Mayor Mullet’s Lost Loot: $700,000 Goes Missing From The TCC Budget, The Mayor And The CEO Haven’t A Clue Where It’s Gone (They Say).

That appears to be the case in her own words, if she’s to be believed (always a question.) In January, she was given a month to find out what happened, but she told last week’s council meeting she still hasn’t a clue what’s happened to it.

Maybe she was a bit too busy perfecting a nasty little plan to use her control over council to deliver a costly and underhand blow to mayoral rival Clr Fran O’Callaghan. Could The Mullet be about to compulsorily resume Clr O’Callaghan’s rural property and those of her neighbours under the guise of environmental issues?  The ‘Pie joins some dots to come up with his conspiracy du jour.

The Wagner brothers are back in town, making a very interesting multi-million dollar pub purchase. But questions are now asked if the big buy-up of the Metropole hotel and Oaks apartments was prompted by some sort of insider info? The ‘Pie takes a stab at it.

Looks like Townsville Enterprise has said Nah! To its risible and expensive lunacy of the Nah, It’s Townsville campaign. It appears the Dudley Do Nothings have quietly dropped the dopey idea, hoping no one will notice.

And a dire warning about the danger of gobblefunking. And it comes from someone who knows about its perils.

Hey, Bentley’s back from his break with a stern word about marital coercion (whatever that is, The ‘Pie’s memory is a sometimes thing these days.) But as we soldier on into the year with its emerging multiple issues, it would be a bit less stressful if you could lend a helping hand to meeting the never ending bills (and future planning costs) associated  the blog. Easy to do, appropriate button to press is at the bottom of the blog. Thanks.

Now, wading onward …

Bullies Beware: ‘Coercive Control’ Could Get You A Seven Year Dose Of Your Own Medicine ….

…. only it’ll be you doing what the jailer … and cell mate Big Daddy McGurk … tell you to do.

By the end of this year, domestic bullies and manipulators will have to change their ways, or else. As this link explains about the new laws,:

Under the new coercive control laws, people who repeatedly subject their spouse or partner to physical, sexual, psychological, or financial abuse may face jail time of up to 7 years.

Idle thought: wonder if this banned behaviour applies to mayors?

But our resident ‘toonist, a man so agreeable and gentlemanly that he’s known around The Nest as Gently Bently, feels he has to point out that this coercive control amid the domestic bliss is often a two-way street, with hubby sometimes on the receiving end.

Bentley assures me that this is purely a hypothetical and is not drawn from personal experience.  Although at our age, mate, when asked ‘Do you want to come up stairs and have sex?’ alas the answer nowadays is always ‘One or the other, I can’t manage both’.

How Do You Misplace Three Quarters Of A Million Dollars And Have No Clue Where It Went?

Ask Mayor Jenny Hill, seems She’s managed to do exactly that. Long story short, here’s what we know.

In the 2022/23 budget adopted by the council, $700,000 was budgeted as the TCC contribution to add to the Commonwealth’s $2m feasibility study for a proposed concert hall (you know, the one we were promised would be stage two immediately after the stadium … ten years ago).

Just so it would sound like the lucky consultants AECOM looked like they were worth this eye-watering bit of pen pushing, the project goes by the swisho title of North Australian Concert Hall And Arts Precinct Business Case. But, as The ‘Pie understands it, the council’s $700,000 allocation has disappeared from the mid-year Budget review, it has simply vanished without explanation, nor had any documentation to advise councillors if the money had been re-allocated elsewhere. And if it has been, why hadn’t there been a council discussion and vote on the matter?

Well, Jenny knew this was an issue, and indeed, there may be an unlikely but plausible explanation, she didn’t seem to think such a piddling amount of ratepayers money was worth keeping track of. When asked by – surprise, surprise – Clr Fightin’ Fran O’Callaghan at last week’s council meeting about the missing dough, all the mayor could say vaguely was that she’d write to Clr O’Callaghan. about it.

