Pcbycp’s guide to the ‘VOICE’ . This is Lydia. Lydia likes to be seen as a CHAMPION for the “not so sure about the Voice Constituency’

Dear reader, another pearler from Frank,

In this- un Frank has quite a bit to say about Jack Waterford, and his analysis of the 1967 referendum.

In this piece Frank suggests that more often than not the ‘Fed’s’ get it wrong on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. And that no matter how well meant, ‘the voice’ just might become another noose for First Nations Australians.

 In this regard we are inclined to agree.  After the recent inland rail report, a decade of ‘ Clean Coal initiatives’, the effort to stifle renewables, the housing crisis, the Murray Darling, the Lesser Great Barrier Reef, and just about every form of self-centred pork-barreling one minute policy we agree. The Feds have been pretty crappy on most initiatives. As the proctologist said to the amputee; ‘Not a lot of joy to be found’.

The Press like to Champion Lydia as the “Voice Rat-Bag” and Lydia obliges by granting them photo Ops.

Perhaps there is new hope. For in optimism we can be willfully blind to the short- termism and craven opportunism that marks the Australian body politic. Pork barrel on….

Frank Writes….

Greetings,

I have mentioned John Paulos’ book ‘Innumeracy’ before. The book’s main premise is that innumeracy is as serious a problem in society as illiteracy.
I forget the exact quote but the section on statistics starts with “Two out of three doctors prefer paracetamol to aspirin. They couldn’t convince Fred otherwise.”  The book also informs us that hair doesn’t grow in miles per hour, which I’m glad to know.

Dutto and Jacinta are CHAMPIONS of the NO vote. They’d like the Voice to go the way of the Tasmanian Tiger and a meaningful reconciliation with actual powers invested in First Nations Peoples.

In the gold exploration industry of which I was a part, they have something called the nugget effect.  If a drill hole strikes a rare nugget this can result in astronomically high assay results.  A prudent mining company will ignore these assays as being non-representative and exclude them from resource calculations.  An unscrupulous mining company may announce these high assay results to artificially boost its share price.  A bit like poker machines whereby the occasional win is accompanied by loud triumphant music.

Much the same applies to diamonds in kimberlite pipes. Ore sorting machines detect the occasional diamond by the high refractive index. The diamonds are expelled from the ore stream by a loud whistling blast of compressed air.

I’ve just looked at the My School website. Yuendumu school’s NAPLAN results are consistently below the national average. The mother tongue of over 90% of Yuendumu school pupils is Warlpiri.  All NAPLAN tests are conducted in English. If NAPLAN tests in Melbourne were conducted in Warlpiri, Melbourne schools would perform poorly.

Much of education policy is influenced by such as NAPLAN statistics, and just like a gold mining company which relies on non-representative nugget assays when deciding to proceed to mine is likely to come a cropper, so too education policies based on flawed interpretation of statistics are doomed to failure.

So back to the Voice- My friend Forrest Holder, after reading my friend Jack Waterford’s essay which I forwarded in a previous Dispatch, has this to say:

The DYNAMIC DUO! Dutto and Suzie are pretty happy with the status quo which is; Do Nothing go backwards, and continue the policies of generational poverty and kleptocracy for mates.

I reckon Jack is one of Australia’s best journalists.

I also reckon he let himself down a little with the article that Frank dispatched.  I address that herein, but nothing that I write below detracts from the very high regard I hold for Jack.

Jack got it right in stating that “we now live in a society where most citizens would not, and a few citizens dare not, express the racist and discriminatory feelings that were once … common.”

Spot on Jack, racism today is generally no longer overt, nonetheless and more troublesome for me is that racism remains endemic in Australia.

This is evident in our collective failure to revolt against Howard’s Intervention.  A failure repeated when we collectively failed to repudiate Labor’s cowardly refusal to end the NT Intervention.

Shame Australia, shame on us.

Jack correctly reminds us that 90% of eligible Australians in the 1967 referendum voted to change the Constitution in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Does that mean we are more racist today than we were in 1967?

The ‘Father of the Intervention”. John Howard can be justifiably proud for Invading Australia.

In truth I don’t think we are more racist today than we were in 1967, I reckon the greater majority of us believe, and very much want to believe, we are not racist.

The majority of us most sincerely want urgent change that will improve the lives and conditions for ATSI peoples in Australia.

The best way for all of us to effect that change is to ensure we know and understand the pros and cons of the Voice initiative, and we really need to know a salient and most important lesson from history.

And in this regard, I reckon Jack erred because he did not inform us of this lesson.

Kevin Rudd can be justifiably proud in furthering Howard’s intervention and making it just that little bit more repressive and nasty. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for maintaining the obdurate tradition of PUNISHMENT for FIRST AUSTRALIANS!

Let me refresh your memories about one aspect of the 1967 referendum.

Prior to 1967 Section 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution, referred to as the race power, prevented the Commonwealth from passing legislation with respect to ATSI peoples.

The referendum changed this and granted the Commonwealth the power to make ‘special laws’ for ‘the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary’.

The popular campaign for Constitutional reform in 1967 was driven by the complete failure of the States in the decades following Federation to improve the conditions for ATSI peoples.

In 1967 there was a widely held sincere belief that if granted the constitutional powers the Commonwealth Government would succeed where the States had failed.

Back then nearly 91 percent of us deeply wanted the Commonwealth to improve the lives of first nations peoples in this country.

Back then Australians acted in good faith and delivered those powers to the Commonwealth.

But in our innocent naivety we believed the Commonwealth Parliament would only ever use the new power for the benefit of ATSI peoples.  Consequently we delivered the powers to the Commonwealth with no constraints as to how its new found powers could be used.

Dutto and Jacinta are worried about crime and sexual deviancy in Alice Springs amongst First Nations community. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in mainstream Australia.

The terrible fact is that the Commonwealth has without exception proven unworthy of our trust. The Commonwealth has used the race powers three times, and each time it was to the detriment of the rights and interests of our first nations peoples.

The last time it used these powers was when Howard relied upon them to pass the raft of legislation needed to implement the NT Intervention. Note the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act had to be suspended for the passage of the Intervention bills.

I believe Jack should have reminded us that the hopes we had in 1967 were dashed completely.  He should have reminded us of the folly of trusting Parliament to act in good faith in its dealings with ATSI peoples.

I believe this because once again ATSI peoples and their supporters are investing much hope in trusting the Parliament to act in good faith with the Voice.

And once again the Yes campaigners propose no constraint that would prevent Parliament from acting to the detriment of ATSI peoples.  The proponents for the Voice model have forgotten the lessons of 1967.

People really need to know these facts before they make up their minds on the Voice initiative.

