Whilst kleptocrats and demagogues rule the world Australaia can take comfort in having a stable and trusted democracy.

Dear reader, we take up were we left off, our heroes, with the astute guidance of Australia’s bravest and most decorated soldier ever ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith, toying with the idea of using the Aldis lamp cable as a way of getting off the suspended tramcar and finding escape in the inky black murkiness below.  Because as you may recall, Terry who had spent the last sixty years tirelessly maintaining the underground city knew of a building and within it, he hinted in the strongest possible terms that inside this building perhaps,  lay the remote possibility of their salvation. 

Immersed in what had now become a full-blown argument, they watched as Sophie and Dutto, each with their own power-play to become Australia’s most powerful and richest individuals battled it out for the final word. And our heroes fearing the worst knew that if the final word was reached, they would be in for the final curtain. 

Where corporations are governed by notions of fair play and decency

Intently they could hear the row, in the darkness, in the enormous underground chamber, the noise was distinct, there was no interference, cept the furious workings of Benny-boys hands as he played out the chord from the Aldis lamp and counting in whispers counted off the metres as it descended inch by inch metre by metre down, down, down into the stygian inkiness. 

“You’re a fucken Queensland copper and you talk of principle’

‘Yeah but at least I don’t have an old law professor locked up in my back shed’!

‘How dare you say that! He chose to live in the chook shed on the back paddock!!!

‘Yeah right, is that why your old man got lifted into a safe senate seat for service to chook-sheds and retired professors’?

where our elected politicans are in touch with the popular sentiment of the electorate

‘You’re just jealous cos you lost the ballot to Scomo’.

Jealous! Any ballot you’ve stood in, the public walk and then run as fast as they fucken can,  the other way. You’re un-electable. Because  not only are you fat, ugly and sociopathic, you’re just at the end of the day un- likeable’!!

With that Sophie kicked the tyres of the Special Response Vehicle.

‘You fucken baldy CxxT’! She screamed, ‘You Queenslanders are always so bloody righteous and so bloody ambitious’!, 

From within the armoured vehicle:’ Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle’…

‘Get fucked’!

Terry and our heroes blushed at the coarse language, not since Jeff’s call to Andrew Peacock had they heard such profanity.  ‘For a lady clearly’ Ces whispered, ‘she’s not a nice girl’.  

“Yeah” Quent whispered back, “like Grace, they don’t know how to be polite and lady- like’. 

‘Yeah, like at the fat lady’s arms’,

Blokes who understand women and where they belong and can play a good tune on the ukulele

We chuckled at Benny’s ill- timed reference to Australia’s finest at war with the Afghani juggernaut, and knew that in good time the complete and utter disaster  that is Afghanistan will go down in Australian folklore as “ our finest hour”. But for now, we just held on…and then with an audible shriek, we could hear, ‘ Fuck you Dutto, i’ll bring down you , the government and everyone in it , and when I mean business I mean business’!

Sophie turned and made her way back to the tramcar fuming.  We could hear her jack boots clack clack clacking along the duckboard suspended between the tracks. Something had gone terribly wrong. They’d clearly arrived at an impasse. Clearly Dutto was not prepared to roll over for Sophie who was in league with Xi as she had investments,  linked via the Cayman Islands with Angus and wanted a guarantee from Xi that they’d be respected. No guarantee was forthcoming. 

On that issue , as always a Queenslander was not for budging. 

Blokes who can draw a line in the sand

Sophie was angry, her MP40 useless against the Public Order Response Vehicle, she sprayed the armour plate and the bullets glanced harmlessly off. From within, the sound of Dutto’s Shrek- like laughter. , ‘Your bullets can’t harm me Sophie, it’s like being hit over the head with a sack of wet mice’. 

Swearing at the top of her voice, she retaliated. ‘Say what you like Peter, but I’ll have the last say, you can tell Angus that my loyalty is with Xi, and you cant touch me’!!! 

From within the armour plated vehicle, they could hear Dutto guffaw, ‘jeez Sophe gonna make me’? You and who’s fucken army!!, not even Gina would help ya cos at the end of the day it’s not your power, your graft, your position as a fair fucken work commissioner, but the  fact that at the end of the day you’re too fucken ugly to get a gig anywhere else than the bloke that runs China. And as far Im concerned that don’t mean NUFFINK’!

blokes you can trust on principle

And for a final insult, he added: ‘you might be a Fair-Work Commissar, but there’s nothing fair in love and war, didn’t the old law professor cooped up in your shed in the back paddock tell you that’? 

With that Sophie emptied the cartridge of her MP 40, the bullets uselessly slapping the side of the vehicle as she stormed back towards us. Se was an inferno of rage and it was sadly, (dear reader) heading our way. 

Mates know how to get things done, sticking together…and abiding by principle.

Will this be too hot for our heroes? Has Sophie lit the fuse and started the conflagration? Has this got anything to do with Vladmir’s peace keeping in Urkraine? Will it be chicken Kiev all round? Find out in the next invasive episode, ‘Chicken? Kiev’, or, “For the high Rollers it’s Port-Xi or Bust’!

