FIVEAA Afternoons with Leith Forrest - 24 September 2026

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Local, topical, fun. This is Afternoons with Lee Forrest.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Kendall. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome along to the show. It is seven minutes after one on this Thursday afternoon. A little overcast. Doesn't seem to want to make up its mind. It's not meant to rain today. Certainly looks like it wants to. If you want to join us, 8223 0000. Lots of great guests for you to enjoy today. And lots of interesting topics up for discussion. Motoring expert Trent Nicolick will join us shortly. A couple of juicy ones for Trent today. So a cyber security expert was able to hack into a BYD, a Shark 6, and was able to remotely access some of the vehicle's functions and did not need a password. That's comforting. And reassuring for everyone that has these kind of vehicles. So we'll talk to Trent about that. And the other issue that's floating around is public charging sites are now adopting an idle fee or a congestion charge. In other words, once your car has finished charging, you better move it. Otherwise, you're going to be stung for it because people are doing the wrong thing. They're leaving their cars in the charging bay for too long, almost like a free car park. not anymore. So we'll speak to Trent about that this afternoon. Now, NDIS Spotlight today is complete comfort. Now, if you are someone in the market for mobility equipment, adjustable chairs, adjustable beds, adjustable mattresses, have we got the man for you today. That is coming up a little later on in the show. You have to see the showroom. It is extraordinary. With the weather being so pleasant, now is a great time to get into the garden and no better person to talk to, ask your gardening questions than Milton Vidoulas. He will join us this afternoon live in the studio. I wonder if there's any non-football listeners to the show this afternoon who Saturday afternoon, rather than watching the grand final, will be out in their gardens. Just pottering away. We'll find out that this afternoon. Speaking of nature, the seventh Nature Festival starts this weekend. It's on right through the school holidays. It's all about storytelling and art, food, music and community interaction and lots of seeds. It's all about seeds this year. We'll speak to Durkani from Parwana, the beloved Afghan restaurant on Henley Beach Road. She is an ambassador for the big event. So look forward to speaking to Durkani in celebration of our 50 years of 5AA this year. Our 5AA ages ago today, an announcer who worked at 5AA in the late 90s while she simultaneously hosted a juggernaut of a television show. None other than Lee McCluskey is going to drop by and say hello. We'll reminisce about her 5AA career, which will be fun. And we have a very special musical guest for you on the show this afternoon. He is a rock and roll legend. 30 million plus albums sold. Some of the greatest guitar riffs ever from two legendary bands, The Guess Who and Backman Turner Overdrive. Randy Backman is on the show today. Classic hits after classic hits. Randy is now in his 80s. He's 82 years of age, but we're looking forward to speaking to him. This is one of the all-time legendary bands. And for those of a younger generation... His son is part of the band. You might actually remember Tao Backman. So it's a father and son combo coming to Adelaide in the new year. So looking forward to speaking to the legend Randy Backman later in the show. And you always know that you have made it in pop culture. You know you're in that upper echelon of artist when you get the Simpsons treatment.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Hello, Springfield!
00:03:42
Speaker 3: We're going to play all your old favourites.
00:03:47
Speaker 4: But first, we'd like to dip into our new CD. Taking care of business. Don't worry, sir.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: We'll get to that one.
00:03:52
Speaker 5: No talking.
00:03:53
Speaker 1: No new crap.
00:03:54
Speaker 6: Taking care of business now. This is a working overtime pod.
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Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
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Speaker 7: Dumbass.
00:04:09
Speaker 8: Wake up.
00:04:10
Speaker 2: So great. So we'll speak to Randy a little later on in the show. Of course, if you'd like to join us at any time on any topic, you're welcome to do so. 8223 0000 is my number. 044808 1395, the SMS. After this short break, we'll look at some of the issues that are occurring right now with EVs.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Leith Forrest.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: 16 minutes after 1, 8223 0000 is the number if you'd like to join us. Never does a week go by where there's not a juicy motoring story to talk about. There's so many stories he's going to block us eventually and not take our call. Trent Nicolick is our motoring expert. He joins me this afternoon. Lovely to have you on, Trent.
00:04:51
Speaker 9: Lovely to be here, mate, and good afternoon to all your listeners.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: I can understand why you got in this industry, Trent. There's always something to this.
00:04:56
Speaker 9: Never a dull moment.
00:04:57
Speaker 4: There is never.
00:04:59
Speaker 2: A dull moment. And because you've test-driven and you've talked to so many manufacturers and you know all about these things, we do love to tap into your expertise, so thank you for this. I read the story today. I missed the actual Four Corners episode on the ABC. But an industry body that represents car dealers are wanting greater transparency around connected vehicles. They're concerned about cyber security, privacy and safety. Can you tell the 5AA audience about the idea of a cyber security expert being able to hack into a car?
00:05:30
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:05:30
Speaker 9: So basically, I'd urge your listeners to go to the ABC website. And I don't often urge people to watch too much on the ABC, to be honest. But I would urge them to go and have a look at this documentary. So it was a Four Corners documentary. expose, they used a BYD Shark 6. They had a journalist driving the car. They gave a cybersecurity expert two weeks to hack into it. And his response initially was, I was surprised how easy it was. Now, that first one there should create alarm bells. The reason I'd urge your listeners to go and watch it is not so much for the fact that you can hack into the car and for the revelation that the connected vehicle of any kind can be hacked into. It's because of the staggering level of incompetence at a government level and the commentary from Chris Bowen specifically in this instance, who's the energy minister, seemingly indicating that he doesn't think this is a problem. Now, let me first say that this is not a dig at BYD or any particular manufacturer. And in fact, the question that the energy minister was asked related to Xpeng, another manufacturer. So this is not related to BYD. And this isn't even related to electric vehicles, Leif, because there are all sorts of petrol hybrid, plug-in hybrid, whatever vehicles who have got a 4G or 5G connection to the network. This isn't just electric vehicles. And in fact, The first connected vehicle I can remember, I think, was a BMW back in about 2010. And it was there for an SOS connection in case of a rollover where the driver was unconscious because of a big accident. The car would automatically call triple zero on your behalf and send location, right? So the intention of it was good. But what I think everybody needs to understand is that Same way that your computer can be connected to a network or your mobile phone can be connected to a network, your car now can be connected to a network, and that means that you can hack into it. Now, what this tech guru did, which I think is fascinating, and I knew this was possible, but to see how easy it was, quite concerning, I think. He hacked into the car. He was able to turn.
00:07:44
Speaker 10: So the.
00:07:44
Speaker 9: Journo was driving it down a road in the middle of the night, and... Mecca was outside the vehicle. He was able to turn the headlights off. He was able to turn the wipers on and off. He was able to put the volume of the music up and down and deafen the driver. He was able to get location information. And perhaps most concerningly of all was that he was able to use the car's microphone and mimic the owner's voice, the driver's voice of the vehicle all remotely from outside the car.
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Oh, my Lord. It's like a horror movie. Lock the doors, too. It's every horror movie we've seen of technology, this description when it comes to vehicles, Trent.
00:08:24
Speaker 9: And then effectively, when Spohan was asked this question by the ABC, he said, I'm not concerned. I don't have a problem with it. And this is the issue, is that once again, what we've done, and as I say, I don't have a problem with the manufacturers putting the tech in, and I don't have a problem with the vehicles having the tech. Where the issue is, is that the governments have allowed these vehicles to come into the market with absolutely no safeguard of what we do and now seemingly don't actually understand the depth of technology and what it can do. And I think the other point that needs to be made, Leif, that I've been very strong on, because I've been speaking about this over the last couple of days a lot, is that Response, I would imagine, from the government and the response from a lot of people who don't necessarily agree with me having an issue with it would be, well, what do you think that thing in your hand now is doing? Your mobile phone, it does all of that stuff already and everybody knows everything based on your phone. My counter to that would be everybody who buys a mobile phone knows that it's doing that. I don't think necessarily when you go and buy a car that anybody explains to you or that you would know that the car is doing that.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: Agree. I would also add that I don't think your phone can kill you down a dark country road. Like clearly these cars can do. So obviously the manufacturers, they're able to tap in what? To update and manage functions of the car. That's the sole reason for that. And of course that will get misused by people in the wrong hands.
00:09:51
Speaker 11: Well, yeah.
00:09:52
Speaker 9: And like I said, the system initially with BMW came with really good intentions. So you and I are driving down a road, we swerve to avoid a kangaroo, the car rolls over in a ditch five times and we knock our head and we're unconscious. The car would send an alert to us I didn't respond to that alert via a button to say, yes, we're awake and we know what's going on. It would automatically ring triple zero, send a location and then ambulance and fire and police would arrive. That's a fantastic intention, right? But as with a lot of other fantastic intentions and fantastic ideas on paper and in theory, they are open to being abused for the wrong thing. And I think The fact that, yes, we know our vehicle's connected to be able to do things like download updates and improve functionality, and that, I guess, is more of a thing with electric vehicles than it is with conventional vehicles. But that connectivity is really positive, I guess, in that regard. But the fact that they're open to being hacked from an outside influence is the problem. And the fact that the government doesn't seem to think it's an issue is an even bigger problem.
00:10:59
Speaker 2: I don't know if you saw, there was a film on Netflix in 2023, apocalyptic thriller called Leave the World Behind. Julia Roberts was in it.
00:11:07
Speaker 12: I heard about it.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Someone was able to control all of the Teslas on the road and basically have them do what they wanted to do. Straight away, Trent, listening to you, our listeners are all over this. Imagine how quick AI can then take over your car and decide whatever it wants to do. Arthur said, why on earth would you have your car connected to the internet? It's the last thing we need. Debbie said a friend of mine bought one turned all of that off for that very reason. Would that necessarily stop that, or do you think they could still jailbreak that?
00:11:35
Speaker 9: You might still be able to jailbreak it. I think the only way you could do it, and I had this question, which I need to do a little bit more research on, is if the SIM card is removable the way it is in your mobile phone, you could technically remove the SIM card and then the card doesn't have a connection. But if it's embedded and it's like an eSIM, then you can't remove it because it's there the whole time. So I think there'd be an element of perhaps you can turn it off, maybe you can remove the SIM card if it's a physical SIM card, but then the issue is if you can't, yes, there's always going to be a connection of some sort.
00:12:07
Speaker 2: Tom said, thank God my V in Commodore doesn't have this problem. Do you think that people should be asking manufacturers when they buy vehicles or they get a new car about the capability, what the car can do, how the information is collected?
00:12:20
Speaker 9: Tom's echoing what I've heard from hundreds of people over the last 48 hours or so, which is, you know, I don't really mind the fact that my old car, insert make model, wasn't connected. It still gets me from A to B and I don't have to worry about this. But I would absolutely advise buyers now because the other thing too is this stuff changes so quickly and the technology moves so fast and the pace of change is so rapid that that it's hard even for me when you live in that world to keep across all of it. So I would advise everybody, when you go to buy a new XYZ from wherever it might be, I'd be saying to the salesperson, I want you to explain to me exactly what the connected services are with this car. How do they work? What are they for? What does the manufacturer use them for? And I may have said this to you and your listeners once before, Leif, that Years ago when I was at CES, which is the big electronics show that they do in Las Vegas, the cars started to have more of a presence there because the car might as well be a computer now. And a Mercedes-Benz technician was explaining to us, an engineer was telling us that they'd come up with, in the way that we've got, hey, whatever it is on your phone or your smart speaker, they had one where you'd say, hey, Mercedes, to your car and you could ask it to turn the air conditioning up or down or put the windows up or down or whatever. And I said to him, why would I want you to have all that data from me personally? And he said, oh, well, we've done the research and some people don't want their phone company, Apple or whomever, to have all that data on them. And I said, mate, with the greatest of respect, I don't want a car company to have it.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: Either, to be honest.
00:13:57
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:13:57
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to follow this one through you with interest. No wonder the Australian Automotive Dealer Association want the manufacturers' governments to get together and work out that transparency when it comes to new cars. coming into the country and those that are already here. The other issue, Trent, we thought we'd ask you about, and I've often thought this, I'm not sure the last time you've been to Adelaide and you've been to the central market, it's hard to get a car park. They're doing lots of renovations in there at the moment. But I'll tell you where the great parks are, in the EV charging points. And I've often wondered how many people are using that to charge or they're using that because they don't have to drive down one of the Grote Streets or Gooja Street. Aussie drivers could now be in for a rude shock because with the idea of an idle fee or a congestion charge. Yep.
00:14:41
Speaker 9: I'll tell you where this first rang an alarm bell for me. This is way before COVID shut down. So let's say 2016, 17, 18. I was in the United States. We'd gotten a Tesla Model 3, which was new at the time, to do some testing with. We went to a huge shopping centre car park, a bank of Tesla superchargers. When we got there, and I initially just went, oh, yeah, this is typical America, but let me explain. When I got there, there was a concierge, and he said to me, what I need you to do is leave the car key with me, and I'll plug it in and charge it, and then when it's finished charging, I'll move it. Why do I need to do that? Just thinking it was another person I had to tip and another layer of service, and he said, surprise, surprise, we've discovered that people will plug their car in on charge and then leave it here for six hours while they go and shop and go to a movie and have dinner and come back six hours later. Why do people do that? Well, because fundamentally humans are lazy and disrespectful of other humans and find often the easiest way of doing something. So this is exactly what's going to happen. I mean, we've got enough of a problem in Sydney with people parking a dual cab Hilux or something in an EV parking space. That's problem number one. Problem number two is people who own electric vehicles either plugging them in and leaving them there for hours when they only needed 45 minutes or an hour.
00:15:57
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
00:15:58
Speaker 9: And problem number three is EVs parking there and not charging them at all. So basically, the first council I read about, I think it was Glenair or Glenire in Victoria was doing it, and they were going to charge. And Tesla, to be fair to Tesla, they've been doing this for a while, that if you plug your Tesla into a supercharger, you get a notification on your phone saying it's just about at 100%. You've got 15 minutes to come and grab it, or we'll start charging you for you to park it there, which I think is, Fair enough, because if I've got my car there for an hour longer than it needs to be and you're waiting to charge yours, it's highly unfair on you. So I think it's a fair point. But again, as I say, Lee, this was always going to happen because fundamentally, humans, especially if they're in a rush and they don't really care, they're often disrespectful to other humans.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm all for it. So a dollar per minute fee, there were some I read that they were saying that they might cap it at 100 while others don't have the upper limit. But you're right. So many people would take advantage. And just spend that extra time. It's a free car park in the best spot.
00:17:01
Speaker 9: In the best spot at the shopping centre, exactly.
00:17:03
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: That's crazy, isn't it? Well, let's hope the Adelaide City Council get all over that too, because I wonder if that is an issue for, maybe we'll take some calls from EV drivers later in the show, but I wonder if that's an issue here in Adelaide too, where that's just human nature, isn't it? Where people do the wrong thing, sadly.
