Buenos dias,

In 1955 as I listened to Radio Belgrano in Buenos Aires, the classical music program kept being interrupted by an announcement: Reina completa tranquilidad en todo el pais (There is absolute calm in all of the land). The real situation was in sharp contrast. On the short wave radio we heard an inland doctor get instructions from a city surgeon on how to perform a leg amputation on a wounded soldier, and we also heard the announcements accompanied by martial music on the advancing revolutionary troops in the province of Córdoba.  We also followed the movements of General Perón as he fled in a Paraguayan navy ship up the Paraná River. Yet the national radio station insisted that Reina completa tranquilidad en todo el pais

Two thirds of a century later I find myself in the Yuendumu community and there is no letup in the barrage of negative depictions of Yuendumu in the media as a tinderbox. The real situation is in sharp contrast.

Andrew Bolt has never been to Yuendumu yet with arrogant confidence he writes about the recent highly publicised events. The first sentence of his Courier Mail article of 20^thNovember includes:

On Saturday…..went to the volatile Aboriginal community of Yuendumu…..

This is when a 19 year old Warlpiri man was shot. It was the same day the well attended funeral of another young Warlpiri man took place in Yuendumu.

I read a lot, yet in all the time I’ve lived here, this is the first time ever I’ve read Yuendumu being described as “volatile”.

The following Tuesday a public meeting took place at the Yuendumu basketball court attended by high ranking police and government officials and a large contingent of armed constabulary. The mood was one of sorrow and anger.

Andrew Bolt who wasn’t there wrote as follows:

On Tuesday with crowds at Yuendumu seeming primed for another riot

The “another riot” never took place, instead a sombre very dignified and peaceful march to the police station ensued.

If this is how our community is depicted it makes you wonder about the veracity of those reports emanating from one of the world’s most civilised cities. I’m talking about the crowds at Paris seeming primed for another riot.

Andrew Bolt and I share the same Dutch heritage.  In Dutch people like Andrew are known as klootzakken.  In the country I spent my childhood in they are called boludos.  In Warlpiri they are kujurlpa.  Ah, the joys of multilingualism.

In the Australian (27^th November) under the heading Evacuation plan for ‘terrified’ outback nurses Northern Correspondent Amos Aikman wrote:

Healthcare staff sent back to Yuendumu following the death of Kumanjayi Walker are “terrified” and may have to be evacuated again if police and elders fail to resolve law and order issues in the outback community, the nursing and midwifery union says.

On the day before the tragic events Wendy went to Yuendumu clinic to be seen by the visiting podiatrist. A few days ago I went to the clinic to get a Mylanta refill.  On both occasions we failed to see any “terrified” healthcare staff. Why did we fail to see any? Because there weren’t any.

A friend told me she saw something she hadn’t seen in decades- a policeman having a conversation on a mobile phone walking along the main street of Yuendumu not wearing one of those Swiss army knife belts. An exception, he was the only one not wearing a gun.

Yesterday an ABC news report included: …some Yuendumu residents said they were concerned about the continued increased police presence in the community….

Despite the concern, Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the police presence had scaled down in Yuendumu since the shooting, when there were about 30 officers on the ground in the days following the incident…
Yes indeed, it’s down to about a dozen, all of them armed except for the lone policeman walking on the main road with his mobile phone.

The ABC News report concluded with:

In a statement, a spokeswoman said NT Police would not answer questions about operational matters such as numbers of deployed members.

There has been no report of unrest in the community, she said.

Adios,

Frank

Elton John- Burn down the Mission- 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUC8j8Qg0OA

Che amigos,

Publishing matter likely to prejudice a fair trial.

From the time somebody is arrested, charged or a warrant is issued, up to the moment when the court finishes dealing with it, the case is said to be sub judice. This is a Latin phrase meaning “under judgement”.
Regarding the highly publicised event at Yuendumu you will hear from me no further. Let me turn to other matters.

