How Hill Has Hoodwinked Us … And How Ray Burton Tried To Save Our Bacon

Misplaced values, misinformation, missed opportunities … for more than a year now, there have been persistent whispers that the Townsville Council is virtually broke – that’s the inevitable by-product of having a financial illiterate holding sway in Walker Street. Bit by bit, the folly is coming to light.

Seems council CEO Adele The Impaler Young has a unique take the term ‘overseeing staff’ …

… dropping their aitches … the Trump media team also drops the ball with an embarrassing cock-up for a visiting head of state.

And don’t miss the wincingly funny Real Housewives Of ISIS … satire as a weapon of mirthful distraction.

Plus Bentley unique view on Orstralia Doiy

Revealed: Australia’s First Multicultural Failure

Australia Day has come and gone, with the usual dollops of tomato sauce, beer and name calling. Yes, with a media prone to grasp at anything that seems like a story ona traditional slow day, we were inflicted with an awful lot of flapdoodle about the suitability of the date of Australia Day. The anti’s say it is inappropriate for the day the Poms landed here, and it should be called Invasion Day. The other side oppose the idea for various reasons and in various degrees of stridency. But The ‘Pie doubts few would agree with Mongrel the Barrister’s unique take on the matter. He – surprisingly – reckons, yes, it should be called Invasion Day, but with the slogan’ We Invaded, You, Lost, Get Over It.’ The ‘Pie suggested he road test reaction for the idea out in Vincent or Garbutt and then pop down to Redfern in Sydney to see if the idea has legs … which he may well not have if he tries it.

But Bentley looks backwards down the barrel of history, and believes the some of the locals had their own strategy for handling these boat people as they rowed ashore at Kurnell near Botany Bay in 1770.

Incidentally, mentioned this before, but interesting yarn about how the spot for the first imperial flag raising – Kurnell – came by its name.

Seems as Captain Cook was announcing ‘in the name of His Majesty, I proclaim this place to be …’ and just at that moment, he copped a spear in the groin and a nulla nulla on the bonce, and yelped ‘Kurn-ell’. And while you may think that is an ‘alternative fact”, that was how its was entered in the Endeavour’s log (another alternative fact).

And The Day Presented A Chance For Funny Political Points

Some smarty has been sending this around web, to neatly sum up how out of touch Canberra is with the general population in the states … light years, they are.

Putting The ‘H’ In Ouch

Names can be clearly comical anywhere – The ‘Pie’s favs are (the late) Cardinal Sin of the Philippines and Drew Peacock of Melbourne – but sometimes the joke isn’t all that obvious. Sloppy is as sloppy does, so it happened that the Trump troops churned out a media release hailing the arrival of Britain’s latest perfumed Prime Ministerial harridan, ‘Teresa’ May.

Now the Yanks … and probably Aussies, too … wouldn’t see anything amiss, but there was delight and uproar in equal amounts in Old Blighty.

Turns out that the PM takes an ‘h’ after ‘t’, so this is Prime Minister Theresa May ….

… but a popular gal who DOES NOT take an ‘h’ is the celebrated Pommy porn star, Teresa May.

The mistake was repeated several times before someone tipped off the goofs in PR. It has been reported (No it hasn’t, The ‘Pie just made that up, since everybody is into ‘alternative facts’ nowadays) the drooling Trumpet expected the aitchless and knickerless version of Ms May, but it’s a sure thing when he realized who he was meeting, he kept his tiny hands to himself. It seems he was so pissed off over the mix-up that he stalked off as soon as he could, clearly a disappointed man.

PS; the same media office put out an earlier release regarding ‘Australian Foreign Prime Minister Julie Bishop.’ Dumb, or accidentally prophetic? Maybe just ahead of their time by about a year?

She really Does Think We’re Low IQ Idiots

There can be little doubt that the Palaszczuk government is on the nose big-time up in these parts, and Anna Alphabet knows it. Witness the number of times the premier has infested Townsville with her presence in past months. Indeed, a check back would make it seem unprecedented.

Not that actually being here will make a difference to anything or any issue. Why? A good example is the promised crucial law’n’order reform, which has turned out to be just the same tired old stream of head patting, intelligence-insulting meaningless wordfesting. And boy, was the latest a whole bunch of nothing … not a single original aspect was new in the Premier’s non-announcement of a new Kiddies Kort for the little criminal snots with a specifically appointed magistrate to decide what new penalties can be handed down to these anti-social twerps. What?  The little angels-at-heart can be ordered to help fix up any damage they’ve done? What again? So a magistrate can order the little bastards to suddenly ipso facto to become panel beaters, glaziers, windscreen fitters and carpenters? And doctors and surgeons? And just how do you ‘fix up’ a torched car? Besides, this sort of reparation has always been possible under conditions placed on Community Service Orders. Except in rare cases, it hasn’t been … because it’s unworkable bloody nonsense.

