Rocky road

ALUMNI of Unley High School in Adelaide have burst into action after the school's most famous old girl, Julia Gillard, reflected on her days there.

THE alumni of Unley High School in suburban Adelaide have burst into action after the school's most famous old girl, Julia Gillard, reflected on her days there in a long speech at the National Press Club last week.

Our attention has been drawn to the efforts of the B-grade debating team in 1978, where Gillard played a starring role, especially in Unley High's defeat of Mary MacKillop College when arguing for the affirmative that "it is better to travel than to arrive". Arguably the topic reflects Gillard's own journey travelling from her heady days as a popular deputy prime minister to becoming a deeply unpopular Prime Minister. The team was coached by a Mrs Howard, which seems a bit too much of a coincidence, but while Janette Howard was a schoolteacher, she plied her trade in Sydney, not Adelaide. Gillard makes much of her humble roots at Unley High but in truth it's a bit of a training ground for politicians. Former South Australian premiers Dean Brown and John Bannon went there, as did a whole swag of lesser light politicians, not to mention prominent scientist and SA governor Mark Oliphant and artist Jeffrey Smart.

On the money

THE polls may be against Gillard but another group is coming back to her, the punters. And we mean that literally. Last week, just after the launch of the carbon tax proposal, the ALP's price on Betfair blew out to $4.50 with the Coalition on $1.30 to win the next election. Apparently these odds seemed pretty good and there was a rush of money for the ALP, so the party has now come back to $2.90, with the Coalition now offering $1.42. Betfair's Mathew Thompson says it is the first time the ALP has shortened in betting since the market opened.

Irish ire, not smiling

THE good folk at the Irish Echo, Australia's Irish newspaper, are on their high horse about what the see as a rising tide of Irish-bashing in Australia. Editor Billy Cantwell pointed to senator Bill Heffernan calling Qantas chief Alan Joyce "an old Irish bomb maker" when asking him about security procedures at the national carrier; Liberal Greg Hunt calling the Sunday the carbon tax was announced "Sunday, Bloody Sunday"; and Tony Abbott telling a bad taste Irish joke at a Liberal Party function. Cantwell says Australia is well behind the British in its approach to the Irish -- a low blow, indeed -- but as the above list shows, it's the Liberal Party in general and Tony Abbott in particular who've attracted the ire of the Irish. "Perhaps he [Abbott] has Irish acquaintances who are content to take such slurs on the chin, but every community has its Uncle Toms," Cantwell thunders. Or O'Toms, to be sure.

Rain check

HEAVY rains have led to all sorts of problems in Australia this year, the latest disaster being the cancellation of a camel race in northwest Queensland. The $40,000 Desert Sands Cup at Boulia, a town of 300 located 300km south of Mt Isa, was called off on the weekend after heavy rain -- well, 22mm, heavy by Boulia standards -- fell on Thursday night, leaving behind a large lake at the 400m mark and enough dampness on the dirt course to make it unsafe for camels, which can't gain traction when turning or stopping on a wet surface. The event is Boulia's big tourist attraction for the year, but even without camels racing, the town still went off on the weekend, with novelty foot races, motorcycle events, live music and, of course, betting.

In rust we trust

THE collective smack of hands on foreheads could be heard across Russell Hill in Canberra yesterday when they finally got the long-awaited report by Paul Rizzo into why the Navy couldn't provide any seaworthy ships in North Queensland's hour of need after Cyclone Yasi earlier this year. Rizzo, a director of National Australia Bank, has suggested a sort of seaworthy certificate for our vessels, a kind of nautical version of a roadworthy certificate, with a list of items that need to be checked off such as age, full crew availability and whether key systems actually work. Defence Minister Stephen Smith ordered the review after HMAS Tobruk, Manoora and Kanimbla were all unavailable to help in the cyclone. Corrosion on the Tobruk was so serious that parts of the hull were only 2mm thick while the Manoora was so rusty it was paid off. But as the owner of any old rust-bucket knows, getting a roadworthy certificate is often only a start to work needed.

Seeing red

VICTORIAN RSL president Major General David McLachlan has expressed outrage over the Last Post being played in an aircraft hangar at Tullamarine on Friday morning following a 60-second strike by aircraft maintenance engineers. He said he would express his views to the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, adding that "to hear it played as an industrial song is just dreadful". While management and the old Diggers were indignant, unions doubted that the incident even occurred. It seems a bit rich appropriating the Last Post for a strike when The Red Flag generally does the trick in such circumstances.