00:17:20
Speaker 9: Well, the other thing too, Leith, that I think we've got to try to get out of the behaviour with EVs, and I've seen this a lot because I've done so much driving in them, is there'll often be somebody parked at it. Because what happens, the easiest way to explain the way an electric vehicle charges is the way that you fill up a bucket of water. When it's empty... you put the tap on at 100 miles an hour as fast as you can, and then you start to tail the tap off as it gets to the top so you don't overflow it. That's kind of how the charge works on an EV. So as it gets up near 100%, usually around 90, it slows down. So the last 10% can take a lot longer than the first 50 or 60 that you put into it. And often one of the things we see behaviorally are people sitting around at charges at 92 or 93%, and they're sitting there for an extra 20 minutes, and you're saying to them, do you really need that 7% or 8%? Or would you be okay at 92%? Because the next person then has to wait until you get to 100. So I think I said this from the outset. One of the biggest problems with a mass adoption of EVs was going to be that you have to fundamentally change your behavior in a lot of different ways in order not to be an impost on everybody else who's got one. And I think, yeah, this is all part of that.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: Quick question for you before you go, and we appreciate your time as always, Trent. Thank you. This one's said from Andrew. Can you please ask Trent, given the cost of diesel, what we're hearing with Donald Trump and less emissions, EV replacements for diesel-powered trucks, B-doubles, trains, ships, are we thinking months, years, or decades?
00:18:46
Speaker 9: Oh, look, I think we're years away from widespread adoption of it. And one of the reasons for that is the distances that we have to travel in Australia. So You know, your listeners would know full well, if you bomb north out of Adelaide to head towards Sydney, once you get past about Murray Bridge, there's not a lot going on. You know, there's a few small towns. You get to Hay and then you're still six hours away from Sydney. So you see at night, more hours of the day and night, really, trucks going up and down those roads.
00:19:15
Speaker 4: You can.
00:19:16
Speaker 9: I say this a lot, Leif. You can effectively... put a whopping great massive big battery in a B-double or a B-single and drive around an electric truck. There are companies in Australia that do it. But the infrastructure required, that battery would need to be like a big cassette tape that we used to use to listen to music. So you have to pull into a station, pull it out with a huge big apparatus, put a fully charged one in, and then the truck hits the road again. That's all well and good, but the infrastructure that's required to charge, say... 100 or 200 of those mega-packs in one hit quickly enough to make it work for the trucking industry i think is look i don't want to go too far out on the edge and say decades away but it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon no.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Watch with interest trenders always love having you on the show thank you for the insight enjoy your weekend You too, mate. There's Trent Nicolick, our 5AA motoring expert. Headlines next.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Leith Forrest.
00:20:18
Speaker 2: 25 minutes to 2. If you'd like to join us, anytime, 8223 0000 is our number. Our NDIS Spotlight today, friend of show returning, Tasman Turley is the owner of Complete Comfort. He joins me this afternoon. Lovely to see you. Thank you for coming in.
00:20:33
Speaker 13: Thank you, Leith. Good to be here.
00:20:34
Speaker 2: How's business?
00:20:35
Speaker 13: Quite good, actually. No complaints.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Well done. Well, when you've got a showroom like yours, I'm not surprised because people walk in and they go, gosh, let me have that.
00:20:44
Speaker 13: Got to push them out of the door.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: That's right. You're like last drinks starting to turn the lights off. Hey, we love this segment. We get a chance to showcase people in the industry what you do. For those who know what you do, we can sort of update them. For those who don't necessarily know or haven't maybe been to see you, you can tell us all about it. You have been here almost 30 years? Correct. Yeah. A long change of What's happened, I guess, over those three decades?
00:21:08
Speaker 13: A lot of grey hairs.
00:21:09
Speaker 2: Stop it. It's too as handsome as ever. What was it like when you started 30 years ago versus now, the technology that's been brought in?
00:21:15
Speaker 13: Yeah, it's improved enormously. I think the range of products for the client and the customer and the consumer, obviously like any other area, has improved enormously. Just the look and the quality is really good, all German electronics on our products pretty much, so.
00:21:33
Speaker 2: So I mentioned earlier to the audience in the intro when I said you were coming up, so you're like the expert, the leader when it comes to mobility equipment and adjustable chairs and adjustable beds, adjustable mattresses. I just asked you off air, number one in that, do you sell more beds than anything else?
00:21:50
Speaker 13: Electric adjustable beds. We have a very large range, lots of options available, not just in the NDIS and the home care package, but obviously from a retail aspect, people are looking at just better night's sleep, better comfort. better-looking products as well, which obviously the aesthetic side of it in their home is quite important. And, of course, we think that we give an excellent level of service, which our clients need to know, making their beds and taking away old beds and vacuuming the room before the new bed goes in and all that sort of thing.
00:22:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, attention to detail.
00:22:24
Speaker 13: Correct, yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker 2: Because that's important. I mean, we spend half of our day pretty much in bed, most people– And I guess it's always been that case, hasn't it, that adjustable beds, without being rude, in years gone by, in decades gone by, they were kind of a bit hospital-y. Correct. If you know what I mean?
00:22:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, correct.
00:22:39
Speaker 2: Whereas now you've got style.
00:22:40
Speaker 13: That's right. And people want it to look nice in their bedroom. That's why people have great bedroom furniture. They can go inside their bedroom furniture, which a lot of people aren't aware of. So we actually have a couple of normal timber frames and different frames in the showroom to show people They can go in there. We don't sell a lot of timber frames, obviously, but if people have something that their heart's really wrapped up in and they don't want to change the look, they still want to integrate the actual adjustable bed into that environment, then we can do that for them as well.
00:23:10
Speaker 2: I know when I saw you last time in the showroom, you let people test it out. You can test drive it too. Yeah, we do. So find the comfort for them, like you would in any bedding store.
00:23:20
Speaker 13: We call it the Goldilocks clause on the mattress in particular, because that's the part that Once they get their head around the adjustability of it, of using a bed, the mattress that they need to choose in maybe half an hour to an hour in the showroom, there's a little bit of pressure on them. So we take that pressure away and allow them a good week if they've chosen poorly, as they say, and we can fix that for them at no charge.
00:23:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an amazing deal. Old days, it would have been probably, what, just the top that moved up, or there probably would have been limited range and mobility in the movement.
00:23:49
Speaker 13: Early days, they were constructed quite differently. A lot of timber slats involved. weight ratings of that sort of product was not anywhere near. We actually have a bed now that's rated to move and carry 500 kilos.
00:24:02
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:24:03
Speaker 13: Now, it's probably over-engineered for most of us, which is a good thing, but It just means that the structure and the strength of it will go for many, many, many years to come.
00:24:12
Speaker 2: Actually, that's a good point, too, because it's not just elderly or disability, is it, too? Like, if you've got a sporting injury, people know how hard it is to get in and out of bed.
00:24:20
Speaker 8: Correct.
00:24:20
Speaker 2: Got to sort back. It's difficult. If you've got other sort of sleep issues, like if people have sleep apnea or need to move in some kind of direction, you can help them out with that, too. Absolutely.
00:24:29
Speaker 13: Elite footballers with knee problems and ankle problems and all that sort of thing can elevate their legs at night without having to wake up and hang from the ceiling.
00:24:38
Speaker 2: How many times have people dropped things under one or two pillows or rolled up blankets together? Now you've got all of that and more, which is amazing. So you've got that. The mattresses and the beds, obviously. What about mobility scooters?
00:24:52
Speaker 13: Mobility scooters, yes, we have quite a large range.
00:24:55
Speaker 2: When you walk in, you see... Lots of them. Oh, yeah, from sort of your basic model to your duck's guts.
00:25:00
Speaker 13: Yeah, small ones that are obviously very easy to fold up. Around the 13 to 14... 15 kilo mark where people can travel overseas, aeroplane friendly, lithium battery packs that are tiny, only a kilo they carry on the plane, all the requirements there. But they go up to the large ones. We now have them with heated seats, heated handles, play the radio as well. Unfortunately, it's only FM on the radio at the moment, but we'll try and work on getting gosh double a on there.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: So bobby francis with a heated seat he'd never get him out but it gives people such great independence doesn't it because once you lose the ability to drive people think well that's how i'm done and it shouldn't be no it shouldn't be.
00:25:42
Speaker 13: People want that and it's quite safe um you've got footpaths available to pedestrians and it's classified as a pedestrian vehicle uh you know they're really easy to use um And, again, you know, some of them can travel on average 50 to 70 kilometres, the large ones.
00:25:59
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:25:59
Speaker 13: But essentially it's really what the 90% use of it is.
00:26:04
Speaker 2: Some people have both.
00:26:04
Speaker 13: They'll have the large one to go from home to the shops and friends and all that sort of thing.
00:26:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:26:09
Speaker 13: And then they'll have a small one where the family can come and, take them out for the day they can go to the zoo or they can go to the football adelaide oval is actually quite user-friendly for that sort of thing uh for wheelchairs.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: And that's good because then they're not exhausted they might not need it all the time but it might be one of those things that just helps them get around one.
00:26:26
Speaker 13: Of the first many many years ago but one of the first uh people i saw traveling down jetty road glenelg on a mobility scooter I was surprised to see him in the front yard doing all his gardening and cutting his roses back, et cetera, because he could get down to Jetty Road, do his shopping, come home with all the groceries, and then still felt strong and well enough to go out and do his gardening.
00:26:47
Speaker 2: Tasman, I think I've seen people online where they've mowed the lawns. They're in the mobility industry, almost got some kind of setup, which makes sense. They put a couple of blades on one of those. You have a whole new little side business, side hustle there.
00:26:58
Speaker 4: Get trailers.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
00:27:00
Speaker 13: Deliver brochures.
00:27:01
Speaker 4: Catalogs of paper.
00:27:02
Speaker 2: That is a good idea. So the mobility scooters that you've got there at Complete Care, the other one is your power chairs. This is important too because how many people struggle to get out of the big recliner or struggle, you know, it's so important to have a comfortable chair at your home.
00:27:16
Speaker 13: Yeah, apart from the bed, you spend a lot of time in a chair and being comfortable, but assisting them to get in and out reduces any discomfort and also pain or injuries to shoulders, et cetera, that they might occur. But actually getting into a chair can be an issue too if they've got weaker legs or a hip or knee issue they can sit comfortably onto the chair rather than falling into the chair and quite often that's where they do a little bit of damage and fall over the chair or you know not sitting in it correctly and they hurt themselves and we don't want that so.
00:27:46
Speaker 2: I was seeing when you showed me the demonstration that time like it's almost you get it to 180 degrees it's not almost any angle you need to, whether they need just a little boost to get out of the chair or they genuinely need to almost stand up and go. So you've got that for everyone too. And aesthetically, they would be a lot more appealing.
00:28:03
Speaker 13: We obviously make those for the client so we can tailor them in lots of different styles, lots of different ways to be able to manipulate the chair to make it more comfortable. And, of course, they can put their spin on it with any colour that they like. Someone said to me today, you know, can you send me a couple of the colours that you have? And I said, just go online with Warwick or any supplier of fabrics that we all get our fabrics from and you can choose anything you like. Some are better than others. Obviously, we use heavy commercial, really good wearing and really easy clean. We also include arm and head covers, what they used to call anti-macassas in the old days.
00:28:39
Speaker 11: Yes, yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker 13: But they come with them and, of course, again, we deliver them, set them all up, take away their old chair if they want to get rid of it, donate it to a charity or or donate it to the local tip.
00:28:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great what you do that because some people would think it's sort of just other business might just dump and run. Good luck with that. All the best. Whereas you actually genuinely take the care to walk through it, demonstration, et cetera.
00:29:02
Speaker 13: We've been into someone's home where they got a delivery before us for some general piece of furniture and all the wrapping and cardboard was out in the front lawn. They didn't even take it with them.
00:29:10
Speaker 2: Oh, my Lord.
00:29:12
Speaker 13: Yeah, so we'll do all of.
00:29:12
Speaker 2: That and take it away. That's the worst, yellow bin week. All you need is one chair, fills up your bin, if there's a lot of stuff to do. Do most people walk in not realising, A, how big your showroom is, and B, I guess, the variety and the amount of stock and things that you have?
00:29:30
Speaker 13: Yeah, a lot of comments come through that they're quite deceived from the front of our buildings at the front at 11 and 13 Maple Avenue.
00:29:37
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:29:38
Speaker 13: It goes a long way back, nearly through to Leader Street.
00:29:41
Speaker 7: Yes.
00:29:41
Speaker 13: But it is deceiving, and it's obviously we've built it with inside the main structure of the building, and it goes fairly well back. We've got sections now, so it does make it easy. They can come in on their power chair or on their scooter. And we are dog-friendly as well, so people who have dogs Dogs for certain reasons and pets for certain reasons. If they don't want to get stressed and leave them in the car, we're more than happy to bring them in.
00:30:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:08
Speaker 13: Hoping they're house trained.
00:30:08
Speaker 2: I know Chantelle, our sales rep, who looks after you. I'm not sure if she's visiting you all the time or the dogs.
00:30:13
Speaker 13: She loves Rosie.
00:30:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:15
Speaker 13: Rosie's there every day.
00:30:16
Speaker 2: Just finds an excuse to drop in and say hello. Do you get great comfort knowing the change you make? Because you would see that also firsthand. You would see what difference it makes for people. We do.
00:30:25
Speaker 13: It is very nice. I mean, obviously, as a business, we need to tick things over and And we are fairly keen to move a lot of product to our customers. But customers we have had for many, many years feel are part of us and they become quite close. And, you know, we try and take the extra few steps to help them feel that way.
00:30:47
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:30:49
Speaker 13: So, yeah, they do really enjoy, I suppose, the whole aspect of being involved with us and initially being The purchase of the product is one thing, but it's a continuation of what we can do for them.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Well done.
00:31:02
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:31:03
Speaker 2: You able to park your car in show week, or is it a little difficult? You've been around long enough.
00:31:07
Speaker 13: Yeah, no, we used to do the show. We don't do that anymore, but we do have a couple of good customers that will come through, and we have country customers come down, and we'll lend them a scooter. We've got a few good secondhand ones.
00:31:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:17
Speaker 13: So they come down, park, and go off and have a look at the show and come back.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: I did notice a lot in the show this year, I thought, and that makes sense too, because Even just, I mean, it's a big day to walk around for a lot of people you're talking, you may not necessarily need it all day, but even undulating surfaces I've noticed as friends and family have got older, that can be a little issue for people.
00:31:35
Speaker 13: A lot of mobility items like that are a bit of a protection as well. I mean, you know, if you're driving down the street, you don't normally bump into people. So in a crowded environment, if you're on a good mobility scooter, even a walker, a simple walker for a person, and sometimes they feel, you know, it dents their pride a little bit having to, you know, forego their independence and say.
00:31:56
Speaker 4: I need a walker.
00:31:57
Speaker 13: But walkers are an actual good barrier, particularly in crowded shopping centres and at the Royal Show. Plus they've got their own little chair to sit down on and watch the wood chopping or what's going on at the main stadium.
