Page 25 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Soon after this, I secured my first radio job as a 16-year-old announcer at Radio 6AM Northam. Upon completing my year 12 studies, I began working full time at 6AM before securing a job at 6PR in Perth. In the following 30-odd years I journeyed around the nation working in every state and territory except Queensland and the Northern Territory. I have worked in Sale, Victoria; in Wangaratta, Victoria; I have worked in Launceston, before a longer stint in Adelaide; then Murray Bridge, Coffs Harbour and Newcastle before coming here. I came to Canberra in 1999.
At the time I moved to Canberra I did not really want to come here, I have to tell you. I had been squeezed out by a staff reshuffle in Newcastle. There was not much else on offer. So I grudgingly agreed to come to Canberra on what I believed would be a temporary posting. I intended to be here for no more than six months until something better came along, because I thought I would hate the place. I was wrong. I love this town. I love the people in it. It has been a great pleasure of mine to be a part of this community for nearly 20 years.
I presented the breakfast program at Mix 106.3 here in Canberra; that was from late 1999 through to 2008. I set out to win the breakfast slot at Mix, but I was told by my program director that this would not be possible. “Mix has never won breakfast here,” he told me, “and, demographically, it is not really possible for you to achieve a breakfast figure any higher than 17 or 18 per cent.” I took those words as a challenge. With Lisa Ridgley as my co-host, we did win breakfast at Mix, with an audience share of well over 20 per cent. To this day we remain as the only breakfast team ever to win a Canberra breakfast survey at Mix.
After an unsuccessful attempt to win my way into this place as an independent in 2008, I found myself back on the radio doing breakfast at 2CC. From the Mitchell studios of 2CC, I managed to win not one, but five Australian commercial radio awards as best talk announcer and best current affairs presenter over a number of years. In more recent years, I have run my own communications and marketing business. PartonMe was on a staggering trajectory upwards and my accountant will not take my calls. He still believes that I am crazy for abandoning it to become an MLA.
I am here because I love this town, because I want to help Canberra to become the best it can be. I am here because life is so desperately short, and when you have the ability to make a positive impact on your community—on those around you—I think you should take that chance.
I want to make reference to one of my radio mentors, a gentleman by the name of Vincent Smith. I produced Vinnie’s morning program at 5AA in Adelaide in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He was a cranky old bloke with reams of experience across all the mainstream mediums. He had produced John Laws. He had been an international correspondent for Fairfax. He had presented national television programs.
When we came together, I was 19, and I had virtually no experience in talk radio. He took me under his wing and he showed me how to make talk radio. Certainly, so much of what I did at 2CC was inspired by Vincent Smith. These were the good old
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