper for my first four or so years in exile. It's only recently I’ve started to sniff around in Australia again, sticking my big nose in where it might not be welcome.

Friends in Australia are always lamenting that the almighty Sport dominates the news there. Forget the arts, its sports people who sing, dance, write and paint the best.

I remember the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, drinking sticky pink sea breezers and waiting with the rest of the country for Juan Antonio Samaranch to say that it was `the best olympics ever'. It was early in the morning in France when he said it. Did you hear it? I've asked lots of French people. No i didn't watch it, they reply, I didn't hear that, but the beach volleyball looked good - those Brazilians are hot. What year was that?

Australia isn't one of the big decision-makers on the global stage, it isn't a G8 country. It's a small-big country (small on the population, big on the desert) looking for approval and it is perhaps through sporting prowess that Australians try to get the clout and recognition they can't get politically. Looking in the newspapers over here - I see Ian Thorpe’s decision to quit swimming made the news.

But apart from that, not much else - Australia rests quietly in the United States' penumbra. A firm lackey of the US it makes the news as a terrorist target due to being one of the allies of the United States. Australia's Prime Minister is likely to appear in a photo alongside the US President with the caption: George Bush and "unknown civil servant".

After sporting news - cricket updates and the like - probably the biggest news Europe receives about Australia is news about Australian "entertainers". The death of the crocodile hunter (perhaps because he gave the world a stagnant quirky-cliched image of Australia that didn't make anyone have to think or change their ideas) was news. Also in the world news was Mel Gibson getting done for intoxicated racial slurring - although Australians who used to be so quick to claim him as an ambassador of Australia when he seemed so promising back in the days of Mad Max: "They say people don't believe in heroes anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max, we're gonna give them back their heroes!" were very quick to say "He is American!, he wasn't born in Australia" [no he just grew up and was educated in Australia]

In the same way that Australia relies on its sporting heroes to give it recognition on the world stage I think it relies on its entertainers as well, with Australians having a bloated sense of pride in their acting exports. I've found myself pointing out all the Australian actors in Hollywood to H (some he doesn't recognise because they've expertly disguised their accents). With all those Kidmans and Crowes, gone are the days when you have to rummage around for Australian oscar winners, ummm, errrr, well you know, an Australian won the oscar for best costume designer three times! But I don't really care about oscars. As H was quick to point out "you're really proud that Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman aren't you? Me, reddening: No, i'm prouder that Heath Ledger is dating Michelle Williams from Dawson's Creek, I replied.

The link between business and government is old news. But the link between entertainment and government, or rather celebrity and government, still astounds me. I remember during the race riots in Sydney last year when Australia's Hollywooders were flown in to Sydney to calm the social unrest, Cate Blanchett making a special appearance to speak about racism with a poise and charisma none of the Australian politicans could muster.

Ok, celebrities getting involved in politics is rather common now. But what about when politicians have to get involved in celebritics. When I was reading the Sydney Morning Herald last week I saw that interweaved among the fait divers and entertainment and sporting news which seems to make up the bulk of national news, an Australian television hosts' wife had died. She used to act in some Australian soaps as well. Of course it was sad, she was young and positive, and the couple were in love.

However, people die every day from wars supported by Australia (John Howard has most recently noted that the war in Iraq was "not a disaster" - yet another thing he isn't about to say sorry for in the near future), and I found it strange that because of the links between vote-getting and celebrity supporting, both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition party were expected, and indeed did, give public condolence statements even though they didn't seem to know the couple personally. Perhaps most telling was when the opposition leader got the name muddled and rather than offering his condolences to the television personality, he offered them to Karl Rove, yet another lackey of the Bush regime.