I love a sunburnt country,
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A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
I hadn't fathomed just how wide our brown land was until I got my first job, fresh out of university in 1993.
As a cadet journalist trained at Charles Sturt University - Bathurst, the Southern Riverina was a sizeable patch to cover two days a week.
Though I'd grown up on a mixed farm abutting the Riverina Highway north of Corowa, I'd never had to chronicle the goings-on in any formal way unless you counted the footy critic.
I worked for the Cobram Courier three days a week and headed north to the Southern Riverina News at Finley midweek.
It was par for the course to drive 90 minutes to cover a CWA meeting or a spring ram sale, photos and words.
Sometimes I got held up by the hospitality or the sales or even the precocious rams, which were not always as docile as you'd expect in photo line-ups.
Arriving late to the Berrigan Community Golf and Bowls Club one afternoon in the spring of 1994, it dawned on me soon enough that I'd missed National Party leader Tim Fischer's talk in its entirety.
The program had already moved on to other speakers and there was no break coming up any time soon.
As I cursed camera-shy rams from my seat, Mr Fischer was scribbling down notes before he gathered up his belongings.
No doubt, he had a dozen other appointments in his diary that day.
I was already planning to round him up in the car park when he walked by me to hand over a beer coaster on which he'd noted key points from his speech.
His talk was in his head, meaning the only record was now in my hands.
The rams had given me the runabout but Mr Fischer had saved my bacon!
I was already planning to round him up in the car park when he walked by me to hand over a beer coaster on which he'd noted key points from his speech. The only record was now in my hands. Rams had given me the runabout but Mr Fischer had saved my bacon!
Without so much as a media minder in sight, Mr Fischer was a brilliant communicator in his own right.
Since Mr Fischer's passing last Wednesday after a two-year battle with leukaemia, his peers and journalists the length and breadth of the country have shared their experiences of the former deputy prime minister's atypical and highly effective communication style.
Mr Fischer cut through political spin in a fashion as much his own as his iconic Akubra.
Known as Two-Minute Tim, coined by former Albury mayor Harold Mair for his headlong approach to life, Mr Fischer must have had every newsroom in the Southern Riverina on speed dial.
He was fast and efficient to call in a few key quotes on issues affecting the bush including his life-long passion, rail.
Why wait for a media opportunity when the opportunity is knocking now?
MORE MATERIAL GIRL:
Remembered for his stand on gun control after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, ever-courageous Mr Fischer did not shy away from heated debates.
As a food writer, it would be remiss of me not to share a final foodie tidbit.
In his bachelor days, Mr Fischer never forgot to thank the hosts of the various National Party functions he attended around the country.
So impressed with the dessert at one party event, he made a beeline for the kitchen afterwards, wanting to know who had made it.
"Sara Lee," one of the women, sheepishly, confessed.
Lost on Mr Fischer, he earnestly replied: "Excellent! Well, please pass on my thanks to Sara Lee."
Always well-researched, ever-interested, it was likely one of the positively rare times Mr Fischer was not across the detail.
If only more Australian politicians could clarify their key thoughts and ideas into plain English in a space the size of a beer coaster, we'd all be far better informed today.
Vale Mr Fischer!