Mal Brough. Another ambitious Queenslander, who doesn’t get enough credit for starting the intervention with his reports of sexual perversion in remote communities. Dutto hopes the strategy may work again. Victimizing minority groups is electorally popular.

Without such a constraint the Voice initiative is a folly.

It is terrible that no one in the media reports on these facts.  Jack should have I reckon.

Forrest.

In the Canadian ‘oilpatch’ I learned an expression “A slap in the mooch with a cold mackerel”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLdK9zaLaG8
Is that all the referendum is going to deliver?

John Howard professed a deep affinity for First Australians. Under his and Kev’s leadership, incarceration went through the roof. A Win Win for the incarceration para-military complex.

Rudd’s Apology with its ‘mistakes of the past never to be repeated’ was in hindsight exquisite hypocrisy as a friend who was much involved in Aboriginal Affairs aptly described it.  Jack’s ‘war on terror’ by the “welfare” is ongoing. I know for a fact that the mistakes of the past are being repeated and also that despite all the NT Police’s undertakings at the coronial inquest to do things better, over the top raids by armed police continue to happen.  Like Forrest, I won’t be holding my breath and expect much improvement flowing from a YES vote.  The likes of Andrew Bolt and Barnaby Joyce are already using dishonest chicken little tactics campaigning for the NO vote. There is a new word describing what the extreme right wing media exploits, it is “angertainment.”
Anger was sadly lacking when the Intervention was imposed.

I’ll be voting YES. I don’t want to be out of touch and sympathy with the national mood as Jack Waterford put it. Neither am I prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I believe Australia has enough NO sayers for the NO vote to succeed.

Statistically the odds are stacked against the YES vote.  The system is rigged, just like poker machines are.

Let your patience be rewarded by some nice music from the Solomon Islands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkTGKieSrP8

And the good thing…….. there’s always another ambitious Queenslander to take up the reins and take us on a new journey into OBLIVION!

Frank

Before he became Lord Murdoch of Rupert

In more plot twists than the telephoned hacking disclosures for the Royal house of Prince Harry prior to the coronation, the retreat from Moscow suffered by Fox News before the Dominion crisis, or just the facost of living anxiety.

Power allegedly is said to corrupt when it becomes ABSOLUTE!

Our dedicated consultants can give the very latest advice on Estate realisation, assisted suicide and brokerage under our very simple, no win no gains basis. Our consultants led by the very ably credentialed Michelle Gatto and his cohort can arrange closure with the simple smoothing of a pillow, laid and with pressure applied to ensure swift asphyxiation. Estate management fees and clearances guaranteed within ninety days. Give our group a go by ringing our toll free number, and ask for the ‘associated estate preparation package’, and we will send the necessary information kit. As we acknowledge the very real reality that no one under the age of fifty will ever be able to buy a house unless mummy and daddy kark it, we optimistically return to our saga.

And on a personal note, we at pcbycp are more than willing to assist in the speedy departure of mummy and daddy if you are suffering rent stress and alleviate these cost of living struggles. If, (dear reader) your parents are not well endowed, we suggest you just keep reading this next instalment in the hope that someone comes good on their promise of a wage increase, or does something really significant to reduce the cost of living and make housing affordable. Such as kindly ask big business and energy suppliers to go easy on the consumer.

Even allegedly ‘happy families’ have the odd difference of opinion from time to time.

In if that is your circumstance at this point in time, per se, we suggest you start looking for and identifying flying pigs. As most politicians have three, four or some as many as ten or fifteen investment properties negatively geared and safely secured, we suggest you may have Buckley’s or hope for a Fairy God Mother. Last time we saw the Fairy Godmother she was out at ‘Camp Rolfe’, formerly Yuendumu, distributing investment rent to buy packages, and pre- paid funerals to the hapless denizens. In debt we shall grow.

But of debt, what about the debt we owe the Royal Family? Which Royal Family?  There’s only one. Not the pretenders from Money- Cheeto, but the real deal, Charles and Camilla, and their flunkeys, Billy-Boy, (Prince William) and his Missus, Kalamity, Katherine Windsor.

Time is a ticking time bomb when that mob are after you and they’ll; make Michelle and his mates look like pansies,

We return to our saga.

Julian Assange before the power of Wikileaks bought him down!

Rupert had no choice but to throw wife No: 4 under the BUS!

‘Christ’! Julian exploded, ‘with the house of Windsor after us, we haven’t got a chance. Even if we get out of this mess, we’re rooted. Sophie and her cohort are ardent royalists, and this bloke’, he pointed with a withered nicotine-stained finger to the crumpled form of Brendan Nelson, ‘and this bloke as far as the royals are concerned is bum boy central, he’d do anything to save his skin and get a royal gong. His whole and entire life has been spent in the sacred role of suck-dom, and if we don’t knock him off now we’re more or less royally rooted. And as here Royal Highness Princess Fergie of muck would say we’re majestically Fucked’.

We all agreed Julian had a way with words.

‘So lets knock him off, Benny’!

Julian turned his puce coloured visage to our war hero, pleading for Benny to do what was natural for him.

‘I dunno’, Benny replied. Julian looked absolutely struck, we all froze. Benny just looked at the crumpled figure in his safari suit coat and shorts. He looked pathetic and we could see that for this once, Benny had empathy.

‘Nup’! Benny replied, ‘I just can’t do it, it doesn’t seem right!

‘Right’?

Jullian pleaded.

‘Of course it is’! ‘If you let this little twerp live it’ll be worse for us than being holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, worse than solitary at Bellmarsh, worse than having to root Pamela Anderson just to get a packet of fags, I’m telling you Benny, if you don’t do it were all cactus!

‘Nup it aint right’!

A ominous sign, the wedding bouquet was fake. Fake flowers and Fake News.

‘But you’ve rolled wops off cliffs’! Julian enthused. ‘And you’ve gathered prosthetic limbs from the field of valour. What’s wrong about this’?

‘Nup!  I know he’s a fawning little pipsqueak, but the way I see it, there’s no honour in knocking him off.  And besides,  he may be worth more to us alive. As a bargaining chip.

Bargaining chip’? Julian expostulated, ‘who’s to bargain with?  Whether the little squirt lives or dies, were hounded by the Royals , the (he pointed upwards) the ‘chocolate royals’, Sophie and Angus and every other crooked bastard who seeks to monetise our suffering so they can get another leg up on the greasy pole’.

‘Greasy pole’?

Ces pointed to the corner of the recess, as the first of the spears began to puncture the already crumpled fuselage of the Rotodyne. ‘ Look at that’! They all turned, and sure enough in the recess they noticed a Totem of sorts.  This one larger and more squat than the one in the village. A totem devoted to the likeness of Sophie as a fertility goddess.

