The year that was….Regretful departure of former Attorney General, seen returning betting slips and IOU’s to Crown Casino in lieu of blind trust.

Dear reader, we return to our saga.

Our heroes Ces and Quent in company with arguably Australia’s bravest and most decorated soldier ever ‘Benny-Boy’ Ben Roberts Smith. Prisoners to arguably the most powerful woman on the bench of the Fair Work Commission, Sophie (‘I never pushed the old duck over’) Mirabella.  Will they be pawns to her Machiavellian Machinations? Has their time run out? Will Sophie come the raw prawn and have em cooked, slotted, sliced and diced? Find out in this next thrilling episode: More blind than a blind trust, or, when you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, where’s you’re Christian Porter? 

Waiting for the old PMG phone to answer is testing their nerve. Sophie, greedily picking up the accumulated florins and shillings before stuffing them into her glow-mesh and diamond studded handbag,  (a keepsake from Gina), has a machine pistol levelled at them whilst the other hand clutches the receiver.  It’s all a bit NBN, nothing is happening, but expectations are high. 

Ces and Quent reflect on why Sophie is doing this? Why hadn’t they been slotted before, ? Could it be that as prisoners who knew too much they could be useful?

Regretful departure of Glady’s who is yet to be offered a vacancy on the fair Work Commission.

The phone to be un-answered, could be their ticket to freedom. The rail-tracks vanished into the gloomy distance, and the cavernous, desiccated void filled them with a feeling of dread. A dread undiminished by the hope that perhaps the subterranean rail way gave them a slim chance of escape. Though they knew that rail travel in Australia since the standard gauge was implemented at Albury in the 70’s was in serious decline. 

They waited,  and waited some more, Sophie clung to the receiver, 

Although we had no idea whom she may be talking to we gathered it must be someone right up to the top of the line, perhaps Angus, and then upon consideration of the surreality of this situation, perhaps Xi himself? In the age of super-computers, warp speed and quantum computers the irony was excruciating. Here we were stuck deep down below with a PMG pay phone. It was like Scomo’s climate policy, cept this didn’t have the glossy brochures. It was, at the end of the day….. just a phone. 

P.M texts former Test Captain Tim Paine a condolence message and offers him a possie on the bench of the Fair Work Commission.

With Sophie’s index finger poised over the ‘A’ button. We waited for an answer. Every atom of our being twitched in anticipation. All we could hear was the electric hissing of wires bleached and desiccated out on top. Somewhere along the vastness of the sun-bleached Nullarbor. Somewhere, some-place, on the end of the line was perhaps an individual. Perhaps even an individual like ourselves. Lost, isolated and caught up in a spiralling web of international destiny and interplanetary intrigue. Mere prawns upon the pan strategic chess-board. Chess board, or cheeseboard, if we waited much longer we’d go off!

We waited.   Then all of a sudden the line went ‘click’ and we could hear something on the end of the line. Our hearts raced.  there was something on the other end and unlike the NBN it WORKED! And through the ether, the reliable PMG handset allowed all of us to hear something on the end of the line. On, (for repeated emphasis) on the end of the line.   It seemed by the sound of an ancient tape recorded message. 

And it went like this;

 “ You have dialled the joint Anglo-Australian testing facility at Maralinga.  This is a restricted site and only personnel accredited with the Australian Nuclear Taskforce and provided with full and certified AUKUS clearance may proceed beyond this point.  To do so will result in a criminal prosecution, fines to the order of five hundred pounds and a criminal conviction under the Enemy Aliens and Person of Suspect Skin Colour Act of 1955. 

Please wait whilst we attend to your call’. 

Sad, tragic, and epoch making departure of Alan Jones, contender for Fair Work Commission?

And as soon as it started we could hear the the song from Blue Hills, clearly this tape was very old and it was a wheeze that amongst us, it was Ces and I who could whistle along and ask ourselves, why Blue Hills? Until it dawned upon us that it was binary code. Beamed  out into the void on magnetic tape.  Wireless all those  years ago, ever reliable as the communications standard for anglosphere operatives. It all made sense. Sophie was at the head of something so ancient, it as positively new and refreshing. Like AUKUS it was grounded in EMPIRE!

‘Well Sophie, how long do you think we’ll have to wait’? Ces enquired? 

‘Shut up fuck-face you’ll wait your turn, and let me concentrate!!!

Sophie was the personification of  concentration, she held the receiver as if her life depended upon it, and in the background the theme to Blue Hills was replayed, “ please wait and your call will be answered, the dull phrase repeated itself again and again.    We waited, and besides, down here what else could we do? 

Regretful departure of ‘Member for Manilla’, George Christiansen. “The Colossus”, (cepting Clive Palmer) of Queensland. A cert for Fair Work Commission.

What were we waiting for? Where’s Samuel Becket when you need him? If he was existentialist we were hypo-existential and our situation beyond surreal. The waiting had become a torment, yet we knew that the long wait. Like Scomo’s world breaking climate policies when this was all over it would feel like it they almost didn’t exist. The questions remained unchallenged. Do we exist? What is existence? And was AUKUS around in 1955? Why hadn’t we heard of it only recently when Scomo snotted the French President?  Existentialism, isn’t that a French concept? Why aint it a swear word yet? Don’t be fooled by a silly old Kant. Existentialism like climate change is crap. Find out in the next horological episode; ‘a ticking time bomb might never go off’, or ‘the hands of time might have Parkinson’s’. 

