Dear reader,

the post corona lockdown and ‘allowable freedoms’ have resulted in a out-pouring of joy not witnessed since the restoration of 1660. This poem comes to us from a junior subscriber, A,A Milne of MrPlod Street Cristopher Robin Crescent. He writes; ‘dear pcbycp I am 12 years of age and submit this poem for your circumspection‘.

We are delighted that young Christopher realises that he is but fragment of a new dawn that provides rich reward for those who obey the will to obey the principle of FEAR.  His piece is published in full…(no pun intended)

Lost Children

‘Mummy and daddy told me so

If I were lost, I must surely go,

To a kindly policeman on the street

Directing traffic with steady feet,

Tap him on his tunic sleeve

My pain and worry to relieve,

Arms like semaphores, sure and grand 

He’ll guide you with a steady hand,

The policeman does almost all he can

To serve the kindly ‘Uncle Dan’,

His guiding hand, his vision fixed

Eschews the grind of politics,

If you’re lost, and mummy’s worried sick

You’ve got ‘Uncle Dan’ and ‘Corona Vic’,

To question as Michael Leunig did

Cancel culture must surely bid,

Oh what fun it surely must be

To criminalise the citzenry,

To accept the doctrine and surmize

We citizens are now infantilised,

Fully indexed,’aboriginalisation’

An edict for Incarceration,

For souls depleted of mind or voice

The question is: “was there a choice”?

By pain of fine or safety charter

To dump the message of Magna Carta.

A climate policy that’s so secret, it doesn’t even have a name!

Dear reader, we return to our compelling documentary of what’s really happening behind the scenes and unlock some of the secrecy surrounding the Coalition’s stunning Climate Change policies. We hope as the whole front bench does that technologies not yet invented will save the day? Or perhaps technologies that have already been invented but have not seen the day as a conequence of the Coalitions’ sensible distaste for research, science, tertiary institutions and anything that questions the over-arching infallibility of ‘Clean Coal’ and an all-loving God.

Read on, and uncover the wisdom that lies beneath the secrecy….a secrecy over climate dealing which has been witheld from the electorate for their own good.

Sophie has her gag removed and our heroes Ces, Quent and Benny-Boy wait for her to make a sound. Though they know whatever they hear will not be ‘nice’!

A Climate Policy endorsed by Crown Casino’s high flyer suite and Christian’s blind trust.

We stood around her, she’d stopped swearing and her face, flushed brighter shade of crimson, was a picture of pudge. And then, the lips moved, slowly at first, but then sound issued forth, we strained to hear.  “Well boys! You think you’ve got it all sewed up. But you need me! I’m glad about that’!  She looked at us with such withering contempt, and made no effort to get up. Being a Fair Work Commissioner she liked her soliloquies to be kept salutary and subjugational. In this she evinced great respect for the tools of good governance and the traditions of the Westminster system, a system that had given us Prince Andrew as an exemplar of public behaviour and leadership the world over. And upon refection, the blind trust that paid for Christians Porters defence. 

‘You’ve realised as exalted member of the Fair Work Commission that my wisdom is unassailable and my wit impregnable. So….. Let’s do a deal!!

‘Allright Sophe, we want a way out, 

And we want our freedom, not in a Uighur or Tibetan or Aboriginal kinda way just to be slotted in jail, a detention centre or Don Dale, but real freedom, to be let go, and left alone.  And if you can help us, we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.

You can go back to what you do for a living and we can take the less criminal path’. 

Sophie smiled before replying, and the smile was almost grotesque for it seemed implausible for her to be grinning like that. 

‘Allright boys, you’re on! Untie me, and I’ll let you outta here, 

But first you’ve gotta promise me one thing?

‘What’s that Sophe’? Benny-boy boomed, 

A Climate Policy so secret Assange will likely rot in prison for the term of his natural life rather than the public cop an eyeful of Coalition climate science!

‘You’re not to tell anyone of this operation, the pommy nukes or the operatives I have here working for Angus and Xi’.

She looked at each of us with a penetrating eye, as her mascara had run it looked ghoulish and reptilian. it was a tall order, but with Ms Culthorpe’s integrity at stake we agreed it was the right thing to do. We all nodded in furious agreement. 

‘Well then boys, Let s get started’. 

A climate science so secret that even witness K won’t be let near it as leaking would possibly damage our NATIONAL INTEREST!

It puzzled us,  Sophie was almost engaging, she’d stilled the venom, and as we dusted her down, and wiped her pudgy hands and face with Dettol, (there was always a bottle or two on hand) we began to think there was a softer side. Perhaps that why she was chosen as a Fair Work Commissioner, she understood clemency and contrition and deal making. And this was an enterprise bargaining deal that we had to be all over. It didn’t bear thinking what would happen to us if we were unable to see the small print. And in the darkness, it was all a blur. 

It was too soon to tell, but one thing we did know, that Sophie held our lives in the balance, once again.

