At least his blatant politicking in the guise of being a community champion at Wednesday’s council meeting was as transparent as it was galling. A disgraceful stunt calling for a dangerous solution. to a problem of which he has washed his hands. But this sulking brainless oaf doubled down on social media, pouting his way through some crybaby honking.
The TCC meeting also showed that the battle lines of warring factions are being defined. But despite the carefully worded sniping, some sensible and some ill-judged decisions were made, despite Brady Ellis continuing his act at his class arse japery.
A bright note though, with the Townsville Bulletin now looking at proper reporting of the council meetings going forward, it’s new format a credit to a paper, but fear not, elsewhere the good old Astonisher continues to entertain us with cock-ups from its kids.
And on the global scene, Elon Musk wants to unfuck a disastrous ‘Get Fucked’ (his exact words) of his own making – he says he’s going to sue companies that don’t advertise with him on Twitter. Plus the weekly US cartoon gallery is biting political stuff. As usual.
And The Magpie reluctantly puts a valuable artwork up for sale – its an offer for Nest readers only.
You can help the ad-free, subscription-free Nest with a few bob to help meet some steep costs (a $300 registration fee landed during the week) by using the Donate button at the end of the blog. Bigly appreciated.
Aaron’s Day Out: He Came, He Postured, He Lectured And He Offered Nothing
… and he got nothing in return, especially not the mantle of ‘battlers’ champion’ he tried to drape around his pudgy shoulders.
Aaron Harpers appearance and performance before the council meeting on Wednesday was the act of a man with no shame, and not frightened of insulting people with such a transparent, empty stunt. He tried the bluff of soft bullying, suggesting a guilt trip for councillors for not accepting the government’s inadequate sop for the project under question. That matterias a complex road planning matter, involving the sealing of a short stretch of a basically residential street. The council engineers had pared back the project’s original $21m price tag to $14m, by cutting dimensions and bike lanes. and thus reducing safety for bikes and pedestrians. Harper’s government and previous mostly Labor regimes in Brisbane have serially botched up ring road matters, had stumped up $8million, knowing it was inadequate. The council was adamant it wasn’t enough to do a professional job on less than a kilometre of dirt road. Harper insisted, in the face of safety and financial arguments to the contrary, insisted to council that $8million was enough, and if it wasn’t then the ratepayers should foot the overs. This was a pointless exercise, and the council gave Harpic a thumping rejection.
This tin-eared, flap-jowled turkey then went into a mega sulk, continuing to push a dangerous second grade solution to a first grade problem that only the State Government could adequately solve. The Bulletin amplified his self-interested and hypocritical blubbing.
His social media posts ignored the fact that the funding inadequacy was the fault of successive dithering Labor governments and to a certain extent, former Labor-controlled councils in Walker Street.
And then came the crowning idiocy, as noted in comments, which The Magpie could not resist replying to.
.Oh, well, only eight or nine weeks to go for blessed relief from this stain.
A Summary Of What Went Down At The Meeting, As Reported On The Day
There will be many points and opinions to mull over out of today’s council meeting, but The ‘Pie gives a big tick approval to the live streaming, which he is relatively new to. Once you get used to the quirks of the split screen, it is essential viewing for those interested in how the levers of local government operate. Some minor gripes, very difficult to spot who’s talking on screen, and featured speakers from the council staff aren’t named or given a title in text, which would be handy – there seems to be a certain amount of chuminess or at least assumed familiarity between councillors and officials who know who each other are, which is not shared by public viewers.
The Bulletin has bucked up its act, and has been doing some ‘as it happened’ accurate (sort of) online reporting of salient points … no doubt, there’ll be discussion here on several matters soon enough. But some immediate take-away impressions include
There were some very snarky questions to officials and to the guest today, Aaron Harper (GHU!!), ostensibly on some local road planning issue, but whose appearance a couple councillors carefully hinted was entirely due to the upcoming election. Unfortunately, that gave Harpic the cue to launch into his usual shining insincerity and lies, but one assumes by the stony reception that no believed him. And in the end, he couldn’t promise the requested help councillors wanted for the scheme in question.
One official was asked if a certain estimate on a road project – way above the original quote – was ‘council gold-plating’ – which by insinuation, was meant to mean public servant staff unnecessarily high estimating. That was effectively shut down immediately by sober facts and figures.
