We won’t know that until details of the secret deal with the council about the aborted project is – if ever – released, a process still underway with the courts and the right to information folks. But it is reasonable to join a few dots tentatively while we wait.
Floundering like a decked flathead – but News Ltd isn’t the only media sinner this week. Even the toothless watchdog, the Press Council, has a go at castrating free speech. That resulted in a world first … The Magpie is forced to agree with – gasp, the shame – Andrew Bolt.
…and Adele feelin’ the love on Palm … so far.
Also, a startling overview from a young and articulate black American woman, who clearly expounds why she does not support George Floyd being held up as a symbol of black suppression in the USA.
But first, on the home front …
Black Lives Matter? ALL Lives Matter.
You know the old joke about the bloke who caught his wife with her lover, and pulling a gun, says he’s so distraught, he’s going to kill all three of them … he shoots the lover and then puts the gun to his own head and says to his wife ‘What are you laughing at, you’re next’.
That’s more or less what happened today around Australia, with the rallies in cities and towns.
There will be enough verbiage from the chattering classes about the violence in the USA, so The Magpie will not burden you with his take on it. But what he will do is roundly condemn the lack of responsible aboriginal leadership in this country. What they have collectively done today across the nation is not so much shoot themselves in the foot, but take a pot shot at their own heads.
Seeking to piggyback on the Black Lives Matter upheaval in America, the call went out across Australia, and tens of thousands gathered in marches to demand action on the irrefutable disaster of black deaths in custody here in Australia. But in doing so, the black leadership in this country showed itself to be ignorant, dangerous and divisive – no, let’s say it, childishly dumb, in a way that endangers ALL Australians … but even more so their own people. It is widely reported that indigenous people are more susceptible to the extreme results of corona virus, so they are both more likely to contract the virus, and because of today’s demonstrations, more likely to pass it on. Among their and to their supporters, and thus a deadly ripple may well start.
The proof of this deadly pudding will not be known for two weeks at least, but if today’s marches are the catalyst for the feared ‘second wave’, those who ordered and promoted these events should face criminal charges.
As it turned out, police were on stand-by mode, and there were few incidents, and at the time writing, no arrests. But some coppers had a secret disappointment of not being proactive, as Bentley points out.
Media Follies
Mumbrella bolt
News Ltd search for lost credibility suffered a two or three sad own-goals during the week, especially as their hierarchy spin lies about their belief in digital platforms.
Example 1 from the Courier could lead one to believe they had decided to publish in Klingon.:
Apart from the fact that there is no such word as ‘humit’ outside an technical scientific term , even allowing for a fat fingered error, it is impossible to work out what the sentence was actually meant to say – even making ‘humit’ into ‘humility’, it still doesn’t make sense. Of course, the word humility is so foreign to News Ltd journalism, maybe they meant ‘humidity’, which, as we know, is ‘a concentration of water vapour in the air’, which would be appropriate as this was obviously written by a drip.
Example 2, from our own Townsville Daily Astonisher:
Oh, well, it could have been worse. It’s a wonder they didn’t write ‘Read Toadys Death Notices.’
But News wasn’t alone in the dumb and dumber media circus. We see a much deeper malaise in this story the on The New Daily on line:
This story (and The New Daily isn’t alone on this one) is a prime example of PDWI (Puppy Dog Wetting Itself) reporting, trying to create a sensational ‘PM Blasted, and Cops A Spray’ story which can’t even be excused as exaggerated hyperbole … it was a polite request which was actually directed the local media scrum in a Canberra suburb, to which the PM good naturedly responded cooperatively and all ended in a matey thumbs up. Judge for yourself, the video clip is embedded in the story. Talk about mountains from molehills.
Such while hot air could easily be avoided, there are no sub-editors in the wild blue yonder. Up there, messages are at the mercy of the winds. As a skywriter found when he was contracted to wish Clint Eastwood a happy birthday … or maybe it was a personal critique of the actor’s work.
In fact, old hands on the subs desk were always aware of that particular trap, in the days when printing presses weren’t as sharp as they are now, and ink tended to blur a bit. The ‘Pie found this out when working on VP50 in Townsville, and older presses were used to create a program which included ‘Flicks of the Forties.’ The ‘l’ and ‘i ‘had unhappy … ummm … intercourse, if ‘u’ know what we mean.
Well, I Never …,
…well, not until now.
The Magpie has always found Andrew Bolt a smug and patronizing smarm, who, during his fake interviews (which are no more than chummy chats with the like minded) resembles nothing more than one of the rear window dogs whose eyes light up and heads gently nod when the car is braking.
Ever willing to lay the boot in to others, Bolt nevertheless NEVER interviews anyone of a different ideological persuasion than himself i.e. somewhere to the right of Pauline Hanson. His audience is small (around 250,000 over several national re-screenings), and The ‘Pie finds him so galling, that he just checks in for 10 or 20 minutes every week or two.
But during the week, The Magpie was about to go into full harrumph mode when he read a Press Council ruling about a Bolt piece on Greta Thunberg. It was nothing short of an attack of free speech, because while the judgment said there were no factual errors in the Bolt piece, in essence, they censured him because they simply didn’t like his sentiment. This is the bit that really got up The Magpie’s beak in the judgement.
Nonetheless, in considering the article’s language and treatment of mental health issues, the Council considers the language in the article is likely to cause substantial offence, distress and prejudice as it attempts to diminish the credibility of Ms Thunberg’s opinions on the basis of her disabilities and by pillorying her supporters on the basis of her disabilities. In doing so the Council considered that the publication did not take reasonable steps to avoid causing or contributing to substantial distress, offence by people with disabilities, and their families or prejudice towards people with disabilities expressing their opinions in public. The Council considered there was a public interest in the public being informed about Ms Thunberg’s disabilities but that there was no public interest in the undermining the credibility of a person, her opinions or her supporters on the basis of her disabilities in circumstances where many people without disabilities share and express similar opinions. Accordingly, the Council concludes that the article breached General Principle 6.
So based on the old adage ‘I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it’ (which Voltaire never actually said) The ‘Pie was about to put the boot in when he found it was necessary … Bolt got in before him, and for the first time ever, and almost certainly the last, The ‘Pie agreed with every word of the article the Boltster wrote in rebuttal. (Reproduced in full here, because the story is behind a paywall and will not open unless your a subscriber.
Andrew Bolt: The real ‘truth’ behind global warming guru Greta
At just 17, Greta Thunberg has no expertise in global warming and proposes “solutions” so extreme almost nobody could live by them, yet adults treat her like a guru. But it is her disorders that help to explain why she’s a false prophet, writes Andrew Bolt.
Take its latest ruling, defending the freakishly influential goddess of global warming, Greta Thunberg.
Thunberg is just 17. She has no expertise in global warming, grossly catastrophises about a “mass extinction” and proposes “solutions” so extreme that almost nobody could live by them.
Yet this teenager is both a guru and shield — who dares criticise a child? — to adults who have lost their dignity and their senses. They’ve had her lecture at the United Nations, the European Parliament, climate conferences and the World Economic Forum.
It’s medieval. Adults treat this child as some kind of holy fool, loving her all the more for hearing their own words repeated back with an fiery-eyed certainty that only youth — or maybe something else — can give.
What could be that “something else”?
Thunberg’s mother explains. In her book, Our House Is On Fire, she says daughter’s “superpower” is an “out-of-the box thinking” that comes from her “neuropsychiatric functional impairments”.
She lists them: selective mutism, Asperger’s, high-functioning autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Greta agrees her Asperger’s helps her to “think outside the box” with clarity and without needing to “really care about social codes”.
Many journalists endorse this myth, but I’ve told the truth: Thunberg’s disorders help to explain her near-mystical air of certainty, but also why she’s a false prophet.
It is a symptom of autism and forms of Asperger’s to not “really care about social codes” — or not fully understand them. That often means not tolerating compromises with other people or their views.
That, and brushing aside counterarguments — like the fact her solutions would cause more misery than warming itself — is what gives Thunberg that “certainty” adults worship.
To my argument, the Press Council on Thursday says shut up. There is “no public interest” in me “undermining the credibility of a person, her opinions or her supporters on the basis of her disabilities in circumstances where many people share and express similar opinions.” (Like Press Council members?)
How foolish. I don’t mention her disorders to undermine her arguments but to explain her otherwise inexplicable appeal.
The Press Council has sabotaged honest debate.
I may safely tell a falsehood — that Thunberg’s disabilities are “superpowers” — but cannot truthfully say they’re not.
Bolt is generally a dolt, but he has the right to be a dolt within the reasonable bounds of the myth of rapidly diminishing free speech, and his rebuttal was an excellent piece of reasoning.
Adele’s Feelin’ The Love On Palm
The ‘Pie knows so many of you have been fretting about the well-being of the Dear Adele, ever since The Impaler descended like a poisonous Mary Poppins with a sword in her umbrella handle on Palm Island as council CEO.
So The ‘Pie was greatly relieved, and knows you will be, too, when a chum sent this a copy of the Palm Island Voice, a publication that appears to be better written and sub-edited than the Astonisher – yes, yes, faint, praise, we know, but still …
That Adele had a hand in judging something that was fishy seems appropriate. But gosh, those poor old Palm Islanders have to put up with all sorts of red tape, just to do a bit of fishing, including have the right trousers in good repair.
“The only other thing is for everyone to make sure their flares are up to date, and all their safety gear is in good condition.
And The Impaler seems to have some awareness that things can change quickly in her business, when she says ‘I am delighted with welcome I have received so far.’ Give it time, girl, give it time.
And note her closing line in this article, it rings a bell
“I expect it will take some time to get the organisation ‘ship shape’ but many good people have been working hard to do just that in recent months and that work will be ongoing
Wasn’t that exactly what she said when she joined TCC?
First Look At The Airstrip The Mullet Didn’t Build
Gee, someone should have a word in Got’em Adani’s ear about his account department.
First up, Asif the Accountant said they can’t build a railway to their port without federal and state money … and then, when they were told to bugger off, suddenly finds that, actually, they can do it off their own bat.
Asif then sweet talked our reigning very stable financial genius Mayor Mullet into a $18.5million contribution to fund an airstrip for the Carmichael Mine, which the Townsville Council would neither own nor operate, but would for pay rent for using it for FIFO workers. But that was knocked on the head, principally because the new Belcarra laws would’ve made it illegal, which saved Townsville ratepayers a shed load of money.
But guess what? Asif found a previously lost piggy bank with enough rupees to renovate an existing airstrip … so all along, Adani was able to be self-sufficient, as one has to be when one can’t scam even the gullible. The details of the scuttled secret deal are still the subject of official processes before their previously ordered release is ratified, so we may never know, so let’s speculate a bit.
