Kev. Demonstrates his worth to a global audience.

Cacafonix. Desperate to be heard. No one will listen.

Kev. Such is the power of word association. It’s only three letters, but you know in an instant who we’re talking bout. For Australians it’s synonymous with the man who blinked on the ‘greatest moral obligation of our time’. At that moment, faster than you can say DEB, (another famous three letter word associated with dehydrated potato flakes) the Kev as a currency was devalued. And as Kev talked and talked and talked we wished like the famous bard Cacafonix of Asterix fame that he’d shut up. Or just go away. Which gets to the point of the matter. What do you do with a politician whose passed their used by date?

Boris. The Gold Standard of British Comedy.

Theresa May (the current British P.M) deserves a gong for sending Boris in as the Foreign Secretary. It indicates so much about the British character and will provide much amusement the world over. Boris is funny. Boris likes to talk, and Boris is famous for making amusing disparaging comments about other world leaders. It has the press corps in stitches, and no one could have believed that in a very short space he would transform himself from dedicated Brexiter, wag, wide-boy, to foreign minister. It demonstrates once and for all the redemption of politics, and the fact that in this realm you don’t have to be a success by any standard definition. But ultimately, no one hates Boris. Some in his party mightn’t like him, and foreigners may be irritated by him, but he’s too amusing to be hated. And because we know he can’t take the job seriously, no one could be truly offended by his ambivalence. His capacity for self deprecation is a protection from stinking hubris. He lacks all those unfortunate manifestations of a politician who wants to be heard, who needs to be in office, and is desperate, like a bad artist, to establish an enduring legacy of self.

Deb and Kev. Not that dissimilar. Though Deb is truly continental.

Which gets us back to Kev. We know Kev. Peel away the facade, and there’s an insecure little boy with a very large chip on each shoulder. Or in plain terms, another ambitious Queenslander. It’s just not funny having Kev as Secretary General of the United Nations. Look around. The U.N, can’t really be considered a success. It’s up there with the League of Nations. Humans, are just too self interested to get it together and save the world. And after the so called ‘good guys’ ganged up on a few tin-pot dictators in the middle east, its all turned to shit. There’ll never be a war crimes trial for George, Tony and John, which is symbolic enough that the U.N don’t work. Kofi Annan, was by all accounts a nice bloke, and Ban Kyi, seems to be reasonable, Both will leave in frustration. You can’t say they didn’t try. But Kev? It’s just not funny.

Will he have a 2/20 summit? Probably. Will he talk a lot? Most assuredly?. Will he piss the Chinese off? Most probably. And will he actually listen to the 190 odd national representatives? I don’t think so. He’ll do as he did as P.M, consult himself, and by a process of hubristic isolation negate any good that may have been. And ultimately, (this is the most important part), wont be funny.

Kev was never funny. That’s a global tragedy.

It may be a boon for comedians though.

And that’s what the U.N, sorely needs.

A message of hope

Dear reader, there’s something unerringly familiar about the new Resources Minister Mathew Canavan. But for the life of me I just can’t put my finger on it. Still it’s great to see some new talent in the Turnbull front bench. Young blood to demonstrate that we’re alive to the thrill of innovation, new opportunities and the exploration of new technologies to take full advantage of the “Ideas Boom”.

Mathew. Man of action! Visionary!

It really demonstrates something exciting about this exciting new ministry and Mathew, another ambitious Queenslander knows just what it takes to convert this country’s potential into something beyond slogans. He’s right, when he speaks, because he tells us something we already know. We have the potential to lead the world. Though I still have this sensation that he’s strangely familiar we must accept the truth. Mathew IS the new face of Innovation in Australia. Why else would the PM for ideas booming and innovation put him there.

Two ambitious Queenslanders saving the Turnbull Government from lefty moderates. You think global warming is hot? Try a coalition sausage sizzle.

We apologise for taking take some quotes and paraphrasing some of the excellent things Mathew indicated to the Guardian that would ensure we as a nation embraced a twenty first century economy. A Resource Minister needs vision. And it’s exciting, just as Josh, has hybridized energy and environment, so Mathew has got some pretty big plans for industry, and resources. Let us be open minded and read his recent quotes, and I’ve got to say again there’s this reassuring ring of familiarity. I feel that I’ve seen him before, but cant put my finger on it.

