Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Trapped with Zemanek

On my way home from a meeting of my Party Branch last week, I 
found myself trapped on a bus with the amplified voice of ranting 
right-wing radio jock Stan Zemanek.

Track work necessitated a transfer to "a road bus service" (is 
there any other kind of bus service?) between the northern Sydney 
suburb of Hornsby and Gosford on the NSW Central Coast. At 
Gosford we would transfer back to a train for an all stations 
service to Newcastle.

In addition to the inconvenient double transfer, the use of buses 
would add considerably to the duration of the journey. But worst 
of all, I had forgotten about the NSW Government's policy of 
using private tour coach operators to supplement the rail 
service.

I don't know if each private tour coach company has a contract 
with a particular commercial radio station to always play that 
station on their bus when the passengers cannot escape the 
station's commercials, or if they just leave the choice of radio 
station to the driver.

Whatever way they do it, the moment the bus starts, one 
commercial radio station or another blares out through the 
coach's loudspeaker system. (It is always a commercial radio 
station, never the ABC or a tape.)

On public transport in NSW, it is illegal to play portable radios 
or cassette players, etc, aloud. You can use earphones, but not 
speakers. Private coach operators have no such concern for their 
passengers.

Being forced to listen to the inane chatter of DJs, interspersed 
with an endless array of pop songs and interrupted by 
advertisements delivered at top volume, with no chance of escape, 
is bad enough.

But on Wednesday of last week I had to listen to radio station 
2UE and its odious talk-back host Stan Zemanek. All the way from 
Hornsby to Gosford, we endured a right-wing rant, a stupefying 
mix of idiocy and hate.

Zemanek opened his rant with rumour-mongering about possible 
leadership challenges within the ALP. Claiming to have a "source" 
within the ALP, Zemanek announced that a certain MP from Western 
Australia was a possible leadership contender who could oust 
Simon Crean.

But the only credentials his "source" could offer for the WA chap 
were that he "appeals to the ladies". And according to Zemanek, 
at his most patronising, "you have to appeal to the ladies".

Zemanek's attitude to women is always patronising and sexist, as 
reactionary on this question as it is on every other.

Federal Labor MP from South Australia, Catherine King, who the 
day before had made the rather bold suggestion that the Eureka 
flag should fly from Parliament House in Canberra, was jeered at 
as that "loony Labor woman".

As for flying the Eureka flag, Zemanek had never heard anything 
so inane: "It's bad enough having the Aboriginal flag flying from 
the Sydney customs House" he said (twice).

The flag question of course was an opportunity for him to display 
some rampant patriotism. There were the usual chest beating 
references to retaining "our national flag beneath which 
Australians fought and died".

Strange, I thought that's exactly what happened beneath the 
Eureka flag.

Zemanek's listeners are the sort of people you would expect to 
listen to him: sad, uninformed, united by their prejudices, for 
whom Zemanek is their main source of political opinion and the 
bolster of their angst-ridden hostility towards the rest of 
society and indeed, the rest of the world.

A man who rang in to "talk about the flag" agreed eagerly with 
Zemanek that "we are one nation" and "we have one flag". And it's 
a beautiful flag, said the caller, before reminding us (again) 
that "Australians fought and died under it".

Objections to flying Aboriginal flags or flags from other 
countries (as flown by ethnic groups) then came out, with 
condescending lines about "any group can have a flag — garbos 
could have a flag — but there's only one national flag".

It was at this point that Zemanek again disparaged the Aboriginal 
flag, the display of which clearly rankles with him.

The irony is that, during the Second World War, when Australians 
were supposedly "dying for the flag" (rather than to save the 
people of this country from Japanese imperialism and German 
fascism), the most prevalent form of our "beautiful national 
flag" was not even the same colour as it is today. The Australian 
flag that I and all my mates grew up with was the red ensign, not 
the blue ensign that is flown today.

Not that such distinctions would worry Zemanek. He only raises 
these matters for the sake of pushing his listeners' buttons and 
to promote his overall right-wing agenda.

But listening to him is a lousy way to spend a bus trip!