The Magpie reckons it is reasonable to think this overall outcome has caused the LGAQ’s Greg ‘Pizza The Hutt’ Hallam heartburn, it is rumoured that the loss of a single dollar sends him to the pill cabinet.
And the possible release of the secret deal with Adani may well put him in danger of doing a whoopsy in his Kung Fu Panda undies. Because it’s a fair bet that with two LGAQ member councils, Rocky and TCC, involved … and Mayor Mullet also being a board member of Hallam’s outfit, the secret deal may mention that the LGAQ would chuck in their services of Local Buy procurement. That would turn the association a pretty penny in a percentage of all contracts. And a $35/$40million project is a lot of lovely lolly for basically doing fuck all.
Even if not directly named in the undisclosed document, one wonders if Hallam’s little chubbies were in there somewhere. The eventual release of the secret deal will hover over many an expense account lunch like Banquo’s ghost.
Another Week Of Turmoil For The Tangerine Terrorist.
Somehow he keeps on keeping on, slowly moving towards his clear goal of becoming America’s first dictator. And don’t think that’s another lame Magpie jibe, it is happening before our very eyes. His utilising of the rioting across the country to mug for the camera holding a bible and pull the race card at every turn in nothing less than obscene. The humour is grim.
A New Dimension In The George Floyd Furore
One aspect of the Black Lives Matter sparked by the death of George Floyd has received little attention, and The Magpie has checked as best he can the authenticity of the following.
First, the cause of death will be a crucial focus of upcoming court actions. There is absolutely no question about the heinous, brutal and thuggish behaviour of the police and the dangerous and unnecessary manner in which they held Floyd until an ambulance arrived. But was it murder? On the material The ‘Pie has found, we read in the autopsy report there was no airway obstruction or injury and at the time, Floyd was intoxicated on a drug cocktail including fentanyl (80-200 times as powerful as morphine).
- Blood drug and novel psychoactive substances screens:
1. Fentanyl 11 ng/mL
2. Norfentanyl 5.6 ng/mL
3. 4-ANPP 0.65 ng/mL
4. Methamphetamine 19 ng/mL
5. 11-Hydroxy Delta-9 THC 1.2 ng/mL;
Delta-9 Carboxy THC 42 ng/mL; Delta-9 THC 2.9 ng/mL
6. Cotinine positive
7. Caffeine positive
Then there is a startling post on Facebook, which details Floyd’s background, and that it is damaging to the black community to make him a central figure in a much larger struggle. But that is not the thrust or real surprise in Candace Owens post, it is that she is a young, articulate, well researched … and black.
Her entire thrust is that the raising Floyd to a moral level he would never have achieved in life is damaging to the Black Lives Matter movement, a movement with which she wholly agrees. It’s long – 18 minutes – and I started to watch it waiting to scoff. But ended up thinking about the points she made, and I’m still thinking about her central argument … George Floyd should not be the icon of black advancement that others are pushing. She never excuses bad actions or bad attitudes from anyone but eloquently brings a sense of reality to a tragic state of affairs.
……………….
A week of upheaval all round, and you can make your feelings know on blog comments, they run 24/7. And it has come to The ‘Pie’s attention that some people actually saved quite a bit of money during the lockdown, so now is the ideal opportunity for you to finally give in to that almost uncontrollable urge to help with blog finances. Go on, you know you want to. Donation button is below. Thanks.
Greta will only be interested in the environment for a little while longer and then she will discover boys and their hairy beanbags. From that point on you won’t hear much more of her as she will have found something new to obsess about. It’s inevitable, which is a good thing for us long enduring normal people who have to endure her childish hissy fits and mad ramblings on the television.
Won’t be much bedroom fun for her with the parents sitting on the bottom of the doona, ‘guiding her’.
Candace Owens is a grifter who makes a living apologising for racism in the USA. Her video is a classic example of the “he was no angel” genre of victim blaming that we see repeatedly when a black man is murdered. It’s a straw man argument. No one is suggesting that George Floyd was perfect, just that he didn’t deserve summary execution at the hands of the police. The protests are about justice for the victim, not sainthood.
Predictable, Steve, but OK, although that old trope of ‘all innocence and no responsibility’ doesn’t move the issue forward a single inch.There or here.
Agree Steve. Do a bit of research on Candace and you find she’s a known Trump supporter who started ‘Blexit’ trying to get black people to leave Democrats and vote Republican.
She, like a number of white commentators, miss the point.
Sometimes people become the name/face of a movement. Not because they were perfect, but because they were the catalyst. I don’t believe this is really about George Floyd. And discrediting him is pointless. It just so happened a teenage girl filmed what was happening to him and posted it on social media. This meant the system that allows this violence could no longer be denied. How he lived is an aside. What matters is that we acknowledge the injustices, make genuine changes and move forward together.
Everyone has an opinion, I thought Banksy made a good point:
“Banksy has shown his support for the Black Lives Matter movement, saying “people of colour are being failed by the system”.
The graffiti artist wrote in an Instagram post: “At first I thought I should just shut up and listen to black people about this issue. But why would I do that? It’s not their problem, it’s mine.
“People of colour are being failed by the system. The white system. Like a broken pipe flooding the apartment of the people living downstairs. The faulty system is making their life a misery, but it’s not their job to fix it. They can’t, no one will let them in the apartment upstairs.
“This is a white problem. And if white people don’t fix it, someone will have to come upstairs and kick the door in.”
‘Kick the door in? Great way to solve a problem, which of course will lead to peace, love and harmony all round.
‘Fix it”.
How? Specifically what actions should be taken? No virtuous statements of intent, please.
What exactly do we have to do?
Not sure what you’re asking Grumpy, or in reply to which comment, it’s getting a bit crowded in here today.
But consider this: I have never actually said or written the following, but have thought it for years, and I reckon I’m like a lot of well-intentioned people in thinking it.
Would those demanding change (apart from the obvious cessation of police brutality towards indigenous people, which is a given) tell us in simple, plain language, what is that you require from us? In a nutshell, what is it you want, so I can focus on being part of moving towards your goal? My starting point is that I don’t abuse indigenous people, never have, racially or any other way, and non-indigenous people who do so clearly have their own reforming to do and laws have introduced to curb such ignorant behaviour. You have other recognitions (Mabo laws, anti-discrimination regulations, available educational opportunities, and so on). So I accept this a long road we have to travel, so to keep any reply understandable, what is the next stage you’re seeking? And is it all up to non-indigenous people to be responsible for it?
Silly statements like ‘give us back our country’ aren’t practical, remotely going to happen, or helpful – quite the contrary, making the those who are well-intentioned and open to persuasion give up hope of reasonable demands of recognition they can work towards on their side of the divide. Also, people will baulk at any unconditional demand for ‘respect’, when – as sadly seen in Townsville this morning – there is an often deadly lack parental responsibility and family.
Please seriously, in plain language, what do you actually WANT to have happen?
Mr Magpie, in your reply, which “problem” exactly is the one you think we’re looking to solve? If we look at the concept that ‘Black lives matter’, it seems to me that our dominant culture (“white”, “colonialist”, whatever) has run out of ideas about how to deal with the various upshots of dispossession. We’ve had a pretty good shot at outright denial for (in Australia) more than 200 years but keep being reminded in one way or another that that hasn’t worked and is still not working. We have cast about for a few alternatives but keep measuring ourselves as having failed – by our own standards. In recent times we’ve sort of ‘reached out’ to Indigenous Australia for a fresh perspective and when confronted with the Voice we’re dumbfounded. We can’t decide what it means. As Barry Lopez wrote in Horizons,
“It is the case, I think, that it’s what is decent, brilliant, and wise in a people that now we most need to know more about, and need to share with each other, not the banal evidence of their miscalculations or the supposed absence in them of the kind of sophistication we imagine to be in exclusive possession of”.
We presume that by having a draconian justice system and an armed police and/or military force to carry it out to the letter, that the cultural bumps in our road will be levelled out, dispersed, even erased. But we know they won’t. No matter how hard we press down we can’t change the topography.
A reasonable analysis. So what’s the answer?
Exactly. Flowery rhetoric and good intentions mean nothing at all.
Exactly what part of the draconian justice system do you want changed? And the alternative to an armed police service is what, exactly? Hallway prefects? Not the ECQ – stop lecturing and posturing and come up with some practical and sensible suggestions.
Grumpy, don’t ask me, another old white guy, start by reading (or listening to) the Voice from the Heart. Actually take note of what is being said instead of dismissing it in your usual know-all fashion – like our oh-so-smart PM at the time and his oh-so-smart deputy Barnyard who now says he regrets his fucktard response. And if you find you haven’t got a clue where to start then shut your trap and listen. Maybe you’ll learn something.
But you specifically referred to the ‘draconian legal system” and armed police. Why? What is your issue there? More importantly, what’s your alternatives?
You don’t have any, do you? But here you are, talking in lefty slogans and acting like a patronising twat.
The reality is that our judicial and executive arms do a pretty good job. Especially compared to other countries at the present time.
Sure, there is room for improvement – but there is constant change already.
I sure don’t have the answers. I have spent over forty years at the coal face and can tell you one thing, though, that most of the legal, health and social issues confronting the indigenous people come from within.
Grumpy, by putting it that way you make it sound like there is nothing anyone can do because it’s their problem – something internal in the Indigenous community. So let’s run with that idea a little bit. The idea that there’s something maladjusted in there, something that the non-Indigenous community can’t quite get a handle on but we know it’s there. Well maybe if we consulted with that community, on their terms, in their way of speaking, we might be able to conjure up some insights. It’s not as if it has never been done before in the world. The way we talk these days is quite reminiscent of Apartheid South Africa – don’t get on your high horse, I didn’t compare Australia to that South Africa – I mean in the way we talk about the ‘problem’ of Indigenous Australians. We assume that because they are sometimes non-compliant that they are therefore criminal and we can lock them up. We can lock them up for stuff we stopped locking white people up for years ago – like public drunkenness and unpaid fines, there’s always ways to be found to make sure that the incarceration rate for Indigenous is way out of proportion. And if we insist on keeping those laws and incarceration rates, even when we know they are unfair and possibly actually target Indigenous offenders then we only have ourselves to blame for failing to ‘close the gap’ on any of the measures we set ourselves.
We have been offered a conduit into the Indigenous mindset. It’s called the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I don’t know what it means and I certainly haven’t claimed that here. If you’ve spent forty years trying, without success, to understand what is going on then perhaps it’s time to look another way. It’s neither here nor there to me if you simply dismiss it as lefty piffle.