Dear reader, another stunning missive from Frank.

No corruption to see here…

In this one we are a little confused, Frank, (we think) is trying to suggest that corporations with impeccable overseas records, (ethical records) are involved in shady practise. We would like to refute this out of hand. There is nothing shady about corporate behaviour in this country as evidenced by our Energy Ministers stake in Cayman Island trusts and interests in the Murray Darling Basin.  That’s just the start of it, all ethical and above-board, because after we phoned him he told us so.

So bear with us as we let Frank give vent, corruption in this country? If that aint a Furphy we’ll go rent-seeker.

He writes…

No corruption here, all above board

Hola amigos,

Cant a wife help hubby onto a safe senate seat?

Half a century ago when travelling through Mexico we witnessed a blatant corrupt practice. At strategic intervals on the Mexican Highways there would be shade structures manned by policemen. Trucks would come to a halt, the policeman would step out of the shade, put out his hand, the truck driver would lean out his side window and deposit something into the policeman’s hand and drive on. It was explained to me that this is known as “la mordida” (literally a bite). This was how underpaid policemen supplemented their income. The amount was fixed by tradition and small enough to be easily afforded by the relatively better off truck drivers or owners.

In Australia we don’t have such corruption. We have toll roads operated by companies with investors. Not quite the same. A couple of centuries ago this was known as Highway Robbery. Now it is called business.

A bit of Mexican music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhgxGwvQIgQ

Money corrupting the electoral process? NO WAY!

On SBS last night I saw a movie called The Whistleblower. It tells the horrific true story of DynCorp personnel being involved in sex trafficking in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Subsequently. DynCorp had very lucrative U.S. Defence contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter were also enveloped in controversy.
In 2014 DynCorp secured a $100 million contract in Australia:

Through this contract, DI will provide national project delivery and management services for individual facility projects across all Australian Defence bases.

But we need not fear. There is no corruption in Australia.
We need not fear, because DynCorp doesn’t exist anymore. Recently it has been taken over by Amentum and operates under that name.

Amentum is a premier global government and private-sector partner whose experience, passion and purpose drive mission success. We operate, serve, maintain, protect and support the most discerning and critical programs here and abroad. Amentum’s culture of safety, operational excellence, and ethics was formed throughout our 116-year heritage and sharpened by our unrelenting dedication to the customer’s mission.

Coal Lobby corrupting Energy policy? I ARKS YA!

I’m thoroughly reassured. It’s their culture of ethics that clinched it for me.

Not all that far from Yuendumu, near Tennant Creek, there is Singleton Station. Singleton Station was purchased some time ago by Chinese backed Fortune Agribusiness. Fortune has been granted a license to extract as much as 40,000 megalitres of underground water per annum. All for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bSgoNNQ0m8 (For Free- Joni Mitchell)

Fear not, there is no corruption in the Northern Territory.

I think we should erect a shade structure at the entrance to Singleton Station and stand there holding our hand out.

Adios,

What’s wrong with a blind trust if it’s helping a mate, Love’s blind they reckon!

Frank

Dear reader,

Before laser beams and internet there was the Aldis lamp

we return to you with the  factual account  made in real time happening right now, of the encounter Ces and Quent made with Terry. And how poised above an enormous cavern, they survey beneath them the world’s most secret underground city. All of it as far as the eye can see abandoned, moth-balled, like Australian diplomacy stuck on the ‘stalled position: a position more insidious than fear itself, the fear of actually standing for anything. 

Aldis lamps proved useful in olden days, cos they didn’t need subtitles.

With the Aldis lamp flickering and illuminating a strange oblong building, a slab, indistinguishable from the other slabs, they realised that perhaps there may be a bargaining chip, a way out, an escape hatch to evade the mechanistic determinations of Australia’s (arguably) two most powerful individuals Sophie and Dutto. 

In the olden days they were manufactured in Australia.

The editors should like to take this opportunity to say that though Angus Taylor, with his Cayman Island registered tax-havens, his stewardship of the vast Murray Daring Basin for personal profit and his destiny as a permanent head of the Minerals and Energy Council post-politics, with lucrative positions on boards, corporations and Big-Energy sinecure, though perhaps the most powerful individual it is is deemed ‘improper’ and via the Prince Andrew qualification of honour, ‘Unbecoming’ to appoint him to this standing, as he still at the very least pretends to work for the government, whereas, Dutto and Sophie have always been free agents. Any disputation in this fact we are happy to consider, but as the current situation deems, ( and we have knocked back submissions suggesting Barnaby), the appointment of the ‘big two’ Sophie and Dutto over-rode Gina and Twiggy, as being west Australians, were considered as  sort of outliers. 

They could also spot a ‘baddy’ from miles away

Ces turned to Terry:  ‘I say Terry, have you ever been down there’? 

“Yep mate’ , 

‘What’s it like’? 

