Well, she deserves it, but for the Bulletin to suddenly turn bovver boy is unusual. What’s going on, has Bogan suddenly decided she’s a loser?
Also, hey gang, it’s join-the-dots time again, or how Queensland Airports Ltd is trying to ‘buy’ a Townsville ticket tax.
An interesting legal week … Townsville gets a new judge, and other Labor barristers get the blues … a former judge personally shows The Magpie how angry he is with the old bird, and is the saga of the The ‘Pie versus News Ltd over? The Appeals Court tells Rupert to pay up for defamation.
And Jenny goes gymnastic … back flipping her way to an embarrassing back down that earns the Steggles Egg On Face Award for the month.
But first …
Interesting is hardly an adequate word to describe the week in federal politics. PM Talkbull turned to the history books in order to blunt the electoral charge of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. His ploy was simple enough … what was good enough for Little Johnny Howard was good enough for him.
So, like Howard on boat people, while Talkbull bad mouthed Big Red’s quavering call for drastic action on immigration, he adopted a slightly santitised version of Hanson’s rallying cry about ‘jobs for Aussies’. Using the revision of the working visa provisions as the vehicle, Talkbull wrapped himself in the flag as tightly as any Cronulla rioter ever did. The Short ‘Un was caught blinking in the headlights, and was run down by the B Double of public approval for the proposed measures. But Bentley sees some disturbing parallel’s from beyond our shores in the PM’s new found love Aussie values.
The new rules include that applicants for work visas must ‘undergo a police background check! You mean they previously didn’t?!??? Christ, we really have been asking for it, haven’t we? At least the proposal that applicants should all speak English is going to see the end to the wave of Scottish union stirrers, whose public pronouncement almost require TV sub titles.
A World View
US Veep Mike Pence is gracing our shores at the moment, bringing bromides rather than bombs and patting out heads, seemingly unaware that his boss is privately regarded as a complete looney. But, as Ben Jennings in the Guardian illustrates, Trump is in good company in this creepy circus.
Back On The Local Scene, Are We Looking At Another Council Travel Rort?
We’re yet to hear what Mayor Mullet has to say about using ratepayers money to fly a Bulletin reporter to India on her recent jolly to the sub-continent, but because of outraged members of the public insisting in an explanation, The ‘Pie is told the matter has been listed down for the next council meeting this coming Wednesday.
But is there another similar bit of unethical tomfoolery that the mayor must address?
On Friday, when the laughing died down at the Bulletin’s latest risible beat-up, eyebrows were raised when a story in the Astonisher left, as usual. unanswered and unasked questions.
The most pressing question is have the ratepayers been stiffed again, with either staff or a councilor going on a pointless jolly either to Sydney, or even the United Sates, chasing rainbows.
Here’s the opening par from Friday’s front page blue sky story (The ‘Pie’s caps)
‘Thousands of job COULD be created thanks to an exclusive deal that COULD see Townsville become an Australian hub for battery manufacturing.’ The idea is that an American consortium is looking at setting up shop here to manufacture batteries, creating ‘thousands’ of jobs. So what sort batteries are we talking about? Well, seems you have a multiple choice, as the story’s absurdity deepens (again, The ‘Pie’s caps):
‘Once in full production, the plant could produce 250,000 car batteries a year OR one million home battery units OR 300 ‘microgrids’ to power small towns.‘
So we have an American group talking about setting up here in the ‘Ville, but they don’t know what they want to build when they do. But they’ll employ thousands when they do. Pull the other one, it yodels, as Nana used to say. Turns out that all we have is a vague suggestion that there will be a costly study to see if the project is ‘viable’.
Memo to Consortium: Please send a cheque for $100 and a slab of Fourex to The ‘Pie and he will tell about it’s ‘viability’ and save you a million dollar study.)
But this sort of utter bullshit wouldn’t be complete without the mayor sticking her beak in, but even she seemed strained to give it credibility, saying it would be a big deal ‘IF the proposal is delivered’
So … Two ‘COULD”s in the opening sentence of a front page beat-up, followed closely by an even bigger ‘IF’? And Townsville a national ‘hub’ for anything? Look at a bloody map. you galahs.
But wait, there’s more. In a the lamest of attempts to justify this total codswallop, the iditor – he’s not called that no reason – penned one of his most inane iditorials to date. His fairyfloss includes the astounding statement:
‘Yet even if it doesn’t eventuate, TCC should be applauded for embracing such a grand vision for the city and the region.’
WTF? No they shouldn’t, they weren’t elected and are not paid to chase rainbows. How much precious staff time was wasted on this flapdoodle, which councillors dreamed this one up? (The ‘Pie’s money is on Messagebank Walker.)
