Treasure and Dirt

With special guest:

• Chris Hammer
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This is the first of Chris Hammer’s books to be set in the Australian outback.

There is a murder in a fictional opal mining town loosely based on Lightning Ridge in a far corner of NSW.

We go immediately to the gruesome murder scene. The early indications are that so-called “ratters” are involved and that is a story in itself as Chris explains to us what a ratter is in the context of small mining operations.

What a pleasure it is to get the latest book from Chris Hammer. Treasure and Dirt includes new characters each with a flaw that we discover just as the characters in the book do. We have to make a decision about which character we can trust.

Chris describes the town so well that we can almost taste the dust and feel the isolation. And there is the suspicion of opal fever throughout. When you throw in some big business shenanigans by rogue billionaires and even a religious cult there is plenty of action to follow as you get into this page turner.

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Nancy Business

With special guest:

• RWR (Rob) McDonald
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This story can stand alone. But if you have read the first book in the series, The Nancys, you will be even keener to see what happens in Rob McDonald’s new book Nancy Business.

For anyone who loves the British murder mysteries such as Frost, Inspector Linley, Taggart and all the others Nancy Business is a treat. But there are a few twists that you do not often find. The narrator and main character is a young girl in Otago a small town on the South Island of New Zealand whose father died about a year ago. Her name is Tippy Chan and with her uncle Pike and his boyfriend Devon they make a formidable team for solving a mysterious murder mystery.

This is a modern family story and the relationships are explored with all the black comedy and snappy dialogue we might hope for. Given that the author is himself in a “rainbow family” he has special insights and we explore with Rob some of how this type of family compares with other families.

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Far from Home

With special guest:

• Rosie Ayliffe
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

All Hell broke loose on that night in 2016.

When we speak with Rosie Ayliffe about her book Far from Home we hear firsthand how her loving 20 year old daughter Mia was put in harm’s way in a backpacker hostel. We hear how Mia and another backpacker who tried to protect her were both killed by another resident in the middle of a psychotic episode. What made it even worse is that Rosie was far away on the other side of the world in England when this nightmare unfolded. Rosie’s dreams of a future life involving her daughter Mia were gone.

Rosie thought that her daughter was working in a healthy environment on a farm in outback Queensland in order to comply with the Australian government’s visa requirements for an extended stay in Australia. After being told by the local Police in England about her daughter’s tragic death Rosie decided immediately to come to Australia and get to the bottom of what had happened.

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National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project

With special guest:

• Gerry Georgatos
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

We are honoured today to have as our special guest a social warrior, Gerry Georgatos. Gerry is the founder of the National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project (the Project) set up in 2019. His colleague Megan Krakouer appeared recently on The Drum to talk about the work Gerry and she are doing with young Aboriginal offenders in Western Australian prisons. Footage has emerged of young children being hog-tied by prison guards and Megan spoke of the need for help.

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Treasure and Dirt

With special guest:

• Chris Hammer
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This is the first of Chris Hammer’s books to be set in the Australian outback.

There is a murder in a fictional opal mining town loosely based on Lightning Ridge in a far corner of NSW.

We go immediately to the gruesome murder scene. The early indications are that so-called “ratters” are involved and that is a story in itself as Chris explains to us what a ratter is in the context of small mining operations.

What a pleasure it is to get the latest book from Chris Hammer. Treasure and Dirt includes new characters each with a flaw that we discover just as the characters in the book do. We have to make a decision about which character we can trust.

Podcast (mp3)

Click to read more ...

Nancy Business

With special guest:

• R.W.R. McDonald
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This story can stand alone. But if you have read the first book in the series, The Nancys, you will be even keener to see what happens in Rob McDonald’s new book Nancy Business.

For anyone who loves the British murder mysteries such as Frost, Inspector Linley, Taggart and all the others Nancy Business is a treat. But there are a few twists that you do not often find. The narrator and main character is a young girl in Otago a small town on the South Island of New Zealand whose father died about a year ago. Her name is Tippy Chan and with her uncle Pike and his boyfriend Devon they make a formidable team for solving a mysterious murder mystery.

Podcast (mp3)

Click to read more ...

Far from Home

With special guest:

• Rosie Ayliffe
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

All Hell broke loose on that night in 2016.

When we speak with Rosie Ayliffe about her new book Far from Home we hear firsthand how her loving 20 year old daughter Mia was put in harm’s way in a backpacker hostel. We hear how Mia and another backpacker who tried to protect her were both killed by another resident in the middle of a psychotic episode. What made it even worse is that Rosie was far away on the other side of the world in England when this nightmare unfolded. Rosie’s dreams of a future life involving her daughter Mia were gone.