On Coal Mathew said; ‘there is still a level of uncertainty about the impact of carbon emissions on global warming’ and described Adani as an “incredibly exciting project” for Australia’. Canavan, has previously called for funding for climate change sceptic scientists.

On global warming Mathew says; “certain interest groups are exaggerating the effects of carbon emissions. There is a lot about the climate system we don’t understand, a lot of assumptions we have to make with projections of course. I just feel we should all be a little more humble about our climate and our system. To think that we know it all and exactly how to finetune the temperature, to talk of half a degree of temperature that we could somehow manage that and hit that target, we don’t understand all the impacts.”

On global responsibility he said; ‘climate policy changes impacted “real people’s lives” and moving to 100% renewables was naive. We do understand that making some policy changes have real world impacts on real people’s lives, it would cause people to be very poor if we completely cut fossil fuels out of the world economy. There is still more than a billion people without access to electricity in our world and these are real world issues we need to be adult about.”

Mathew, saving the third world

And on books and writing, Canavan, an economist has previously worked at the Productivity Commission, which has done a lot to make books cheaper, so that authors can go broke.

Mathew as a previous incarnation.

It proves Turnbull’s commitment to thinking, and making Australia truly progressive. And not cave into the lobbying of special interest groups or big business.

Now I know where I’ve seen him. Prophetically it was his image on a wall that I recognise. His return is salvation for both Australia, and his alter ego ‘Bernie”. Bernie briquette gave us warmth and light. Bernie was good for humanity. He is our saviour. Returned to us. This is the second coming. He’s here!!!

It is an exciting time to be an Australian. The new Turnbull Government has unveiled its front bench, and it’s truly representative of an engaged, innovative, forward thinking society. Walk down any street and you’ll see this reflected in the population made up almost entirely of men. White, middle aged men. And men with attitude, because they’re all wearing suits. And the majority of those men are ready for business, big business, because they’re all wearing pin striped suits. A pin stripe demonstrates determination. Each vertical line, suggestive of order, establishment and a commitment to see, (whatever it is), through.

A well-worn pin stripe. Indicator of imagination, steadfastness and committment to principle.

New Environment and Energy Minister. Demonstrates ‘trickle down effect’.

That’s why Mr Turnbull should be congratulated for combining environment with energy. The environment is tricky. By definition it is made up of creatures and organisms. Some of these organisms are lump-like, roundish and irregular. Many of them have only recently been discovered and not even been listed in the Bible. Like Coral for instance, they’re hidden from the day to day and are unlikely, (due to the fact that they’re submerged under water), to vote. The same could be said for Kelp forests, Mangroves and most other eco-systems. They lack a certain regularity and correctness. That’s why its quite clever to combine their compositional irregularity with something that’s forthright, and dynamic. Energy. The energy, we’re interested in must be dug, fracked, drilled from the ground. There’s value in this. That’s why you’ve got to ensure that the best pin striped suit wearing minister gets the job of handling it. And it’s big business. Australia’s future.

We welcome Josh Frydenberg as the Energy and Environment Minister. He’ll ensure that not only will coral get truer representation, but coal and other valuable resources are extracted to help deliver the third world from poverty. And if the coral just dies off, so be it. Coral and other biota clearly don’t have what it takes to be part of a clever innovative resource rich society. Only a man in a pin striped suit can make that distinction. And determine which god-given resource should receive his blessing.

Another fine pin stripe suit wearer. Imagination and principle personified.

Similarly women, should take it on notice that the reason why they’re almost absent from the Turnbull government is because, they belong where they can be most useful to a clever innovative society. Either in the kitchen, or where most women with ambition are destined, to secretarial school or as an assistant to a very capable business man in a pin striped suit. These are subtle nuances, and distinctions that go to the very core of the Turnbull leadership. And I think you’ll agree that it represents value for all australians, and Safety.

A well kept pin striped shirt is also an indicator of principle.

There are so many innovations in the front bench and its demonstrative of such free- thinking depth that it’s unnecessary to elaborate on what this means for healthcare, education, and the encouragement of new industries. Suffice to say, continued deep cuts to public institutions are neccessary to protect jobs and growth, and the role of the ABC as national broadcaster will, (under Rupert’s continued guidance) be further diminished. Importantly, real estate will be safe. Population growth will continue apace, and there’ll be meaningful jobs and growth for everybody. And those with fantastically huge super entitlements will be safe from the taxman, as will quite a few big businesses also. Recognition that they’re the drivers of the economy.