Iditor Ben Bogan English then gets a psychedelic when he seems to takes a long draw on a recreational reefer and opines: ‘But credit where it is due, this is exactly the thinking we need to get the city’s economy humming again.’
No it’s not, you dolt. A bit more doing and a lot less of this self-promoting, political campaign thinking should be the order of the day. Which you should be encouraging if you really cared. But being an embedded member of the Gilded Few’s circle jerk, that’s not going to happen, is it?
But the far more serious question – another which must be answered – is who travelled where (Sydney? Boston? New York?) to get this Memorandum of Understanding. Have the ratepayers been stiffed again on a travel rort?
And needless to say, the paper hasn’t mentioned that one consortium member is Kodak, which until a few months ago was in bankruptcy. You can almost hear them polished up the white shoes from here.
But Is The Prettiest Love Story In Town Starting To Unravel?
That affair is the one between Mayor Mullet and the Astonisher. The last week has been an interesting one for these star-crossed lovers. It started last Saturday, when the Mullet wittered on about how financially ‘flush’ the council was, and taking a swipe at ‘certain people on social media’ (who could she mean?) who suggested the council was in financial problems. (‘Financial crisis, what financial crisis? There is no financial crisis.’ Does that have a familiar ring to it, folks.)
Then a couple of days later, it became apparent that if they ever introduce cycling backwards as an Olympic sport, Jenny will be going for back-pedalling gold.
She wrote a letter to the paper (a sure sign of a falling out of some sort) saying people had got the wrong impression, and of course they had a couple of hundred million because rates had just been paid ‘but this goes up and down’ and it’s all earmarked for the usual council work around town. Certainly none left over for a new Burdekin pipeline. A commenter on the blog supplied information that neither nor the mayor would touch with the fabled barge pole.
Cantankerous but happy April 19, 2017 at 1:03 pm (Edit)
The latest state govt auditor general report into local govt paints a very grim view of Townsville City Councils financial position, basically it has the balance sheet that you would expect in a small rural town that fluctuates greatly with seasonal conditions and struggling to cover costs of natural disasters, of which Townsville has been lucky to avoid. Townsville council is ranked in the ” high” category of risk according to the report, with a risk rating of 88% of not being able to service debt from current revenue, anything over 80% gives a rating of high. The risk factor is the one singled out by the audit report as the most concern, as it is a forward looking analysis, rather than the other two which basically cover expenditure to income in a balance sheet type of breakdown of expenses. So if the Mullet concedes an operating deficit of $7 million in the coming year, that will be zero off the debt once again, no wonder the auditor general in concerned.
Embarrassing to say the least, in light of a report that the council sackings have cost almost $4 million so far.
But that turned out to peanuts when yesterday, it was reported that our water pumping bill after the failed wet season will be a budget busting $11MILLION. That’s more than $4 million over the amount the mayor insists was budgeted for. And all of a sudden, the Astonisher was rubbing the mayor’s nose in it with a demeaning cartoon.
Christ, at this rate, they might recover one or two readers back to the fold.
But Not With This Sort Of Effort
When nobody trusts either your grammar or your ‘facts’, it is not wise to fool around with language in 80 point. So is this a juvenile pun or a spelling mistake? You just never know with this mob.
Who Said The Bulletin Is Biased About The CBD Stadium?
Many have long lamented the Astonisher’s one-sided carnival barking disguised as responsible reporting in all aspects of the CBD stadium project. But in a week of firsts for the paper, that claim was undermined when a half page spread was printed, slamming the whole idea and that the council should spend the allocated $250 million water infrastructure.
Front page? Well, not exactly. It was in the largely ignored occasional insert section aimed at school kids … and this article was written by one of them, and a female teenager at that. What would she know, this citizen of tomorrow?
So the paper’s iditor can now give an avuncular chuckle, pat the girly’s head and explain to Lozza Lancini that ‘Look mate, no one reads the bloody thing anyway, just makes our circ figures hold up a bit.’.
Queensland Airport’s Ltd Cunning Plan For A Free Boost To Its Bottom Line
Readers will have noted The ‘Pie’s puzzlement at how Kevin Gill can remain chairman of the Dudley Do Nothings (aka TEL) – a body supposed to make Townsville attractive to tourists and business – while at the same time as the airport boss, seeking to make it dearer to travel to and from here by imposing a ticket tax. The money would be used to give the airport an unnecessary $40milion ‘upgrade’, the real purpose of which is to give a big free kick to QAL’s asset value.
In other words, instead of paying for the company’s property enhancement with their own profits ($25million last year), they want the Townsville travelling public to provide them with funds free of charge which would otherwise require them raise a loan, pay interest and all those associated little nastys that come with such projects.