‘Well it’s a bit like the stories I’ve been hearing of Melbourne during lockdown. Or Canberra’? Ces interjected. “Yeah mate Canberra, has much changed since the fifties?’ 

‘Oh not really, the war memorial is so big you can see it from the moon, but nothing much. Still deadened by peck-sniffs and bum-whipes to the bureaucracy. That’s reassuring’, Terry sighed, ‘It’d be confronting if it ever really stood for something’. 

And before wireless there was cable

‘Yep mate, It stands for Federation, and still with Queensland and WA’. The three of them chuckled which was comforting as Ces and Quent hadn’t even mentioned Clive. ‘Clive of India’ we hear you say? Nup on a scale of one to ten, Clive of India was principled compared to Clive of Queensland. 

‘I reckon Terry’, and Ces pointed to the dimly lit outline of Dutto and Sophie still arguing the toss; ‘if you could get us down there, we might have a chance’?

‘Why, why would you bother, you see Terry, whilst she needs something she’ll pretend to be friendly, but as Benny -boy will tell you, once she’s got what she wants you’re expendable’. 

‘Yep mate even her hubby, stupid bastard had been parachuted into a safe senate seat and the silly bugger has no idea he’ll be slotted, that’s the way Sophie works, you might be a professor in her back shed, or some old aged nursing home victim and Sophie ‘ll use Ya and then…… slot YA’. 

And you could, with pin-point accuracy, find a target.

Terry took a moment to digest the shocking certainty.

‘One way or another as you said if there two are the only two that know about this facility, you are a risk, and eventually, this train track won’t have you on it. 

Get me’?

There was silence as Terry digested the horrible truth. 

He looked at Ces and for reassurance, our faces said it all. And for Benny, he just nodded, the way he did to reassure Afghani villagers that the interrogation would be short and to the point, to say the least. 

‘Well, Like i was saying, there is something pretty special down there that might get us out, but the problem is, he pointed and waved his hand in the vast gulf of space, how do we get there’? 

‘If we jump we’re just as dead, and if we wait her, we get slotted, 

And then, illuminate the target

Either way’, we nodded , ‘yup, we get slotted’.

He flicked the Aldis lamp off making a mental note of exactly where the building was in the inky darkness, and we thought. Then we though long and hard, and then, we thought again. 

We could tell Sophie and Dutto were having a bit of a barney, Sophie waving her AK47, and Dutto his dome just visible above the cupola of the Victorian police armed public response vehicle a vivid chromium glint, clearly his dome was polished to perfection, 

‘Look they don’t even know we’re here and if they keep at it, we can assume they wont notice,

Notice what?

Our descent to the abyss below

But how’?

Invite a couple of mates over

It was then Benny pipped in; ‘Can I have a look at the Aldis lamp cable’?

‘Yeah’, Terry handed him the lamp, 

‘That’s reassuring’, Benny-boy murmured as he fondled the glacis and examined the socket. He pulled out the plug, still warm, and then said;  ‘Hold this Terry’! And then holding the plug gave it a terrific yank, and from the console, sawdust, the odd cockroach and bits of stale chewing gum erupted forth, filing the car with a dusty residue. 

‘Just as I thought, look at this’? And with precise and practised movements he reeled in the chord. 

‘As I suspected there must be  at least 250 metres of the stuff, we use this old stuff in signals and I can tell you it’s durable and takes a bit of weight. It’s also useful for tying up Afghani’s for questioning’. At this he gave a sinister laugh and tightening it and testing it… ‘this may be our golden parachute’. 

‘Parachute’? we whispered, 

‘Yep lt’s out there’, and he pointed… 

And decide at the end of the day, it’s all too bloody hard.

Will this be their parachute? Will it be a proper golden parachute with a huge payout or a job done badly, or a parachute to who knows where? Hold onto your rip-chords, cos when we say ‘jump’ anything can happen in the next parasolic episode, “ when I say jump you leap”, or “ Jumping Jacks and Jill got off the hill’.

 

Saying sorry is the easy part

Another one from Frank, this one is more upbeat because its about apologies.  Just like the apology from the Prime Minister about the treatment of women in parliament.  Frank brings us back to Kevin Rudd’s heartfelt apology to the first nations people.

You can even pretend you mean it

As you may well remember, Kevin was the full-bottle on apologies, and he was going to devote quite a bit of effort to do something about homelelssness as well, which he seems to have forgotten ever since. Thats probably because both these issues have been “solved”. Though kids are being taken at an even greater rate than before Kev’s apology, we know that the system is not cruel, obdurate and bludgeoning, but caring, sooothing and doing whatever it can to ensure that the vast cohort of those wrapped up in the ‘ industry” are well looked after. Like the bonusess to Aus Post executves, delivering mail is a big responsibility, and though you might be sacked as a woman for dispensing a cartier watch, you can be rest assured with corpoprate governance  being the way it is, a fat, unsolicited bonus is all above board. Good for the executive team, and the public? Well that’s irrlelvant, they’re just lucky to pay taxes and have no say unlike the  lobbyists.

