Sounds nuts? Yes, it does. And it’s true. Another campaign promise goes north.

The Townsville Bulletin gets its act together. Could we be in for a better informed future?  This week, The ‘Pie comes to (mostly) praise the Astonisher, and not to bury it.

But The ‘Pie has a BIG exclusive, which is why TwoName Thompson has not given us any military service details. A friend in high places … can’t say too much, you know how it is … has leaked to The ‘Pie the DoD’s email response to Thompson regarding his service history.  As with most things miliary, it is unintelligible to the uninitiated , but The Magpie translates.

Jilted Kattertonic reject Clynton Hawks is looking for love on the rebound. He says he’ll open his ideological legs to anyone who will mount him as a candidate. But again the Bulletin shies away from a pretty obvious question.

And there’ve been some great quotes this week, the ‘Pie has few for your bewildered outrage, along with some very funny stuff from cartoonists in our weekly American gallery.

If you enjoy this weekly labour of love and the exploding comments section (lots of good citizen journalists have found their voice in comments of late),  maybe you might consider supporting the Nest with a few bob.  The Nest is free of advertising but still there are costs that keep accruing. The Magpie is no moneybags, so a helping hand would be greatly appreciated. The donate button is at the end of the the blog every week. 

Direct From Transparency Central – Mayor TwoNames Completes His About-Turn On The North Fail Yards (not a typo).

It is now clear that Troy Thompson’s learning curve is vertical.  This from Thursday’s Nest.

NEWSFLASH: TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL HANDS OVER NORTH RAIL YARDS TO …. ITSELF!!!

The Magpie needs your assistance here, folks, seriously. Especially from those readers with proven business experience. This media release is deeply insulting, juvenile in its attempt at spinning subterfuge, and another disconcerting announcement from Captain Transparency.

The outrageous false implication of actual progress with this mess, and the patronisation of the electorate, is in the very first two lines:

Redevelopment plans for the historical North Rail Yards site have reached a key milestone, with Council moving to transfer land to the company leading the project, North Rail Yard Developments Ltd. Mayor Troy Thompson said transferring the land titles was required to allow the proposed development to occur, while not affecting Council’s ownership of the site.

“This is an important step to making this project a reality,” he said.

A key milestone,my cloaca.  An important step? Utter tripe.

It is nothing of the sort.
The council is transferring the North Rail Yards land and rusting ramshackle ‘heritage’ infrastructure to a company THAT IS A TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL COMPANY (owned by the ratepayers). In other words, Thompson is claiming the council giving the land to itself is some sort of milestone. and progress towards what is, without outside public funds, an impossible dream,

This transfer is nothing more than pro forma,  a technical bit of paper shuffling that changes nothing, progresses nothing and gives not a scintilla of hope that Thompson has one fucking single clue about what is going on. All we’ve got are three more blood sucking burdens on the public purse in the guise of new company directors (two from Brisbane, apparently). The North Fail Yards (not a typo) site remains a moribund real estate bastard child. Unless there is a rich sucker around, and ‘rich’ and ‘sucker’ are two words that are usually mutually exclusive..

And you just keep diggin’, TwoNames your poor clueless coot … fresh from a campaign blustering about the site to be sold off, you now embrace it with all the shining insincerity of a Jenny Hill, compounding the hypocrisy with an ignorant reference to the North Fail Yards as an ‘historic heritage site’ that will have investors and developers heading for the hills. And no one could blame them.

And The Bulletin Wasn’t About To Let Him Get Away With It, Either.

There is nothing more dangerous as a newspaper scorned. With this unexplained about turn by the mayor (actually it was inevitable but a mea culpa would’ve been appropriate), the paper was happy to put on its bovver boots and let him have it in the Jimmy and the twins.  But one wonders if this bloke has the top shelf wherewithal to get the message.

From The Bulletin:

In a statement published on the Townsville City Council website, Mayor Troy Thompson threw his weight behind the North Rail Yards in an article that said the project was “gathering steam”.

