Category: General Musings

Howard Derangement Syndrome at play

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The Prime Minister says far too many Australians are retiring at 55, and other countries are stealing a productivity march on us with more workers in the 55-64-year-old bracket still contributing to economic growth.
“If everybody worked at least until they were in their middle to late 60s, that would make an enormous difference,’’ he told ABC radio. He advocated scaling back slowly, perhaps working part-time as a more gentle stepping stone to retirement. “There are many, many people I know who have retired after a very, very busy life and suddenly they’re doing nothing and they go to pieces,’’ he says
All of which is reasonable – he doesn’t say we are all going to be chained to the work bench until we die – just that we shouldn’t neccessarily rush into retirement and if people want to work later than the magic 65 then let them. Stephen Lunn, social affairs writer for the Australian puts his spin on it and the Howard hating collective swarm
……Many people are sick of working in dysfunctional workplaces which are only becoming worse under Howard’s workplace laws. ……Another version of work till you drop. Howard should wake up to himself ……What sort of a con job is this from Howard? ……I just wish this silly little man and his nanny state would disappear
And what the hell does David Hudson of Adelaide mean by this diatribe?
please note that 800,000 separated parents across Australia are ‘forced’ to work until DEATH, never mind till 65 to meet unsustainable deemed “child support” arrears that outlast even their children’s lives in many cases.
At the latest count there were 1527 dead in 2002/3 ALONE ( see Hansard p171 below) RIP.
His reference just states that In 2002-2003 there were a total of 1 527 male payers recorded on the child support computer system as having died. This is the latest data available. People do die irregardless of what computer system they are on but the evidence pointing to John Howard murdering them all is somehow missing What is it with these people? Are they so deranged by their hatred that reason leaves their mind? Was it ever there?
General Musings

Lawyers fight for Terrorists

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THE Howard Government’s top lawyer has triggered a storm of protest from civil libertarians by accusing opponents of control orders on suspected terrorists of succumbing to “pre-9-11 thinking“.
Commonwealth Solicitor-General David Bennett QC said those who believed control orders were not within the Government’s constitutional powers were “Luddites” whose thinking was “very September 10”.
Mr Bennett’s reference during the case to “September 10 thinking” triggered an outburst from judge Michael Kirby, who said more people had died of AIDS than in the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, in which 2900 people, including 10 Australians, died. Justice Kirby is one of the full bench of seven judges who will determine the validity of the control orders. It’s not unusual that I don’t agree with or understand what Kirby is on about but this one leaves me really puzzled. More people die in motor vehicle accidents every year in Australia than were killed on 9/11 but so what? In the majority of cases accidents and HIV infection are not a deliberate attempt to kill thousands of innocents men, woman and children. Kirby’s a fool and the only hope for sanity in our legal system is his retirement on the March 18, 2009 due to his turning 70….thank God for the retirement age for judges. The Chief Judge backs the retirement age and so do I even if for different reasons. The Human Rights Lawers are up in arms as they seek to defend the rights of those who would kill our woman and children before those of their fellow citizens. He (David Bennett) said there were “a lot of silly people around who engage in what I call September 10 thinking”. “They say things like, ‘Oh, we’ve always had terrorism and there is no real difference’. That is just nonsense,” Mr Bennett said.
“We have seen what nonsense it is on September 11, and in London, Madrid, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Bali and Jakarta. There is a real threat and we need to combat it.”
I for one, want the federal agencies to know what the bastards are doing and if we can’t lock them up in the brig due to some smart -arse lawyer claiming a technical legal breach of confessions secured under duress then let’s have them on a 20 metre leash. If the laws of the land don’t allow for this then change the laws. I am not going to accept that they should be free to plan more attacks on Australia or Australians
General Musings, War on Terror

PM in Emergency Landing

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From Defence Media

A Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft carrying the Prime Minister (PM) and Chief of the Defence Force (CDF) was required to make an emergency landing at Tallil airfield in Southern Iraq last night AEST.

The Prime Minister, The Honourable John Howard and the Chief of the Defence Force Air Chief Marshall Angus Huston, had just completed a visit to troops of the Overwatch Battle Group (OBG(W)) and the Australian Army Training Team Iraq.

The party were travelling to Baghdad when minutes after take off smoke and fumes were noticed in the cabin of the aircraft.

The crew immediately called a PAN (Possible Assistance Necessary) and returned to Tallil.

From take off to landing the incident took no more than five (5) minutes.

 Both the PM and the CDF were full of praise regarding the actions of the crew.

 The Prime Minster said, “I am fine. I was in very good hands. You can’t get any better than the RAAF. It was a really good performance and I want to thank everyone.”