Now, among many of her undesirable traits in a community leader, Jenny is a slow learner – you’d think she’d know by now that that sort of evasive answer gets Fran fired up … Clr O’Callaghan’s instant reply was both barrels of buckshot.

“I don’t find that acceptable”.

“Somebody should know whether it’s in or it’s out, and surely someone knows,” she said.

“But that answers my question, that you’re not prepared to respond to that.”

Crumbs!!!

And apart from some mumbled waffle between the Mullet and The Prince, that is where the matter was left.

Naturally, our councillors, guardians of our interests, pressed their knees together or adjusted their ties with a slight cough, steepled their fingers and looked the other way.

If ever there was some hard probing questions to be asked, now is the time. Actually, there’s only one question … ‘Where’s the money, Jenny, SHOW US THE MONEY!!’

Grab your stenographer’s pad, Leighton, the mayor wants you to sit on her lap, she has something for you.

But The Mayor Has More Unanswered Questions …

… which she accidentally revealed as she gabbled away during last Wednesday’s PR offensive when she drove around with stenographer Leighton Smith visiting current projects.. The Magpie reported at the time.

The Magpie

February 22, 2023 at 5:58 pm  (Edit)

This is the usual probing effort by excellent photographer and tough, investigative stenographer Leighton ‘Jimmy Olsen‘ Smith at the peak of his powers. First of all, he somehow managed to convince a no doubt reluctant Mayor Mullet into a drive-around tour of three or so of the projects currently on the go. (“There’ll be photographs, Jenny.’ ‘Well, why didn’t you say so. Where will I meet you?) And the resulting piece made it clear that mayor Mullet, ever wanting to be in charge, had a firm grip on Leighton’s gear stick as he drove her around.

Question abound, but The ‘Pie won’t be too tedious about this time. Just two questions, both arising from part of Mayor Mullet’s merry wittering’s.

Cr Hill said there was a “sweet spot” in the dam level where pumping would be done to minimise evaporation.
With ratepayers having to foot the bill for pumping up to 364 megalitres per day, she said they were “looking for a more affordable solution at the moment”, with “discussions underway with a third party”.
“When you look at the timelines for floods and droughts, hopefully we won’t have to pump more than once every seven years,” she said.

First, the unasked question that suggests reporter Smith’s early warning alert system couldn’t detect a 3-story Chinese balloon in his back yard. Doesn’t the mention of a ‘third party’ prompt any question, mate? C in C, ya reckon, but surely tenders must have gone out? We’re talking about ratepayer funds here, y’know. C in C or not, junior, the question should’ve still been asked, you don’t ‘not’ ask questions because you ‘think’ you know the answer.

But all that’s fun and games, Leighton, and here is a serious question to get back to your new BFF and really you must ask.

Here’s the map you published.

And here’s what Jenny Hill said: ‘“When you look at the timelines for floods and droughts, hopefully we won’t have to pump more than once every seven years.’

Apart from the wild weather gamble, here is the question: if we’re only pumping every seven years, where are the new water-hungry tenants of Lansdown going to get their water for the other six+ years of not pumping.

Now there may be a feasible answer to this plausible question, even if it includes a further slug to tenants and/or ratepayers but we’re never going to hear the mayor volunteer an answer, and we’re never going to know while it is left to knocking-kneed people like you to ask her.

Wonder What’s Going On Here

This geyser, which sure looks like a burst water main, suddenly appeared near the Pallarenda end of the airport, and it’s been gushing away for well over a week. It’s on DoD land, so maybe not a council problem. but that’s a hell of a lot of good water being sloshed around. Anyone know anything?

TEL’s Nah To Townsville … Have They Quietly Ditched This Inane Campaign?

That question arises from this in the Weekend Astonisher.

Why we needed an costly, ratepayer funded advertisement to inform us about this is a head scratcher – surely it would rate a story even in this stumblebum newspaper – This $5000 donation to Rupert tells us this at the outset.