Spider-webs have inspired prison designers for centuries.

Dear reader, another one from Frank.

In this edition Frank draws a a parallel between spiders, their intricate webs and the ensnaring effect of a system designed to process, and monetise, (for the army of white bureaucrats) indigenous children from birth. From this we learn two things. That the researchers in the US who trialled the experiments with drugs on real spiders had way too much time on their hands, and that caffeine seemed to produce the most deranged spider webs. However, (and this is the most salient point), it proves that organisms under the influence of drugs, (humans included) make GREAT ART!

We wonder should caffeine be banned? It would do wonders for the prison system. And for Melburnians in particular, it would accelerate the process of criminalisation of the citizenry. A boon for the private prisons, the construction industry, manufacturers of surveillance equipment and makers of smart uniforms. To suggest, (with a tinge of irony) that there might be humanity in in-humanity.

Frank writes:

Hola amigos,

One of the most powerful political weapons is the diversion. There have been many examples of this in Australian Politics which I won’t bore you with.

Our judges, drawn from the academies of visual arts voted Caffeine induced spider webbing as the winner.

Non ‘spidery’ prison designs are popular in both Australia and Uighurstan. The jury is out as to whether they will be as effective as “spidery prisons”.

Vic police trial ‘Spider-man’ type web emitter to capture a member of the public before paralysing the victim and using the inert body as a food source for the criminal justice system.

Last month the Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner called out U.S. Senator Ted Cruz who had made some ill-informed statements about the NT’s Covid-19 responses. Ultra conservative Senators don’t like to be told they got it wrong and emanating from Texas and spreading like a virus there has been a concerted cyber campaign demonizing the NT’s treatment of Aboriginal people in relation to Covid-19. Untrue allegations of forced vaccinations and military occupation and even deaths (so far, the NT has ‘dodged the bullet’ and hasn’t had a single Covid related death) have elicited much anger and empathy worldwide about this ‘dreadful inhumane’ treatment of Australia’s first peoples. There is even much being made of people “suffering” 40-degree heat in overcrowded houses. The overcrowding predates the pandemic and 40 degrees is normal this time of year.
The ADF (Australian Defence Forces) at the locked-in communities don’t carry weapons and are involved in transferring infected people to quarantine facilities and supplying food and other necessities to people isolated at home. They wear khaki camouflage gear which is much friendlier than the police in their Ninja black uniforms which also predate the pandemic.

I took a trip to Alice Springs yesterday. To return to Yuendumu I was required to be vaccinated (which I am) and to have a negative rapid antigen test within 72 hours of returning. At the walk-in testing site in Alice Springs, the painless test took all of 10 minutes. There was no need for the book I carried in, just in case (Ralph Fold’s ‘Crossed Purposes’). There were no roadblocks. I was told that because Alice Springs had no known cases of Covid-19 it had been decided to trust community residents to do the right thing.

Members of the ADF trial purpose-built spider web emitters on Afghani’s before distribution to NT and Victoria Police.

In relation to Child welfare and protection, the NT Government is developing an information sharing database dubbed “Care System”.
The fact that the NT Government allocated $64 million to develop the Care System, I think is somewhat ironic.

From My Yuendumu Story (page 30). “A complex web of laws and regulations and protocols is now used to ensnare Indigenous children, a web once caught in, it is very difficult to break free from”

This is how the authorities tout the system:
“ It will do this by ensuring agencies like Police, Territory Families, Housing and Communities, Health, Education and Attorney General have access to the same information through a single case file.
This “holistic view of the child” is expected to “increase opportunities for early intervention”, while improving interaction with non-government, private service providers.”
Nothing about the child and his/her extended family.

In other words, it will be even harder to break free from the web.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9CTCs8_66U

The Right hand image, a spider’s web woven under the influence of marijuana. The spider wove the left hand web after the expenditure of $64 million.

Judges agree that LSD is ‘cosmic’ whilst caffeine demonstrates the ‘degenerate tendencies’ found in modern art.

There are many reasons to be concerned about the treatment of Australia’s First Peoples and their descendants, such as how the NT government deals with child protection and how the Federal Government is intent on further disempowering NT communities by the euphemistically named “Economic Empowerment” amendments to the NT Land Rights Act.
Anyway, time for a nice song:

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

Adios,

We, (the editor) wonder why alcohol was not trialled on spiders?

Frank

Olden days cricket broadcasters practising Wireless skills.

Dear reader, we return to our saga, our heroes no closer to finding out who defiled Mrs Culthorpe our Tea-lady, and Sophie, in spite of innumerable setbacks as indomitable as ever. Stuck with the task of trying to find pre-decimal coinage to feed the old PMG payphone, and only Ces and Quent old enough to know of its complex workings, we wait. In the gloom. Deep down. By what appears to be a railway track, going who knows where? And, ‘where will this end’? We hear you say? 

