Today’s dispatch is  Walalja.  Originally dispatched on 30 January  2016

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 Walalja is a Warlpiri word, often translated as Family.

Mishpocha is a Hebrew derived Yiddish word, usually translated as Family.

It isn’t the first time I mention that the meaning of Walalja is closer to Mishpocha than it is to Family

Walalja means so much more than just Family. It is everything your extended Family ‘owns’ including your homeland.

I was in conversation with a Jewish-American (U.S.A.) academic working in Yuendumu. When I used the word Mishpocha, the academic got all dewy eyed. The word Family is far less likely to evoke such a strong emotional response.

The Family-Mishpocha-Walalja sequence could be said to increase exponentially in depth and scope of meaning.

At one end of the Family spectrum are the single-parent and nuclear Families. Ranging through various polygamous or extended Families the other end of the spectrum is reached. The Family of Nations.

The stereotypical nuclear Family appears on cereal packets. A man, a woman, a boy and a girl, all with perfect teeth and haircuts. A regular Family in more ways than one.

In fact, in the global experience it is the most irregular Family. In Africa, Asia, the Arab World, Latin America and the 4^th world, extended families are the norm.

The No.1 song for 2015 (Wiz Khalifa – ‘See You Again’, featuring Charlie Puth) includes the following words:

….”how can we not talk about family? when family is all we got”….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgKAFK5djSk

Do a search for Family on Youtube and it is like entering the multi-million dollar Centrelink building in Yuendumu. (Centrelink’s motto: ‘Giving you Options’)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMVe_HcyP9Y Sister Slade- We are Family… I got all my sisters with me…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSafdm92NIM Lajamanu Teenage Band- Prisoner …I just want to be free with my friends and family, and family…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxz7CYkQltE Black Fella, White Fella- Warumpi Band-
Are you the one that’s gonna stand up and be counted?
Are you the one who understands these family plans?

We need more brothers, if we’re to make it
We need more sisters, if we’re to save it

The latest socio-political buzz words in Australia are Diversity and Innovation.

Jessica Mauboy singing the National Anthem in a Sydney Aboriginal language on top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge on Australia Day epitomizes this embracing of diversity.

Many new and old words have become commonly used in my life time. Take the verbs: utilize and prioritize (not to mention google).

The Northern Territory government has prioritized the building of prisons and police complexes above the celebration and supporting of cultural and linguistic diversity when it comes to utilizing available human and financial resources.

If you are going to listen to anything on this Dispatch, listen to Missy Higgins’ rendition of Joy McKean’s (Slim Dusty’s wife) composition ‘The Biggest Disappointment’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I51ImqkOAM

They had my future wrapped up in a parcel
And no one even thought of asking me…

 And the biggest disappointment in the family was me
The only twisted branch upon that good old family tree
I just couldn’t be the person they expected me to be…. 

Remote Aboriginal Australia refuses to be what they, the assimilationist authorities, expect them to be. They are the twisted branch, the most diverse section of Australian Society. They are the biggest Disappointment in ‘Team Australia’ (the lovely Australian Family of our collective national psyche)

Until the next time,

Jungarrayi (brother of Jungarrayi and Nungarrayi, father of Japaljarri and Napaljarri, husband of Nangala and so forth…)

Emergency housing being trialled at Docklands for Homeless. Snowy River Mk 11.

Dear reader, though the federal government’s initiative on the Snowy River Scheme is a fascinating excercise in big project boosterism. It is doubtful if the net benefit will alter much in the scheme of things. Still though, you’ve got to hand it to the PM, anything’s better than renewables, and Hydro, is the “best-least-worst” option. And why is that? Because it’s already there. And as evidenced in the glory days of the 50’s when this country had a manufacturing industry and a social system based on mutual respect, trust and egalitarianism upheld by equitable tax rates and the notion of good governance, it worked. It’s comforting to know that the net benefit will be to the shareholders rather than the people. No, we’re not talking the electricity providers, we’re talking about the open ended, under budgeted contracts that’ll be awarded to anyone who shows an interest in making a few quick bucks. Just like the NBN, and all the road projects, that are tollways, run by organisations that pay no tax. That’s how the system works.

Cole Porter. Not to be confused with Coal Parliament.