A minority of people, who are poor, underemployed, disabled, or incapacitated, will be restricted due to funding cuts. If you can’t make a decent contribution to the national wealth, you don’t deserve much of the pie. That’s only fair. As a lifestyle choice you are ultimately responsible for what you receive from government. And that’s a value we cherish as a core Liberal principle. Freedom of choice.

Last time we had a fast train proposal.

Dear reader, at last an inspired nation building project, post election that’ll make you proud. The main drivers of the Australian economy, ‘Real Estate’, have just released a visionary project that will make interstate travel easier. It’s called the Consolidated Land and Rail Project. And it’s truly innovative. Previous city to city initiatives were proposed as horrendously expensive nation building projects. Perhaps because alignments, and infrastructure were to be government sponsored. Sort of a rail version of the NBN. But this private venture is inspired, and is all about turning bits of land not necessarily aligned by the shortest route between capitals, into a speculative bonanza.

Route alignment has nothing to do with ‘Land banking” by developers. Really??

When you close down industry and manufacturing, how do you kick start the economy? This is where the ‘Ideas Boom’ kicks in. You find bits of land nowhere in particular, link them with a railway that no one can afford to travel on, and then, make a killing by value adding. And what value. Replicate the award winning formula of the un-liveable suburbs that grow and grow beyond the urban fringe.

Between Melbourne and Sydney, faster than you can say ‘ghetto’, there are proposed eight new cities. Linked to nowhere. Attached to nothing. Guaranteed, very fast profit for very fast rail. And it’s nation building. Well, that’s what Mathew Guy, ‘the Property Council’s ‘little mate’, told his mates when they cashed in on the re-zoning Fisherman’s Bend.

Fact of the matter is that if it proposes lowest common denominator infrastructure planning. Therefore it WILL HAPPEN!

It’s a new norm in urban planning. Big developers engaged as ‘cultural utility norms technicians’ to convert ‘undeveloped’ land into profit. It doesn’t even have to be linked to any other driver of the economy. Is there any other driver of the economy beyond land banking and an ever increasing population? Only a cynic would think this is the new-age kleptocracy at work. Links to other regional centres will be incidental and remote. Connections to places of employment, education, industry, (sorry we have none), is irrelevant. The principal aim is to provide a return to investors and housing for the less well heeled. Allow those on the lowest rung of the Real Estate ladder of opportunity to gain a foothold. A naming competition is in order to reflect the status of the eight new regional cities. Any suggestions beyond; ‘Bernardii, Abbott, Abetzville, Loser, Screwed, Rogered, Wasted, and Gouge’, will be gratefully accepted.

PM for ideas, likes trains and selling off public assets.

We at PCbyCP propose a ‘trickle down effect’ that’ll offset the denizens of these new cities in the middle of nowhere. We think it only fitting that we take advantage of the new infrastructure opportunities by privatising all existing road connections. It’ll not only encourage train use, but encourage the denizens to stay at home and develop community bonding. Just like they allegedly do in the outer outer outer suburbs. Let’s celebrate the new era of Australian knowhow, and inventiveness, by taxing these individuals twice the regional rate for infrastructure, schools, hospitals and libraries. There’s no such thing as a free lunch and Canberra is reining in spending. Offer housing within the new (does ‘Multi Function Polis’ sound right?) cities into long term leaseholds. Geared specifically to long term 457 visa holders. Upon ‘life termination’ relinquished property is returned to the Property Council for re-sale. It’ll augment the negative gearing and superannuation advantages for investors. That’s true recycling.

A simple message from the second term Turnbull Government. We’ve got rid of red and green tape. ‘Australia is open for business’. Anything can happen. Never was it a more exciting time to be an Australian. Incidentally, how do you spell “Carpet Bagger” very quickly?

Report on Experience by Edmund Blunden, with notes by Ira Maine Esq, Poetry Editor

I have been young, and now am not too old ;
And I have seen the righteous forsaken,
His health, his honour and his quality taken.
This is not what we were formerly told.

I have seen a green county, useful to the race,
Knocked silly with guns and mines, its villages vanished,
Even the last rat and last kestrel banished―
God bless us all, this was peculiar grace.

I knew Seraphina ; Nature gave her hue,
Glance, sympathy, note, like one from Eden.
I saw her smile warp, heard her lyric deaden ;
She turned to harlotry ;― this I took to be new.

Say what you will, our God sees how then run.
These disillusions are his curious proving
That he loves humanity and will go on loving ;
Over them are faith, life, virtue in the sun.