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Life and Death Planning for Country Properties

With special guest:

• Owen Catto
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Our guest today is Owen Catto from The Regional Men’s Health Initiative of Western Australia.

Owen’s life as a farmer began when he worked on the family farm for 18 years with a small interest in that farming business given to him by his father. To back up this direct experience of conditions on the farm Owen also has a Bachelor of Business in Agriculture and has operated a farm consultancy business. When talking about life on the land we might say that Owen knows his onions.

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Jeremiah House 2018

With special guests:

• Peter Symes & Robert Stoker
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Jeremiah Chapter 20 Verse 18. For those of us not familiar with that extract from the Bible it is relevant to today’s show as our guest Peter Symes points out. Jeremiah House 2018 is not a religious institution but it is doing work that many Christians would like to claim as being core to their life principles.

Peter and Robert realised that there were no shelters in Bundaberg that catered for men and their children when a crisis in the home occurred. Surprisingly there are none in Australia as a whole. If a man arrived at a shelter having been forced out of home what would happen is that the family would be split. The children would be sent to one institution and if a shelter were available the man would be sent there on his own. Just when the father and his family most needed to support each other they would be forcibly separated.

Peter has a background as a registered nurse and a wide variety of experience in the workforce. Robert also is widely experienced with a personal history of family breakup. Their admirable response to the lack of any shelters for men in this situation was to begin a project so that there will be somewhere for men and their families to go.

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Top Blokes Foundation

With special guest:

• Melissa Abu-Gazaleh

We cannot avoid the bad news stories about young men. The figures show that 82.6% of articles in the press about young men are negative.

In today’s program we speak with Melissa Abu-Gazaleh, the founder and Managing Director of the Top Blokes Foundation, who counters that negative stereotype by encouraging the young men to become “top blokes”. Melissa argues that young men can be a force for good; they are a resource that is largely untapped.

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Male Health in Australia - Men’s Health Week 2016

With special guest:

• Dr Gary Misan

The health of Australians in terms of life expectancy is good by world standards.

However when we examine life expectancy it is often forgotten in these times of women demanding greater empowerment that males in Australia die more frequently than females in all age groups. Male life expectancy is 4.6 years less than females and the gap has increased not declined since 1900. In remote and very remote areas average male life expectancy is 4 years lower than in more populated areas. For Aboriginal males the average life expectancy is only 59 years a full 6 years less than for Aboriginal females. Furthermore male health extends beyond the purely biological aspects and encompasses a range of issues affecting the health and wellbeing of men and boys.

Against this background the Government introduced Australia’s first Men’s Health Policy in 2010, some 30 years after the Women’s Health Policy appeared. We ask our guest today Dr Gary Misan what changes have we seen since the 2010 introduction of the Policy and to what extent has it been picked up at the state and regional level.

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Hunter Valley Men’s Crisis Support

With special guest:

• Philip Penfold

Charity starts at home.

Philip Penfold, our guest today, was born and raised in Maitland NSW. When he spent 18 months in the USA he witnessed first-hand how community minded the Americans were and it inspired him to do something for his own hometown.

Philip did not have to look too far before he realised that homeless men in the Hunter region desperately needed someone to care. This led to the establishment in 2011 of Hunter Valley Men’s Crisis Support which provides assistance to homeless men in Maitland/Lower Hunter. This support group aims to give blokes a hand up when they are at their lowest point. They do this by providing practical, short-term assistance to men experiencing or at risk of homelessness or financial difficulty.

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The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men

With special guest:

• Prof Barry Golding

When we think of great Australian inventions we might be referring to the Black Box Flight Recorder, electronic pacemakers, cochlear implants or even the stump-jump plough. But today we talk about another Australian invention that has spread internationally and saved thousands of men’s lives.

Our guest today is Dr Barry Golding who is the honorary patron of the Australian Men’s Shed Association and he provides a fascinating insight into the development and growth of this iconic Australian success story. Barry Golding gives us the benefit of his fifteen years of research in his new book The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men. In talking to us today Barry lets us discover what actually goes on inside the Men’s Sheds we see as we pass through so many country towns.

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Talk to a mate

With special guest:

• Owen Catto

Just about everything starts with our health, it is so important. The Regional Men’s Health Initiative in WA identifies three parts to our health, namely physical, mental and social/spiritual.

Owen Catto has worked for the past 7 years in men’s holistic health and wellbeing across an enormous geographic area in Western Australia. In his work in regional centres as well as remote outstations what he has found out about the men is that “we are all blokes” and therefore the strategies for empowering men are similar wherever he finds them.

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