It’s hard to change energy policy when you’ve got no energy policy. And that’s a good thing. Energy policy is dangerous stuff. If you get too many renewables the coal based energy markets will go mental. And if they get angry, heads will fall. And you can’t have a carbon tax, though the industry lobby, (are there any left?) now says it’s essential. A carbon policy in the life of this parliament can’t happen because of back room deals. And the back room deals are binding. It’s what gave Malcolm his Prime Minister-ship. And Malcolm likes being PM. It means he can look Prime Ministerial and do nothing. And that’s also a good thing, because a reformist, interventionist, imaginative PM is a dangerous thing. It makes markets jittery. And the biggest one’s are the banks. They HATE being jittery. So no change there.

Infrastructure 101. Sods turning taxpayer funds into windfall tax fee profits for shareholders.

Consequently we have an equilibrium of inaction. If you get too many turbines it’ll be South Australia’s fault, and if Hazelwood closes down it’ll be the end of civilisation as we know it. That’s energy policy. And though the PM has a fully decked out solar house, with the full monty battery storage and everything of the highest standard, he doesn’t personally use coal for anything but to hand around lumps of it in parliament. And if asked, he would possibly get confused with the composer of such hits as “Night and Day”, and “I’ve got you under my Skin”.

Malcolm’s house. 100% Solar.

And that’s where it should end.The PM is huge on ideas, and innovation. That’s why he’d do nothing to contribute to the debate on abortion in Queensland. That’s just what Queenslanders do. They don’t like Abortions in Queensland They have a penchant for teenage single mums and the drip feed of poverty and old style religion. The old style religion is what makes Queensland tick. Gives em a sense of certainty. The same goes for coal. Give em a sense of security and it ensures that they have certainty. That’s why they talk of the need for base load power as axiomatic for certainty in the coal industry. They get terribly upset when someone like Mr Musk, ( he’s foreign so he must know something) tells em he can make batteries do what coal has done for years and years and years. That frightens the daylights out of Old Coal, and it sets a tremor through the ranks of parliament.

And parliament is terribly concerned about perks, investment properties and which lobby group they’ll work for when their parliamentary career is over. Or if they’re really lucky, they close down a whole industry, send thousands unemployed and get the cushy job in Washington as ‘Jumping Joe’ did. And if they’re really good at doing nothing, and upholding an anti abortionist, fundamentalist stance as the other little ambitious Queenslander George Brandis did, they’ll be in line for the High Commissioners job in London. Not bad for making bigotry respectable.

So there’s lots to change in the Australian body politic. Donations to political parties is keeping whatever industry left going, and rent- seeking is unchallenged as the leading innovation based business model. And for the Snowy, it’s as good as gold, provided the long- term rainfall and climate predictions are false. And they are. Cos Rupert says.

This is what dead Mangrove looks like close up.

Dear reader, we think it’s time we talked of Mangroves. There’s quite a lot of them in Northern Australia, they perform a function did you know?. For example, crabs live in Mangroves. And we’ve been told that Mangroves host a wide variety of species. And these species we are also told are very important to the ecosystem.

This is what dead Mangrove looks like from the air.

“PShaw”! We hear you say. Who cares about those species, they’re just bloody animals, and they’re not even entitled to vote. ‘Correct’! we answer, but we’d also suggest that they’re not that much different from the average Australian citizen, who though entitled to vote, knows their vote counts for nought. The Mangroves are all dying-off due to global warming. “What the’?, we hear you say, ‘its nothing to do with me’. “Correct” we would say, but eventually the creep, (not Mr Bernardii) will be upon us and before you can say; “Adani”, what once we value, clean air, water, and food will be a thing of the past.

This is what homelessness looks like close up

‘Not so’! Says Mr Roberts, he wants to see the proof. And as a consequence Mr Roberts, visited with One Nation leader the last hold-out, the last outpost of non-buggered coral on the Great Barrier Reef. He stood upon this little polyp of coral and said, “no bleaching” and the Murdoch news press adored him. You see it didn’t matter that the coral reef, the worlds greatest living organism was dying fast, what mattered is that Mr Roberts was seen to be standing for something. That’s more than a Mangrove can ever do. Australians like that, standing for what you believe in. And even if its wrong they’ll admire you for having principles and sticking to them.

Principles are the very bedrock of our society. Principles enshrined in the ‘fair-go’ ethos of Australia. Unless of course you’re an aboriginal, an asylum seeker, have no money or just a troublemaker.