Fishing on the Ross River Dam is to become a reality within a year, when stage 1 – allowing land angling – is started after suitable health and safety infrastructure is created. But the most interesting part of this discussion was the $1.27m funding for this first step. It was revealed that the money would come from an allocation already in the budget, with the money being reassigned from the $2.5m already set aside for ‘resurfacing the V8 track’, which is apparently part of the SuperPests deal that the council agrees to pay for. That was news to The Magpie on top of all the other obfuscation about the costs and benefits of this annual event. Had anyone else ever heard of this? Which in fact means the V8 business model is entirely ‘we are a travelling entertainment entity, and we charge you to come to your place and race around your streets which you have to maintain to our standard at no cost to us’ – kah-ching!!).
But the issue ballooned a bit from there, when it was learnt the council could defer the necessary resurfacing works until after next years V8 infestation, and the missing $1.27m pinched for the fishos could be reinstated. This brought a very pointed question from Clr Dirou that this money didn’t just appear out of nowhere and was, as another councillor put it, ‘just kicking the can down the road’, paper shuffling by a council deferring accountability by a council that was in financial straits anyway (not her words but that’s a fair interpretation). No satisfactory refutation or clarification was forthcoming.
Other overall impressions The ‘Pie got from today’s meeting was the definite undercurrent of hostility from one or two quarters, councillors towards each other but particularly from Clr Greaney to the mayor, who – although prissily simpered out in the forced language of local government – accused Thompson of another backflip on an issue. He parried that with the age old get out of jail card that his earlier firm conviction had been overturned by subsequent new information. Which of course is codswallop, but it was a fun moment.
And Brady Ellis cemented his growing reputation as the council arseclown by failing to read the boundaries of council behaviour by trying to be the court jester on several occasions . So far, he’s proving to be the resident fuckwit. He would be well advised thatwhen ratepayers money is involved, childish levity is not appreciated.
All in all, council;s live streaming of meetings ain’t ever gunna reach ‘Days Of Our Lives’ popularity as a TV series, but there is enough of an underlying frisson to keep you coming back – because you know at some stage, someone, Thompson, Greaney, in fact almost any of them – are going to lose their shit at some stage.
And whenever that happens, The ‘Pie for one wants to be watching.
If you want to have troll through it (there’s about 3 hours, so good luck) you can view the meeting here.
And An Interesting Point No One Mentioned Or Queried About Opening RRD To Public Activity
Nester AFR asks some very good questions.
]August 10, 2024 at 7:40 am (Edit)
The Council meeting this week gave us good insight into some of our Councillors. The council staffer told them that due to the algae in the dam it was preferable to not eat the fish and council’s website shows that algae levels are off the chart. Despite this, several Councillors said they were keen to get to the later stages of recreation with boating and swimming! A quick web search will produce many references that tell you how life threatening that is. From a liability perspective they should not even let shore based fishing happen. Cr Dirou asked a number of pertinent questions but of course that was not enough to change the vote – the chance to inflate Molachino’s ego and to please a handful of whinging fishos, along with a photo op on the dam wall holding a poisoned Barra was too good to miss.
Not to worry, AFR, the council is about a buy an expensive piece of equipment which address your concerns when the time comes to vote on further stages.
Reporter’s Report Card
Mate, do something about that greasy hair, will ya?
OK, The Magpie was a tad critical of reporter Chris Burns biased performance during the election campaign, so it’s only fair that The Magpie report with satisfaction that Mr Burns is turning out to be a very solid journalist. So far, he is clearly on top of his job, and the paper is supporting his reporting of council matters in a way it should have always done, but didn’t.
Mr Burns obviously is one of, if not the best, reporter in the paper at the moment (a couple of the gals are shaping up well, too) and clearly knows the journalistic drill. But of course Chris, the downside for you is that if you cock up or show bias again, we will know that you really do know better. However, let’s hope there is a regular page like this one every council meeting.
This cynical old bird keeps wondering if this welcome development would have happened at all and if editor Cas Garvey would’ve instigated this page if TwoNames Thompson hadn’t put so much pepper in her panties. But every cloud, as they say …
All that pillow plumping with our chums at the astonisher does not ignore the continued sloppiness of the product. Even by Ms Garvey herself.
We started the week on a familiar note.
August 5, 2024 at 11:36 am (Edit)
The Bulletin gets off to a flying start in the Fuck Up Stakes for the week with this front page boo-boo.