The CDF said “It was the sensible thing to do in the circumstances. I can’t fault their actions. The evacuation was done very, very quickly and efficiently.”

 The PM, CDF and all on board were uninjured. The group transferred to a second C-130 and continued their journey.

A bad week for the PM

General Musings

Legacy, Cambodia and cars

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Legacy Militaria Auction…..now that explains my lack of blogging. Just after the planning week and conference for a reunion of 7RAR, my Vietnam Alma Mater, I had to catch up on work for the Cambodia project as the Professor running the Asian end came to Australia to see us. Much planning and spreadsheets in between evening dinners as we went firm on plans to set up a village in Kampot Cambodia as a pepper plantation with housing, wells, irrigation and farmyard animals to feed 20 families. I penned this article for a local church newsletter this week – it explains what we are trying to achieve.
Kampot Cambodia. A long way from Brisbane but close to the heart of a group of locals intent on changing the lives of people in poverty stricken Cambodia. After the ravages of Pol Pot, Cambodia is in dire straights and needs help .During a conversation between three men In Hanoi two years ago they resolved to stop talking about it and actually do something. Kampot, the name of a town and a province about 150 kilometres SW of Phnom Penh, is home to Cambodia’s pepper culture. Kampot pepper is renowned as one of the world’s finest and in Colonial days a French Chef in Paris wouldn’t dare offer diners a meal without Kampot Pepper. Pol Pot put an end to this very successful industry and it is the return of pepper cultivation that the group see as offering hope for the locals. Prof. Adrie P. van Gelderen, an associate professor at Hanoi University believes that ” Education is the answer to structural and sustainable improvement of people’s living standards” He was one of the originators of the scheme along with Brian O’Reilly from Nudgee College. The plan involves purchasing 22 hetares of land (already achieved), building local architecture housing, digging wells and planting a small pepper plantation. The Cambodians will be selected from dispossessed local family units and it is planned to have 20 such families involved within five years. The mothers will be given a small plot of land to grow food, pigs and chickens will be provided along with fencing to secure them while the men will be paid local labour rates to develop the plantation and plant and tend other fruit trees for cash crops. It is envisaged the project will eventuate in the parents becoming sufficiently secure so as to encourage them to send their children to the local school. While Professor Van Gelederen is handling the Asian end of setting up a local NGO in Kampot the Australian end, all recruited by Brian O’Reilly, travelled to Kampot last December at their own expense to see first-hand the magnitude of the problem. Other than a second hand utility and a small salary for a Cambodian Project Manager all funds will go to the housing and plantation infrastructure. There will be no Toyota 100 Series vehicles or western salaries involved in the project. In the hills around Kampot, where Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge made their last stand against the Vietnamese; where previously they had summarily executed all the Village elders, the teachers, the beauracrats and trades people, there now exists some hope for the future and it’s people from our own community in North Brisbane that will make it happen Kev Gillett TAIGUM
When that was all settled I had to start a three week stint at Legacy helping with catalogueing, photographing, valueing and maintaining a database for some 400 lots whilst building a web page to make it available to our interstate and international bidders. The website is here Go visit and peruse. You can download a catalogue and over the next two days all pics should be posted. Bid on some history (phone and email bids available) and help the War Widows and their kids. Legacy still has over 100,000 widows on their books. Whilst at Legacy today I had to sort out computer problems but all I wanted to was play with my new car. Ah yes…new car. I drive a Series II V8 Discovery and of late have been thinking of changing the V8 for a Discovery deisel. (I must have noticed the fuel bill) I took one for a test drive and was disappointed -moving from a 4.0 li V8 to a 2.6 li TD5 deisel does that to a man. I missed the flick of the right toe that pushed the 180 hp driven two tonne vehicle past all but the fastest traffic and I definitely missed the fact that the whole exercise was smooth and exhilerating. My long suffering wife took one look at my face and remarked…” We’re not getting a deisel, are we? No comment but the next day I heard of a good vehicle in a car yard nearby and went and looked at it. A 2001 V8 Range Rover (I’m moving a long way from the deisel). It looked great and drove well but it was relatively cheap so I presumed something was wrong with it. I took it the people who have looked after my Land Rovers for years and got them to give it a pre- purchase check over. Nothing wrong with it….I did the deal. I see the car as a means of winding up Greenies and all those who believe the Gospel of the Later Day Alarmists. You know the type…Tim Flannery, for example, who believes I should be walking to work or at most driving a Prius. Others suggest the sea rises will force me into a boat but I don’t believe that either. Some research indicates the Range Rover is one of the most prolific of all vehicles in manufacture of CO2. It continually rapes Mother Earth with it’s fuel sonsumption and if I concentrate I can terrify Greenies as I pass them on the highway. In fact the vehicle is so bad that the company who make then have a Carbon-offset programme. The vehicle behind is a 1966 Series Two Land Rover that has all the anti-green qualities of it’s big brother minus power, comfort, accessories and youth. My wife said it was one or the other so the old Landie is up for sale. I’m glad she didn’t say it’s me or the car….I just hate hard decisions!
General Musings