Keith Miller, gentleman on and off the field proof-reads Princess Margaret’s tour itinerary

Like the PM’s Climate enthusiasm, we have no idea, as we just make it up as we go along, and that’s why we’re the truly lucky country. Led by second tier people. Because to be first tier, might result in us throwing off the mind-shackle of monarchy and all the toadying colonialist rubbish that some of those old men cling to. Perhaps they’re right? Perhaps this editorial may be wrong? Either way, the currency still has Her Majesty’s head on it, and it’s comforting to know at the very least until her sad demise, we wont have to re- purpose our currency for the arrival of ‘jug-ears’. 

But all this is an aside to the peril awaiting our heroes, at a siding in the middle of know-where?

Strap yourself in and be prepared for one hell of a ride with Australia’s arguably most principled ex politician, Sophie Mirabella, as she goes right to the top to ensure that whatever happens Australia has a NUCLEAR FUTURE!!

Read on….

By this stage our clothes were a dishevelled mess, and our pockets hanging out like so many rabbits ears made us wonder why Benny had not on trained impulse slotted us with his Steyr right there and then, 

In the olden days, girls copped quite a few short pitched balls on the chin……

‘Sorry Sophie we’re outta luck, hang on’… Benny exclaimed; ’I’ve got an idea, all I want youse to do is just stand back, When I say “ Now” look between the train tracks” you never know someone in the 50’s may have dropped the odd coin and after all these years it may be waiting to be found. And besides, I wanna try out this new flare I was given for use in Tarren Kwot, its said to illuminate more powerfully than a star shell, white phosphorus and White King, our first line of defence against the Mujahideen, bet you didn’t know that’!!

We were spell bound, Benny’s training had prepared him for any circumstance, and we could tell just there and then, though slotted by Sophie, we were being treated with dignity. That was at the core of the SAS credo, and hard cheese on any little Afghani who dared quastion it!

‘Stand back’! Benny took the cap off the flare, it fizzled, fuzzed, spluttered and quietly went out. ‘Bloody hell, what the’!!! He turned it over in the dim glow of his night vision head set. ‘Should’ve known, made in Australia, not a a patch on the stuff the yanks have’. 

K.P and Warney, gentlemen on and off the field

‘Stop wasting time’!! And in her fury Sophie punched the phone set, and to our astonishment, she must have tricked a spring, for from the bottom of the phone an aperture disgorged a stream of shillings and florins, which went clattering onto the floor. Greedily we picked it up, “What a jackpot’ we roared. ‘Yes”! Sophie gleefully stuffing the coins into her Lurex and diamond encrusted handbag, a token from Gina,  ‘its ALL MINE!!!!  And, this means we’ll be outta here! Just a quick call! I have incredible influence, and the world will hold its breath’!! 

Tim Paine, ( former Captain Australian X1)uses “tradesmens entry” to pack up his things and get outta cricket” for upsetting C.A’s executive image of themselves.

Standing in awed silence, we watched as she put two coins in the slot, the receiver whirred and clicked and we waited.  The anticipation was palpable. Sophie was near rope-able, and we were pulped.  Will our pulp be just grist to Sophies mill?  find out in our next refining episode, “slotted to coin a phrase”, or  ‘Toss up and be short – changed’

Former Test captain demonstrates new Urn-phone. FAIL-SAFE! (accredited by ACB)

Warney, Spin bowler, test legend in “Phwaaahhh moment’, after sending a salacious text message. (Content censored by ACB)

Dear reader, we return to our saga, our heroes Ces and Quent trapped deep down below the desert sands of Maralinga, in the pursuit of our Tea-lady Ms Culthorpe’s’ penis wielding oppressor a forlorn hope. They find themselves beside a subterranean train track with Sophie, (arguably Australia’s most powerful Fair Work Commissioner) waiting for something to happen.

In their current predicament they’re short of ‘two bob’ or two shillings to put into the old PMG pay phone. In an exctasy of fumbling they turn out pockets and wallets in search of an illusive pre-decimal piece. Have they run outta luck?  Is finding an old two bob piece as hopeless as finding an Australian test cricketer who doesn’t have form on the mobile?  Find out in this next communicationally fraught episode, and read in anticipation akin to the conga-line of aboriginal deaths in custody enquiries just grows and grows.  Because there’s always improvements to the system that can be made, and efficiencies won from the triple bottom line in monetising the criminal justice system is always good for the share-holders.

‘I aint even got ten cents’, Ces fumed, as he turned out the inside pocket of his safari jacket. Quent was in similar bother, feeling the lining of this tweed jacket, and giving the elbow pad a good squeeze, just in case his uncle Waldo had secreted a florin or two on game day, cos access to the footy in the olden days cost you two bob. 

Jeff Kennett discusses Johnny Howard with Andrew Peacock in the olden days when phones were referred to as “bricks’.

‘Hurry, you useless bastards’! Sophie jeered.  Benny-Boy was eerily silent as Ces explained to him that in the olden days when Australia was a manufacturing giant, producing Qualcast, AWA, PYE and Hills hoists, the shilling was the one with the merino on it, cos Australia rode high on ‘the sheeps back’. This was a difficult concept for Benny to grasp, and Ces was at pains to explain; ‘in the olden days we didn’t have a complex economy like we do now with the twin streams of mining and real estate’. Ces elaborated, ‘whilst the florin had the coat of arms….. ‘Jeez’! Benny enthused, ‘like the Fat Lady’s Arms’? ‘Nup’! Ces replied, “it was the Australian coat of arms”!! 