Frank writes;

Happy anniversary y’all,

On this day, 13^th of February, fourteen years ago, Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, delivered the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples.

I can picture him, with mock humility (“Aw…shucks”) accepting the plaudits he will undoubtedly be showered with.

I have just revisited the page of noble sentiments on the Australian Parliament website. Five lines from the bottom there is this:
“A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.”

Sometimes its hard to say sorry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z5-P9v3F8w Never say Never….

It was the Rudd Government (first and second) who took ownership of John Howard’s Intervention and extended it by a decade.
It was Julia Gillard who in February 2011 proclaimed that “Indigenous Australians have to change their behaviour….” It was Tony Abbott who declared that his government wasn’t going to support “life style choices”. It was Malcolm Turnbull who summarily dismissed the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It was the Morrison Government who snuck through Parliament the so-called “Economic Empowerment” amendments to the NT Land Rights legislation.

But no, injustices of the past must never, never be repeated.

A luta continua…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3AsyLD19YU
Obrigado,

World’s best practice, in implementing ‘sorry” 

Frank

This is the Northern Territory of Australia today. Children–all Aboriginal–as young as 10 are kept in 3x3m cells for 20 hours a day. They are kept in a facility which was closed as an adult male prison as being “unfit for purpose”. No rehabilitation, let alone trauma informed care. Just walls and barbed wire. (Gracias Chips Mackinolty)

And an anti-dote to the Justin Bieber song (not many suitable ‘never never’ songs on Youtube)

From the air Don Dale might as well be Uighurstan.  Though our “system” is caring because we know how to say sorry.

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

Ming signs off on the AWKWARD Pact to have subs ‘ready by 2050 or thereabouts”.

Dear reader once again we return to our tour of oblivion, our heroes being given the full bottle by Terry, a functionary left behind during Australia’s tentative and ultimately quashed ‘Golden Age”.

The AWKWARD pact will install barbecue areas in designated strategic sites to make them untenable as forward naval bases to would- be aggressors from an undisclosed power that most likely will be CHINA

Terry tells them of the massive nation building project that was kept top secret by Ming, lest the rest of the world unlock Australia’s nuclear secrets. Secrets more weighty than the alleged plan via the AWKWARD Pact to have submarines ready by 2050.   And all awhile, our heroes prisoner to Sophie wait whilst she negotiates a deal with Australia’s most powerful man ‘Dutto’.

With no breakthrough in sight, must we wait for  a break-through or break? At the end point? Point break? We find ourselves in a state of suspense. Suspended solids more like it, with nothing solid beneath them but the uncertain nuclear past stretching below them like the unmarked tombs of the valley of the kings. Our heroes await their destiny. 

Terry continued with his monologue, lighting up another craven A, and warming to the conversation for which our heroes, put him firmly and centred at ‘Ground Zero” 

‘A nation building project devised by Robert Menzies.  The worlds first triple A rated nuclear protected subterranean city. 

But it never took off’…. Terry sighed with a deeper resignation. 

Possibly, and arguably Australia’s most powerful man does not posess accredited ukelele skills

‘The place was closed. The project abandoned in utmost secrecy.  Myself, and a few others were kept on to maintain the infrastructure, keep it oiled and greased as it were. Since then,  the entire area has been cordoned off, and the terrain smoothed just as the Egyptians did in the Valley of the Kings. From the air, it’s as if nothing ever really happened, and with the Maralinga testing site a huge reactive blot on the landscape, no one is looking for  the little declines, and portals, where all the underground activity took place.  If any, and only if ever it was  mentioned in top secret documents that has been removed. And the documents themselves? All removed in secrecy from Canberra and left to  the corps of supervisors. These supervisors, of which I am one’, and as he flicked the ash off his Craven A and Donkey rooted another one;  ‘was secured in that place, just over, here’.

We followed the line of his index finger as he pointed into the gloom.  ‘Oh yes’! we affirmed; ‘right there’? Terry lookd at us irritatedly ‘No not there, but here’? He  wiggled his finger and agitatedly indicated another grey slab of dust begrimed building, ‘No I meant there’!

‘Where’? we pleaded.  “Is it there”?  Ces pointed to another row of  drab oblong, 

Ukelele’s can be more potent than dog-whistles

‘No I mean there’! Terry pointed again, and fulminating with frustration he sighed, ‘hang on a minute’. From a locker in the console, he fished around for a vital piece of apparatus, until delighted with the  discovery, produced an Aldis lamp. Unfurling a dusty, begrimed  fabric covered connector he applied the five point plug to a trap-door beneath the console, and ghasped, ‘it still fits’, and flicking a toggle switch  exclaimed … ‘and the fucking thing still works’!. We agreed, whatever you could say it was a victory of the VALVE AGE!

