If you are reading this, thank a Teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a Soldier
If Karen Brown had shot William Aquilina while he was bashing her she could claim self defence. To pursue him after the event and shoot him dead is murder plain and simple although mitigating circumstances may help in sentencing.
Sad case all round and I’m sure the bastard got his just deserts but she needs to work on her modus operandi
In 1986 I commanded a 200 man, 100 vehicle convoy from Darwin to Brisbane. The whole trip took 11 days as we could only travel at the speed of the slowest vehicle, a 20 year old fridge trailer.
Upon arriving at Tambo I had the guys set up camp just north of town, grabbed a Land Rover and went to town to phone my long suffering wife. I found the Post Office and at about 6:00 pm I duly called home. When finished it became apparent that the Post Office front door had been left opened ? the wind was cold and kept banging the door as a reminder of someone?s slackness.
The Post Office being a Commonwealth Building and myself a Commonwealth officer I was obliged to do something about it so went in a search of the Sergeant policeman.
The search for the local constabulary would have been quicker concluded had I gone straight to the bar of the biggest pub in town but I eventually arrived there and asked him if we could talk outside for a moment. I didn?t want to un-necessarily embarrass the locals and the Sergeant appreciated my tact. He went off to fix that problem and then came back outside.
I mentioned that I had a mind to let my 200 man forces loose on the town with a leave pass and would he like to suggest a good pub. I also mentioned I had my own Military Police under command and that he most probably would not have to become to involved in policing.
The Sergeant introduced me to the publican who was as keen as mustard to get 200 punters into his pub on a mid week night. He figured the last time that happened was during World War II. During some spirited bargaining he reduced the price of a pot from $1.50 to $1 .00 and agreed to put on a free BBQ for all if my cooks would help.
Deal done, the troops got leave, fed and watered. Some fell in love and all were back for first parade.
We?re now at Lawn Hill Gorge with 2415 on the trip meter. The day we went through Tambo we ended up at the famous or infamous Kynuna Pub known as the Blue Heeler Pub. For non Aussies, a Blue Heeler is a local cattle dog ? Blue because they have red in their coat and Heeler because they influence the cattle?s intended direction of movement by biting one of the beasts heel.. The old Heeler behind the bar was nineteen and was no longer required to mix it with cattle ? reduced to mascot.
The Publican, a lady, confided in us for some reason and we got the whole saga. ?Some reason? might have been associated with the fact that she was consuming copious quantities of Bundy Rum but that?s a bit presumptive of me.
Her dishonest male partner left her with nine unpaid tax bills totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars and fled the scene. Negotiations with the Tax Office allowed her to continue trading and pay off the bill. Once this was resolved she started negotiations to buy the pub freehold but was gazumped by the only other trader in town ? her 1.2m offer for the pub was not enough ? he brought the pub and the service station and now owns the entire town.
Sounds like a plot for a B Grade Western Movie but with no John Wayne in town (remember her fellow had walked out) she was beaten. A retired English teacher she had a good turn of phrase and I wish her well in her search for a freehold country pub.
The next day we travelled to Gregory River to camp on the banks of the river and soak up the local atmosphere at the pub. Road, bridge and Telstra workers were staying at the pub so lots of stories told by the actual players.
On the outskirts of town there is an aborigine mission with kerbing, sewerage and water reticulation which you might correctly state is their right. The white town people think they should have all these services as well, but they don?t. They have to pump water up from the river into tanks and they have to pay for and organize their own sewerage and kerbing is simply out of the question.
Mick, (not his real name) the Telstra manager, told us horror stories of dealing with the local indigenous population. Cultural monitors demand $300 per day for their presence at any work site. Once the monitors on any Telstra job exceed 6 then there is a Cultural Monitor Supervisor who gets paid in excess of a $1,000 per day to make sure the monitors are doing their job.
Telstra are expected to have an Archeologist on site as well and he is charged with ensuring the Optic Fibre lines are not desecrating culturally significant sites.
Stories of the Archeologist picking up a rock and saying?
?This looks like an old axe? or whatever, and the monitor saying
?Is it? Oh yeah. You fellows have to go around?
Ah, such science.
Four D11 dozers are used on an optic fibre line. One to clear the scrub, one to level the path, one to rip the trench and one to fill. These things cost thousands of dollars per day so I would hate to think of the costs associated with rerouting the line a kilometre or two around a culturally significant piece of rock.