Notes by Ira Maine Esq

Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

Blunden was a poet and academic whose contemporaries included Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. He survived two years in the Ypres and Passchendale trenches and earned a Military Cross. Blunden held professorships in English at Oxford, Hong Kong and Tokyo. In his long and varied life he was hugely prolific and was criticized in his lifetime for producing too much material! Graves always argued that the practice of poetry cannot be and must not be, a part time profession; he believed in the ‘boots and all’ approach. Blunden, on the other hand, to confound this idea, on finding he could not support himself by poetry alone, took up positions at the institutions mentioned above. Graves ‘boots and all’ argument is called into doubt when we look at the modern and recently deceased poet, Seamus Heaney who held professorships at various times in Ireland, England and the US. Nobel Prize winner Heaney is rightfully regarded is as one of the finest poets of the 20^th century.

Blunden begins his poem, ‘Report on Experience’ with:

‘…I have been young, and now am not too old;…’

He is older, more experienced, perhaps more cynical now. He was eighteen years old in 1914 and  twenty two when he said goodbye to all that. But he is ‘not too old’, he tells us. Not too old? Not too old, I believe,to have forgotten the captains and the kings and their murderous, squalid ‘victories’, victories only achieved by uncounted thousands of deaths.

‘…I have seen the righteous forsaken, his health, his honour, his quality taken. This is not what we were formerly told….’

An entire culture of myth had been built in Britain around the Empire and the idea of glory and honour in war. Rule Britannia, The Buffs, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Rourkes Drift and ‘The Colours’ all contributed to persuading kids to join up with this apparently invincible moral army of both Empire and (dammit Sir!) civilization. There was honour and glory to be had! There was duty, loyalty to the Crown and the unshakeable certainty of the ‘Thin Red Line’. This was the propaganda;  ‘…what we were formerly told…’ The reality was, of course, much less attractive. In the end the reality was the Great War and ‘…a country knocked silly with guns and mines… [Flanders Fields et al]…its villages vanished…even the last rat and kestrel banished…’

The Pax Britannica was in the end little different from the Pax Romana which it attempted to imitate. Julius Caesar, two thousand years earlier, had increased the size of the Roman Empire by pacifying the people who occupied the land we now call France. Nowadays historians refer to this ‘pacification’ as genocide, and note that at least a million people died in order to achieve the Roman ‘peace’.

‘…God bless us all, this was a peculiar grace…’ Peculiar indeed: a grace warped and twisted into an unrecognizable shape through the casual sacrifice of an entire generation.

The third verse talks of ‘…Seraphina…one from Eden…’ who. ‘… turned to harlotry;-‘

To the best of my knowledge, Seraphina was a Catholic saint (1238-1253) whose father died when she was very young. Soon after this she developed a medical condition which left her in constant pain and unable to move. She devoted what remained of her short life to the care of the sick and the poor, living a hermit-like existence at home and being carried about on a stretcher.

If I am correct here, then Seraphina in this poem represents the innocence of the young men who joined up in response to an al-encompassing, Gung-Ho, death or glory propaganda and who were cruelly disillusioned by the reality. On the battlefield, in the sodden muckholes of the trenches, the men are pinned down, unable to move, in physical and psychological pain, just like Seraphina, whilst the wounded and broken are carried off to field hospitals by stretcher. This is why Blunden  saw Seraphina’s ‘…smile warp…her lyric deaden…’  Blunden sees the slaughter as innocence betrayed, and  a whole generation used for ‘…harlotry…’ on the battlefield.

In the final verse Blunden acknowledges that ‘…our God…loves humanity and will go on loving…’

The poet feels that ‘…these disillusions…’ this journey out of innocence, this discovery of how the world really is, is God’s way of  ‘… proving that He loves humanity…’.

But it is a ‘…curious proving…’. Indeed it is, because if we look at the last line; ‘…Over them are faith, life, virtue in the sun…’.

Interposed now, between mankind (or perhaps Blunden) and God, between ‘…faith, life, virtue in the sun…’, and the musing mind of man, is the traumatic, wartime butchery of the mind which unerringly breeds, in the wake of so much death, the obvious and heretical question; does God exist at all?

At least to the few who have both experienced and survived war, He cannot possibly exist, or if he does, His agenda must be very different to the one we have imagined.