00:32:09
Speaker 2: Much rather a walker than doing rehab in hospital by dealing with all of that. Tasman Turley, my guest, is the owner of Complete Comfort. Just drop the headphones on for a second, Tasman, before we let you out of here because we're going to get you some love from one of our callers. I should say 11 Maple Avenue in Forestville or completecomfort.net.au is where you can go on the website. Brendan from Maitland. Hey, Brendan, have you got something from Tasman?
00:32:33
Speaker 8: Yes, yes.
00:32:34
Speaker 14: Afternoon, young leaf. And Tasman, long time no speak. A fair few years ago, I bought a couple of chairs in Tasman from my late father, alive then, Brian. Yeah, marvellous fellow, Tasman. Very good at what he does and what he sells. But, yeah, personally, I highly recommend this chair that I got, or two chairs I got.
00:32:57
Speaker 5: From my father.
00:32:58
Speaker 14: They stood up and, yeah, they laid down flat, whatever. It's just like a, yeah.
00:33:03
Speaker 15: Complete, just a complete unit.
00:33:05
Speaker 14: And, yeah, just a very good fellow.
00:33:08
Speaker 8: And.
00:33:09
Speaker 14: If you wouldn't mind, you fellas, can you do a rain dance for us? We need a bit of rain as farmers in.
00:33:14
Speaker 2: This state have the most. Tasman's a far better dancer than I, so we'll get him to do it. Brendan, thank you for calling in, though. That's nice to hear. Thank you, Brendan. Great to hear from you, mate. Yeah, well done. And you would hear that, I'm sure, from a lot of people, the changes that you've been able to make.
00:33:27
Speaker 13: I don't get to the country as much as I'd like to, but our guys, we travel far and wide.
00:33:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, some rain would be nice. And now I think that period of the year is gone, so maybe they're not going to get some. But hopefully, fingers crossed. Folks, if you're after an adjustable mattress, a bed, an adjustable electric chair or recliner, if you want comfort furniture, mobility scooters and more, where do we go, Tasman?
00:33:48
Speaker 13: Complete comfort. Maple Avenue, Forestville, number 11 and number 13. Parking's available. Easy access. Cup of coffee, cup of tea. Piece of cake, always there.
00:33:58
Speaker 2: Beautiful. Good luck with Shani. You're going to need some sort of security people to get her out. And your customers, clearly.
00:34:04
Speaker 13: She's on her way to Melbourne for the weekend.
00:34:06
Speaker 2: Oh, you know more than I do. Tasman Turley, the owner of Complete Comfort. 27 years of operation, folks. If you need anything to do with NDIS or disability mobility equipment, he has got the lot. Great team in there as well. Good to see you, Tasman. Thanks for coming in.
00:34:21
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Leith Forrest.
00:34:24
Speaker 2: Milton Bedoulas will join us from 2 o'clock to answer all of your gardening questions. You can get them ready on 8223 0000. Just before we get to calls, there's been a release from SA Police regarding the response to the Gus Lamont reward announcement. Major crime detectives pleased with the response from the public regarding that reward announcement. 34 calls and two emails have been received by Crimestoppers. Let's hope they come to something. Vern in Pasadena, good afternoon.
00:34:53
Speaker 16: Good afternoon, Leeds. Good subject you had regarding these smarts.
00:35:01
Speaker 2: Yes, smart cars, Vern.
00:35:02
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:35:03
Speaker 16: But I just want to say two things. That technology's been in vehicles for quite some many years. And two stories I can tell you is, one, my son had a late model Falcon, one of the last.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: And.
00:35:22
Speaker 16: He was in the Air Force and he was way on manoeuvres and we had the car for a few months in the carport. When it started, it wouldn't start. And the problem was he left it in summer. No, he left it in winter period. And the car then started in summer and it was flooding itself. So the RAA came, had a look and told me he got it going. But he said, look, take it to your nearest Ford agent and have them check it. So, which I did do. And I was sitting in the waiting room, and within 20 minutes, I suppose, they were back to say I could take the car. And I said, but the bonnet wasn't even up. And he said, oh, no. He said, they fixed it from Melbourne. I said, well, what do you mean? And he said, oh, we'll just plug it in. And they set all the computer from there.
00:36:23
Speaker 2: How frightening is that, Vern? So that's what happens. This is why they're concerned, because if your car is attached to the internet or people are able to dial in on your car, yes, they might be able to do good things for you, as was done there, and people might be able to get updates and upgrades in their car. But what if someone does the wrong thing, like turn off your lights or lock your doors or have your radio really loud? People were able to hack into it. It's like a horror movie. Thank you, Vern. Debbie from South Plimpton before the news on the same issue. G'day, Deb.
00:36:53
Speaker 17: Hi, Lee.
00:36:54
Speaker 18: You might be aware of this, having a bit of an interest in what goes on in the US, but there's a bit of a thing going on where a lot of scientists that are working on really high top-level security stuff have been unalived and under suspicious circumstances. And a few of them have had very unusual car accidents in their Teslas. And the inference is exactly this.
00:37:22
Speaker 2: Right, like you would see in a movie. Okay.
00:37:26
Speaker 17: Do you know who Nancy Grace is?
00:37:28
Speaker 2: No, I'll have to do some digging.
00:37:30
Speaker 17: So she's an ex-prosecutor, but she now does a podcast, so she's into true crime. She does a podcast. It's also on Tubby and something else, YouTube. But yeah, she's done lots of, and multiple people have done stories about it because it's been extremely strange. Like they'll find someone and it will be said that they took their own life yet there's no actual possible way from the way they were found that that could have happened.
00:37:56
Speaker 7: Wow.
00:37:56
Speaker 16: Like, very weird thing.
00:37:58
Speaker 19: But, yes.
00:37:59
Speaker 2: So it's literally like the plot of a movie, Debbie, where we've seen plots like this before where people are able to take control of the car. It's life or art imitating life or vice versa. Yeah, wow.
00:38:11
Speaker 19: Scary, isn't it?
00:38:12
Speaker 2: I will have a look. Nancy Grace.
00:38:14
Speaker 17: Correct.
00:38:15
Speaker 2: I'll look in. Thank you, Debbie.
00:38:16
Speaker 8: Enjoy.
00:38:16
Speaker 2: Appreciate the call. Thank you for that. 8223 0000 if you'd like to join the conversation. As I say, Milton will join us on the other side of the 2 o'clock news, so we'll answer all of your gardening questions. On that, Peter from Sky said, Leith, you're speaking my language. I'm not interested in the AFL at all. I'll be building my chickens a new coop. I'll be painting their food. I'll be gardening all weekend with my new citrus and my cherries. I can't wait for Milton to come on and talk gardening. Peter, he is just amazing. Minutes away. Just a reminder that tomorrow it's Grand Vinyl Eve. We're going to stop down and play all your favourite footy and grand final tunes. It's all thanks to Matt and the team from Clarity Records, your fully independent record store, servicing the local music community for 16 years, 60 Pulteney Street in the city. Lots of fun tomorrow.
00:39:02
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Leith Forrest.
00:39:06
Speaker 2: Six minutes after two. Thanks for tuning in. 5AA Afternoons on this Thursday. 8223 0000 is the number if you'd like to join us. Milton Vidoulas is here. Any gardening questions you may have, you are more than welcome to ask Milt about those. And we'll speak to Durkani Ayubi, who is the much-loved restaurateur from Parwana, the Afghan restaurant in the western suburbs of Adelaide, but we'll speak to her about the Nature Festival, which officially starts tomorrow. It goes for a couple of weeks over the school holidays. Lots of things to enjoy. A man who loves getting out in nature. You can get dirty with Milt. And I do remember many moons gone past. He and his then colleague, Brad, never short of a photo when it came to World Nude Gardening Day.
00:39:52
Speaker 11: That's right.
00:39:53
Speaker 2: Milt and Vadula, it's lovely to see you.
00:39:55
Speaker 11: How are you, Lee?
00:39:55
Speaker 2: An appropriately placed sort of spade or a watering can. That's right. Every year. You used to get so many clicks and stuff on our Facebook page for that.
00:40:05
Speaker 4: Remember that?
00:40:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's that?
00:40:06
Speaker 5: Who's that?
00:40:07
Speaker 19: Yeah.
00:40:07
Speaker 2: That was so great.
00:40:08
Speaker 13: That was great.
00:40:09
Speaker 2: We had a bit of fun. Good to see you. We did indeed. It's nice to actually reminisce sometimes and look through those old photos on Michael's Facebook page, Michael Keelan's Weekends.
00:40:17
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker 2: Many, many moons. And even some of the people that sadly are no longer with us.
00:40:22
Speaker 11: Oh, I know.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: Kelvin. Yep, yep.
00:40:24
Speaker 11: Dr.
00:40:24
Speaker 10: Harry.
00:40:24
Speaker 2: That's right. Paul Munn.
00:40:26
Speaker 11: Oh, is Paul not with us?
00:40:27
Speaker 2: No, Paul's not with us. Isn't he? Andrew Bone.
00:40:30
Speaker 11: Yes, Andrew.
00:40:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. That was very sad. Great weekend bunch of people.
00:40:34
Speaker 11: Yeah, they were. It's all very sad, isn't it? When you look at it back like that, you know.
00:40:38
Speaker 2: We're getting old.
00:40:40
Speaker 11: Big losses.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: Well, you're not getting old.
00:40:42
Speaker 11: Oh, I'm getting old, Leith.
00:40:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:40:44
Speaker 11: Now I'm getting younger.
00:40:44
Speaker 2: Hey, what about this weather? So, can't quite make up its mind. It's still warmish, though. It's warm.
00:40:50
Speaker 11: It's actually a little bit sticky outside. This morning... When I went out, it was about 18 degrees, and that was at 7 o'clock this morning. I thought, oh, gee, it's pretty warm. And then after about an hour, it started raining in Gawler. So, yeah, not much. It wouldn't have even been a mill, I wouldn't have thought. But, you know, it was enough to wet the concrete and the lawn surface sort of thing. But, of course, that's not enough to water the garden. So with this warm weather we have had and we're having Leith, and I touched on it last week. you do need to start watering some of your plants.
00:41:26
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:41:26
Speaker 11: Not everything, but you need to look at freshly planted plants and pot plants especially. You really need to look at those. And look, my garden is on a slope, so the back lawn is flat, so I don't need to water that because it holds the moisture better.
00:41:41
Speaker 4: Sure.
00:41:42
Speaker 11: But the front lawn is on a slope. Now I'm having to water that because it drains away quickly.
00:41:46
Speaker 2: Massive runoff.
00:41:47
Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
00:41:48
Speaker 2: So we've had an issue where we had some sprinklers put in and they didn't quite put them low enough. So when old mate ran his mower over the top, I just clipped the top of it. So they've been out the boys this week and they've fixed it all up now. And even Jessica's been running it three times a day to try and get some of the new seed in the back lawn. And I think I told you about my sort of moss collection that we had in the back.
00:42:09
Speaker 11: Yes, that's right.
00:42:09
Speaker 2: It's all been sort of redone and looks great. But if you look ahead at the weather for the next week, No rain today, no rain tomorrow, zero to three on Saturday for the grand final, which is pretty much nothing. Nothing. No rain Sunday, no rain Monday, zero to one Tuesday, none. None. Zero to three Wednesday, none really.
00:42:28
Speaker 8: None.
00:42:28
Speaker 2: And then Thursday, possibly zero to six. So it's not a lot. Start watering.
00:42:33
Speaker 11: No, you do need to start watering if you want your garden to look good. And the thing about watering now, you might think, well, everything looks okay.
00:42:42
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:42:43
Speaker 11: Yes. But what you don't want to do is lose all of that moisture out of the soil. So if you start watering out now, you're actually topping that moisture up so it doesn't evaporate right from the root zone.
00:42:56
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:42:57
Speaker 2: You always are very passionate about this. And people, you can speak to Milton if you've got a personal question about your garden that you'd like to ask. When you talk about when people water, they might have a thought, maybe I'll count to 30 in my head and then I'm done. You, in terms of how much we should water, what people have an idea of that's a good water. Can you give us that sort of philosophy or equation that you have?
00:43:23
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:43:23
Speaker 11: So if you're watering your lawn, you want to put 25 mils of water on at one application.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:43:31
Speaker 11: So now depending on the precipitation rates of your sprinklers, which means how much water they apply per hour.
00:43:39
Speaker 8: Yep.
00:43:40
Speaker 11: The best way to check that is to get jam tins or baked bean tins, something with vertical sides. Dot them all around your lawn and time how long it takes to get 25 mils of water in those cans. So that will tell you how long you need to leave your sprinklers on for. Now, for things like roses and general shrubs, you probably need about 10 to 15 litres of water per per plant. So you can work that out by the drippers you have. You know, if they allow four litres per hour and you want 12 litres, you need to leave them on three hours. See, a lot of people, you know, I get it all the time. Oh, no, I leave my drippers on. They're on every day. And you think, well, when you analyse it, they might have them on for 10 minutes. A 10-minute watering on a four-litre-per-hour dripper is– like 100 mils of water, which is nothing.
00:44:39
Speaker 2: It's dribble.
00:44:40
Speaker 11: It's nothing. So make sure you're giving those enough water. Things like trees don't need as regular watering, but they need more water.
00:44:50
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:44:50
Speaker 11: So the bigger a tree is, the more water it needs.
00:44:53
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:44:54
Speaker 11: And if you're watering pot plants, you know, I coined a phrase that if it's in the 20s, do it twice a week. If it's in the 30s, do it three times a week. And if it's above 35, just water them every day. And try to apply the volume of the pot. Let's say it's a nine litre pot. Yep. Put at least double that. Put 18 litres of water in it. But pot plants, the water should be applied slowly, Leith.
00:45:23
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:45:24
Speaker 11: Because otherwise it runs down the sides of the pots. Oh, yes, there's water running out the bottom. But it doesn't mean the water, the soil, the potting mix is moist. So just be careful with that. What I do with my pot plants is I take them and get my hose with that nice soft rose on the end, and I go from one pot to the other, and I might go back and forth six or seven times.
00:45:49
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:45:50
Speaker 11: So I know the potting mix well. is nice and moist.
00:45:53
Speaker 2: I just texted my lovely wife to ask the name of the plant. So we have a couple of plants at our front door, exactly what you're speaking of. The tree that sort of comes up and then bunches out.
00:46:02
Speaker 11: Oh, yes, the little lollipop trees.
00:46:04
Speaker 2: Lollipop trees.
00:46:05
Speaker 1: Ficus.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: And we have them in like a stone, what would you call it?
00:46:11
Speaker 5: Pot.
00:46:11
Speaker 4: Pot.
00:46:12
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happens. So we will get watering cans, and I might get one, two, three, four watering cans, and I'll give it a good, healthy drink. But the minute I put... half a watering can in, it's all seeping out the bottom.
