The longest dames

AS AUSTRALIA'S population ages, we can proudly claim an increasing number of centenarians, but our number of dames is dwindling.

AS AUSTRALIA'S population ages, we can proudly claim an increasing number of centenarians, but our number of dames is dwindling.

There is, according to regular Strewth reader Mark McGinness, only one woman who is both: Elisabeth Joy Murdoch, who celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday. Dame Elisabeth became Australia's oldest ever dame. Her closest rival was Dame Alice Chisholm, who operated canteens for Australian soldiers in the Middle East in World WarI and who died one month before her 98th birthday, followed by the legendary Dame Mary Gilmore, who reached 97 years and three months. Dame Elisabeth's successor as president of Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, Dame Patricia Mackinnon, 97, is still going strong. McGinness says Dame Elisabeth is now one of only six dames throughout the Commonwealth to have reached 100. The oldest was Princess Alice of Gloucester, wife of our 11th governor-general (102 years, 10 months and four days). Next came the ballerina Dame Ninette de Valois (102 and nine months), the nutritionist, Dame Harriette Chick (102 and six months), Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (101 and seven months) and the actor Dame Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies (101 and two days).

Qantas gets neighbourly

NEIGHBOUR Day, the annual celebration of community care that was facing difficulties after a potential major sponsor pulled out, has been given a boost by Qantas. The airline's chief executive Alan Joyce has agreed to sponsor the screening of a television commercial promoting the day, to be held on March 29. Neighbour Day founder Andrew Heslop says the 30-second spot, produced pro bono by Saatchi & Saatchi, will be screened on all the airline's domestic and in-bound international flights next month.

Flogged with letters

PARLIAMENTARY observers reckon the cut and thrust of what now passes for debate in Canberra is seeing the erosion of some long-held conventions. Once ministers would not use appeals made to them by MPs on behalf of constituents in parliamentary argy bargy. The idea was MPs could appeal for all constituents equally without fear of political exploitation or recrimination. But the old rules are being abandoned. Last week saw various Rudd government ministers read out letters of appeal from Opposition members to try to pressure them into bucking Malcolm Turnbull's opposition to Kev09's $42 billion economic bailout. The letters were sent months before the global economic crisis hit.

Just call her Eliza

THE transformation of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard from a rough-around-the-edges union leader to the woman who could be Australia's first female prime minister is virtually complete. The smiling, perfectly groomed and well-spoken Gillard who was interviewed yesterday morning on ABC TV's The Insiders by Barrie Cassidy bore almost no resemblance to the woman who first started appearing regularly on our TV screens in the two years before Kevin Rudd led the ALP to election victory in 2007. The Labor Party neither confirms nor denies performing a makeover on Gillard -- including elocution lessons to moderate her once notorious accent -- but Strewth can't help thinking that even Big Julia must cringe when old footage of TV performances gets a run.

Put out the welcome Milat

IT seems that not all the residents of Sydney's famous Bondi Beach are overjoyed with the number of foreign backpackers who throng to the sands in summer. Crossing Campbell Parade yesterday morning was a young bloke in board shorts, bare top, bare feet, wearing zinc cream and carrying a surfboard under his arm. Painted on the board in big letters: "Save Bondi -- Free Ivan Milat". Milat is serving a life sentence in Goulburn jail for the murder of seven backpackers in the 1990s.

Gong for fearless terrier

GEORGE, a jack russell terrier that defended a group of Kiwi children from attack by two pitbulls, will posthumously receive Britain's highest award for animal bravery this week. George's owner Alan Gay will be presented with the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals of the Poor gold medal by the British high commissioner on Wednesday in the South Taranaki town of Manaia. The medal has never before been conferred on an animal outside Britain. In May 2007 George saved four children from two pitbulls intent on attacking them, but was so badly injured that he had to be put down. George has also received posthumous accolades from the other animal groups, and from American Jerrell Hudman, who sent the terrier his Purple Heart from the Vietnam War.

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