Australia’s top coach diverts from Ashes to notch up a ton with son

The first Ashes test between Australia and England starts this week in Perth.

So as head coach of the Australian cricket team, Andrew McDonald has rather a lot on his plate.

But he got his priorities right at the weekend by setting some time aside with son Ollie, albeit perhaps to the surprise of St Peter’s Cricket Club.

McDonald turned out as a fill-in for Geelong North’s fourth-grade team against St Peter’s, putting on a 120-run stand with his son.

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The club had fun with the occasion, posting an inside joke on its Facebook page confirming that a low-profile local player had made a comeback.

But when the jig was up, the club fessed up that, in fact, McDonald had opened the batting.

“The pair put on 120 runs for the first wicket with Ollie making 51. Andrew also showing that he’s still got it, finishing unbeaten on 68,” the club report said.

“On behalf of the entire club we wish Andrew all the best for the upcoming Ashes series and we can’t wait to see him back in the whites for his next game with us.”

Is Dom. Is not good

Macedon Ranges Mayor Dom Bonanno is mayor no more after he was caught drink-driving – in the mayoral car.

The councillor will be disqualified from driving for six months after the cops caught him speeding on McGeorge Road in Gisborne South on October 31 with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit.

In an unusually frank mea culpa, Bonanno said in a statement: “I need to tell the community that I have let myself, my family, the council and my community down for a major lapse in judgment, which I take full responsibility for.

“I can’t turn the clock back, but I will work each day to rebuild this trust in me over the months and years ahead. I am very disappointed in myself.”

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In a phone message, Bonanno said he was on personal leave until November 25, when the next mayor would be elected, and he would be unavailable to return calls until then.

His post was unclear on whether he would stay on as a councillor for South Ward, but he emphasised the mayoral wheels were undamaged.

Bonanno’s council biography states: “Dom’s priorities in the role of councillor include ensuring good governance with a commonsense approach to challenges.”

Our Tim’s origin story

News deserts are increasing in regional Australia. Last year, the Australia Institute found 29 local government areas lacked a single local news outlet, either in print or online.

So it is refreshing to see local operators springing up to fill the gaps left by the majors, such as the Ballina News Daily and the Glen Innes News.

Indeed, the Glen Innes News, which operates as a not-for-profit, publishes fortnightly and is distributed throughout the Northern Tablelands in the New England district of NSW.

We had all the nostalgic feels of the best of local papers of yesteryear when we read the banner headline from its site: “OUR TIM AT THE TOP TABLE”.

The yarn was about a “former Glen Innes resident and high school student” who was “boy school captain in 1991” who was part of the Australian delegation trying to woo Donald Trump during his recent meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. That person is otherwise known to you and me as Tim Ayres, minister for industry and innovation and science.

The report laid it on pretty thick: “Holding two cabinet portfolios, Tim Ayres is regarded as one of the government’s most capable ministers and is a close political ally of the prime minister. Tim Ayres was seated next to Kevin Rudd throughout the meeting which must have been interesting when President Trump, apparently unaware that Rudd was present, made some offhand comments about him. The PM pointed him out as ‘the man sitting next to the tall man with a beard’.”

Ayres, a NSW Labor senator, was on a plane to Perth when he got in contact on Sunday. He told CBD he was “deeply proud” of Glen Innes.

“It’s a wonderful community, and I’d encourage anyone from the big smoke to a give a holiday in the North West of NSW a go.”

He said he recently presented the 2025 Prime Minister’s Prize for excellence in science teaching in secondary schools to Matt Dodds, a physics and biology teacher at his old school, Glen Innes High.

The Glen Innes News noted that “apart from Colonel P.P. Abbott who was elected to the first Senate in 1901, most if not all our parliamentary representatives have been based in other towns”, before grudgingly conceded that “Tim Ayres now lives in Sydney”.

Rivals cop a pavilion palaver

There was much mirth, if such a thing is possible at a deadly serious climate summit, on how the UN has placed fierce rivals for the next COP, Australia and Turkey, next to each other in the exhibition stalls.

The two countries are locked in a furious battle to become host of COP31 next November.

The winner will either be Adelaide, which would keep South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas’ mania for major events satisfied, or Antalya in Turkey, if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gets his way.

The placement of the countries’ pavilions is amusing delegates at the conference in Belem, Brazil. Our person on the spot dropped by the Aussie tent to see how some of the $7 million in taxpayer dollars the federal government is lavishing on the event was being spent.

AFP reported that the two nations are even competing over coffee: strong Aussie flat whites versus a thick Turkish brew.

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