And this online teaser
Reporter Cameron ‘Master’ Bates obviously has a problem with the twists and turns of English as she is writ.
As versus.
Master Bates would be foolish to argue that he was just quoting someone …. It’s 100/1 on that they meant the latter, not the former.
But while we’re with the Astonisher, they also this morning offered this head scratcher headline.
It is – wait for it – a non-story about an apparent dingo menage-a-trois bust-up , with two of the mutts called Kirby and Rocky, with a third dingo – the third wheel’ – sent packing.
Yes, really.
well, suppose they go stealing babies every day of the week, can they?
Then the very next day, this.
Sigh … even the bloody iditor. From today’s empty editorial offering.
It’s ‘homing in’ … as closing in on, targeting – ‘honing’ is ‘sharpening’, and there’s no such thing as ‘honing in’.
Unlike yesterday’s more obscure ‘tortuous’ and ‘torturous’, this is one of the two or three most common confusions – The ‘Pie’s pet hate is ‘lose’ and ‘loose’ … and sure everyone does it, but Cas, we journos are meant to know better, aren’t we, it’s what we do, eh?
it’s not as though you’re on Facebook … or are a cranky old blogger.
And that brought this hilarious response from a reader.
-
Mad Jack
A honing pigeon.
And another chimed in.
August 6, 2024 at 2:17 pm (Edit)
Hay Magpie, pleas do knot loose you’re mined.
The Astonisher mite bee detracted buy an incredulous peace of work that is stoping them corroborating with imminent people like ewe.
The morale is plane too sea, the pour Astonisher is prayed upon bye sum won who’s currant tract is an allusion to devise a whey four the hoards two except the preposition that watt has bean formally dun is rite. Seams quite personnel.
Weight the next addition of the Astonisher.
Some at The Astonisher are still trying to work out what the joke is, seems all OK to them.
Elon Wants To Unfuck Something
The weirdness is the USA doesn’t all belong to the politicians.
In a moment of ego lunacy, less than a year ago Elon Musk told advertisers to ‘go fuck yourself’ “ if they didn’t want to advertise on Twitter (which only he calls X). Now that they’ve obliged, cutting Twitter’s revenue by more than half, this week the world’s weirdest biozoid bizzarro started suing those same companies for NOT advertising on his platform. “Now it is war,” he thundered, to which Guardian’s Marina Hyde suggested, ” In which case, I hope he likes losing’ and then quoted professor Scott Galloway “No company with over $1bn in revenue has ever lost 60% of its revenues in a 12-month period, in a non-war period. I don’t think that’s ever happened. Twitter is literally the worst-performing business in history since a change in ownership.”
Be interesting to see how this novel; approach works out. If it is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is odds on that Donald Trump will sue people for not voting for him.
But Musk is an outlier, American politics remains the true home of ‘weird’, a word that been bounced around by both sides but it started in all it’s effective simplicity by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He so caught the imagination of Kamala Harris that she has tapped him to be her VEEP running mate. And the oh -o-obvious and hitherto neglected truth of the Trump/MAGAaniacs weirdness has caused a Republican meltdown. And a major Trump back down; he has been forced to agree to debate Harris, with his hitherto excuses sparking a barrage of ‘chicken’ jokes. But it was the accurate skewering of the cult that has caused an amusing implosion, led, of course, by the cult leader himself.
But as the rhetoric ramped up, and the stock market plunged, there were those who remained above the fray. Two especially, who were happy to be well out of it.
,,,
But Weird Has A Wide Embrace – So Welcome To WHAASAF!
Each week, The ‘Pie travels the cyberverse just for you, seeking out the shiny but usually worthless sparkling trinkets so beloved of avian breed. But some of these trinkets, little glops of human behaviour, has prompted him to introduce a new feature to The Nest which we shall call WHAASAF! – Why Humans As A Species Are Fucked. WHAASIF will typically feature one or two bits of information that, in The ‘Pie’s mind, signals that we are coming to the end of our evolutionary road as we are driven by social media to dissolve into a puddle of gibbering irrelevance. Suggestions for inclusions in this category are invited from readers who fear that we are collectively losing it. So here we go ….
Sticklers Of The Nation – Unite!!
Our introductory item sees The Magpie stick it to Stick Nation. At first glance, you may think this is something a bit racy, in line with the American slang of ‘stick’, as in stick magazines or porn sites on the web … here in Townsville, some may mistake Stick Nation as a fairly accurate description of Flinders Street East on any Friday or Saturday night, where blokes are constantly having to – ahem – ‘adjust their clothing”.