‘Oh yeah Benny replied enthusiastically, ‘I seen that’s the one with the Crown on it’? 

‘Nup mate that’s the different coat of arms other than the main driver of governance, economy and social policy that’s Crown Casino. Very similar, but if Ms Culthorpe had done her stint at Crown, she’d probably be managing director of the ethics and internal gaming enforcement agency, rather than a physical and mental wreck endured as a federal parliamentary intern’.

Sophie chipped, in, ‘she should consider herself lucky, if she’s still your tea- lady she’s still got a job, which is better than I can say for ‘Tudgey’s’  secretary, last thing I heard she can’t even get a job in a fish and chip shop’!

Mr Whu accepts “Bjelke Award” from CCP for establishing Australia’s newest Police State. And the ‘Leunig Award’ for turning a blind eye to the sacking of another cartoonist for daring to do what cartoonists do.

‘That’s a bit unfair’, Ces opined; ‘fish and chip shops are a noble profession’! 

 “Yeah” Benny chimed in, ‘being able  to deep fry fish and do a hamburger at the same time requires multi- skilling, ever seen a politician do that’? We paused, there was one politician in Queensland who had form, but decency prevented her name for ushering from our lips.  Even in a stygian downstairs environment we were still bound to codes of decorum. 

‘Well then’, Sophie demanded,’Have you got any coins? Cos if you aint, it looks like time’s up for youse’… she pointed her hand-gun and her bejewelled trigger finger at us, ‘because if you aint got any coins, boys it’s the proverbial end of the line’!!! 

End of the line sounded kinda final.. ‘You mean we’re gonna be slotted”? Ces enquired. 

‘You mean it’s where we cash in our chips’? Quent probed

Loose lips, can SINK SHIPS!

‘Is this where we play the Last Post’? Ben quizzed.

‘Yep boys you’d betta think of something quick cos as a Fair Work Commissioner, I’ve given you plenty of rope, and you know what they say in China’?

‘That’ll be a 24, a 12 and a 35 with oyster sauce’? Ces replied, 

‘Nup, it just means for crimes against the state I’m your jury, judge and executioner, and you’re gonna be dealt with right here and now, and there’s no use for crying ‘foul’, or ‘no ball’, cos in China they don’t get cricket, sandpaper, text messages or Umpires. THEY JUST GET ON WITH IT!!!!

No Blue, Red or Green tape, it’s an efficiency you’d DIE FOR’!

Mobile phone etiquette is well established

Is this it?  Is this the final leap? The last train to Clarksville? Where the hell is Clarksville anyway? What is this Monkee business?  Find out in the next rail-wayed episode; ‘Two tickets to Taiwan and no returns’, or ‘Steel wheels are not easily punctured’. 

Some people are so horribly disfigured by botched plastic surgery they have to wear full- face coverings for the rest of their lives.

Another short one from Frank,

Wearing snappy tailored suits may help your appearance in multi- media presentations.

In this instance Frank regrets not seeking the plastic surgeons craft. Clearly he understands that in media, the first principle is looking good. And if youth is something of a memory, plastic surgeons can perform wonders. Recently there’s been some poor press relating to their craft, but it’s all misunderstanding. Some people just don’t appreciate how changing their face, body or organ transplants can pose some risk, and besides, beauty is a very personal thing.  It can be entirely subjective, and though the surgeon may not be qualified to do anything other than repair a broken toe nail, or anything remotely to do with surgery as a profession it doesn’t mean that the industry needs a shakeup or an over-arching authority. That would just create another layer of bureaucracy. And we don’t need that.

Just dark glasses and a hat can conceal many unsightly blemishes

It’s like political donations and declaring vested interests. We don’t need an over-arching anti-corruption agency because any oversight is purely coincident. And besides we know, as the PM tells us so, that jobs for the boys and cronyism is just a by-product of good governance. Nothing to see here, move along, and what’s Glasgow about anyway??

Often ugliness is usually associated with poverty. More often than not poor people are poor because they’re ugly.

So we’re glad we’ve cleared this issue up and hope that the gas-led recovery really delivers for the most singular issue facing the Australian people. What is that you may ask.? Equity? Transparency? Accountability?  No, something much more important! Value for shareholders and with a bit of luck the majority of shareholders will be super funds. What goes around comes around. But at the end of the day, face or no face you’ve gotta live with it, so get used to it.

Frank writes….

Hola amigos y otros,

In politics being ugly may not necessarily hold you back.

Older people will be familiar with looking into a mirror and asking themselves “Who is that old bastard?” Similarly hearing yourself talk or watching yourself talk is a cringeworthy experience, especially in a 50 minute long video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeYS86Cp7M4

Frank

The ever reliable PMG phone. ‘As easy as A and B’!

