IN FOCUS Former state Labor politician Terry Aulich has returned to his first love of radio for a new series

Former state Labor politician Terry Aulich has returned to his first love of radio for a new series. But this time, the technology has advanced from the tin shed in the paddock, with episodes streaming online

Given that many years ago he wrote scripts for radio plays, there is a neat circularity in Terry Aulich’s new hobby of writing and starring in an internet video series about life in a rural radio station.

The former Tasmanian state politician and senator grew up in Scottsdale in the North East and while he now lives in West Hobart, he has never forgotten his country-town roots.

His webisode series, Tassie Pine and Radio 7UC, the Secret Tapes, is both homage to those little Tassie towns and his opportunity to satirise some of the personalities that inhabit the political realm he once occupied.

“I wanted to look at the internet and use it in a way where you were telling your story, tapping into that local culture and, at the same time, in brief episodes that could be uploaded to people’s handheld devices,” Aulich says.

“It is mainly aimed at people who have a couple of minutes spare to watch something. But each episode has a continuity and a story that runs through the whole thing.”

A new episode of Tassie Pine is uploaded each Tuesday night and follows its protagonist’s evolution from farmer to radio announcer over a 30-episode series.

Set in the fictional radio station 7UC at the real town of North Motton in the state’s North West, the story centres around potato and dairy farmer Tasman George Pine, who inherits the station from his brother, Aleppo.

He now runs it with the help of other pun-tastic members of the Pine family, including Lowan pine, Sue Pine and Douglas Pine.

And in Aulich’s first episode, the former Labor politician couldn’t help but poke a bit of fun at Prime Minister Tony Abbott “bringing back the biff” in a pair of boxing gloves.

When asked if he had an axe to grind, Aulich – a former Labor state minister for education and a former senator in the Hawke and Keating governments – laughs and admits that yes, maybe he does. “But I’m making sure I give both sides plenty of stick,” he says. “Comedy can’t be just about making a mockery of people for its own sake, it needs to be about lifting your horizons a bit.

“Good political satire should be about trying to see through what governments nowadays tend to do, which is to pull wool over your eyes, using words like ‘communication’ and ‘conversation with the public’, when in fact they don’t mean anything like that at all.

“And sometimes political parties get too earnest and too serious and they sound like someone rattling a tin can. That needs freshening up. We try to go right to the heart of the matter.”

Aulich’s novel, The River’sEnd , was selected by The Australian newspaper as one of the best crime thrillers of the year in 1992 and his play, Moonlight at Midday, was presented at the National Playwrights Conference.

Aulich, 69, works in Paris and London for four months a year as a business consultant, providing strategic advice to large companies, including a biometrics institute and pharmaceutical companies and, back in Australia, he is a consultant for the construction industry.

But for all his diverse life experiences, it is his own rural radio memories he draws upon for the Tassie Pine series.

“I grew up in Scottsdale and there was a community radio station there called 7DY, which was basically a cabin in a paddock, and it sat there for years before it was bought out by 7SD from Scottsdale and was moved into town,” Aulich says. “Every Friday they had the Sun Polishers Club, where people would come in and read their poems or sing and so forth and they got a bottle of fizzy cordial for their reward. That was quite magic, knowing there was radio station there that connected with the community in that way. So I have fond memories of radio.”

Aulich says the series is not just a tribute to country radio, but a homage to country life and that particular flavour of community you find in Tasmanian rural areas.

“A lot of it is homage to my upbringing in a country town – it does take the mickey, but there’s also a real fondness,” he says. “Those little communities, they are the sorts of places where everyone seems to have a nickname and that nickname will stay with you for life. There’s a wonderful kind of comedy that comes from that, but also connectedness.”

Having written for a variety of media, Aulich says he was keen to try his hand at creating something for the internet as well. “One of my grandkids said to me, ‘Now you can tell your gramps jokes to the world’,” he laughs.

And Aulich wants more Tasmanians to be involved in the production as well.

With a mission to ensure his web series is entirely Tasmanian-made from local ingredients, he is on the search for new talent to feature in various roles in the series and has put the call out for any aspiring cast members to get in touch with him through the website or Facebook page.

“All the actors such as Ben Bordeau, Adam Clarke, the musicians and the technical people such as Jamie Roberts are either Tasmanian or have Tasmanian connections,” he says.

A new episode of Tassie Pine and Radio 7UC, the Secret Tapes is posted online every Tuesday at 7.30pm. Visit www.tassiepine.com.au or find him on Facebook