All that said, it reinforces The ‘Pie’s single request of indigenous leaders, and was further bolstered today when he heard more meaningless twaddle about ‘change’. It is twaddle when you say you want a catch-all ambiguous thing like ‘change’ … can not any body please tell a very receptive Magpie what is it that indigenous people want in the broader sense? In plain, specific terms, understandable by all.
Until then, I’m sitting this one out. No involvement – that is apart from full support for police reform in the handling of indigenous people arrested and being held, and continued contempt for politicians who will not give the police the training and budget to do so.
What cunning stunt is this State Government trying to pull off? Are they deliberately attempting to ‘throw’ the upcoming election and leave the LNP to try and clean up the economic chaos? On the other hand, could they be prolonging the crisis on the premise that voters don’t like to change governments in times of uncertainty?
Owl, I think the latter. She saw how the LG elections went, where most councils got back in because the electors feared change in the present environment. However by allowing the LG election to go ahead, I think she was trying to help her labor counterparts in Brisbane and it backfired.
It is a shame that Greta is being manipulated by those who should be caring for her psychiatric conditions. Cheap story lines by others who should care for her but do not. At 17 she is a world expert on climate change! I am not a climate change denier but believe that evidence shows that over time climates do change and not necessarily due to human interference. Look at the history of climate change. Inevitable. Unstoppable. Live with it.
Strange story line regarding fire fighter. I seems that stories are not proof-read prior to print. Bring back the ‘good old’ days of subeditors.
Andrew Bolt is a favorite of mine. I agree Magpie that he is opinionated and will talk over the top of others which is really annoying. At least like me he hates the left of the media and is not afraid to express sensible opinion. Long live free speech; while we still have.
The ‘Pie’s problem with Bolt is that he starts from an unmovable position, and does not seek to ‘peer test’ his world view. Never have we seen him interview someone with opposing points of view. That’s not interviewing, that’s haranguing. Occasionally, he is right about something, but when it comes down to that, it simply means he says something that The Magpie thinks is right. Even truth itself seems to be smoke and mirrors nowadays. And so it goes.
Bolt is on the right track
He was physically attacked by ANTIFA recently
No action by the police.
Pie , regarding “ black life matters “ protest / rallies , I’m sure there will be varying views . Premier Palaszczuk said she was acting in the best interest of Queenslanders by having indigenous communities in isolation for months and residents not able to leave because they were more at risk . Other restrictions for people and business like 10 then 50 at funerals , no Anzac Day gatherings etc means the approval for mass gatherings not complying with self distancing on a vulnerable group just adds to inconsistencies and frustration . Nsw Court of appeal approved the NSW gatherings so based on law it’s likely that ruling would be consistent across other States/ Territories .
Their little in-joke? … a Lib wearing red and a Labor gal wearing blue. Oh hardy har har, girls. Both duds. Bring on The Kid.
Is there a back story to this photo and did the tax payer fund it?
Would of though you would of mentioned the visit by Queensland Racing auditors to the Townsville Turf club during the week .
Why are they there .
What are they looking for .
Why does the TCC committee continue to have committee meetings in a pub car park or are they just causal catch ups for a chin wag
Because you didn’t bother to mention it until now. Well, it’s been mentioned now, why so slow, pal? This is citizen journalism around here, and your questions would’ve been raised to a wider audience in the blog itself had you dropped an email.
WHEN OH WHEN IS THIS GOING TO END?
In case you haven’t heard … four kids aged 8 to 12 and a teenager dead in a Garbutt car accident this morning.
preliminary reports say the teenager was the driver …
Karma, your comment has been withheld and may be published later, because it is based on a supposition that is yet to be confirmed. You, and by extension The ‘Pie, would look like ignorant racist rabble rousers should your conjecture be totally wrong. And no, not even the Bulletin would give Harvey Norman ads front page dominance with this story. Er, would they?
Stay out of it EVERYONE and let the investigation run its course. No speculation, no idiotic conspiracy theories, no racist remarks. BACK OFF and let the law do its job. Please.
The 14-year-old driver has been charged with the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death. He was also charged with two counts of unlawful use of a motor vehicle and burglary, as well as a count of possessing dangerous drugs
It has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with behaviour and responsibility!
Well, up to a point, Dave, but we can’t dismiss there is a very real history of oppression and discrimination in the treatment of indigenous Australians, which has contributed greatly to our mindset of shiftlessness borne of resentment and poverty which led to alcoholism and inability to exist in white communities. But just over 30 years ago, the awareness among Australians was raised to the historic cultural plight of aborigines (Hawke’s compact, Mabo) and we fumbled and stumbled towards healing the rift we caused, often misunderstanding the rectifying needs and desired recognition. Mistakes were made, but the sincere effort was there. It is now surely time that certain recalcitrant groups on the ‘other side’ started to respond in a more positive manner. With these people, there doesn’t seem to be any shift away from ‘never forgive, never forget’ towards ‘forgive but always remember’.
Dave. it has never been a race issue it is a cultural issue, the sooner the alleged “leaders/elders” get off their collective finger pointing areseholes and get out of the past “wrongs” and work together for a positive united and cohesive future the better.
Im happy with your reason for not publishing my comment. It didnt take long for the ATSI flags to be put at the crash site. Im wondering if the bulletin will do a story on the poor people who had there car stolen and lives disadvantaged by this. Everyone’s lives matter.
When you think about it, putting up the aboriginal flag at a death scene like this doesn’t make sense … it could be seen as almost an unintended boast, and amplifies the criminality and not the tragic loss of life. The ATSI flag is primarily used as ‘in your face’ defiance. Someone didn’t think this one through … or was it whitey’s fault. yet again. Perhaps the answer is that people be prohibited from owning vehicles worth stealing … one reason The ‘Pie sleeps well at night.
Agree Mr Magpie, there is no forget with this issue, there is only anger and frustration and want, want, want.
Well, given all that has and is being done for Indigenous folks, there is a major section of that community Australia wide that has not tried hard enough to make things work. A classic example is Education – the billions of dollars and resources are worthless when families can’t get the kids to attend on a regular basis. Where there is a will, there is always a way – no will, no way!
You can’t always get what you want………I weep for the 4 souls who died yesterday and their families.
So sad that 4 kids have died because of a Government that can’t seem to control the crime in this city.
Hey, Strand, you know better than that in this blog. That ‘rumour’ which The ‘Pie has deleted will be printed when it’s confirmed. At this time, it is just idle speculation, speculation which you probably made up anyway, informed rumours don’t happen that fast. Otherwise, fair comment. And where were the parents, we will need to know asap, because if negligent, this is simply fatal child abuse. 14! for fuck’s sake.
Qld Police media unit has reported the driver as a 14 year old and only one to survive. Age of deceased not mentioned.
Ages of 8 to 12 by the Bulletin, so maybe right.
Police say the victims were between 14 and 18. And that the car was stolen, spotted by police driving dangerously but they did not give pursuit under the rules. Sole survivor was the driver, released from hospital and being interviewed.
(Edited)
Governments cant stop stupidity, its the thieves who are to blame. I have ZERO empathy for people stealing cars, doing high speeds and then expect to be called a “Victim of the system”.
SG,
Yes, the State Government is failing in these matters, but, where are the howls of protest at the parents of these juvenile thieving criminals, who have entirely abrogated their Parental Responsibility?
Dave, it would seem that at least some of these kids were in the care of the State, that the cars were observed and ignored by officers of the State, at least some involved were known car theives who had been through the State’s juvenile catch and release system; and in some small way the State might bear some responsibility too.
Absolutely correct, Becoming More Civil, as with the police, if you have unique powers to be put in charge of another’s person’s body, you have the highest possible responsibility for its well-being, to look after it. If that means certain privations (like being out in the early hours with your mates stealing cars) then so be it … the emotional scars of such heinous racist treatment will eventually heal … but you have to be alive to heal. Otherwise, like these poor little bastards, your just dead. This is a multi-layered tragedy.
The issue of hypersensitivity to race seems to have taken over from normal plain old commenting in the media.
The first I heard was at 6am. I was almost sure was it would be aboriginal youth, based on the number of stolen cars we hear tearing around in the early morning hours from our hillside residence.
As with you, my next thought was where are the parents in all this.
I made it to my business close to the scene, and from inside, I was able to survey the sad aftermath of the tragedy in front of me. Very confronting. News crews on our lawn, tarps lifted and stretchers wheeling the remains to plain vans parked on the other side of the roundabout.
The real sad part for me is that deaths like this have happened before and will likely happen again.
I just hope the loss sinks in to their peers and can bring about an attitude change to their cool car stealing mentality.
But with little deterrent I don’t hold out much hope.
Bring on the election. In the end, it’s us mugs the voters, who can exercise the power to change things in this regard. And it is clear that the only way to do that is to choose representatives who will put us, and young lives, first, even if it means defying their own party.
Gotta agree with the Pie, my normal opinion of Bolt is that he is a conceited fucktard and biased towards his mates. But shit, he struck gold with that article. 10/10. More articles like that and I will think of him as more of a cockhead than a fucktard. And that’s a compliment by the way!!!!
Go Bolt! (Can’t believe i said that)
It might help if the George Floyd ilk, of the US stopped calling themselves African American, its bloody divisive and totally unnecessary.
First time I went to the USA, Negro’s (Spanish black) had no problem with that tag, then along came uninvited, the thought police who decreed it sounded too much like Nigger.
Whereas Nigger (niger Latin black) originally applied as a racial/cultural definition like Paddy is to Irish or Jock is to Scots etc. It only became a slur once the Ghetto’s erupted in the post depression era.
Can you imagine an Australian prime minister keeping his job if he acted how Trump has been carrying on since covid-19?
In Australia the prime minister’s own political party would throw him (or her) out.
But not in America, where winning an election is more important than the wellbeing of the country and its citizens.
That Republicans can turn a blind eye to Trump’s long list of failings and absurd, divisive statements says it all about America.
No wonder the country is in turmoil.
Be thankful that we live in a country that still has some standards.
I agree, hoppy, sort of makes one rethink this whole republic things, don’t it?
Good afternoon Pie,
On a lighter note, those coming over the waves to Magnetic Island may have seen the life-size mermaid (with a trident!) at the entrance to the Nelly Bay harbour.
Whence this vision of loveliness came from is a mystery, but I am told she was put there by a resident of Bright Point.
I am hoping she will become a tourist icon, something like the Bikini Tree at the Arcadia Hotel.
I will endeavour to get a photo of this half-naked lady and send it to your Gmail account ASAP.
Best wishes
LB
Trust she is a mermaid with the perfect figure: 36-25-and $4.40 a kilo.
