A year ago, she was adamant there was ‘ no water crisis’, but now she’s giving premier Alphabet the hurry up for a second Burdekin pipeline. But there’s more than a divine revelation behind Mayor Mullet’s cynical epiphany.
The latest readership figures land with a thump in Flinders street West … and it is with a trembling lower lip that they bravely say things are improving for The Astonisher! That in the face of new News cutbacks after a disastrous financial time over the past year.
And is this the last Magpie blog post … with Donald Trump and Kim Il Chubbychops squaring off, it may well be the last of everything …
And the Townsville Bulletin continues to whistle on its way to the scaffold.
But first …
The Drip Torture Of Townsville’s Water Woes
The entire imbroglio of Townsville’s water supply issue throws up a dozen questions for every solution, and reveals some more ‘join-the-dots’ riddles.
But for The ‘Pie, the populist politics of trivialising and insulting the city is the most galling. In a ‘wave something colorful at them, beads and blankets’ ploy, Mayor Mullet has engineered an apparent need for this beleaguered community to be lectured on how to better manage our household water.
FFS! But then make that a double FFS! Because the $10 million campaign – yes, $10-bloody-million – will be fronted by an rrelevant show pony B-grade celebrity in the form of someone called Jamie Drury to patronize us with little lectures on what drips we are about water. If you’re cheesed off, Bentley is appalled.
Well, it could be worse, y’know … Mayor Mullet could be bewitching us herself as front person. That’d make the kids sit up and listen.
As several commenters have pointed out, that $10million equals the cost of topping up Ross Dam with Burdekin water for two years every day.
And Wither The Water Babies
Another question: While money has been allocated by the state for a second pipeline, the first question that arises is about the Water Task Force, with the apt acronym WTF. It is supposed to hand it’s final recommendations and report in a year’s time, next September. But somehow it appears a duplicate Haughton pipeline has already been given the green light.. So what all the little WTF’s will be doing for Brad Webb over the next lucrative 12 months is anybody’s guess.
Nothing particularly wrong with the second pipeline being locked in, some action at last, but in typical headless chook fashion, confusion reigns and fiscal answers are still thin on the ground, lost in the melee of political opportunism and desperation.
But one question that does not escape The ‘Pie’s limited powers of analysis is our mayor being blinded by the light.
Our gal dashed off a letter to her pen pal Anna Alphabet, begging that the $225million government money be brought down over two – not four – years. The mayor simpered to her mate that she would like to see the new pipeline completed by 2019, not 2021, to ‘provide a boost for local contractors’.
Ahem. Oh, really?
The boost Mayor Mullet really wants is strutting rights on the campaign trail for another dip at the mayoralty, having been advised by Labor heavies that she is no longer on the list for higher Labor honours. She losing out big time in factional manoeuvring, both at local and state levels.
Politically. Mullet and Alphabet are factional BFF, so that timeline is likely to be looked upon kindly. But whoa up there! … a small thing called an state election is about to happen, probably within a couple of months, so our mayor will be haunting George offices with a vengeance, and Dolan Hayes will be canvassing his many old Labor back room mates, because in her own interest, Mayor Mullet wants the deal fast tracked, done and dusted before Anna faces the prospect of being given the heave-ho by a disgruntled electorate.
Now Heres A Funny Thing – Let’s Join Another Couple Of Dots
Another thing on the water issue that Mayor Mullet will be desperate for is a big bout of political Alzheimers from ratepayers when she starts doing her simpering savior act. ‘I was elected, and LO, there was water’.
You will remember that last year, Jenny Hill was rubbishing her opponent, Jayne Arlett, insisting that there was no water crisis. She challenged Ms Arlett to release the Empower Economics report on which the challenger based her ‘crisis’ assertion, declaring the report ‘dodgy’ and if implemented, likely to bankrupt the city.
Now we know how that campaign all came out , but here’s the thing.
The Empower Economics report The Mullet labeled dodgy was written by this bloke, Empowers boss David Lynch, (incidentally, a mate of Dolan Hayes).
And this would be the same David Lynch who copped the nice little earner at Townsville Enterprise (TEL), as project manager of a feasibility study into the Hell’s Gate Dam proposal. (Why the Dudley Do Nothings were given secondary oversight of this study hen the main investigation is being done by global crowd SMEC, based in Melbourne, is another story for another time.)
Let The ‘Pie be clear here, in case Barry Taylor sniffs another candidate to sue the old bird on spurious libel claims … to the best of The Magpie’s knowledge, David Lynch is a well-respected and trained economist (well, as much as any economist can be). So The ‘Pie has no reason to think is nothing but a professional operator in good standing.
But why would the mayor have that opinion, if she thinks he writes dodgy reports?
Now, having joined the Lynch/Hayes/Hill dots – and remembering that Mayor Mullet is the deputy chair of TEL with a big say in who does what down at Wishing Well House – here’s the question.
If the Mullet thinks Lynch’s report for Arlett was so “dodgy”, does she think Lynch has the right stuff to even be involved in the Hell’s Gate study? Perhaps TEL should, in the interests of openness, (stop laughing) tell us how much public money is being spent on Mr Lynch, and for good measure, how much they spent on Mr Hayes in the last five and a half years since Mullet became Mayor. Was the decision to appoint Mr Lynch a decision endorsed by the Board?
The ‘Pie would not like to be hanging by the left one waiting for an answer to that.
Surely She Knows She’s Making A Complete Twit Of Herself
CEO of the Dudley Do Nothings, Little Patty O’Callaghan is always good for a groaning laugh, and she didn’t disappoint this week. She called on a board member of Queensland Airports to resign, because he was also a board member of coal rival Newscastle Port Authority, a rival to Townsville for hoped for coal exports. Among choice quotes in this nebulous story, our comedienne honked: ‘He can’t serve two masters’.