00:46:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:25
Speaker 2: And so I often wonder, what can I do? Do you need like a wetting agent or something to help it sort of stay in there a bit more?
00:46:32
Speaker 11: It is a good question because a lot of people have this problem. And I know you've been in the gardening talk business.
00:46:38
Speaker 2: For a while. I'm an old pro at this now.
00:46:40
Speaker 11: But no, it's a really good question because what happens is the longer you've had that plant in that pot– The fuller the pot is going to be of roots.
00:46:50
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:46:50
Speaker 11: Okay. So after about three to four years, you need to take that plant out of that pot and then do a root prune or put it into a larger pot. Because what will happen now, if it's very full of roots, you'll put the water in the top and it runs straight down the sides of the pots.
00:47:11
Speaker 17: Yes.
00:47:12
Speaker 11: And it's coming out the bottom and you think, oh, it's enough water. Yeah. So, yes, when it gets that full of roots, a wetting agent is beneficial for sure.
00:47:22
Speaker 2: Milton Vidoulas is here from Vidoulas in Gawler. If you need indoor plants, outdoor plants, great garden furniture, they've got you all covered. Had a spy go out there the other day. Oh, did you? Have a look at what Ari's up to and his team. Said it was excellent.
00:47:35
Speaker 11: Amazing what you've got sorted out there. Yeah, it's looking fabulous. He's doing a great job. This is not great radio, but I'll show you. You may or may not remember. Remember, Jessica and I came out once and we bought a heap of the same.
00:47:47
Speaker 2: Pots from you.
00:47:47
Speaker 11: Yes, yes, yes, the white ones.
00:47:49
Speaker 2: So we have, and again... You know, I'm not quite a green thumb. I'm a light green thumb from my years in the business. But we have a particular plant in there, and it bursts the pot.
00:47:59
Speaker 4: Oh, yes.
00:47:59
Speaker 11: Oh, yes, yes, yes. So Leith's got a Strelitzia nicolae.
00:48:04
Speaker 2: Is that the palm? What do they call it?
00:48:05
Speaker 11: The bird of paradise.
00:48:06
Speaker 2: Bird of paradise.
00:48:07
Speaker 11: But it's the giant one.
00:48:08
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:48:09
Speaker 11: And the giant one is notorious for a big, heavy root system.
00:48:14
Speaker 2: So we've got it in the back, and it's got beautiful, like, ferns. Like, it looks amazing.
00:48:19
Speaker 4: Leaves.
00:48:19
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, Jessica said, I think it's getting a bit of a crack in it, that particular pot. Then the next day, like an egg, it had just split the whole thing.
00:48:28
Speaker 11: Look, that sort of plant, they are good in pots. But what I do tell people, if you're going to put them in a decorative pot, plant them in a plastic pot. and sit the plastic pot in the decorative pot because it is always, that Strelitzia nicolae or the large bird of paradise will break a concrete pot.
00:48:50
Speaker 2: Yes, somebody said to me, whatever you do, do not plant it in the ground ever because it will take over your entire neighbourhood.
00:48:57
Speaker 11: It could if you don't prune it, yes.
00:49:00
Speaker 2: But how's that? That pot that you had, they were big, sturdy, heavy pots. Quality pots.
00:49:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:49:06
Speaker 2: And it just cracks it like an egg.
00:49:08
Speaker 11: Honestly, it will split a big concrete pot.
00:49:10
Speaker 2: Amazing.
00:49:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:49:12
Speaker 11: Gee, the plant looks good.
00:49:14
Speaker 2: Hello.
00:49:15
Speaker 19: Hey.
00:49:15
Speaker 2: How's my, what did I send you?
00:49:17
Speaker 11: Light green thumb.
00:49:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, my light green. What was the photo I sent you? the other day? A hedging plant?
00:49:21
Speaker 11: Oh, the Morayas.
00:49:22
Speaker 2: The Morayas.
00:49:22
Speaker 11: Oh, yeah, they were killer, weren't they?
00:49:24
Speaker 2: How's that? Beautiful, beautiful. They're like 10 feet high now.
00:49:26
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah.
00:49:27
Speaker 2: I bought those from Vidalas in Gawler. Milton Vidalas is here to answer your questions.
00:49:31
Speaker 17: 8223 0000.
00:49:31
Speaker 2: Go to it.
00:49:34
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Leap Forest.
00:49:37
Speaker 2: Milton Vidalas is here from Vidalas in Gawler. It is a location that is so great, full of plants, indoor and outdoor, and outdoor furniture. The good folk of Gawler said, well, how do we remind people that it's there? So they built a racetrack right across the road so you know exactly where to go. Dennis from Semaphore Park, you're speaking to Milton.
00:49:55
Speaker 19: Yes, good afternoon. I've had a lot of trouble. All my citrus trees, lemon, lime, and... Chinese or Japanese mandarin, they get those little wasps in them. The branches bulge out.
00:50:11
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, yes.
00:50:12
Speaker 19: And I have tried cutting it back in there, and I had to pull them all out. They're covered in it. Yeah. I'm going to plant new citrus trees in it. You can spray if you think that that's coming on again.
00:50:24
Speaker 11: Yes, definitely, Dennis. It's a clay product. Kale and clay, it's called. You'll get it at Semaphore Garden Centre. You're down at Semaphore Park there. They'll certainly have it. And what this does, Dennis, you spray it on the foliage and stems and it creates this layer, which is clay, so it's like dirt sort of thing, on the stem. And the little wasps will go elsewhere because they don't want to lay their eggs in clay. They want nice, fresh, supple shoots. So if you spray those now... The wasps are around usually very early October to perhaps November. So perhaps if you spray, keep that kaolin spray sprayed on your trees between, you know, go 1st of October to the end of October, you'll be fairly right for keeping them away. Now, the other thing is.
00:51:23
Speaker 19: sorry do you spray the whole tree.
00:51:25
Speaker 11: Yes spray the whole tree they tend to only want the young shoots but if you're spraying a young tree just spray the whole tree um because yeah look once they get in there they're a problem so try to keep them away by using the spray there is also um european not european wasps um gall wasps traps that you can buy that you can hang in your trees and that traps them in there. So you could do both things to keep them at bay.
00:51:57
Speaker 19: Okay, because I've had a lot of trouble with lemon trees. I've had three. I had a big lemon tree which was part lemon and grapefruit and it ended up having more grapefruit than lemon, so I pulled it out and we were on loamies. sandy soil, I suppose, and I dug it out and put all fresh loam in, and I've just gone through three lemon trees. They're just dying.
00:52:21
Speaker 11: They're dying from the wasps or just dying?
00:52:23
Speaker 19: No, no, just dying. Because up the other end, there's a pear tree, which is fully fruited and going extremely well. But what would be the best lemon tree then to plant down here?
00:52:38
Speaker 11: Well, I like the Eureka. I think that's the best all-round lemon. And now's a very good time to plant them. So if you go, again, into Semaphore Garden Centre, I was there the other day. They've certainly got some stock in. And now's the best time to plant them. Plant them just, you know, after you plant them, make sure you give them a dose of some sea salt to settle them in. Maybe even cut it back a little bit. Take about 10% of the plant off. If it's a windy spot, put a windbreak around it. They hate wind. They hate drafty spots. So if you can do that, you can give it a really good chance to grow, Dennis.
00:53:20
Speaker 19: Okay, just quickly, they face due west. When the hot weather really comes in, should you shield them with some shade cloth?
00:53:27
Speaker 11: No, they don't mind the sun. That's not a problem. It's the wind that's a problem. If you're putting them in pots, yes, shade them from the afternoon sun. But in the ground, they'll tolerate that.
00:53:39
Speaker 19: All right. Thanks very much, Paul.
00:53:40
Speaker 11: Pleasure.
00:53:41
Speaker 1: Good luck.
00:53:41
Speaker 2: Good on you, Dennis. Thank you for the call. 8223 0000. Gardening questions for Milton Vidalis. You can go to it. Speak to Madeline. She'll put you in the queue. Adam from Salisbury asks, Milton, the best time for watering, please, dusk or dawn?
00:53:55
Speaker 11: Dawn is always better, and people ask why, because you don't leave water on the foliage at night. And water on foliage on some plants can cause fungal diseases and bacterias. So water is better. So when the sun comes out, the leaves will dry, and you'll have less problem with any diseases.
00:54:16
Speaker 2: Andrew says, Milton, when you're saying 25 mils, is that 25 millimetres or 25 millilitres?
00:54:23
Speaker 11: Oh, it's 25 millimetres in the gauge. So one inch in the old money, that's how much water needs to be in the bottom of the can.
00:54:35
Speaker 2: Right. Damien asks, Milton, the best method, please, for indoor ferns? I'm assuming, yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker 11: Yeah, look, ferns is a little bit different to most other indoor plants. Normally with indoor plants, we tell people to let them dry out in between waterings. However, ferns, most ferns, like to be kept moist all the time. And it's one of the few plants that I don't mind people having a saucer underneath it with water in it when it's extremely hot. So water them regularly, keep them moist, not dry.
00:55:11
Speaker 2: Are you a big fan of saucer under pots or no?
00:55:14
Speaker 11: No. Look, certainly to catch drips, yes. But indoor plants, one of the worst things people do is they have the saucer under the plant and then they water it and the water fills up with– sorry, the saucer fills up with water.
00:55:31
Speaker 5: Yes.
00:55:32
Speaker 11: And– It's sitting in water all the time. Now, it's not an aquatic plant.
00:55:37
Speaker 17: Right.
00:55:37
Speaker 2: You don't want wet feet.
00:55:38
Speaker 11: You don't want wet feet because what water does, and I see this all the time, oh, but the plant is wilting, so I think it needs watering. But what's happened, if it's sitting in water, the roots are rotting away at the bottom.
00:55:52
Speaker 2: Right.
00:55:53
Speaker 11: And when they're rotting away, they don't have as many roots, so they wilt. So you give them more water and you're making the situation worse.
00:56:01
Speaker 2: It's like a vicious cycle.
00:56:03
Speaker 7: It is.
00:56:03
Speaker 2: Can I give you a bit of homework for next week or the week after?
00:56:06
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:56:06
Speaker 2: The top two or three mistakes that people make that they've just convinced themselves or it's been passed down over generations that that's the way you do things. Like I would think majority of people, if they were honest, would look around their house now and see a saucer under one of their pots somewhere.
00:56:24
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's okay. I have saucers under mine, but what I do is I take my indoor plants outside in the shade and I water them out there and I wash the leaves down. I liquid feed them. I let them drain out there. Then I take them inside and put them in my decorative pots that might have a saucer in. But the saucer's only there to catch the drips. It's not to hold water. Again, the mistake people make, is they don't take their plants out of the situation to water them. So they water them in their decorative pots. And I've seen people do it. You look in there and it's like a swimming pool in the decorative pot.
00:57:08
Speaker 2: But I think there'd also be cases where, You know, people plant a plant and don't have a pollinator alongside it and then throw their hands up in the air because their plant died. Yeah, that's right. Little mistakes like that that people don't think. Michael always says it too. You will buy a magnificent plant that costs you a lot of money and then you'll just go with cheap, nasty plants.
00:57:33
Speaker 11: Potting mix. Oh, it's the worst thing you can do. You know, you always have to use the best quality potting mix available because you're going to get a much better plant.
00:57:44
Speaker 2: Marion can have our final word. She says, Milton, maidenhair ferns, are they hard to grow?
00:57:50
Speaker 11: No, they're very easy to grow, but they need two things, bright light and moisture. They're the two things that you need for a maidenhair fern. Don't put them in a dark spot. They won't grow. They like bright light, and they like to be kept moist all the time. If you do that, they are bulletproof.
00:58:10
Speaker 2: Well done. It's actually Marion's 64th birthday today. Oh, happy birthday. Marion.
00:58:17
Speaker 11: Wonderful.
00:58:18
Speaker 2: Have a fantastic and blessed day, she says.
00:58:21
Speaker 4: Definitely.
00:58:21
Speaker 2: Good grief. She's like peanuts.
00:58:24
Speaker 7: 64.
00:58:24
Speaker 2: If only I'd sing. I could sing that particular When I Get Older, Losing My Hair.
00:58:29
Speaker 11: Oh, yes, yes, yes.
00:58:30
Speaker 2: Many years from now.
00:58:30
Speaker 8: Yeah.
00:58:31
Speaker 11: Actually, I did sing that at my 65th birthday.
00:58:34
Speaker 2: Beautiful. Milton, where do we find you and where do we find your son, Ari, and the great team at Vidoulas?
00:58:39
Speaker 11: Well, you'll find me wherever, but you'll find the other team at Vidoulas and they're at Main North Road, Gawler, opposite the Gawler Racecourse.
00:58:49
Speaker 2: But you're like the Loch Ness Monster. There's the occasional appearance.
00:58:52
Speaker 11: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:58:53
Speaker 2: See you and get excited by that.
00:58:54
Speaker 11: You'll see me sneaking around in my overalls doing a few odd jobs.
00:58:58
Speaker 2: And what should we be buying now from Vidoulas?
00:59:01
Speaker 11: Oh, look, he's got a great range of indoor plants. But, look, I must say his pots and outdoor furniture at the moment... are fantastic. You'll see things out there that you haven't seen before, and I think that's the wonderful thing about Vidoulas.
00:59:17
Speaker 2: I know someone in the market for a pot, so I'll send it your way. Good to see you. Thank you for coming in.
00:59:21
Speaker 11: Thanks, Lee.
00:59:22
Speaker 2: The Great Milton Vidoulas, our guest, 230 Headlines with Brucey next.
00:59:26
Speaker 1: Five AA afternoons with Leith Forrest.
00:59:29
Speaker 2: 26 minutes to three. Very shortly, we'll let you know all about the Nature Festival for 2026, which officially kicks off tomorrow with one of our favourites. First, let's check in with the Weather Bureau. Steph Spackman joins us from the Bureau of Meteorology. Lovely to have you on, Steph. Oh, let me try a different fader. Hello, Steph.
00:59:50
Speaker 11: Hello, how are you?
00:59:51
Speaker 2: Very well, thank you. Hey, we were just talking to Milton, who was walking from the train station to come here, saying a little humid outside, a little bit of precipitation, not a lot in it, but sort of mid-20s and a little bit of moisture.
01:00:04
Speaker 12: Yes, there is a lot of cloud and a bit of moisture around. Currently looking at temperatures of about 27 degrees at the moment. There is a little bit of precipitation around, not too much. Those fronts that were coming across over the next few days are just extending a little bit further north than we were estimating yesterday. Nothing has officially fallen in any of our rain gauges as yet. But yes, definitely raising the humidity and in combination with those northerly winds, it's feeling a little bit summery.
01:00:38
Speaker 2: Okay, so for the weekend, the grand final on Saturday, people are planning get-togethers and all the rest. What's the weather looking like?