Adjusting her glasses, and surveying the tomb and the rows of pommy nukes, she pointed to an old filing cabinet, used to contain in-trays and requisition orders not yet countersigned by Daryl Maguire. ‘See that! I want you to push on this door here’. 

And no sooner as force was applied by the indomitable Benny- Boy the door moved with a great and grinding creak. And beyond it, a stairwell descended deep into the stygian gloom. ‘Down here’! she commanded, “but on one condition I lead”!!. With Benny-Boy taking up the rear, his AK fully loaded, we descended, 

A Climate Policy more secret than dudding the French president and not even bothering to tell him that he’d been pissed on by his mates. That’s the ‘AUSTRALIAN WAY’!!

Will Sophie take them for another ride slightly more circuitous than the last one? Will she ditch the witch and confront Ju-liar as she promised with Tone in 2013, and stick it once and for all for climate change?  ‘Plus ca change’ as the frogs would say, it’s all submersible  and deep water under the Arch de Triomphe. And if you haven’t got one of those, McDonalds arches will do .

‘The Australian Way’, a piece of paper to ensure a credible climate policy?

‘A White Board in which even the black bits are …. white’. P.M trying to find the climate policy amid the funding for carparks metrics.

Dear reader, we recapture the excruciating moment when Ces, Quent and ‘Benny Boy’ are about to remove the gag from Sophie. They are expecting a torrent of colourful language and violent assertions, and that’s the good bit. What will happen next?  Only the Coalition’s Climate policy is more labyrinthine. Fitting then, as our heroes hope for a labyrinth to get them out of the underground bunker, the arsenal of pommy nukes, and the clutches of arguably Australia’s most powerful woman, now exalted bench person of the Fair Work Commission, Sophie, ( is that an ex uni law professor in my back shed?) Mirabella. 

Read on , if you so dare. 

‘Allright then, I’ll do it, but if she tries anything funny, I’ll give her a good nudge with my desert boot’, Ces was intent upon finding the humanity behind Sophie. Benny and I were doubtful, but Ces, one of the old guard still believed in humanity as an unstoppable force of goodness. 

P.M to Barnaby, ‘just pretend you care, everybody else does’!

‘Allright then Ces, but I’ll tell her how it’s gonna be. 

If she doesn’t get it we’re stuck here anyway so what’s the difference? And besides, do you really think Sophie is gonna help us out. Has she ever helped anyone but herself? I dunno Ces, she’s helped other fallen women. She helped Bronnie get on her helicopter, she helped Gina dodge the resource rent tax, and she’s possibly gonna do a stint in London as our special trade envoy when Tone gives it away. Whichever way you look at it, she’s irrepressible and looms large in our public life. Yeah, but what has she ever done for anyone’? 

There was a pause, we couldn’t’ think of anything she’d done other than featherbed, help the old law professor out and yet, we knew that somewhere in her past she must’ve done some good somewhere. 

Barnaby to Keith; ‘if you dont pretend to care about carbon and all that lefty bullshit my face will explode in parliament’!

‘Look we’ll be here all year if we have to scour the earth finding anything she’s done that was public spirited, but for now we’ve gotta get outta here!! There’s no more McWhilliams Cream Sherry, there’s no Para Port, and the tin of sardines here (he held it aloft in the pallid light) has a use by date of 28/09/58. That was a good day Ces’, offered Quent. ‘Why? It was when Collingwood won the granny and Norm Smith invented the Norm Smith medal for being the most average Australian.  Back on 58 you couldn’t be more Australian than have a name ‘Norm Smith’ even if ya tried. You should take stock in that. That was before, (he paused to gain greater emphasis) before they’d even invented multiculturalism, and complex multi syllable surnames, and SBS, and soccer on the telly. It was a wholesome era of nothing much happening and Ming asking the poms to set off nukes in the outback. It was, he gazed around the four walls, a … GOLDEN ERA’!

 Ces was in full force; ‘It is said that on that date no tinned food ever went off, as if it were anointed by……(Quent paused for emphasis) . God’. 

Another great piece of paper that fell just a little short of the mark.

Benny had heard enough; ‘You’ll be anointed if you don’t get us out of this mess, now quit your mucking about and let’s get this gag off, For Gods’ sake. For Sophies sake and the sake of all clean-living Australians who’ve haplessly managed for two and a half benighted centuries to get by without the boom of NUCLEAR POWER’!

Ben had a point, we had to move, with the times, and by our reckoning 1956 weren’t all that bad as it did mark the era of telly and pretending to round up Abo’s and other flora at Maralinga. 

There was no choice, and deftly Ces untied the gag, saying, as he did, “Now listen to me Sophe, you tell us how to get outta here and we’ll grant you your freedom, and in the end , you’ll be back on the bench of the Fair Work Commission, disenfranchising ordinary Australians as you’re supposed to do. But no tricks, no funny business, and none of us, want to be the next retired law professor stuck in a shed on the back paddock of your property, cos we have standards’!!

This, and he emphasised to the towering countenance of Benny Boy, who stood with his familiar gaffer taped AK 47, the bandolier of 50 cal, the grenades, claymores, and Bren gun carried in honour of fallen Anzacs who ghasped their last at the footy,  this is your LAST CHANCE’!!