But no. While Stick Nation is certainly about blokes getting a woody on, the objects of their affections are … well, sticks. Actual sticks. And it’s not just men getting a hard on for sticks, seems the gals are also getting …ummm … a wide-on for them too.
The founders of the of the account, a couple of Yanks who sound like they’re straight out the Dukes of Hazzard, Boone Hogg and Logan Jugler, made a short video evaluating a stick picked up during a walk. But when they posted the mock review on Instagram and TikTok for a bit of boofy yukyukery, , it instantly turned into something else … a world-wide phenomenon (of sticklers maybe?) featuring all manner of sticks, including from some who take the artistic path rather than take the piss, as it was intended. There is now a raging online argument about just what constitutes an eligible stick. It seems Stick Nation is divided between those who support ‘mods’ – sticks that have been carved or altered in some way – and those who only want to see all-natural sticks featured.
“We do a Stick of the Month … tournament at the start of each month, and some people have been calling for modded sticks to be disqualified,”
And anyone familiar with the usual ‘off with the fairies’ art reviews will have to make up their own minds if someone is going along with the joke or is actually serious. In response to a stick submission from Norway one commenter wrote, “Finally a quality find, not like all the modded or mediocre influencer sticks so often recently on this page.”
But the boys are sticking wads of cash into their bank accounts, selling t-shirts and other stuff online.
And thinking about that, The Magpie has decided to go one better, and offer some lucky reader exclusive first rights to what will surely become Stick Of The Year and it’s from our very own North Queensland mangrove forests.
This magnificent specimen, salt cured in seawater and sundried on the exclusive sands Pallarenda beach, with canine teeth marks intact from the finder, is striking in its unashamed woodiness – it conjures up ethereal images of the gossamer threads of the ghostly dreamtime. Seen from all angles, one is struck by its essential stick-ness. A rare collectors item.
First in with the $10,000 market price will get the backing canvas at no extra charge. Cash only, no credit cards, and please do not ask for a receipt, a refusal may offend.. But be quick … The ‘Pie won’t have much time to enjoy it, because Stick Universe is proof positive we are coming to the end … probably a sticky end.
……………………..
That’s another weird week assigned to the time file. Comments going strong, join in, informative fun … with the bonus that give you a warm and wanted feeling when you realise you’re not the most demented flapdoodler around. The donate button to support the Nest’s costs is below … it has been modified to accept amounts up to $10,000. Thank you.
Pie, Chris Burns was or still is a reporter for the North West Star paper in Mt. Isa ( digital only now ) for years .I thought he did a pretty good job and now with the bully he has continued on but lets hope he doesnt fall into the trap of getting lazy like the rest of the light on journos that are employed there.
Stick:
‘Broken Arrow’.
Townsville is under attack from an inept, self-serving infighting council and three inept, washed up State ALP members.
Lead story on the Townsville Bulletin website this morning:
“Corner cafe set to shake things up with cool new gelato treats”
Does anyone out there know if they charge for this special treatment?
Insulting stuff. What demographic instructs them to call this drivel fir for a serious news platform?
For a long time I’ve considered Harper (Harpic) to be a GRIPPER.
You know sort of like a WANKER but just too stupid to move his hand.
That performance with the council confirms it.
‘Gripper’! I love it. Harpic is stupid. Let’s use that nickname for him.
Good work with the blog this week Magpie, another gold medal Olympic effort.
Nice idea, but think we’ll stick with Harpic, he continues to demonstrate he ‘is clean round the bend’.
I’m just waiting for someone to take a large nikko to Les Walker’s corflutes and change one letter.
W.M.,
For those of us who do not frequent that part of the parish please supply a photo of the corflute, that we too can enjoy the game.
Defacing signs with Nikko Pen is so childish. Surely someone has a colour printer to make up “N”stickers? That would be much more professional.
The fractured relationship between Aaron Harper , Scott Stewart and Council isnt helping business or the ratepayers of Townsville . Les is asleep as usual and claimed he was unaware of any issues on costing on Haughton stage two even after Council had to acknowledge they have poured in $79 mil + committed another $45mil and the project still needs $150 mil . After JCU announced closing the cbd campus in City Arcade Scott Stewart said ” its another blow to Townsvilles struggling cbd and an overreaching group is required to determine the future vision for the cbd ” . Council has a team of people who are supposed to be focusing on Townsville moving forward and even an entity providing advice to business . The same people put in place by Mayor Hill . The best the Councillors can do is raise parking cbd 40-100 % . Are Council and State Member for Townsville even meeting ? .
