Richard Di Natale
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- Published on Wednesday, 10 November 2010 12:55
The new Green
Things could have ended differently for Richard Di Natale. To start with, he had considered turning his back on politics without ever having been elected to public office. “I had to make a political call as to whether I’d give it one last go,” says the Senator-elect. “It takes a big toll on your career – I’d been working part-time for a few years. It’s also tough on the family. I didn’t know if I had another one left in me.”
By the time Di Natale finally made it across the line at this year’s federal election he had notched up defeats at every level of government. In 2002 and 2006 he was the unsuccessful Greens’ candidate for the inner-city Victorian State seat of Melbourne; in 2004 he came second in Melbourne’s mayoral race; in both 2004 and 2007 he missed out on a spot in the Senate.
The Greens may have claimed a moral victory or two along the way – coming a close second can be a good look for a minor party. But Di Natale admits that losing time after time can be draining – and his election as senator for Victoria didn’t come a moment too soon. “The idea of having an opportunity to make some genuine changes and working towards the things you’ve been campaigning for […] is exciting,” Di Natale says.
Donna Demaio
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 May 2010 11:44
Grace under pressure
It may not sound like a life-affirming moment, but Donna Demaio’s close encounter with a charging police horse proved something of a career highlight. And when push came to shove, she followed her instincts and kept talking. “It was when the World Economic Forum was on [in Melbourne, in 2000], and there were big protests,” Demaio says. “Then the mounted police came in and [the protesters] were throwing plastic barriers. […] I was just reporting, describing what was happening – it’s what I do every day. And I nearly got trampled by a horse”.
Demaio’s live-to-air account of the mayhem on Melbourne radio station 3AW won her an Australian Commercial Radio Award and strengthened her reputation as a reporter who could think on her feet. But she’s keen to point out that she’s not a risk-taker by nature. “I think you can do good journalism without putting your life on the line,” Demaio says. “And for me the adrenaline side of being a radio journalist is more about meeting deadlines. […] If you’re out on the street and you have been at an event at 6.15 AM, it’s pretty likely your editor will need something for 6.30. The deadlines and filing live are what makes it exhilarating.”
And with the adrenalin comes a sense of responsibility and considerable stress – something which Demaio admits sometimes makes it hard to switch off.
Aldo Di Toro
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- Published on Thursday, 11 March 2010 13:56
The traditionalist
To an outside observer, Australian opera singer Aldo Di Toro has it all. He lives in a small village nestled in Italy’s picturesque Apennines, he stars in six productions a year – often with some of the best opera companies around – and he loves what he does. And while he’s not complaining, Di Toro reckons his life would be even better were it not for European directors wanting to bring opera to the masses. “I’ve worked with many of them, both English-speaking and German, who have said to me ‘Aldo, don’t take what you’re singing literally’,” he says. “And I reply: ‘Why? Why not explore the period, that particular identity?’ Then they say: ‘We’ve seen it done that way a thousand times before – let’s put a new take on it and make it relevant to new audiences and get bums on seats’. ” It’s an approah which has become the Perth-born tenor’s bugbear.
The point Di Toro makes time and time again is that he’d still be a public servant and occasional Italian wedding singer had he not been captivated by the depth of the opera he now performs. Because of that, he just doesn’t see the need for it to be sexed up for younger audiences. “These [operas] are masterpieces of the human condition,” Di Toro says. “When the librettists and composers wrote them, they never intended them to be on an MTV kind of level – they didn’t need to give audiences a three-minute fix.
Venero Armanno
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- Published on Wednesday, 31 March 2010 12:48
The dark side of the volcano
When most Australians think of Queensland, it’s usually to conjure up images of sun-drenched beaches, lush tropical rain-forests or picturesque outback towns. It’s a bright, happy world in which men are men: tough, laconic, pragmatic, unfailingly upbeat. Introspection is for the repressed masses south of the border.
So how is it that the novels of someone born and bred in Brisbane feel so much like film noir? What part of Queensland’s collective imagination could produce these hard-boiled worlds, where alienated characters move around sombre streetscapes?
Yet Venero Armanno’s imagination is unapologetically dark, one inhabited by complex characters often with enough emotional baggage to fill an airport. The question of identity is largely left unanswered, even as lives unravel and introspection becomes a last resort, rather than a lifestyle choice. And chances are there’ll be a brooding, simmering volcano on the horizon to remind us of a world deep beneath the surface.
“I visited Sicily with my family when I was nine or ten,” Armanno says. “By then in Brisbane I had already experienced a lot of the exclusion and racism which I was going to keep on experiencing for years.
Oscar Moze
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- Published on Wednesday, 17 February 2010 11:25
The Da Vinci Brand
It’s safe to assume that Italian scientist Oscar Moze won’t be struggling to fit in to Australian society. In fact, while the Italian Embassy’s new scientific attaché has only been in the job for six months, he has hit the ground running. “Let’s say I’m a dual-purpose person,” Professor Moze says. “Clearly Australia is my mother country – I was born here, so I’m strongly attached to the place. [...] But my main job is to promote Italy and Italian science in Australia.”
So while representing Italy with an Australian accent may raise some eyebrows, for Professor Moze there’s no clash of loyalties. “There are four of us at the embassy in the same position: people who were born here but are Italian citizens. There is a lot of mixing.”
Today, the Australian scientist who has spent the past 25 years at Italian universities and research centres has come home with a clear objective: to lift the profile of Italian science and technology, while finding points of contact in research and development. “Australia and Italy already have excellent bilateral relations – my purpose is to keep that going”, Professor Moze says.
And perhaps surprisingly for someone who grew up in Australia in the 1960s and 70s, Professor Moze doesn’t accept the notion that Italy and Italian know-how have an image problem.