Vladimir gives the thumbs up to Strayla’s Climate policy. “Best Policy they’ve ever had to be sure, no worries! Who is this Barnaby git? Is he the bloke who tried to shirt-front me? fucked if I know’.

And with that, and one deft pull of the knot the gag fell to the dusty floor, 

At first there was nothing ,

Will Sophie take them for a ride?  Will their descent be Dante-esque or Hogarth-ian”? Find out in the next inclinational episode, ‘A step in the dark with Sophie”, or ‘First steps to a nuclear future, on Matts Canavan’s  Circus Caravan’.  

Only individuals of deep imagination and vision can lead Australia to a more equitable and fairer society

Another pearler from Frank, who perhaps is suggesting in the great tradition of the Coalition’s, earnest and committed determination to do nothing about carbon reduction that some things will always stay the same.  Another win for the kleptocracy, and more free kicks for the 1%? What’s the difference? There aint any, but hope and the glimmer of light that in a hotter world Geoff Bezos will build a space colony on another uninhabitable rock orbiting the sun. To prove the old adage, what goes around, comes around. So it is for government policy, there’s constancy and security in that. Read on…

G’day,

I’ve mentioned the shifty way the proposed amendments to the ALRA (Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976) are being “sold”.

A society of integrity and maintenance of public institutions for the common good

The amendments are labelled ‘Economic Empowerment’ and are anything but.
Because not everyone is asleep at the wheel, a campaign has led to:
On 21 October 2021, the Senate referred the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021 for inquiry and report by Thursday, 25 November 2021. We’re not out of the woods yet.
This stuff is tedious, boring and not easy to understand. Suffice it to say that in my opinion the biggest elephant in the room is that the amendments would make currently inalienable Aboriginal land ‘bankable’, in other words the same paradigm would apply to it as has led to what are known as the 1%ers.
The people who can afford to shoot themselves into space. The people who fiddle while Rome burns.
If you can spare the time, you might be interested to listen to Jon Altman discuss the amendments.
Wed 27th Oct. 7:30 – 8:30 PM ADST (UTC + 11)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-building-bridges-land-rights-at-risk-again-tickets-178411261887

You may also be interested to listen to Donovan Rice, Ned Hargraves and myself talk about My Yuendumu Story on Wed 3^rd November at 7:30 – 8:30 PM ADST (UTC + 11)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-building-bridges-franks-yuendumu-story-tickets-196982579197
For both of these events, tickets are free.

A society determined to abide by the principles of reason, fair-play and open-ness to new ideas and the power of imagination.

Enough of the serious stuff:
Sofia Picon has just won the junior section of the annual vallenata competition in Colombia. Here you can see why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JfVVZS6V0A

Trawling through some old Dispatches (for material to go into MYS Volume 2) I came across some amazing music I’d forgotten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=520ZLkzKRII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwd5J7bJVOA&list=RDGMEMQ1dJ7wXfLlqCjwV0xfSNbA&index=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3yfRNrPRiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKFQ9mUVq6c

See ya’s

To inspire the principle of leadership and participation for all Australians.

Frank

Matt Canavan, (Minister for black-face) demonstrates Nuclear carbon capture and storage barbecue facility at Maralinga

Dear reader,

we leave off where we left off before we left off the last time. In truth we had gone nowhere. if you think this narrative is reflective of the Federal Government’s leadership on carbon and climate change your wouldn’t be far off the point. Cept, this is fact! The words and events used here describe a critical nexus more significant than nuclear submarines in the dynamic of Australia and its race to assure a place in pan-global strategy. Whereas the Federal Government’s deliberation on climate and coal are pure fiction.  For (dear reader) as you doubtlessly already know, no-one in politics really believe’s in climate change, they believe in big coal, big lobbyists, a big investment property portfolio and big NUCLEAR!

As Member for Indi Sophie could kill people just by looking at them.

And foremost among them is the most unelectable former pollie in the pack the former Member for Indi Sophie Mirabella, now an active member of the Fair Work Commission. And Sophie, in our quest to find out who so basely defiled out tea-lady is bound, and gagged, trussed up as our prisoner beneath the sandy wastes of Maralinga. And in this tomb our three heroes, Ces Quent, and Australia’s most decorated soldier ‘EVER’ Benny-Boy Roberts Smith find themselves surrounded by pommy nukes left over from the golden era. A golden age that promised Nuclear warfare, Qualcast mowers and Sunbeam ‘little wonder junior’ portable shearing machines, that worked with their certifiable warranty period quite often, or more than not… under the correct maintenance regime provided specific and relevant local climatic conditions were observed. …..

Former Attorney General demonstrates the intircate paperwork, IOU’s, promissory notes and betting slips from Crown, that go into a BLIND TRUST!

Can Sophie’s captivity bring this golden age back, or will it be nuanced with more clean coal and other imaginative alchemic dreams from the Federal Government?  Bereft of the stain of imagination who can tell? And if they could, like Christian’s blind-trust donors, you the public aint meant to know anyway. 