Two months ago on 17^th September 2019 an Indigenous woman died after being shot by police at a home in Geraldton, Western Australia. A newspaper stated “ Twenty-nine-year-old shot at home as WA police attend ‘an incident at the address’”

Yesterday there was a Yuendumu instigated rally in Alice Springs. Looming over D. D. Smith Park where the rally took place is Alice Springs’ biggestbuilding: The four stories high Supreme Court Building. On the Tripadvisor website a visitor posted: “Must have been recently built. Seems like a large building but obviously needed” At the rally a man holding the microphone pointed at the ‘obviously needed’ building “you know how Captain Cook arrived in Australia on a ship? Well that is our ship right there” Masters of metaphor are Central Australian Aborigines.

Today a large number of Yuendumu people will not yet be returning home.  They’ll be attending a funeral for a young man.  Today is also the date on which in Geraldton the victim of ‘an incident at the address’ will be buried.
Elton John- Funeral for a Friend-Love Lies Bleeding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z314pQhLb2Q 

A significant number of people have cancelled their planned trips to Yuendumu. Reports talk of ‘rising tensions’ at Yuendumu and Government Departments have ‘evacuated’ some of their personnel. A lot of fear and loathing is happening, more than usual.  It is somehow widelybelieved that we white-fellas are in imminent danger of attack and that we are very brave to be prepared to face likely retribution from the wild out of control Warlpiri tribe.  Well let me assure all of you who are concerned about our safety that we kardiya are less likely to be attacked, imprisoned or have our children taken from us here in Yuendumu than we would in Alice Springs or Melbourne or if we were black. Our feeling of safety is in no way due to the police vehicles which keep cruising up and down Yuendumu streets.
At the public meeting the other day one of the most significant statements made was when Napaljarri asked “When are the police going to tell Government Departments that it is safe to come here to Yuendumu?” I can now answer that at the time unanswered questionon behalf of the police: “Not yet”.

I hope you will have seen through the barrage of misinformation, inaccuracies and the trolls on Facebook and discerned Warlpiri dignity and strength. To the Warlpiri these manifestations of unwarranted paranoia are highly offensive and insulting.  The Warlpiri are the friendliest people I have ever come across. The people of Kerala come second.

Bruce Pascoe in his book ‘Dark Emu’: “…then all of us must be alert to that greatest of all
limitations to wisdom:- The Assumption…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH4JN5K6hE4

Que te ha pasado justicia (what happened to you?- Justice)- Carlos Ramon Fernandez

…Y al policia que era amigo- Ahora lo tengo por rival…

(And the police who was a friend, is now my foe)

Chau, hasta la proxima

Franklin

Shalom Aleichem…. (שלום עליכם Peace be upon you- Hebrew)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trUaSv1-jIk

Yesterday (Monday 12 November 2019 ed) hundreds of Yuendumu residents marched on the Yuendumu police station. The police station was going to be opened to allow the station to be swept. Sweeping is a ritual whereby after a death the areas the dead person had frequented are swept using eucalyptus branches. I will not claim to fully understand its significance, all I can say is that it is a sombre emotional and cathartic event.

The march seemed carefully choreographed. At the vanguard a group of placard carrying children who on arrival lined up and repeatedly chanted “Justice for Walker” and who much later briefly chanted “Peace”. Behind the children a very large group of black clad women with white ochre smeared foreheads followed carrying branches. Sporadic wailing would emanate from this group as we walked the considerable distance from the basketball court to the police station. Then followed the men and white-fellows and a miscellaneous assortment of visitors including journalists. As the slow process of first women then men then young people entering the station a few at a time to sweep was happening, the chanting children suddenly broke ranks and covered the police station walls with blood red paint hand prints. The march had been filmed by the ABC. Overshadowed by the NSW and Queensland fires our march appeared at the tail end of the news. Missing from the coverage were the chanting children. “Tensions are rising at the community of Yuendumu” the voice over proclaimed.

Not long before we arrived in Mexico City on our way back to Australia from Canada, a massacre of students had occurred. That was in 1971 and I recall seeing a police riot squad seated in a long side-less bus driving past. The Mexican police were dressed in black and heavily armed. Never again was I to see such a sinister sight, until yesterday.

