This grim pledge to a city she has already buggered came when The Mullet was forced to declare her hand after Paul ‘The Angry Ant ‘Jacob culminated a letters-to-the-editor campaign with confirmation he will take a shot at top job. So it’s three for the campaign road so far, with Fightin’ Fran O’Callaghan confirming she’s ready and rarin’ for the fight, too.

Cr O’Callaghan has wasted no time letting Mayor Mullet know she’s got her number, with a swift reply to Jenny’s rambling announcement that contained no substance.

With all this going on,a bit of self-help might the answer for our lagging local spirits … what is a working well for Cairns can work just as well for Townsville – and it’s not expensive.

Seems we’ve all misjudged the much put-upon Premier Alphabet … The ‘Pie is among those who had thought Palaszczuk’s abysmal performance has been due to political infighting and just sheer incompetence, but no  …  apparently it’s due to men ganging up on her.

The Voice Campaigns – both yes and no – are of to a limping start, which prompts just two questions from The ‘Pie.

And Bob Katter says KAP is against the Voice, and the Betoota Advocate says what they think Bob said, in one of the funniest but accurate piss-takes of all time.

The Magpie has been experimenting with fonts a bit this week, to see if he can make the blog visually more interesting. Not sure it’s worked, but need to settle a few things before the full upgrade. Happy for feedback. Also happy for any much needed financial support that you can spare, three big Nest related bills have just clunked onto the doorstep. Appropriate button is at the end of the blog.

 Now onward …

Three Candidates And Counting .

With the next mayoral election a little over a year away (March 2024),  the race is officially underway,  with Jenny Hill  saying she’ll make a bid for a fourth term.  She was forced to this declaration when fellow labor member and former councilor Paul Jacob officially announced his candidacy for Walker Street top job. That makes it three, with Fightin’ Ran O’Callaghan emailing The ‘Pie with confirmation that she has responded well to her current chemo regime, and is as eager to enter the fray as she always has been. With a typical two-bob each way, The Astonisher had a few words on the front …

…. and then we had to plough through 20 pages to get to the one story of interest in the whole mess …

Fightin’ Fran was copping that sort puffery,  and made her response crystal clear with minutes of the article appearing in the weekend Bulletin

There is a rumour of no substance that another ‘high profile’ candidate will join in the biting and scratching in the next fortnight or so, and we can be assured the usual fancy dress fringe of single issue obsessives will pony up their sacrificial deposit to muddy the electoral waters. It will be interesting if Fatty Palmer, who is said to have received a $50k defamation settlement from Mayor Mullet, will again field some irrelevant and embarrassing  goof.

It’s too early to make any comment of much value, but certain speculations are already staring us in the face. One big question is who will the Queensland Labor Party support? The mayor remains a party member, but for electoral advantage, has loudly declared when it comes to the council, she and her hand picked aerobics class were ‘independents’ at the last election (oh, stoppit, ya killin’ me!!). Now the party may have seen it an advantage to let the rules slide when there was no real political party opposing last time around, BUT here’s the thing. Jacob resigned from council in protest to Mayor Mullet’s refusal to properly discuss with councillors her high-handed plan to gift an Indian billionaire $18.5m of ratepayer money to build him an airstrip near his Carmichael mine – 400kms away. However, Jacob’s timing was convenient, as he suddenly popped up as the labor candidate for Hinchinbrook, only to get soundly trounced by Katter’s Nick Dametto. Not widely popular of well known across the electorate, Jacob’s real threat to Jenny Hill will come if he is endorsed by Labor, instead of her. That poses the problem for her that running against party endorsed candidate or team means mandatory expulsion from the party.

Maybe Labor will just sit this one out and figure they’ll get an influenceable person in the chair either way.  Which in fact might just perpetuate a mistake they’ve been making all along – dismissing the growing popularity of Division 10 councillor Fran O’Callaghan, who has been a constant critic of the mayor’s performance, circumventing of LG regulations and high handed management style. At this stage, O’Callaghan’s straight-shooting, calmly argued and factual critiques of the mayor have slowly been gaining traction on social media. O’Callaghan has created a challenge for herself, though, by deciding not to run a team, just simply run for mayor on a platform of sweeping the secrecy that has been a hallmark of an often disastrous past eight year, a return to transparency and a an emphasis on basic council functions and responsibilities. Without a team, there is an instant problem that no matter how well meaning and honest she is, a councillor bloc – most likely a rump from Team Hill – could make any reforms difficult if not impossible.

Much more to unfold in this local tableaux …  expect a run on popcorn at the local supermarkets.

Kapping It Off

On Friday, Bob Katter has announced his party’s opposition to the indigenous Voice to parliament.

The ‘Pie couldn’t immediately discover any further comments on the decision, and moved on to other matters. Then, an alert(ish) reader sent in the following, which actually had The ‘Pie, who has dealt with Katter inn person on several occasions, believing it was a transcript of a Katter comment.  You could almost hear the gurgling, the tee heeing, high pitched giggling suddenly dropping down into basso sneering spittle flecked spray … vintage Bob, I thought. Then it turned out to the work of the occasionally funny blokes at the Betoota Advocate … one of the best spoofs on Kattertonic put out in yonks.