More dangerous than a prop gun in a b grade western, things may yet still go off, but until it does there’s an off language warning as the trio prepare to un- gag, Sophie. Will her ungagging be their undoing? A gafe or a catastrophe awaits, read on if you dare, at your own peril. Because it seems the only way up is gonna be down down down…

‘Well then’, benny’s booming voice filled the cavernous void, whatcha gonna do about it, do we untie her right now? or, roll her down some corridor and hope she tells us where the exit is’? 

‘I dunno, she might have another trick up her sleeve, she might have a remote or get another nuke ticking, in which case we’d all be blown to smithereens anyway’. 

Deputy PM endorses China’s coal policy and the right to back winners in the nuclear industry

No it shouldn’t be like that, though she is unelectable, a sociopath and a compulsive liar, she is after all a member of the Fair Work Commission, and though shed slotted us for a quick death, she maybe didn’t quite understand our case, and now we’ve explained out mission, she may be more conciliatory’?

We looked at the writhing ball of aggression as every now and then a well aimed stiletto would try and kick one of us in the shins, and the gag suppressed barely the muffled invective, coarse, vulgar and well trained. An un- stoppable force, and yet, in all the hideousness we felt pity. Pity that a human could be so debased by the lustful and iniquitous influence of greed, naked ambition and rat cunning. 

Minister for Nuclear proliferation endorses the Coalition’s climate policy

But was rat cunning enough? And would Sophie rat on our three heroes once let loose? Being a rat wont hold you back in the feelthy game of politics, but it may not get you re-elected unless you’ve got a white board and a regional slush fund? Or make a home for clay pigeons from Wagga Wagga?

Wogs or not, we’re all outta work if we don’t get out of this mess.  And you’ll only find out in our next rodentious episode. ‘Is that a rat with a gold tooth or just Bill Papas from Forum financing”, or “Daryl Maguire wasn’t shooting blanks the day he passed the rifle to Alec Baldwin’. Black is as black as night and that aint black enough in a non carboniferous future. When all the world will wear hemp and carbon fibre, To the node? Or up another cavity? 

Homeless man endorses fed’s climate policy, low wages for film crew and gun buy-back scheme.

Stay tuned… for this is fact, the feds climate policy is pure fiction, and only you the reader can tell em apart.  

Dear reader, we kick off where we didn’t last time, wth our trio of heroes stuck beneath the desert sands of Maralinga debating, just what it takes to find freedom, and arguing over the vexed issue of Australia’s take on climate. Is this a climate high water mark? Or as the Great Barrier Reef and other natural wonders are improved by desertification and other ‘Clean-Coal’ initiatives from the coal and gas lobby, is it enough to get us over the line?

Is this the man who will save us from the lunacy of carbon credits?

With Ces and Quent debating what it takes to be a politician, and what policy has  to do with anything remotely more interesting than reality tv and the environment, we slough off to another episode and hope that whatever the conundrum, they find a way out and get to the bottom of who defiled our Tea-lady Ms. Culthorpe as an in intern in our Federal parliament. 

Knowing that Scomo knows nothing about that heinous act is a source of some comfort, and being a religious man, certainty that an all loving God exists to prove climate scientists and an informed press WRONG!. 

Benny had become an intellectual giant, he reflected;

‘Is staying in power, long enough to be a winner, and being on the board of Crown or the Fair Work Commission all they’re interested in?  I thought it was helping ordinary folk getting a toe- hold on the rungs of the ladder of opportunity.  Or is  just creating a sinecure post politic  of investment properties all that politics is about these days?

And dying of boredom’, I enthused, 

Or are there more rounds left in the Coalition’s conundrum?

‘Nup simpler than that, (Ces qualified with surgical exactitude) just watching your house go up by squillions and being safe is what it’s really all about. 

Is that all there is?

Yup, it’s what makes the world go round. 

So, that’s it boys’, Benny enthused;  ‘we might as well just wait, See what turns up, and find a way out. We cant go up and we cant go down. Either way we’re skewered’. 

‘No we aint’, piped Ces; ‘there’s only one person who knows a way outta here and that’s, ( he pointed to the writhing ball of gaffer taped humanity) right here. Only she would know, a way out, You didn’t think she’d bother about the hundreds of functionaries doing her bidding upstairs, they’d be just collateral to her damage. In the end, she came down here to slot us and she knew, just as she knows the cards are stacked against a fair an equitable wage system that she had a way out. 

And I betchya there’s only one way out. 

And that is.. (Benny had us spell-bound. by his analytical  depth and understanding), 

is keeping face with the coal-face gonna be enough?

And that is to take the gag off her mouth and let her speak’. 

‘Let her speak’!

We both ghasped, Do you know what that could do to your psyche? the tongue lashing, the character assassination, the bile, the invective!! 

No worries mate you sissies can close your ears, but I’ve heard much worse at the Fat Lady’s Arms, and besides, if she goes on too much I can just put the tape back on. 

