{"id":443,"date":"2009-07-29T10:18:07","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T00:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sandralee.com.au\/?p=443"},"modified":"2009-08-01T17:37:09","modified_gmt":"2009-08-01T07:37:09","slug":"joe-hockey-and-the-volcano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/2009\/07\/joe-hockey-and-the-volcano\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe (Hockey) and the volcano"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joe<\/a>

Joe Hockey and Paralympian Kelly Cartwright (L) in the 2009 Balmoral Burn - preparing for the Ultimate Burn up Mt Kilimanjaro (picture Michael Amendolia)<\/p><\/div>\n

IF anyone was wondering why the Federal Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey <\/span><\/strong>was not at the Tony Abbott <\/strong><\/span>conservative-studded book launch in Sydney yesterday, it’s because he was in Johannesburg, South Africa<\/span><\/strong>, preparing for his next summit – Mt Kilimanjaro<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hockey exited Australia on Monday and come Friday, he’ll be leading 21 trekkers up the 5895mt peak in Africa<\/span><\/strong> in a bid to raise money for a children’s charity which buys vital medical equipment for kids’ hospitals around Australia<\/span><\/strong> and in East Timor<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Liberal Party<\/strong><\/span> pollie admits he came up with the idea after one glass of wine\u00a0too many \u00a0at the 2008 annual Balmoral Burn<\/strong><\/span> sponsors dinner on Balmoral Beach for the Humpty Dumpty Foundation<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A long-time champion of the charity, Hockey decided that the annual fun run up the steep Awaba Street in Balmoral was not a big enough challenge, so he came up with the idea of the Ultimate Burn <\/span><\/strong>– Mt Kilimanjaro.<\/p>\n

(Wallaby great Phil Kearns <\/strong><\/span>came up with the Balmoral Burn idea to raise a few quid for Humpty, and last year it generated a record $2.2 million.)<\/p>\n

At 10 am today, the rest of the trekkers including Humpty founder and chairman Paul Francis<\/strong><\/span> flew to Jo’burg. Tomorrow they arrive in Tanzania<\/strong><\/span>, and on Friday they get to Mt Kilimanjaro- to begin a seven-hour climb to reach Machame Camp at 3000m<\/span><\/strong> above sea level for their first night on the triple volcano.<\/p>\n

Among the climbers are Paralympian Kelly Cartwright<\/strong><\/span> (who lost a leg to cancer), paediatrician Jonny Taitz<\/span><\/strong>, Channel Seven’s Sunrise<\/em><\/strong><\/span> <\/em>co-host, David Koch<\/span><\/strong>, and a strong cast of great men and women from various professions all of whom have shelled out $50,000 for the privilege of getting involved in a good cause.<\/p>\n

\"Paralympian<\/a>

Paralympian Kelly Cartwright from Geelong is part of the Kili Club <\/p><\/div>\n

Hockey, who will only miss one day of Parliament, and his Kili Club will summit the mountain with a full moon over their heads on August 5 after a six to nine hour climb.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ends up being just one day from Parliament but I think all in Parliament will accept it is for a great cause,” he told me recently. “When I told [Opposition leader] Malcolm [Turnbull] he wanted to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

To follow the trek and donate, go here<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IF anyone was wondering why the Federal Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey was not at the Tony Abbott conservative-studded book launch in Sydney yesterday, it’s because he was in Johannesburg, South Africa, preparing for his next summit – Mt Kilimanjaro. Hockey exited Australia on Monday and come Friday, he’ll be leading 21 trekkers up the 5895mt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","category-politics","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandralee.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}