To mark the 30th anniversary of “CityNews”, social historian and journalist NICHOLE OVERALL has written an eclectic history of Canberra and beyond over the past three decades. Here is 2001.
“364 days and September 11”.
The most impactful event of the year, a new century, and potentially one of the most profound in modern history, overshadows all else.
As two world wars changed and shaped humankind, so does 9/11.
Before those incendiary planes effected the collapse of those western nation symbols as the world watched on, there was much happening nationally and locally.
The Centenary of Federation celebrating our nationhood: when the six separate colonies united to become the Commonwealth of Australia.
In 1901 in the midst of an horrendous drought, involvement in the Boer War, and still throwing off the shackles of our convict past, we became “one of the foremost exponents of democracy in the world”.
Another outcome: a need for a new Federal Capital; NSW Premier George Reid insistent it remained within his state (you’re welcome, Canberra).
Eden-Monaro was among the original 75 electorates created at the time – Sir Austin Chapman, of Braidwood, the first member and one of the longest serving (dying while still in office 25 years later).
One hundred years on, in a continuation of E-M having earned a rep as a seat that goes with the government of the day, in the face of shaky polls and the “children overboard” controversy, Liberal Gary Nairn is returned as part of a third-term Howard government.
One rung down, with the ALP holding NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania, they secure WA and for the first time since self-government in 1978, the NT too.
Making it almost a clean sweep (SA the holdout), in the ACT, after six years, Labor is back. And despite “CityNews” political commentator Jane Lee stating just the year before that “Jon Stanhope would never be chief minister” – he is.
“I’m buggered, I’m sorry, I have to resign”.
It was also the election featuring “the shortest political career on record”. Former footballer Mal Meninga, on radio to answer why he was running as an independent for Molonglo (a la, Paul Osborne), within a minute, flames out mid-sentence. But fair cop, as someone once told me, it is a tough gig…
In other parochial headlines, the new National Museum, for which a hospital was disastrously imploded, opens, and Floriade celebrates its 13th year and the Federation anniversary with “The Century in Bloom”.
Media-wise, Canberra had lost its local weekend TV news by 1995 (and 30 staff their jobs) and now its first station, CTC/Ten Capital, axes its weekly news hour, ending 40 years of local production. The station will be rebranded Southern Cross Ten next year.
In 2012, Television Operations General Manager Jeremy Flynn said of the decision: “When the news bulletin was rationalised in 2001, they weren’t particularly happy times”.
Prime TV also jettisons regional news bulletins, including Canberra.
More broadly: after 65 years and as one of the oldest airlines in the world, Ansett goes bust; Donald “The Don” Bradman dies; cinematic Harry Potter “apparates” four years after the first book became almost as well-read as the Bible; around 70,000 people nominate “Jedi” on the Census religion question; and the Holden Monaro is reintroduced, “a nameplate on hiatus since 1977” (see 1998).
And then on that fateful date, on this side of the globe, we turned on our TVs in the early hours of the morning, barely able to believe what we were seeing.
The full collection of Nichole Overall’s “CityNews” anniversary columns can be seen here.
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