The fibre optics get to a mission and Mick tells me that Telstra gives all the locals CDMA phones.
Do they pay for them? No
Do they pay for their calls? No
Conferencing Indigenous style. Telstra have to fly the participants, the elders, to the conference site wherever that may be. They refuse to fly commercial thus Telstra are forced to charter aircraft. All well and good except often, on arrival, for some inexplicable reason, the elders decide now is not the time to hold the conference. Stay a while, have a chat, take the plane back home.
Nothing achieved. Maybe next time.
A word for 4WD enthusiasts. According to Mick Telstra are changing their entire fleet from Codan HF radios to Sat phones. If your looking for a second hand Codan I think there will be thousands on the market very soon.
The next morning after a delightful camp on the Gregory River we go back to town in time to see the road train taking fuel out to Century Mine. We spoke to the driver who says he does it daily. 4 dogs (trailers) carrying a total of 111,000 litres goes to the mine everyday and soon, when just three more vehicles are brought on line, the total daily fuel will increase to 150,000 litres.
In the pub there was a photo of a dump truck with a D11 dozer in the back, like a dinky toy. Big machines, big fuel burners.
We travel on and do the sites of Lawn Hill Gorge. I comment on the age of the land, the well eroded hills and Brian tells me these same hills were being eroded before Mount Everest was pushed out of the ground. Looks about right to me.
Ancient land Australia.
Lawn Hill Gorge. Imagine a semi arid landscape ? small rocky hills, very sparse vegetation, flat dry and hot. Take a D111 bulldozer, scrape a ditch 100 metres to 500 metres wide, up to 100 metres deep and maybe two or three kilometres long. Fill it with fresh running spring sourced water, all types of fauna and flora that exists only there and has done for millions of years.
Add tourists.
We went for a walk and swam in the ancient river amongst a dozen different species of water life with palms and grasses throwing up a lush backdrop. At night we are visited by a Wallaby. Small and totally unafraid of humans he approaches Brian demanding food. Brian is being polite..nice Skippy, settle down Skippy?stop it?and I interrupt with a tap to his ribs to try and make him let go of the vegetable bag. We?re laughing and trying to pick up spilt potatoes and onions quicker than Skippy. We eventually convince him to stop bludging and go eat leaves or whatever but as he takes off he grabs a bag of sausages and we have to leap double quick to save them.
The tourist brochures talk of ancient sands being the base of the sandstone cliffs and rocks. Formed some 1560 million years ago they are in danger of being eroded by the tens of thousands of tourists who visit each dry season.
Well worth it. Go there
Doomadgee, an Aboriginal town ? the least said the better. Travel on and camp at Wollogorang, pay $48.00 for six cans of Bundy Coke and a $1.40 per litre for fuel. Talking with other campers makes it worthwhile
Next day head for Daley Waters, some 650 Km away but a pub of such character as to make it all worthwhile. 150 Caravans and associated contents crowd the scene but the eye fillet and barramundi dinner lift the standards of the night. A long conversation with Russell, (I knew his brother Bob in the Army ? 6 degrees of separation) a retired Corrective Services Inspector is based on a lot of preaching to the converted. An associate of Ted Eagan, the current Territory Administrator (read Governor for states) and Shane Stone the Liberal Party Federal President and ex Leader of the NT Country Party he tells us stories of both of them that we should be able to confirm at dinner with Shane and Ted later when get to Darwin.
The Grey Nomads ? retired couples travelling the land in $45,000 caravans tend to socialize with other nomads and spend little time talking to the locals. The first night they camp and meet a couple they like and then agree to meet the next night at the next caravan park. That night they meet another couple and they all cluster like Indian Myna birds, sit in their plastic chairs and swap the same stories about kids?our mortgage is paid out?Jayco caravans are best and have you been to Uluru yet?
I?d rather talk to the locals ? the truckie, the publican, the Jackeroo, the Ringers and the professional Roo shooter. Different stories?real stories. Why travel a thousand miles to talk to a replica of yourself.
All the bar staff are backpackers with more accents than the UN and they?re selling pots and schooners as ?a half? or ?a pint?. Sacrilege. The other backpackers aren?t looking for a plastic copy of home ? they should be told how to order a drink in Australia.