A rare moment when Chairman Gill has his hands in his own pockets.
A little overdue research shows that Chairman Gill heads the town’s ‘peak marketing body’ by design rather than by a show of hands, or (don’t laugh) superior business acumen. And the same research explains why there hasn’t been a peep from TEL about a private company’s scheme to make it dearer to come and go from Townsville.
The answer lies here on page 20 of TEL’s annual report.
Membership comes in several levels, depending on how much you are conned into coughing up. There is just one principal sponsor – you and me under the guise of the Townsville City Council, for our annual $750,000 pennies from heaven. Then in descending order of dough, there is a Major Sponsor (around $250,000) Platinum (approx. $90.000), then Gold, Silver and Bronze, down to a whole raft of lesser ones.
And have a squizz at who coughs up a quarter of a million annually as major sponsor – why, goodness, it’s none other than Queensland Airports Limited, the board chairman’s ultimate Brisbane boss, Queensland Airports Ltd. Now it’s reasonable to believe that that sort of serious money isn’t there out the goodness of QAL’s corporate heart. Could it be possible that QAL has been playing the long game, chucking in the money to recoup it 20 times over by proposing, promoting and pushing for a ticket tax to upgrade it’s Townsville property? So for less than $2million over eight years, say, they get a $40 million asset upgrade – for nothing!
Gosh. How cynical can you get?
But how would they go about pushing this nifty little idea?
Well, just check out the Platinum members … oh, goodness, there is the Astonisher, which has been been pushing for the ticket tax a series of one-sided stories about how you beaut it would all be, what with shops and bars at the airport. And like an echo chamber, our ‘battler’s mayor’ is regularly quoted in boosting the tax in the paper, not that the council has anything whatsoever to do with or say in the airport. She is Gill’s deputy chair of TEL.
And don’t expect any championing voice for the JCU students and staff who are big airport users, a gold sponsor is James Cook University, whose million dollar vice chancellor Sandra Harding is on the TEL board. Yup, the Gilded Few are in the thick of this railroading of the Townsville rate and tax payer.
The ‘Pie just hopes that Qantas sticks to its ethical stance of blocking any tax, quite reasonably telling QAL to pay for it yourself, you’re the ones who benefit.
Legal Round-up
New District Court Judge Greg Lynham is highly regarded for his work as a Defence Force barrister.
Townsville has finally been given a new District Court judge to replace the retired John Baulch. Barrister Greg Lynham, cousin of state minister Anthony Lynham, is a Townsville born and bred JCU graduate, the first from the uni to be appointed to the bench. Never frightened of hard work, Greg left the railways to study law, and over the past decade or more, has built up one of the busiest chambers in town.
Since such appointments traditionally go to those sympathetic to the government of the day, Greg’s appointment will have a couple of faithful barrister foot soldiers ripping up their robes: they are equally eligible both politically and in experience. But then, The ‘Pie understands that both of them are doing so well, they may not have wanted to take the pay cut down to a District Court judges paltry stipend of around $400K per annum.
Down in Brisbane this week, the Appeals Court has basically dismissed an attempt by News Ltd to overturn a jury verdict that The Australian newspaper had defamed a fine, upstanding, sober gentleman of the press … err, ahem, cough, cough … that would be moi. The judges did a little legal tinkering around the edges of the outcome, changing a word or so in the complicated jury verdict while otherwise leaving it untouched,
Bottom line – Rupert was told to pay up, and now we wait to see if they want to try to take it to the High Court. They’re already up for close to a million dollars in legal costs, and The ‘Pie wonders how much more flattery they will afford him. If you can be bothered, this is the Appeal Court’s judgement.
One of the claims which News could not prove in its defence against my action was that I was forced to leave the newspaper (I wasn’t, I resigned in disgust at the paper’s tabloid direction) because of the ‘wrath’ of several judges. This was also found to fanciful codswallop, and the only irritation the local judges showed me was that they were grumpy because they weren’t called as witnesses to confirm what utter tosh the claim was. It was the subject of a jolly lunch they shouted me after the Supreme Court case.
But one of their number, the now retired John Baulch SC, just couldn’t control his ‘anger’, and called around to the Nest to give me a piece of his mind … and give me this.
He always has had a good taste in wine … and in his avian friends. Thanks, John, get angry as often as you like.
The Power Of Words
This has been floating around the net for a while, but it worth revisiting, considering the hammering the language gets from the Astonisher, the commenters in this blog and on occasion, a lax Magpie himself. This goes to prove that its not just what you say, but how you say that is so important.
That’s the view from the nest of the week that was. Join in the comments throughout the week, its free and you can be anonymous if you want.
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