Not a single mention of  the previously ballyhooed ‘Nah, It’s Townsville’ …

… so one fervently hopes that stupidity has been quietly ditched. Maybe not, but given all the people they surveyed, focus-grouped and generally hectored around the country, surely they were given ‘free and frank’ opinions about the absurdity of the  proposed campaign.

We now await the next word from TEL’s Woolfe in clown’s clothing.

Even Our Tricky Mayor Wouldn’t. Or Would She?

Here’s something worth thinking about.

The ‘Pie has more than one council insider suggest that mayor Mullet has even bigger plans for her Lansdown dream. The word is she wants to acquire more acreage in the immediate area (if true, she really is insane … irresponsible is too tame a word). But how could she wangle such a scheme, even she realises that the electorate would Semtex her ivory tower next election (they will anyway, but let it go, let it go)?

Well, The Magpie;s beady eye noticed this line in the Bulletin recently talking about algal bloom and measures to control it.

“We are conscious of the potential impacts of the current hot, dry conditions and the potential for the algae to bloom again given the favourable conditions of warmer water temperature, long sunny days and the potential for nutrient run-off into the dam,” the spokesman said.

Shortly after this was published a month or so ago, a deep throat in Walker Street suggested that the possibility of land resumption in the RRD catchment area might be compulsorily acquired, so’s to stop any agricultural practices that could contribute to algal bloom. But if not acquire the land, immediately make it more expensive to operate so owners would sell up.  Either way, it would be a hell of an expensive operation for very little return for the rate payer. But maybe just the threat and stringent conservation regulations could be enough to devalue properties in the area, ripe for Jenny’s public purse.

Now this is all if and maybe, but The ‘Pie’s insider informants (oh, yes, there’s way more than one) say there has suddenly been renewed discussion of the matter around the Walker Street water coolers.

Now,,  Magpie The Dot Connector at your service … and only one connection: guess whose rural property is smack dab in the target zone?

Yep, Clr Fran O’Callaghan’s property she has owned for years with her husband. It without a doubt would be a prime target in any campaign for further acquisitions.

A silly Magpie conspiracy y theory? Maybe but as regular readers know, one of the Magpie’s slogans is: if what is written here comes to pass, remember you read it here first. And if it doesn’t come to pass, that’s because you read it here first.’

Heh heh heh.

If A Movie About Townsville Today Was Made, The Ideal Title Isn’t Available … Meet The Fockers Is Taken

Don’t worry about land resumption, more to the point, what the fuck is she up to now, closer to the CBD?

From comments during the week.

The Magpie

February 22, 2023 at 2:50 pm  (Edit)

The dead and neglected end of Palmer Street is said to be revitalised shortly … perhaps in more ways than one.

Word about town is that the beloved old Metropole Hotel, truly famous across the city when Gav and Jenny Hogg ran it,  will open its doors again shortly. The pub and the swisho Oaks apartments behind it have just been sold … and you’ll never guess the buyer … the Wagner group. Yup, the one and same who were going to build Jenny an airstrip for a staggering price, and have just been gifted a taxpayer-funded $250m in the form of the Wellcamp white elephant at their private airport in Toowoomba.

Now they’ll be able to offer unimpeded views of their $6million scam on the local ratepayers, the boardwalk to nowhere on the other side of the creek that they conned Jenny into paying for.

But there’s further good news for Palmer Street. And the excellent restaurant/pub space under the adjacent Solarus apartment tower, formerly the Waterview, which run into the ground by shady smartarse Sydney investors with an arrogant attitude, is due to re-open soon under new ownership and re-badged Bayview.

Wonder if Jenny will order a drawbridge across the creek to make easier access from Via Vomitorium … along the Hill/Wagner $6M boardwalk.  Hey hang on, hdere’s an idea. Since the Wagners have got the cranes and barges in the water for the board walk, wonder if they could whip a quick pedestrian bridge for the council?