Dear reader we hit it off where we didn’t quite hit it in the first place, downstairs below the dusty dust bowl they call ‘Maralinga’. Surrounded by pommy nukes and lost in some place closely approximating the colloquial term ‘the bush’. Its an arbitrary construct at the best of times , but for those who are now versed in Aussie folklore it means anything outta the capitals and perceived as part of Barnaby’s bailiwick. Either way its code for insular and those in our community who still share a fondness for hanging, coal and old style, (more hanging) religion.. Our heroes are in a serious pickle, following Sophie in search of something deep-down and top secret, all pointing to Australia’s opportunity as a nuclear super power way back when…. And with luck to be rekindled under the august and unquestionable authority of ‘AUKUS’

Read on…

We were dumbfounded ..’Haha it’s still here, just as I left it’…

Not to be confused with the PNG Phone, (equally reliable)

The ancient PMG phone was still dyna-bolted to the wall. Sophie wiped away the dust and an old telephone receiver concealed behind an aperture was grasped. Sophie was about to make a phone call, old style. She wiped the coating of dust for the hand-piece, and tapped the cradle and the two plungers and we could hear the faint crackle of the live line. Incredibly after seventy odd years it was still active. WE could see the box, with the distinctive A and B buttons, and the phone, one of the old winder through to the operator types. It was a credit to the PMG that they could make a phone that was so robust, and like the Qualcast and the Sunbeam were still providing reliable service. ‘Australian made’ Benny Boy proudly proclaimed, Yes Benny, ‘but you’d better leave it to the experts this time as we’re old enough know how to use the thing. Shhhh. Sophie Commanded, I’m Trying to get this call through’! 

Before the NBN not everyone was employed as an executive on Prime Ministerial salaries and bonuses. Underlings had to connect the wires and plugs by hand.

‘To whom’? we queried, ‘None of your business’!

‘Well Sophe, hate to tell you this, but you’ve gotta put money in the slot. You can’t expect it to just to ring through unless you’ve heard the ‘ping’ of the coin dropping into the slot. 

What the’, Sophie lit another Sobrani, you could tell she had no idea what we were talking about.

We could tell that Sophie working earnestly for the public in every capacity and now as a celebrated Fair Work Commissioner had never used a payphone. 

‘What you’ve gotta do Sophie is either drop a sixpence, or a shilling into the slot. If it’s 1950’s it wont use twenty cent pieces and chances are a dollar would just come out the other end. 

And you had to spend more than a penny to get through

And besides, do you carry cash’?

Sophies parents being introduced to decimal currency in the 60’s

Knowing Sophie was a Fair Work Commissioner we knew she wouldn’t stoop to paying cash. That was why a Fair Work Commissioner had to be aloof from the day to day grind.  We also knew that she wouldn’t know how much basic services, telephone, rent, electricity would cost.  Part of being a Fair Work Commissioner is to be relieved of such petty concerns. In doing so that gave them the wisdom to determine just how much lower paid workers should be punished. That’s why she was paid over 400 k a year. The strain of having to make these arbitrary and bludgeoning decisions took a toll, “ just like bureaucrats in the aboriginal industry’ Ces opined; ‘they need the grotesque salaries, so as not to become affected by “ localism and aborginality, ‘ if that were to happen they’d loose all perspective and perhaps that would result in a loss of prestige and sales to Toyota Land Cruisers and investment properties. Yep,  you’re right Ces,  that would have a knock-on effect and probably cause the housing industry to collapse. 

Yep, we call it the butterfly effect, or in deference to Australia’s dealing with the frogs, ‘the papillon effect’, but nuanced cos we don’t get subtlety in Australian politics, or foreign- ness per se’. It seemed ironic that Ces would use a term such as ‘Per-se’ which sounded pretty foreign, but he made the point sometimes only a foreign word could capture something that just could not be condensed into  the colourful and nuanced vocabulary of “Australian English”. 

Unless you were on the “Bush Telegraph”, which was free provided you didnt mind having your reputation tarnished by exaggration and hyperbole.

 Sophie then asked us, ‘ok any of you got two bob’? 

There was a catch, it was a pay phone, and incredibly after all those decades, still active. 

Did any of us have a bob?? 

Who still carried cash? 

We emptied out pockets, nothing…. 

This was our way out and all of a sudden we were rifling our pockets, underwear, shoe laces for a pre decimal florin. 

Because communication in the bush is all about upholding ‘family values’.

Is it a duodecimal denouement, is this the end of their worth as currency, find out in the next denominational episode; ‘Three clowns in the fundament’, or ‘toss a coin and call me liar’,  but fer fuck-sakes not a Ju- LIAR’!

JAY and SCOMO, Mateship borne through KING-COAL and COP Intransigence! GO NUCLEAR!

Dear reader, we return to our saga of Ces and Quent in pursuit of the truth behind Ms Culthorpe who was so cruelly defiled as an intern in the Nation’s Parliament. With more twists and turns than the irrefutable logic of the PM’s climate response, there seems to be no way out other than the ‘Australian Way’. Is the ‘Australian Way’ enough? Is it impossible to move forward, when the entire apparatus of everything strives to hold you back? Will Kurds find their weigh? Have Ces and Quent run out of puff? And has Sophie got them slotted for something more hideous than a one way ticket to Kabul with ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith in tow? Read on if you dare for as the SAS emblem proclaims; ‘Who Dares Wins’. (some of the time)…. 

Minister for Black-face Matt Canavan is all for NUCLEAR!

As we recall, our heroes were being led to an underground rail line built by who knows what to who knows where? Perhaps, (we hesitate to ask) by the same alchemic force that contrived the Federal climate policy….

Ces began the line of enquiry, 

‘Excuse us Sophie, but this rail line. Would you mind telling us, where does it go to and how long has it been here’? 