Costello attacks PETA

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The Federal Treasurer is planning to make it easier for the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) to take legal action against a group calling for an international boycott of Australian wool.
Peter Costello is angry that the group People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has called for an international boycott of Australian wool, as a protest against mulesing of sheep.
So am I, my family run sheep and wheat in WA. He continues in his normal ‘calling a spade a spade’ manner;

“You can say what you like, you can be as ignorant as you like, and I think Martina Navratilova and Pink – when they campaign against Australian farmers – are ignorant,” he said.

“There’s no law that’s going to stop ignorant commentary, but there will be a law which will allow the ACCC to stand up for Australian farmers where they suffer from a boycott.”

I heard the interview on ABC radio and as usual they had a sound bite from Bob Brown rattling on about it being an attack on the freedom of speach. Of course the ABC always quote their darling Bob, (must be #1 on their speed dial) as his policies match the ABCs word for word.

A law against ignorant commentary…mmm….now there’s a thought.

General Musings

Australia Day

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To most Australians today is a time to reflect on how good it is to be Australian. To others, the left wing, it is a day to denigrate with snide comments and undergrad humour all that we stand for. Others, like Club Troppo, have an interesting thread on ‘What we are best at ‘ that is worth the look and conversely there has been a lot of dicussion about the Aussie flag at the Big Day Out music fests. For some reason, unclear to me, comments have centred on the flag and not the bearer. Ban the Flag has been the cry when it shouldv’e been Ban the Thugs using the flag for nefarious purposes. Australia Day also brings out the Change the Flag mob. Suggestions include the Eureka Flag long lowered in currency by the BWF and a host of Sorry contenders wanting Indigenous motifs at the masthead…you know, the Invasion Day mob. Our flag has flown over our building and barracks for well over a century now and I see no reason to change it. It appears to me that all advocates of change have political agendas that deny our history or denigrate it. They want a new flag because they hate the British or want it to represent a very small minority of the nation by having it adorned with indigenous motiffs. Not reason enough for me. I read the Australian Days Honours List with interest. I note Brigadier John Graham CALIGARI DSC, Qld. has been awarded the AM for Command and senior army staff appointments. I first met John when his father Barry was the Commanding Officer of 1RAR and John was a brand new lieutenant. He went on to command the Battalion completing a rare father and son act. Even then the thought that one day he would be in the Honours list would not have surprised me. Even though I smell a touch of political expediency and currency in Tim Flannery’s appointment as Australian of the Year I look forward to a more prolific debate on the environment. I don’t subscribe to the alarmist statements being peddled by extreme environmentalists but recognize adjustments are needed. I think Gore’s offerings are more theatre than fact and if the answer is Kyoto then someone had put the question poorly. Neither am I a fan of Flannery’s evangelistic preaching of the new gospel of the Global Warming Church of the Latter Day Alarmists but, as I say, debate is needed. Tim starts his year in the hot seat attacking Howard’s Water Management plan, particularly encouraging more agriculture in the north’s more wetter climes;
“But it seems reasonably well established now that the additional rainfall we’re getting across northern Australia is not caused by global warming – it’s caused by industrial particulate pollution in Asia, so that (is the) smog haze that they get across Asia.
Even if the monsoons are effected by industrial particulate pollution in Asia they are still monsoonal and encouraging agriculture in a wet climate must have some merit. Like most Australians I’m a skeptic, a patriot and I like our flag and if you have issues with any of that I feel sorry for you. Enjoy your day Australia and don’t forget others a long way from home. Australia Day celebrations at Headquarters Joint Task Force 633 in Baghdad (L-R): Lieutenant Commander Petrus Jonker, Lieutenant Timonthy Minion, Corporal Krissy Dalton, Flight Lieutenant Glenda Preston, Lieutenant Kristen Leydon, Squadron Leader Tharron Kingston-Lee, Corporal Peter Herbert and Leading Aircraftman Aaron Beavington.
General Musings

Gulpilil’s machete for ‘cultural use’

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Yeah…right!

ABORIGINAL actor David Gulpilil has been found not guilty of carrying an offensive weapon after a judge accepted that the machete he produced during an argument was used for cultural purposes.

He produced the machette during a heated arguement over his drinking whereupon I think the definition of cultural purposes may have gone a little astray.

