A week in advocacy

I try to shoehorn various activities into my day, some of which involves my public transport advocacy work. While I end up doing some of the media, the load is shared, and others do a lot of policy work which makes it pretty easy — once the policy’s been nutted out, as long as you know what it is, you generally know what to say.

As I’ve commented before, the whole thing has led me to experience and learn new things. Even after three years doing it, sometimes it brings some new situations.

On Tuesday (State Budget day) I went up to the Parliamentary Press Gallery to talk to some of the radio people. Wasn’t really sure who I’d find. I rang the doorbell and a lady poked her head around the door. “Oh, hi Daniel!” I didn’t recognise her (I can be terrible at recognising people), but it certainly made it easier that she recognised me. Five minutes later I was doing a press conference with three journos in a kitchen. Never done that before.

And yesterday Channel 9 did a story about the Oakleigh derailment, and also a story on the Coroner’s Report into a level crossing accident. I ended up commenting on both, and (almost to my surprise) they used grabs in both stories, which ran consecutively, meaning I appeared twice within a couple of minutes. Never had that happen before either.

By the way, the Budget included $52 million for a redevelopment of Footscray Railway Station and the station precinct, as part of the Transit Cities project. That’ll be good, but I hope it doesn’t mean the demise of Olympic Doughnuts. Maybe they’ll build a special spot for the caravan, like Melbourne Central’s Shot Tower?