Now that’s a real thigh-slapper, but you can bet she woulkdn’t ask the same question of her TEL board chairman Kevin ‘Rhymes With’ Gill, who is also QAL’s Townsville airport manager promoting QAL’s damaging and rorting passenger tax (fortunately still blocked by Qantas).
Ms O’Callaghan, that statement is so bumptious and biased, one could almost suspect that for once, it was your own original idea.
How lucky are we in Townsville to have had a corporate and political glass ceiling so flimsy it has been shattered by our two powerhouse females leaders.
But It Might Not Matter – Nothing Might – Given Our Fate Is In The Hands Of Two Complete Chuckleheads.
On the international scene, this from Ben Jennings in the Guardian says it all.
Now we just wait for something to bump in the night.
Shotgun Marriage
Be it between two men or two women, like all marriage down the centuries, some blushing brides will need a little encouragement to make the final commitment , as Paul Zanetti points out.
The old adage that politics makes strange bedfellows was updated with the Canberra travesty concerning gay marriage during the week. The hapless PM’s hidden agenda, which is slowly strangling him, is that the Libs desperately wanted a plebiscite because they knew it would be a NO vote, given the hypocritical homophobic ethnic and religious groupings out there with disproportionate clout. They could then claim they have let the people speak. But its a cowardly win-win for Talkbull, because if it’s a YES vote, then he can just shrug and say ‘nothing to do with me, the people have spoken’.Now a plebiscite has been again rejected, we will waste a lot of our dough on a slapstick mail-in, open to all sorts of jiggery pokery – and then they’ll do what they should have done in the first place. Just change the law and then let us ALL get on with our own private lives.
Readership Freefall Continues For Townsville Bulletin
News Ltd has had a bad week. Financially, they have been revealed to be deeper into the red poo, globally and in Australia, and signalled there is likely going to be more slash and burn in the coming year. That despite savage staff cuts saving $40million in the past 12 months.
But like the Black Knight, they ain’t about to give in without tryting to baffle with bullshit. Here’s just one prize example of Holt Street trying to make a positive from a massive negative, from the story dutifully run in the Bulletin
‘News’ chief financial officer Susan Panuccio said Australian mastheads, including the Townsville Bulletin, had made good progress with efforts to ease more readers into the habit of paying for digital content’
But our local opinion shaper, The Astonisher, coyly declined to give details of the ‘good progress’ to the Astonisher’s numbers. But fret not, The Magpie will supply them soon enough.
They certainly can’t be too flash, since this week revealed the The Bulletin’s readership (as versus circulation) continues to tank.
These are the previous quarterly figures …
… and these are the latest stats to the end of June.
No Such Problems For The CommBank – Or Is That ConnBank?
The bank that operates under a logo of a Sao dipped in Vegemite trumpeted a yearly profit of somewhere north of $9billion, but one wonders how much of that profit was their cut from the money put into their street-front washing machine known as ATMs. With the amounts of dosh involved, the Commonwealth Bank hasn’t been so much as laundering money as dry cleaning, pressing and packing it in perfumed plastic wraps.
Big fines are threatened, but you can bet will never happen to any damaging and just extent.
Another Magpie favourite, Cathy Wilcox, puts it neatly.
And While We’re With The Banks
Just to prove they ain’t stoopid, the Commonwealth this week formally announced that they wouldn’t be touching Adani and the Carmichael mine with a barge pole of any length. That makes all big boys saying no. It will be interesting if the government thinks it knows better than the professional moneymen.
A savvy mate suggested this during the week.
Re the $ 1 Bn ” concessional loan”….usually a lender seeks substantial collateral security to guarantee a loan of any size…let alone $1 Billion, so ….what does Adani offer by way of security? Adani would probably say ” The Railway Line!! dummy!!!”
Imagine the rush of buyers to grab this prize when the project turns turtle!….Still ….it would all come back to us as really useful razor blades &/or TATA utes!! (Although the market might be a little flooded once the Yabulu Plant joins the queue to the blast furnaces.)
If the proposed line was the security, what’s it worth as scrap? We already have a glaring lesson on that score.
The Greenvale line came back as early Hyundai shopping trolleys! but the vendors didn’t recover their costs. But BHP subsequently found their very own Bond in the shape of Clive Palmer, who saved them from having to fix the BIG tailings dam problem which will probably be still there in 2117!
And to think Mayor Mullet seriously suggested that the council the plant for $1, and then sell to recover unpaid rates. Sell to whom? What would happen is that the Townsville ratepayers would be stuck with a multi-billion dollar environmental catastrophe.
What’s that Jenny, there is no tailings dam crisis?
Only time will tell. Unfortunately.
Is She Or Isn’t She?
Still no further word on the strong rumour that TCC CEO Adele The Impaler Young is heading elsewhere.
She is ostensibly on three weeks hols, but persistent reports from inside council suggest she’s soon out the door soon, if not already. The ‘Pie doubts she’s already gone, but no reason not to, she can report to Mayor Mullet ‘mission accomplished’.
Clive Palmer Is Rumored To Follow Donald Trump’s Example To Thwart Pesky Media.
‘The road to give a fuck is that way.’
The story is that Clive has started to stream his own news channel, to give us what he sees as the the truth about matters.
The Magpie understands that the initial title of the show was to be Fact Hunt, but this was dropped when it was realized that some dyslexics and former Yabulu workers might think it was referring to the host and not the show.
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That’s it for this week folks, keep those comments rolling in during the week to have your say on anything at all. And if you think it worth it, a donation to help with blog costs would be nice. How to donate button below.