And you have the cheek to say some of my quips are old, well at least yours has gone metric.
I think I agree with Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann when he says that Saturday’s protests were “selfish”, “self-indulgent”, “reckless” and “unacceptable”,
And so say all of us. The ‘Pie would add ‘thoughtlessly opportunistic’. The deepest idiocy – if the organisers were sincere indigenous people and not being manipulated by political opportunists – you know, ‘never waste a crisis’ – is that if we face further personal and economic deprivations from a ‘second wave’ sparked by Saturday’s gatherings, they will have done their very just cause irreparable harm and foster general resentment in the whole community.
chanting “I can’t breathe” during an uncontrolled public gathering midst a respiratory pandemic also seems a little strange (or prophetic).
Sadly, it is odds on that karma abounds.
The 14yo driver has already been charged, less than 24 hours after the accident, but police are still investigating the collision involving Jenny Hill, which resulted in a fatality. Are they hoping the public will forget about it?
Everyone should take a moment to understand the real problem. Unfortunately the experiences and views of people like Jacinta Price will get shouted down.
I keep listening to the last 3 minutes of this interview and find it hard to disagree.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6162207311001
You’ve got that all a bit tangled up, Convenient Bliss, and The ‘Pie wonders at a possible hidden agenda, a classic ‘look over there, not here’, and ‘whataboutism’.
What the admirable Jacinta Price has to say about black on black violence is absolutely valid and no doubt accurate, and intervention is needed (but by whom and how begs the question). But where you get it wrong and in fact verge on racism (quoting Sky, that would be no surprise) is that bringing up that sad aspect of indigenous reality, you- purposely – and Ms Price- inadvertently – seek to change the subject … deflect away from the core and absolutely valid point of the protests: that white police attitudes that often lead to needless deaths in custody. Certainly the stats that 70% of arrested and jailed aborigines are there for crimes of violence committed within their own communities. But there is NO crime in Australia that carries the death penalty, and certainly not none carried out as ‘accidental summary justice’ by police officers. Cops are given powers that the rest of do not have or need, and a principle one is they become in charge of and responsible for the care of the bodies legally taken into their custody. And that immutable rule does not ever take into account WHY someone is in custody.
ALL THAT SAID, IT STILL REMAINS THAT THOSE GATHERINGS SHOULD NEVER HAVE TAKEN PLACE, WRONG TIME AND DANGEROUSLY IRRESPONSIBLE.
And achieve nothing in these times of anxiety on multiple fronts.
Dumb and dangerous.
Sadly it occurs to me that for the 14 year old driver who killed four of his cohort, it is obvious that black lives do not matter.
Not to him, anyway. Or to those given charge over the deceased … be they parents or state.
Evening Pie. Bolt is a much better writer than on TV he should have stuck to that but I’d say vanity plays a part there. His blog used to be pretty good, lots of robust debate but after the Mordy decision (that IMO should have been sent to the high court) it went downhill at a great rate of knots.
Been in Sydney all weekend. Fortunately missed Saturday as was in the Blue Mountains. There was a fair mess Sunday at one of the protest sites that I saw and lionising of common criminals.
I rarely step outside of local Townsville issues commenting here but I believe Rowan Dean’s 2 minute rant opening his show yesterday sent to me by a mate was spot on. I think Gladys will jump just before the next election down here as she is damaged goods now after initially supporting the march only to be forced by public outrage to put her half ar$#d ban on it that got overturned. She just had her Greyhound moment that Baird had and can tell you no-one in NSW is happy with her.
Interesting to know, Dave, but only mildly.
I saw a full page advertisement in Saturday Townsville Bulletin for something called Taskforce NQ which it seems is a TCC initiative looking at Covid recovery in the region. Sounds like something reasonable and then i went to the website which was full of flowery prose and little substance. The former TCC CEO Mike Chiodo is running it and the head honcho is some guy called Prins Ralston?
Prins Ralston!!! Oh, christ, batten down the hatches and lock up your wallets, the same old pillaging gang roams the countryside. Prins Ralston is the head of Nous, the scorched earth specialists who torched the TCC. And you came to the right place with your question …. try this from The Magpie three years ago (scroll down to his pic).
https://www.townsvillemagpie.com.au/wheeling-and-dealing-in-or-out-of-office-the-long-established-network-of-the-gilded-few-continues-to-profit-from-an-ailing-townsville/
.
“four more years”, oh fuck as though a global pandemic isn’t enough to worry about
NQ taskforce , another Council lead think tank and rate payers waste of $ so that Chairperson Hill can play out the role of saving the city . Pity the Astonisher hasn’t got the journalistic experience or fortitude to go back 5 yrs and bring out all the other failed strategies paying Labor mate consultants, seat warmers hundreds of thousands delivering ? . Insanity , doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result .
Make that list, Mike and it will be published here. The ‘Pie can’t do this all on his own, especially research like that when there are a dozen balls in the air at once.
The pie does a good job telling us how much a waste the $700k TCC gives TEL every year… but what about the $7 mil TCC spends on Brogan’s (back to the) Future Cities Team?
Ok, CJ. You tell us … details pls.
***CJ Citizen Journalist
Here is the list of our saviours, and certainly there are some good, no-nonsense names in there amongst the usual suspects.
Two interesting omissions. Mayor Mullet isn’t listed and she isn’t the chair, but three other TCC bods are (Mike Chiodo is chair and is listed as TCC – but didn’t he quit?: he is joined by Brett Brogan and Stacey Coburn, who ever they may be and whatever they may do, worthy they may be but we haven’t been enlightened). Then there’s Ramon Jayo, the Mayor of Hinchinbrook Shire in there, but no one from Ayr or Charters Towers, who, although surely asked, chose to stay out of this little bun fight-which may turn out to be a very wise decision. Then we have Lil Patty Hotlips O’Callaghan, head of TEL – which begs another question: surely this is what TEL should be doing anyway, or has the extent of their total uselessness finally been recognised? Maybe we could ask a former TEL boss, Glenys Schuntner – although her tenure in the TEL fuck-up chair was brief and undistinguished, she has solid Oz Trade experience in Asia. Ms Scuntner’s equally undistinguished role as boss of the North Queensland Club at least put her in touch with many of the town’s movers and shakers … well, certainly the shakers as it applies to just about all of the ageing membership.
And can anyone (serious question) tell us what city-saving role Luke Anear and Blake Pelling fulfil, they are simply listed as Safety Culture. Is that a company, a role or a new boy band?
At least there’s some solid business brains included, in Brad Webb and Townsville Port’s Ranee Crosby, who seems to have kept her head done and got on with the expansion job.
Can hardly wait for the pre-feasibility study to determine if a feasibility study into the formation of this taskforce is justified, followed by a pre-meeting to decide if a meeting should go ahead to accept that it is a good idea after all (all reports to be written for a pretty dollar by Prins Ralston’s Nous Group. Might even be farmed out to his old chum Dolan Hayes.)
The more things change etc.
Well Pie, thank christ The Impaler isn’t on the list – that’s a positive, right???
Safety Culture is actually one of the towns recent success stories.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/billion-dollar-milestone-safetyculture-australia-s-newest-unicorn-20200407-p54hyn.html
Ok that answers that. Sounds like good folks to have on board. (Still reckon it’s a good name for a boy band.)
Brett Brogan is another import from Darwin. Total dud like the rest of them. Responsible for the laughable Townsville 2020 plan. Haven’t seen much from that brain fart and we are halfway through
Dunno about that … his vision of 2020 is about what we’d expected. We just didn’t know about the virus.
Pie you are certainly on the ball i will give you that. I went through the Taskforce website last night and it turns out there are 10 sub committees underneath the main committee. Not even Sir Humphrey Appleby could dream this stuff up. And out of all these people on all these committees nearly all are bureaucrats – just what the business community need – public servants who have never run a business running committee after committee all the while collecting their fat salaries (no job keeper needed with these people) at the taxpayers expense.
Hadn’t dug that deep, it takes good research to dig up bad things, and this is shaping up, it ain’t a good thing, the makings of another Mullet/Ralston-inspired distracting gabfest.
But let’s not tar all with the same brush, BoJangles, we have the proven likes of businessmen Brad Webb, Jamie Fitzpatrick and the ‘outside the box thinkers’ Luke Anear and Blake Pelling of SafetyCulture. The question is, can they prevail, or will they be smothered in red tape by hidden agendas.
The ‘Pie can understand why some are in there … Ranee Crosby could make valuable contributions, since the port will probably be a pivotal factor in many a bright investment idea. And the welcome absence of Gill from the Townsville Airport suggests a loaded question … has been finally recognised as a irrelevant to, if not actively detrimental to, positive development in Townsville.
Townsville,, Still backing losers I see, what a pathetic joke.
There is a lot anger about this within Council as Ralston is on this full-time at a cost of $20,000 a week ($500 hour) plus expenses and Chiodo will get $200,000 a year plus expenses as chair and will commute from Cairns where he now lives.
YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING!?! Some proof please, this is almost in CCC/Jamie Durie/Adani airstrip territory.
If that is true, and more than The Magpie will be gobsmacked if it is, little wonder Mayor Mullet wanted to play Machiavelli and stay behind the scenes, so she can scuff the carpet, look at the ceiling and whistle while claiming ‘nothing to do with me’.
Surely expenditure of this nature and significance must go through council meetings and be voted upon? or can the Mayor arbitrarily award hundreds or thousands of dollars at her discretion? Maybe Sue Blom could help ask the questions if they have not already been asked. Or a number of ratepayers could email the acting CEO directly asking the question, and keep asking until you get an answer.
Correct, and that is why The ‘Pie has his doubts … but experience has taught the old bird that this IS Townsville, and not to dismiss anything out of hand.
Where do I sign up to be a council “consultant”. I might have to join the ALP first, but I’d do it to be earning $20k a week plus expenses.
No surprise there, Townsville is fast becoming a FIFO town itself for many, fly in Mon morning and out Fri afternoon, many just don’t want to live here anymore.
Stacey Coburn used to be the HR Manager. Calls herself a smiling assassin. Did a lot of Adele’s dirty work. This must be the payoff.
I hear Inga Davis is the Executive Officer. Another Darwin import. Has had more executive style jobs at council than I can count.
Oh, c’mon News Ltd, why do only cover ‘horror’ crashes? Why do you neglect a wider readership that craves, ‘beautifully presented’ crashes, or ‘mildly damaging’ crashes, or maybe even a ‘ho hum another prang’ crashes?