Are you with me? 

Will this be the face of adaptation to a warmer climate?

Stuck perhaps miles down what could we do but agree. 

‘Y yyyesss Benny, we’ll give it a go’. 

‘Right then when I give the word, you pull the tape off her gob, and the other one of youse grab this towel and be prepared to wrap it around her If the swearing gets outta control’!

It seemed like a plan, the only plan, to be embedded down in this tomb to become the next putative Amenhotep 3 or just dry out and wither alone and unrequited, we had no other choice but to obey. 

And stealthily we took up our allotted positions and waited for the word. 

What will our heroes do? Will they get Sophie to make sense? Will she know of a secret passage, and a way out? Is there a way out from Sophies secret passage? Is There way OUT when there is no IN-TRAY?  What has this got to do with Australia dragging its coal impregnated saggy-arse across the floor at Glasgow?  Find out in the next indexicational episode, 

Is black-face enough policy commitment in our woke era?

“A fools errand for clean coal”  or ‘a heart of coal aint all black’.

Dear reader we arrive where we left off. 

Scomo dresses up to prove the Coalition’s Climate policy is really REAL!

With more twists and turns than the Coalition’s climate policy shenanigans we’re almost back to where we started again, which is right at the end of the beginning, or the back of the front. In our futile attempt to find the identity of the heinous oppressor who so basely defiled our Tea-lady in sacred duty as an intern in our nations parliament. 

When all seemed lost Benny-Boy saw the light, and trussing up the world’s arguably most powerful woman, Sophie Mirabella exalted sinecurist of the Fair Work Commission, we realised the tide had turned and Benny was prepared to be a hero at a moment when it really counted. And that was worth celebrating. As little else had gone right since we found ourselves in a bunker full of old pommy nukes under the desert sands of Maralinga. 

Please read, if you dare, and find out if our heroes are pickled or just plain run outta luck? 

“What are we gonna do now’? I pleaded with Ces and Benny-Boy. The air was deathly still, with Sophie visible only as a blank shadow that writhed and squirmed  in futile fits for freedom.  Benny-Boy, seeing his nemesis restrained and gagged gave her a gentle kick every now and then to show us he still cared. 

Ms Culthorpe, outside our nation’s highest office.

“We cant just leave her here’? 

‘Why not, she wanted to blow us to smithereens, she was happy to see us atomised, and not given the chance of,  at the very least of a hearing,  before the full board of the Fair Work Commission. She’d slotted us without even an enterprise bargaining agreement. She was gonna do the full Geoff Bezos on us whilst taking a rocket trip to who knows where’!

Helping ex- pollies finding useful taxpayer funded employment demonstrates ‘compassion’!

‘Yup, Benny piped in, she had us all slotted, and the worstest bit, (we winced at Benny’s grammatical inexactitude)  is she was not recognisant of my efforts to civilise the Afghanis as a noble gesture of Anzackery upon the unquestionable altar of Gallipoli’.

‘Yup, she ’s a bit like Scomo all about compassion for the deserving billionaires, and about as subtle as a lump of coal in parliament. What is it with these ex pollies? Is not getting paid squillions for cushy sinecures and privileges and a life post-parliament as a fully paid lobbyist enough’? 

‘Well it aint’, Benny boy conjectrued thoughtfully,’ it all boils down to relevance deprivation! 

‘Ya see’, (Benny-Boy’ was the full bottle on this); ‘they think they actually make change, rather than just being sinecurists and feather-bedders. They’ve got the universal sense of entitlement that comes with not actually working for a living. They think we owe em for letting em screw us over. It’s paradoxical see. The more we roll over and let em do it, the more they think they can kick us’. Benny was waxing philosophical and for emphasis gave the rolly polly ball of anger another kick. 

The ball responded with an audible ‘hrmpphhh’ and tried another kick with a  well aimed Italian designer-house stiletto. 

‘Yep’, Ces interjected; ‘they are sub human in the compassionate sense, but we can’t let em just die, Cos that would be just inhumane.  It’s make make us no better than, (he paused for added emphasis), “THEM’! 

They are un-human in their self interest and grasp for power at any cost. Not even Steve McQueen can stop em!

‘So what are we gonna do? 

I dunno, we’ve still got all these nukes, and the empty bottles of grog, perhaps there’s a few more lurking? 

‘And’, Ces interjected; ‘we can’t go up, Angus’s cronies l’ll get us for sure.  We can’t take Sophie with us, cos as soon as she’s out she’ll slot us. There’s nowhere to go! We’re kinda’, he paused for emphasis; ‘stuck’! 

The stuckedness was galling, . After all we’d done, to be so incarcerated.. 

And yet strangely, there was comfort in knowing that with Australia’s most decorated and bravest soldier ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith we were safe. Safe if nothing ever happened and we didn’t starve to death. ‘It’s just like Scomo on Climate’, Ces enthused, ‘provided nothing ever happens, and no one challenges what we’re on about we can just cruise into the next election,  or in our case catastrophe, reassured that the general public will always put self-interest over the big picture’. 