“ …They do not know, that a subtle but effective system of terrorism, together with an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defence on the other, has emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation …. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and self deception of the administrators”

Mahatma Ghandi at his 1922 Sedition trial

Yesterday we witnessed an organised display of force. At the public meeting at the basketball court I counted five police vehicles including one labelled ‘Major Crash Investigation Unit’. At the airstrip there was another police vehicle. Parked on the apron there were two Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, one belonging to the Royal Flying Doctor Service and another to the NT Police. I’d been told that earlier on, a contingent of police bristling with weapons had arrived on the police plane. A friendly policeman at the airstrip asked me what I was up to and told me that “The airport is closed off to the public for security reasons”.
Opposite the police station at the other side of town in the shade of a lone tree there were four armed policemen dressed in military camouflage.

At the public meeting it seemed to me that the only unarmed policeman was a senior ranking officer who has a long association with Yuendumu and has many friends here and is well respected in the community.

Yesterday I witnessed the largest concentration of armed police I have ever seen since 1971 in Mexico.

Why the overt display of weaponry? Was it out of unwarranted fear? Or was it an insensitive display resulting from ignorance or arrogance or both?

So now once again and for the wrong reasons Yuendumu finds itself in the headlines.  Bureaucrats politicians and the media are complicit in spreading misinformation which is once again portraying Yuendumu as this incredibly unsafe and dangerous place where ‘tensions are rising’.

A question asked at the public meeting was “ Why haven’t the police told all government departments that it is safe to come here?” No answer was forthcoming.

The NT Police motto is Working in partnership with the community to ensure a safe and resilient Northern Territory.

If what they’re doing in Yuendumu is their idea of living up to their motto. they’re no better than Centrelink whose motto is Giving you Options.

On an ABC website the following appeared a few days ago:

“At approximately 7:00pm last night a member of the Northern Territory Police was involved in an incident where a 19-year-old man in Yuendumu was shot Deputy Commissioner White said.”

An ‘incident’? It has now been declared a ‘death in custody’  Incidentally almost invariably in Australia when someone gets shot and killed if the person who pulled the trigger is known such a person is arrested and charged with murder and guilt or otherwise is determined by the courts.

اَلسَّلَا عَلَيْكُمْ‎•(as-salāmu ʿalaykum)- (May peace be upon you-Arabic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MCIF4IVjcM

Louis Armstrong- Give Peace a Chance….(English with the application of African polyrhythm)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6p5P2X8cbA

Frank

(Since this Dispatch was written a NT Police Officer has been charged with Murder in relation to the killing of Mr Walker)

G’day mates,

I repeat myself- the largest amount of money ever spent on Yuendumu is $7.6M to build a Police Complex a few years ago. This amount remains the record, and says much about how these remote communities are being governed.

For a while the police presence in Yuendumu was ubiquitous. Police with dangling fire arms in black Ninja uniforms walking through Sports Weekend crowds or helping to goal umpire footie matches with dangling fire arms and cruising in in your face police vehicles forever keeping Yuendumu safer from goodness knows what. Definitely a feeling of being under occupation.
Eventually a formal complaint was lodged by a group of residents which found its way to those in charge and it is evident that the local constabulary was told to pull their heads in and adopted a more subtle below the radar approach to community policing. Shuffling of personnel was another tack taken by the top brass and on occasions we got some much firm but fair friendlier fuzz. The one constant has been our one local ACPO (Aboriginal Community Police Officer) who in his own diplomatic way has been a moderating influence on both sides of the tightrope he is walking.

Thus I had a most pleasant visit from some friends who got pulled up on the Tanami Road before entering Yuendumu. Three Yuendumu police told my friends that their vehicle would be searched and asked if they carried any alcohol. My friends owned up to having six cans of beer which the police seized thereby averting one of those drinking binges which remote Aboriginal communities are notorious for. My kardiya friends didn’t think the whole confrontation was all too friendly, but what did they expect? One of my friends asked the officers who were only doing their job if they spoke Warlpiri. What sort of question is that?

