Sam Downing

As I write this (timely!) Australia is going nutso over the possibility that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will get the boot in favour of his deputy PM Julia Gillard. How responsive are (some of) Australia’s leading online media outlets to a breaking story that may emerge as one of the biggest political stories of the year?

ABC news: It’s their lead story!

The Australian: The lead (ie, the image slot) is the Afghan war. Rudd doesn’t even get his picture! Predictably dry of the Oz.

News.com.au: Top story – Photoshopped World Cup malarkey. (Of course that is their top story.) Rudd has an image, at least.

Ninemsn news: “CEO’s sticky fingers” wins the lead spot, but Gillard has her picture up there.

SBS World News: It’s the lead story, natch.

SMH.com.au: Seinfeld vs. Gaga is deemed the most important story (to be fair, SMH has five rotating “lead” spots, though none of them is devoted to Rudd/Gillard). The Rudd leadership threat is right up there, though.

If you look really hard, you can spot an Orc in this photo!

Here are some things I noticed during my recent stay in New Zealand:

1. It is fucking beautiful. Like, there is a reason that Lord of the Rings and several other fantasy movies have been shot there.

2. Kiwis are super-nice. (Either that, or Kiwis are just a regular level of nice, and everyone in Sydney is a super-jerk. This is a distinct possibility.) Everyone I encountered was unfailingly polite and friendly, even people who didn’t work in the tourism industry. The only rude minge I encountered (who wasn’t even Kiwi – I think she was German or something) was a waitress at a restaurant in Christchurch, who snapped that we couldn’t eat dinner there because she was expecting two large groups, which I guess was my fault or something.

3. The accent… um. I will say this: New Zealanders are very well-spoken. For example. Where an Australian will say something that sounds like “bedda siddy” for “better city”, a Kiwi will actually pronounce the Ts. Unfortunately the vowels will be rendered into something like “butter sitty”, which is hilarious. New Zealand, I hereby offer an apology for my constant stifled sniggers at your amusing ickcent.

Image: failblog.org

Good news, everyone:

The federal government announced on Wednesday morning that it will not change how books are bought and sold in Australia, despite a recommendation by the productivity commission to scrap parallel importation restrictions on books.

Adds Sydney agent blogger Call My Agent:

Parallel importation regulations will notbe changed. That’s correct: NOT be changed. Which means Australian copyright still exists and Australian authors have the same fair shot at getting published that they had a couple of years ago (the industry has been understandably nervous the last year and a bit).