The 'O's Taking Over Australia

Want to know what the biggest news in Australia has been this week? You may be thinking that the American hiker freed from jail in Iran after more than a year made top news here. Or perhaps the evacuation of the Eiffel Tower following a bomb threat. You would be wrong. Not even the signing-in of Julia Gillard as Australia’s first elected female Prime minister was given much coverage. There have been just two stories making the headlines Down Under over the past few days. For a while, at the beginning of the week, all Australia could talk about on its news broadcasts, chat-shows, and current affairs programmes was the tenth anniversary of the Sydney Olympics. Yes, a sporting event that happened ten years ago was given precedence over globally important, breaking news stories. Hosting the Olympic Games is obviously a massive coup for a nation but, seriously, it was a decade ago. If I saw any more clips of Cathy Freeman crossing the line in her hooded unitard, I would have thrown something at the TV. And I quite like that TV. Then again, looking back to an event ten years ago is far more exciting than discussing the dreary and uninspiring election campaign which resulted in a load of politicians deciding (and... really... dragging... out... the... decision...)who was to lead the country anyway. Aha! I see what they’ve done there – good diversion tactic, Australia! Take all your citizens back to a time of national pride and celebration and hope that they forget about the longest, most drawn-out and down-right boring election ever to be held.


All talk of the Sydney Olympics was silenced mid-week as the country began to look forward to the most exciting thing to happen to it since that magical September ten years ago. Not since the height of Beatle-mania has a people been caught up in such mass hysteria. And all this because Oprah Winfrey is visiting. Oh my God, Oh my God, I think I’m gonna faint – not Oprah, the Queen of all she surveys?! This is like the best thing ever to happen to Australia since Kylie started wearing hot pants!! The news has been full of her impending visit, accompanied by three hundred audience members and hundreds more film crew and general entourage. It has been the leading headline on every single news broadcast since Oprah announced it on her show on Tuesday. When I say announced it, I of course mean screamed it. Again and again and again. “We’re going to Australia! We’re going to Australiuuugh! We’re going to Auuussstraliuuughhh!!!” It was like she was on drugs, she was just repeating it over and over again like some mad old lady. Perhaps it was because her audience was going absolutely ballistic and she wasn’t sure if they were actually able to hear her over their screams. Now that’s what you call mass hysteria. Screaming, crying, jumping up and down like crazed loons. I’m surprised those women didn’t need to be hospitalised and sedated with horse tranquilisers after that. It was frightening. God knows what they’re going to be like when they actually get here.

But Australia can’t wait. Or at least the Australian Tourism Board can’t. For Oprah, one of the richest people on TV, isn’t paying for this hugely expensive trip – Australian Tourism is, shelling out a whopping AU$3 million for the pleasure of having her and a load of Americans invading the country. According to Martin Ferguson, the Tourism Minister, it is money well spent as it will put Australia on the map. Yes, perhaps Americans will even be able to find it on a map now. And no, Australia’s not in Europe, that’s Austria. Let’s hope those American audience members actually know where they’re going. OK, so her show is watched by 40 million Americans and is broadcast in 145 countries so Australia will undoubtedly get great coverage – over eight days they will travel across the country, visiting many of Australia’s tourist hotspots - but I don’t think she deserves quite as much adulation as is being bestowed on her. What I found really sad in its sheer, hopeless, shameless desperation is the plea from someone from the Western Australia Hotel Association to Oprah to visit the state as it has been left out of the nation-wide plans. According to him, Tourism WA only found about the visit hours before the public announcement. Saying something along the lines of, if Oprah doesn’t come to Western Australia that will be the end of tourism him forever, he sounded like a teenager having a tantrum. Maybe we in WA should be thankful – do we really want hundreds of screaming, over-excited Americans invading this beautiful part of the world? The rest of Australia can have them.

Now, what of importance is going on in the world? Let’s get back to reporting proper news, please!!