Wait, bet The ‘Pie knows what you’ve got up your sleeve, Courier/Astonisher – TA DA –
“Best Horror Crash of the Month. Vote now for your best horror crash of the month, and we will award it our Bent Fender Award, tastefully mounted on a mini coffin.”
“Memo Marketing and Sales: hit the panel beating companies for ads on this, eh, folks? No funeral homes, though, bit obvious even for us.”
‘Motorcyclist Killed In Horror Crash’? Pffft, gotcha there, Brisbane, Townsville’s already had one of those … but we still don’t know what happened.
Lord HH – the Police probably have a backlog of donuts to get through.
WTF, after yesterday’s deaths I see that the do-gooders and bleeding heartsclubs are putting their hands up for more government, read yours and mine, dollars to run more youth programs. How many more dollars are they going to want and where are the objective independent reviews of past and current programs funding with taxpayers funds. These reviews should be telling us what failed, what worked and what can be improved so that grant dollars be more effectively targeted. But then I suppose the money will come as the three useless stooges face an election in four months time so they’re grasping at straws to get votes from vested interests.
One thing the indigenous folk can justly say they equal ability in, and that is they can rort the system as effectively as any whitey. reference the local ATIC Health Service, and that’s just the latest in a long line of the right ‘family’ getting their hooks in and creating a closed shop and skimming for those oh so necessary boats, extra cars, jewellery and personal swimming pools.
Black lives do matter, but that issue is not the only thing that has to change.
Critical I’m not sure where you think the money for implementation of government policies comes from but it sure doesn’t grow on trees. While you rant and rave about the do-gooders and bleeding heartsclubs putting their hands up for more government funding for youth justice programs the alternative government, so-called Deb20, is going to spend similar amounts in a different way – most likely on prisons and detention centres which you might recall cost an absolute motza. Deb20 says:
“No more cotton gloves, no more slaps on the wrists, there will be jail time and true consequences for criminal activity under the LNP. It’s time to take back our streets, keep the community safe and teach these repeat young offenders a lesson – enough is enough.”
Which ever party spends it, the money comes from taxpayers. More people in jail, more deaths in custody. It’s a great investment eh?
The Freckle completely ignore the magistrates and judges will decide who gets what, unless she wants to go down the mandatory minimum path.
Taxpayer money keeps getting handed out to these organizations but no independent critical reviews are ever undertaken to evaluate if the outcomes / KPI’s were met so that government can build upon the successes and learn from the negative identified in any review before more money is thrown at the problem. If any review or outcomes reporting is undertaken it is usually by the grant recipient and funder both of whom have a vested interest to make certain that it looks like the objectives / KPI’s have been met.
It was ever thus … principle as police investigating police.
Pie, for some reason you missed this piece of news. A major Townsville success story.
https://www.afr.com/technology/meet-safetyculture-australia-s-latest-unicorn-20200407-p54hs6
Good on them, it is a major success story. However the $B valuation is based on unsubstantial valuation multiples and really is magpie in the sky stuff. I do believe they will continue to do very well.
‘magpie in the sky stuff’? Watch it, buddy.
Couldn’t help it – not saying anything bad about you, just had the spell check do it to me so thought I’d leave it.
yeah, yeah, deeply offended, might sue, whatever zzzz…..
Scott Stewart says “ this is no the time for finger pointing “ over the 4 youth deaths and he would prefer it that way . Scott , Aaron, Coralie we’re warned by the community / business/ elders the Queensland youth justice system , bail houses were a failure but instead of supporting their constituents they had their strings pulled by Brisbane and they , as sycophants accepted it . Time for a change in October . Speaking of change , the Astonished has to go back to the basics because simple things like forgetting to put a bar code on today’s edition will have your re-sellers like the newsagent this morning , telling your customers how hopeless you are . Good luck to anyone buying the astonisher and trying to scan it at Supermarket self service kiosks .
If nothing else will, that bar code cock-up will get the adverse attention of the Holt Street counting house.
In relation to Sunday’s tragic accident, Scott Stewart promises ‘no stone will go unturned’ in the investigation.
Come October, mate, you’ll find that ‘no turd will go unstoned.‘
MEMO TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN SUB EDITOR:
The image on the right is an ‘IDOL’, you idle twit.
Sorry to be pedantic Pie but that is not an idol its a Kathakali dancer. ‘though those idle morons at the BS wouldn’t get your keen eyed pun.
Sorry to be pedant back (no not really) but … many idolise Kathakali dancers.
idol | ˈīdl |
noun
• a person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered: movie idol Robert Redford.
The TB got it Pie and changed the online spelling error. Another one for the Pie, TB, Zero, Townsville Magpie, Many.
Ahk zo, Mien Herr Schplitter
So now it’s official … News Ltd declares local journalism costs too much, isn’t worth it and, and to paraphrase Dame Nellie Melba, ‘feed ‘em muck’. This from this morning’s Roy Morgan round-up, and then The ‘Pie will translate.
News in shared digital strategy
The Australian – Page 19 : 8 June 2020
Original article by Leo Shanahan
Roy Morgan Summary
News Corp Australia veteran Peter Blunden will head the media group’s new specialist network teams of journalists, which will produce content across its metropolitan, community and regional mastheads. He says the traditional ‘silo model’ of journalism is no longer relevant, and quality content must be shared across its portfolio of mastheads. Blunden has also defended the decision to adopt a digital-only model for some regional and community newspapers, arguing that the print editions were not sustainable.
Here’s what that old warhorse Pete Blunden meant with all the buzz word bullshit, particularly ‘silo model’: News, including The Bulletin, will sack local reporters (if they haven’t already), and do bare bones coverage of crucial local matters like police, courts, council and the health of the local hairdressing industry in order to fill not just the pages but also the accompanying website with what Blunden laughingly calls ‘quality content’. So even digitally … a medium that just begs for local exclusivity, national and international news can be had elsewhere with the click of a key, … we will be treated to a two-headed lamb in Sydney, cute animals in the Geelong RSPCA pound, and the cliff top new cycle path in a Darwin suburb (already published a few weeks ago, now waiting for the first unintentional aviator). Not to mention the credo of ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, we’ll be subjected to every fender bender across the country, not to mention the Bulletin speciality of maudlin stories of grieving mothers of toddlers dead to cancer or local otherwise unremarkable truckie/fisherman cut off in his prime from a septic fishhook wound, all to cater for a vastly overstated recreational grief readership.
Christ, Rupert Murdoch has a lot to answer for.
The future is AI with robots writing stories based on false algorithms.
Unfortunately Phrased Headline of the Day … even if literally true..
Pie, Are those journo’s from Darwin spreading their wings? Sounds like one of their headlines.
Hahahah … no gong for Shazza Markson then?
Check out the writer. Can one assume that the called-for disqualification would include anyone who falsely claimed someone as a chronic workplace alcoholic and thus cost her employers over a million dollars in costs and damages?
Reckon all footy fans should stage mass marches in protests against the crowd ban, carrying placards that ‘Footy Fans Matter’ and ‘Footy Fans Vote Too’. Thousands of footy fans are indigenous, as are many of the game’s greats, so, really, would Premier Twit and her sheep dog CHO allow one mass protest but ban another? And wouldn’t the NRL just love to get within cooee of the numbers that turned out for last weekend’s protests.
Stolen cars. The question I always think about is “how do kids that age even know how to drive?” And some of them actually drive quite well (albeit reckless).
And you know this how? And how do you equate reckless driving with good driving?
What I mean is that they can actually drive a car, and well enough for the Police to leave them alone when they go fast. At those ages, I never even knew how to put my parents car in gear.
It doesn’t take much intelligence to drive an automatic. Put it in drive and away you go. I reckon about 90% of younger (under 30) drivers wouldn’t have a clue how to drive a manual. As for my OLD beastie with a choke, well the wallopers would be arresting them, before they even got it started.
The Cowboys/NRL should submit a plan to the power hungry government for the comeback of crowds: Have a lottery at $1.00 per ticket and have a ballot to allow 5000 into the stadium. At the same time earning a bit of money for the club.
Better than blackmailing members to pledge this years membership fee.
Toot toot all aboard!!
If the rumour is true about the Future Cities consultant fees then that is an absolute disgrace. None of the mentioned names are worth the equivalent of $200k p/a, $20k per week or even payment in pesos or the Bolivar. Just another Government trough that has been built, filled with the green stuff, and special invitations have been goiven to mates or connections of politicians at both local and state levels. Oink oink as these pigs delve into the trough of taxpayer money and they become bloated with additional wealth. These grubs know no bounds and will stop at nothing to get rich while the average shitkicker goes to the wall. Pox on all of them. Fucking pigs.
That gets the Throbbing Temple Vein Award of the month. Must be hard to use a keyboard with clenched fists, but always nice to know someone cares about historic accuracy.
The info is out of date anyway – Brogan has been promoted to Eber’s job, not that you would see a job ad anyway.
The PC mob have gone on a campaign of rewriting history, in the US and Europe by removing statues of their nations founders.
The Lord Mayor of London Khan, has led the charge, selectively removing the heritage of the UK even proposing a campaign of remaining streets and whole districts to soothe the fuckwhited sheep.
If I applied his values the statue of William the Conqueror should come down as my ancestors were deposed by his invasion of England. Even Shakespeare should come down because of his anti-Semite stance.
Watch out Bobby Townsville your days are numbered, though they consider placing you in the under water gallery. You can bet there’ll be a campaign to rename our city to something soft and touchy-feally.
Hey now there’s a campaign that would suit the troglodytes at the TB, 100 best names for Townsville.
We could have, Snoozeville, Radianceville, Mulletville.
Villainy?
Pie, one of your cynical best.
Doonaville!
Seriously time for a name change of our city. We are named after a slave trader so that seriously needs a rethink. My suggestion is Castletown, Castleville, Castle Rock for Steven King fans.
Anyway, our magnificent not quite a mountain should be honoured.
You mean the one we honour so much we not only allow but vehemently oppose removing undergraduate graffiti of British reference to an irrelevant fictitious character of doubtful morals? That the edifice you want honoured? The simple act of removing that vandalism would be a start.
Hellsville
I too am very uncomfortable with the removing of statues. Sure, it was Hitler or similar, but Capt James Cook is in the firing line. One of the finest navigators of all time and, by all accounts a reasonably just sea captain by the standards of the time.
It is a mistake to judge the actions of the past by the standards of today, in most cases, and that is what we are starting to see now.
History is just that, history. It is in the past. Learn from it but do not try to obliterate it.
Aboriginal Australia spends too much time dwelling on the past when they should be concentrating on the present and taking responsibility for their future.