Don’t laugh.

They Just Don’t Know How To Sell This Scam

One supposes it would be churlish to say that the aboriginal industry’s NQ godfather Noel Pearson has given us yet another reason to vote NO to the Voice proposal, but for many, he has. When Sara Ferguson on 7.30 asked him what he would do if the referendum failed, Pearson replied ‘I would fall silent’.

Ya promise, Noel?

But that would be only partly a blessing, because Mr Pearson is the curate’s egg of the indigenous elite, good in parts, not so good in others. He has long advocated much needed tough love and indigenous self-reliance policies, although that hasn’t always worked out as wholly altruistic, there always seem to be some public money for Noel and his family in there somewhere. But he has always been willing to make calls that are sensible but sure to meet vociferous opposition from other indigenous groups. Take this from The  Australian during the week:

In a nutshell, Pearson is suggesting if parents don’t ensure their kids go to school, their welfare payments will be affected to certain extents. It’s a surprising call from an significant indigenous voice, but unfortunately, not very well thought through – like so many items of the garbled wish list of the aboriginal industry.

For start, making people already dependent on welfare even poorer will not do anything to lift them or their children out of the dangers of domestic violence, substance abuse and eventually, the possibility of turning to crime to survive.

But here’s where Pearson’s thinking should have gone one step further, although the luvvies would’ve been wringing their hankies: to counter the appalling truancy rates, particularly in regional and remote areas, don’t target the parents – long proved to be pointless and fruitless – target the kid’s own futures in a coercive but constructive way that they will understand. Lectures about ending up as no hopers if they don’t study just doesn’t wash with teenagers.

So bring in a regulation that if when they reach leaving age, they do not present documentary proof of satisfactory school attendance levels over their high school years, and have attained at least a useable level of literacy, they will not be eligible for welfare – the dole – while they supposedly look for jobs.

We’d know how that is working after a year or two.

Is this racist? No, of course not, the regulation will be for all pupils across the board … and state borders don’t matter, because welfare funding is a federal matter. There are plenty of dead beat parents out there who aren’t indigenous.

Cowards and Cretans: Cancel Culture Is At It Again

In another prime example of what Bill Maher calls ‘presentism’ – that people of previous eras should be judged and censured by the social standards of today – these sad and disappointed little pricks have now targeted kids writer Roald Dahl.

The Roald Dahl Story Company which controls the publishing of some of the beloved children’s books of the modern era, fell prey to an seriously misnamed collective called Inclusive Minds, which immediately went about proving the deception of its name. have taken the cringing and ill advised marketing view that certain of Dahl’s words are no longer acceptable. ‘Fat’ and ‘ugly were banned, and certain jobs and events were changed to suit feminist sensibilities (an oxymoron if ever there was one). ‘Idiot’ was banned so as not to upset idiots (yes, really).

The blow back from every strata of society was immediate. from the like of Salman Rushdie to the cartoonists …

… with even the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak who knows all about weaponizing words, was pissed off.

“When it comes to our rich literary heritage, we shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words’, he said, adding he had loved ready Dahl books to kids.. Gobblefunk from one of Dahl’s best known books, BFG (Big Friendly Giant) and means to play around with words or invent new ones. Ironic that this reasonable view came from a. man in a profession that practices damaging gobblefunk daily.

The ridicule forced a back down of sorts, with Puffin Books and the Dahl Estate deciding to publish the expurgated version, but also continue to re-publish the originals intact.

Idiots.

This Week’s Us Gallery …

… as seen through the pens of the visual commentators.

Finally …

Although you wouldn’t know it looking at the British House of Commons, there is apparently a vegetable shortage in Britain.  A problem for some is opportunity for others.

As Sam K says in the lamb ads, ‘go on, you know  it makes sense’.

……….

That’s it until next week, unless you want to follow the lively and often very funny banter in comments.  Hey, join in, it’s free and anonymous.

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