Mangroves are troublemakers. Though there’ll be no Barramundi, there’ll be nowhere for troublemakers, (biotic ones to hide). Kill off the Mangroves, we say. Mangroves be buggered, Gone, and we never knew they were there in the first place.

This is what homelessness looks like a little bit from the air

Homelessness is another thorny issue, they’re all over the place. Why can’t they be like Mangroves and just bugger off!! We HATE that, they make the streets look untidy. Just like Mangroves, Mr Doyle wants em off the streets. He’s right, Mr Doyle stands on principle. He hates messiness. Mangroves and Homelessness are just way way too messy. Just recently SGS did an audit of homelessness and determined that homelessness is very expensive. We thought they were just refuse, But there’s money in refuse!!

This is what non- governance looks like close up.

They (SGS) couldn’t audit the human cost of broken lives, tortured souls and wasteage, but they had broken the homeless figure down to $26, 567. 57. Yes, that’s; twenty six thousand five hundred and sixty seven dollars, and fifty seven cents. And that’s a huge cost. We don’t know any, (Mangroves or Homeless) and don’t like them. They don’t hang about in “nice peoples” circles, but it’s significant just the same. Pity the Barrier Reef and the Mangroves cant be audited. But then, they’re not humans. But these homeless humans are quite expensive. Do the math.

Apparently the Japanese government makes more out of our exported gas royalties than the Australian government does in exporting the stuff. Same again, do the math. It aint right, But is it broke?.

If it aint broke, don’t fix it.
Is that standing for something?

Malcolm who?

King Leonardo and his Secretary Odi-Cologne discuss energy policy

Dear reader, we, of the editorial department of pcbycp would like to give our unreserved apology to the people of Bongo Congo. Yesterday we made unfair and insulting comparisons between Bongo Congo and the trajectory of the Australian energy market. In the article we likened Australian energy policy to that of third world country. Though we didn’t mention the tax haven corporate robbery of the Adani Carmichael mine, described by some as a ‘typical third world rip of the tax payer structure’, we did describe the rent seeking private monopolies attached to Australia’s ‘free enterprise’ systems as what you’d expect from a third word country. We used Bongo Congo as an example. In this respect we were wrong.

Bongo Congo. ” turn left at Tanganyika”

Bongo Congo is a small principality within the African sub continent and though it’s administrative institutions are described by some as ‘archaic’, it appears that the leadership demonstrated by their king is exemplary. For well over fifty years, King Leonardo 1 and his advisor Odi- Cologne, (a self styled Richelieu) have ensured Bongo Congo’s position as a world leader in inspired and progressive governance. Indeed the exports of the principalities principal manufactured good, the Bongo drum have gone through the roof since the market was opened up via international trade agreements. The bongo’s, produced by several local industries are highly prized and demonstrate the ‘can do” attitude of all Bongo Congan’s.

King Leonardo, before he was rescued from Minerals and Energy Council think-tank by his loyal Odi.

As a word leader in the field, the King, has ensured via tax incentives and the follow-on of research and development that Bongo society is now fully independent of the ‘iniquitous rent seeking bastardry of monopolistic global corporations’. (Leonardo’s speech to the people 2017). A leader in all indicies of education, research, manufacturing and health care. The King’s recent statement on privatisation of the electric sector, “Confound it Odi, these rent seekers will screw the people of Bongo-Congo to the wall if we let them in,’ sent shockwaves over the global energy supply community.

In spite of the doomsayers prediction that the Bongo currency, the ‘Bong” would fall, the opposite happened. Investment poured into the country as a renewed demonstration of a strong local economy, equitable tax rates and a policy of wealth distribution and the universal belief in good governance. Consequently, Bongo Congo is a first world power, and though unadorned with natural resources the economy is booming thanks to wise investment in manufacturing, research and social policy. And with the development of the ‘techno bongo’, the world’s first wireless fusion musical instrument, Bongo-Congo is now a world leader in desirable high quality manufactured goods. Since the Bongo-Drongo decree of 1971, all profits made by manufacturers are ploughed back into the economy to further research and development into high-end goods, renewable energy systems, innovative social policy and the twin pillars of universal education and health care. This stands in stark policy contrast to the explosion of investment into speculative housing ventures as the sole driver of the economy as has occurred in Australia.

