Hello folks. Yep it’s me. I realise I have been a bit Lazy McSlackenstein in my offerings so I’ll try and make up for it now. I was fairly exhausted last week, but I’m feeling a bit more energised. Anyway, here is a bit of a rundown of my week at the Australian.

Day One: Showed up at ten as asked. Was introduced to the boss, Sean Parnell. He was much younger than I expected but he was a nice fellow indeed. He said he would try and get me to do as much writing as possible, so that was good. The operation itself was more low key than I expected, but because it’s a bureau they seem a just have a few senior journalist covering the big Queensland stories. It was a good environment but I wasn’t immeadiately hopeful for a byline.
The first task I was given was to make inquiries about a press release on Queensland trying to poach NSW tradespeople through seminars in Sydney. The first call I made was to Morris Iemma’s office. I was a bit nervous but it seemed to go ok, cos the guy said the big Moz was actually holding a seminar in Brisbane on the same day. Lo and behold a story materialised. I wrote a bit of a silly peice on the rivalry and by the end of the day it looked like it would get a run. As i was leaving Sean Parnell said it would probably get up so I was pretty pleased as I headed home.

Day Two: The story didn’t end up getting a run. (insert journalism cliche here). It was ok though. As soon as I showed up in the morning I was sent down to parliament house, on my own, to cover question time and the launch of some bit of puff from the department of child safety. Luckily my experiences from the press gallery with Jschool meant I was more than up to the task (John do I get a commission?) I ended up with a strange story from question time about the banning of duck and quail hunting (awesome redneck Queenslander angle). I also covered the Child safety launch and wrote a peice about that but there wasn’t an awful lot to the whole thing. Unfortunately neither of them got up either but I was pleased to get out and about. So far everyone in the office had been friendly and helpful. Most importantly nobody had gone bannanas yet.

Day Three: It was parliament again for me. I sat through a bit of question time. There was a funny feel about the place because everyone was waiting for Beattie to call the election. Nothing really came of the whole thing. After that I followed the media scrum and watched Beattie sign an agreement with Ron Clarke on the desalination plant at the Gold Coast (Zane where were you?). The Australian already had a journalist there so i just watched the whole thing unfold. I had been asked to cover the opposition press conference but there wasn’t one that day. When I got back to the office i was asked to look into a press release on the opposition’s train safety policy (apparently they’re for it). I tried to get some angle on the whole building a strong policy for the upcoming election. I guess it wasn’t considered general enough, either that or i submitted a peice of rubbish.so that didn’t end up getting a run either.

Anyway. That’s about it for me for now. I’ll keep you all updated from now on. I hope you are all enjoying the second week and I’ll see you round no doubt.