“Aboriginal Australia spends too much time dwelling on the past”
It’s not even the past! While your family was building generational wealth over two hundred years on stolen land, in living memory Aboriginal Australians couldn’t live where they chose, marry freely, were denied jobs and education, were separated from their families, land and languages, had their wages stolen by the government, weren’t even counted as Australian citizens. How convenient for you that we should stop dwelling on the past right at the point where you’re on top of the heap!
OK, keep dwelling on the past, miss the great present and piss away your future, Steve. If missing the point was an Olympic sport, you’d wear the green and gold … oh, no sorry, my guess is you’d be wearing red, black and yellow.,
Watch this and reflect, if you have the courage.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efbm3JS0J04
I think you’re the one who missed the point here, Magpie, that video is appropriate for an issue no one has raised – whether we should acknowledge that people can change their minds. Yes, obviously.
But a statue of a dead person can’t “evolve” on an issue like living people can, and it’s people alive today who get to decide what we adorn our public places with as expressions of our highest values.
Also, Indigenous people alive today who have been hobbled from birth by disadvantage deserve redress from the society that has been advantaged from our nation’s foundational crime.
That last line gives your game away, Steve. While community elders are almost uniformly admirable and respected local leaders, it would appear that it is those putative ‘leaders’ of the mostly metro and uni-based aboriginal industry who not only can’t change their minds, they don’t want to change their minds, and have a (mostly venal) vested interest in NOT changing their minds. Because, despite sincere if sometimes misguided attempts by mainstream society to make your demanded ‘redress’ (land rights, Uluru statement, national apology, $35 billion in programs, anti-discrimination legislation), these leaders do not make any attempt to change the simmering sullen resentment of an impossible over-entitlement they promote and encourage in the three per cent that make up our indigenous population. There aren’t many if any lowly paid rabble rousers in any movement, and the aboriginal industry is no exception.
Steve, the parroting of empty phrases like ‘deserved redress for for disadvantage’ only ensures that regressive mindset on mostly urban indigenous people who stubbornly refuse to recognise both the benefits of a modern advanced society (which by no stretch of the imagination would the aboriginal population of 1780 have ever achieved in 2500 years let alone 250) and also perpetuates the one thing The Magpie has been asking you and your like-minded a simple question: what is it, in simple terms, you ultimately want, one plain language sentence that tells what you feel must happen for a harmonious society to emerge?
Or are you content for your own reasons to be a the perpetuating parrot of discord, and remain ‘below, wrapt in the old miasmal mist.‘
“Because, despite sincere if sometimes misguided attempts by mainstream society to make your demanded ‘redress’ (land rights, Uluru statement”
The Uluru statement isn’t an achievement of mainstream society, it’s exactly what Indigenous Australians have asked for and mainstream society has done jack in the three years since. Is that simple enough a goal for you?
The benefits of a modern society are irrelevant. As if Indigenous Australians should be grateful for tens of thousands of deaths, dispossession from their lands and destruction of their culture. The invasion of the continent was apocalyptic for the native inhabitants. Just because it could have been worse doesn’t mean it was done at all well, and the injustice was known from the very beginning when Cook was given specific orders to claim land “with the consent of the natives.”
Mr Magpie I’m pretty much up there where you are going but I’m stumbling over:
” . . . . but the dominant culture needs so clearly marked benchmarks [before?] real dialogue can begin”.
Who creates/describes/sets out these ‘benchmarks’? My observation is that the Uluru Statement is one attempt at a ‘benchmark’. I think the “dominant culture” you mention should engage with this particular idea (because it is the latest iteration) and workshop it – in the same way that Aboriginal people workshopped their Statement from the Heart. Common ground is not going to just materialise before our very eyes, it’s going to have to be searched for. Personally, I’m up for it. Happy to venture up the garden path, the creek without a paddle, the pie in the sky, to see if there’s something out there. I think all of us are capable of something so much better than this. But it’s risky, I get that. It’s exciting, I don’t mind that. Life’s short.
You ask who creates/describes/sets out these ‘benchmarks’? Surely it is those seeking something in any negotiation that must set some sort of discussions terms of reference, the status quo is called that for a reason – they aren’t seeking any change. Non-indigenous Australians are in general agreement that the aboriginal lot is not a good and an often inadequate one, but are paralysed through past experience of doing something they thought was right (parliamentary apology, reconciliation march, billions in taxpayer dollars, special legislative actions) which have created unforeseen problems and sometimes unexpected vitriolic backlash. So many have just walked away, bewildered and then disconnected.
Will no one recognise the central issue The Magpie is trying to voice here? Indigenous people, say what your ultimate goal is, because until then, we won’t be able to discuss something we can all do to achieve that goal. Perhaps the problem lies with the reported circuitous thinking of indigenous culture around a problem to an eventual solution. If that is the case, and they are the aggrieved party (which of course they are in reality and theory), then it is up to that culture to adopt a different approach to another culture that has something you want but does not understand that different dimension of problem solving.
At the moment, we simply have no idea and so many of us have just given a ‘what the fuck’ shrug, and not made a solution part of our general thinking, for fear of being abused.
Excuse me Mr Magpie but Indigenous Australia put forward the Uluru Statement. What is your response?
No idea what is being asked. It sounds like the elders had their words massaged by seasoned bureaucrats in the best yes Minister style … lyrical and undoubtedly from the heart, but a lot of words that in the end say nothing. Starting to see the genius of Hawke in all this. Somehow, the indigenous cause is too hesitant to say exactly what it means and what influence it seeks.
And since the statement is very long, here it is for those many who probably haven’t read it.
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
Yours response?
Mr Magpie I’m not sure where this ‘reply’ will end up in the thread but I’m responding to the Uluru Statement you copied into the correspondence. Where it says”
“We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.”
As I’ve said before I’m up for that. I’m up for engagement. We will have to workshop the process and it won’t be simple or easy. So be it.
Mr Magpie it’s pretty smug to call for a simple one-liner that will cause a harmonious society to emerge. Post-Apartheid South Africa established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and went through the agony of the process. New Zealand entered into a Treaty. Other mechanisms have been established elsewhere or under United Nations oversight. The biggest impediment seems to be the lack of interest in the dominant society for some sort of soul searching. Aboriginal Australia went through an enormous amount of consultation and compromise to come up with the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It was almost fatally dismissed at the side door and may yet die a complete death. The thing is, white Australia wants this thing addressed. We are not happy with the lack of political determination. We constantly flagellate ourselves for our failure yet the moment something slightly positive turns up for consideration we run a mile. Nothing seems to be able to pass the pub test. That’s our problem. We are too choosey. We want money to talk (like, how many billions of dollars have we spent, and you want more!) but currency doesn’t fix dispossession. We don’t need or want to be told that but that’s the only language that we can apparently talk. What would you say to a proposal for a Treaty? One where there is an acknowledgement of dispossession, of pain and suffering, in some sort of reconciliation tribunal. Don’t like the language? Then stop asking for a simplistic solution.
Right from the get-go, you choose to profile and denigrate … while The Magpie question is not difficult, not smug, and an earnest inquiry as in ‘what is it that you want?’. Or even better, how do you want us to (realistically) behave? What action of the white majority are you seeking? But you then ramble on in the manner complained of, venting with solution mentioned. But where we find ourselves today, it is clear that the time of amorphous word fest is past, concrete suggestions, demands or whatever need to offered if this is to move forward.
So let’s try once more, a bit more specifically. You use the phrase ‘fix dispossession’. The word implicitly contains the element of ‘returning to the rightful owner’ as a remedy. … OK, how do we do that? Give back the country so in effect 97% of the population is dispossessed?
And to help you with your comprehension of language which is wilfully and deliberately lacking for the sake of your side the debate,The Magpie NEVER EVER said or suggested there was a simplistic solution, just that the problem be outlined in a simply stated goal.
Think of it this way … ‘We humans want to go to the moon’. (Simple goal) Then came the ingenious, complex and long road to that goal, but the aim didn’t start out with a lot of technical say-nothing blather that would’ve simply deflected from the goal, it was an intricate trial-and-error, constant re-thinking of how to achieve that simple goal. Just a simply stated goal.
And humans got there. So can we, but the dominant culture needs so clearly marked benchmarks to real dialogue can begin … and also untenable and non-negotiable ideas (like ‘why don’t youse all fuck off’, as oft mentioned to The Magpie in Flinders Mall) are deleted to clear thew table of core talks.
Dave, I’m somewhat of a Bill Maher junkie, and I think in this monologue he has absolutely nailed it regarding your point about “history is just that, history”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efbm3JS0J04
That is absolutely word-perfect brilliant, please everyone, don’t just watch it, pass it on far and wide … especially if you have ATSI friends.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efbm3JS0J04
D of K, yes Cook was a good seaman and a fine navigator, although I’m not sure if running into the GBR looks too good on your resume however, as a human he was a pretty typical for his time, a taotal prick of a bloke to the locals. History doesn’t make a big deal about it but he enjoyed cutting the ears off offending natives ! WTF !!
He got his come uppence when the local natives in the Cook Islands (there’s a coincidence) gave him a bit of curry back and the rest, as they say, is history !
Of course, if we lived back then, we would have been upstanding PC snowlflakes.
FFS we can’t confer some of today’s often questionable standards on to one of the wold’s most courageous explorers.
Bill Maher says it far more eloquently and compellingly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efbm3JS0J04
And a question The ‘Pie has often wondered … what if the Poms, the Dutch and the Frogs HADN’T discovered Australia? What is a likely scenario?
The Aztecs could tell how things would have turned out if it was the Spanish that settled here.
Overhead at cafe today someone ask if the Robert Towns statue is removed because certain people find it offensive, then can the Eddie Mabo statue on the opposite side of Ross Creek also be removed as many people find that offensive. We certainly live in changing and challenging times.
The only people who would be offended by a statue of Mabo are racists, what other possible grounds could anyone have for objecting to a civil rights hero?
Crit’s, Robert Towns may have been a ‘black birder’ but his contribution to the settling Townsville along with John Melton Black cannot be under estimated
Lieutenant James Cook is being touted as a savage in the current school curriculum, but his diary entries show he had good relations with most of the indigenous people he encounted.
DoK, That last statement is very apt.
This has been sent by by The Wulguru Wonder, but The ‘Pie is reporting it wherever he can.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efbm3JS0J04
Somewhere in an archive there is a dusty ledger which tallies Robert Towns’s contribution to the city to the last penny. All he cared about was return on investment. Do you get this starry-eyed about your bank manager, hang their picture on your wall?
Robert Towns never set foot in the area, just his slave ships.
He did visit once, briefly, in 1866.