‘Overreaching group’, Mike? What exactly is that???
Indpector Clouseau . Scott Stewart’s extradonary attack on Labor Townsville Council on poor performance cbd and how bad parts of the City looked pre Council election suggests no confidence in Councillor Food Trucks and Council executives . Neither I would suggest has many cbd owners / tenants / workers and I’m hearing possible f.o.i. requests publicly to Council on the paid parking implementation the Strand , Pimlico in front of the Mater . Not sure how overreaching body would work . Surely with the mils$ Council currently spend its time for Councillors and CEO to look at their people and structures . Will the acting CEO meet Stewart ? .
The last thing we need is to keep the acting CEO. Dirou herself said he’s self serving and is manipulating the team through in house legal counsel. TwoNames is still shutout of his elected boards and advisories, and the CEO continues with the poor deals with state. Alas, the show goes on, and looking above us to the Cowboys Lexus corporate box, Lancini, Ramm, Dalle Cort, TwoNames and lots of big hitters, Price stood by himself like a kid with spilt lollies, no one talked to him. It was a busy box of discussions and political positioning, not a Team Jenny member insight, no other councillors, interesting. After the game they all left in different directions, to be a fly on the wall. Happy Birthday Pie, I’m hoping you took some time out. Let’s see what the week ahead brings.
Thanks, WC …. oh, dear, the abbreviation is most unfortunate.
Who Cares, did you suggest Twonames is a “big hitter”?
He’s certainly a big something, but I don’t think hitter is the correct word.
Missing a first letter.
Interesting that we are turning the Nest into the social pages. Oh well, if we must.
I’m amused by the description of TwoNames with the “Big-Hitters” and Price stood by himself like a kid with spilt lollies. If anything, I’d imagine TwoNames was the one stood alone. Like him and the squeeze the weekend before at the Townsville Cup. Apart from one person with them for the day, everyone gave TwoNames a big pass.
Then there was this weekends celebration dinner for 3rd Brigade hosted by Brigadier Dave McCammon, featured Big-Hitters from the military were there like retired Brigadier Shane Caughey, Major General Mark Kelly. And then there were the guests from Councils past and new. Cr Brady Ellis, Cr Ann-Maree Greaney, and even the Mayor of Christmas Past Jenny Hill.
You know who wasn’t invited, and who wasn’t amongst the “Big-Hitters” of Military and Councils old and new. Mayor TwoNames Thompson. Couldn’t rate an invite. I wonder why? Although I never did check who was working in the kitchen.
Mr Jack Daniel’s, I too was at the Townsville Cup and from what I observed the Mayor and his partner.
My perspective was entirely different to yours. From what I saw both were approached by many people from within the Chairman’s Lounge and also spent time enjoying the racing from the grandstands. I could name many who spoke with them during the day, and I certainly was not watching them at every moment. This all compared to Councillors who walk around with an air of arrogance, it was refreshing to see them enjoy the day.
Seems The Magpies Nest has become a Bridgerton’s Lady Whistledown report in the comments section.
You seem so quick to point out additional invitation allocations, however unless (like me) you are not part of council, we will never know the allocation process. Your name suggests that you enjoy a drink or two, maybe you should stick to drinking rather than reporting.
The Magpie’s Nest is a broad church, and around here, everyone is entitled to an opinion.
And nice compliment with the comparison to Lady Whistledown, because, as you undoubtedly know, the writer under that name was always accurate.
Why you are welcome Mr Magpie, however for clarification I was comparing the comments to Lady Whistledown…but happy for you to take on some good graces as we certainly appreciate the “broad church” you provide.
Also, I trust you had a great birthday this year!
I wonder if Mr Jack Daniel’s also noted the short individual from KAP during the Cup. Nick and his partner were quite the obnoxious couple during the event and proved to be quite a laughing stock, especially at our table!
They seemed to stand in the middle of the room to ensure all eyes were on them with loud conversation and boisterous laughter.
The second hand embarrassment was very much felt.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PIE!!! Cheers
Thanks, Al.
From me too mate.
Thanks, Heel.