01:00:46
Speaker 12: So as we move into tomorrow, we'll see some cooler temperatures just behind this little change that's coming through at the moment. And then we have another change which is going to slip through and just bring some southerly winds as well on Saturday. So unfortunately for those outdoor activities, it's looking at a top of 19 and a few showers about. So perhaps a gazebo might be in order if you're going to be out and about.
01:01:09
Speaker 7: All right.
01:01:10
Speaker 2: We look forward to that. School holidays start next week. The weather for next week for the kids and grandkids?
01:01:16
Speaker 12: As we go through into next week, we will have a high pressure system starting to move across Tasmania on Sunday. So a bit of a dry start and some warming temperatures as we get into the early parts of next week. And then we have another low pressure system moving over from WA. What about Tuesday and Wednesday? So a few showers coming through. So a bit of a mixed start to the beginning of the school holidays.
01:01:39
Speaker 2: All right. Thank you, Steph. Appreciate that. We will speak to you tomorrow.
01:01:43
Speaker 4: Enjoy.
01:01:43
Speaker 2: Your afternoon specs. Steph Spackman from the Weather Bureau there with the latest 26.6 degrees in the city right now, an overnight low of 15 degrees. So, in its seventh year... The Nature Festival for 2026 kicks off tomorrow. It is on from the 25th of September until the 11th of October. You can find out all the details at naturefestival.org.au. In a nutshell, it's all about swapping seeds and First Nations storytelling, botanical arts and food, music, community action. It is South Australia's biggest nature celebration. In fact, 350 events right across the two weeks. What's interesting is this year's festival, has what they call seed stewards. So they are people who live and work and their lives engage the idea of seed. So memory, cultivation, food, and conservation as well. And one of the seed stewards is a dear friend, a friend of show and the owner and one of the occupiers of the best restaurant in town, Parwana, on Henley Beach Road in the western suburbs there. Dekani Ayubi joins me. Lovely to have you on, Dekani.
01:02:53
Speaker 8: Hello, Lee.
01:02:54
Speaker 10: It's so lovely to be chatting with you again.
01:02:56
Speaker 2: It's lovely to have you as part of it. How exciting. You're a seed steward.
01:03:01
Speaker 10: One of my biggest accomplishments, I'd say. What a cute title, right?
01:03:05
Speaker 2: So you can say restaurateur, academic, award-winning author, and now a seed steward.
01:03:15
Speaker 7: Caps it off.
01:03:15
Speaker 10: The cherry on top.
01:03:16
Speaker 2: That's nice, though. So you're actively involved, obviously, as a steward, but also I saw that you're hosting a book launch and... You've got some other events part of the Nature Festival?
01:03:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
01:03:26
Speaker 10: So the Nature Festival is a lovely festival. And just hearing you describe it, you summed it up so well. So I think what I love about it is it's so community driven. There's one element of it that is curated by the Nature Festival team. And then there's another element where people in the community, whether it be kids at school or You know, cultural groups or just different people from all across South Australia create events within their own community. So it ends up being something like 350 events across the state within that two-week period or whatever it is, which is pretty amazing. Just celebrating nature. And, you know, South Australia, our landscapes are incredible. Our hills, our coastline, everything. So it's a beautiful festival to be part of. This year as a seed steward, I had the opportunity to be a little more involved and to think about every year is a different theme. This year's theme is seed. And when I was reflecting on seeds, I was thinking, you know, for somebody whose journey has been so involved in food with my family's restaurants and food is such a central part in our lives as refugees moving from Afghanistan to Australia. It's almost like an inverse journey for me, right? Like we have the ingredients on the table. And then more and more as I've been writing, I've been starting to think about where those ingredients come from. So I've almost... kind of traced the story back and definitely written about that in my latest book, right, which is all every chapter is an ingredient or starts with a seed story. So it was a really resonant time to be involved with the festival.
01:05:09
Speaker 2: You know what I love, Dukani, about this festival is just how collaborative it is. So you talk about there is the organisers, obviously, but it's a lot of community groups, isn't it, where they get together. Everyone has the love of nature and you combine that all into the festival.
01:05:23
Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely. So it's not overly curated, right? Like there might be things happening in a particular suburb with a community garden and they just plug that into a nature festival and get more of the community involved around it. I love how organic.
01:05:37
Speaker 18: It is actually.
01:05:39
Speaker 2: And right across the state too, like it's not just a metro event this, like right across South Australia, wherever they can, free events, family friendly events, they'll try and do a little bit of everything.
01:05:50
Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely. Right across the state. So in the hills and the wine country all the way to the coast and, you know, the suburbs and the metro CBD too. And I was having a chat to Amber, who's one of the festival directors, the other day. And, you know, one of the nice things about the website is you can search. There's so many family-friendly and kid-friendly things. So you can search by age, not just by, so what's appropriate for a five-year-old, what's appropriate.
01:06:14
Speaker 18: For a 12-year-old.
01:06:15
Speaker 10: And I think it sort of coincides with school holidays too, which is great.
01:06:19
Speaker 2: So it's always unfair, Dukani, when you do festivals like this on the radio because you can never do them justice in the time that we have. But we would urge everyone to go to naturefestival.org.au and you'll find an event for you. I have picked out a couple, though, that we can talk about and let people know about that I think are really interesting. The Seedling Exchange. So this is every day during the festival, North Territory and the City, just outside the State Library. Basically, people get to come and plant seeds, don't they, and water them. And it's a shared garden, which so many suburbs have that unique community garden, which is not just about gardening, but also connection and relationships.
01:06:56
Speaker 12: Yeah, absolutely.
01:06:57
Speaker 10: And, you know, I don't know about every single of the 350 events, but now that you mentioned this one, I was just walking on North Terrace earlier today. I had to drop some stuff off at the art gallery, which is where my event will be on Sunday for nature festivals. And yeah, I saw them setting up the little gardens and it looks amazing. And how lovely to have that now city, right? We're a city surrounded by parklands, which is pretty unique for South Australia, in the world really. So yeah, to have that seed exchange there and to be able to come and plant seeds right in the city centre is lovely. And another big part of Nature Festival is culture. So you're surrounded there in the city by the museum and the galleries and everything. So I think that's pretty special.
01:07:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've got Isla in the city. There's the art gallery. There are various restaurants. I know there's Esme's at Hackney that are part of it. Throughout the parklands, there is Journey of Healing Country Through Fire, which again is really interesting for a lot of people. The seed stories that we discuss. So literally something for everyone. And I would assume maybe it was passed down with your family, Durkani, through generations that I would imagine this is a very generational event too. There are passionate grandparents who have passed on their love of nature to their kids and ditto to their grandkids.
01:08:17
Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely. Well, in my family, you know, we, I guess, had a lot of that sort of ruptured in a way, right? Because when you leave a place, you sort of leave that ancestry and that history. So for me, you know, that connection to seeds and ingredients through the food and the food knowledge that my mother held on to and passed on to us as kids, was so pivotal to understanding myself. You don't know it at the time when you're growing up, but now reflecting on it, choosing to research, choosing to write about it, choosing to be immersed in it, how special these ingredients are. They have journeys beyond... you know, we almost take for granted when we sort of sit at a table and eat, right? But when we stop and make conscious the journeys of these seeds and how they make their way into our plate, into our culture, into our language, they're a really special way to get to know yourself better, actually, and your own story.
01:09:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can we talk about literal seeds for a second? Afghanistan versus what you now experience here in Australia as a family. What kind of things were you growing in Afghanistan that you've brought through and made Parwana this sort of globally recognised restaurant that you serve?
01:09:32
Speaker 10: Yeah. Sorry, I didn't get the first part. Did you say what kind of seeds, what kind of ingredients?
01:09:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what kind of seeds and ingredients in Afghanistan that you've brought through?
01:09:40
Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
01:09:41
Speaker 10: You know, there are so many plants in Australia that come from Central Asia and Afghanistan. Well, you know, it's today called Afghanistan, that part of the world, right? Because it's actually the center.
01:09:55
Speaker 18: Of diversity of seeds.
01:09:57
Speaker 10: So things like wheat, fruits, nuts, a lot of these sort of plants grew prolifically and early were cultivated. in places that make today's Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Jordan, that whole area. So, you know, in the ingredients that we use at the restaurant, there were a few things we couldn't get when we first came here. And they were always really special to sort of have them. And one is like this native leek called kandana. And we use it in our dumplings and our balani flatbreads and you know, inevitably, invariably, somebody would have seeds that they've managed to get into the country somehow, right? And people, these seeds would be shared around the community, like here in.
01:10:42
Speaker 11: Adelaide, right?
01:10:42
Speaker 10: I thought it was always really special to have this particular child with this particular taste of home that, yeah, you can substitute it and you do, you adapt, right? And you make different ingredients around you, but to have those ingredients is so special and important. And another I can think of is narinj, which is like a bitter orange. And it's the same bitter orange that makes the marmalade orange jam, right? But in that part of the world, farmers over generations, over thousands of years, basically cultivated this bitter orange and selected for palatability and sweetness. So it's still a little bitter, but it's also so beautiful, just sort of squeezed onto salads or in dressings or on meats and fish and that kind of thing.
01:11:25
Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
01:11:26
Speaker 10: And we use the Nareng peel on our Nareng Palau rice. If anyone's been to Parwan, it's just really, we kind of blanch it and soak it in a syrup, cook it.
01:11:38
Speaker 17: In a syrup.
01:11:38
Speaker 10: So it ends up being this really kind of, there's a little bitter taste to it, but this beautiful, sweet, syrupy Nareng peel that goes on the rice with the food. There's all these really amazing ingredients that have been cultivated from one generation to the next for a very long time.
01:11:54
Speaker 2: And if you think about what the Nature Festival is all about in terms of seeds, so not just planting physical seeds into your gardens, but also planting seeds within communities, planting seeds within culture. I mean, who would ever have expected to come in many moons ago in Adelaide? When I drive past your restaurant... and see people lining up to get in every day. Even last night, I was at an event and I came back late and I had a look in your window as I drove past and it was chockers again. The fact that so many people have embraced your family and your food and your culture, that's a warming thing, no?
01:12:30
Speaker 18: Oh, absolutely, Lee.
01:12:31
Speaker 10: We never take it for granted. The ethos has always been within Afghan hospitality and culture, which is very, it's such a passed down intergenerational thing for us at the center of this, it grows there, right? It forms part of our culture and our rituals and our story. And at the center of it is food. And, you know, who would have imagined, well, we've been here nearly 40 years now, but who would have imagined, my mom and dad, certainly not, my grandparents, certainly not, that this would be the journey, right? And to bring something of that homeland that is about its beauty, its invitation, its abundance, And to have that be what grounds us here, and not just us, then extend that out to our community. And everyone has embraced.
01:13:16
Speaker 19: It so beautifully, you know.
01:13:17
Speaker 10: And it's such a gift for us to be able to share something that means something to us and that defines where we came from. And to help that, you're right, not just physical seeds, but we plant seeds of invitation, right? Like we plant seeds of different ideas when people come in and have an Afghan meal today. it can change the concept of what Afghanistan is in a way that you don't really get to see in headlines or in dominant narratives in the news. And that's why food's so important.
01:13:48
Speaker 2: Folks, if you have never experienced, you need to experience parwana in Henley Beach Road. I guess what suburb would you be? Torrensville.
01:13:55
Speaker 10: We're at Torrensville. Yeah, we just passed the Thebby Theatre.
01:13:58
Speaker 2: That's it. That's right. Yeah, you should do the double. If you're ever going to a show at Thebby, grab a bite to eat beforehand. Lovely to have you on, Dukani. I hope it's a terrific nature festival. All the best with the book launch and with the poetry event as well.
01:14:09
Speaker 10: Thank you, Lee. It's so nice to talk to you.
01:14:12
Speaker 2: So great to catch up. See you soon.
01:14:13
Speaker 1: You too.
01:14:14
Speaker 2: Dukani Ayubi from Parwana is a seed steward, one of six seed stewards for the nature festival, which kicks off tomorrow on until the 11th of October, naturefestival.org.au, if you'd like to find out all the details and information.
01:14:31
Speaker 1: Five AA afternoons with Lee Forrest.
01:14:34
Speaker 2: Eight minutes to three. The great Lee McCluskey is going to join us on the other side of three o'clock for five AA ages ago. Lee, of course, a star on the radio, hosting the juggernaut that was today, tonight at the same time. So look forward to chatting with her and you'll be able to see all of that on our live stream, Facebook and YouTube. Before we get to the news, Kaylene is in Bellevue Heights. Kaylene, hello.
01:14:56
Speaker 4: Hi.
01:14:57
Speaker 3: I was just referring to the Four Corners program again. the part that absolutely horrified me was that the car can listen in to your phone calls. And as an example, what he did was he rang, or the car rang mum and, no, sorry, he rang mum and he said, oh, your new password for your bank account that I set up is my birth date, my street number, and I forget what the third one was. And when he stepped out the car, he left his phone in the car, and the phone automatically went to the car, and all of a sudden they had the password for the bank account.
01:15:43
Speaker 2: How frightening is that, Kayleen?
01:15:45
Speaker 7: I know.
01:15:47
Speaker 3: And he said, my age. Well, they automatically clicked over and worked out that he was 48 or whatever, and his street number was 12 or whatever. And I forget what the third one was, but yeah, he had the password to log into the bank account.
01:16:06
Speaker 2: This is the drama, isn't it? So we expect those kind of things on your computers and your phones. But for those just tuning in, this was on Four Corners we discussed earlier with Trent Nikolic. A cybersecurity expert was able to hack into a car. And so what they're saying now is the government needs to do more regulations. The government is saying, no, everything's fine, nothing to see here. But a BYD Shark 6, the hacker was able to turn off the headlights whilst driving at night, turn on the windscreen wipers, lock the car doors, and as Kaylene just mentioned, use the microphone to listen in on phone calls. So you think what's going on in your car with the sensors and the cameras and the microphones all collecting, all transmitting, and now the vehicle that you're driving can be hacked by someone. That is the new reality. Kaylene, thank you for the call. Hughie, before we get to the news.
01:16:55
Speaker 15: There you go. I've been in the game for 50 years now. I've still not changed new cars, pre-livery. I worked at Holden's before they shut down. But the issue is here that the ADR rules, Australian Design Rules, probably needs to be a bit more on the seat and heads down to look at what's happening at the moment with the EV vehicles and the technology being used, rather rely on the hiccups and getting everyone caught out with invasion of privacy and what have you behind the wheel.
01:17:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
01:17:24
Speaker 15: The Australian design rules, I'm surprised. What you need to do one day is get them on the phone, talk to them about what they're doing at the moment to make improvements on these EV vehicles.