The Aldis lamp flickered with renewed life, and adjusting the shutter mechanism he allowed the incandescence to be focused, and with a concentrated light, piercing the sepulchral gloom, he guided us to another drab oblong shape indistinguishable from the rest, ‘That’! He said  with satisfaction is where all the secrets are stored, ‘’Everything’? Ces queried for emphasis, 

‘Yeah mate everything, including, and you’ll Iove this , the correspondence between ourselves and our operatives in both Russia and China’. 

Or cash in hand, the voters will be swayed.

Our jaws gaped in wonder, from Ces came the epithetic‘Jeez’. 

As he pointed to a facility in the far distance, another block- like edifice, with no windows, no doors, just a veneer of deep dust, and the barely discernible coating of grey- green camouflage paint. 

‘And so, like this, it’s been unchanged ever since.

An enigma’, Ces whispered

‘Yep inside a paradox? 

Doe anyone else know about this? … don’t think anybody else does, Only your mates  Dutto and Sophie, and they’re not gonna tell anyone, it’s the ace up their sleeves?

Their get outta jail free card, there are secrets buried down here that would make you die of shame, and other secrets that would make you rejoice in anticipation of the human spirit. Both heaven and hell are entombed within these buildings and now you know I’m afraid to say, our collective fate’. 

What is their fate? Will it be a school or a church fete? Or a different il fait accompli altogether, Find out in the next fateful episode, “a fistful of fate’ or, ‘fatefully yours in faith”

Five tunes carved out from the raw, non fissionable, non fungible, non fractable fundament they call ‘Humanity”. Or like the Trojan Horse is there something more sinister afoot?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUYdnu0B9hM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhrVGzc8uqI
Paraguay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOfAHPPmG5U
Colombia

In Australia, great policy takes years to formulate. Internationally recognised experts are often called-in to lend a hand.

Dear reader,

Imagination and the limitless breadth of human potential are utilised in making great decisions.

we return to our adventure, with Ces and Quent describing how much Australia had changed with the introduction of the decimal currency in 1966. Terry was both shocked and comforted to know that essentially Australia was the same insular complacent country he knew of, when we were set to become a Nuclear Super- power in the 1950’s. He breathed an audible sigh of relief when we told him that nothing had changed on any front except that the mining lobby ran the country more thoroughly than before and that it was impossible for any Australian kid below the age of forty to ever afford a house in a capital city. He was surprised again, and thought, that the Australian dream was under threat, we commiserated and let him know that at the very least, caravan parks offered a template for further accessibility. 

Whilst Sophie, who appeared to have turned back on her rebuttal and was now in furious negotiation with Dutto,  our duo took comfort in describing contemporary Australia. ‘Speaking of housing’, Ces pointed from beyond the rim of their tramcar, ‘ all of this”? Is this a city of the future’?

 Terry wiped his brow and reflectively stroked his chin. From his breast pocket he took out a packet of Craven A, offered us one each, and sighed, “I’m down to my last carton, just as well you showed up, otherwise I’d be down to tea-leaves and the menthol ciggies left behind by the research lab technicians’.. 

‘This’, he pointed below us…

Both men and women are encouraged to express their opinions for a better future.

‘Was to be the inland city of the future. Bigger than Alice, and the world’s first city powered alone by the splendour of NUCLEAR ENERGY! It’s name,  unknown to cartographers and tidy-town sub-committees, was to be called  ‘Radon Springs,’ the first ever integrated Nuclear township, powered by the world’s first ever completely underground reactor designed to last between replenishments for over a thousand years’! He emphasised the thousand years, with outstretched arms signifying what a leap of imagination this project was for Australia as a nation. ‘This was the biggest and it was gonna be bigger than anything ever imagined in public infrastructure’.  We sat jaws agape at the scale and sheer audacity of the vision. 

‘Tell us more Terry’? 

Terry, puffing away on the Craven A told us the story of how Radon Springs, bigger even than Canberra, was created. We could tell there was deep pride in his narrative, something for which he had devoted his entire life to. 

Great ideas are then worked and re- worked, work-shopped and refined into great policy!

Even cultural minorites are given a FAIR GO!

‘After Maralinga and the accidental nuclear fall-out cloud that descended on Adelaide in the late fifties and  early sixties, we started to think of how to create safe cities for a nuclear age.  We had all this stuff left over from the Snowy Scheme, tunnel borers, engineering skills, concreting, water storage, you name it we had all the skills and nowhere to use em. With Vietnam dawning, we needed to keep these skill sets operational, and it was Ming’s brainchild to do something closer to the tests themselves.  And perhaps with the super dynamic of nuclear bombs, we could build something unassailable far beneath the surface. A system of super sized underground cities in which natural light, the air we breathe, the water, food, could be augmented by the boon of Nuclear Energy. To create this vast underground cavern we let a few off. The Yanks detected the activity on seismographs, but we told em it were a few nuclear duds the poms had left over being detonated . After the original clearing of debris, we had a chamber, a couple of miles across and several thousand feet deep. We put the radio active material out in the desert where the Maralinga tests had made uninhabitable after we’d cleared it and all the other material we just shipped to the Nullarbor as ballast for the Indian Pacific Railway. 