Next morning we start the final leg to Darwin and stop at Katherine for coffee at the Bucking Bull Caf?. I notice an elderly Aborigine couple dining there and I?m pleasantly surprised. We order coffee and are seduced by the smell of fish and chips. We sit at a table outside and the owner comes out and talks to us.
Ivan, a Croat, had a choice when he left his old home and still chose Australia. With his daughter and son-in-law to help they are all working hard to make a go in the new home and they are exactly the type of new Aussie we need.
He has developed a relationship with the local tribes and encourages them to come and have a proper meal. If they have the money they pay. If not they can tick it up until pension day or sign a chit that the local Government authorities will honour.
Other businesses in town don?t like this approach and are trying to get him out of town. One of the local charities even took him to task for taking away their customers from the soup kitchen line. Ivan counters that they are only feeding them left-overs and the Aborigines know it, while he sells good tucker at fair prices.
A journalist from Darwin phones and accuses Ivan of taking advantage of the disadvantaged by charging them for a meal. Ivan points out that no one accuses the Publicans of taking advantage of people by charging them for beer and wine and no one gets up the local petrol service station owner for charging them for petrol to melt their brains. The Journalist hung up.
Ivan says he loves Australia and generally agrees with the Governments attempts to fix the problem but the debate is hamstrung by bullshit.
One of his indigenous customers stops and asks for a smoke. Ivan is embarrassed but stays cool. It?s midday and the man starts singing at the top of his voice. He has a reasonable voice but teeth like ?Jaws? of James Bond fame. The drunken signing continues and conversation is stifled while Ivan tries to move him on. He gives him money for cigarettes out of his own pocket and the drunk quits while he?s ahead. Lectures about lung damage falls on deaf ears but anything for peace and quite
I sneak a look at his tab system and see hundreds of cards with the one card I saw having twenty or so entries. Ivan is carrying a lot of money ? I hope it works for him
Just another day at Katherine.
Six weeks on the road and now I?m back home to sort 2,000 emails (mostly spam) and a host of “where have you been” enquiries.
The trip was a large undertaking with nearly 12,000 km covered over 6 weeks through some very remote parts of the country – Arnhem Land and the Simpson Desert to name two. We talked to literally hundreds of Australians, both local and travelers and to mobs of tourists. We dined with politicians, both white and black and have heard more from the “horse?s mouth” than most people do in a lifetime. We were privileged and appreciated the confidences that people shared with us.
It was very illuminating.
I would like to be able to say that I saw hope and promise in the Territory and in Queensland in respect of the Indigenous question but I can’t. There was little good news and a lot of misuse of government funds.
Considering the scope of the trip I intend to post regularly on what I encountered amongst daily musings on day to day events in the world and Australia.
There will be a travelogue of sorts interspersed with summaries of local opinion. If you live in the Victoria, NSW and Queensland voting triangle and have not had the chance to travel and talk to people at the coal face you might find these local opinions interesting.
If your vote has been based on warm and fuzzy op-ed pieces written by people with an agenda that precludes truth or includes lies by omission then you might find local opinions at odds with your beliefs and compassion and consequently disturbing.
Whatever, I can only tell it as I saw it.
I’m back! More to follow
I’m now at Darwin after 3,750 km of pub crawl. I’m on a six week trip through Queensland to the Gulf country, across to Darwin and then Kakadu, (the locals call it Kakadont due to all the nanny state rules) Jabiru, Coburg Peninsular, Nhulunbuy, Gove, Katherine, Eva Valley, Alice Spings, the Simpson Desert, Birdsville and home. Plan to be back by end July with about 12,000 km of Australian under our belt.
A friend, Brian, and myself are doing the first part of the trip sans wives – hence the pub crawl statement. The ladies have now joined us at Darwin and from now on things will be more civilized – so I’ve been told.
Communications varies from moderate to non-existant so postings will be spasmodic until I get back to civilization. Yes, Darwin is civilized but it gets worse from here. I am logging all the trip and will post in bulk on return.
Conversations at pubs with people at the coal-face of outback life and it’s problems has been my purpose and will be the subject of later postings.
At Darwin I have had the pleasure and time to speek with Shane Stone, the ex Chief Minister of the NT and Liberal heavyweight, and can only say I now view NT problems from a different perspective. Illuminating. More later.
At Nhullunbuy I will be meeting with Galarrwuy Yunupingu and family and look forward to reporting on that. I go there with an open mind and will work hard at keeping any pre-conceived ideas to myself. I want to listen to someone elses point of view, someone who actually lives the problem..walks the walk and talks the talk.