01:17:34
Speaker 2: It's a great call. We'll look into that. We'll try and get someone on the show about that, Hughie, because I think there is more and more people who are starting to get concerned that the government, along with the manufacturers, are not talking. They need to work together. They need to improve transparency, not just the new vehicles that are coming into Australia, but the ones who are here now. There are connected capabilities on so many phones, so many cars. They need to look at that and find out. And again, if you're buying a car, renting a car, using a car, you need to ask the dealer, what is this capable of, this phone? What information is being collected of mine? What information is being protected? People are doing all these things, you know, blanking out photos on social media etc meantime your car is listening to everything that you do so no the government certainly needs to step up great advice Huey thank you for that three o'clock news and five double ages ago with Lee McCluskey.
01:18:26
Speaker 1: Next five double a afternoons with Lee Forrest.
01:18:30
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for tuning in on this Thursday afternoon last hour of the show it is six minutes after three couple of legends on the way this hour From 3.30, we're going to catch up with Randy Backman, legendary musician, part of Backman Turner Overdrive, who are coming to Adelaide for the very first time. A band that's been around for 60 years, but never toured australia they will next year we'll speak to him just after 3 30 and delighted to be able to introduce you to our next guest she's someone you know she's someone you love it's all part of our big five double a celebration celebrating 50 years of five double a This is five double ages ago. It is ages ago. I have a feeling it might be around 30 years since she was here. The lovely Lee McCluskey joins us. Lovely to see you, Lee. Thank you for coming in.
01:19:20
Speaker 8: Oh, thank you for the invitation. I was delighted, surprised and delighted. So thank you.
01:19:23
Speaker 2: Am I right? It was late, mid to late 90s?
01:19:26
Speaker 8: Yeah, I must have been four at the time.
01:19:29
Speaker 2: I think.
01:19:29
Speaker 11: Correct.
01:19:30
Speaker 2: That's right. You were a child prodigy and they said, let's get her in front of a microphone.
01:19:33
Speaker 10: Oh, dear.
01:19:34
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, it would have been late 90s. So doing mornings with Pilko.
01:19:37
Speaker 2: Yes, and that lasted for?
01:19:39
Speaker 8: I think it was, to be honest, I think it was about three years.
01:19:41
Speaker 2: You enjoy it, though?
01:19:42
Speaker 8: I did. I really like Talkback because I like the idea of, and particularly when we did polys, to be able to, you know, slap a poly gently around the head over an issue was always really good fun.
01:19:53
Speaker 2: That's good fun.
01:19:54
Speaker 8: And because I was doing Today Tonight at the same time. So, yeah, no, I did enjoy it. It just, in the end, it just got too much because I was working basically 12 hours a day.
01:20:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were burning the– let's rewind back before we talk about your stint here as we celebrate you and 5AA and the 50 years that we had. So did you always– because I was looking at your bio, so 30, 40 years in the whole industry by the time you'd left. Did you– you started the ABC or did you move into TV first?
01:20:21
Speaker 8: No, I started at the Herald and Weekly Times in Melbourne as a print journal.
01:20:24
Speaker 13: Right.
01:20:25
Speaker 11: And then I– In what field?
01:20:29
Speaker 8: Just a general reporter.
01:20:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
01:20:31
Speaker 8: And so I then ended up moving up to Sydney to follow a bloke.
01:20:35
Speaker 1: Right.
01:20:36
Speaker 8: And that went well.
01:20:36
Speaker 7: Not.
01:20:37
Speaker 8: Yes. And so I ended up doing a part-time course at the Film and Television School in Sydney because I didn't know anybody.
01:20:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
01:20:45
Speaker 8: And I drove my moke up there and I didn't have enough petrol money to come back to Melbourne. And then the producer of The Investigators– on the ABC.
01:20:55
Speaker 2: That's right.
01:20:56
Speaker 8: Was one of the lecturers there. And he said, do you want a job? And I went, sure. So I got a job as a researcher.
01:21:01
Speaker 2: Yes.
01:21:02
Speaker 8: Working with Eric Campbell, who went on to do Foreign Correspondent, and a woman called Maeve O'Mara, who's Food Safari.
01:21:09
Speaker 2: Remember Maeve O'Mara, yeah.
01:21:10
Speaker 8: And so I worked with the investigators.
01:21:12
Speaker 11: And then.
01:21:15
Speaker 8: I saw a job advertised here as presenter of the 7.30 Report on ABC TV. So I applied for that. And I thought they'd taken it so seriously, they decided to interview me by phone. And I thought, it's an ABC tick box. I've obviously picked somebody, but just have to say that they've interviewed X, Y, and Z. Anyway, I got the gig. So that brought me to Adelaide. And then while I was doing 7.30 Report, I was also hosting ABC Breakfast on radio.
01:21:42
Speaker 7: Yes.
01:21:42
Speaker 2: God, you like to work hard. So have you always had that sort of nose for news? Like that's always what you've loved and been a part of?
01:21:50
Speaker 8: Well, I didn't choose that.
01:21:51
Speaker 2: Journalism.
01:21:52
Speaker 8: I fell into it. So I'd run away from home. I would put myself through my final year of school and I was working two jobs as a checkout chief at Safeway in Melbourne and selling Avon door-to-door in Moorabbin. And I remember the careers teacher came around. She said, well, what would you like to do? I said, love, I'm tired. I need a job that pays a quip. And she went, oh, you could go to do language and literature at Rusden or something at Monash. I went, no, no, no, I need a job that pays a quip. Anyway, short version, long story. She got me a day's work experience at the Herald Weekly Times with an old fellow called Bill Draper, who was the editor of Who's Who, and his copy girl was a young woman at the time called Caroline Wilson.
01:22:33
Speaker 2: Caro.
01:22:34
Speaker 8: It was Caro.
01:22:34
Speaker 2: Wow.
01:22:35
Speaker 8: And so after the first day, dear old Bill takes us over to the Hotel Australia and buys us champagne cocktails. Yep. I mean, journalism, beaut.
01:22:42
Speaker 2: This is the career.
01:22:44
Speaker 8: So he then guided me through the selection process for a cadetship, and that's where I started in print.
01:22:49
Speaker 2: God, even listening now to your story, so many things have changed in that you always had the local version of things. Like everything's been so kind of, it's now just the national version of. So, yeah, there would have been a local 7.30 report here in Adelaide.
01:23:02
Speaker 4: It was, yeah.
01:23:03
Speaker 2: Back in the day.
01:23:04
Speaker 8: So, and that was good because it was around the time of the State Bank disaster.
01:23:07
Speaker 11: Yep.
01:23:07
Speaker 8: So, you know, the political interviews were nice and juicy. And it was, yeah, but I remember when I moved here, I didn't know a single soul. And it was very interesting.
01:23:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow. So during that time, I mean, obviously there's heaps of news. So once people see your talent on the TV, that's, I guess, where– does Seven poach you from the ABC?
01:23:27
Speaker 8: From the ABC, yes. I end up going– oh, no, from the ABC I went– no, I went to A Current Affair on Channel 9.
01:23:35
Speaker 2: That's right. You did.
01:23:36
Speaker 8: Yeah.
01:23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
01:23:38
Speaker 8: And then– it's a very long story that I can't necessarily put to air, but I got flicked from Channel 9 for something that was very– Political, I suppose.
01:23:48
Speaker 4: Right, okay.
01:23:49
Speaker 8: So then I went back to the ABC.
01:23:50
Speaker 2: I'll read that in the book.
01:23:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
01:23:52
Speaker 8: So then I went back to the ABC in Sydney and that's when the 7.30 gig came up.
01:23:56
Speaker 2: Yes.
01:23:57
Speaker 8: And so I've worked for everybody except 10. Okay.
01:23:59
Speaker 2: Well, it's still time. They could probably do with your help, I would think. So then, obviously, you could never have expected maybe that Today Tonight would be the juggernaut that it was, right?
01:24:12
Speaker 8: It was interesting because when we started Today Tonight, And Tracy Grimshaw is a mate of mine over on Nine. When we started, we were so far behind at Current Affair. And Channel 7 management, I think, was so confident in our ability that they had us in an ATCO hut in the car park. So we didn't even get office space. It took a few years before we moved in. But it was, you know, Graeme Archer and Frank Pangallo and all of us sitting in this funny little ATCO hut out in the car park. And it just, yeah, it was a grind. But it was fabulous because you couldn't be anything but competitive. Like we were so far behind. And it was a very dedicated team. And, you know, I was absolutely delighted when we got the first news that we'd won the ratings for the night. Yes.
01:24:56
Speaker 2: And then won them for years, did you not?
01:24:58
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah.
01:24:59
Speaker 2: Just dominated forever. So you were on Today Tonight, according to the notes online, which you never know if you can trust or not, 95%? To about 2010? Yeah. Something like that?
01:25:09
Speaker 8: So, I left because I was pregnant with my twins.
01:25:12
Speaker 7: Right.
01:25:12
Speaker 8: And so, they were number three and four. So, given I'd moved the desk in and out three times being pregnant, and I was pregnant with the twins, and to be perfectly honest, I was a bit bored.
01:25:23
Speaker 5: Yep.
01:25:23
Speaker 8: Like, it was very much Groundhog Day.
01:25:27
Speaker 2: Frank kicking in doors, dodgy tradies.
01:25:30
Speaker 8: I know, but you know.
01:25:31
Speaker 2: Used car salesman.
01:25:33
Speaker 8: I think everything has its limit.
01:25:34
Speaker 17: Yep.
01:25:35
Speaker 8: I'd sort of got to that, and I thought, look, I'm going off on maternity leave. We're on the top of the ratings. It's time for a change. So I remember telling my husband, and he said to me, I said, I'm going to leave. I think I've had enough. And he said to me, just shut up and take the money. I went, no, no, no, I think I've got more in me. You know, there are other things I want to do. He said, shut up and take the money. In hindsight, he was probably right. Running a small business is not an easy way.
01:25:57
Speaker 2: It is. We're going to talk about that on the other side of the break. And, of course, Rosanna takes over from you, and she does really well, and now into the news with Will. But during that time, you just said, well, it's not hard enough. You know, being a mother and all of that is not hard enough. Let's add a little bit of radio to that, too.
01:26:11
Speaker 7: Yeah.
01:26:11
Speaker 2: On the other side, we'll find out how all of that happened, because for three or four magnificent years, you were doing mornings, which... For a lot of people, they always think 5AA Mornings has been Leon Beiner forever, but it wasn't. Leon was actually doing, I think, Afternoons.
01:26:25
Speaker 8: He did Afternoons, yeah.
01:26:25
Speaker 2: He was moved. Straight after you guys. So we'll talk more about that on the other side. If you'd like to say hello to Lee or send a message, you can do that via the phone or the text, 0448 08 1395. Our 5AA just a go today. Lee McCluskey.
01:26:39
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Lee Forrest.
01:26:42
Speaker 2: Facebook and YouTube live stream operational. If you're listening to us on the 5AA player app, or our DAB Digital Radio. Hope you're enjoying the chat. It is lovely to catch up with Lee McCluskey, star of television, star of radio, our five double ages ago. So we're in the late 90s. So Baz and Pilko split. I can't remember. Amicable or it was a little frosty at the time?
01:27:06
Speaker 8: My recollection is not clear.
01:27:09
Speaker 2: Well played. So they split. The move is then that I think Barry stays in breakfast and does the show with Kev Mulcahy. I think John Blake appears for the first time around the late 90s. Stephen Rowe, young Nord slash AFL footballer. He comes onto the situation. You move into mornings with Pilko.
01:27:29
Speaker 8: Yep.
01:27:29
Speaker 2: Nine till midday.
01:27:31
Speaker 8: Nine till midday.
01:27:32
Speaker 2: Did you know Pilko before? Whose idea was it to get two legends of the industry together? Not mine. Wow. So did you have any idea what you were walking into?
01:27:41
Speaker 7: No. No.
01:27:42
Speaker 2: Is that the fun part of it or is it kind of a learning?
01:27:44
Speaker 8: No, look, I always like a challenge.
01:27:45
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:27:45
Speaker 4: And, yeah.
01:27:47
Speaker 8: I like the idea of doing something different. I like the idea. What appealed to me was the ability to have longer conversations than I could with the interviews that I would do on Today Tonight.
01:27:57
Speaker 2: Yes.
01:27:58
Speaker 8: So that always appealed. And to be able to go a little bit deeper.
01:28:01
Speaker 2: So remind me, because I didn't start till 2000, but I met you when I did work experience in the 97, 98 period. I was just between.
01:28:11
Speaker 2: High school and university. Oh, my God. So the show, was it serious political most days? Did you mix it up? Did you have a bit of everything?
01:28:18
Speaker 8: No, look, it was a bit mixed because I don't think you could do too much of one thing. No. And Pilko had a very different attitude or different interest at some points. So, look, it was a mix of I think I did some of the more political stuff.
01:28:33
Speaker 2: Yep.
01:28:34
Speaker 8: But Pilko obviously had an opinion and he did his stuff as well. So, no, I think we did a bit of light and shade.
01:28:40
Speaker 2: Yeah we because you're that sort of hard-hitting journey he does pretty well i must say even over the journey with you know he made to do a different kind of uh way that he asked the question but he was never afraid to.
01:28:51
Speaker 8: Oh no no no not back when coming forward so uh no it was it was fun.
01:28:56
Speaker 2: And then Leon was on after you. Was he the Leon that we know now? Was he sort of solving people's problems and doing all this? I can't remember.
01:29:04
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was very much of that ilk.
01:29:07
Speaker 2: It's a while ago now.
01:29:08
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:29:09
Speaker 2: So after Leon would have been KG and Cornsy. So this is like when we talk about glory days of 5AA' s line-up too. KG and Cornsy were their absolute dominant best.
01:29:19
Speaker 8: Yeah.
01:29:19
Speaker 2: The 7 to 8 slot was always weird during the time. I don't know if you remember who would have been doing it. It could have been anyone from Neil Humphreys. Yeah, I know. To Phil Sheldon?
01:29:27
Speaker 8: Do you remember Phil used to do … Yeah, Phil Sheldon with the gym.
01:29:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, or the medical … Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vitamins and minerals.
01:29:33
Speaker 8: No, I was on air. So literally as soon as I left … You were out. Yeah. It came at 12 o'clock because then I had to run straight to.
01:29:39
Speaker 2: The … Hair and makeup, I guess.
01:29:41
Speaker 8: Yeah, straight to Channel 7.
01:29:42
Speaker 10: Wow.
01:29:42
Speaker 8: And start prepping for that night's show, which was live, but also doing a recording live updates during the afternoon.
01:29:50
Speaker 17: Of course.
01:29:50
Speaker 8: And pre-recording any potential interviews for the show that night. Of course.
01:29:53
Speaker 2: So … Yeah. I didn't think of that. You probably didn't get to spend an awful lot of time here outside of the show hours.
01:30:00
Speaker 7: No.
01:30:00
Speaker 2: So you never got to rub shoulders with Bob Francis and hang out with Bob. You might have seen him in social circles at the time.
01:30:06
Speaker 8: I did get to hang out occasionally with Bob.
01:30:07
Speaker 2: That was a different time, wasn't it?
