Yet Another Amazing News Day

This really has to stop.

After the incredibly fruitful news week we've just had, we all expected unremitting periods of boredom, starting with an off-the-shelf ANZAC Day today. Far from it.

We were just preparing to leave after a pleasant but unremarkable march when I noticed two St John's Ambulance volunteers on bikes pedalling furiously down St Kilda Rd, city-bound. Warily, I turned and jogged after them, expecting they were caring for a digger with heat stroke or a heart attack.

Instead, we found a scene of carnage. A huge army truck had ploughed into a group of veterans marching in front. In their 70s and 80s, they were being treated where they lay right outside the Arts Centre, St John's people giving first aid as ambulances began to arrive.

Women in the crowd were crying, parents were dragging their kids away. Police were shouting for any doctors to come forward. The driver of the truck was sitting on the kerb, his face wrought with utter despair.

The old soldiers were loaded into ambulances and taken to Royal Melbourne and The Alfred. By tonight they were listed as stable. For me, a live cross and a package making the most of our advantage - we were on the scene about four minutes after the accident, and about fifteen before our competitors.

What a Week It Was

We thought last week was busy. This week - well, I've never known a week like it for news.

Monday, I've finished reading my news updates, the day is ticking along smoothly. I'm thinking about that night's media dinner at the new Crown Metropol and taking my studio makeup off when my mobile rings. The third update needs re-doing. Why? Carl Wiliams has just been killed. What?! The architect of Melbourne's gangland wars was bashed to death by one of the two prison inmates thought safe enough to let him mix with.

Before long I'm outside Barwon Prison, recording pre-recs for Sydney and Brisbane, crossing live into our news (twice) and - ugh - hanging around until 8pm to cross live into PERTH's 6pm news. Why, I can't say. A dark background looks the same at 6pm as at 8pm. And with seconds to go, our SNG gear dies. There will be no cross. We should have pre-recorded.

I race back to town, grab a late dinner with Frances, and crash in our suite at the Metropol. Hard to sleep with a full stomach so we are up early for a swim in the 27th floor pool and spa. Remarkable.

Tuesday the alleged killer is charged. I finish shooting, writing and editing a story about a city restaurateur preparing for a legal battle with his landlords - the Arts Centre - over the proposed redevelopment there. Another live cross - put at risk by an officious security guard haranguing us over where we parked the link truck. Then on the way home, amid pelting rain and a dramatic thunderstorm, comes the extraordinary news that a man has been arrested and charged with the murder of Ringwood woman Elisabeth Membery, 15 years earlier.

Wednesday night I'm back at the Metropol to cover the official opening. James Packer is hosting, looking more like his old man every year. He is huge, about 6 feet four high and just as wide. He lumbers. Suits are draped across him like sails, fastened where possible. Quite a crowd. Brumby, Warne, Kennett, McGuire, cabinet ministers, senators, business people, sportsmen, media, entertainers. Even Gordon Ramsay.

I am about to cross live from a very crowded, very noisy red carpet when an errant photographer wanders between the camera and me. He can't hear me shouting at him so as Mitch is reading the intro, I dart forward and shove him out of the way - rather too forcefully. He reels backwards as I regain my composure and launch into my cross. I check the tape later and nothing untoward appears. I feared I may have been seen ducking out of frame to assault someone!

Thursday and Friday I am rostered off, but the news bonanza continues. The Rudd government dumps its home insulation scheme after promising it would be re-started, and reneges on a promise to build 260 new childcare centres after completing just 38. They very deliberately announce this in the shadow of a huge story which consumes much more space and airtime: the Melbourne Storm rugby league side has been caught cheating the salary cap. They are fined and penalised almost into oblivion. The CEO, who is said to have arranged the scam, has vanished.

Friday, CFA chief fire officer Russell Rees resigns, 14 months after Black Saturday and 8 months after renewing his contract for a further two years. He was flayed in the Bushfires Royal Commission for failing in his duties on the 7th of February. A nice guy, but fundamentally incompetent and without the insight to realise it. He should have resigned or been sacked a year or more ago. But it's been such an amazing week that his departure - which would have been huge at any other time - passes practically unremarked.

Quite a week.

Monday and Tuesday, updates. Wednesday, former Chief Commissioner of Police Christine Nixon was in the witness stand at the Bushfires Royal Comission, recalled to explain her patchy evidence from last week. Turns out she left emergency HQ to go to dinner with frinds at a pub in North Melbourne. Steve Carey sends me in to replace poor Lundy, who would have done an excellent job, but doesn't have my experience in the Commission (plus Steve wants what he calls "a heavy hitter", which is flattering).

Counsel Assisting, Rachel Doyle SC, fairly shredded Nanna. I have covered a lot of legal proceedings, featuring some masterful lawyers, but rarely have I heard myself involuntarily gasping at the audacity of the questioning (and the incompetence of the responses).