WE regret this slight, and hope that the king and citizens take our unreserved apology in the spirit of reconciliation. Australia is clearly a third world country, and Bongo Congo a first world innovation powerhouse. Bongo’s success through imaginative public policy, investment in innovation and technology have made it thus. ‘That sort of thing just doesn’t happen here’ (Frydenberg). And if it did, as the Minister for Coal (Josh Frydenberg) pointed out to the South Australian government who want to spend 500 million, (half of what was spent on developing the myki travel card) to provide public ownership and certainty to South Australia’s energy needs, “it’s just not on”!

‘That’s what first world countries do, and as a consequence, we as proud Australians don’t want a bar of it’.

And who are we to disagree.

etiquette

Onya Matt. Keeping the bastards dis-honest.

You know the electricity market is stuffed. In simple English; “Rooted”. Whenever there’s peak demand the electricity companies, which are private monopolies charge the user squillions. The industries, (those that remain in Australia) are paying through the nose, and the government says. “ fair market” and walks away from its responsibilities.

This is how a free market economy works……… in Burundi…. this is a how a free market works in …….. Bongo Congo.

Elon Musk, Young, dynamic, intelligent! We don’t like troublemakers like that in Australia.

But this is not how a socially progressive nation, (we’re joking) should treat its tax paying public. But then, if your PM is a Merchant Banker and you aint realised he got to the top by selling off assets we owned to a couple of kleptocrats, you’ve been dreaming. But Adelaide’s power woes are not a dream. The place had a melt down, lines went down and before you could say ‘Adani’, lumps of coal were being hauled around parliament. How has it come to this?

Well that’s simple.You, Public, have been asleep at the wheel. You’ve been happy to see the perks of privatisation, new logos, nice adverts and another range of well paid middle managers, who do nothing but take home HUGE salaries. And now you’ve realised, “ Hey, I can’t afford to pitch a tent in a backyard at Sunbury, and my kids cant afford a job let alone an education”!!, You’re beginning to wonder; “Hey, this aint what its all cracked up to be,”! And you’re right! This is the ‘ka-ching’ moment, when taking it up the choof, results in an involuntary response. A mind into action function. And you think: ‘How can I stop being screwed, bludgeoned and shat-on by rent seeking private enterprises”?

Well you can do two things. You can do what Joe Hockey did, close the car industry and take a cushy job in Washington. Or, you can question the whole privatisation experiment. It is an experiment. And it proves we haven’t learnt a thing from the East India Company. They’ll own you mate, pure and simple. But South Australia has seen through the bullshit, and kind Mr Musk has offered an elegant solution. And then all of sudden there’s a plethora of elegant solutions, and they’re a bit like the one faced by the Victorian Government on public transport. Anyway you stack the figures, re-nationalising makes good sense.

Got to the stage Mr Musk even had a chat with Malcolm Turnaround, and there’s momentum from the public, who don’t like being rogered all the time, who are on side. And from all accounts the conversation was much more spirited than the one Malcolm took from Donald, and there’s HOPE.

‘Nup’! according to Matt Canavan.

Like Turn-around he’s got some Coaly mates. The conversation never really happened. It was of no significance. Hardly a conversation. More a chance encounter,

Don’t worry, the illusion was brief. We aint a progressive society. We are a subsidiary office of a couple of global enterprises. And they have branch offices in Burrundi, Bongo Congo and Australia.

Today we offer three poems of Palestinian poet, Abdallah Abu Bakr.  They are translated into English by John Glenday and These are from “A Bird is not a Stone” edited by Henry Bell and Sarah Irving. Freight Books, Glasgow 2014

Flamenco

Deep in the heart of the dance
the dancer’s feet begin to sing
and she made that whole nation
with its empty heart dance with her.

The singer was calling out in Spanish
“They can never kill me! They can never kill me!”
The dance was really a battle, you see;
Hundreds of folk in that theatre were killed.

Trans. John Glenday

For Her Eyes

To the young woman from Damascus:
For your eyes
I chuck all my dreams in the river
I tear down speech from the sun
All the phrases of light it gives
I take back my fingers that boiled over the oud
Like vegetables in a pot
In my hand I hold the sand she walked on
And my longing to be made pure.

Trans. Henry King

A Haifa Prayer

I was on my way from Haifa to Haifa
That’s been my only road ever since I was a child.
I went down to the shoreline and paddled in the ocean
then dug a hole in the sand and buried my heart.
That way I knew for sure I would never forget her.
I gathered up Haifa sand and cleansed myself with it
because, God knows, I know precisely
how I should pray to God
and how I should worship her –
my Haifa

Trans. John Glenday

This post is titled Position Doubtful and was first published on 4 March 2017

Ngurrju-mayi?