The portrayal of remote Aboriginal Australia in the media leaves much to be desired and often ranges from plain stupid and wrong to offensive or patronising and seriously cringe worthy. So when something turns up that ticks all the boxes and hits lots of nails on the head we out here pay attention and enjoy it. Such a gem was the TV series ‘Mystery Road’ directed and produced by Rachel Perkins. Whilst the likelihood of an Indigenous person rising to become an outback detective is far removed from the Yuendumu reality, all the characters including the detective were very realistically portrayed. The setting, dialogue and ‘feel’ of the series and how the characters interacted with each other, we could relate to without cringing.

Tonight at 8:30 PM (Sunday 13^th October) the new series ‘Total Control’ is premiering on ABC TV.  It is also directed and produced by Rachel Perkins.

‘Total Control’ is what the authorities have almost achieved on communities like Yuendumu, thus the title of the series resonates with us.
If the series is half as good as Mystery Road it will be worth watching.

Here’s crossing the fingers

Cheers

Frank
PS yesterday (12 Oct.) was the 527^th anniversary of Cristobal Colon’s mob first sighting land after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. I had always thought this was on the Island of Hispaniola. Haiti is on the western side of the island so that is my excuse to regale you with some Haitian music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwg7YX7u1QM

I was wrong, it was actually the Bahamas.

Which gives me an excuse to put on some Bahamian music (Wilfried Salomon and the Magnetics)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnO9hs71EHw

Very addictive is Youtube- can’t resist sharing this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQT23SMqM4

The bedbug song – last heard it as a teenager when my musician brother used to perform it. 

Groetjes vrienden,

My mother used to feed a family of magpies in her backyard in Nunawading.  Like clockwork a monogamous pair of magpies used to promptly present themselves early in the morning to partake in a breakfast of kitchen scraps.  In Spring they’d bring their children along to join in the feast.

The magpies would reward my mother with a sonorous improvised concert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYEYc8Ge3nw

Looking out her kitchen window at the ample leafy backyard she would proclaim:

‘Australië is het beste land in de wereld/Australia is the best country in the world

Maar/BUT: There are some people in Canberra who are doing their level best to spoil it!’

…looking out my kitchen window…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE2NH4W-M9w

Now, I don’t blame the people of Canberra any more for the mean-spirited avaricious policies emanating from there than I blame the people of Snowtown for the bodies in the barrel nor the people of Moe for the murder of a toddler, but I do despise the conga line of leaders and cronies who are spoiling my adopted country.

Our present Prime Minister Scott Morrison elicited my displeasure from the outset. Yesterday for the first time in his incumbency he sprouted something I agree with:
To send in the army to assist with drought relief would deny locals the jobs to do this themselves.

In 2007 the Intervention was foisted on NT Aboriginal communities.  A plank of the Intervention was the compulsory medical checks of children aimed at detecting evidence of alleged sexual abuse.  Because of a civil libertarian outcry the medical checks were made voluntary.

Wendy was told by someone who’d worked in Yuendumu clinic during the preceding seven years that not a single case of a sexually transmitted infection had been detected in Yuendumu for children under the age of thirteen.

The army was called in and ‘volunteer’ doctors with no experience in remote Australia turned up at a rumoured salary of $5,000 per week.  The doctors were billeted in tents and catered for by military personnel.  Years of available data of medical checks carried out by Yuendumu organisations were ignored.  The military caterers did not buy their supplies from Yuendumu shops.  Millions were spent on this initiative, very little trickled down to the Yuendumu economy.

So, good on ya Scott Morrison, credit where it is due, you miserable bastard.

Tot de volgende keer.

Frenk

PS- a song from my childhood…. Añoranzas…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYei_BKOOGE

Not to mention Oscar Alemán….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTQiVVt7yvE

(See post script below)

Hola amigos,

Some years ago I wrote:

A service was held at Yuendumu Baptist Church for a great-grandmother. After the service the cortege drove 90 Km north of Yuendumu. A palaeochannel stretching hundreds of kilometres is clearly defined on airborne radiometric survey maps due to the slightly higher radioactivity caused by Potassium-40 weathered out of granite. The old lady was buried at ‘Flood-out’ which is a remnant of the ancient river system. The Warlpiri name of the place is Pirrpirr-pakarnu.