Intriguing, though, that Doyle SC left unexplored two parts of Nixon's Black Saturday that weren't detailed. A 90 minute slot from 9.30am and another period spent in her office from 1.30pm - both described simply as "personal business". The first seemed likely to be a hair appointment. (Subsequent video examination of Nanna's hair before and after Black Saturday added weight to this theory)

I was allowed 3 and a half minutes for the story - what a luxury. Plus a live cross from the VPC. Great feedback from colleagues.

Thursday, a Nixon follo, with grabs from a range of stakeholders telling of their disappointment. Thursday evening, we shot the first part of a story about a restarateur being forced out of his Southgate premises by the redevelopment of the Arts Centre.

Friday, I put together the Arts Centre story although I won't be able to get a cmment from them on-camera til tomorrow. Then! at 5.20pm, a phone call to the news desk from Nixon's advisers. She will hold a media conference at 6pm.

We scramble to get there through Friday night traffic, not really believing that she'll resign after toughing it out for two weeks, but puzzling over what else she could want to say. We find a park, run across Collins St and into the foyer of No. 55. A news crew and reporter from Seven is already there among a throng of media. This leaves me free to cross into the bulletin from the forecourt outside. We only have one portable microwave link, so we can't switch live from me to the media conference. It has to be one or the other.

Nixon is yet to appear. The crew throws a live link together in seconds flat. We are still hooking up as Mitch begins his throw. I explain that we haven't been told what the announcement will be, and that we'll cross back as soon as any firm details emerge. Behind me, camera flashes can be seen. Nixon has begun the news conference.

I race back inside and pick up the key points: she was at the hairdressers, then meeting with her biographer in the afternoon. But she had capable people doing the hands-on work and was contactable at all times. And she won't be resigning.

Why has she called us at 6pm on a Friday to let us know these details? Because, as we discover later, the Herald Sun was planning to tell us the next morning.

I run back outside ready to relay the news but the link fails and we have to wait another minute or two. I complete the cross by topping and tailing a couple of grabs of Nanna. I don't stumble over my words, despite, or perhaps because of the pumping adrenalin.

Back inside, a few more lines from Nixon and she withdraws. Another cross to me just before weather. This one is the neatest of all. I sum up, throw to an appropriate grab, and sign off. Forty seconds, as requested. Text messages and phone calls congratulating me - very gratifying indeed.

Now that is News. Like it used to be.

Friday April 9th

Charlie's 80th birthday tonight. Great dinner with the family at his place.

Earlier I covered the very unusual story of 12 pregnant women infected with Hepatitis C after visiting a private medical clinic. Turns out it was an abortion clinic, and the authorities cannot figure out how the doctor - the carrier - could have accidedntally infected so many patients. They've turned it over to the police. Looks like we could have a rogue doctor running amok.

Thursday

Supposed to be reading news updates today but we're short of reporters - five away, on leave, sick, or whatever. So today I'm the political reporter. Covered Brumby at the launch of a new private hospital near Pentridge where he announced his own blueprint for national health reform. This will annoy the hell out of Rudd who is trying to take over the running of the hospitals. Brumby says the Rudd plan simply takes one-third of the states' GST revenue and hands it back as Canberra's contribution, with no extra dollars. This is finally getting interesting.

Then it was off to Ashburton to watch Ted Baillieu rail against the lack of police numbers. Very average.

The Nanna Nixon saga is getting interesting too. I double checked the transcript and I think I've found at least two areas where she appears to have perjured herself in evidence last Tuesday. Tonight Nine reported that she'll be recalled to explain herself.

Sad start to the day. Got a text message from Buzz that Jim Wilson's little boy Sam had succumbed to brain cancer at age 6. So unjust when you see some of the scumbags still walking around.

Assigned to cover the launch of new talk radio station MTR but switched onto the Bushfires Royal Commission instead. Christine 'Nanna' Nixon admitted in evidence yesterday that instead of staying at the Integrated Emergency Coord Centre on Black Saturday, she knocked off at 6pm and left. What she didn't tell the Commission was that she then went out for dinner with some friends - a crucial fact elicited by the Herald Sun after the end of the day's hearings. In fact she gave the clear impression in her evidence that she went straight home and spent the night monitoring the situation by TV, radio, phone and internet. She is in more strife than the early settlers. She has really turned out to be a dud. Lousy Chief Commissioner, retired from that after feminising the force and was immediately handed a lucrative job as head of the bushfire recovery agency. Last week she accepted a $200K job on the board of Fosters. Amazing.

Commission folo was dull - just another CFA drongo admitting how inefficient the agency is. Still not ready for a big fire more than a year after Black Saturday. By the end of the day my package had become a combination of the day's BRC hearings plus some reaction to Nanna's exploits from fire victims gathering in the city for a 'Thank You Melbourne' event.

Hard to work up the City Editor's round when I keep getting assigned to general reporting stories.