‘What’s our big picture’? Quent enquired caustically. 

‘I dunno, it was to get to the bottom of who done Ms Culthorpe in, but now I’m not so sure. It’s hard to have a big picture when the whole world seems consumed by  little people with little pictures and vested interests all devoted to themselves. It’s to put a word on it, disheartening’. 

All consuming! But (dear reader) you’ve gotta admit a BLOB is more reassuring than a ‘LUMP o COAL’!

We all looked at the ball of writhing humanity before us, more malignant than ‘the Blob’, knowing that unleashed it would wreak its irresistible fury upon human-kind. ‘You see, it’s not that they lack compassion, empathy, values and humanity, it’s just that they’ve got what we haven’t got’. 

What’s that? Quent asked; ‘They’ve got an overriding sense of themselves. They’d wipe out the whole planet if it meant they could get an edge, and at the end of it, they’re still gonna be unhappy. We should feel sorry for em, it’s a form of psychosis. It’s unstoppable, and yet strangely fascinating. If only their energy could be used for good’. 

We all thought for a while, we looked at the ball of humanity trussed up for its own good, and felt pity. ‘If there is a big picture , it’s mired in the capacity for thinking small. Another paradox’! Ces enthused. ‘The more they grasp, the smaller their humanity. Their big picture is the only picture they’ve got, and it’s infinitesimally small. And what’s out picture’?

The three of us looked at each other, Benny a giant amongst men and us, still dressed in out over-worn safari suits and volley internationals. If it wasn’t so pathetic, it was almost funny.

We wondered;  There must be  a big picture? 

But here in this stygian gloom? 

Like the Feds climate policy if there was a bigger picture, it was more complicated than a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with bits missing all over the place. 

Where we the missing pieces?

Find out in our next compelling episode, ‘a jigsaw and an angle grinder wont bake a cake’, or ‘trussed up and bound to who knows where’?

Whoever Dares …Wins! ( but may pay a somewhat significant price after the event)

Dear reader, we return to our saga, as Sophie, most powerful woman on the front bench of the  Fair Work Commission suffers an AK47 Malfunction. Our heroes Ces and Quent, aided in their last minutes by Australia’s bravest and most decorated soldier ‘Benny-Boy’, Roberts Smith, had given up all hope. And yet like the evil perpetrator who so shamelessly defiled our tea lady Mrs Culthorpe in the nations Parliament we are no closer to determining the all embracing reason why? 

What has our fate got to do with climate policy, Clean coal, officially endorsed corruption and the working of the Fair Work Commission?

Dunno, but somehow or other Sophie and her commander the man they call ‘Angus’ are up to their necks in it, and determined that we are liquidated in order to preserve their integrity? 

Integrity you say? Well, it’s a nuance that some still believe in,  read on for more filth, and corruption…

Whoever Dares Grins!

Sophie just stood in front of us, working the trigger, and then Ben realised something, this was indeed the AK he’d used at Tarren Kwot for the VC and he seized his chance. Leaping from his spot he rugby tackled Sophie to the ground, they were lost neath a swirling cloud of dust. We could hear Benny exclaim ‘Ouch’ and ‘Nyaaaaaah’, as Sophie in clear abrogation of Queensberry’s Rules, kicked, punched, bit and kneed Benny in the testimonials. She was a real street fighting pugilist, and in her capacity as Fair Work Commissioner she was happy to throw out the rule- book if it gave her an edge.  But with astute training, Benny had her tied up, and when the dust settled, we espied Sophie, looking all the world like a deflated bean bag, or an over- kicked Sherrin trussed up with electrical tape in the corner. 

Job Done, Benny looked at us self satisfyingly, always cary a bit of spare tape. 

‘But but but. 

Why didn’t the gun go off’?… 

“Oh the gun’, benny exclaimed; as soon as she pulled the trigger I knew it was the same, 

The same what? 

Whoever Dares will try again

The dummy gun I put on all the Afghani’s to get the V.C?

It was never gonna work, cos as any Fair Work Commissioner will tell you even on the field of valour one requires a safe work environment and one must avoid the golden rule. 

What’s that?

Avoid inappropriate touching’. 

With Sophie tousled and bound in the corner had we gone a step to far? Is inappropriate touching appropriate for a person of Sophies calibre?

Whoever Dares, might have cause to regret

We looked at the ball of electrical tape, marvelling at Benny’s skill in trussing her up, and from within we could hear he muffled broadside of abusive epithets, (we apologise to any of our readers who are sensitive and might be offended by such language), as Sophie when angered was liable to make a bullocky blush, or a trooper squirm. Indeed such a torrent of coarse mouthed vulgar invective even made Benny-Boy squirm to the extent that he wandered over, held her pudgy face (once again we apologise to our readers for this overt description but in the interests of journalistic integrity we must publish the facts and allow you informed and educated to draw your own inferences), he held her pudgy face with his one giant hand, and pulled out a roll of extra large gaffer tape. To whit,  her jaw, and entire speaking apparatus were well and truly taped. For his effort she managed to lash out a swift kick to his shins and we marvelled at how he just continued to methodically reinforce the gag without suffering undue discomfort.  Benny, once our jailer, was now our saviour. We knew that whatever happened from hereon, Benny would be by our side. A feeling of awkward, but tremendously deep satisfaction. 