It is one of the few “privileges” (more like a concession) accorded Northern Territory Aborigines- the right to choose a bush burial- the right to be buried in your own land, the land that owns you.

In Yuendumu there is a choice, the cemetery or your homeland.

I should have known better. The 2019 Burial and Cremation Bill is set to be passed, without amendments, in the next sitting of the NT Legislative Assembly. Why bother to change something that is functioning OK? Well, it is because they’re a bunch of miserable bastards. They’re aiming for Total Control (did you watch the first two episodes of the TV series?- so far it is living up to my expectations!)

By separate email I’m forwarding a missive from Concerned Australians.

They don’t let up and we at the Front are exhausted. Just as well there is music!

….. and before I’ll be a slave I’ll be buried in my grave….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veiJLhXdwn8 Oh Freedom… The Golden Gospel Singers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRgYvyHrlNk The Cave Singers… Dancing on our Graves

Los Chalchaleros- Lllorare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcAos93fEVU

Cuando la muerte me lleve por sus caminos de sombra… el viento me ha de traer esta samba…. (When death takes me on its shadowy pathways, the wind will bring me this samba….)

Changing the subject:

The attempt at a book is coming along. Let me know if you’re prepared to help. I’m thinking of sending bits (chapters?) to people outside the Yuendumu Plato’s Cave for comment and suggestions.

Chau y gracias

Frank

POSTSCRIPT

I have been informed the NT Government has withdrawn the Bill (buried it!)

Добрий день друзі (Dobryy den’ druzi)

Whilst surfing the net as part of my research for my attempt at a book I came across this quote:
“Politicians are all the same all over.  They promise to build a bridge even when there is no river ”
It was Nikita Krushchev who said that- remember him?

It was in 1968 that Sitzler Brothers erected Yuendumu’s magnificent Baptist Church.  Subsequently I remember reading in the Alice Springs News that Peter Sitzler (or was it his brother Paul?) when discussing business had asserted that banks “will lend you an umbrella after it stopped raining”

In Yuendumu over the years we have been made many promises which didn’t come to fruition.

Peter Garrett’s multi million dollar Boarding Facility for remote secondary school students when we have no secondary schooling out bush not to mention the perennial and recurring promises to grass our still barren footy oval come to mind.

Tom Jones- The green green grass of home…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EvUHnm43wY

For those of you outside Australia, this country is suffering serious drought. Never fear, like a night in shining armour our Prime Minister has come to the rescue of drought stricken farmers.  As part of his contribution to prevent children from being traumatised by fears of climate change, he has just promised that his government will build dams.  Lots of dams.

Hallelujah!

The Royal Choral Society: ‘Halleluja Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c

До побачення до наступного разу (Do pobachennya do nastupnoho razu)

Frank

Rotten Kid! Another Foreign TROUBLEMAKER! Should be at SCHOOL!

Scomo has nailed it once again. Why should kids be spooked into worrying about the global climate catastrophe?

Foreign kid troublemaker staring down the most powerful man in the world! Should be at SCHOOL!

And why should they even bother about extinction marches? They should stay at school and learn the bounty of NAPLAN.  Nothing worse as a kid than being depressed about the end of the world. It puts you off your lunch, it may topple your ATAR score and really effect your ability (if you go to a church school)  to connect with an all conquering loving GOD! So, the advice from the PM? ‘Don’t listen to the  Doomsday sayers’. Kids should just stay in school and let sensible grown-ups decide their future. Like Barnaby, he knows all about the environment. It is wicked. It’s Unruly and must at all costs be controlled and subdued by THE HAND OF MAN! Fish die in the Murray Darling through Barnaby’s steadfast work as a servant of GOD! To prove the hand of MAN is just and preserve forever the doctrine of MANIFEST DESTINY!

These kids SHOULD BE AT SCHOOL!

