Tall And True Short Reads

Six Weeks in Teal

Episode 53 (31 May 2022)

In 2018, I shared a blog post about My Week in Politics, handing out how-to-vote cards for Dr Kerryn Phelps, an independent candidate for Wentworth. Kerryn won that by-election but lost the seat in the 2019 Federal election. Three years later, I spent six weeks in teal helping another independent, Allegra Spender.

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Six Weeks in Teal

Show Notes

Season Two: ​Episode 53 (31 May 2022)

Six Weeks in Teal is a blog post from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the post on Tall And True: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/blog/six-weeks-in-teal

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

Episode Insight

I wrote Six Weeks in Teal during the week following the 2022 Australian Federal Election. The “independent teal” I’d supported, Allegra Spender, had won my local Sydney seat of Wentworth. Across the country, there’d been a teal, Green and Labor backlash against the incumbent conservatives. There was a change of government in Australia, and I had been part of it, wearing my teal t-shirt for six weeks.

The goal of this blog post was to explain what had spurred me to play an active part in politics, first in 2018 and 2019 for the independent candidate Dr Kerryn Phelps and again in 2022 for Allegra. And give a flavour of what it felt like to be part of Allegra’s teal team.

I could have gone into great detail about the long days of campaigning (often wet and cold), late-night Zoom meetings, conversations with voters and conflicts with the incumbent candidate’s team. But instead, I wanted to write the blog post as I will remember my six weeks in teal, something of a blur, as the vortex of the election day approached.

I apologise if my voice sounds more snuffly and gravelly than usual in the narration. In her post-election wrap episode of ABC’s The Party Room podcast, host Fran Kelly commented election night was crowded with parties (celebrating or commiserating), and COVID had struck down many party-goers and broadcast teams covering the events. And I, unfortunately, was one of them.

I hope you enjoyed my account of Six Weeks in Teal. You can read this and all my blog posts, short stories and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle and Kobo online bookstores.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads (with hopefully a less COVID affected voice) will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, please check your feed or the podcast website for earlier episodes from Seasons One and Two.

And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite app — doing so helps me share my writing with other listeners.

You can support this podcast financially by making a small regular or one-off donation via the Acast Supporter Page.

And finally, please tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

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