Our hayseed image projected Mayor Mullet could not have been more complete if she appeared nationally in bib’n’braces carrying a banjo. Or on the front of the local paper promoting a darts tournament she has nothing to do with. What on earth did this truly ignorant and vicious woman expect when she calls for a boycott on Qantas?
A local legal man gets the Lazarus Award of The Year with an astounding comeback from professional banishment.
The one Australian The Magpie barracks against …
… and some chuckles from around the media …
Bentley’s on a break.
The Fall And Rise Of Michael Cowen QC
Lt Colonel Michael Cowan QC
Mickey Cowen is a hard-nosed hang-‘em-high prosecutor and head of the Townsville DPP. As man who betrays his blunt northern English background with what some – particularly courtroom opponents – find a confrontational manner. But he’s known to get the job done, and has locked up a goodly number of baddies over the years.
But it seems his up-front style got him deep in the legal shit a short time ago.
A few months back, Mike had been tapped to be the next District Court judge to replace the retired John Baulch, and was basically working out his time as DPP head honcho when he went to Mt Isa for his final sessions there.
The way The Magpie has heard it, it was during a break in what by all accounts was an emotional trial that Mr Cowan had some blunt words in a general conversation at the bar table while waiting for the judge to resume. The ex-military man was never known to favour political correctness, and he made some – ahem – forthright remarks, believed to be about the certain figures in the Brisbane judiciary, and more than somewhat chauvinist in tone. And elements of un-judge-like attitudes.
Unfortunately for him, one of those in the conversation, a legally well connected woman from Brissy, was apparently so miffed that one swift phone call to Brisbane, and the offer of the judgeship was withdrawn tout suite. .Unusual to say the least.
And there matter rested, until two days ago, when it was suddenly announced out of the blue that ‘Lt Colonel Micheal Cowen has been appointed the new Chief Judge Advocate of the Australian Defence Force. He will take up his appointment on September 22.’
Talk about falling on your feet! It would be churlish to suggest he got the Defence offer AFTER accepting the DCJ position, and maybe hoped to get out of the state gig. But nah, not really his style.
Mickey must be giggling himself to sleep every night. because now, not only is he playing with the ‘big boys’ on the national stage, he atually IS one of the ‘big boys’, taking home close to three times a Queensland DC judge’s salary, probably be given gratis accomodation, and will be provided with a number of spiffy uniforms with shiny buttons and pips to ponce around in.
Enjoy, Micheal, you’ll be right at home in a Canberra winter. Nowt could be better, eh?
More than a former Hong Kong copper on the beat could ever have dreamed of, really.
Random Media Follies
From the Thursday Astonisher
A regetta? Sounds like a seasick Italian after a rough race. He very much regetta being out there. (PS that’s where Bentley is swanning around this weekend.)
In the London of yore, there was a big poster on the Express newsroom wall that said ‘Remember, they are all eight’, a reference to the level of language to be used in the paper. One wonders what the poster says in the Courier Mail’s newsroom – maybe ‘Remember they are all idiots’. But just in case, they ‘fessed up that there had been some pictorial surgery afoot. Hooda guessed?
And Paul Zanetti neatly skewers one of Canberra’s biggest self promoters.
And does Shari Taglibue know something we don’t know … or something that the current airport boss doesn’t know? This from her excellently balanced column (The ‘Pie means it) today.
Trevor? No subs in Mumbai are going to catch that.
At least reporter Victoria Nugent clearly has no illusions about her qualifications to write this week’s cheer-leading stories about the airport swindle.
And a reality check for Ben Bogan’s cheery claim last week that the Astonisher has lifted sales recently.
(L to R) Courier Mail, The Townsville Bulletin, The Australian
The Resounding WTF of the Week
But now we must reluctantly go to the week’s toe-curling embarrassment, which is not so much someone falling on their feet as falling flat on their arse.
In a major brain fade, our esteemed mayor Jennifer Hill called on her Labor/union training and tried a touch of bullying that verged on extortion. Of all the daft targets, she chose Qantas. Added to the Boganville approach, her inane suggestion was endorsed and magnified by the Bulletin
The repercussions were instant and savage. But first some perspective.
The Ghost Of Mooneys Past Now Stalk The Corridors of Walker Street.
In the dying days of the Mooney mayoral era, history tells us that hubris and an unshakeable belief that ‘Tony knows best’ overtook His Radiance to the point where he really went off the rails on several occasions. And it was all down an overweening self-belief without any checks or balances. As the disintegration became openly apparent, The Magpie wrote in the paper that Mooney needed to follow the example of deified Alexander The Great, who had a minion stay at his shoulder throughout the day and every 15 minutes or so whisper to him’ Remember, you are not a god.’