Policy that reflects our capacity for innovation and the dynamic of LEADERSHIP!

After clearing the chamber, we set about building what you see below us, schools, hospitals, blocks of flats, housing, theatre, petrol stations and parks, and gardens. The whole thing was to be irrigated from the artesian basin and we even had BHP chip in with an offer to build a monorail from the central underground station, we called it ‘Essington Lewis’, and the other side we called ‘Hancock’, after lobbying from the WA government. 

Every square foot was mapped and detailed by the Australian Army in conjunction with the  British Atomic Agency and the Cheese Board. “The Cheese Board’? we enquired, “well that was a camouflage, after the EU stopped cheese imports from Australia and N.Z, we used a board of enquiry to trans- ship nuclear devices, reactors, plutonium, the whole shebang. Everything had a name to put off interfering troublemakers’.  

Sometimes, if the public imagination falls short, cash incentives are put on the table to stimulate ‘take–up”!

‘You mean journalists? 

 Yeah, that type off the scent. We even had a special development arm, ‘the agricultural implement testing facility’ to help us get larger items under the noses of state governments. It was a federal issue and we didn’t want getting busy body states and environmentalists involved either. For further intelligence, who set up a deep signals directorate fro that bunker over there. When it was completed the population of British and Australian service men and women would prepare themselves for a sub normality after the anticipated nuclear holocaust. They were selected for age, and fitness, and intelligence, for this , he swept his arms from side to side, and his face aglow with an inner rapture indicated his belief in this a new Australia would be born. A new Australian would emerge, he pointed to a distant mural of a native Australian meeting a man in a space suit, the orbit of a boomerang around the familiar stencil of an electron ellipse around a nucleus. The caption read, “re-emerge from the stone-age’!, With Boomerang and Woomera in hand to the space- suited astronaut ‘enter the nuclear age’. 

So that we get the best POLICY OUTCOMES! FOR ALL AUSTRALIANS!

Is this really the future, or is it back to the future re-visited? Find out in the next compelling episode, “The Time’s they aren’t a changing machine”, or; ‘Stuck in a rut, I feel another election coming on’?

Kev’s apology was really really top notch. He’s devoted his life ever since to improving the lot of the black-fella and ensuring kiddies are not taken away, ” for their own good”. (“My vision is 20/20”, K.Rudd Autobiography)

Dear reader,

Another gripping insight from our correspondent from the distant north Frank, who’s solemn duty is to  inform us minute by minute of the unfolding crisis enveloping those “wretched’ communities of the far flung interior. ‘Not even the  myriad NGO”s and Government agencies working in these communities seem able to divert a disaster now’, (Sky News). ‘And the future is exceedingly grim for those people CUT-OFF from the rest of AUSTRALIA’, (ABC News)

Scomo’s apology gets a rating of about 8 outta 10. Behind bullet-proof glass and protected by the cone of silence, he recognises a woman in parliament for the first time.

More compelling than the P.M’s heartfelt response to women who have been bullied, harassed and sexually insulted in our nations parliament, and more epoch making than Kevin Rudd’s apologies to the stolen generations, For as we well know in each instance, nothing ever really changes.

But let’s not let cynicism have its way. In a patriarchal culture why shouldn’t women be both seen and sometimes under the grace of Parliament be heard? That’s what a fully functioning non corruption or integrity agency type government is all about.  And besides, isn’t justice meant to be blind. In that we trust. A Blind trust? Poke your eyes out if they aint Christian Values?  We’ll need more than a Porter to carry that through the public conversation. Best not talk about it. Where were we? Oh yes another message from Frank. Now pay attention, (attention is not listed in the Digest of  Parliamentary Lobbyists) and LISTEN!

THERE SHE IS! Her voice, (for the sake of the solemn traditions observed in parliament) is Gagged. Unlike Grace, Brittany shows deep respect for P.M, about to have an election in which it is alleged women may comprise half the electorate.(This statistic is being vigorously rebuffed by the Institute or Puboic Affairs)

He  (Frank) writes….

Just a quick one,

It could have been worse- the shelves had one item- toilet rolls!

Another woman spotted in parliament. Like most women, (except for the femme-bots installed by Boston Dynamics) this one is invisible to the rest of the chamber.

Frank

An (alleged) woman, eagerly searches the aisles for the Government White Paper on ‘Women in the Workforce’.

Dear reader,

Stands to reason after all she’s done for Aged care and Womens rights Sophie’s Hubby shoud be a shoe-in for the senate. If Prince Andrew has benefitted by privelege and marriage, why shouldn’t Greg.

we return once again to our saga, as out two heroes, protected by arguably Australia’s greatest soldier, ‘ Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith await their fate from arguably Australia’s second most powerful woman Sophie Mirabella, now compassionate and fair minded member of the Fair Work Commission on a huge stipend. Not that the stipend has anything to do with her proven electoral popularity or the parachuting of , (who the fuck is he?) Her hubby onto a safe senate seat, but in recognition of the work she has performed in aged care, (Putting a law professor in her back shed) and womens rights, (the right for Gina to pay no tax) and philanthropy. For Sophie is a ‘heavy-lifter’ determined to preserve the right of Gina, Twiggy and any other grotesquely wealthy Australians to choose where they pay tax, (if at all ) and enjoy kickbacks, adulation and on offer of a lucky-dip gong for services to themselves on their way. 