On 12^th May 1873 the explorer Peter Warburton camped near a small hill south west of Yuendumu. There was a lunar eclipse that night. Warburton put the hill on his maps as Mount Eclipse…. Pink Floyd- Brain Damage/Eclipse…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM2ZAU95AaU

Warburton described the area as uninhabited. Long before Warburton passed through the region, the non-inhabitants had named the hill Ikipali.

When we first arrived in Yurntumu I was working for Central Pacific Minerals. Japangardi taught me the names of the places near where we were looking for radioactivity in the Carboniferous Mount Eclipse Sandstone. Pikirly, Yirnmaji, Warnajurrpa, Wijinpa, Raparlpa, Palkura, Wanapi (Just south of the Patmungala Syncline) Kunalka, Warlukurlangu, Kanaji, Kirirdi, Yipiri, Mijinparnta, Ramarakujurnu, and indeed Ikipali.

I used air-photos in my job. When some Warlpiri men showed a curious interest in these, I laid them out. Within minutes the men excitedly were reading these photos and naming every little hill and creek. We had no television back then and none of these men had ever been up in an aircraft.

Some of my first friendships forged in Yuendumu were the result of my having bothered to learn these place names.

Kim Mahood’s father, on writing of a 1962 expedition in search of a stock route wrote: “… didn’t auger too well for the rest of the trip, particularly as the only landmark marked anywhere near our route was marked Position Doubtful…”

As Kim explains in her book of the same name (‘Position Doubtful’), her father was referring to a landmark labelled McFarlanes Peak on an aeronautical (1:1,000,000 scale) map. Printed on the map, under McFarlanes Peak was (‘PD’)

“The term lodged in my mind as a metaphor for the way in which white Australians move through and occupy the country…..it seems to me that our position in relation to the remote parts of the country is more doubtful than it has ever been.

Early during the Intervention, when I still attended meetings under the naïve illusion and vain hope I might be able to make a difference, when it came my turn to introduce myself I said:

“All of us white-fellows need to from time to time stand in front of a mirror and ask ourselves the question ‘What the fuck are we doing here?”

It was my way of expressing us kardiya’s doubtful position. I bow to Kim Mahood’s better choice of words.

As a geologist how could I possibly resist a chapter titled ‘Songlines and Faultlines’?

Having ever so slightly straddled the cultural faultline, both sides of which Kim Mahood so beautifully and eloquently describes, how could I possibly not highly recommend this book?   

It isn’t the first time I quote from ‘Teach Me, My God and King’:

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G0MtBLtLrQ

Kim has indeed espied the heaven, and in this book shares her vision with us.

No amount of ‘Closing the Gap’ reports, or politically motivated apologies, or constitutional reform, or ‘Aboriginal Studies” can match Kim’s book which is sub-titled ‘mapping landscapes and memories’

The book has a lot to teach us non-Indigenous Australians, it ought to be part of the national curriculum.

Blackarm Band- Our Home our Land…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd5USIuYOM0

and from the other side of the world: Woodie Guthrie.. This Land is your land , This land is my land…There was a big high wall there, that tried to stop me, sign was painted ‘private property’….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s 

Ngaka-na nyarra nyanyi,

Jungarrayi

PS-Suggest you visit Scribe (the publishers) website:

https://www.scribepublications.com.au/explore/insights/position-doubtful-photo-gallery

Good Ol Josh. The Best Minister for Coal the lobbysists can buy.

Electricity is going to be so expensive soon, it will overtake housing as the single biggest burden on the average Australian household. That ls bad news for ordinary working mums and dads. But they’ll never be able to afford a home anyway. That’s why they’re ordinary. There is good news on the energy side. Kerosene, is terribly good at doing the work that gas used to do. And no one could discount the charm of the good old reliable kerosene heater. Then there’s oil. I’m sure some amongst us must yearn for the old reliable oil heater. And for those amongst of us who are truly bucolic, there’s the reliability of good old firewood. Firewood is just the thing for inner urban living, and wood fired ovens cook better roasts. This is not the end of civilisation . This is a whole new beginning, and it just shows how nuanced energy diversity will be in the twenty first century.