The single issue of law and order may well bring down this floundering government which doesn’t have the wit or the will to do its job in protecting its constituents, instead depending on smarm, subterfuge and the worst form of social engineering. Seems they’re also hopeless at train engineering, too. Anna Alphabet is all at sea. Or as old mate Mongrel the Barrister says ‘ up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe with a bent safety pin for a paddle’ – but then, he always is one to underplay the the seriousness of a situation.

Bounty Or Bail-Out? Has The Premier Disguised Her Help For Good Mate, Mayor Mullet?

With the Alphabets so worried about Townsville and its three pivotal seats (especially with the Burdekin and LNP reject Sam Cox One Notion stand looking set to make it no sure thing for anybody), the question has now been raised (here, of course, not in the Bulletin) about the real purpose of that $22million of regional grant money lobbed into Mayor Mullet’s coffers, the largest dollop of any regional city in Queensland. It is looking more and more like a bail-out for a Labor mate and a vote hunt rather than some largesse to create jobs. Whistleblowers are puckering up everywhere. This floated into the Nest during the week.

Submitted to The Magpie on 2017/01/25 at 2:26 pmCouncil InsiderEarlier this week you asked about the Mayor overspending council’s cash and needing to borrow money at expensive rates to pay wages. The story is true. During the last term the Mayor for political reasons did not want to borrow any money. So on many occasions she used Council’s cash reserves to pay for council projects. This is not entirely wrong. If you have the cash reserves available it is fine to do so. Thanks to all the NDRRA works performed during the floods and cyclone that struck Townsville during Les Tyrell’s time the council under Hill received in excess of ten million dollars of federal government relief funding covering works already completed and paid for by the previous council. Couple that with no major weather events causing damage to the city’s infrastructure during the last term and Hill for some time got away with spending cash in the bank. However this all got out of hand in the last twelve months of the last term. The council made a good decision to purchase the former Commonwealth building next door to the council chambers in Walker Street. The building had a couple of anchor tenants and needed very little work before council staff were able to move in. The building came at price well below the original asking price so all in all was a good buy. Because of the Mayor’s desire to play politics with council borrowings she very foolishly overspent the cash reserves to cover the 16 million dollar price of the building. She did not consult the council about this decision and simply instructed the then CEO Ray Burton to spend the cash. Burton advised her of the risk of placing council in a position where it could not pay the staff wages due to insufficient cash in the cash reserves. The money should have been borrowed and would have had very little impact on the city’s debt position instead of facing the embarrassment of having having to go to the Queensland Treasury Corporation with a begging bowl because of mismanagement. The council was not advised of this action at any point by the mayor. It was the CEO who provided the council with a briefing on what the Mayor had done. By then it was too late for the council to intervene to prevent this very foolish action. The council ran out of money to pay wages around August of last year and were forced to borrow approximately 10 million dollars with a very expensive short term loan. Not borrowing the 16 million dollars for the commonwealth building led to this embarrassing result. The rates freeze, poor management of cash and having to pump water from the Burdekin Dam has the council in a very poor financial position. You can’t control the rain but you can control the decisions you make. Council did not need to be cash strapped and does not need to be in it’s current position. I can only hope the State Government is not trying to bale out the Mayor with the latest cash splash announced by Deputy Premier Tradd. This not how tax payers money should be used.

You hope in vain, my friend. And that would explain why many minor council repairs and chores around the city which would normally be fixed up lickety split are closed off and then left for weeks, and in some cases months before someone shows up to work on them viz the roundabout at the corner of Anne and Alfred St Annandale.

There will be more of this revealed as time ago by … but will it be too late, will an administrator the only answer? Actually, might not be a bad thing, really.

And Does She Wear Leather Quick-Access Undies, A Catwoman Mask And Carry A Whip?

If you subscribe to niche exotic pursuits and want some ‘strict discipline, please ma’am’, perhaps you should apply to Miss Adele’s Impaler Cave in Walker Street. Or at least if another informant during the week is on the money.

Flashman January 25, 2017 at 6:39 am  (Edit)

Open Office or Big Brother – the new CEO at Townsville City Council has a new office on the recently refurbished top floor of Walker Street. That’s understandable as it is bigger, and has a better view as it is a corner office. What is strange is that she has required her 4 direct report Directors to occupy the same office with her. She gets a desk and chair facing them, and they get stand up desks. Is she just lonely, or is this yet another example of her ‘big brother’ leadership style that requires her to know about everything that her staff are doing? Rumour has it that the Directors have taken to doing their business by mobile phone from the sidewalk outside Walker St.