‘See there’!

They all looked upwards the head has a sort of crown.  ‘All we have to do is climb up and gain that portal’! He directed their gaze to a cave.  A much smaller one running into the side of the mountain.  ‘If we can get up into there, we  may have a chance of finding a way out. And none too soon’!

Behind every great cause is a pip-squeak!

What began as a trickle became a storm of spears as they rained down from above.  ‘Come on!  There’s no time to loose, the alcove is protected. Grab Brenny-boy and go for it’!

‘Now!

And they clambered up to the feet of the Sophie totem. ‘The only way up is to form a human chain and see if you can get over that ledge there’! Ces pointed to the large protuberances, crudely fashioned by the natives as enormous breasts. ‘I know you’ll have to get a gold of her tits to gain purchase, and see if you can get a foothold on her navel, and hang on with the other hand to her nipples’.  Nervously they clutched the nipples. Pulled hard to test the weight and heaved themselves over the melon like over- sized   protuberances.

Sophie before she was elevated to God-head status.

Dear reader, we would like to apologise on behalf of the Melbourne Comedy Festival for this farcical scene. But we must faithfully record it as spoken in keeping the accuracy of events untarnished as they unfold, we continue. And as this scene is ridiculous and in the genre of an anecdote from Sir Les Patterson, we record it faithfully in homage to our greatest politician and mentor.

‘See if you can get her midriff, tie this rope to her belt, they saw a belt of sorts fashioned by vine, and Benny adroitly tied his grappling hook and tested the weight.  ‘It’ll take us, you go on up. I’ll carry Brenny-boy and meet you at the top. Get a good hold of the tits, in this climate they might get slippery, and fer Chrissakes hang on’!

Will our heroes get out of this pit of peril?

Will the statue which includes a likeness of Sophie’s tits be strong enough to take the weight?  Will her nipples withstand the pressure?

Find out in our next mammory-eth episode, ‘Sagging tits and destiny’ or

Facsimile of native statue erected to deify Sophie. Each increment on scale is equivalent to ten metres. By our calculus the statue is over 150 metres in height. A true marvel of the neolithic world.

‘Cripple nipple, and we’re stuck in the middle’.

Dear reader, 

If anyone out there has noticed, we’ve had a Dickens of a time getting the computer to work.

Its an all round case of computer iliteracy.  The space key is no longer working and it wont let us do apostrophes.  So apologies for the absence of apostrophes on apostrophe and won’t. Its a clear case of Bishop Hollinworth-ism.  

And its frustration personified. So bear with us, weve been delayed, but not daunted. The show must go on! And what a show it isn’t. Yes indeed more wisdom of the non Norman kind fromFrank. So without so much of a preamble this missive which was sent several weeks ago. the rest as they say; Is history.  Thats history wityout apostrophe. Just as Hollingworth is without plausible excuse. Read on…

Hallo kameraden,

Jack Waterford has written an essay which absolutely nails the matter of the Referendum regarding the Voice to Parliament.  I have no illusion I can match this erudite piece of prose, so without further ado, with Jack’s permission, I herewith rendered it in its entirety:

The shame of missing a national mood

Modern Australians still adore ugly duchesses and royal pomp!

Modern Anglo-Australians sometimes congratulate themselves about that moment in white Australia’s progress to semi-civilisation 56 years ago when Australian voters acknowledged Australia’s original inhabitants, and grudgingly allowed that they could be numbered among the Commonwealth’s inhabitants, and be the subject of Commonwealth legislation.  The referendum that permitted this was passed by nearly 91 per cent of voters, the greatest proportion of the population ever to approve a referendum proposal. And as if to emphasise that this was more deliberate than exuberant, voters convincingly defeated another matter up for ballot – breaking the nexus between numbers in the House of Representatives and the senate.

Perhaps it bespoke a new maturity in the general population. About the same time, the White Australia policy was dropped by the Holt government, even if it took some time for the decision to have any practical effect.  Abolishing the White Australia policy might not have succeeded at a referendum.  More cosmopolitan members of the broader monoculture may have recognised that the policy damaged our image in Asia and at the United Nations.  They may have recognised that the arguments used to justify it smacked of South Africa and Rhodesia, and the American South and shocked most of the people of Europe.  It was increasingly impossible to justify, or be personally comfortable with, legal discrimination against 80 per cent of the world based on the colour of their skin.

Yet a significant proportion of the population – mostly, but by no means only, Labor-voting members of the working class –believed that the Australian standard of living, our good working conditions, and the nation’s political, social and cultural stability were a result of determined efforts to exclude Asians, Africans, African-Americans and most South Americans from our population.  Gough Whitlam may have helped lead Labor from this wilderness; his instincts were bitterly opposed by Arthur Calwell, his predecessor, and leading frontbencher Fred Daly.

At the time of the 1967 referendum prime minister Anthony Albanese was four years old. His predecessor, Scott Morrison, was a year away from being born.  Both grew up in very different societies, as did most Australians, local or foreign-born.  Only about three in 10 Australians was alive at the time of the 1967 referendum, and only about half of these would have any recollection of it.

Take it from Pandora, this Voice thing might be dangerous if let out of the box! It might give rise to a national state of IMAGINATION!

Only older Australians seem to want to maintain hostilities against
Aboriginal Australians.

Anglo irish like the status quo.  (and dressing up)

In the general Australian population, opposition to the Voice proposal is likely to be concentrated among those who were alive in 1967. They may prove to be the only age-group which, by majority, votes no. The younger the voter, the more likely they are to vote yes and to see the Voice as a further step in the reconciliation of non-Aboriginal Australians with the people of the first nations. The more likely too that such voters will see the adoption of the referendum proposal as a national coming of age, not only an embrace and incorporation of indigenous history, culture and society into Australia’s own sense of itself, but as a mark of our national self-confidence in our dealings with the world. Indigenous disadvantage has long been a stick with which other nations have been able to beat us. Many in the younger half of the population are puzzled and somewhat outraged by the reluctance of older folk, particularly men, to “get over” 1950s attitudes to Aboriginal Australians. Likewise, most people born outside Australia – even older ones – are less likely to be hostile to Aboriginal aspirations than older Anglo-Irish men.

I can remember 1967, and some of the cautious optimism about Aboriginal affairs that the overwhelming yes vote brought.  It was a long time locally before much change occurred, but few doubted that the wider Australia had declared that things must.  The first significant changes occurred from about 1973, during the Whitlam government. But many of the advances seemed to be accompanied by retreats that were greeted with satisfaction in the populations where rural Aborigines lived. The composition of that population has changed over time, as have attitudes among the younger members of that population. But there are rich veins of antipathy able to be mined.