I have no agenda against David but I think the trial judge Magistrate Tanya Fong Lim could’ve at least spoke severely to him.

“The defendant is an artist and a carver. He used the machete to carve didgeridoos, totem poles and strip stringy bark for paintings,” she told Darwin Magistrates Court.

“There is also evidence he used it to help him build shelters while out bush, like he had done shortly before arriving in Darwin.

“I accept the defendant’s explanation for his possession of the machete.”

Fine, that’s the possession matter out of the way but as far as I know possessing a machette isn’t a crime anyway; (it had better not be because I still have my army issue model in the back shed). But surely producung one during a heated discussion is tantamount to threatening.

It’s not as if he doesn’t have a conflict resolution issue as he has another count of violence due next week.

Last week Gulpilil’s wife took out a domestic violence order against her husband over an incident in Darwin on December 28 last year. That matter has been adjourned until January 17.

I do think David needs some help.

General Musings

The Water debate

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How’s this for sheer ignorance?
IT’S like a horror story. Over the centuries, countless millions of people have died from drinking polluted water. The World Health Organisation tells us that 50,000 people per day are still dying from drinking polluted water. Yet, in southeast Queensland, we are being pressured by the state and local governments and the monopoly newspapers to accept recycled sewage being dumped into our dams. Recycled sewage is not safe and I’m telling you that as a fully qualified sewage treatment plant operator. R. Hobbs Carrara, Qld
fully qualified sewage treatment plant operator……mmm. Key words Hobbsie. Southeast Queendsland is first world not third. If it comes out of your tap it’s safe to drink and I think you will find we are talking about water extracted from the sewage system and chemically rendered potable, not the sewage itself. You’d think a fully qualified sewage etc would know the difference – just like a fully qualified Garbologist knows all about paper recycling….they do don’t they? Mind you, the water used by industry for cooling and cleansing most probably doesn’t have to be potable so even if we have to lay a separate pipe system to industrial areas I think in the long term it would impact on our overall consumption. Now that’s a matter for debate as Julie Allen from Camp Hill suggests
It’s all well and good to talk about selective use of recycled water for industry and agriculture (and in some cases that can be a practical option), but does it make sense to dig up cities to build a second pipeline network for recycled water beside a perfectly good existing network just to satisfy the uneducated, the scaremongers and those prone to phobias. Let’s face it – the people telling us that recycled water is safe to drink are the same people who have given us drinking water for the past 100 years. Why should we stop trusting them now?
Why indeed. In note this morning that CSIRO have stated that the current drought is just a part of the normal weather cycles we have on earth and not Global Warming. Makes sense to me and is based on science rather than the new Global Warming Gospel. The drought will end but if nothing else it has forced us to look more closely at water consumption and the lack of storage infrastructure occassioned by state governments actively pursueing the Greenie vote as Ray Duncan from Smithfield Heights, so eloquently points out.
THE only reason that there has been a sharp decline in investment in new dams in Queensland in the past decade is because of the Beattie Labor Government’s pathetic pandering to the greens in exchange for their preferences.
This is particularly evident in Cairns, where every time someone raises the prospect of a new dam, the greens howl long and loud and the proposal is immediately quashed. In the forgotten far north of Queensland, we are using a dam that was commissioned in the late 1970s for a population of 35,000. Now, in 2006, with a population close to 130,000, we have the same dam and permanent water restrictions (in the wettest part of Australia). The Beattie Government’s fear of a green backlash against any new dam proposal is holding the rest of us to ransom.
In one way I hope the drought doesn’t break to soon or the politicians will get away with having done nothing for decades and will not be forced to think big, beyond their next term, and fix the problem for once and for all. It can be done. We are not short of water in Australia. Go for a trip up north in the wet season if you don’t believe me. We are just short of competant water management.
General Musings

Refugees face new threat of ejection

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THE Howard Government will be able to more easily deport refugees on temporary protection visas after the High Court ruled asylum-seekers were responsible for proving that a return to their homelands would be too dangerous.
More than 630 asylum-seekers from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka, who have applied for further protection after their TPVs expired, now face a higher risk of deportation. The 4-1 High Court ruling in the parallel cases of two Afghan men found that asylum-seekers asking for further Australian protection must prove their refugee status still exists after their initial three-year visa expires, effectively putting the onus of proof on refugees, rather than the Government.
Makes sense to me but what really makes it clear that it is in the best interests of Australia is this;
Minority judge Michael Kirby described the rulings as parochial and hostile to international law.
International law be damned and what’s wrong with parochial? The High Court adjudicates for Australia – doesn’t it?
General Musings
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