END

Today’s dispatch is  The Walls Come Tumbling Down.  Originally dispatched on 30 November 2014

Yaxşı gün dostlarım,

The 1980’s were a time when there was live music everywhere. Yuendumu was no exception. Papunya’s Warumpi band was formed in 1980, Broome’s Scrap Metal in 1983 and the most famous Aboriginal Band of them all, Yothu Yindi in 1986. At some concerts all I had to do was wave my trumpet about, to be invited on stage. That I wasn’t quite up to scratch didn’t bother the musicians, it was an inclusive scene, and I didn’t overstay my welcome and only joined in a few tunes.

In 1987 we decided to travel overseas as a family (our oldest son was 18). It was the year of the stock-market crash and the coldest European winter in a half a century. Christmas 1987 we were in London, and I got to “sit in” with Howlin’ Wilf (no folks, I know how to spell)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhEPPTzDlns

My trumpet playing days are all but over, and I certainly haven’t been responsible for any walls tumbling down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u02t3-QoO7c

Last week in Yuendumu some walls came tumbling down. The walls of the Police Station. They’re making room for our new Police Complex. A friend sent me a copy of the media release announcing the proposed $7.6M Complex, which was headed: “Improving safety in Central Australian communities” . My friend wanted to know if I was feeling safer. It goes without saying that I’ll continue to cringe in  fear(Lani kana pandarimi) until the complex is completed.

I suspect that when the Larrakia people of Darwin heard about the Police Complex on Warlpiri land, they got minmayi (jealous), and demanded they also get  something from the NT Government. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRAiz5VvIVs be careful what you pray for….

My friend duly sent me a copy of a subsequent media release: “New toilet block for Casuarina Coastal Reserve”

“We’ve listened to concerns of visitors to the reserve and have made sure the new toilet block will be located out in the open with good lighting to make it safer and less intimidating for people to use,” and “This government is investing $410,000 for the toilet, which will make the area more attractive for possible investors wanting to submit an Expressions (sic) of Interest for the reserve” “It is proposed to have Larrakia Traditional Owners paint the new toilet block with images of Casuarina Beach and in particular the turtles that nest there.”

$410K, another bargain I say. Safety at all costs. When you’re down and troubled….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhlMWtk7-0E  …. You’ve got a friend…

When Kevin 007 ousted the instigators of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) we waited for the “roll- back” of the Intervention. The pre-election promise of the roll back morphed into a review of the NTER after one year. The thorough Peter Yu review cost a few million dollars- another bargain we thought. In October 2008 Paul Toohey in an article in The Australian reported that the official version of the report dramatically differed from the leaked draft report. The highly critical draft had morphed into a bland report that supported the Intervention.

“Too frequently, often at a subliminal level, indigenous culture is regarded by policy makers as an impediment to the future development of remote communities, rather than an essential resource for their development.” Appears in the leaked draft, but is not to be found in the final report. Pourquoi pas? (Why not?)

From an illustrated Yuendumu school book Mangkurdu-kurlu (pertaining to clouds) (Warlpiri Reader Level 3):

Kurdu-kurdu: Nyampuju mangkurdu kurdu-kurdu wita-wita ka panu-jarrimi ngapa-ku ngarnti ngula kapu wantimi.

Milpirri- Nyampuju mangkurdu wiri karlipa ngarrirni ngulaju milpirri ka karrimi manu ka ngalpa ngarrirni ngapa wiri ka yanirni ngula kapu wantimi.

Matayi- Nyampuju mangkurdu ngulaju matayi maru-nyayirni ngapa palka ka kanjayani wantinjaku-ngarnti

The first are ‘fair weather cumulus’ the next are cumulus and the third are cumulonimbus.

Kurdu-kurdu is synonymous with ‘children’…. The small clouds grow into larger clouds that foretell rain and eventually mature into very dark clouds that bring rain.

“To deny a people an education in their own language where that is possible is to treat them as a conquered people and to deny them respect.” (The Hon. Kim E. Beazley Sr., 1999)

The current Federal Government is putting lots of resources into the ‘Remote School Attendance Strategy’. They even employ (part time) some Warlpiri people and provided them with a (second hand) bus and those ubiquitous bright yellow jackets (presumably to keep them safe). Federal support for teaching in the vernacular is distinctly lacking.

My Warlpiri friends are far less likely to bash their heads against brick walls in the hope they come tumbling down than I am.

I try to follow their example.

I do this by listening to music. ..