The legacy of right-minded Rural Australians is GRATE!

I can never forget that in the rural part of Australia where I grew up, a majority of the people voted no.

UNGRATEFUL! For all weve done for them!

That did not, of itself, reflect that natural conservatism Australians are supposed to exhibit whenever anyone wants to make changes to the constitution. It reflected an active hostility to Aborigines, to Aboriginal interests, and to any notion that the collective advancement of Aborigines could involve any perceived cost or disadvantage to the local white population. I would have said that this was a social hostility at this time more manifest among the “townies” rather than the farmers and pastoralists of the area. Many of the latter, in days before they had been whipped up into a frenzy with fear of land rights and native title, could afford to be somewhat more liberal about the fate of a casual labour force the demand for which was falling. But others might say sardonically that the reason farmers and graziers could afford such neutrality was because their grandfathers and great grandfathers had arranged the “clearing” of their holdings, and, later, the exile of any remnant populations to the fringes of local towns. Not really their problem anymore.

Even Mr Potato Head has a heart. In a potato-ey kinda way!

Australia’s Jim Crow era is not of the ancient past. Many of us remember it well.

Meanwhile, most indigenous people in these areas lived on “missions” and settlements, many still in metre-high lean-tos constructed of flattened-out kerosine tins, cardboard boxes and bits of tin scavenged from the (usually nearby) tips. Most indigenous children were not allowed into the local government schools, although that situation was gradually changing and had been reversed by 1970. The children had not been excluded on openly racist grounds, but because the townsfolk had objected to their children attending school alongside children with obvious pus coming from ears and noses.  At least until the 1964 Freedom Rides (and in most cases for a year or two afterwards) Aboriginal children were excluded from local swimming pools. In many towns, police enforced a curfew from dusk to dawn on Aboriginal presence in town areas.  Australia had a Jim Crow system every bit as bad as in the American South.

Welfare recipients are DEAD-Sick of Charity!

I was born in a hospital where Aboriginal women gave birth to babies, or were treated when sick, on the hospital veranda, not in the wards.  The Aboriginal infant mortality in the area was about 250 per 1000 one in every four babies died before reaching the age of one.  That death rate was about the same as in Central Australia. But in the Centre, most indigenous people were living far more traditionally, and, at that stage, without much access to wages or material goods, let alone any sort of proximity to health and education services. The shaming feature of much of western NSW was that such services existed and were notionally open to Aboriginal use.  Some services  “the welfare”, for example waged a war of terror, aided by the police and the judicial system, against Indigenous families, as well as indigent whites. Children seized by welfare were rarely returned to their communities.

But living conditions, morbidity and mortality told the real story.  Just as shamingly, the frank racism and marked disadvantage did not seem to make many in the local population uneasy; they were quite happy as things were. Nor were the local politicians much engaged in promoting any programs of Aboriginal advancement; generally, most local agitation, if any, came from the odd clergyman, teacher or other busy-body ring-ins. Such people were, as far as possible, generally ostracised, especially by power centres in the community such as the RSL.  I am proud to say that my father, a grazier, was one of the local do-gooders. So was his father and some of his siblings.

Most suburban Australians are keenly aware of First Nations and their impact on a cultural ethos.

If ever, in those days, I expressed any reproach or feeling of shame to others from the area for the district’s no vote at the referendum, I was smugly reminded that most Australians had never seen an Aboriginal, and had voted from naïve idealism.  It could be said that the more likely it was that people lived in the vicinity of Aboriginal Australians, the more likely it was that they, from their experience, would vote no. Most people would disavow complete antipathy to Aborigines. They would grudgingly admit that some individuals, and some families, were respectable and admirable citizens.  That did not prevent racist generalisations, open discrimination in local shops and services, and a general belief that the disadvantage of Aborigines was their own fault, for failing to adopt the habits and the manners of white Australians.

Many in the community confidently expected that any initiatives would be a waste of money, and that ameliorative measures, anti-discrimination laws, legal aid—would change nothing. Police hotly resented any controls or discipline over the way they “managed” their local Aboriginal “problem.” Country folk deeply resented the disapproval of city-folk and do-gooders, and believed they had no idea of the nature of the “problem.”  Curiously, much of the alleged fecklessness, ignorance and “no-hoperdom” attributed to Aborigines had, only a century or so before been attributed to the local Irish. Some of these now trotted out the very discriminatory generalisations that had once been used to justify their being held back from full participation in the wider society.

I’d like to say that we are past all that now. .Certainly we now live in a society where most citizens would not, and a few citizens dare not, express the racist and discriminatory feelings that were once so common in those parts.

Across the nation living conditions have improved considerably, and, in most communities, Aborigines now live in the towns and the cities, if all too often in over-crowded housing.  There is a full panoply of anti-discrimination legislation, and, in many areas a strong sense of civic partnership that no longer routinely excludes the Aboriginal citizens making up a significant proportion of the towns.

But we are still a long way from a picture in which the local indigenous community are not instantly distinguishable by being the most obviously disadvantaged by health, housing and educational status, by income and job security, and by almost every imaginable form of social or economic capital accumulation. It is trite to say that much of that disadvantage is a consequence of the bad bits of European settlement, including old policies of dispersal, dispossession and conscious pauperisation. What has yet to be properly acknowledged is how much of the current disadvantage comes from the recent as much as the distant past. And how much of its continuance has been because of the active resistance of a proportion of the population who see themselves as disadvantaged whenever there is any effort to improve the lot of the first Australians.

The case for yes is an emotional one. But it’s positive and yearns for a brand new day. The case for no is resentful, and won’t drop the grudge.

Even on stamps and coins they, ( First Australians) have made significant steps toward RECOGNITION. None of which is TOKEN!

Pauline Hanson regularly expresses this resentment and resistance, sometimes cunningly with her claim that she dares to say what others are thinking. The National Party has had a long tradition of resisting change, but in more recent times has become more progressive as it has recognised that many of its human constituencies (that is other than the coal and gas industry) have progressive views on human rights, the environment and policies of inclusion rather than polarisation. So far, its decision to campaign against the Voice has not sought to pander to active hostility to Aborigines, other than through its traditional law and order focus.

Guided always by a benign and guiding hand invested by HIS MAJESTY the KING to ensure we all live up to the notion of CIVILISATION!

But as the referendum campaign gathers speed one can expect that it will be pitching a them-versus-us line in its electorates. Claiming that all Australians should be subject to the same laws with no groups given any special status is a way station on the road to arguing that Aborigines are already getting advantages other Australians do not get.  It used to be said in the American South that the secret of maintaining political power involved reminding poor whites that they were better off than blacks, and keeping their focus on the points of distinction so that they did not see who was benefiting from the disadvantage of both.

