Fair Go Fairfax....

My Australian childhood is rich with images from amazing photographers who put themselves on the line to capture a moment. Being so far away from the rest of the world, us Aussie's relied on the photo-journalists to let us in on what was going on.

Kampuchea held images of children with distended bellies, heartbreaking scenes of families being torn apart. 

East Timor, and Papua New Guinea - our neighbours who I would know little of it it were not for the journos and photographers who bring home that story. 

Bali paradise, American baseball games, African sunsets, Middle East conflict, human tragedy after global crisis. 

These images evoked my passion for travel, and inspired me to get out there and experience life beyond my imagination. These images have led me to places to work as a volunteer, and also to get into the industry I am in - emergency assistance for travellers.

Closer to home, the images of outback Australia, politicians, every-day Australians have provided the visual of whats happening in my neighbourhood. Bushfires, festivals, politics, tragedy, celebrations. We need to see these clever, funny, beautiful and sometimes cutting images of the my country. 

I'm proud of being Australian, and I love the images from home broadcast to the masses. We have an amazingly diverse nation to celebrate. 

With sadness I learn today that one of a major Australian media is considering ditching our Aussie photographers in favour of..... what? who? 


Come on Fairfax, lets not go down the path of bringing sub standard, cheap images of Australia. If we do that, we'd miss the amazing images like these from award winning Dallas Kilponen 20 Years of Australian Photographer for SMH


Keep our Photo journalists. #fairgofairfax

Please sign the petition to keep 30 Australian photographers employed: Sign Here

To Assist or Not To Assist?

A call-out came this week for a young Aussie man in Bali who was in a critical condition after a motor vehicle accident thats left him with significant trauma. Prognosis was poor and he needed to be moved to Australia for a chance at survival. 

He didn't have travel insurance. 

A senior manager at my company asked if there was anything my team could do to assist the family in getting him home. 

I work in travel insurance. I've recently set up a team working in emergency assistance helping out Australian and New Zealand travellers when they find themselves in trouble overseas, and together our skill-sets combined are over 30 years in the industry. Between us, there is nothing we haven't seen. 

My team are called "WE Assist". Because that's what we do on a daily basis. We love it, and we're very good at it. 

We know all too well the story about our young man in Bali because we've seen it so many times. 

When contacting the family to offer our assistance, they had already arranged the necessary arrangements but were thankful that a travel insurance company cared enough to offer help - at no charge. They have raised over 100K to air ambulance him home to Melbourne, and will probably need to double that amount to include rehabilitation. 

Nevertheless, our team are always happy to assist. 

We don't do this for the money. Unlike some international companies, we don't charge families a massive profit on top of the base costs. In fact, we only charge a basic case fee of less that $200 to cover any admin. 

We don't do this for publicity. We refuse to let the tragedy of others boost our business. 

We do this because we learn valuable lessons that will help in future cases. And, we do this because we are an awesome company who really care about people. It's in our core DNA. 

If our young man in Bali had travel insurance, he would have been home within 24hrs giving him a better chance for a longer term recovery and his family would not have had to go through the additional stress of having to raise money. But he didn't, and this is not a judgment post. 

If I can share any advice to those already travelling (or living away from Australia / New Zealand), get yourself a decent travel insurance product. Very few on the market allow you to purchase after you've left Australia / New Zealand, the ones listed below do. 

When choosing, make sure your travel insurance company has a reputable "emergency assistance" team who know (and love) what they're doing. So many Australian travel insurance companies are offshoring their claims and assistance teams to Malaysia, India and China (because it's so much cheaper) - so do your research, because when the time comes that you need them, you want them to know and understand your expectations. 

When family and friends (and often strangers) ask me which travel insurance they should go with, I'm very proud to be in a position to spread the word of the products WE Assist represent:

World Nomads (can purchase while you are already travelling)
Travel Insurance Direct (can purchase while you are already travelling)
SureSave

We also look after a number of other travel insurance products which we are happy to share the details of if you're interested. 

WE Assist are a 24/7 operation and can be reached by email: assist@we.com.au