Hello loyal viewers! As you’ve no doubt discovered, there’s plenty of ways for you to contact the 7PM Project -- eg here, here, here and also here -- but because there’s so many of you (YAY!) and only one Project (BOO!) it’s not always easy for us to respond to your queries.
We’re working on being more involved in the discussions at the Forums and on Facebook, but in the meantime, we’re launching a little social media experiment called Your Tweets Twanswered. The idea is, if you’ve got a question for the Project and you’re on Twitter, you can send us a question and get it answered here on the Side Project Blog.
The reason it’s an “experiment” is that we’ve got no idea what kind of questions we’ll get or in what kind of numbers. And since – as we’ve just pointed out – there’s already at least four ways of contacting us, it’s possible that adding a fifth is only going to confuse people. But we’re a TV news show, so confusing people in the hope of informing them is pretty much what we do.
GOT A TWESTION?
Tweet your questions to @7pmProject (with the Hashtag #twanswers) and we’ll answer them right here on the Internet at the Side Project Blog!
Today, Project writer and warm-up guy KB Barker takes a swing at the first batch of Twestions.
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Hey guys! Thanks for your participation. We got 11 questions in our first round, which I’m counting as a massive success. The questions can be divided roughly into three categories: Show questions, policy questions, and joke questions.
SHOW questions
These were about the 7PM Project itself.
@scifigirl21
who originally came up with the idea of the 7PM project?
The show was conceived and developed by the production team at Roving Enterprises led by our Executive Producer Craig Campbell. And for the curious, Craig was conceived and developed by Mrs Campbell.
@MitchellRomney
who thought of the name 7PM Project?
Legend has it, someone wrote it on a whiteboard in an early meeting and it just kind of stuck. This is a true story, not an interesting story.
@scifigirl21
dream guest on the show?
If you mean who’s been our favourite guest on the show so far, then diplomacy dictates that we say something like “Oh my gosh, we’ve had so many great and fascinating people, it’s impossible to name just one.”
If you mean what guest would we most love to book in our heart of hearts, then the answer is going to be even more vague and unsatisfying, because the 7PM Project’s ideal guest is whoever’s the most interesting newsmaker on any given day.
There’s a third possibility, that you want to know who KB’s dream guest might be. My 7PM dream is as follows:
I’m running late for a meeting. When I get there, Jessica Alba is in Charlie’s seat, but it’s not really Jessica Alba, it’s sort of a cross between Jessica Alba and Natarsha Belling. And instead of the news of the day, for some reason tonight’s show is all about lawn bowls. Carrie tells a story about going swimming with a llama, and then a helicopter arrives to take us all to the movies.
Then I wake up, and I remember that tonight on the show is my dream guest: Abraham Lincoln!
Well played, scifigirl21, you just got three Twanswers for the price of one.
@scrad_92
what day this week are the cast of glee on the show??
That one’s easy scrad_92: Lucy McDonald’s chat with the Glee cast aired last night. Hope you got this answer in time!
POLICY questions
We got two Qs from viewers asking about news stories of concern to them. Coincidentally, both questions related to education this week.
@snev68
Swimming is a life skill so why isn't more funding given as part of school curriculum for trained swim teachers?
Well snev68 (may I call you snev?), that’s a big can of worms you’ve opened up there. First of all, funding for government schools happens at the State/Territory level, and until the Rudd – I’m sorry, Gillard – Government’s Education Revolution is complete, there’s no national curriculum to mandate what skills are taught in schools or when. But rather than give you eight different answers, one for every territory, allow me to generalise in bullet point form:
• Local school funding decisions are partly driven by demand (eg if enough parents and kids want something, schools tend to offer it)
• School councils, parents’ groups and local government are, in my experience, responsive to advocacy and lobbying, so showing up to meetings and asking smart questions is hardly ever a bad idea.
Finally snev, I’m going to point you to Swim Australia, which aims to teach every Australian to swim via a national network of accredited swim schools. They know what they’re doing, too – half the staff are from the undersea city of Atlantis.
@hyp3rstrike
How the hell can Kevin Foley get away with cutting adult re-entry education out of the new SA State Budget?
Whether he’ll get away with it is for South Australian voters to decide, hyp3rstrike, but before we get into the politics let’s take a look at the facts.
South Australia’s Deputy Premier and Treasurer Kevin Foley handed down a budget on September 16 which included a provision to “narrow the focus” of adult re-entry schools to adults under 21 wanting to gain SACE credits. According to Mr Foley’s speech [.PDF], “Adults over 21 will be able to access their education needs from TAFE or alternative providers.” So adult re-entry education hasn’t been cut from the budget, it’s just been given a damn good pruning.
This cut is taking place in the context of a Budget which has been slashed by $2.5 billion over four years, for which Foley is under heavy fire. His response basically amounts to “If you think this budget sucks, you should see the one I didn’t release,” pointing to radical measures recommended by the Sustainable Budget Commission’s so-called razor gang. The biggest headline-grabbers in the budget have been drastic reductions in public service and administration jobs, which Foley maintains is more palatable to the electorate than things like “closing the Repat Hospital, closing schools, closing police stations.”
“Adult re-entry education funding” isn’t one of the major headlines because politics is political, and because headlines aren’t that long. In a world where Job Losses and Closing Schools = Bad News, sweeping the unemployed under the rug by de-funding a relatively obscure, albeit essential, program, is in fact quite easy to get away with. But maybe there is an upside: Maybe by making nearly 4,000 public servants suddenly unemployed, Mr Foley might make the idea of forcing the unemployed to pay for their own re-education just a little bit less acceptable. After all, nobody cares more about the jobless than people without jobs.
JOKE questions
We should have seen this coming. Half of the 7PM staff are on Twitter, and like a great many fellow users, we predominantly see it as a platform for public smart-arsery. The following humorous Twestions were Tweeted our way this week, and as a professional comedy writer, I’m not going to ruin the gags by attempting to answer them. Enjoy.
@mollyfud
Did you write the book of love and do you have faith in god above, like the bible tells you so?
@mollyfud
Why are there so many songs about Rainbows and whats on the other side?
@BriarBush
Who left the bottle of Armani Code on my dresser?
FINALLY: There were two questions which I initially thought were jokes, but which on further reflection I decided deserved an answer, just in case.
@DrGokuSparten
can you tell me how a schmuck like me could land a hot date with @JesintaCampbell ???
If I knew that, this schmuck would currently be on a hot date with Jesinta Campbell.
@borded
do you ever get mistaken for the other KB (kevin butler) based on your initials?
In the course of my long career as an obscure TV writer and even more obscure warm-up guy, I have been mistaken for many people and things. But to my knowledge, it’s never been because of my initials. I’ve occasionally been confused with Matthew Broderick, I think because of my long marriage to Sarah Jessica Parker. And I occasionally get calls on my mobile from people asking for Bryce Courtenay because a newspaper article mistakenly described me as the author of The Power of One.
Interestingly, until this question, I’d never heard of this OTHER KB you mention, Kevin Butler. A Google search suggests you’re referring to the American streetball player also known as “Bizness.” Logically, since I’ve never been mistaken for him, I can only assume he is constantly getting mistaken for me.
Shoutout to my buddy Kevin “Bizness” Butler! Keep working on your spelling!
GOT A TWESTION?
Tweet your questions to @7pmProject (with the Hashtag #twanswers) and we’ll answer them right here on the Internet at the Side Project Blog!
The opinions expressed in The 7PM Side Project blog do not necessarily reflect those of The 7PM Project or the Ten Network.