01:30:08
Speaker 8: He was very much a giant character.
01:30:10
Speaker 2: How did you go? I mean, that's a big work day for you.
01:30:13
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was long.
01:30:14
Speaker 6: Yeah.
01:30:15
Speaker 8: But that was pre-marriage and pre-kids and.
01:30:18
Speaker 2: Have you always had that work ethic? Like you just love it. You just throw yourself into it.
01:30:22
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't really know anything else. And that's, you know, I come up from, grew up in the wrong side of town in Melbourne. And if you didn't work hard, you didn't get anywhere. Yep.
01:30:31
Speaker 10: So.
01:30:32
Speaker 2: That's the work ethic to go with.
01:30:33
Speaker 8: Yeah.
01:30:34
Speaker 2: So of that time, do you remember 97 to the early 2000s? So you would have got the Crows Premierships.
01:30:40
Speaker 1: Yes.
01:30:40
Speaker 2: 97, 98. So that would have been fun. I'm trying to think politically at the time, what would have been the big issue? So the state banks obviously way before that. Was there any... Kind of big deals going on, do you remember?
01:30:50
Speaker 8: Well, it was interesting with the Crows, and I remember because we broadcast Today Tonight Live from the MCG, and I felt like such a fake because I've always been a Footscray supporter.
01:31:02
Speaker 7: Right.
01:31:02
Speaker 2: Are you Western Suburbs?
01:31:04
Speaker 8: Yeah.
01:31:04
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
01:31:05
Speaker 8: So always a doggy supporter, so I felt very fake being.
01:31:09
Speaker 11: There, unfortunately.
01:31:10
Speaker 8: Yeah.
01:31:10
Speaker 2: But that was the rule, wasn't it? Like everyone, even if you didn't go for the Crows, everyone had to get, which, hard not to.
01:31:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
01:31:16
Speaker 2: Hard not to get swept up in all of that.
01:31:17
Speaker 8: Hard not to get involved with it. But in terms of politics, oh, God, I'm just trying to think. There were so many things that, you know, that we went through.
01:31:25
Speaker 2: Who would have been Premier then?
01:31:26
Speaker 1: Olsen? Olsen, yeah.
01:31:27
Speaker 2: Was John Olsen Premier then in the 90s?
01:31:29
Speaker 4: Okay.
01:31:29
Speaker 2: So there was a bit going on with that too, I guess.
01:31:32
Speaker 5: Yeah.
01:31:32
Speaker 2: There's never a dull moment. That's what you find in the news world of the international era.
01:31:36
Speaker 8: Well, that's what I think, you know, politics is so fascinating. Yeah. And, you know, let alone politics. three levels of government from local government through to, you know, state and federal.
01:31:45
Speaker 2: You go into PR, which we'll talk about in a second. Do you miss the hustle and bustle, the everyday? I mean, it's a grind. And you particularly, you were doing like a double grind of TV and radio.
01:31:56
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've been asked before, do I miss being on air? Not particularly. And if I take pride in one thing, I don't think I have a huge ego. So I could walk away from TV and radio because I was lucky to have the job and I was lucky to be relatively well paid. But it didn't define who I was.
01:32:11
Speaker 17: No.
01:32:11
Speaker 8: And it's really interesting. Some others, who shall remain nameless, really had their egos invested in being recognised and being seen on air.
01:32:19
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:32:19
Speaker 8: So walking away, I miss the people.
01:32:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
01:32:22
Speaker 8: Because it was such a great team. And commercial television, a bit like commercial radio, is tribal. And if you're on my team, particularly when we'd come from such a long way back.
01:32:33
Speaker 4: Yep.
01:32:34
Speaker 8: And so there was a real bond there with the people. So I miss them. But the idea of being on air, not really.
01:32:40
Speaker 2: And 7AA, you have people that have been there for decades.
01:32:44
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
01:32:45
Speaker 2: Like long-time servants.
01:32:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
01:32:48
Speaker 2: Which is always nice. I always think that's a great indication of a good workplace. And we have it here where, you know, people like Matthew Pantelis and Mark Murphy and Kendall Brick. Still here. There are 30 years. Cornsy, 30 years.
01:33:00
Speaker 8: We only keep the best.
01:33:01
Speaker 2: Michael Keelan's in his 40th year, I think, on and off over a period of time. If you can drop your headphones on for a second, Lee McCluskey is our guest for 5 Double H's ago. Because remember I said there's a very good chance if someone calls in and says hello, it'll be Faye from Windsor Gardens. Because Faye has a memory like an elephant. Hello, Faye.
01:33:19
Speaker 7: Good afternoon to the both of you. Hello, Lee. Nice to know that you're with us again. You used to be, I remember you being on the news on Channel 7, and you were saying earlier, were you not also on the news for Channel 10 as well? And what are you doing now these days? Are you retired or are you still working?
01:33:40
Speaker 2: No.
01:33:41
Speaker 8: I'd be a danger to shipping if I retired. No, I never worked for Channel 10. That was the only station I haven't worked for, so... Okay. Yeah, 7, 9, ABC, but not 10.
01:33:52
Speaker 7: Oh, right.
01:33:52
Speaker 8: They were lucky enough to miss me.
01:33:54
Speaker 2: Well, there's still time, Faye. You never know. And thank you for the leading because we're about to ask Lee that question because you leave today, tonight.
01:34:01
Speaker 9: Yes.
01:34:02
Speaker 2: You leave the radio. Obviously, you have the twins. Were you out of work for a while just to enjoy being a mother or did you jump straight back into the PR?
01:34:11
Speaker 8: No, I... I left because I was pregnant. Twins were born in December. And I thought, well, what am I going to do now? And I remember going to, just before the twins were born, I remember going to a PR conference in Sydney and walking past a shop front window and being amazed at how large I was because I just kept going as I was walking past the window. And I thought, I'll go to this conference and have a look and find out what PR is all about. and I left the conference thinking, well, I met some really interesting, intelligent people, and I met some real idiots, and if they can make a quid out of it, well, maybe I can. So I came back, and after the twins were born, after about six or eight weeks, I thought, yeah, no, I can't do this. I have to go back to work. And so I decided to start the PR company. In hindsight, I probably should have gone somewhere and learned how to do PR and work for somebody, but I thought I'd just hang my shingle and took off from there.
01:35:05
Speaker 2: But it's gone. Gangbusters has it. So it was McCluskey & Co.
01:35:09
Speaker 4: Originally.
01:35:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:35:10
Speaker 2: And then you changed the name recently?
01:35:12
Speaker 8: To Macco Group. That was a few years ago.
01:35:14
Speaker 2: Yep.
01:35:15
Speaker 8: But yeah, look, it sort of ebbs and flows. I'm sort of almost to the point where I'm a bit over it.
01:35:19
Speaker 2: Okay.
01:35:20
Speaker 8: So at one stage, I think we had up to 12 staff. And what I worked out very quickly was I'm actually quite good at some things and I'm really not good at being a boss.
01:35:31
Speaker 4: Right.
01:35:32
Speaker 2: Need to delegate. So the kind of companies that you were doing PR for?
01:35:36
Speaker 8: Look, a broad range. Because if you start a company in Adelaide, it's not like you can be industry specific like those on the East Coast.
01:35:44
Speaker 2: Yes.
01:35:44
Speaker 8: So I dabbled in a bit of everything. If there was a challenge, I'd have a crack.
01:35:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's interesting, I guess, the world of PR too, isn't it? Because we probably take it for granted. Maybe the audience don't realise quite what goes in behind it, but a lot of the stories that we see. Yeah. You know, it's hard to be across everything. That's where a great PR company comes in.
01:36:02
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it's different. I prefer the stuff that's got a bit of meat on it. I'm not particularly interested in, with respect, you know, openings and fashion and those sorts of things. So mine's more of a corporate focus. And I like, I do a lot of crisis communications. So, you know, when the proverbial hits the fan, that's when I get called in to try and navigate through it. So I find that actually really interesting, but you can't plan for it.
01:36:29
Speaker 4: No.
01:36:30
Speaker 2: And isn't that weird? Because you would have had that in TV and radio too. I was saying this to Madeline, my producer, who's 23, so new in the industry. As hard as those days are, they're the best days you're going to have work-wise. You almost relish those. And that sounds awful to say because something probably not great has gone on, but they're the days where you actually get the best gear.
01:36:51
Speaker 8: It must have been. I'm easily bored, so... I need something to keep me on my toes intellectually. But yeah, a lot of crisis comms, still do a bit of media training, a bit of presentation, the occasional emceeing. But I'm at the stage in life where my patience is thinning.
01:37:13
Speaker 2: So what then lies ahead for Lee McCluskey?
01:37:16
Speaker 8: Good question. Possibly something, I have a passion for property.
01:37:21
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
01:37:22
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:37:23
Speaker 8: So I've got two projects on the go at the moment.
01:37:25
Speaker 2: As in the renovation side or the selling side? Oh, okay. Nice.
01:37:28
Speaker 8: So two of them. And I did think about doing something more formally, but I'd be okay until somebody disagreed with me.
01:37:35
Speaker 2: Right.
01:37:35
Speaker 8: So if I'm my own client.
01:37:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Are we allowed to pry? The kids are how old now?
01:37:41
Speaker 8: Oh, my goodness. Murdoch's 24. 24? Yeah, 24.
01:37:43
Speaker 2: Well, that would make sense.
01:37:46
Speaker 8: Sigourney's 20 and Jock and Tansy are 18.
01:37:49
Speaker 1: Gosh.
01:37:51
Speaker 2: Are they following in mum or dad's footsteps, like in terms of work and interest.
01:37:56
Speaker 8: And all that kind of stuff? Murdoch's working in Melbourne and Jock's studying.
01:38:01
Speaker 2: Okay.
01:38:01
Speaker 8: Living his best life.
01:38:02
Speaker 2: Yep.
01:38:03
Speaker 8: At uni, first year uni.
01:38:05
Speaker 2: Excellent.
01:38:05
Speaker 8: And the girls are here, but I spend a lot of time commuting between Adelaide and Melbourne. Sure. So I can catch up with them.
01:38:11
Speaker 13: See them.
01:38:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:38:12
Speaker 2: Well done.
01:38:12
Speaker 8: We're very lucky. They're good kids.
01:38:14
Speaker 2: Well, it's lovely to see you again. Thank you for coming back in. The studio's a little different than last time you were here, right? I know, it's very fresh. Remember the old building, how rabbit warren it was? Remember the studio had no windows? Yeah, and I can.
01:38:27
Speaker 8: Remember thinking they must be going to pull it down because, yeah. it was just, it was a bit rank.
01:38:32
Speaker 2: A little rank. We got around to, what, mid-2000s, I think, by the time. And, yeah, no, it's very fancy now. We're very lucky.
01:38:37
Speaker 8: Very flashy, very lucky.
01:38:38
Speaker 2: It's lovely to see you. Congratulations on the career and everything that you're doing now and the family too. And thank you for being part of 5AA' s 50 years, that sort of three- to four- to five-year period that you had with Pilko. Remembered by many, loved by many.
01:38:51
Speaker 8: I have to say, it was an absolute pleasure, rather, so thank you for the invitation.
01:38:55
Speaker 2: Lee McCluskey, everyone, our guest five double ages ago.
01:38:59
Speaker 1: Five double A afternoons with Lee Forrest.
01:39:03
Speaker 2: So rock icons Backman, Turner, Overdrive have announced their very first Australian tour. It is the No Speed Limit Tour. Rock fans have been waiting for decades. They're here in Adelaide on Tuesday, the 9th of February next year at Thebby Theatre in Tickets have just been released at DestroyAllLines.com. He joins me from Canada, the legend, Randy Backman. Lovely to have you on. Randy, welcome.
01:39:28
Speaker 4: Hi, and thank you for having me on, and hello to everybody out there.
01:39:32
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for seeing us. How on earth, Randy, did you never tour Australia?
01:39:38
Speaker 4: We had the rest of the world to tour, and a record label and manager saying, you can't go home. All you want to do is go home. when BTO started, we did 300 gigs a year for three years. So we did 900 gigs. And all you want to do in between is go home. And they say, well, you want to go to Australia for a week? It takes three days to get there. And then you're on the other side of the world and you wake up when you should be asleep and you're going to get 200 bucks and you might as well go home. So now it's worked out that I'm done touring with the guests who my first band, which was my high school band did a whole year with that. Now I'm back with BTO with my family band with, My son, Tal. So we do an evening of BTO hits. I do my five hits, six hits from the Guess Who. Tal does She's So High, which brings us into the 90s. And it's a really great evening of Canadian rock and roll, of decades of Canadian rock and roll.
01:40:33
Speaker 2: Well, we are thrilled to see you. We've waited a while, but we don't mind. The fact that you'll be joining us on our shores, I think about you a lot, Rainey, where you've defined a generation. And I've heard you say this in interviews. Thank God for Elvis Presley, because if it wasn't for Elvis... you would have never seen us as a classical violinist.
01:40:52
Speaker 4: That's right. He changed my life. Well, I'd realized that I'd been playing classical violin by ear. The teacher would put in front of me like eight pages of Chopin or something, but she made the mistake of playing it first. So if she'd play it, I'd hear it. I'd look at the notes. They went up and down. I didn't know that an A was an A or a D was a D. I knew it went up and down. That was a clue in my head. So I'd play it perfectly. She would say, okay, take this home and practice it for a week. I'd say, well, why? I already know it. Okay, here's another one. Here's another one. So I would learn these classical pieces one after another. And all you play on violin is melody. It's like a flute at the top line. And then she said, I think you're good enough to be in the Winnipeg Junior Symphony. I want you to go and try out for second violin. Wow. So I go and try out for a second violin. They put this piece down in front of me. We start to play. There's 85 kids there. This is on the other side of Winnipeg where I grew up, in Neil Young's high school, Crescent High School. And the conductor stops in the middle. He taps. Everybody stops playing. He says, second violin, bar 32. It's an E flat, not an E natural. I don't know what he's talking about.
01:42:13
Speaker 2: You just play it by ear.
01:42:14
Speaker 4: Let's take it from the top. We start from the top. We get to the same spot. I play the same note. Tap, tap, tap. Second violin. Can you play an E natural?
01:42:27
Speaker 19: Yes.
01:42:27
Speaker 4: It's an open string. Can you play an E flat? I can't go any lower. It's an open string. I don't realize at that moment. Leading up to that. It's a scale going up and down each string. At that moment, I can't think of how do I play an E flat. I have 83 kids laughing at me. I pack up my violin, so it's Saturday at noon. I get home. My mother says, are you in the symphony? I said, no, I'm quitting. What do you mean you're quitting? You're not even driving through. I'm quitting violin. What do you mean? I said, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm playing by ear. The teacher plays everything first. I get it in my head, so if I hear it, I can play, but I can't read the music, and all the other kids are reading music, and he's talking about Bar 32 and bar 42, I didn't even know what he's talking about.