And Sophies reliable, unlike other ‘Ungratefeul’ sheila’s who don’t know their place

Perilously perched, our heroes await their fate as Sophie and Dutto sort out the spoils of victory. If SCOMO loses, Albo wins for punching through with epoch making change and a radical platform? Or a safe policy of offering to the electorate more of the same, (with a left-leaning earnest commitment to do something about homelessness and corruption….one day)  It makes no difference. They’ll win through, and winners, as Justin Langer will tell you, are more often than not, may not be……grinners. 

So satrap yourself in, and prepare for the worst. The stakes are high-level, and so is the pong coming from the same corridors of power than those in which out Tea-lady, was so cruelly defiled. And the perpetrator? Still, a mystery behind closed doors.

‘Let the doors open’, as Cardinal Pell would say…. 

And… as the pommy lady on the tube station says in reference to Boris’s plummeting popularity, (a possible contender for a seat on the Fair Work Commission?) “ Mind the gap” 

Ungrateful because they dont get how the “system” works!

Thus ensued a  whispered conversation, in which Ces and Quent, had to de- brief Terry as to why the economy was run by hedge fund managers and crypto currency dealers, and merchant bankers in league with the real estate industry and mining. Terry seemed surprised, and yet at ease with the overall definition of public policy since decimalisation as being, lazy, complacent and insular.  As he sighed to Ces and Quent, (the dim silhouette of Sophie still engaged in conversation with Dutto);

 ‘That is a source of some relief! Australia was never ever going to be a radical country and it’s good to see overall, that the Australian public still stand for insularity, quiet xenophobia and the lowest common denominator.’ Terry could see the big- picture, and though there was the blip of the man they called “Gough”, it was reassuring to see that neither party stood for anything other than gouging and feather- bedding. He scratched his head and said thoughtfully; 

‘What of Ming, did he retire gracefully, after decimalisation’? 

‘Oh yes, Ming was still in power, and I believe it was rumoured that Harold was in line, funny how the years fly’, to whit Terry wth renewed interest enquired; ‘incidentally, how did Harold go’? 

‘Well, I’m afraid your in for a bit of a shock,  Harold died swimming’. There was stunned silence. 

Are disrespectful of institutions…

‘Jeez, that’s bad luck was it in his pool at home’?….

‘Nup mate it was at Portsea. 

Jeez, that’s such a shock, we had some good times together. Being his driver in the olden days I wondered which Sheilas’ swimming pool in Toorak it might’ve been? He was always keen on visiting his many lady donors and supporters whilst Zara was out to cocktail parties and society gigs.  But I spose he was destined to drown… he was always drawn to the sea, and the many sea creatures that he found irresistible’. 

Before Terry began to reel off the names of all the exotic species Harold Holt was fond of; the mollusc, the clam, the sea cucumber, and the bearded-bivalve, Ces cut in with “Yeah Terry, with all the scuba diving?” Quent interjected, 

‘Nup mate all the womanising’ On this Terry had first-hand experience. ‘ Gets to a bloke when he just can’t get up in the morning for all the shagging’. 

Argue the toss with those who know better,

‘I suppose a lot else has changed’? 

The next twenty minutes were intent, with Ces and Quent filling in Terry on all that had happened in Australia since 1966. 

After a few more minutes of narrative, “the Dismissal’,  the decision by Hawkey to establish compulsory superannuation and the “supine state’, the decision to eschew universities for 457 visas. The boom in real estate, post political career lobbying and the BOON of private prisons to process indigenous Australians and maintain the policy of forced separations “ for their own good’ as ‘THEY’ are by and bye, ‘an ungrateful people for all we’ve done’, Terry was up to the mark on what made contemporary Australia tick. 

“So I spose White Australia does that still hold well’? 

‘This will come as a shock Terry.  Well no, but yes..… I’m afraid, not, but then we still do have a broader policy called ‘Sovereign Borders’ that keeps most of the rat-bag lefties out and people of colour. We still allow foreign people in on a special category, provided they have shitloads of money’. 

‘Oh that’s reassuring’ Terry sighed, ‘good to see we still have a broad immigration policy that’s not reliant on compassion and empathy. That would be a national disgrace, and an affront to the all those politicians who have served to ensure that real estate and mining are the twin pillars of Australian Society’. 

And then cry “BOO- HOO” when it all ends in TEARS!

“You’ve got it on one Terry”, Ces affirmed reassuringly.

Just as all of this had sunk in, they noticed Sophie step back and tell Dutto that the deal was off. 

We listened, they’d clearly had a disagreement, was this our chance? 