The Betoota Advocate Reports:

Katter Says He Is Willing To Back An Indigenous Voice To Parliament But It Would Make More Sense To Have A Black Upper House And A Black Lower House That Operates Within The Current Federal System, We Should Let The Murris And The Torres Strait Islanders Effectively Run A Black Senate Just To Double Check Everything The Southern Mob Puts Forward, Because If I’m Honest, And My Opinions Might Be Heavily Influenced By Rugby League, But Nevertheless, There’s Something To Be Said About The Solutions-Based Approach We See In Queensland Politics, Black And White, And Yes, I’m Well Aware That Our First Nations Brother-Cousins Don’t Necessarily Acknowledge State Borders, And Neither Do I, Really, As Far As I’m Concerned Anywhere South Of Bundaberg Is A Suburb Of Sydney, And The Only Border I’m Ready To Acknowledge Is The Brisbane Line, Which Was By Far The Most Cowardly Defence Proposal In The History Of Modern Military Strategy, Formulated By Those Bastards In Canberra During World War II To Concede The Northern Portion Of The Australian Continent To The Japanese So They Could Prioritise The Blue-Blooded Farming Plains Of New South Wales And Those Victorian One-Horse Brothel Towns That Ran Out Of Gold When Ned Kelly Was In Nappies, I’m Not Here Trying To Complicate Things, But It’s Worth Remembering That They Blew Up Our Inland Bridges And Major Ports And Left Us For Dead In The Face Of An Aggressive Foreign Army Chockablock With Soldiers Willing To Literally Fly Their Fighter Planes Into Defence Targets For Love Of Empire, It Makes Me Sick To Think About That Disgraceful Chapter In Our Country’s History, And This Complacency, Which Borders On Treason, Has Not Been Forgotten, Queenslanders, Black And White, Harbour A Deep Distrust For The Southern Elite To This Very Day, Mind You, The Ngarrindjeri Mob Down There On The Lower Murray River, I Don’t Mind The Cut Of Their Jib, I Spose Maybe We Can Have Them Operating Some Sort Of A Black Cross Bench, Like The Black Teals, Or The Black Katters, That’s Not A Bad Idea At All, I Mean, Really, What I’m Putting Forward Here, It’s Quite Simple When You Think About It.

The Magpie promises that we will think about, Bob, we will – when we stop laughing.  You see, mate, what makes it so funny is that that COULD have been you.

The Voice Campaign Got Off To A Croaky Start This Weekend.

The tepid Yes campaign by a Prime Minister running dead on an issue that he is only supporting tom be seen to be keeping a campaign promise, made a nonsensical speech about ‘this is our chance’ (to what? Possibly fuck up the country by embedding racial divisions? ) and a whole string of meaningless virtue signalling platitudes, to the tumultuous murmurs of  ‘yeah, bruvver’ etc among the tens-strong crowd. Albo is already looking like a bloke who looks like he’s on a public loser but a private winner. And The Magpie, as one who implacably opposes embedding this nonsense in the constitution, just wishes Dutton would shut up with his negative comments … he’s just the sort of voice that is likely to make people vote ‘yes’ just out of spite towards him.

The ‘Pie’s main objection are pretty close to Katter’s: it is discriminatory. But above all for The ‘Pie, it is totally unnecessary, and the stated ends can be achieved with the risk of a separate group with power to delay and hinder proper governance (not that we’ve had much of that of late).

This malarkey will go on and on for a few months yet, until we spend $50m+ on reaching the bleedin’ obvious result. But two small matters are worth a mention,. The ‘Pie can’t believe he is saying this but Barnaby Beetroot made one of the most cogent suggestion about the Voice, when he said ever since it came into existence, the constitution has been the basis for politicians to eliminate  racial divisions,  and here we are trying to officially insert division into it.

And a tweet that was particularly galling in its insulting false deflection said ‘A Voice to parliament will allow indigenous people to only have a say and influence over legislation that affects them’, no more and no less. It’s that simple.’  And you’d have to be really simple not to see through that one – ALL laws apply to indigenous people because they are Australians, so by that standard, they can have a say in any laws, from air navigation (‘planes passen over our country, gotta stop, frightens our ancestor spirit animals, the wall-eyed stump-stumbling possums’) to immigration – and let’s not start on that one.

From Cairns With Love

Too many folks around this town who have the position and ability to drive change are sitting around with their thumbs up their bums, always waiting for someone else ‘to do something to fix things’, allowing them to get on with making money.

 

Over the years, The ‘Pie has made glancing comparisons to Cairns on some issues pertinent to both cities. Can’t always be a yardstick, because each has differing economic drivers and different levels of competent leadership.

But let’s re-visit something broached in a previous Nest a while back, something that Cairns does very well indeed, which we could emulate – it’s this, the Cairns Report. (click for link).

Written in clear, unambiguous language, the Cairns Report is a monthly on-line publication, dedicated to a warts and all presentation of the facts, and although the news isn’t what one might always want to hear, a quietly positive and sober tone is maintained throughout.