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own sweet head
Shine it when the night is burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold cold ground
Shine it till these walls come
Tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around

Do yourselves a favour …. Take the 7 minutes it takes to listen to this:

zövq almaq

http://youtu.be/kcDaAr3EPqI

Frank

And if you have (or make) the time, a little bonus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mylo0piAgc

P.M for women. Well and truly in control.

Dear reader, I’m not so upset about another old fogey misogynist having a crack at someone because she’s a woman. I accept that in my stride. That’s part of being ‘Team Australia’. Can’t forget, the most sexist PM we’ve ever had, Tony Abbott, was the ‘PM for women’, and ‘aboriginal australians’. I’m not worried about that in the least. They do their thing and they appeal to an increasingly ossified rusk of predominately white Australians who are still latched onto Arthur Caldwell.

Two blokes and a sheilah walk into a TV Studio.

And the rest of the dinosaurs really enjoy it. It gives them a sense of relevance in a frightening changing world. Women challenge them, from newly acquired positions of authority. What was once their unassailable perch is now threatened by other ‘minority groups’, even people with coloured skin, and funny relations. Not worried about that in the least. But what does worry me is the language. They employ overt agressive, and patronising language to bludgeon their opposition, to assert their right. And if a woman counters as Van so skillfully did, she’s talked over, ignored and rebuked. The physical reaction was palpable.

And then, you’d think that’d be the end of it. But, increasingly these ossified males, when they feel they haven’t had a fair go, will spend an entire week in self justification, and dismember the incident with agonizing detail. And not for a moment think that the problem may just be with themselves. They hate powerful women. Scares them to death.

Steve Price has gone off and sulked. The best sulk so far, is the Logie award winning performance by Sam Newman in standing up for his mate Eddie. Sam didn’t need to stand up for Eddy. What Eddy did was childish, and about the level we expect from the senior tier of club executives. Eddie after significant prodding, made an apology. The apology was a long time in coming, and as scripted as Johnny Depp and Amber’s, apology to Barnaby. It was almost up there with Shane Warne’s, doping and betting apologies. The apology and other lapses on Adam Goodes behalf, were left in the ether. As little thought bubbles of old school values set adrift in modern Australia.

What stood out in Sam’s rebuttal to Caroline Wilson, for complaining of her treatment in being dunked, drowned and cheered to death, was the language and physical aggression used. If he was back in the schoolyard he would’ve just punched her! And probably called her a slag! Instead, Sam used the term ‘excrement’. He meant to say ‘shit’. But Sam is at pains to point out he’s a gentleman, and gentlemen don’t use words like that. He’s also on the panel of the footy show. He used ‘excrement’ emphatically, and then finished, with ‘you’re an embarrassment’. To whom we might ask?.. To his mates. She makes him and his mates embarrassed. That’s the truth of it, and for that she should just go away.

Same thing happened with Steve Price. Van called him up on his ingrained, confrontational sexism and he just talked over her, with George Brandis nodding sagely. That’s the problem with Q and A. It’s too clever by far and often defeats itself in stereotyping and providing a theatre for malcontents and rat-bags. I thought Van took it well, “youll probably blame my ovaries”. But it’s simpler than that. At the level these men are thinking, the old schoolyard taint applies “ what you say is what you are”, and it should end there.

Another extinction. Tea ladies!

Dear reader, it’s quite a while since Council’s were amalgamated. Not a bad initiative at the time. And for one working on the coal-face the greater efficiencies became self evident. Gone, the instances of poorer shires sponging off wealthy shires, the multiplicity of overlap and budgets stretched so tight in the poorer municipalities for roads and rubbish. There was nothing left over, not even enough for chrissy lights.

I’ve lived through this transition. Gone, the tea ladies. Gone the primacy of the Town Clerk, the Mayor and the City Engineer. Fancy that! Just three people with overall authority.

Old Castlemaine Gaol. The Kleptocracy at work. Site worth millions. Community capital? Priceless! Sold secretly to developers by unelected Council Officers for 500 thousand.

Then, with amalgamation, the Council structure became corporatised. And within the change came a new structure, in which the Council Officer, unelected, unaccountable and remote from the public eye, became the principle vehicle for interpreting decisions filtered down from the elected representatives. Councillors come and go, but the Officer, sinecured and safe, became an entrenched part of Council business. And they’ve grown like topsy. The population explosion of Executive Officers, middle management, policy officers, place-makers, urbanists, strategic and statutory planning officers, strategy planning executives, and senior advisory staff, has been nothing short of exponential. One would say, proportionate to the explosion in rates. An average house in Central Victoria, will be rated at almost twice the amount as a house in Melbourne. Though the wheely bins are very nice.