Truth or Dare?

‘Bugger me’! Ces opined, we really are safe at last. What are we gonna do next’? 

I looked at Sophie, felt the security and alacrity of Australia’s finest in restraining Sophie and sighed, ‘lets just make our departure and return to our normal lives’. 

‘Normal lives’? Ces interjected, , after all of this, what’s gonna be normal’? 

Too effing right’, being a man of few words Ben made sure he used every one of them to effect, ‘Normal for me, is digging usb’s in me garden burying usb’s, dissing me mates, and sucking up to Kerry Stokes and that little squirt Brendan Nelson. I’m jack of all of it, and if I can come along with youse, perhaps I can help youse do newspaper deliveries or mail runs’.

Dare say you?

We both smiled, Benny deep down had a heart of gold, and it was ironic that Sophie, the toughest nut in the nut- farm  had bought it out in him. 

‘Benny, we don’t do newspapers anymore, but I tell ya, if you’re wiling to join us, we’ll forget about what you did in Afghanistan, for their own good, and just focus on getting you back on the lecture circuit an talking to school kiddies about how you did wonderful things in far away countries to keep Australia safe. Yeah, and in like the cricket test team, show a bit of integrity in the face of adversity’. 

Benny laughed, ‘ya mean this’? And he pulled form his back pocket another piece of yellow sandpaper. Jeez we pissed ourselves, Benny always had something up his sleeve and considering…… he was a great bloke to be around with. 

But whatta bout this?

He pointed to the writhing ball of anger. 

‘Sophe? 

Can’t we just leave her here’?

What? And let her just kark it? 

She may be more dangerous than a blue ringed octopus but she’s got some rights even, he paused, even if she is a Fair Work Commissioner’.

We paused, Benny had a point. We couldn’t just leave her there. 

Yet it was tempting to just quietly piss off. 

What will our heroes do? Will compassion override their sense of survival? Has it come to this? 

Find out in our next tantalising episode, ‘Sophie bound to be gagged’, or ‘Fair work and no play makes a dull Commissioner’!

Dear reader,

Funding grants can get you into hot water. Something about ‘process’ and ‘accountability’.

Another fascinating extract from our scribe from the distant north-west in which he has a touch of the ‘plus la changes’.  Sadly it seems that in spite of the best efforts of bureaucrats to find worthwhile initiatives when the rest of the economy is shut down they’ve failed once again, (in the tradition of secondary and tertiary education) to grasp the meaning of ‘imagination’

This is a source of some reassurance to us at pcbycp as we lie awake at night worried that there may be a Federal ICAC. If there were, in any shape manner or form more robust than ‘insipid’, our recent grant of $2000.00 dollars received for a pie warmer might put us in hot water. The urn which the federal government paid for, ( a handsome 40 litre stainless steel device with a special built in milk warmer), produces a reliable and efficient stream of hot water, for which we are truly grateful. Particularly as Ms Culthorpe has been unwell since returning from her stint as a parliamentary intern.  We are also exceedingly grateful for our allocation of two car-parking spaces in the soon to be constructed multi level car park at our local railway station. Though we don’t possess a car, we are hoping to lease the spaces out to an enterprising man representing one of the big global firms who will build this vital piece of infrastructure. Thus demonstrating with vertical integration and tax benefits the little man will reap great reward from the ” trickle down effect”.

That’s why the P.M likes to keep a lid on accountability. Ask no questions and he’ll tell no lies.

We think that’s what Frank is talking about in this missive, the trickle down effect of funding to indigenous Australians going into the pockets of white and well-meaning bureaucrats so that they may afford a third, fourth or fifth investment property. Thus providing jobs and growth.

We live in hope,

Frank writes…..

Tovarishchi,

Many years ago, Jack Waterford wrote a brilliant article in the Canberra Times in which he discussed ‘Engagement’.

From memory the article started by reminding the readers of the meaning of ‘engagement’ he’d grown up with: Either a military encounter, or a prelude to marriage.
The article then went on to discuss how the word had come to be used as a euphemistic replacement of Government ‘consultation’ with Aboriginal Australia.
In a Dispatch the difference was defined:
Consultation is when you ask (sitting in the dirt)
Engagement is when you tell (pointing the finger)

Michaelia is also working on an ” insipid” federal anti-corruption authority’.