And besides, think of all the good things those kiddies can look forward to when the planet is dead. Ok, the timeline is against them, but there’s no point in getting down about it. So what if the world is headed for a complete catastrophe? Why worry? If this is just the beginning, it’s the beginning of the beginning of the end of the first part before the beginning. And, Hey kids what are they worried about? Just in the past few years the tick list keeps growing we’ve killed:  The Great Barrier Reef, the oceans, the forests, the fisheries, the  Murray Darling, the list goes on and on. But why worry? Let’s not be ALARMIST! There’s much more to come. Rome wasn’t pillaged in a day. 

THESE KIDS are learning RAT-BAGGERY from foreign troublemakers.

Barnaby and his mates haven’t even yet begun to completely and utterly destroy the inland rivers once and for all. But we’ve been told, to paraphrase Faraser Anning,  ‘they’re working on a FINAL SOLUTION’!!!. Just be patient and give them time. This new plan to turn the coastal rivers back inland is a brilliant piece of creative thinking. To divert all those billions of litres of wasted water into the hands of a couple of cotton growers. Who said our current crop of politicians don’t have imagination? That’s the problem with Greta What’shername.  She has imagination. That’s the problem with foreign provocateurs, they still allow imagination into the education syllabus.  No wonder why they’re all full of doom and gloom. They’re too busy imagining the scenarios that have been steadfastly predicted by climate scientists for thirty years.  Crazy ideas that repudiate the benefits of CLEAN COAL and deny the very truth that the earth is FLAT!

In Australia we’ve killed imagination as part of the education syllabus, if it aint NAPLAN  it don’t exist. 

So take it from Scomo, he’d know. The world was created by GOD in six days. The world according to the Bible is as old as some six thousand years.  And all animals, even some insects were saved by Noah in the Great Flood. And he knows this as a BELIEVER!!  We shall be saved if we look to GOD for SALVATION, and repent our sins. 

HE HOLDS THE DESTINY OF AUSTRALIAN KIDDIES IN HIS HAND!

Kiddies are burdened with Original Sin for starters.  If they don’t come to terms with their innate failings as pronounced by an all seeing loving GOD, they shall justly DIE as a consequence of  their failure.  And their souls will receive eternal damnation for eschewing the righteous power of an all loving GOD! 

Lest we forget…”And God gave us Nuclear power” (Corinthians V.11 Ch: 12)

Or something like that. And as for animals and any other species, they’re not important, Only humanity is recognised by an ALL POWERFUL GOD. And his servants, Scomo, Barnaby, Kevin, George, Pauline, Rupert, etc..etc…

It stands to reason, Australia needs NUCLEAR!

Fight Climate Change… WE NEED NUCLEAR!!!

There’s no doubt about it… Australia needs to stand up and do its bit to fight climate change. WE MUST GO NUCLEAR!! Coal aint good enough, and besides we’ve sold the good stuff like our gas at a loss to China and India. So that they can save their teeming masses from POVERTY!

Go NUCLEAR. 

The facts stack up. 

Australia is a Big Country. 

We’ve  got plenty of space. 

Plenty of space to grow wheat, sheep and moo cows. 

Plenty of space to build roads and infrastructure. 

Plenty of rivers that still need damming. 

GOD ordains NUCLEAR, and stoning women.

Plenty of forests and environments that we havent killed off yet. 

We’ve knocked off the Great Barrier Reef. Killed the northern mangroves. And just about wiped our the smaller marsupials from the great hinterland. But there’s still a lot of work to be done!. For instance, Brazil is trying to kill off the Amazon forest faster than we can kill off The Great Barrier Reef. And faster than we can kill the rivers and the temperate Rainforests and  sub tropical forests on the east coast. The Lamington Plateau is now wiped out. “Thank Christ”! We say. But there’s still sacred sites, archological sites and bits and pieces of wilderness that haven’t been buggered yet. And if we slacken off, the bloody Brazilians will beat us to the title of Number one CLIMATE and ECOLOGY FUCKER UPPERS!!  

That’s it  folks. 

Native grasses must be expunged so that NUCLEAR can PREVAIL!

The exalted CFFU! 