Local community of ratepayers. Left out in the cold.

In my own little municipality the unelected Council Officers decided they’d sell off one of the biggest council assets, the old prison to a few developer mates. After having spent hundreds of thousands of ratepayers money on restoring it, they decided in their wisdom the public, the rate payers who sustained them couldn’t be responsible for such a signifiant asset, and besides the developers represented the clean broom of free market accountability. Their intention, to follow the proven path in converting the site into real estate indicated a popular trend. The outcry was stupendous, and thinking that it were just a noisy minority, (their contempt for the public sustaining them thus) they held a public meeting on Brownlow night. To their surprise the hall was packed, and yet the die was cast. The ratepayers responded in the only way they could, and sacked the mayor in the following election. . But the unelected, supine, satrapcy remained firmly entrenched. In the adjacent shire, (Macedon Ranges) the same unelected swill are trying to convert, (and they’re still at it!!) Hanging Rock into an ersatz, Disneyland. A common device in stripping public assets. The public are promised the banality of another conference centre, (to which they are not encouraged to participate) and the certainty that the experience of actually visiting the rock is converted into a turnstile oriented gouging experience.

We understand that when public assets are sold and converted into rent seeking enterprises, we the public MUST be treated as serfs. We enjoy this condition every time we go to Melbourne Airport and are gouged for appalling service and the unmistakable impression that we are swill, to be abused, as an obligatory part of being processed. Its punishment for giving up what was once ours. But with Council there is still a delusion felt by ratepayers of ‘community service’.

Hanging Rock. The kleptocracy hard at it!!

I blame it on corporatisation. In them olden days a Council staff were employed to serve the community. Now that process is secondary to climbing the greasy pole of executive advancement and higher salaries. The greatest obscenity being the remuneration of Council CEO’s. Usually the most egregious feather-bedder. They’re paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to exert non-authority, and allow developers and members of the public who have vested interests in manipulating public policy to achieve personal windfalls. The entire system is ossified, and corrupt. A corruption of a corporate business model that rewards politicking rather than imagination, and assumes that officers are the acme of free enterprise and venture capital.

But they aint. They’re just people. The edifice they serve is just Council. We don’t ask much, just occasionally the right of a fair hearing and transparency.

Perhaps it would work better if we installed a new model. Councillors, without vested financial interests. A Town Clerk to administer policy. And an engineer entrusted with ultimate responsibility.

Nah! It’d never work. .

Batting for Team Strayla

Wonderful, that Pauline is back. She’s strong on principles!

Who would’ve thought that the party that nurtured, borrowed and owned her dogma of irrational intolerance, isolation and bloody mindedness, should be adjusting to the new reality. That’s what you get in the 44th parliament, an opportunity for everyone, even angry marginalised Queenslander’s to have a red hot go. And there’s such a lot to have a go at. Now we’ve reached the stage in our democracy, after three decades of stripping public assets, worth and community to the free market, the scary skeletons are now free to walk out of the closet. Its not the end though, just  the start of a new reality and Rupert would be justifiably proud.

George. Twelth man for Team Srayla.

For a start Pauline and her party loathe and detest climate change. For a state blessed with one of the greatest ecological assets on earth this is remarkable, Good thing, (the Great Barrier Reef) is almost dead then. This whole global warming thing, that Rupert has been consistently telling us is a device by loony left, eco wankers and doomsayers who just want to drive down the economy, to stop decent Aussies from getting jobs. And Rupert really cares about ordinary folk. Just ask anyone above the Oxford-Cambridge Line in the U.K. Lucky they don’t read the Sun , the Daily Mail and the Times above the Tweed line, because they’ve got the Courier Mail, and the Tele to guide them on Issues. That’s another advantage when seventy five percent of the press is owned by one man. There’s an economy on journalistic integrity. And if you don’t believe me you can get stuffed, because climate science is crap. The scientific method is crap. That’s why my kids will die gloriously of whooping cough, measles and polio, because I’d rather have principles and keep my integrity pure rather than suffer with the masses as they succumb to all the unforeseen side effects of immunisation that Rupert is fond of quoting in his excellent publications.