Maybe I’ll learn something that has eluded me until now but doubt it. I think the problems are well recorded by now.
Otherwise I’m on leave.
It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. US companies are developing the ability to stun a person over a 100 metres and to even stun groups of people by ‘sweeping’ the weapon across their front.
Human rights advocates are screaming already about abuse and over-zealous use
I think of riots of young men in Iraq all holding AK47s and prancing and dancing in the maniacle way they do.
Zap ’em, take their AK47s away from them and go back to barracks. They wake up with a hangover and no AK to be silly with.
Suicide bombers can be rendered unconcious, de-fused and sent home or better still re-fused and sent back to the bastards who sent them.
I think it has merit.
Check the article here
Ian Barker, QC attacks an Australian editorial from two days ago
CONTRARY to your editorial (15/6), David Hicks will not get his day in court. That has been denied him. He will get his day before a military tribunal, whose members are answerable to the US President who has already branded him as evil. He will have no appeal, and not even a right of release if acquitted. The evidence will probably consist of admissions extracted by a process of interrogation one can only imagine, after two and a half years in custody.
Hicks, Habib and others at Guantanamo Bay have been kept in a legal vacuum, at the mercy of whatever directions the US President chooses to give, unburdened by judicial or parliamentary scrutiny. If all this is a fair process, I wonder what The Australian would regard as unfair?
You cannot dispose of the problem by assuming Hicks’s guilt, as you have done. That is why we have trials in courts of law, whatever their defects. Rules of decency and due process on the part of governments matter a great deal.
It is humiliating for Australia that the Prime Minister did not intervene on behalf of two citizens illegally held on foreign soil by a foreign power. But no. The convoluted reasoning is that they should not be repatriated because they have not offended against Australian law. That should make Australians travelling abroad a touch uneasy.
You might feel humiliated Ian but I don’t. I feel indifference and I think you will find that the vast majority of Australian’s feel the same way.
I understand what you are saying Ian, but frankly I don’t give a damn. Your letter is full of legal rights and not one solitary mention of his responsibilities as a humane human.
I also understand that even seriel killers who cut up and eat their victims are entitled to legal defence but whatever you say, whatever spin you put on the Military Tribunals, Hicks will get legal reresentation.
So whats your point.
If an Australian travels overseas and committs a crime in Malaysia or Thailand They are charged under the laws of Malaysia and Thailand so why is Hicks different?
Australian Drug Runners have been executed in these countries – did you feel impelled to write to the press then?
Maybe your right, it isn’t fair, but we all know it will be a damn site fairer than the WTC obscenity and on balance the US will be be fairer than the Taliban have ever been to their own people.
Meanwhile Alan Logan from Victoria sums up the general feelings in the community on Hicks
HAS The Australian conducted a survey to find if any significant number of Australians give a damn about David Hicks? No one I have met cares at all
No one I’ve met care about him either, Alan.
Update:
Hicks in Training
God knows what some people think the military are all about. The Government is under fire because reports by junior officers in the ADF mentioned Abu Ghraib and they, the Government, didn’t do what all good Lefties and anti US journalists demand they do.
As in why didn’t you start screamimg ‘abuse’ at the US Military eigth months ago? Why didn’t you fall on your sword? Why didn’t you sack General Cosgrove?
Why don’t you acknowledge that we, the press, know far more than you?
Why on earth aren’t you doing what we suggest?
STEVE LIEBMANN from Channel 9’s Today program tries to make Senator Hill confess up to something or other. Anything to keep the saga on the boil.
Steve Liebmann;
it’s now known that Australian military lawyers were reporting concerns about human rights abuses in the prisons back to our officials, military officials, eight months before you knew anything about them. Why was that material not passed up the chain of command, at least to you
Senator Hill
Because it was the Red Cross talking about other parties who were running the prisons, not Australians. The Red Cross report didn’t even make it to Australia as we weren’t an occupying power.
Steve insists
But there were 20 or 25 reports…
Senator Hill tries to explain again.
