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Audio Script:

Cyclone Yasi hasn’t just wrought havoc on land in northern Queensland.

The destructive winds of the category five system have destroyed coral and marine life in the Great Barrier Reef and disturbed fish stocks.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is assessing the state of the reef, but reef line fishermen along the Queensland coast are already feeling the impact. They say the fish have vanished.

Nicky Redl reports from the Queensland town of Bowen.

NICKY REDL: The Bowen Marina between Mackay and Townsville is full of fishing boats. Nobody is heading to sea. The only work to be done is maintenance.

Reef line fishermen catch fish like coral trout by hand, and sell them alive to local and overseas markets. But since the cyclone, their usual catch is nowhere to be found.

On his last trip, Wayne Teakel didn’t even catch enough to cover fuel costs.

WAYNE TEAKEL: Our boat was one of the first boats to head out after the cyclone, and we’ve done two-and-a-half days for one coral trout, and 20 red throat emperor, and three stripies, which, we used 700 liters of diesel, outboard fuel, ice, bait, so you can tell we are definitely going backwards fast.

NICKY REDL: Further south has been less affected, but not everyone can travel the distance.

JAMIE LAIRD: This boat is too small to relocate. We haven’t got the fuel capacity to run out of Mackay some of the bigger boats. And the majority of the reef is damaged, basically from Cairns to Mackay, so we can’t really go anywhere.

All my savings, life savings, went into this boat so I could become a fisherman, and basically, the cyclone has taken it all away from us.

NICKY REDL: The state government has acknowledged fishermen have been affected, but says they don’t qualify for extra assistance. That means that fishermen like Jamie Laird can’t apply for loans or grants like banana or cane growers hit by cyclone Yasi, because fishermen aren’t classified as primary producers.

He says the wage subsidies they get from Centrelink are not enough to live on.

JAMIE LAIRD: You know, we are husband and wife with three children. They have offered us 400 dollars a fortnight to survive on. Like that, that wouldn’t pay your grocery bill.

I was the main money earner. My wife was at home looking after the kids. Now it’s had to change around, she’s had to go back to work, and I’m actually daddy daycare at the moment.

There is just no money coming in at all for anyone.

NICKY REDL: Seafood wholesaler Brett Bauer already had to close his business, because there is nothing to sell.

BRETT BOWER: We only sell local product, we don’t sell any imported stuff or anything, so with no catches with the boats, we’ve had nothing to do, I’ve had to lay off just about all my staff bar two people.

NICKY REDL: Some are lucky enough to have boats big enough to relocate further south, but that means a huge hike in fuel costs.

Boat owner Tanya Giles.

TANYA GILES: You know, we’ve got further distances to get to the reef, as well as the fact that we had to get down there in the first place.

You know, we’re lucky enough to have been quite welcomed by the Mackay community and the Mackay harbor, but it just means that the traveling distances for us compared to what we are used to are phenomenal. So our fuel bill has doubled.

NICKY REDL: And with all the extra boats heading south, the industry is worried that it’s only a matter of time until that area is overfished, while those who can’t relocate are left to wonder why they are being treated differently than other producers. Nicky Redl, ABC Rural, Bowen.

Backstory: I was working as an ABC Rural Reporter in Queensland when cyclone Yasi hit, and we only had audio recorders, not video cameras. I used my small automatic Canon camera with video function on a tripod for the footage, and recorded the audio separately on a Marantz recorder, later syncing audio and video in Premiere. I hadn’t been trained in Premier either at that point, so it was a long night in the studio. It was worth it, though, as the footage and audio were ultimately broadcast on state-wide and national radio and TV, and the plight of fishermen in the region received more widespread attention. The government subsequently offered fishermen the financial assistance it had previously denied them on the grounds that they were not primary producers.

Video broadcast on ABC national television channel News 24, and audio on ABC Radio National.