Our tea-lady Mrs Culthorpe before her fall from grace, hopes to return to Australia’s Highest office after rehabilitation. We’ve told her; ” She’s DREAMING”!

What chance was their left to play, have the cards been dealt and does Crown have an option on the next deal? Who’s deal? Find out in the next indexed episode of statistical probability. ‘A deck in the hand, or a decking’? or…. ‘Two tools in the box and they’re both blunt’. 

גוט מארגן , בוקר טובДобрий ранок, Dzień dobry,  Доброе утро, Guten Morgen,

Frank enlisted for technical, factual and field descriptions the services of Australia’s most highy decorated soldier (“ever”) Ben Roberts Smith. who was also, by his own recognisance “also there”.

Dear reader, in this-un Frank takes a wry look at the problems in the Ukraine. You can read all about it in his official history; “Flashman in the Charge” and though written at the height of the first Ukraine Conflict in 1854, essentially nothing much has changed. Same goes for the covid crisis in remote communities and the federal government insistence that nothing much needs to change their either. Because, as that famous frenchman said, ‘ I don’t think, I know’, in reference to our PM, he also said;  ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’.

Anyway, you cant blame the French, the Ukrainians or the remote communities whose members, ” choose to live in such conditions’, (Abbott) because they’ve all had scrapes with power politics and its difficult to be chipper when you’re being done over.  So please, we, (the editors of pcbycp) assure you, that you’ll not, ( Unlike Glady’s, Brittany, and Grace) be done over by Scomo for reading this article. But you may get a mea-culpa from Barnaby. Either way it’s ‘Mazel Tov’ to our readership and ‘Tarren Kowt’ to our mate ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith, who’s hanging on to his V.C through thick and thin. May the spirit of Flashman protect him…

Frank writes;

Frank wrote his first factual account of the Ukraine under the pseudonym George Macdonald Fraser.

During WWII, in occupied Holland my father and his friend, after committing an act of sabotage, narrowly escaped the pursuing Ukrainian guards and their dogs. Many Ukrainians had mistakenly perceived the German army as liberators (from the Russians) and fought on the German side.

Dad never forgave the Ukrainians and tarred them all with the same brush as traitors. He did not give much consideration to the fact that they were between a rock and a hard place. Not to mention the Jewish population who were squashed underneath that rock.

Dad was convinced that the East European old man he’d engaged in conversation with and who lived by himself at the end of Dad’s Nunawading suburban street, was a war criminal. Dad had a nose for such. He should have got a job with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Incidentally Simon Wiesenthal was born in the Ukraine.

At the beginning in David Fraser’s book ‘David Borshch’s Cart- Narrating the Holocaust in Australian War Crimes Trials’ There is ‘A Note on Languages’ and I quote: “In his moving account of the search for the stories of the fate of the members of his family killed in the Shoa, Daniel Mendelsohn offers a telling tale: 

Someone said;

‘There is a joke that people from this part of Eastern Europe like to tell, which suggests why the pronunciation and spelling keep shifting; it’s about a man who’s born in Austria, goes to school in Poland, gets married in Germany, has children in the Soviet Union, and dies in the Ukraine. Through all that, the joke goes, he never left his village!”

I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin. The obscene wealth he and his cronies have amassed at the expense of the Russian population exceeds the excesses of the pre-Bolshevik revolution Czarist regime. 

‘That the first….

The extra-judicial killing and silencing of journalists, the bombing of what is left of Syria and on and on, are far from being admirable qualities.

Yet the simplistic scenario we in the west are presented with in regards to Ukraine,  belies the complexity on the ground. Putin as the embodiment of evil versus the NATO knights in armour to the rescue of the poor bugger beleaguered noble Ukrainian population, who are once again between a rock and a hard place.

The Rolling Stones- Between a Rock and a Hard Place:… and peasant people poorer than dirt, who are caught in the crossfire with nothing to lose but their shirts…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pYBQg4qifU 

‘Victim of any war was’….

Russia supplies a quarter of European natural gas imports. Eighty percent of these imports flow through pipelines on Ukrainian soil. Might this have anything to do with the current stand-off? Not to worry, Australia has come to the rescue! The Lucky Country has let it be known that they’re more than willing to supply Natural Gas to Europe to enable the latter to impose more economic sanctions on Russia.

Meanwhile the Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has introduced strict biosecurity zones preventing travel to and from dozens of remote communities in the NT amid escalating COVID-19 cases. Measures to be in place until February 17^th.

On the Northern Territory Government COVID-19 website I can’t find any information. On the Federal measures. I don’t think many people in Yuendumu are aware of these measures, let alone what they are. I certainly don’t know.

..’The Truth’

Reports coming into us from both China and Russia suggest that kleptocrats, (senior party members) from both countries are not interested in buying shares in the Crown resorts Yuendumu offer. We are clearly dissapointed and plead the federal government for assistance in getting this ‘World’s Best Practise’ initative off the ground. As they do for other ‘Nation Building’ Casino projects.

Shalom and Mazel Tov

Frank

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