So that the GOOD and NOBLE may adorn themselves with shiny MEDALS!

By 1967, Aborigines could vote in every part of Australia. But they did not have to, and there were only a few areas where there was a discernible indigenous vote.  Now indigenous voters number about a third of the voters in many parts of rural NSW, and one might think that enough to guarantee a Yes vote. Yet in some rural NSW Aboriginal communities, some Aborigines will vote no. In those parts, I doubt that this is because of the cause fronted by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a personality of a type and with backers of a sort that many voters will recognise.  It’s more likely that it’s the cry of exclusion and despair being pitched by senator Lidia Thorpe of Victoria. Some will do that because they fear that voting yes may end up compromising an ultimate sovereignty argument. Others feel that they have not personally or collectively benefited much from 50 years of Aboriginalprograms, and believe the money, and the initiative behind the Voice has gone to Aboriginal fat cats and will only increase their relative advantage. Some others will vote yes, but without much enthusiasm, if only because they dislike people associated with the No campaign more than those arguing for yes.  At local levels in parts of rural NSW there is, so far, little momentum.  And the idea that having a constitutionally-mandated Voice will transform the local situation is a hope, not a certain solution for all difficulties. There will never be a short cut away from politicking, arguing, rationing, making choices and having winners and losers. But it might be a fairer contest if Aboriginal opinion were to carry more weight and influence, and receive more respect.

Although traditional wisdom has it that referendums always fail if there is significant opposition from even one substantial group, I think that the same-sex marriage plebiscite suggests new possibilities for constitutional referendum questions containing a considerable moral and emotional appeal. Particularly when it is pitched at the idea of closure of old hatreds, hostilities and resentments, promise of a more inclusive and cooperative future, and realisation that recognition promotes equality before the law. Far from raising one group unfairly above others, a Yes vote may help create a level playing field.  But I still dread the prospect that in some of the old battlegrounds there is still a mood for conflict rather than peace.  There are pockets of the land where there are people right out of touch and sympathy with the national mood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYLKGIf68So

Are you the one who’s gonna stand up and be counted?

But, sadly there are always some who still COMPLAIN!

Jack’s presentation is nicely self-contained.  I am loath to add to it, but can’t contain myself when responding to our own Mr. Potato Head with his demand for more detail.  Rather disingenuous me thinks.  Talk about the goose and the gander and the pot and the kettle.  How much detail were we given about Morrison’s underwater wet dream?  What Minister was he acting as when he cobbled AUKUS together? Can we please see the advice the then Attorney General was given?

As for Albanese’s counter attack, also disingenuous.  He should leave such gratuitous undignified criticism of the naysayers to people like me.

Tot we elkaar weer ontmoeten,

Frenk

Dear reader, we return to our saga, once again, much like Fox news the events we describe seem improbable, but then as Ian Fleming was fond of saying, ‘ Never say never”!

And it is from the nether regions of the soul we bring you this tale of torment. This tale of indescribable woe in which out three anti-heroes are pursued, punished, and pulverised. Not for their beliefs but for the crime of being naïve.  It’s a sort of Julian Assange paradox. As the years fly by, it’s not what he did, as no one can remember, in the afterlight of what a twenty-one-year-old can do to intelligence, but that intelligence in any way shape manner or form seems unintelligible.  And no one can remember what he is being punished for in the first place. Save that whatever is said or written, he must be punished!!  

The Julian Assange paradox. All round good treatment for whistle-blowers

For that is the way of things in the alternate fact, witness K scheme of things.

That’s, why we support the industrial military complex in Ukraine cos it’s gotta be better than the Russian one. And the good guys are on our side.  That’s what Angus Taylor told us and he’s a man of character. He’s got the Liberal party to where it is today. There is no prize for standing by your conviction, and if nepotism, graft, and corruption is what you need to stay in power, the optics are good. That’s what sustains Donald, he’s got the optics right, and their tinged in an orange hue. He’s probably an Orangeman. Donald would support William of Orange and would draw the line on gays as school captains, and that demonstrates a stand on standards, if we don’t stand on standards, we have nothing to stand on.

So standing on principle we return to our saga, just at that point when they revealed to us, the crumpled figure of Brendan; ‘Brenny Boy Nelson,” the sole occupant of the helicopter that plunged into the chasm. What a chasm, and we haven’t even mentioned Sophie yet. Juurkaan Gorge anyone?

We return to our saga. We acknowledge we’ve said this before, but we just want to see if you’re paying attention.

‘Jeez’, Ces spluttered as Benny-boy leaned into the crumpled cockpit and with one mighty hand lifted the crumpled figure up and lay him on the ground. The face quietly at peace and illuminated by the flickering glow of the helicopter fuselage as it quietly smouldered, its rotors a forlorn heap of twisted metal and non – whirring- ness.

No Whistle-blowers at Fox.

‘I reckon he’s just unconscious’.

Benny turned him over and checked his pulse, ‘he’s still breathing, look’! And in his hand, he clutched a small object. Benny as expertly as if he was tossing a wop off a cliff opened the clenched hands, and there within the sweaty palm a document. ‘Open it open it’!  Ces Urged. ‘Wait’! Quent remonstrated. ‘It may be top secret and our future may be at stake’.

‘Future Smuture’ scoffed Julian, and with an alacrity borne by being a ratbag, he swiped the document from the clenched hand and read aloud…

“Quis quod sibilus ictus audet’ ( English translation) ‘He who has the biggest whistle will blow loudest’! or….’Who whistles for the whistle blower?

‘Well, I’ll be a dead Dingo’s donger’, sighed Quent, ‘it looks official, what is the monogram there’? Quent pointed a stubby finger into the right-hand corner, and sure enough three plumes and a monogram ‘CR’ That’s either a new look for the CWA or I bet its none other than prince, now King Charles’s monogram. And look here’! Julian read the address, ‘it says right here Highgrove Buckinghamshire’. They all gasped. It was from the King himself. ‘And he aint even been coronated yet. Shows what a divine right to be a chinless wonder can do. His power is immeasurable! Jeez this is from King Leonardo himself, look here’! And countersigned in red ink the unmistakeable scrawl, ‘Camilla, ‘and she’s in on it. This document is an order, by the highest authority to bring Quent and Ces and their sidekick Terry to Justice’.

It read.

‘Your order is to capture those scallywags and bring them to justice. Dead or Alive! No one shall know of that they found in the arid wastes as it belongs to me. Only you as custodian of ‘Anzackery’ is instructed to being them to me, and once delivered a peerage is in the bag, and we’ll talk about another few million for Gina, as we know she can afford it.

