I was too busy for the charity vendor. But he said something that stopped me in my tracks

June 12, 2026 — 3:40pm

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You know how it is. I was busy. I charged down Collins Street en route to the taxi rank.

I smiled as I sailed past the cheery Big Issue vendor holding up the new issue, with a wave of polite rejection. An inclusive wave, rather than dismissive, you understand.

But with a simple question the vendor stopped me in my tracks. “Do you know Alan Attwood?”

Of course I knew of Attwood, the renowned former Age foreign correspondent and section editor and still an occasional contributor. I had forgotten that he had edited The Big Issue for a decade, but the vendor knew all about it, had spotted my Age lanyard as I flew by and was right on it. We chatted for a bit.

He was selling the magazine’s shiny gold and red 30th anniversary issue celebrating the charity’s launch on the streets of Melbourne in 1996. But it cost a whopping $30! Not buying it would be churlish. But I was running late. And I had a big pile of magazines on my bedside table and an even bigger pile of books. You know how it is.

It has been a singular week for charities with the annual AFL Big Freeze match on Monday between Collingwood and Melbourne at the MCG before a blue-beanie army raising money for the fatal, degenerative Motor Neurone Disease. And the Fight MND blue beanies turned out again at the MCG on Wednesday for the state funeral for Neale Daniher, the singular AFL player and Demons coach who founded the charity. Fight MND has raised upward of $145 million for research into the disease Daniher survived, against the odds, for a defiant 13 years.

The week, which included an incredible $40 million donation to the charity for medical research, plus the massed support of ordinary Australians, was all that is good about the giving sector in Australia.

But look more broadly and the problems are clear. In short, our 300,000........

© Brisbane Times