Energy Policy. What energy policy?Mr Adani is lurking in the background

Well that’s what Josh Frydenberg is telling us. He’s being quite sensible. In this new world we’ve just got to get used to a diversity of energy sources, and COAL is right up there on top of the list. Josh is also terribly sorry that electricity has all been sold off and it’ll be more expensive than platinum. But that’s just the trickle down effect of sensible energy policy and you can’t upset the free market. He tells us, with tears in his eyes, that literally, as we’re now global, we can only expect to pay trillions for the gas we produce in this country cos it’s a demonstration of the “Free Market’ at work. And a free market is good for us. There’s a rush on, as there’s upwards of eight new LNG plants opening up in the north and that’ll ensure that our overseas customers get the bounty of cheap plentiful gas. It’s great for those overseas companies, and those companies a little bit like Transurban and Shell, (to name just a couple) pay absolutely no tax.

Get it? They get what we used to get cheaply, for almost free. And the best thing is there’s no follow on for the government, we give it away because we want to demonstrate our free trade credentials.

And Mums and Dads and those amongst us who have gas powered refrigerators and dialysis machines will just have to take it up the choof. Speaking of ‘choof’ the Minerals and Energy Council want us to consider coal as a source of power for railways. ‘Choof Choof’ has a nostalgic ring to it, bit like our energy policy. And don’t be confused, renewables, as proven by the debacle in South Australia, are really really bad. Cheap non carbon energy is BAD. Rather pay through the nose than adopt a renewable energy policy with energy storage and new technologies that work.

And now, a fragment from the Conversation, this is interesting?

“First, as global citizens, we must recognise that most of our existing economic fossil fuel resources must stay in the ground. Developing more gas supply will just make it harder for Australia to transition to low-carbon energy over the next few decades.
Second, the problem is not about gas supply. It is about the allocation of gas and management of demand for gas and electricity. The recently opened Queensland LNG export plants are tripling eastern Australian gas demand.
What industry could cope with that scale of change without a few hiccups?
Eastern Australia has plenty of gas. The problem is that most of it is being exported at prices lower than some Australians are paying. And the price volatility resulting from the present shambles is making life difficult for some Australian industries”.

Who would have thought?

‘Art for arts-sake, money for god’s-sake’.

Jeez folks, after the current NGV security guard scandal we all know a little bit more about enterprise bargaining. You have an enterprise, a public gallery, and you have staff, and under a Howard era enterprise bargaining agreement, you get a bargain. You don’t really have to pay the security, better still you source security staff from people who’ve literally just got off the boat. Pay em cash, and let em lose! No Sunday pay. No Weekend pay. No levy. No sick-leave. No nuffink. If they get sick you just sack em. If they complain about the pay, you sack em. And if they go to public and cry out loud, you sack em and then you shut the door on em. “Troublemakers’. !!!

Troublemaker

This is great news for art galleries. If other pubic galleries could follow the NGV lead, (whilst ensuring their top management are paid exceedingly well indeed) they can lead the word in really interesting and engaging installations. For years we’ve grown weary of boring, dull and utterly humourless installations. The boxes in the corner, marked “ idiom”. The Tracy Emin un-made bed, sans condoms, titled, “Entropy’, and anything done by really serious committed social commentary artists who try and organise confected chaos, and pretend to rail against the system when they need the system and must forelock tug in order to stay in circulation.

With the new security guard thing you can wander along to the NGV and see real poverty at work. Better still, you can see indentured slaves and actual serfs playing out the ever-green Russian proverb, “ We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”.

But that’s not all in store for us In this bargain basement Brave New World that we the public so ardently embrace, there’s greater things happening at the ABC. They’re doing their best in upholding the old Trojan, “greater efficiencies”.

That’s right folks. All the staff on the 7.30 report will be outsourced; Camera-men and Camera- women, journalists, investigative reporters, grips, key-grips and tea-ladies. It’s out they go! Bargains, Bargains, Bargains! To establish, (Michelle’s own words) ‘broader audience appeal’!

Goodonya Michelle.

International Women’s day is all about ‘efficiencies”. Michelle Guthrie, Rupert’s little helper.

That’s what we need more of in the ABC, More audience appeal. We have it on good authority that Four Corners, will be re- nuanced to ‘Four by Four’ a motoring enthusiasts show that get to the real nitty gritty of 4wd performance under the harshest Australian conditions. There’ll be more interactive reality games shows, and all other entertainment will be outsourced to Foxtel.