You’ve got to remember that this was at the end of the major conflict phase, there were large numbers of prisoners, there were inadequate facilities, overcrowding, difficulties in processing, the prisons were being mortared each night – it wasn’t a satisfactory environment for the holding and proper processing of prisoners…We weren’t running the prisons we just had some lawyers advising constructively
Steve is still trying to get Hill to accept that he is wrong and that Steve is very right. Steve, being a journalist, clearly knows more than the Senator. Why doesn’t the Senator admit it?
Yeah but I mean these reports are coming through, the alarm bells aren’t ringing – does that mean we need a general review of your Department’s efficiency?
Senator Hill:
No, because it wasn’t for us to act upon them. The Red Cross didn’t even deliver the reports to Australia. The Red Cross won’t even give us the reports now because they know it wasn’t our responsibility.
For Christ’s sake can’t you understand English? (my words, not Senator Hill’s)
There would have been literally thousands of reports from Iraq submitted by Officers on duty there analysing what they had been involved in, witnessed, advised on and otherwise reporting matters within their field of responsibility.
Do the press, the journalists, on a jihad to destroy Howard, really believe that everything goes up the chain. How many reports do you expect Hill, or Cosgrove, or even Howard to read eveyday.
They rely on summaries from Defence and thus rely on Senior Defence personnel (Generals and civilians) to anticipate problems that may be hidden in a report.
I can’t see anyone anticipating that reports that indicated overcrowding and rough treatment in prisons in a war zone on the eve of a cease-fire would turn into such a witch-hunt.
To repeat Senator Hill’s words
.. at the end of the major conflict phase, … large numbers of prisoners, … inadequate facilities, overcrowding, difficulties in processing, .. prisons mortared each night – it wasn’t a satisfactory environment for the holding and proper processing of prisoners…We weren’t running the prisons we just had some lawyers advising constructively.
It’s not meant to be a three star rest camp situation. In the immediate aftermath of battle these camps and prisons are designed to deny the enemy use of the incarcerated troops. At that point in time commanders and logisticians are flat out supplying and reinforcing their own troops and have to balance removing troops from the battle to POW management. It never works perfectly and anyone that demands it does should try and manage it themselves sometime.
Interrogators are called in to sort the wheat from the chaff, the ordinary soldier from the man who knows something. The ordinary soldier is bulk stored until it is safe to send him back home and those who may know something are interrogated.
Meanwhile the battle still rages with insurgents and western media doing their best to turn the tide of war in the terrorist’s favour.
It’s working fairly well too.
This letter from Barry Kennaugh from Claremont, WA to the Editor of the Australian.
BODY Bag Bush certainly has little Johnnie finger-tamed and marching in step to the battle hymn of his republic.
Never thought I would see such stupidity twice in my lifetime: all the way with LBJ to Vietnam destroyed so many of my friends’ families and killed over 3 million Vietnamese, it’s time once again for every Australian to stop and think before we all turn into polyester Americans.
Body Bag Bush! Wow! What would this guy call Joe Stalin or Mao Tse Dung.
Heroes, I suspect. I guess Barry would rather we all turn into polyester socialists.
Kevin Rudd: White House ‘would welcome’ PM Latham.
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?
Poor Kevin Rudd is kept very busy in his Damage Control portfolio trying to keep one step ahead of Latham’s utterings.
Clearly if we have a Latham government and a Bush administration the US Australian relationship will not disintegrate-after all it survived Whitlam.
But it’s not going to be very friendly. Politics will force Bush to ignore Latham’s outbursts but behind closed doors, in the oval office, Latham will simply be treated as an embarrassing relative. Everyone will simply wait politely while he says his piece and then get on with the real issues the moment he leaves.
“I haven’t picked up anything in Washington which would suggest that Mark Latham would not be welcomed to the White House as any other previous Australian prime minister,” he said.
Then you didn’t ask the right people.
Wendy Sherman, a foreign policy adviser to Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry, told Insiders the White House had been heavy-handed in its criticism of Mr Latham.
“I don’t think we would be very happy if prime ministers from other countries got in the middle of our internal politics, our domestic politics,” she said.
Then you should be prepare to be very unhappy. If Latham gets the nod it will happen. We know it’s what he believes and he can’t keep a check on his tongue and a muzzle on the Left forever.
If Armitage and Bush are playing politics then so is Wendy Sherman.
The problem is, the Minister for Damage Control has had to visit the US and solicit support for an anti-US aspiring PM and quote the support, such as it is, to try and calm down an electorate that wonders how Latham is going to be strong enough to carry all his baggage into the Lodge.