Sophie lit a Sobrani, and calmly informed us; ‘this little beauty, an underground rail link, the poms built it in the fifties. They had tunnels built all under the desert. They’re good at building underground sewers and systems. This was to provide secret access to top level scientists, KGB agents and members of the CIA without too much publicity. In the 50’s we all had a share in the nuclear pie, and joined forces, I bet ya didn’t know that!!!  And you know that we were well on the road, to making Australia a global NUCLEAR SUPERPOWER’!

Sophie, was in fine form, as a Fair Work Commissioner, she clearly knew how to articulate a righteous and infallible position. 

‘Not only that, we had uranium coming out of our ears, everyone was happy to buy it, and then, (she took another drag on the Sobrani and we marvelled at the bluish smoke ring as it spiralled and twisted in the gloom) the whole thing came crashing down, And do you now what made it all crumble’?

“Was it tariffs’? Quent timidly asked, 

‘Nup’!

‘Was it an interfering regulatory authority like the United Nations’?

‘Nah. Think again’?

‘Was it the threat of takeover and annihilation at the spread of global communism that stopped it’?

Barnaby sees GOLD STANDARD in going NUCLEAR

‘Nup, it was the dickhead running the so -called ‘Australian Academy of Science’? 

‘Macfarlane Burnett’!!!

She said the words as she spat them out through gritted teeth. He’s the drongo who questioned nuclear proliferation, TROUBLE MAKERS’!

Apparently he was worried about the storage of spent fuel reactor leaks and all that dumb greeny shit hyperbole, that’s stopped us from selling of the national parks, privatising national health and funding rat-bag lefty stirrers to sit on boards of enquiry. It was stopped because as a nation, we lost faith in ourselves. It was if, we all got caught in the fear of the NEW! We choked on a glorious future of Nuclear POWER! Whatever happened there-after, tariffs, the closing of Qualcast, and the death of great Australian names, ‘Victa, Hills and Vegemite’, all went off-shore. From thereon whatever we managed to manufacture was held down by green tape. Got to the stage you couldn’t clear the land of natives and let off atomic devices without exhaustive environmental checks. In a word,  it just got too fucking hard.  We lost out mojo, and then we became the backwater for R and D we are today. Today, you mention R and D and the Real Estate industry want a slice, and the coal industry want whatever’s left for ‘Clean-Coal’ and carbon storage, when the real deal all along was NUCLEAR!

Since pissing off the frogs, Scomo has got us going nuclear all the way. And you know what, it’s gonna make me and my partner FILTHY RICH’!

Your partner?

Yep my partner in crime, he’s the best of the best and he’s out current Energy Minister, Ya didn’t know that!! But now you do, don’t pretend to be surprised, 

Minister for Nuclear a CHAMPION for NUCLEAR AUSTRALIA!

Who made squillions outta water futures?

Who has the Cayman registered company?

Who diverted rivers of gold for  improvement” from the NSW government

Who confected the campaign against the Sydney Council,

And who, pretends to champion a technical solution to stuff that doesn’t work

Me old mate, Angus, 

Through Angus I got to meet Xi, and get Vlad in on it, we’re gonna make a killing that’ll make Geoff Bezos wanna give up. 

And i’ll be in front. As the deal maker, and once again Australia will have a NUCLEAR FUTURE!!! 

The sun will shine for a Nuclear Future, 

Kiddies will sing for a nuclear future, 

And the denizens of our interior, the dry dusty wasteland will benefit by being a global leader in nuclear waste storage’!! 

We could tell in all fairness, Sophie had a point, being a Fair Work Commissioner we gave her full marks for articulating the vision that put taxpayers funds and the Commonwealth in the pockets of cronies and carpet-baggers. ‘I suppose’, Ces, reflected, ‘its what makes the world go round’.

Keith Pitt, will go NUCLEAR if he cant go BALLISTIC on COAL!

But is that all that makes the world go round? Find our in our next circumferential episode, ‘Spin is all the world vision Scomo has”, or;  ‘What goes round might more often than not, be round’. 

Dear reader, another fragment from Frank.

In this missive he suggests that important legislation is pushed through Parliament by stealth. How could this be we ask?  Haven’t we got the most representative parliament any lobbyist could wish for? And if it aint broke for Coal, Big-Business, rent – seekers and the Superannuation Industry and reputable enterprises such as Sportsbet 24/7 and Crown Casino, how could it get any more representative?  Surely it couldn’t be held in trust for the people. Surely that’s taking democracy too far. What is Frank on about. We at pcbycp are deeply confused, but Frank could be onto something. He writes…

Hi friends and others,

On 18^th June 1981 the first flight of a stealth aircraft took place. It was the F-117 Nighthawk designed to be invisible to radar.

So too, much legislation passes through the Australian Parliament by stealth, invisible to scrutiny.

Stealth 2. Good to see no-one bothered to turn up to push through the legislation.

Pictured above is the Senate passing the Stronger Futures legislation on 29/6/2012 which from memory was ahead of the release of the report on a Parliamentary inquiry into the proposed legislation. (I make it 6 people in the chamber)

The Central Land Council (CLC) held a meeting at Tennant Creek from 2 to 4 November.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz1TUkLCvzY There is a meeting here tonight…

Stealth 3 Australia’s most decorated soldier Ben Roberts Smith recites ‘the Good Ship Venus’ to adoring Afghani kiddies before stealthily and single-handedly killing 15 suspected Afghan terrorists from their stronghold at a Kabul flower stall.