So it’s enterprise and efficiency in a bold new era. Short term contracts for all new staff, and a grandfather clause to ensure that any reporter who actually reports will be sacked.

As a token gesture of my masculinity I should like to wish you all a happy ‘International Women’s Day’.

It was supposed to be a lazy Sunday

I was taking out the rubbish. It’s Sunday. A glorious Sunday in autumn. Across the road the cricketers were rejoicing in another wicket. The eternal sound of summer.  As I put the last bag in the rubbish bin I noticed I was being stared at. I made a perfunctory wave, it’s nice to be polite. The passerby shouted, ‘Don’t wave at me! You know i’m in pain’! Shot at point blank range by an accusing finger I replied; “I’m sorry, I was only trying to be polite” said in a tone of meekness personified.

“Do you know how much pain i’m in? I have so much anger”, in a voice demanding immediate reaction. “I’m sorry to hear that’! I sighed. The voice continued;‘And if i could just stick a pencil into my eyes, it still wouldn’t stop the anger and the pain’.

‘Well I’m very sorry to hear that’, and politely, (without a hint of condescension) walked back towards the house.

“Oh you”e so superior!! How Superior you must feel! Look at you’! pointing to the two bedroom weatherboard cottage. ‘You own all this’?!! I politely continued to ignore her, as I methodically checked to see if the battery leads were still intact. She then walked towards me, there was going to be a confrontation. “You’re so superior! All of this is yours! And Im HOMELESS!’

Always pretty quiet at the station also.

“You wouldn’t know what it’s like in all your superiority”. !! I corrected her, “I‘m sorry you feel so aggrieved but the sad truth is that i’m one invoice away from being homeless myself. I rent my house, and I have no money, no credit card and no security whatsoever’. I had a wry thought, “though I am designated by our contemporary economic realists as a winner.

‘You wouldn’t know how angry I am even if you tried’. ‘Well’ I reiterated tiredly, ‘I’m sorry for that, In spite of everything i’m invariably happy. I spose anger just makes you angrier and it’s belittling’.,Knowing I was getting nowhere, I suggested, ‘well you’d better move on, this can’t be good for your anger. No matter what you do I can’t get angry. And besides it’s Sunday afternoon and a perfect autumn day’.

The only other event is when the creek floods the footy oval.

As I busied myself she turned and walked out of the garage, swearing and carrying on. I waited till she had gone up the street and went inside. ‘What was that all about’? my son queried.  Oh just a looney. I made the mistake of waving acknowledgement as I put the rubbish out. Was she dangerous? Nup, only to herself’. As we chatted we were aware of a thump and then a ker-phump and then a really audible bash. ‘Bugger’ I cried… and raced out the front door. The looney was pulling up the decorative rocks around the garden and throwing them at the house. ‘Please stop, this is silly’.She looked at me with ice filled eyes ‘Don’t you see i’m throwing these rocks to smash your windows then you might know how angry i am’. ‘No’ I corrected, ‘It only shows how silly you are. Please, this is not good, You’ll have to bugger off now. And besides it’s not my house’. ‘Oh you’re so superior’, I was reminded of the Monty Python Anarcho syndicalist sketch. I’d been slotted as the oppressor, Off she went. Turning to say, ‘I’ll be back tonight to smash yer fuckin winders in’!! That night, after calling the cops and chatting to the neighbours who all heard it there was more thumping. The cars in the carpark were being smashed.

The policemen who knocked on my door at 7.15 am was very polite. ‘Did you hear anything’? ‘Oh about 2.30, Couldn’t sleep as the looney had threatened to smash all my windows tonight’. ‘Oh, she’s the third we’ve had this week’. ‘Why so? Oh it’s since Doyle closed homelessness down in the city. It’s working its way up the line’.

‘Oh well. I hope she’s corralled before someone does her harm. If you see anything. Yeah, I’m afraid I’m in Melbourne this week. I’ve asked the neighbours to check the windows’.

And then the reality. I do work in Melbourne, only place I can guarantee any sort of income. I rent in the country because I can’t afford city rents. The looney has also fled to the provincials. Only place she can guarantee a safe haven and shelter. And of the community? Spose we’re all losers now.

And that’s the point of it all. There is no community. And the winner ? At least Melbourne’s streets are not unsightly with human refuse. And for most of us we’re not far off from being refuse ourselves.

We’re a truly Effluent Society.