Yours Charles Rex.

‘Well that just about takes the cake, who would’ve thought, it goes straight through Gina to King Charles himself. What a ratbag’!  And turning to Julian Ces affirmed, ‘and we thought you were a ratbag, but mate, you’re just amateur’.

Julian gave a wry smile, ‘I always had the royals to look up to, I thought if I kept at being a rat-bag I might end up respectable like them’!

Royally rooted!

He had a point, we felt sorry for the poor bastard.

‘Still though, what good is it being wanted felons, Brendan is working for the firm and that means we’re rooted Royally’! We could hear the sound of the tom toms, getting perceptibly louder. ‘We better get out of this fix or royalty or no royalty we’ll be in the pot for dinner and Sophie’. Just at that moment Brendan groaned, ‘he’s coming too’! And not too soon, for just at that moment we could hear the savage cry of savages, and in the distance the inchoate bellow of Sophie, more frightful than a banshee, a harpy, a golliwog.  ‘We’d better think of something quick’! And at that moment, the first of the spears as if from nowhere flashed past the and embedded itself into the wall of the chasm.

Looks like this is it, and to am n they had run out of time, but loke, might still be on their side,

George Brandis as our High Commissioner in London

Find out in the next episode, ‘will luck divorce them at the altar’? Or ‘try as they may, they might get a trifecta of trouble’!

Stuart Robert MP knows a lot about media and keeping the story straight on Fact from Fiction.

Another reflection from our man from the northwest Frontier.

In this-un he tends to suggest that most mainstream media have got it wrong.

We agree, that’s why we choose to read only the Catholic Boy’s Daily, (the Australian) and watch Fox News for factual alternate facts. It keeps us on the ball and we hope that all this nonsense about Rupert being behind the stolen election bias will just go away. If only people would mind their own business and let reputable news agencies get on with the job the world would be a safer place. And it’s a source of real comfort to know that Angus Taylor will be hosting our next big event. ‘The Ethical Journalism Awards’, co-hosted by Stuart Robert at the Crown Palladium Ballroom. Bring your own sachet of white powder. 

Frank writes….

Ave

Shortly after a policeman had been charged with murder for shooting a young man in Yuendumu, the judge issued a comprehensive court injunction.  The matter was sub judice and not to be aired in the media.  For instance, the defendant’s military record was not to be discussed, nor any other aspects of his stint with the NT Police.  Up until the not guilty verdict more than two years later, the Yuendumu community and the family of the victim maintained a dignified silence and adhered to the injunction.

Wearing of headphones incorrectly is a capital offence.

Despite this, a journalist and a photographer turned up in Yuendumu and started filming and interviewing grieving members of the victim’s family.  The duo from the Fourth Estate were approached and politely told that they should have waited and could they please refrain.  They took no heed and released a biased video on mainstream media which portrayed the victim as a dangerous criminal and the accused as a heroic figure who’d had no choice but to do his job.  This was followed by a relentless campaign on Facebook and by certain sectors of the media, aided and abetted by the NT Police association and the accused’s family.

This culminated in defense counsel Edwardson declaring after the not guilty verdict had been announced that the victim had been the author of his own misfortune.  Sadly, their campaign succeeded to the extent that there are still large numbers of people who believe this to be the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltPN8QSZk84&t=2s

Ain’t Right to Blame the Victim- Steve Harrison

In 1898 H. G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds which 40 years later was adapted by Orson Welles for radio. The radio broadcast included news bulletins reporting on an invasion of earth by Martians. The newspapers reported on the widespread panic the invasion had caused.  The invasion was fiction, the panic was fake news. Orson Welles’ broadcast has entered the realm of myth.

George Orwell was a prolific writer on matters of lies and truth.  Googling Orwell’s sayings to find a relevant quote to decorate an essay or Dispatch is like choosing a breakfast cereal in a modern well stocked supermarket.

A Master of Reliable factual interpretation. And a connoisseur of graceful living.

I’ve chosen this one:

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

The problem with this is that the Fourth Estate does not make it easy to discern the truth and hence to speak it.

The Australian media (with notable exceptions) tends to behave like a dog with a bone and latches on to one bone after another.

Recently we have had the balloon threat, the threat to our economy by the potential phasing out of the hydrocarbon industry, the Alice Springs crime wave and what have I left out?

Some of our main newspapers did a four day fear and loathing feature with chicken little headlines. A war with China over Taiwan within three years was a real possibility according to the newspaper articles.  Coincidentally soon thereafter the Australian government announced its largest commitment to military expenditure ever.  It is purchasing submersible white elephants.

Martians landing at ‘Camp Rolfe’, (formerly Yuendumu)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoax54olIUM

Steve Van-Deller- The Sky is Falling In

A tweet from Tony Windsor encapsulates Australia’s Fourth Estate.

A man I met in a Canberra shop told me he was an acquaintance of Phil Coorey’s cousin’s vet who apparently heard from someone else with a security background that he had it on good authority that the martians could invade in the next 500 years.  Hard to believe, but thems the facts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvKjG8elLA4

Aretha Franklin- Dr. Feelgood,

Not all Martians are bad!

This kind of music, yet another good reason to save the planet.

Donec iterum

Frank

Prince Andrew is a shoe-in for the Coronation balcony presentation. he is after all… A man of influence.

We’re back to the saga which has no end.

No, not the silly criminal proceedings against Donald Trump nor the catastrophe of who gets to stand on the balcony at the upcoming Royal Coronation. Though we do have it on good authority that although they are not invited to the coronation itself, Prince Harry, and his royal consort princess Migraine will be invited to the Coronation after party. As described by lady Fergie of cashback; ‘the after party is heaps better than the silly coronation, cos that’s where we royal can let loose, treat the public with utter disdain, and rave on into the wee small hours in our national costume. Which is invariably brown or black with Hakenkreuz on the left arm. And there’ll be tons of Coke, Fanta, and Whizz Fizz, and we’ll party into the long weekend playing pass the parcel, flog the blackamoor and ‘who’s a bigger chinless wonder’. Andy always wins on that category, but Charles, the man who would be King, is in training to beat him to the punch’.  Oh, her royal something or other added, ‘there will be punch. I’ll be making it, Pimm’s no 5, Copious amounts of vodka paid for form our friends in Russia, and a Punch and Judy show live featuring Rishi and Boris in a tag team match in a cage’.

 These two will also have a handle on affairs of state. Though we at pcbycp can’t think of one.

What can we say?  We know out readership are convulsed with anticipation of the royal event of the Millennia. But a starker reality remains, that will not go unless it can be determined as to what fate lies before out trio and to what effect the aegis of Julian and Benny-Boy may change their predestiny.

