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Articles by Peter Spearritt
Airport dreaming • Peter Spearritt
When Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport opened in 1970 air travellers welcomed it as a marvel of modern efficiency. With its easy drop-off and pick-up areas and swish new baggage carousels it made the other capital city airports look old-fashioned, and they were. Tullamarine’s greenfields site meant it could combine domestic and international terminals in the one grand structure, providing a seamless travel experience, especially for overseas arrivals whose final destination lay beyond Melbourne.
Mixed heritage • Peter Spearritt
By the time of the 1960s property boom developers were demolishing whatever they wanted in Australian cities, with the exception of churches and other colonial properties that caught the eye of the National Trusts. But something changed in the 1970s.
The 'yuck factor' pushes a premier towards desalination yet again, but history suggests recycled water's time has come
A battle is brewing in South-East Queensland over water. Despite heavy rains and flooding, the water supply authority, Seqwater, has flagged the need to find more water sources to keep up with urban growth. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has already expressed a preference for building a desalination plant on the Sunshine Coast instead of using recycled water. Perhaps her government wants to avoid a repeat of the divisive 2006 debate over water recycling in Toowoomba – dubbed “Poowoomba” at the time.
Strangers in the dark | Brian McFarlane
1150 words Strangers in the dark 26 November 2020 Books | Film critic David Thomson offers an idiosyncratic take on some of cinema’s greatest directors Right: The compulsion of looking: Thelma Ritter, Grace Kelly and James Stewart on the poster promoting Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). Pictorial Press/Alamy The compulsion of looking: Thelma Ritter, Grace Kelly and James Stewart on the poster promoting Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954).
A dictionary-maker drills down | Peter Spearritt
889 words A dictionary-maker drills down 26 November 2020 Books | One of the creators of the Macquarie Dictionary ventilates her thoughts on the Australian language Right: There from the start: Sue Butler and colleagues (from left) David Blair, Arthur Delbridge and John Bernard in 1981, with the first edition of the Macquarie Dictionary.
The art of advertising | Peter Spearritt
Printed on Stone: The Lithographs of Charles Troedel By Amanda Scardamaglia | Melbourne Books | $69.95 | 232 pages For years pundits have been predicting the death of print. Soon gone, they say, will be the newspapers, the weekly and monthly magazines, the comics and the fiction and non-fiction books that dominated the lives of readers for two centuries or more.
Send in the tanks | Peter Spearritt
964 words Send in the tanks 28 November 2019 What’s the best way to make households more conscious of their water consumption? Right: More than a quarter of Australian houses now have tanks. ctrphotos More than a quarter of Australian houses now have tanks. ctrphotos Until the 1960s, many Australians had a farmer in their extended family, giving them direct experience of households that still relied on tank water.
Where History Happened
Reviewed by Rama Gaind. By Peter Spearritt, NLA Publishing, $39.99. Mention Byron Bay, and invariably our thoughts will turn to holiday and beachside images when it comes to this coastal town in southeastern NSW. It’s a popular holiday destination, known for its beaches, surfing and scuba diving sites. Cape Byron State Conservation Park is on a headland with a lighthouse.
When does a ripple become a wave?
The 2018 midterm elections offer a snapshot of what American has become and where it is headed. And what we see in the results of congressional, state and gubernatorial elections is at once encouraging, depressing, uplifting and frightening. The congressional elections essentially played out as predicted.
Billy Hughes and the flying egg
If a prime minister were “egged” today, it’s hard to imagine that the perpetrator would be let off with being arrested. But that’s what happened in November 1917 at Warwick Railway Station, 130 kilometres southwest of Brisbane, when a well-aimed egg knocked off prime minister Billy Hughes’s hat. Since the Great War — the “war to end all wars” — had broken out three years earlier, conscription for overseas service had proved to be the most divisive issue among Australians.
Where did the trams go?
Brisbane trams commenced operation in August 1885 by the Metropolitan Investment Company with horse drawn cars on a fixed track. A decade later a new company formed, the Electric Tramways Company Limited, and they took over the electric parts of the tramways, including the line from Logan Road to the southern end of Victoria Bridge which began in 1887. On 21 June 1887 electric cars commenced and within a year the horse drawn system became redundant.
Why Melbourne kept its trams
Description Why did Melbourne keep its trams, especially during the 1950s and 1960s when other Australian capital cities, the major cities in New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, and most US and Canadian cities didn’t? Melbourne now has the largest tramway system in the world, as measured by route length, though not by passenger numbers. This paper will explore how the automobile clubs and bus lobbies campaigned to get rid of trams.
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