 The 5^th November was the deadline for submissions to the Senate Inquiry into the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021
Thus Yuendumu delegates to the CLC meeting had one day left to return from Tennant Creek (A distance of 613.2 Km via the Stuart Highway), read the 80 pages of legalese obfuscation and make a response. It won’t surprise you that it didn’t happen.

On 6^th of November, I caught up with three Senior Yuendumu Warlpiri Men who’d been to the Tennant Creek meeting. Independently I asked these men:

“Have you heard of the ‘Economic Empowerment’ proposed amendments to the Land Rights Act? “, and “Was this mentioned at the meeting?”

All three men answered both questions without hesitation- “NO”

Stealth 4. Unarmed woman tasered, sprayed and pole-axed by Victorian Police trained in “Public Order Response”. Stealth tactics learnt in the field post-intervention and applied to the citizenry at large to ensure Victoria is awarded the ‘Bjelke Medal’ for establishing a ’21st Century Police State’

On 25^th August 2021 Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt did a media release which started with:
The Morrison Government has today introduced to Parliament the most comprehensive set of reforms to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 since its enactment, with the Economic Empowerment Bill.

I won’t repeat my objections to this Bill.

Further down Ken Wyatt’s Media Release there is this:

“These reforms, co-designed with the Northern Territory Land Councils, deliver on what Indigenous Australians in the NT have been seeking for decades.”
I wonder if my three friends are aware of having sought what these reforms deliver for decades?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtGmZARZivc and here a song from around the time Aborigines in the NT got Land Rights.

And we thought it was about drugs.

I for one ain’t buying this legislation.

Chau,

Stealth 5. Representation by stealth. An un-elected lump of coal stuns parliament with best maiden speech since Federation.

Frank

The new broom in Canberra. Keefy brings along a lump of uranium ore to show and tell, (Parliament)

Dear reader, we return to the vexed question of trust and International affairs from the perspective of our two captive heroes Ces and Quent, who find themselves, luckless and subterranean at the behest of Australia’powerfullest, most powerful woman and Fair Work Commissioner, Sophie Mirabella.  Has the luck run out?  Or is there time yet to arrest their decline. ‘Decline and Fall’, as Gibbon said. ‘Who the fuck’s he’? Scomo said. ‘It’s irrelevant’ Barnaby insists, ‘cos at the end of the day, the electorate is apathetic and no one really gives a toss’… toss on…

‘Don’t even open yer mouths’, Sophie was furiously insistent.. 

We waited, her outline in the pallid light a picture of porcine pulchritude. 

We waited. 

We could see Sophie peering into the gloom, she had a arrived at another junction, and faintly, almost imperceptibly, we could feel a soft breeze. Ces noticed the change and whispered, ‘there must be a way out, can you feel it’? And sure enough, the breeze, fresh and arid, promised us a hope, eternal and remote, of escape.

Keefy is fucken serious about coal and urianium and other shit wot the lobbyists pay him to care about.

We waited 

“Now’, Sophie whispered; ‘I want you to come towards me, and Benny-Boy, have a couple of grenades at the ready, for if we have to use em I don’t want there to be any doubt. 

Get me’?

Benny grunted acknowledgement, and the three of us shimmied along the side of the corridor until we arrived on a platform of sorts. 

‘It’s along here, I left it last time, but I’m not sure if ‘they’ have discovered it yet. 

‘They’? We enquired, ‘none of your business’!!

Sure keefy aint Arty Caldwell?

‘I’ll tell you when it’s safe to do so. 

Now give me a hand, and Benny, can you shone your combat ready illuminatory hand piece in this direction’? Benny quick as lightning, shone a torch below. Why it wasn’t just referred to as a ‘torch’ was beyond us but we knew as the former head of the senate committee on military procurement Sophie was up to date on all the latest military terminology and knew to the nearest cent how much a triple A battery would cost. That’s why it’s sensible not to question military procurement, as it’s beyond most ordinary folks comprehension, and besides it’s secret and to do so would compromise the national interest. ‘Just like witness K’! Ces mused, ‘we have to imprison citizens who tell us our government throws away the rule book to screw an impoverished raped over country to preserve our integrity at the negotiation table at Glasgow and beyond. If we’re bent, people know we have diplomatic clout and ruthlessness to join the table.  Without that sort of duplicity we’re’, he paused for additional effect… “a global nobody”. 

Ces was right, that’s the spirit that had assisted our PM in eschewing the niceties of Glasgow and a universal accord via the ‘Australian way’. Scomo had shown to all tin-pot potentates and French speaking people that Australia would not be trifled with. And in doing so our nation, and the people he represented had won ‘International Respect”. 

Scomo and Barnaby seem to think so, they bought along a lump of coal to show and tell and it caused OUTRAGE

The light from the torch indicated that just two feet below us a track, two thin ribbons of metal going in either direction, and sensing the breeze blowing from the starboard quarter we all knew instinctively which direction to take. ‘This way’ Sophie pointed, ‘and help me down’! With one hand Benny-boy lifted our exalted Fair Work Commissioner and put her down. 

