Remembering Christmas with Colin Barnett

December 23, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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ColinBarnett.jpgColin Barnett is the leader of the Western Australian Liberal Party, Member for Cottesloe and Premier of Western Australia. In the past he has been head of the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a lecturer in economics at Curtin University.

Since entering parliament in 1990 he has held a number of positions including Minister for Resources Development and Energy, Minister for Education and Minister for Tourism. He also served as the Leader of the House in the Legislative Assembly during the Court government.

It was my pleasure to have Colin Barnett as my guest during my Morning Programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM this morning.

We talked about Colin’s early Christmas memories and discussed his hopes for Christmas 2008.

Colin Barnett has been a great supporter of 98.5 Sonshine FM over the years so it was good to be able to show him around our new studios.

You can hear what the Premier had to say along with his Christmas message for Western Australians by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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Eric Ripper wishes WA a happy Christmas

December 23, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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EricRipper.jpgEric Ripper is the Leader of the Opposition in Western Australia, Australia’s biggest state. He’s the member for the local area of Belmont and has served in the WA Parliament for over twenty years.

Mr Ripper entered Cabinet as part of the Labor Government following the 2001 Western Australian election. He became Minister for Energy in 2001. He had previously served as Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Government Enterprises and Minister Assisting the Minister for Public Sector Management in Geoff Gallop’s cabinet. Before the 2008 election, he was the Deputy Premier and Treasurer, in the Carpenter government.

He was my special guest during my Morning Programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM yesterday.

While we’re very used to seeing Eric Ripper in the political spotlight I took the opportunity to find out a bit more about the man behind the politics.

We spoke about his early years growing up in Western Australia, his decision to enter public life and his hopes for Western Australians this Christmas.

You can listen to our conversation by clicking play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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Not so jolly news from Jolly Blogger

December 22, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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Please pray for David Wayne the Jolly Blogger.

His latest post is simply titled, I have cancer.

I hope you’ll take the time to head over to his blog to get the details and then commit to pray for David and his family.



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Who's the expert?

December 21, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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As I was wandering around the web a short while ago I followed a link to a website design site.

Now, I’m sure that you can tell that while this blog is ‘OK’ to look at, I’m no design expert. There are many things I wish I could do which would go well beyond just hacking a template until I get something close to what I want. Never the less I’m relatively happy with what I’ve done.

The interesting thing was that the website design site was truly awful. Here was someone offering their services at a considerable hourly rate and even to the untrained eye their own site is cramped, the colours don’t really work and it certainly didn’t inspire me to want to use their services. They are offering to review other sites and give feedback on improvements for just $150. Imagine that – $150 just to look at your site and then they’ll tell you how much they’ll charge you to fix the problems they see. I can give them a review of their own site for nothing. I don’t think they’re trying to rip anyone off, they simply have a very high opinion of their very average skills.

I wonder how many times we believe that someone is an expert just because they tell us that they are. How many times do we think they must know what they’re doing because they’re charging professional rates? I’m not just talking website design here. There are so many areas of life where people present themselves as someone who knows what they’re talking about when in reality they haven’t got a clue. How do we decide what’s good and what’s bad if it’s not our area of expertise?

How do you decide on which service or professional to use when you need to someone to provide skills you don’t have? How do you know what’s good and what’s not? How do you choose a mechanic when you really have no idea what goes on under the bonnet of your car? How do you decide on a family doctor when the most medical training you’ve ever had is how to apply a band-aid?



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Cancelling Christmas

December 18, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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It’s all too commercialised so let’s just cancel Christmas.

That seems to be the thinking for a growing number of people. They reckon that the true meaning of Christmas has been lost in the grab for gifts and the focus on the fat guy in the red suit.

There are certainly people who feel that Christians should just admit defeat on this one and pull out completely. They figure we should find another day of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ, unencumbered by all the extra baggage that Christmas has aquired. After all, we know that the 25th of December is unlikley to be the actual day that Jesus was born so why not pick another date for a holier celebration.

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

Yesterday we tackled the question of whether we should cancel Christmas or whether we should redeem the day. Should Christians still buy into all the extras that the season has attracted?

One of the interesting things that Ross reminds us is that the Christians originally chose December the 25th to ‘Christianise’ a pagan festival. We redeemed it from the pagans, should we now redeem it from commercialism?

Has Christmas really moved so far away from its original roots? An evening at one of the many carols evenings in every area would suggest that the true spirit of Christmas isn’t as far away as we might think.

If you’d like to hear what Ross had to say just press play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

Feel free to comment but can I ask you to consider listening to the audio first to get a really good handle on what we were discussing?



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