Do we want a bunch of sissy Latin American wankers to beat us to the punch ? Do we want to let South Americas Catholics, beat our own very good Catholics, Barnaby, Kevin Eric, and George in Killing entire ecosystems? 

‘NO’!! We hear you say… And on another note, the Brazillians are busy killing off what remains of the native Indians not yet killed by poverty, land clearing and genocide. And we’re just imprisoning our natives,  and in some cases it takes them years to die off!

Wake up Australia, we cant just put them all on the Castlemaine Train!!

So this is where the National Party are up to the mark. 

NATIONALS for NUCLEAR POWER!

Nuclear will turn the Black problem VIVID WHITE!

The bits of Australia, the vast interior, the bits that are not leased to mining, pastoral companies, water rights holders and members of foreign banking conglomerates are fucking useless. These bits are the bits we coincidentally and generously gave to the aboriginies.   And you know what that means? They were trialled with nukes at Maralinga, and they’ve learnt the benefits of progress first hand. WE export uranium to the world  at great cost and we don’t  get the benefit of importing nuclear waste. And those aboriginals on the basics card who would spend it all on drugs, alcohol and diet coke and dialysis, aren’t getting the full benefit of integrating their costs into developing the wealth of this country.  Then it seems only fair. That they accept into their watseland, the bits of land we’ve left for em, nuclear waste.  And the benefit that comes with this exalted Nuclear Energy. Expensive Energy for all Australians who are united in their HATE of RENEWABLES!

Nuclear energy like prisons are BIG BUSINESS!! And the Nationals like Big business. Big profits for big companies, like Exxon and Transurban who don’t pay taxes. They know how to look after their National party mates.  Blokes who hate poofters, wear big hats and feature in the Catholic Boys Daily (the Australian) to protect us from thinking, ideas and the gift of imagination.

And to never think twice about accepting the one unifying principle in Australian political life, that there’s always the aboriginies.  They’re an ugrateful pack of bastards. And like Goodsey, they havent got a sense of humour and one way or another, they deserve what’s coming to them. 

For a Brighter Future… GO NUCLEAR!

Howdy partners,

Yuendumu is half way between Alice Springs and the Granites gold mine.

US based Newmont, the world’s largest gold miner, gained control of what it now calls its Tanami operations in 2001. Annual production I believe is half a million ounces of gold worth a billion dollars. A few million dollars of so called ‘royalties’ finds it way to Aboriginal Australia. The distribution of these crumbs is governed by the NT Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. This distribution is increasingly ethnocentrically and patronisingly tightly controlled by the Central Land Council. “Have you been good children?” “Here is your presents!” and is ever more akin to throwing bones to a pack of dogs, dominant dogs getting the lion’s share.

Last Monday’s Q&A on ABC television was as annoying and boring as ever. Q&A’s saving grace was that Eva Cox was on the panel. Eva spent most of the time mirroring those of us on the other side of the camera who shook our heads in disbelief at some of the utterances of others on the panel. At last a question was posed which wasn’t related to Chinese influence in Australian politics. For those of you who don’t know, the Australian Government is trying to legislate compulsory drug testing of welfare recipients, and the question was in relation to this. Eva came out fighting and rightly called it out for what it is, further stigmatisation of an already stigmatised vulnerable section of Australian society. Kick them when they’re down! An idiot on the panel sprung to the government’s defence by claiming that compulsory drug testing of welfare recipients was no different to compulsory drug testing in the mining industry.

At present there is not a single Warlpiri person working at the Tanami Operations up the road. I do recall when Yuendumu Mining Company was involved in recruiting workers for the mine that we had to take applicants in the opposite direction first. Applicants were alcohol and drug tested in Alice Springs. When I suggested that they could be tested at the Granites seeing as Newmont had facilities there to do so, and if the applicants failed, we could simply take them back to Yuendumu, I was quietly told that the company didn’t want to be seen to reject local recruits.

Passenger- Fool’s Gold… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y5lHBNT74

Tom Petty & the heart breakers- Mary Jane’s Last Dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfG_GQSf-E

Cheerio

Franklin