In My Yuendumu Story (yes folks it is still available) I devoted five pages (203-208) to the evolution of the Training Allowance to CDEP, then RJCP and finally and alarmingly CDP. So, imagine my indescribable joy when a ten-page discussion paper for the ‘Indigenous skills, engagement and employment Program’ with its mandatory acronym (ISEP) landed on my desk. Why has the word ‘insipid’ popped into my head?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as8K3H7Rros (Joy to the World- Three Dog Night)

If I’d find some spare time, I was going to study this exciting proposed new program, but I don’t have to. Under the heading:

‘The short and troubled life and sudden death of the Community Development Program’,

the good folk at CAEPR are holding a forum:

 Wednesday, 6 October at 12pm to 1.30pm (presumably AEST) Via Zoom:      https://anu.zoom.us/j/86720124052?pwd=VjM3ajRldWx4QXc3T0h6TjhoUi96Zz09

Apologies for the very short notice

And now the latest from Robert Zimmerman:

Michaelia’s anti corruption authority is promised to have as much bite as a ‘plate of marshmellow’s’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRrlFYg2QkI
So few words, so much said.

See ya’s

Frank

Mikhael, a famous Russian (not to be confused with Gorbi) made the first Kalashnikov at his mums house over a few weekends.

Dear reader, as you may recall , with our heroes up to their necks in trouble they’ve pulled off the impossible and saved themselves and their captor Sophie from oblivion by adding ‘liquid-waste’ to the Lucas electrics warhead. Thus saving themselves from the Bigger BANG! 

But with Sophie waving an AK47 at them, there was another bigger bang awaiting them. And Sophie, now elevated to the bench of the Fair Work Commission wasn’t in a mood to trifle. This workplace agreement was gonna be stitched up good and proper. 

What can our heroes do? With the safety-catch pulled back and the AK waving menacingly at all three of them, including Australia’s most decorated soldier, ‘Benny-boy Roberts Smith. The Question remains, where they about to be plugged to keep Sophies reputation intact?

The Ak47 was less heavy and way handier than the mighty Bren gun. Seen here with digger clearing the grass around the barby.

Sophies reputation? We hear you spluttering over your buttered croissants. Yes indeed even a Fair Work Commissioner needs some reputation in order to deliver wage-theft to an apathetic public. 

Will Sophie pull the trigger? Who’s trigger if it aint Sophie’s? Stand by for this next compelling episode, 

“And you too” she pointed to Benny, ‘Don’t want you blabbing to the tribunal or using me to get you off the hook for what you done in Afghanistan’. Benny looked crestfallen in spite of the VC tattooed to his chest, it offered no protection from an enraged Sophie.  ‘Jeez Ces’, I remarked, ‘Ben’s about as slotted as a retired Melbourne Uni law professor. Yep, and got about as much chance of escaping, but why knock us all off after saving her life? It aint fair’. 

An evil Afghani villager deservedly being shot for not standing upright, saluting and humming a few bars from “the Pub with no beer’ when a proud aussie digger walks by.

Ben turned to us fair and square, and said empathetically, ‘Look it’s been fun hanging round with you two, at first I thought you were just pansies at a Wiggles show, but now I realise you’re made of sterner stuff, and I’ll tell ya this much, war aint fair. And I should know’. 

It was strange to see, after all he’d been through Benny-boy had learnt the irony of pathos and nationalism, a heady mix. ‘Sorry for you Benny-boy, but nationalism is lost on Sophie, like the P.M, who’s the PM for Scotty from Marketing.  She’s the Fair Work Commissioner for Sophie and Sophie alone. You cant change that unalterable fact, they’re a force of utter and unblinding faith in themselves’. 

Sophie ignored Ces’s penetrating insights with a wave of her Kalashnikov,

Most Afghani’s would give there left foot just to be spat on by a proud Aussie digger.

“Have you finished yet? Xi and I have got an important meeting in half an hour and I aint gonna be late. Sorry boys, you’ve done yer bit and I’m gonna let you say just one last thing before I plug ya’. We both squirmed, Sophie had now gone the full gangster, clearly a prerequisite for being a Fair Work Commissioner, and we knew our time was up. 

‘Well then, Sophie, does your stint on the Fair Work Commission include overseas travel? Yeah, Europe, the USA, Aspen, St Moritz and the Costa Brava and other places of recognised international arbitration. Well then, could I just make one last request’? Ces was a wonder of self composure. ‘What is it dead- beat’?  Sophie was in no mood to parley.

‘Well, if you get to Disney-land, he corrected ‘Euro Disney’, would you be able to send a post-card to our tea lady Ms Culthorpe? Might cheer her up after all she’s suffered in Parliament. 

Yeah yeah, is that it’? 

‘Yup’! Ben stoically replied for all of us, being a VC winner he knew how to die like a HERO. 

‘Well then adios amigos’, and with that she pulled the trigger, and we knew it was the end. 

But nothing happened. 

our very own ANZAC Hero ‘Benny- Boy’demonstrates the pulling power of money, influence and mateship via ANZACKERY! YOU BLOODY LEGEND!

Why aint our heroes dead yet? Has Benny stood his ground? Has Sophie got something else planned? Or do AK’s suffer behavioural issues? Find out in the next episode, ‘A finger trigger pulled short’ or ‘Three coins tossed in a fundament, and not much happiness’.