Unfortunately, His Radiance ignored the advice and the town went all atheist on him when he lost the amalgamation election to Les Tyrell.
But it seems Mayor Mullet, aka Mrs. Jennifer Hill, is sorely and urgently in need of a similar lackey. Except it seems she is happy to believe she is some sort of regional goddess. Growing evidence of this mindset reached alarming proportions on Monday, when she called for a community boycott of Qantas, for failing to act as a corporate tax collector for Kevin Gill and Queensland Airports Ltd and impose a $3 levy on all Townsville in and out bound tickets.
The ‘Pie, ever the conspiracy theorist, wonders if Mrs Hill has shares in the Ashley and Martin Hair Restoring people. Many, including chief Mullet whisperer Dolan Hayes, must be tearing their hair out at such a lame-brained move.
Needless to say, the Astonisher gave the call wide circulation (well, as wide a circulation as a paper with a rapidly plummeting circulation can give), and both parties missing the glaring unintended consequence that such a bumptious call put the community squarely behind Qantas.
Indeed, the reaction was instantaneous. widespread and savage, This is just one typical reply that thudded into the Nest on Monday.
Old Hack August 29, 2017 at 11:32 am (Edit)
Just read the Mullet’s latest attempt to blackmail Qantas into lining the pockets of her mates at the airport. To me, it reeks of extortion and should attract the attention of the various State and Federal authorities charged with maintaining the probity of local government. She is so puffed-up with self importance she has lost touch with the reality that she is the pissant mayor of a provincial city, not the all-powerful dictator of North Queensland. It’s past time she addressed the failings of her own administration rather than telling others how to run their businesses.
The message there is clear … the airport is nothing whatsoever to do with the council. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice’ sentiments are fine, but that’s about as far as it should go.
And interesting to note that by early AM that day, the Bulletin on-line had 10 comments slamming the mayor, the tax, QAL and airport boss Kevin ‘Rhymes With’ Gill.
The fact that Gill is chair of the Dudley Do Nothings (aka TEL) – his deputy chair is Mayor Mullet – and the Dudley’s main annual fuel is $750,000 of ratepayer money, demonstrates an avaricious disregard for the groundswell growing against both the council and its largesse towards this stumblebum TEL outfit. (Shortest book ever written: The Achievements of Townsville Enterprise.)
A Movie For Our Time: Educating Jennifer
It was on Wednesday that a calm and reasoned Qantas response clearly put our financial and business ignoramus in her place, pointing out the bleedin’ obvious that the mayoral tail does not wag the Qantas dog.
First, we had seethed our way through the usual Bulletin bias (the paper said Qantas believed the $3 was too much to pay … that is simply not true – Qantas maintains that any surcharge for the upgrade of te nature they want should be paid for by QAL. And the paper continues to promote the issue as a ‘stoush’, which is arrant nonsense, heavyweight Qantas has simply refused to get in the ring with featherweight QAL).
Then came the nitty-gritty – prefaced by an observation that should alarm all of us – from Qantas spokesman Andrew Parker. In a letter to Mayor Mullet, M Parker bluntly told her that her boycott call “put services, employment and future investment in Townsville at risk” .
Qantas executive Andrew Parker
As though lecturing a fiscal three year old – he probably was – Mr Parker told the Mullet; ‘“While we are somewhat encouraged by a recent improvement in demand, the fact remains that domestic passenger numbers at Townsville Airport have contracted by 5.7 per cent since 2012. The Qantas Group, like other Townsville businesses, has felt the impact of the region’s shifting demand patterns and wider economic downturn.To avoid any misunderstanding, the Qantas Group is at present operating services to Townsville which are commercially marginal. The route and demand economics do not support Townsville Airport’s proposed capital spend of over $40 million, which is why Queensland Airport Limited’s investors won’t fund the project out of their existing profit pool.”
KAPOW!!!
Mr Parker then provided some gentle advice to our kiddy mayor and her wilful playmates when he said Qantas is “aligned with Townsville’s focus on increasing demand and expanding the tourism economy (but) this can be better achieved through increased marketing and strategic investments in attractions to stimulate demand, rather than overcapitalising on airport infrastructure that will only drive up costs and in turn, airfares,”
For Christ sakes, people END OF STORY, SURELY.
Double Standards Anyone?
In an iditorial, Ben Bogan English displayed the hypocrisy that is a News Corpse trademark. He accused Qantas of not being willing to be extorted because an upgrade would mean Virgin would get a Club Lounge it currently lacks. ‘Qantas are protecting a monopoly,’ he squeaked,
That coming from a bloke who works for a company that used fair means and foul to rid Townsville of two other newspapers, and even cut its own free throw-over because it threatened (they thought) Bulletin sales. Sounds like you’d know all about protecting a monopoly, Bogan.
