In her 32 years as a journalist Lisa Millar has been a foreign correspondent with the ABC for 12 years, co-host of News Breakfast and a guest presenter for Backroads but she had not discovered real fame before becoming the voice behind Muster Dogs.
Lisa, the girl from Kilkivan who began her journalistic career at the Gympie Times, spoke to guests, as part of Noosa Alive festival, on Tuesday at Noosa Springs Golf and Spa Resort, about her life and career which she discusses in her book, Daring to Fly.
She also shared a few secrets including news a second series of Muster Dogs is in the works, this time with border collie puppies which have already been born.
To a full house Lisa said as a young journalist her first story to appear in the newspaper with a byline was not as she imagined it to be an investigative expose, a scandalous tale or beautifully crafted feature but a story with the headline, “Head lice plague at Gympie schools”.
Since then her world and journalism has changed, she said. Recently she was at home on a Friday night, dressed in track pants and a nice shirt. She put on some lipstick, opened her laptop and interviewed James Bond – Daniel Craig.
“If I’d told 15-year-old Lisa she’d be interviewing James Bond she’d never believe it. Dreams can come true,” she said.
Lisa talked about her father’s dream to be a pilot. With a license but not the money for a plane he decided to build a runway. On their farm, he mowed a kilometre long runway, made the kids do an emu walk picking up stones along it, then waited for planes to arrive. And some did, even then Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen dropped in one day.
Eventually her grandmother purchased a Piper Cherokee for him which became part of the family for 10 years. An image of it with a young Lisa graces the cover of her book.
Lisa developed a fear of flying that began while a young girl during a flight in a small plane piloted not by her father that stalled mid-air.
It took her 20 years to overcome that fear but, being a glass half-full type of person, she drew on the experience to inspire a book.
She recalled while working on The Sun in Brisbane how she travelled to Ipswich one day to speak to a woman who had been kidnapped. Police had found her but she’d been knocked around a bit.
“I knocked on the door. A young woman opened the door, marks on her face. I was so overwhelmed, I feinted. I came to inside. I said, can you tell me what happened to you?” Lisa got the story, phoned it through to the newsroom and it appeared on the front page.
She returned to the newsroom to a standing ovation. “They thought I had faked the feint to get the story,” she said.
“Being vulnerable was not possible in a blokey newsroom. You had to be tough as anything, show you could do anything.”
She’s learnt that showing vulnerability can make you a better reporter and making mistakes may not be the end of your career.
On another occasion she had arrived in London to take over the role of ABC bureau chief just as terrorist attacks occurred in Paris. Lisa, an Italian photographer named Ollie and correspondent Phil Williams who she was replacing, headed to Dover for the ferry to France. She had swapped her handbag for a backpack and in the rush left her passport behind.
As Ollie and Phil travelled to the scene of the attacks Lisa had to report to her boss that they had gone on without her and she had been detained by French police trying to cross the border without a passport. “I failed so miserably,” she said.
Amid the highs and lows of her career Lisa spoke of the traumatic events she had covered as a journalist, the impact it had on her life and the hope her reporting hadn’t worsened theirs.
“My middle name is Joy. I’ve tried to live up to that over the years,” she said.