The statement is at odds with a pledge made during his successful campaign for mayor, in which he promised to reduce debt through the “sale of unnecessary assets” and reducing council involvement in major projects.

“The Rail Yards, lets sell them,” he said.

“Let our developers and our city grow … bring some of those assets and sell them so that people can use them.”

Townsville Mayor Troy Thompson promising to sell the North Rail Yards during his campaign.

He said the council could ensure the assets were “used correctly, but we need to sell those assets”.

It is not the first time the mayor has walked back campaign pledges, including a promise of a four-year rates freeze.

And despite blasting his predecessor Jenny Hill for employing three political advisers, Cr Thompson has attempted – and failed – to do the same.

And the best thing about this reporting is that it all factual, and more importantly, in the community interest. (More on that in a minute).

Warning Signals _ The ‘Pie Has A Message For You

Mr Mayor, The Magpie is a staunch defender to the right to privacy when that right is … well, right. In the case of your military history, you as a publicly elected figure do not enjoy in that right, or in other relevant areas – in your case, your entire past, starting from when you first said ‘The dog ate my homework”in primary school..

So please don’t chuck a wobbly when you realise someone in the DoD has provided The Magpie with that email you received, but refused to release, outlining your military history in Signals.  It is The Magpie’s duty to share it with his readers (both of them, hi Dave).  In case some of the small print might give a clue to the source, The ‘Pie will decline from showing the actual email, but here is the message.

Dear Mr Thompson/Birnbrauer or to whom it may turn out to concern,,

We have received your request for details of your time serving your country, in the military –  and we believe serving is the correct word for your efforts. 

After a thorough search, we are able to confirm your status within the Defence Forces of Australia,  but because we understand the information to be sensitive given your heightened public profile, we have forwarded it to you in a manner that only a Signalman would understand.

Sincerely,

Major T. Osser

for The Department of Defence,

Canberra. 

And here is the unedited message, with a helpful translation panel below.

The Bulletin Gets Serious, Let’s Hope It Lasts

Some green sprigs of maturity and professional attitude seem to sprouting down at the Bulletin. An instance is reporter Chris Burns, who the ‘Pie roundly criticised for his misjudgement of urging readers to vote for Jenny Hill in a NEWS story(not a opinion piece) on election day. Burns seems to have risen above that deceitful  disgrace in his new role as council watcher-in-chief, in itself a role for which the editor is to be commended, even if a little late in the day.

Believe this or not, this Burns article, with a little observational colour and restrained factual reporting – there is a remarkable and welcome absence of multiple adjectives –  is recommended reading and should have been a regular feature of the paper long before this.

Let’s hope this round-up became a regular spread, putting various issues in perspective and order  each council meeting. It will be a major step for the Bulletin to recognise that solid reporting of council matters should not be lazy parroting acceptance of Walker Street media releases, and that thoughtful, intelligent but colourful interesting detail is what a majority of readers not only deserve but would welcome. (This may sound a bit up-myself but it was exactly this approach that made the Law and Disorder column I wrote as court roundsman each week so popular. It put a human dimension into the workings of the remote and lofty world of the law. It will definitely work for politics … John Andersen has written some wonderful pieces about politics in this vein over the years. )

But Chris, as you recover from that shock of this unwanted endorsement, consider this: brush up on the entrenched failing of the Bulletin’s current crop of reporters , that of lacking curiosity and asking questions. An example is this story in the Weekend edition.

When you interview people, believe it or not,  you have to actually listen to what they say, so questions present themselves. Case in point – a  justifiably miffed Clynton Hawks told you  he was mulling over other options that ‘could include One Nation or the Libertarian Party’.

Pardon, the what party?  I

If someone is thinking of standing for it, best to know what it’s all about. Turns out this obscure fringe mob started its life way back in 2001 as the Liberal Democratic Party, and after a couple of decades hassling with other entitles and the electoral commission, settled on the Libertarian Party only last October,  so very few people. would know what Mr Hawks was talking about. And it’s a fair bet you didn’t, either, but didn’t ask..  This history offers not only insights into this mildly delusional conglomeration of ‘curate’s egg’  policies (good in parts) , but also the fact that it is not a registered party in Qld. If Mr Hawks is even considering joining its slender ranks of electoral no-hopers,it is handy for people to know the party policies.  They are included in the link but you’ll need a bit of time to wade through them.