“Rewriting history” is the dopiest accusation that could be leveled against removing statues of slave traders from places of honour in our major cities. History still exists, we’re just not exalting terrible people with lumps of stone or metal. The statue of Robert Towns should definitely go, what a monumental act of cultural cringe, sucking up to a dead financier who blew through the city once and never returned, just lumbering us with the ridiculous name of “Towntown”.
Poor old Steve! The ‘architect’ of a one eyed leftie.
I think one of us is having a stroke, if this is supposed to be some kind of play on words.
S,BG,
I hope you do not forget to take your blood pressure tablets. At this rate you are going to burst a blood vessel..
Dave, you mean blood pressure tablets developed by devil white man modern medicine?
Yup!
Dave – when I said one of us must be having a stroke, I was being kind to Achilles, whose speech had become garbled to the point of unintelligibility.
Will rewritten history stop the black kids from stealing cars? I mean look what happens at the youth detention center, they riot when there white suppressor items like xbox and pizza are taken from them. You can blast the past on cook, towns and any other white that formed our nation but until the aboriginal race stops using everything that’s good from the so called invasion ill never respect anything they say about us being racist to them. 34 billion a year in help, we’ve said sorry, ayers rock is now closed, either get over it or fuck off back to chasing kangaroos for food. One fact about the history of aboriginal people in this country is that they never evolved and its told in there history. Its proven by how they think today. And if the whites are so bad then how come they breed together to produce the half cast racists today?? Are you having whichitty grubs for breakfast?
“One fact about the history of aboriginal people in this country is that they never evolved and its told in there history.”
With BHP and Rio on the job that damn ‘history’ thing won’t be a bother much longer. But evolution looks like catching up to you, Karma. Can you name one thing ‘they’ have ever said, at any time in your life, that you have respected?
As Steve of Belgian Gardens and Not the ECQ would know, Aboriginals have evolved during their time in Australia and have done so markedly.
“We see significant divergence between Aboriginal Australian people of north east and south west Australia. These groups are more genetically different than, for example, Native Americans and Siberians are from each other.
They are all Aboriginal Australians of course, but the onset of the LGM seems to have limited gene flow between east and west. As a result, the formation of a different population structure began some 31,000 years ago.”
LGM – last glacial maximum
Source: https://theconversation.com/dna-reveals-a-new-history-of-the-first-australians-65344
Added to that, The ‘Pie has often wondered that if Phillip and his merry crew of low-lifes were all wonderfully ethical PC stalwarts we apparently expect them to have been, with whom would they have negotiated a ‘treaty’ a la NZ. Over the, Maoris appeared to be a coherent and united culture, but in Australia, there were some 360 different ‘tribes’, ‘mobs’, ‘distinct groupings’, whatever term is acceptable nowadays, many of which were warlike with neighbours mainly on a territorial basis. So to whom would they have talked? If it were the first group that Phillip came in contact with, those elders could only speak for a tiny geographic area. That is not to say that that approach should not have been taken, and at least create a model to have with other groups when and if Phillip’s men discovered the tribal divides but outcast whites from their own savage society in a strange, exotic land to them, would have … and quickly did … say sod this, and went about things in the same brutal manner their prisoners were accustomed to.
Washington owned slaves.
Just sayin’
Then Denzil’s in REAL trouble, man.
You forget one thing Steve old mate, if certain people hadn’t had some success in the Coral Sea in the early 1940’s, then this place might have been called Sushiville,
I didn’t forget that, it’s entirely irrelevant to any point anyone has been making in any part of the conversation prior to this point?
So quite a few of the trough dwellers from other Councils have decided not to accept the remuneration tribunals recommendation of a pay rise for 20/21 financial year. Will Team Mullet support the community by not accepting more money for the work they already don’t do? Considering the CCC isnivestigating so many Councils over rorts, fiddles, corruption and misuse of public monies under the Local Government Act you could safely assume that these arseclowns already earn enough money. An ollie jollie here, a bag of money there, a property refining here and a subdivision there!! Yes yes, their snouts are already firmly embedded in the ratepayer trough I think. Oink oink
The bloody tail is doing more than wagging the dog, this has become ludicrous beyond extreme.
My mum once knitted me a jersey with brown wool called NIGGER Brown. Better dig her up and reburial her with a copy of Sensitivity for delicate minds.
The Wall Street Journal
Rhett forced to give a damn about race
Gone With The Wind has been pulled from US streaming service HBO Max in a sign of increased racial tension.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news
Listen, let’s be clear … ‘nigger’ is an offensive word which is only ever used nowadays as a derogatory racial slur, and has been for quite some time. It is now kept alive by black Americans using it among themselves, in essence confiscating a word that had been used as a weapon by whites. It is one of the few words The ‘Pie does not use, along with all other derogatory racial put-downs… because there he has no reason to insult people in this way. The ‘Pie has become adept at insulting what he sees as people’s idiotic statements without feeling a necessity to pull the race card. There was an eye-opening line in a book of many years ago:’I hope racial equality arrives soon, so I can call you an asshole without being accused of race baiting, but simply because you are an asshole. Which you are.’
With 20 days until the new financial year is our Labor Mayor going to use COVID -19 in solidarity with the Qld Government and pull the wool over ratepayers eyes and not hand down a Townsville City Council budget 20/21 ? . Also has the Magpies disclosure of the possible abhorrent $200 k payment to Ex Ceo Mike Chiodo and $20k a week to Nous consultants driven TaskforceNQ underground as their website telling us all the wonderful stuff they will do , TaskforceNQ.com.au seems to have disappeared . There are 3 other local Councils I believe contributing to the “ Taskforce “ have their ratepayers be advised on the $ they are forking out ? .
Hi Pie
I reckon if Steve (Belgian Gardens) has a car it surely would have trouble getting around a Roundabout especially turning right as the wheels would keep going left, think of the cost of Wheel Alignments
I see that the mother of one of the kids killed in that terrible accident on the weekend, was herself in jail for being in a stolen vehicle. Who said fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Your comment is published on the grounds that it is a reflection of bad parenting, which by no means is exclusive to indigenous people. Despite your possible dog whistling, Rotten Apple, the vast majority of indigenous people are loving and responsible parents and their kids grow up as Australians with a rich cultural heritage we can’t all enjoy.
Because their parents recognise part of really loving your kids is taking responsibility to guide them in respect for society, not the ‘fuck ‘em, they owe us’ loser minority.
No whistling intended, it was just a reflection that the child was following the bad example that the parent had set.
Fair enough … err, sorry, guess ‘fair’ is racist.
It was on the ABC RN 10 o’clock news.
I see the media also reporting that the driver of the vehicle was one of those injured in the incident on Ross River Road last year when another stolen car crashed – obviously well rehabilitated by the system, and certainly well aware of the consequences of high speed driving.
Race does not enter into it but an absolutely failing system intent on smoke, mirrors and hiding from the hard truth is at the heart of this problem.
Yes! Child Safety is just not for the indigenous. Look at mess they made with Mason Lee’s case, and there were other stuff ups.
Jacinta Price, the Indigenous young leader from Alice Springs, is correct when commenting upon child abuse in a number of Indigenous communities.
She points out that the sexual and physical abuse of Indigenous children in many communities is appalling and a great shame, that is receiving very little attention. This young leader is a straight talker who has her facts in order and is NOT AFRAID to call out her own people who are engaging in this abhorrent abuse.
Accurate comment but The ‘Pie is again (at the risk of giving Steve from Belgian Gardens and ECQ apoplexy) asks what sort of attention, what course of action, should be taken? Pointing out va problem nisn pnly bthe very start of solving it.
Noel Pearson back many years ago called out the damage that welfare does to communities, talking about sit down money and passive welfare. He, like Jacinta have been shouted down by the “Indigenous Industry”.
There are plenty of people making heaps of money out of the “Indigenous Industry”, who have no intention of solving the problem. They institutional welfare and stop people breaking the cycle.
The best local example is Palm Island. Palm is an Aboriginal Mission, the majority of people who live there are not the traditional owners,. Yes many are indigenous with their families originally coming from all over Queensland including Brisbane.
This article is a good read, its focus is on indigenous welfare, insert the word JobKeeper and the same problems may appear in broader society – https://capeyorkpartnership.org.au/our-agenda/noel-pearson-remember-passive-welfare-its-real-its-still-here-and-its-hurting-our-children/
Options, I don’t think Jacinta Price will back off, or be drowned out. Like it or not, her gender and the fact that she is standing up like this is significant. Traditionally Indigenous women ‘fall into line‘, I don’t think she will, which can only be viewed as positive for moving forward!
In The ‘Pie’s experience of observation and covering stories, aboriginal women are the strength of their community in many ways, and even when they’re wrong (in The ‘Pie’s opinion) they are still committed and ferocious advocates. Hope Ms Price sticks it to them.
I’m waiting to see how many people will be allowed at each of the funerals for those kids killed in last weekend’s accident.
What’s the current quota?
10 + 3 officials
Except if you hold a BLM sign and then it is 30,000+
C’mon fells, 10 or 50?
50
I doubt it. Queensland’s Chief Health Officer will make a special ruling so it will be more than the current restrictions allow and if she doesn’t make an exemption, then they’ll just thumb their noses at any restrictions imposed and attend. Examples are the Mackay funeral of an elder and three known funerals reported on the Peninsula.
On a side matter to the subject The ‘Pie has it on good authority that the occupants of the red car have been caught and all processed. The ‘Pie understands although speeding and driving recklessly, the red car was not racing the fatal group at the time of the accident.
Details of who, how many and what charges are not yet available.
Wonder if steve and ECQ would give up there homes to help these so called oppressed first Australians. Or go to the front gate of happy valley and ask them in. Clearly 2 individuals in this town who havnt been effected by the obvious aboriginal behavior problem Townsville has. I don’t care about other parts, this is where the kids died. I didn’t see any protests when the 9 kids were brutally knifed to death in cairns by there drug fucked mother. But now today we have penny wong blaming the government and saying more should be done to stop the deaths in custody. If she bothered to look at actual data NONE have been killed, they just died. But all were in custody for breaking the law. Big difference. But i guess i would get the same surport from Steve, as aboriginals are, if i broke in threaten his wife and kids and take his car. Im just misguided arnt I with racist veiws?
“Im just misguided arnt I with racist veiws?”
If the shoe fits.
Silly, unhelpful rejoinder.
Steve, polite question … Sure your name isn’t John C of Belgian Gardens.
No, it’s Steve of Belgian Gardens??
Just an innocent inquiry, you’re writing style and generally surly comments were reflected in a letter to the editor ysterday.
Malcolm!
yes?
Pie, are you resorting to ‘our-style tactics’ now in trying to discover who some commentators are???