Predestiny, Predisposition, Preamble, the Voice. Whatever happens it’ll be bigger than AUK-WARD if we have an atom of imagination left after the Voice referendum.

We return to our saga.

Stuart Robert MP, has been assured in the old fashioned way that a front row seat is his for the taking at Westminster. ‘Mates Rates’!

It’s hoped the; ‘Three wise men” will get an invite.

There was no time to duck, to crouch or even find a niche from which to protect us from the falling debris. Trained to send an RPG straight into the innards of the helicopter, Benny Boy wasted no time, and as the projectile found its mark, we just braced ourselves for the inevitable.  And the inevitable was not a long time in coming. With a crescendo of fire and light, the grenade ripped into the helicopter’s innards and what was once a formidable technological masterpiece of aeronautical engineering came crashing down in an explosion of flame and thunder. The blades smashing against the wall of the crevasse, and the fuselage, rent and ruptured where the grenade had made its mark. WE cowered knowing that when it hit solid ground we’d be barely inches from the conflagration and in spite of the thunderous crescendo of impact we could see Julian, smiling wryly. It proved a point no matter how far from the circumstance, Julian, the bad boy of Wikileaks was always relishing the moment. For when chaos reigned, he would rise above it, and turn it via the alchemy of his personality into something much worse. For all of us, it indicated his mastery of the dark arts and his ability to turn any catastrophe into a footnote devoted to himself. We admired his obdurate stoicism, his pluck and his abject level of self-indulgence. It was Trumpian, and worse.

some eminent individuals have not RSVP’d

‘Stand back’! Ces cried, and although the sentiment was entirely gratuitous, we were so absorbed in the fireball of busted up helicopter as it descended towards us. The busted-up rotors a Catherine wheel of fire, and the Plexiglass nose revealing a pilot stuck in an attitude of sheer horror. Determined to ride, whatever the consequence the flaming whirly-bird to the end.

With a terrific impact of torn steel, and duralinium it crashed directly in front of us, with such impact we all felt winded by the concussion. Picking ourselves up we noticed the conflagration had extinguished itself with the force of impact the crumpled wreck before us revealed one singular thing. Written onto the boom, now more crumpled than an AUK WARD TREAY Periscope, were the words ‘Hancock Prospecting’, and incredibly, in the busted-up piece of wreckage we could see movement. There as something inside that aircraft that still lived. And with compassion a forethought we all rushed to a man to free whoever it was that many be trapped inside. Friend or foe, compassion and humanity held us in a sacred bond of doing the right thing.

Will Princeess Migraine show up? Who cares?

‘Here’, Ces pointed, the door its half open, form inside we could hear a voice, ‘Help me, help me’! That’s it’! Benny cried, and through the adroit force of courageous impulse that had won him a VC on the field of glory, he was at the crumpled cockpit in a flash. Deploying his Swiss army knife he rattled through all the combinations before he pulled out the tin opener.  It was astounding to watch Benny at work. As a VC winner he was completely absorbed in the task at hand, and it was pure professionalism at work. Furiously he tore back at the exoskeletal carapace unto the bare metal ribs gave us a glimpse of what lay inside. A crumpled mass of humanity in which a figure, indecipherable in the mist and smoke was attempting to stand up, ‘Hold on mate’, Terry cried, and Benny leaned into the cockpit, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled the pilot out,

The whole Coronation shebang is paid for by Saudi inc.

WE were consumed with awe.

Only Benny Boy, VC Winner could perform such a task. The Pilot was reverentially laid down.

We carefully wiped his face, covered in oil, soot and grease.  Terry proffering him another Camel, leaped forward and said the soothing words, ‘you’ll be right mate’, and helped him take his first two drags before the pilot regained full consciousness and his eyes blinked. Just as Terry said; ‘hey mate would yer like another fag’?  A horrible realisation dawned. This was worse than any of Gina’s stooges. This was stooge- ism itself. This was lick-spittle central.  This was arse-wipe city. For upon regaining consciousness and beaming up at us with all the confidence that only pure stupidity can bring we realised who the survivor was.  None other than Brenny Nelson, the supremo of the AWM. And we knew that whatever happened his henchmen Angus, Gina, and Kerrie were not far behind, ‘

Fergie is anticipated to make a splash.

And just as we made this tragic realisation, the tom toms, dormant this past half hour, renewed their insidious beat. We were still on the run, from savages determined via Sophies folie de grandeur to have us eaten or by Brenny and his cohorts to be stuffed, set and displayed as mere chattel to the God-head of ANZACKERY.

Will this be the end? Or just another prelude to the end of the beginning? Or the bit after the start in our in the next compelling episode? ‘If you think too much you’re fucked’, or ‘three sheets to the windvane, and it’s blowing from every angle’.

Dear readership,

The Glorious’s end wasn’t all that Glorious!

Glad, we use the term ‘readership”! Cos the stuff coming out of ‘Camp Rolfe’, (formerly ‘Yuendumu’) is like a great Ship of State. 

It’s lofty, glorious, and like the mighty battleship converted to an aircraft carrier, we hope that this glory does not go the way of HMS Glorious, cruelly sunk ‘by gunfire’ by The ‘Scharnhorst’ and the ‘Gneisenau’ off the coast of Norway.  If you’ve forgotten about that fateful day in 1940 you can see it recorded on Youtube.

An aircraft carrier sunk by battleships?  You may ask; ‘How could that be’? Well, it’s as silly as waiting thirty years for a submarine. That’s what the AWK-WARD treaty is all about. And we’re told that by going nuclear we’ll be SAFE! As safe as we were when the mighty 15 inch guns installed at Singapore, protected us from invasion from the Japanese. 

But don’t let us caution you about subs, here’s another one from Frank and it comes with a sub-text. 

But it sank well!

 

Amici,

I’ve received quite a bit of feedback resulting from the Dispatches surge. The Dispatchee who suggested I should stop whingeing was cause for introspection and it was most timely that the Warlpiri Encyclopaedic Dictionary launch came along to cheer me up.  I was able to share and spread some joy.  I promise to be on the lookout for more positive stories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo&t=5s

The Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau weren’t bad ships either. Till they SANK!

After I published My Yuendumu Story many readers told me they’d like to read more about my parents and my pre-Yuendumu existence.  I’m working on that.

From the draft of My Yuendumu Story continued (Ngaju-nyangu Yurntumu-kurlu jaru-kari):

My father spent much of his life with a straight face, a glint in his eyes, and his tongue firmly in his cheek.  Much of what is in this book was written with my inherited sardonicism and appreciation of irony.  For me, Yuendumu is a great place to be, because so much weird and farcical stuff happens here, most of it instigated by intellectual pygmies from the outside world.