The link provides would’ve had enough material for an interesting side-bar story. These are the little things that flesh out a good newspaper or information platform, not an endless parade of sick kids, dead accident victims (who funnily enough were all good blokes or women who lit up a room when they entered) and the opening of a new milk bar or coffee shop.

Anyway, enough of this, The Magpie is starting to bore himself now.

Perhaps If This New Attitude Continues At The Paper, It Will Avoid This Sort Of Embarrassment

More than a day after the Australian broke the story,

….. the Bulletin picks it up, scooped in its own backyard, forced to play follow-my-leader – and it’s about their former pin-up girl.

Seems your Jennykins doesn’t need you folks anymore.

And the absurdity of The Mullet’s rationale for seeking a cushy Canberra job is laughable – decrying the party’s penchant for ‘career politicians’.  This from a branch stacking, manipulative woman who has been nothing but a career politician for decades albeit at the most modest level of LG. She has already been soundly belted when she last had a tilt for federal glory, but the right wing of the Queensland Party must be as bare as a pensioner’s bank account if they’re now courting her.

Her attempt to get the nod from the backroom boys prompted this exchange in comments during the week.

• The Magpie

  May 15, 2024 at 9:14 pm  (Edit)

  Are we? Walter Mitty in Townsville.

  Reply

 Say What? Some Quotes From The Week.

For the atheist Magpie, the Vatican is not his first stop for useful insights, but Pope Frankie has made an interesting point –  

 

…. although possibly verging on the hypocritical with the condemnation of being ‘closed up inside a ideological box’ … touch of pot/kettle, no?

And not a week goes by that the  inestimable Marina Hyde, the most informative and entertaining wordsmith on the planet, doesn’t have a quote worth remembering.  But this time,  our gal lifts the quote trophy high this week, when noting that serial creep and molester Russel Brand sought redemption from his sins with baptism in the polluted waters of the Thames:

“I know it’s incredible: Thames Water (Authority) is no longer responsible for the biggest piece of shit in the river.”

And on the local scene, it kinda figures what state the town is in when we learn that the TCC’s arts supremo is Liam Mooney, whose main ‘art’ is that of Driveway Diplomacy’.

But Clr Mooney, The ‘Pie has a polite inquiry/observation about one of your quotes in the media release:  : “A city which has a thriving arts and culture sector is a city people want to live and visit.

“This is important as Council seeks to grow Townsville and future-proof the city,”

Question: As meaningless word salad buzz phrases go, there is the clear popularity winner in Walker Street, the good old  inanity ‘future proof the city’. So, if you flood proof a place, it means it stops floods, if you drought-proof a place, that means you build a year round pipeline supply (eventually) , if you fireproof something,  it means it can’t catch fire. So when you ‘future proof a city’, you are guaranteeing that it has no future?  If so, kudos to you, Jenny Hill and other ‘future proofers’ of the past decade, mission accomplished.

In The US, The T-Shirt Business Is Booming – Thanks To Trump

The slogans have been coming thick and fast, and while no one will beat ‘Did You know that two out of three Trump supporters are just as dumb as the other two?’,  (which has been pinched by Aussie protesters) here are a couple of additions this week.

And while The ‘Pie knows that reality is increasingly challenging satire, spare a thought for those in the business in the US.

But they still had no shortage of subjects, especially THAT trial, the proposed Presidential debate and the worm that ate some of RFK’s brain (so he said himself).

And With All Our Mayhem Going On Everywhere, Let’s End With A Bit Of Perspective.

Our home next to Jupiter.

……….

Another week bites the dust, but comments continue 24/7, hop in and have your say. The donate button to help out with Nest costs is below. See you next week.