 

And it gathers statistics together each month in a rolling progress report, an economic snapshot, but it not aimed at smoothing local anxieties or boosting local spirits, although it may do that, too.

It is squarely aimed to be a practical advertisement for the city to prospective investors, workers, families, retirees and – of course – tourists from the south. The analysis of the data is well considered, free of adjectives and sensationalism …. and you don’t have to plough through 20 pages of Harvey Norman ads to get your information. And you get all that you would like to be accurately informed about in a five to 10 minute scroll. It is elegantly simple in concept, attractively put together, and is already regarded as a valuable go-to quick reference file. So why can’t Townsville have something similar? In fact, go one better and include subjects the Cairns Report doesn’t have, like for instance, updates on notable project around town.

 

When The Nest mentioned the Cairns report last year, it was pointed out that the council would not be a proper generator of such a publication, and neither would the highly compromised TEL. Both organisations have proven to be too untrustworthy and politicised is recent years.

 

No, the ideal group to get behind this fact-based publication should be the Townsville Chamber of Commerce. There are plenty of pluses to do this. And much of this information would be.  a walk in the park for folks such those at PVW partners.

 

When it comes to dollars, this is no biggy to establish and publish each month, in fact, with suitable advertising by supportive members and others, it could be cost neutral. And the skills no doubt exist amongst current membership.  And even improving on the Cairns model, it could include factual updates on notable projects around town.

Lowe Blow.

The personal attacks on Reserve Bank boss Phillip Lowe are indeed low blows in every sense. Commentators, journalists and some politicians calling for his resignations for the suggested failure to ‘do his job’ are not just wrong, they are the height of empty sloganeering.

Phillip Lowe IS doing his job. He is the spokesman for the Reserve Bank board of nine economists, who collectively reach their decisions – which Lowe announces – based solely on the economic dangers posed by inflation and other factors … decisions that are by law free of political influence.  That means the Reserve Bank board is able to make tough decisions that in the short term would be far too unpalatable for any government of any stripe.

That’s the way the imperfect system is designed and has generally worked out over the longer term. And that means also that the board plays its hand according to the circumstances dealt to it by government – that is successive governments, because the underlying shifts and movements of any national economy tend to take shape with glacial slowness. That is, until the political chickens come home to roost … and then the politicians start looking for scapegoats.

But those calling for Phillip Lowe’s head have failed to do two things: suggest an alternative solution- apart from the populist short term vote-farming ‘stop cash rate rises’, and linked to that, fail to say who under the Reserve Bank charter would do a better job.

Or more pointedly, who would do it differently.

 

Disenfranchising Fran’s Division 10 Electorate

Having been distracted by other issues, The ‘Pie has been catching up on matters that Fightin’ Fran O’Callaghan has been posting. This one particularly caught The Magpie’s beady eye. In essence, it means that Mayor Hill and her partisan councillors have effectively left  ratepayers of Division 10 without fair and reasonable representation at council on matters affecting them.

Matter 1 and 3: The Magpie trusts that the residents of Division 10 realise they have effectively been disenfranchised by Mayor Hill and her merry band of toe-touchers. There maybe a loophole that allows this behaviour, but the very least a responsible and inclusive council could do is a polite explanation. Because if they are NOT allowed to act in this high-handed manner, then the issue MUST BE taken further, it is a clear breach.

Anna Seeking Her G Spot.

That would be Gender spot.

Seems the gals want all the power but no responsibility. Take Anna Palaszczuk, for instance.

Making claims like this when her track record is taken into account does a disservice to those women who have a legitimate beef against the blokes.

Here is a female politician who has fucked up massively on any number of issues including harbouring a crook as her deputy premier, (incidentally also a woman) but hints that any failures are because she was ‘treated differently as a woman’.

Perhaps a few reminders for Agonising Anna would be timely …. Ms Palaszczuk, when you did a deal with the Wagners, gifting them the white elephant Wellcamp fiasco, thus undeserved millions in Qld taxpayer funds to a private company,  that decision came from between your ears, not from between your legs.

‘And that’s just to start the list, which will no doubt include the appointment of a conflict-of-interest compromised, occasionally loopy woman as state GG.  Then you almost unilaterally an d without any great analysis, have cursed us with an Olympic Games, a rort second only to the FIFA world cup.

No doubt others will add to the list, but would really like to know how, even if you were ‘treated differently’ that that can account for your inept and ethically questionable governance of this state.

And Our Weekly Peek Into The Mad House.

That bloody balloon was still the feature of mirth, despite several other more serious issues coming to the fore.

C‘mon Aussie, C’mon, C’mon, Where The Bloody Hell Is Your Pride?

 

 

Black market in sperm? Overseas donors are filling local voids? Where’s the news there, it’s been happening for years. They’re called backpackers.

 

But Aussie blokes, some pride please, stop pulling your weight and … err … start pulling your weight, if you get my drift.

 

Simply put, come on, Aussie come on.

Also Noted Around The Traps

A cunning linguist asked this question.

… and one for our Lycra Lunatics out there … says it all for many of them.

………………

That’s the week, ram raid comments with your views, especially in this new political season.

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