But What Could Possibly Be In It For Jenny
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder just what hidden agenda is behind this astonishing and despicable attempt to use public office to extort and blackmail a company into unfairly enriching another, all the while putting the mission of her elected office in jeopardy by doing irreparable harm to Townsville.
Try as she might to be otherwise, Mayor Mullet is and always will be Tony Mooney Lite.
Mooney quietly ran his council with iron fist made possible by political smarts, and knew he didn’t have to be too obviously a rule bender, he knew his rewards would come after leaving office. And so it was, with th skillful aid of his media man Dolan Hayes , he scored a lucrative, specially created bullshit position with a coal company, got a few sinecures from the government and now has the featherbedded luxury of chairman of the Townsville Hospital Board.
Jenny seems to think some such goodies will be coming her way when she is turfed out next election. But first of all, she won’t have Dolan Hayes trying to flog damaged goods to his considerable contacts. And if the LNP get up in the coming state election, she can kiss her arse goodbye for any sinecures thrown into the LNP trough.
Sadly, she has none of the political/business nous, contacts or diplomatic charm that would remotely interest private enterprise, since her political base is withering and she is on the nose with business generally.
And another thought. If a miracle occurred and the Labor poo-bahs put her back in favour for a run at a senate or even a state seat (watch out, Coralee) they’d better check her eligibility. Odds are that she retains Maltese citizenship.
Craven Praveen
Dr Praveen Kumar
Dr Praveen Kumar, the de-registered Kirwan doctor is known mainly for two things … he runs the My Family Doctor practice. And he can’t keep it in his pants.
Medical authorities de-registered him after he was judged to have been playing a grown-up’s version of doctors and patients, featuring – ahem – injection procedures. He also has a problem with keeping his temper … what we nowadays prissily call ‘anger management’. He’s due in court on assault charges soon, after a bit of push and shove with his staff.
Well, it seems his valiant attempts to ignore reality and continue his Kirwan medical practice (as non-medical director), fighting with his medical staff along the way, may have come to end. He was due to be turfed by the receivers yesterday (Friday) despite some creativity with signage out front.
Stay posted.
Nick Off!
Age changes many things, like limiting your proud array of farts to the ‘motorbike trying to start’ and the occasional ‘the haunted house creaking door’.
But the one thing rarely changed as people age is ‘attitude’, they more tend to harden.
But not so for The ‘Pie, who must sadly confess that he has become that most un-Australian of un-Australians … a barracker against his own side.
It wasn’t planned, but during the week he realized he was giving a little silent cheer and a muttered ‘bloody bewdy’ at the news that part-time tennis dabbler and full-time prick, Nick Kyrios had been bundled out of the US Open and subsequently fined $7000 for swearing and smashing raquets.
This child man, the epitome of spoiled brat (although that other knob Tomic is getting there too), is a bloody embarrassment and should have his passport revoked until he agrees to urgent head surgery.
We have a long and proud history of cheeky larrikinism in Aussie sport, like flag fancier Dawn Fraser and RL lair St George fullback Changa Langlands and his white footy boots (scandalous at the time) but we as a nation draw the line at outright ‘cheatiing’ (underarm bowling anyone, Greg Chappell’s your man?) … and full-blown bumptious public knob-throttling, both on court and in media conferences.
The sooner you nick off from the world stage, the better, Kyrios. And the way your going, that thankfully won’t be long.
Tosser.
The ‘Pie Knows He Really Shouldn’t But …
Seems the world and his wife have their own favorite Rabieh Krayem story, but we’ll save the good stuff up for the court room.
But one The ‘Pie has to love – and even gave him a temporary liking for this poor Barry Taylor-patsy – is the yarn on which the late Queensland RL boss Ross Livermore used to dine out.
When Rabieh was at the Cowboys, Ross had pressured him to pay some debt or other, to which the Rabster replied the cheque was in the mail (yes, really!). And to prove it, he faxed a copy of the cheque to Ross, telling him this is what is in the post!
The debt never was never paid, (one of many unpaid matters down to Rabieh during his time at the Cowboys, The ‘Pie has discovered) but Ross carried the fax around for the merriment of many a gathering.
The Real Crisis Will Be Over In Three Years
Metaphor fo the week comes from Jennings in the Guardian.
And finally …
A filler run by News during the week.
Top of the list would have to be ‘Ben’, wouldn’t it?
…………………………
Another week, another load fo codswallop. Join in the comments 24/7 and have your say. And if The ‘Pie has caught you in a weak moment, donations are always welcome, look below to see how easy we’ve made it for you to indulge your natural generosity.