01:43:14
Speaker 19: Wow.
01:43:15
Speaker 4: I said, I'm never going to play again. The next day, Sunday, my wife, my mother then was maybe, I don't know, 34, 35. Her younger sister, who's 12 years younger, comes over with a little black 12-inch black and white TV with rabbit ears on top. They put it on and they start screaming. And it's Elvis.
01:43:37
Speaker 8: Elvis.
01:43:38
Speaker 4: And I go, what is that? Because I've been playing classical music. That's called rock and roll. That's called the guitar. And that's called Elvis Presley. I want to do that. It's wild. Because in classical music, when you're a little kid, it's all real conservatory. You have to stand a certain way. Your upstroke and your downstroke are all notated on the paper. You play it different. You flunk. And they adjudicate you twice a year. You're in a tuxedo. Somebody's playing a piano. And they grade you. And it's terrible. It's torture for a little kid. I wanted the freedom of just going crazy. Like Elvis was going nuts. He was doing Hound Dog at 2D Food. Holy cow, what is that? And I had some cousins who played guitar. Like, can I borrow your guitar? I want to learn to play. He said, well, we're going fishing for the weekend. You can have it Saturday and Sunday. We'll come and get it Sunday night. I said, great, I'm going to learn everything on the radio. They said, what? You can't do that. They came back two days later. I knew everything on the radio. They said, how do you do that? I said, when I hear it in my head, which my violin teacher had done ahead of time, played the song ahead of time. I just find the notes and play them. And because violin is the lead instrument, I played lead guitar. So right off the bat, my cousins come home with their guitar, which I have on my wall here, a very special guitar to me. And I could play Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line. I could play Merle Travis, 16 Ton. I could play Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel. But everything that's on the radio, they go, how do you play this? How do you know what you're playing? I said, I don't know what I'm playing, but it sounds right, and I'm playing to the record. And from that, I got a gig playing the guitar and the guess who? And here I am decades later.
01:45:13
Speaker 1: Oh, my Lord.
01:45:13
Speaker 2: So you're like this child prodigy. Well, it's no wonder then that you've given us your gift over the decades, Rennie. I think about, so the iconic You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, number one song in over 20 countries. And Taking Care of Business, which is my favorite of your songs. Every time I hear the start of that, I think that's just one of the greatest classical riffs of all time. And again, I've heard you talk about this, a fortunate accident where you bump that guitar, you slightly put it out of tune to give us that iconic riff.
01:45:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody who thinks they can play Taking Care of Business plays it wrong. I started out to play the Chuck Berry, which is the one note, the five and the six. Chuck Berry did every song. Johnny B. Goode, every song. I banged the guitar. the tuner on the guitar. So when I went to play it, it wasn't a one and a five and a six. It was a one and a four and a five. So it went, da-da, da-da. And everybody looked at me and said, what is that? I said, oh, just a minute. I tuned the guitar up and I said, I like the other beginning. It's a variation of Chuck Berry. So I play it that way all the time. And it's so funny that that became the signature beginning.
01:46:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
01:46:30
Speaker 4: Starting the song with a mistake, you know?
01:46:34
Speaker 2: Now you've got music students everywhere just banging guitars, trying to knock them out of tune so that they come up. Are you someone who looks at your stats? Are you someone who sort of revels in the career that you've had? Like 120 golden platinum album singles, number one as I mentioned across 20 countries, 40 million plus. How you're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Randy, is a disgrace, but that's a whole other conversation. TV shows, films, commercials, and that's just BTO and the guess who? Like it's just extraordinary.
01:47:04
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. And I have no explanation for the rock and roll hall of fame, except I'm in it every night when we play with the fans and they come out, that's my rock and roll hall of fame. There's 20 of them or 200 or 2000 or 20,000. That's my hall of fame. That's everybody up there singing, playing, crying, laughing. Some people are hugging each other. It's the high school dance. It's the prom dancer dancing to these eyes or American woman or something like that. Um, That's all I need. That's my hall of fame. And playing with my family and the band BTO, it's just like playing with my brothers growing up. It's amazing.
01:47:39
Speaker 2: Do you know the song? So you've had so many hits, but the ones that go like massively global, like you're American woman, like ain't seen nothing yet, like taking care of business. Do you have a sense when you hear the recording, when it's finished, do you have a sense that it's going to be this monster hit or as an artist, you don't care. You just, you put it out there for people to enjoy.
01:47:57
Speaker 4: No, because when you're a songwriter, Every song you write is a hit. You're trying to write a hit. In your mind for that lunchtime, if you want to call it that, you're a legend in your own lunchtime. It's a hit song. You play it for somebody and they go, eh, so it's not a hit song. You save it. You pull it a little bit later. This part was, when I would write with Burton Cummings, I'd play him a song and he'd go, great, great, great. Okay, let's take my ah part. You play me one here. I'll take your great. Let's put your great greats with my great greats. Mine will be the verse. Yours will be the chorus. Put together the great. We'll throw away the crap. Yep. And we wrote songs together. We took the best of each idea. Now I've learned to do that with myself, to take a song that I wrote that might have had A great line that I might have stolen from Bob Dylan or Stephen Stills, some great lyrical line. Instead of making line two rhyme with line four, I switched them around so line four becomes line two. So I'm not really directly cooperating. I love you and the sky is blue. If the sky is blue and I love you, that kind of reversal. And I haven't been sued on that. And so you get a great joy out of growing up and wanting to be Lennon and McCartney. and wanting to be Jagger and Richards, who wrote a little bit more raggedly, rudely rock and roll, or wanting to be the one man, Brian Wilson. You know what I mean? Just under the beach voice stuff. It's just really amazing. So you grow up and you want to be those guys. I had a really great guitar teacher when I was 15 who said something very important to me. You're now one of the best guitar players I'm going to pick. Right behind you is Neil Young. But there'll always be a faster gunfighter. If you're the fastest in town, a young punk's going to come, just like the old Western, and have a shootout on the main street. You're going to get shot down. So here's what you got to do. Write good songs. I said, what do you mean? He said, every night when I play a gig, I do Misty, My Funny Valentine, Cry Me a River, Autumn Leaves. There's a standard book. If you can write something that fits in the standard book, and luckily I've written a dozen of them.
01:50:13
Speaker 1: Yes.
01:50:14
Speaker 4: Six for the Guess Who and six for BTL. Tal's written one, She's So High. We've got songs that– this is the Bachman songbook that you're going to be getting. I feel very blessed and very fortunate that– people say, how do you write a hit song? I say, it's easy. You write 100. I've written hundreds of songs. Out of that, you might remember 10 or 12. That's not bad. It's a 10% average. Yeah, yep. But those 10% are known by everybody in the whole world.
01:50:40
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:50:41
Speaker 4: In every language.
01:50:41
Speaker 2: Law of averages, yeah. So in 1970, when you're with the Guess Who, you outsell the Beatles. Can we talk about this? So Paul McCartney was here a couple of years ago. You're in your 80th year of life now. Paul's in his 80th year. I want to thank you because as we thought with Paul McCartney, you don't have to be doing this, Randy. You've had such an extraordinary career. You could easily just be kicking back in Canada, doing whatever it is that you do that you enjoy. But the fact that you still want to get out and tour and share your gift and your music with us, like that's such a blessing for us.
01:51:14
Speaker 4: Well, it's also a blessing for me because it's still my childhood dream. It's still Neil Young's childhood dream. It's still Bon Jovi. We just toured a whole year with Don Felder who wrote Hotel California. It's still his dream to be a little kid from Florida and then join the Eagles and write Hotel California and Witchy Woman and stuff like that. Yeah. How often do you dream of having an evening with Pamela Anderson, Beyonce, whoever your fantasy lady is? Can you imagine having that dream every night for decades and it becomes real? That's what it's like when you're in a rock band. You dream of having a song on the radio and then you get one on the radio. Yeah. And then you get another one on the radio. And 10 years later, they're still playing the first song and they're playing the 10th song. And it is, we're basically, we joke about it. because you get really tired on the road and really pissed off and really worn out. We look at each other and go, live in the dream. We're living the dream. We're living the dream. Wow.
01:52:16
Speaker 2: And to do that with your family too, that's got to be the best.
01:52:20
Speaker 4: That's the blessing because you're not homesick. After a gig, I go and play with my granddaughter. We're in a different time zone. She's wide awake. I'm wide awake. I read her books. She plays drums. She plays guitar. She's not even two years old yet, but She's been across Canada twice. She's been in 11, 12 states. She's been in Tokyo twice. She's coming on the road with us to New Zealand and Australia next year.
01:52:43
Speaker 2: Well, when I got the notification that we were going to chat, I just went on a deep dive. I listened to everything. I watched all your interviews because... As you know, Australia has been huge fans of you and your bands over the years. For us to get to see you live, your voice sounds as great as ever. The band is as tight as ever. Just extraordinary. So we get to see you here on the No Speed Limit Tour. It is Tuesday the 9th of February at the Thebby Theatre. You can get tickets now, folks, at DestroyAllLines.com and get in early because this is an absolute chance of a lifetime to see rock icons, Backman Turner Overdrive, the legendary Randy Backman, And we'll do what we can from our end, Randy, to get you in that Hall of Fame because you deserve to be there. The whole world should celebrate you forever.
01:53:25
Speaker 4: Running behind us for the full show is full video of everything from the path. There's decades and decades of old videos and photos. So people are getting an audiovisual experience that's really a wonderful experience.
01:53:38
Speaker 2: So the old fans who saw it the first time around, the new fans that have come on, generational fans, what a treat that'll be. An honour to speak to you, Randy. Congratulations on everything you've achieved, and we look forward to seeing you here in the new year.
01:53:50
Speaker 4: See you soon. Bye-bye. Good day.
01:53:52
Speaker 2: Randy Backman, my guest. Go to destroyalllines.com, folks. Get your tickets Tuesday, the 9th of Feb, at the Thebby Theatre.
01:54:00
Speaker 1: 5AA Afternoons with Lee Forrest.
01:54:05
Speaker 2: Very shortly, Sports Show is on the way. Tim Ginniver. And sitting in, Crowstar Matt Crouch. Have I got your right microphone? Oh, there you are, number three. It's lovely to see you. No, that was me. Are you enjoying it?
01:54:19
Speaker 5: Enjoying it, yeah. It was a great day yesterday. We had a good show and really enjoyed it.
01:54:23
Speaker 2: What's on the big show today?
01:54:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've got Jason Akamanis coming in tonight, today to talk to. So he'll be interesting to talk to. We're going to ask him about if the Lions can repeat a three-peat, what team would have been better today? He's here or this year's team, so that'll be.
01:54:37
Speaker 2: Interesting to hear. I'm going to have a stab and say Acker says he is.
01:54:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would have thought that'll be the answer, but we're going to ask him anyway. And we've also got John Casey to talk about the 36ers game tonight.
01:54:47
Speaker 2: Yes, excellent. And Bryson Cotton's 300th game.
01:54:49
Speaker 5: And then Fraser McGurk, who smashed them yesterday in the cricket. So we've got a great show coming up.
01:54:53
Speaker 2: What about that score? That was like a bloody video game.
01:54:56
Speaker 17: Yeah.
01:54:57
Speaker 2: Both scoring close to 400.
01:54:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, the current Rolton pitch must have been pretty flat, I would have thought.
01:55:01
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:55:02
Speaker 5: For the ground to score that many runs, so we're looking forward to chatting to him as well.
01:55:05
Speaker 2: You'll have to ask Acker who's better, him or the wizard Watson, because I think Acker might rate himself a little. He's a great guy, Jason, but, you know, Brownlow medalist.
01:55:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've never heard him say that anyone's better than himself. No, no, that's right. Maybe it's the first night.
01:55:18
Speaker 2: Bring the handstand out. So looking forward to it, though. Great grand final ahead. Either way, history is made, so whether it's the dynasty or whether it's the immortals who get the first... That's kind of exciting.
01:55:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's exciting. I think Brisbane are obviously the experienced team, aren't they? Like they've won the last two. They know how to win. But then you see Freo, they've been the best team all year.
01:55:38
Speaker 2: You're a good watcher or do you just go, man, I wish I was there? I wish we were playing.
01:55:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a bit different now I'm finished. I can sit back with a beer and just watch and enjoy it. But I guess when you're playing, you always want to be out there. It's the biggest game you want to be a part of.
01:55:50
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:55:51
Speaker 5: It's always tough to watch when you're a player.
01:55:53
Speaker 2: You a footy enough? You and Brad footy enough? Like, are you just watching everything, reading everything, or you can separate, compartmentalise everything and go, right. this is our job as footballers, but this is our job as whatever we're doing.
01:56:05
Speaker 5: No, I wouldn't put me in the bracket of a footy naff, but I watch a little bit of it. I enjoy it. I've probably, since I've finished, I've enjoyed watching the game for what it is a bit more.
01:56:12
Speaker 2: Yep.
01:56:13
Speaker 5: So I do enjoy watching the footy, but probably wouldn't say I'm a footy naff. Okay.
01:56:17
Speaker 2: What about other sports? See, this is where you get to come in the sports show. You're talking cricket. Heard you last night talking basketball.
01:56:23
Speaker 8: Yeah.
01:56:23
Speaker 5: I love my cricket and golf. They're probably two of the things that I love watching the most. So I watched a bit of the South Australians yesterday and it was great to see them get the win and, I enjoy watching the golf too.
01:56:32
Speaker 2: We're going to get a couple of sports interviews for you, then they'll make some difficult ones for you. Badminton?
01:56:39
Speaker 5: No, I have no idea about badminton.
01:56:41
Speaker 2: Poffball?
01:56:42
Speaker 9: All right.
01:56:42
Speaker 2: We'll see you from four o'clock.
01:56:43
Speaker 8: Thanks, Leith.
01:56:44
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. Matt Crouch sitting in for Stephen Rowe alongside Tim Ginniver, the sports show, coming up at four o'clock. Before we go, Antonio and Kate Villano are presenting the Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand experience. Two legendary performers. What a night. This will be 15th of November at the Capri. If you love Neil, if you love Babs, you'll see them and hear them like never before with Antonio and Kate Villano. First caller through, 8223 0055. We would love to send you off to that particular show. And David Bruce has the news coming up for us at 4 o'clock. Just a couple of stories that are floating around before we get to David. A judge has ordered Donald Trump to restore the White House access to the banned media organisations. So you know that was CNN and Politico and MSNOW. The Donald said, you're out. The judge has said, you're back in. So we'll see how that all plays out. And a statement's been put through regarding an application to the federal court on the MotoGP application filed in federal court. seeking an urgent interim injunction in relation to works that are associated with the MotoGP. There's a bit to play out there, is there not? We will see you tomorrow from one o'clock. Hope you can join us. Fun show on the way, very different, apart from Joe Hildebrand and, of course, Chris Jarmer, our two Friday favourites. It is Grand Vinyl Eve. We're talking footy and playing some tunes. We'll see you then.