Tony. Chairman of selectors. Team Strayla

Together with the country party, they, (the Hansonite’s) want to dam the last of the rivers in Queensland, and there’s a push to round up the last of the free- ranging first australians, and put them into a controlled environment, where they can be supervised and looked after correctly. This‘ll be a boom for the taxpayer, because we know what a drain the first australians are, as they seem to require like the rest of the community government assistance. What a cheek! They didn’t even pay for the land we took off them in the first place!!

Team Strayla must be kept PURE!

John! Coaching Team Strayla.

But more important than wiping out the rest of the ecosystem, destroying what’s left of the public estate, and getting rid of green tape for developers to have a red hot go, is the concern entirely justified that we need a Royal Commission into Islam. I couldn’t agree more There’s a lot of lawyers who are under-employed, and every one knows that they need a lift. A Royal Commission will help their income stream, and being open ended it’ll go on for years and years and years. They, (muslims) should be singled out you know because they’re not like us. And the fact is, just like the first australians, they’re ungrateful for how we’ve helped em out in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the follow on in the rest of the Middle East and Europe. If they’d only thanked us we wouldn’t be so rancorous.

Team Strayla. Articles of association.

Thankyou Rupert, and thankyou John, of the coalition of the willing, for making us a reflection of yourselves. And in doing so, setting a standard, that takes us right back to the principles we began with when we established the Commonwealth. The White Australia policy. Mission Accomplished!

Moody’s have given us a warning, S&P have done the same and lowered out credit rating. Australia is in trouble.

Apparently we’re living beyond our means.

The Coalition. Number one for economic management. Cups of Tea, comfy chairs, and bad art.

Though our government debt is low by global standards, (about 14 percent of GDP), our home debt, (I think this has to do with the housing bubble) is a staggering 160 per cent. Proudly, we are once again world leaders. Apparently, and this has sagely come to light, Australia has been living beyond its means, for years and years and years. Some experts believe that like all bubbles it will go ‘Pop’, and there’ll be tears all round. How could this be?

Well, it seems that in our most recent rush to be rich, we spent and spent like drunken sailors, and gave most of our once in a millennia opportunity away in tax cuts to those very same people who were eye gouging their way to the top of the mortgage and investment market. At the very same time we spent nothing on infrastructure, health care, education, etc, (the national building blocks). At exactly the same time the miners, making squillions, were let off and not asked to pay a penny more than they my have felt entitled to. This is where it gets confusing, the mining bubble had almost run its course by the time the mining tax was muted, an the housing bubble has almost reached it’s peak before a note of caution. And the people in the street who have nothing to do with the money, the mortgages, or the investment boom are being told to pull their belts in, and prepare for rough weather.

Arguably Australia’s ‘second greatest P.M’, admires his legacy.

The people telling us this, are not the messengers, (Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s), who just like to remind us that the democratic process can be bad for business. But the very same people, who blew the bounty, and have done quite well in sabotaging, plundering, stealing, the national social capital in funding cuts to education and healthcare and whatever may be referred to as public wealth. And the pundits all say, (the carbon dating proves it), this slide to a dumb, monocultural, real estate bubble myopia, began with the Howard Government. And this is what I find confusing, because just the other day that party touted the former PM as one of the greatest. The same party that cleverly killed the car industry. How could this be?

I only thought that Howard impoverished us morally and ethically, by allowing Hansonite politics to be mainstream. I applaud him for initiating the impoverishment of our national consciousness, and depletion of our resources, physical, intellectual and material but I had no idea he was a stellar performer in economic melt-down And on top of all that he marched us into Iraq and Afghanistan so that we may anoint those wretched people with our brand of democracy. He also invaded Australia, to let the miserable, wretched first Australians know the measure of his intellectual largesse.

Demonstrating the ” trickle down effect”, under sound economic management, a boon for the ecology.

But there’s more. Since Howard, we’ve thrown aside quaint notions of commonwealth for the neo-con model, and it’s hard to see where the benefits are for ordinary people. But, and this is extraordinary, the real benefits are to those indices that are not yet really appreciated by economists. Just this year, we’ve killed 85 percent of the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve wiped out the kelp beds off the West Australian coast, we’ve decimated the Mangroves on NT and Queensland, and it’s just the beginning.

Having killed off entire ecosystems, the economics for Adani look pretty good. Which just goes to show, there’s always a silver lining, . Unless of course you’re a fragment of biota, an ecosystem, or an ordinary person.