Online news story on the ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2011-03-02/one-month-on—still-no-catch/6189192

Audio version on ABC Rural: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-02/reef-line-fishermen-along-the-qld-coast-say-reef/6189204

Video Script:

NEWS24 PRESENTER JOE O’BRIEN: The floods have brought destruction from many communities across Queensland, but on the positive side, many water storages are full.

The Peter Faust Dam near Proserpine in North Queensland, has spilled for the first time since it was built in 1990. Water suppliers are saying there are now at least three to five years of guaranteed water supply for the Proserpine Valley.

This report from ABC Rural’s Mackay reporter Nicky Redl.

(sound of water)

NICKY REDL: Widespread flooding is causing massive destruction across Queensland, but it is also filling up the state’s dams. In Northern Queensland near Proserpine, the Peter Faust Dam with a capacity of nearly 490 gigaliters has spilled for the first time. Each day, nearly 800 megaliters are running over the spillway into the Proserpine river.

Colin Bendall from water supplier Sunwater says the dam has ten times as much water in it than three years ago.

It got down to 10 percent in 2007 and things got quite drastic for the community, so it’s fantastic to see it full now. It looks like we have at least three to five years of guaranteed water supply for the Proserpine Valley… (continues)

Backstory: As no professional video cameras were available to rural radio reporters at the time, I shot this video on my small Canon point-and-shoot (with video function) on a tripod, recorded the audio separately on a Marantz, and later synced the two in Premier.

Broadcast on ABC television channel News24 on January 3, 2011.

Story on ABC News: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2011-01-03/northern-queensland-dam-spills-after-heavy-rain/6192010

Angry demonstrators in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, have seized an opportunity to hold violent riots against the outcome of last weekend’s election, saying that they have been ”waiting for years” for this moment.

The protesters have burned down the headquarters of the ruling, former communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP).

Police fired rubber bullets into the crowd and used batons against the demonstrators as they began their rampage, but to no avail.

Protesters told ABC reporter Nicky Redl, who is in Ulaanbaatar, that they did not care if they were hurt or arrested because they had been waiting for this moment for years.

Several hundred protesters threw furniture out the windows of the building and threw bottles of alcohol into the flames.

The night sky was alight, and the streets full of people, as a neighbouring building and a car were also torched as protesters threw rocks and chanted slogans.

The masses blocked firefighting trucks from getting to the flames, only letting them pass in the early hours of the morning.

People yelled that they will not be intimidated and that they had had enough of the MPRP.

Mongolian President Nambariin Enkhbayar has declared a state of emergency in the capital.

Demonstrators say they want democracy and allege the ruling MPRP receives donations from China and Russia in return for access to the country’s resources, while most of Mongolia‘s people remain poor.

While political unrest has been fairly common in recent years, violence in the landlocked nation between Russia and China is rare.

The nation of 2.9 million people made a peaceful transition from communism to democracy in 1992.

This story was published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 1 July 2008.

Backstory: This story made it to the ABC via some detours. I spent hours in these nighttime riots talking to protestors and taking photos. Protestors were setting buildings alight and had lit trash fires on the streets, into which they threw vodka bottles. Every time a bottle exploded, it led to a stampede. Somewhere in the course of all the uproar, a protester started hitting me, thinking I was gathering evidence for the government. Other protestors protected me, but as I scrambled away, I dropped my mobile phone, which was quickly trampled and unusable.

ABC News knew that I was at the protest and had arranged to call me to record a voice report. Now, the phone they were planning to call was kaputt.

I extracted the SIM card from the trampled phone, headed back to my hostel in the early morning hours, and begged a mobile phone from another hostel guest. That way, a producer contacted me and recorded a report for the morning radio news bulletin. The photos I sent via the hostel’s shared computer.

I returned the mobile to its rightful owner and, once the shops were open, I bought a cheap replacement phone to continue reporting. In the aftermath of the riots, the government had declared a three-day state of emergency. Venturing outside was eerie, as the streets were virtually empty apart from heavily armed military personnel, while TV channels played footage of singing children’s choirs.