‘Then, ‘follow me’. Quietly we trudged, hoping against all hope that we would soon be in broad daylight.  Away from Angus’ and Xi’s cronies and once freed we would find out just who it was who defiled our Tea-lady Ms Culthorpe in the Nation’s Parliament, and perhaps from the P.M himself, get to the truth. 

Truth or no truth we had to ask Sophie, how the rail line in the middle of nowhere was built for what purpose and to what end? Is there an end? And what could it possibly mean? Find out in our next testimential episode; ‘a clock ticks to a timelesss beat some-times’  or  ‘not even synchopated rhythm can help you find the groove when your wearing corduroy underpants’. 

Dear reader, we return to where we left off

SCOMO struts the world stage. ‘Internationally famous in Australia’!

Our heroes stuck below a cavern full of pommy nukes at Maralinga and being led by Angus’s and Xi’s most powerful hench-person, Sophie Mirabella. Can things get worse? You may have to ask a  submariner or a lump of coal for the answer. For coal is black, as black as night. And like our PM, there’s no telling wrong from right. 

We shuffled in single file, Benny’s breathing growing louder and louder as he determined which weapons system to use in a confined space. We appreciated his dilemma as in a tunnel one had to be very careful about concussion. Too much explosive and we’d all be hit, whereas, a bullet could dangerously ricochet and cause untold damage. Unlike the open space and villages of Tarren Kwot it was difficult to negotiate a way through the gloom and more difficult still, (on the off chance), to secure by a prodigious task of confected heroism, pick up another V.C. 

That would be a bar to the V.C.

(Scomo to Scomo) ” just pretend you give a fuck about clmate change, no one else in the Coalition does…. nor does Labor either’!

Could it be done? 

The thought rattled around inside ‘Benny Boys’ head.  That would mean more product endorsement, more lectures to kiddies, not in school rooms, but packed stadia, and perhaps become a managing director, not just of Seven but Foxtel and the entire panoply of Sky News. As these thoughts raced through Benny’s head, we were still mired in worry. Worry that our situation, like our hope for a considered science – based federal climate policy was set perhaps a bar too high. Was it tempting fate to just hope that decency and common sense would be enough to see us through? Was the behaviour evinced by our government at Glasgow indicative of Australians’ at large, to tell the world to go get stuffed, mind yer own business and either fuck off or learn; ‘The Australian Way’? Was ‘the Australian way’ the only way? 

Was the ‘Australian Way’ the same as being ‘Un- Australian’, which was dog-whistle for wops, dago’s, anything with a whiff of Camembert , Rochefort or Brie? Or perhaps anyone who eschewed the rationale of yellow sandpaper and winning at all costs even if it meant cheating? 

Prince Chales to Scomo; “Camilla and I think Awstwalia’s stance is unbecoming’ and on another note your breath stinks of either Rochefort or Brie, fer chrissakes do something about it’!

Because in the end, winning, whether it be on the cricket pitch, at Glasgow or as the number one carbon emitter per person globally, is all that counts! 

Benny tried to make light of our situation. In a tight squeeze you could rely on a member of the SAS to be cheery, that’s what made them outstanding soldiers in the field, feared and respected the world over.   ‘Did I ever tell you boys about the night at the Fat Lady’s Arms, when we held a review for the arrival of the UK Special Envoy on UXB’s, (Un-exploded bombs)  Prince Andrew”? 

(Scomo to Barnaby) ‘After my stint in Glasgow I promise you and yer mate Keefy a night out at the Fat Lady’s Arms for being such good sports and for backing me up on my fracas with the frogs’!

We smiled, another Prince Andrew story, this’ll get us through these dark days we thought to ourselves.  ‘No Benny do tell’?  It was comforting that Benny held the great tradition of the  Aussie yarn intact. Something that had not yet been atomised by the twin pillars of social media and instagram.  “Well,  (Benny warmed to his subject)  its like this see, (Benny relished the opportunity to spin a good yarn). Yarn spinning is all in the telling and we knew that Benny was an expert in the great  Aussie tradition of mixing fact with a helluva lot of fiction. In this respect he was a bloody legend. Eagerly we rejoiced for some relief and the anticipation of a yarn well told.  ‘There’s this contortionist, a dwarf and a Afghani snake-charmer and they walked into this pub, and the contortionist said to the snake charmer, I bet you fifty bucks the dwarf has….. “ Shhhhhhh” Sophie admonished, Stop right now, there’s something coming. STAND DEAD STILL’….. 

We stood frozen…..what else could we do?  We were still trapped, and with Sophie in charge there was no mistake. Just like  an ordinary low-paid wage earner before the Fair Work Commission we were still in deep shit…and Sophie all smeared mascara and over- applied lippy would never let us forget it. 

And there was always the chilling thought, that perhaps in front of us, behind us, to either side, behind any inspection portal niche or reinforced steel and titanium door not yet earmarked for Australia’s future submarines program, there may still be a de-activated pommy nuke. One chance encounter could trigger a catastrophe greater in all estimation than both our abrogation at Glasgow or our shabby denouement of the French president.  Because for being foreign, he Bloody well deserved it!  And why? Because that’s ‘the Australian way’!

Is there any other way? 

Find out in our next Francophillic episode, “ Fully Franked and Furious”! or, “is to be fully franked, frank enough…. frankly?”