Nope, just the similarity was quite marked.
Your cupboards must be filled with only left shoes then? Hope you dont have shoe laces because that might be racist, you would say they represent lynching?
You are correct Karma. If an inmate keels over and dies of a heart attack, it is a death in custody. Even if the inmate makes it to hospital and subesquently dies, it is still a death in custody – although there is a lot less paperwork for prison staff if they are in hospital.
Err, well, yes, what else would it be if they WERE IN CUSTODY.
But The ‘Pie thinks Karma conveniently skated over the issue of negligence. And a personal note, having sat through various courts over six to nine months, The ‘Pie is confident to say that Mulrunji Doomagee was the victim of mansalughter, a combination of reckless force and then negligence of required care by Sergeant Chris Hurley and his staff. No question.
Agree,
Ye Doomagee was in a risk group, but Hurley should have been aware of the risk group and adjusted his response. Doomagee was supposedly off his face, but a Police officer couldn’t detect or compensate for that?
I disagree with the riots, but empathise with Mulrunji’s relatives (excuse the spelling)
Hurley had been punched by Doomagee when leaving the van at the station, and when inside, it is clear that Hurley, a very big man, ‘knee dropped’ Doomagee, causing the liver.kidney damage that led to his death because he wasn’t monitored appropriately, despite CCTV in the cell. The evidence supporting this conclusion was Hurley not disputing that he said ‘Had enough now, Mr Doomagee?’, just before he was bundled into the cell.
Assaulting a police officer, whether your drunk, drugged or sober, is wrong and a serious offence. But it does not carry a death sentence.
These are the stats from the australian government website. Latest deaths in custody, 27 april 2018 Since 1979–80. a total of 2,608 deaths in custody have occurred in Australia, with 1,600 deaths occurring in prison and 985 deaths occurring in police custody and custody-related operations.
There have been 18 deaths in youth detention or welfare facilities and five deaths in other criminal justice settings.
Of the 2,608 people who have died in custody since 1979–80, 500 were Indigenous and 2,104 were of non-Indigenous background.
Ibased on the government statistics their is not more indigenous deaths in custody the non indigenous. Even though their are more indigenous incarcerated than non indigenous.
So why is their not a rally by white people about the amount of deaths. Or perhaps the problem lies in that people who break the laws are most often not the healthest people, take a lot of substances, such as drugs and excessive alcohol, and not to mention resist arrest and become violent to others and themselves.
Your stats are no doubt correct, but does not take into account that indigenous people are 3% of the population. That 3% then represents 20% of custody deaths. However, the inference that the majority of any of the 2,608 deaths are ’caused’ by police is erroneous, but it is certain than some of them are. And, no matter what the health or behaviour of the person whose body is in the involuntary care of the state, and death is caused by police neglect or inappropriate, one is too many.
I see plenty of comment online and a range of opinions about the AFL players from Richmond and Collingwood coming together before the game and ‘taking the knee’ to “show support for the Black Lives Matter movement in a symbolic gesture against systemic racism.” (To quote the AFL website).
I am in two minds about actions like this. Anyone?
Nope, Wulguru. Best left alone, it happened and probably will happen before all games this weekend. Doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks, it’s done/will happen again. Let it go through to the keeper.
The thing The ‘Pie would find most interesting is if we carried this mimicry of America to the same extreme, and a reverse of what happened in the States occurred …. some players refused to ‘take a knee.’ Since they have been ordered by the AFL as what their sentiments should be, what action would be taken? Even if the the players explained they were protesting about being ordered what to think on the assumption they needed to prove they were not racists? Which ‘taking a knee’ hardly proves.
Another aspect of it for me to contemplate, which I hadn’t yet considered. Thanks Pie, I genuinely appreciate reading and hearing a range of views and perspectives to broaden and challenge my thinking.
I see that TCC has come under fire for applying the highest ‘pedestal tax’ on business shitters in North Queensland. Hotels and Motels are empty yet still paying around $960.00 per year per shitter. The last 4 months has seen most people working (and crapping) from home, yet businesses are left holding the turd!
Another legacy of Team Mullet with high fees and charges that deter people coming to Townsville due to high accomodation costs. I wonder what Council charge some of our local homeless folk for shitting in driveways, on footpaths and on the footsteps of some businesses?
Don’t give ‘em ideas, mate.
A tax on turds Pie??? Really says it all about our great democratic, free society hey? ………
The ‘Pie and the general readership would appreciate the judicial insertion of a comma between the fourth and fifth words, if you please.
The outdoor shit etc and so-called homeless problems are about to get worse as Townsville is about to be flooded with people into the parks etc as the Biosecurity Act Crovid-19 restrictions are about to be lifted.
Critical, the worst is to come in September – Jobkeeper is removed, Newstart goes back to $270 per week, protection for renters is removed, banks will ease off from being ‘helpful’ with mortgage defaulters, and almost a million people will remain unemployed. Unless Scotty from Marketing does something drastic, the shit will really hit the fan. They threw everything at the COVID crisis to keep Australia afloat (sort of), and come September they will just pull the plug. All that has happened is the can has been kicked further down the road. This shit is about to get real……..
Sorry Ala, you would have to produce that post for your comment to published.
Ok Pie. It was reliable info, but no proof as the post was withdrawn pretty quick by the administrators.
What sort of plucking country is America, when the wanna-be President, old man Biden, says his biggest fear about the November election is that Trump will try to ‘steal it’ and ‘refuse’ to leave the Whitehouse? WTF?
Are there any sane folks there? Plucking hell, what a screwed up mess that place is!
That theory was put forward most coherently by Bill Maher, and was posted here a few weeks back. It isn’t Biden’s original thought, but a theory developed by political scientists and psychologists who have studied all aspects of Trump’s bizarre behaviour. Now that would be fun to watch.
Yes, and should that happen it would be the perfect time for the Chinese or North Koreans to engage in a bit of military adventurism with the Yanks paralysed, or should I say, more paralysed from within than they are now. Potentially a dangerous time I would suggest.
Already happening – eg India/China border.
Oh no…..it appears that the Cancel Culture has now claimed Fawlty Towers!
https://www.theage.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/john-cleese-slams-uktv-decision-to-remove-fawlty-towers-episode-as-stupid-20200612-p5523w.html
Yeah saw that and was a bit confused. Was it the Germans complaining about British racism, or was it the British complaining that the wonderful Cleese made them look like a racist society. Both would have a nit-picking point, but it is still one of the funniest comic episodes in television history.
As Salman Rushdie said, no one has the RIGHT to NOT be offended. Fuck ‘em.
Neither the Krauts or the Brits, it was the old major recounting his visit to Lords to watch the cricket and “educating” his companion that the N’s (3 times) were the West Indians because she was calling the Indians wogs.
Fuck the lot of them, all of the politically correct sooks can go get stuffed. Even better than Fawlty Towers is ‘History of the World’, starring none other than the genius Mel Brooks. Second place movie – ‘Blazing Sadldes’. But be warned, today’s ‘me too’ movement, the softcocks and the girl power movement, rainbow people and non-whites might be very much offended. But who cares about them.
Perhaps The ‘Pie might phrase a little less eloquently than you, MB, but we all get your drift. Certainly there are things we shouldn’t say but there really is nothing we can’t say. And in so doing, we reveal ourselves through our prejudices to the world. This ultra PC nonsense is aimed at getting us all as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, so soon we won’t be game to say anything. So again, fuck ‘em.
Rowan Atkinson states the case for free speech very clearly, that the fact that something, once said, may offend or insult someone, does not mean that it should not be said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3UeUnRxE0E
John Cleese says it all, when he told the SMH:
“One of the things I’ve learned in the last 180 years is that people have very different senses of humour,” the writer, actor and founding member of Monty Python said from his home in Los Angeles. “Some of them understand that if you put nonsense words into the mouth of someone you want to make fun of you’re not broadcasting their views, you’re making fun of them.”
The ‘Pie reckons there must be some flinching little snowflakes out there, many among the Jewish community, have an emotional meltdown about the hundreds of Hitler Downfall memes out there. Best they shut up, otherwise guess what will or should happen … they become the subject of the latest Downfall meme.
“The freedom to be inoffensive is no freedom at all.”
Lord Dear
…. and dear Lord!!!
Steve , Belgian Gardens it’s clear you like an audience to spruik your mantra using TTE the Astonisher and now the Magpie . Townsville has some systemic issues like high unemployment , domestic violence , lack of sustainable industries , major drops in residential property values , crime , ice , Council and State Government issues and your solution is invest in more renewables and tear down a statue of a black birder . Do we then sit in a big circle , hold hands and sing Kumbaya ? .
Luckily investing in renewables will fix all those issues, so yes you can sing kumbaya after that.
Tearing down the statue of the city’s blackbirding namesake and adding it to the underwater museum would be the icing on the cake.
Never thought The ‘Pie would be saying his, but Steve, that is the essence of sweet compromise.
Will the V8 Super Cars and the Tour de France be cancelled because they are racist?
FFS sake the PC mob are now going to go through the name of everything in our history and probably choose touchy-feely names, that “offend” no one.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-12/king-leopold-ranges-renamed-amid-black-lives-matter-protests/12349532
All the maps, guide books, street directories et al will need to be re-written, to suit the chorus of the bloody minded, seeking fault where there is none.
Actually, this is one The ‘Pie agrees with, more for its original irrelevant stupidity and total disconnection with black or white Australia.
On reflection I agree with you Pie, BUT my concern is the opening of the flood gates to the self appointed, self righteous, “infallible”, loonies who may be granted unfettered access to alter our history without any accountability.
Why on earth shouldn’t we rename things? Especially those named after brutal tyrants? No one could possibly be hurt by making slight amendments to geographical nomenclature.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/
One man’s tyrant is another man’s hero, Steve. They are guarding Churchill’s statue in London because he is now apparently a war criminal and oppressor of the black man. If the BLM movement carries out it’s threat to remove the statue and throw in the Thames, they will lose the vast majority of Poms, and Australians, who currently support them. The Magpie will be one, because it means the original worthwhile cause has been hi-jacked by those who would rewrite history in their own image.
The pyramids must be knocked down. Built by slaves!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/462815299176404275/
You sphinx so?
Magpie for cxxxx sake shut this Steve down
Everyone can have their say, but The ‘Pie is aware that this subject has run it’s course, and this blog is not going to become an on-going forum for a slanging match that goes nowhere. And it is time we got back to local issues, not broad brush bitter finger pointing. Steve, The ‘Pie and everyone else have had their (inconclusive) say, so as of tomorrow … or perhaps even right now … unless there are some new developments worthy of comment, the thread will be closed.