The first FOUR AUK-WARD Treaty subs for AWSTRALIA, from r to l; HMAS, ‘Feeble, Fumble, Feckless and Inappropriate touching’

I try to stay at the irony end of the ironic/cynical continuum.  I have also been asked the reason for the exponential growth in the frequency of Dispatches.  It isn’t that I’m trying to keep up with interest hikes.  In the past the Dispatches have been most irregular and opportunistic.  Something crazy happens and a Dispatch pops into my head.  The reason for the current explosion, is that there has been a crescendo in bizarre and insane happenings in the world and Yuendumu.

Last century I obtained an Osborne computer. It had 64KB of RAM and two floppy disks of 360KB each. I thought it was Christmas. I am glad though that I didn’t order it for delivery in 2023 at a mere $1bn. It is now completely obsolete. Why does this make me think of nuclear powered submarines?

The Mighty Guns at SINGAPORE!

In Yuendumu it will be three years of hand-wringing after a young man had three bullets pumped into his chest before a report is presented which will have recommendations on how to prevent such from happening again. We already have been given an answer.  I may have already told you.  They have created the Community Resilience and Engagement Command with its own acronym CREC.  Can’t wait to see it in action.

A couple of days ago I ran into a friend in Alice Springs who’d worked in Yuendumu as a mechanic.  I told him I’d just launched a Dispatch into cyberspace on the topical topic of submarines.  I told him I’d used the Yellow Submarine song.  Almost like that song had been written for my future use. My friend immediately proclaimed that the song was only waiting for this moment to arise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWy4JSFFuUI

Ciao,

Francesco

And one more (from my childhood):

Mighty Air Protection over Singapore. Which failed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLt787xbMNk

—

Each Porter Davis Home comes with a personal guarantee from HIH, Emron, and Pyramid Building Society.

Dear reader,

as a crisis looms in the domestic housing market, builder’s go broke and the Saints ride gloriously over the top of the Dons in last week’s footy, (brought to you by Sports bet, 24/7, BET 365 and the makers of gaming machines to crown and accredited welfare agencies) comes the exciting news that ‘Benny Boy’ Roberts Smith has emerged from the jungle just in the nick of time. Is his appearance an omen? That the sacred winner of the VC may yet save our trio from the tom toms, and a an la carte appointment with Sophie, now queen of a tribe of less than noble savages?

Or is it just another twist, more twister than whoever knew, said, poked, prodded and plausibly became penetrated by Donald Trump in his rise to power as POTUS?

Only available through Sportsbet 24/7

Hang onto your seats, suppress the urge to check the odds-on which way this narrative will go, and take heart in the fact that as Rome burns, shares in fireworks may hit the roof. Global warming?

Who gives a fire- cracker as in the end no one really cares, and Rupert has just dissed his latest girlfriend. If its trouble for Rupert, you can rest assured more trouble is coming.  A tsunami of trouble is coming our way, and whichever way you look at it, it’s not going to be nice.

‘Nice’? Yes, indeed nice people don’t do politics.

That’s why Sophie is on the bench of the Fair Work Commission, as she was too nice for politics, and Benny boy Roberts Smith is out there protecting ‘Australian values‘. A fair go, and the right to roll a WOP off a hill.

Will Zachary Rolfe join forces with Benny now he’s officially not a member of the NT Police? Or is there a career for him on politics?  The Liberals both federally and across the Federation need LEADERSHIP! And Zach has all the credentials.  As a matter of fact, he’s so credentialled even the army won’t have him, but he’d be a shoe-in for ASIO where his no-nonsense approach would deal with would-be aggressors who have a predilection for Streamed fried rice, no 14, No 12, and No 3 on the menu. This and other telling indicators will not be answered in this instalment but, left hanging, hanging in the balance, you, dear reader must decide.

POST POTUS Syndrome

In this episode,

Hanging by a FRED, or Dangling in the DARK.

‘Jeez, Benny what the eff are youse doin here in the remote mountains of New Guinea? And are you alone?

Just then, a pale and pasty figure, dressed in black, wearing a Marxist beret as worn by Che Guevara walked from under the corner of the shadow, coughed, stumbled, and raised eyes that hadn’t seen sunlight in years and said, ‘I also seek VENGEANCE’!

Vengeance? Ces remarked upon who?

Julian WHO?

Upon she who must be obeyed, Julian put a withered finger in the air, Where I hear the tom tons, I know she to be, and…

Just then, Benny boy beckoned them SILENCE! And they all stood stock still and listened. To alleviate the tension Terry, miraculously proffered from his rucksack another packet of Camels and the trio and their two ne’r do well companions lit up. Pushing bluish smoke rings and wispish tendrils into the dim light of evening as seen through the iris of the pit they had fallen into, now several hundred meters above them. And sure enough the tom toms had stilled,

Benny Boy tensed, and fingered the bandolier of his AK47, and wiped the surface of the string of grenades tied in a belt around his waist.  His RPG strapped to his back, and several Claymores, Anti-tank mines and the aged .303 kept as a keepsake from the GLORIOUS SONS And DAUGHTERS of ANZAC light and sound display to be opened in the newly commissioned 2.5 billion, AWKWARD TREATY ANNEXE at the AWM.

STORM CLOUDS for the RULES BASED GLOBAL ORDER!

‘Shhhh’, he commanded, and we all stood stock still.  Even Julian, who was more sickly than usual let out a slight catarrhal wheeze and strained in the night air. And surely enough, the steady beat of a rotor.

Julian’s long term in captivity. Serving the course of JUSTICE!

Ces looked upwards, ‘it’s a helicopter, if we can get out of this we’re saved’?

‘Saved’?  Benny Boy laughed sarcastically, ‘SAVED FROM WHAT’?

‘By Sophies murderous horde, and the threat of being eaten alive. Or worse’?

‘What makes you think that’s a friendly helicopter’?

Benny boy was in his element, you had to hand it to him as a celebrated and certified VC winner. He was on top of his game. He beckoned us to lie down, which we did, and raising his grenade launcher skyward he waited till the helicopter drew over the lip of the crevasse, and sure enough, it did. A searchlight beamed down upon them, and without waiting to see if it were friend or foe, Benny Boy pulled the trigger and with a resounding whoosh, the projectile sped on its deadly course.

Will the chopper get the chop?

Will destiny rain down upon them?

Who’s Destiny?

Could it get any stormier?

Who is Stormy Daniels anyway?

THE Liberals NEED men of CONVICTION to LEAD!

Find out in our next explosive episode; ‘When The chopper gets chopped’, or ‘Five chops and several sausages makes for a bush picnic’!