All sounds very exotic and alternative … especially the bit about doing their business on the sidewalk. Studded dog collar, anyone?

Redefining ‘Exclusive’.

Way back when Michael The Ogre of Ogden Street Wilkins, was drenching all we staff with equal parts smarm and menace, with his centralised penny pinching view of local journalism and wholesale sacking agenda, The ‘Pie predicted that this was to be the start of the end … the Bulletin would eventually simply become a bureau for the Courier Mail, with a daily page or so of Townsville news. It looks like 2017 will see us edge much closer to that prediction. First the Astonisher will drop to three days a week printed, with the other days just a page of Townsville news in the Courier. And then … well, who knows? But one thing is for sure – they’ve already given up on the charade that the Townsville Bulletin is an independent champion of the Townsville community. The latest of many examples of this undeniable trend was openly demonstrated yet again yesterday.

With a risible EXCLUSIVE plastered on it … ‘exclusive’ to just whom would depend on who claimed ownership of the story, the Bulletin, the Courier Mail or News Corpse itself … this story for which reporter Christie Anderson obviously got most of her information from a media release (oh, so exclusive) appeared in both online sites, first the ASTONISHER, with no exclusive tag

‘CHRISTIE ANDERSON

email hidden; JavaScript is required
T O W N S V I L L E ’ S w o r s t young criminals will face a specialist High Risk Youth Court from next week as the State Government tries to drive down soaring youth crime rates. Under the changes, young criminals could be ordered by a magistrate to fix any damage they cause.

… and then, with a bit of changed wording, the Courier somehow decided it was ‘exclusive …

EXCLUSIVE
CHRISTIE ANDERSON

SOME of the state’s worst young criminals will face a specialist High Risk Youth Court from next week as the State Government tries to drive down youth crime rates.

The court, which will sit in Townsville from February 2, could order young crims to fix the damage they cause.

And no new info in the CM. FYI folks, from the dictionary: ‘• Exclusive: (of an item or story) not published or broadcast elsewhere : an exclusive interview. 

This example is but one over recent months where the same story has run in both papers, and other stories of no relevance or interest Townsville have been filched as space fillers from Cairns, Mackay and Rockhampton, all now in Rupert’s ‘exclusive’ Queensland stable.

 But They Can’t Get Their Digit(al) Out

While The ‘Pie’s bureau prediction is now demonstrably on the cards, a more immediate question raises its bothersome head.

Over the past year, The Bulletin has used hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of space – double page, full page, front page banners and lesser ads – every single day in a clearly failing effort to get readers to become digital subscribers. You can smell the desperation. (Last count just over a laughable 1200 digital subs, a figure no doubt inflated by including multiple staff freebies around the network).

But those who do subscribe with their hard earned, enticed by the come on of access to the Courier as well as the Bulletin (some enticement!!) plus Melbourne’s Herald Sun and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, WILL BE GETTING MORE AND MORE OF THE SAME INSIPID STORIES ACROSS ALL PAPERS. So sign up quick, and you can then be misinformed/insulted/bored/amused by the same story … several times.

NB Most of it at the moment is free and googleable anyway (except Mayor Mullet’s ‘premium content column … drat!).

Thank Heavens It’s Not Just The Magpie

A certain Paul Montgomery complained to Crikey.com in their comments column about a recent item having a go at Roopert’s Melb Herald Sun. He concluded thus:

I’m sure many Crikey readers are like me, we totally ignore and go out of our way to avoid any News Corp-affiliated entity, be it newspapers, TV or magazines. I doubt you’d be surprised to know, we get along just fine without Rupert and his ghouls telling us what to think and get infuriated about.

The News bunch knows deep down that their glory days have gone and they now kid themselves about their perceived influence — just look at the recent NSW, Queensland and federal elections. They no doubt love your regular snide remarks and it gives them false hope that all is well. Please Crikey, just ignore them

Cripes, maybe The Magpie should pull his head in … and good luck with that, heh heh heh.

Our Number Is Up

Numbers hold a fascination for some, (Astonisher head counters for instance) so for what it’s worth, this has dropped into the Nest – we’ll ignore the ‘well duh’ statement that this February won’t come again in our life time …but OK if you say so.

Finally, Maybe The Poms Have Discovered The Best Weapon Against ISIS … The Pisstake.

And as pisstakes go, this is masterfully savage and mirthful; you know you’ve hit the mark when mirthless muslims rip up their nighties about it … Enjoy the BBC’s The Real Housewives Of ISIS.

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