Onya Pie! HB! Raising a few glasses of a nice red, old mate?
Pinot gris is The Magpie go. Cheers.
Well, as the final day of the Paris Olympics approaches, I wonder if the French are going to enjoy the $9b price tag (that’s a conservative price, probably is much higher) to host 16 days of dick measuring (some literally). I’m sure public services in the coming years will be cut considering their economy is already rooted. But don’t worry, Brisbanes turn to go billions into debt has already commenced in earnest and our hour of pain is yet to be fulfilled.
I’m hearing their revenue through ticket sales- almost 100% at ridiculously high prices, merchandise with long lines every minute of the opening hours, and sponsorship from local suppliers have lessened the debt dramatically. And from the sports I’ve watched on the box, which there are several, I’ve got to agree. Always looks like the frogs have packed people to the rafters. Even the silly Break Dancing was sold out apparently. My friends working in Paris tell me the place is crazy. I tips my beret to the French.
The crippling costs are usually found in poor infrastructure planning … to be recovered, venues and athlete villages must have a viable afterlife. That will be the biggest challenge for Brisbane.
Wellcamp Athletes Village has a nice ring to it
A viable “pre-life” is also important in that facilities need to be what the community needs outside the Olympics. The now scrapped idea of building the Brisbane athletes village in advance and using it for short-term housing in the lead-up was sensible but killed for political reasons.
And now we see the powers who want their way- led by the money starved Murdoch media – have started a campaign using the Fallacy of Transferred Authority, getting someone who is good at one thing suddenly having veracity on a totally different skill.
… and the Courier Mail …
Sally Pearson was a wonderful athlete and a great adornment to our sporting hall of fame, but she isn’t a town planner, an event organiser or a financial forecaster … let alone a political person who has to take in a whole-of-state view of the lingering social damage of the ‘Olympic Effect’. Pearson is entitled to her view (understandably coloured by the dazzle of the Olympic flame) and she has earned the right through athletic celebrity to express it publicly, but we should not lose sight of the fact that is just the opinion of another person with the average inadequate understanding of what is really at stake … it’s a view that is narrow in its terms of reference.
But we can expect more of the tunnel vision of past sporting heroes in this arena of headlong irresponsibility. The simple fact remains that we as a state face financial disaster, and will be poorer for it as a nation.
We simply cannot afford the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane.
And now, the double-talking Brisbane Olympic boss Andrew Liveris has made the telling statement that the Brisbane economy will not be damaged by the 2032 Olympic Games. He’s right, it’s the rest of the state that will suffer … and suffer for a very long time, starting well before one foot is in the starting block or one swimmer has hit the water …. it will start at next state budget, when infrastructure – roads, energy, water – are all pared back in the effort to juggle the Olympic drain on finances across all of Queensland.
This is Palaszczuk’s real legacy, her ultimate final up-yours-my-front-row-seat-is-booked to a state that has so comprehensively given her the finger that she had to resign rather than be kicked out for incompetence.
Three women had a big Saturday night by the look of the bulletin’s story on their webpage today headed with ” 2 Townsville women and 1 from Hinchinbrook have been injured in 3 separate accidents on Sat night.” Gees! I reckon they were unlucky.If the same sheila was the driver in each prang you would wanna sack her as a driver hey ?
NOT FUNNY AT ALL WALLO. They have been injured, say no more. Not appropriate.
Well, yes, but W’s point was the paper and the choice of words.
Albo praises Ozzie girl Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn for being genetically correct!
Australian Olympic breakdancer Raygun has attracted the support of the Prime Minister for “having a crack” during her unconventional routines in Paris.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/olympics-is-about-participating-says-pm-in-defence-of-breakdancer-raygun/news-story/f9a60c4098cff95d78e64fec1c7cee6f
A,
Priceless. My wife though it mildly funny, but don’t be put off. That is high praise.
The question remains on Raygun though. How did she get selected over many hundreds of young kids who are so much more dominant in the sport? Smells of nepotism to me. With taxpayers money funding her trip, questions must be asked.
She won the Oceania region Olympic qualifiers. What criteria would you prefer?
A more advertised professional qualifying process. She is far from Australia’s Breaker. Can you tell us where and when it was held Jenny? Mid 2023?
Raygun is Australia’s sporting equivalent of Aaron Harper’s impact on Thuringowa.
A self-absorbed sideshow, that is publicly viewed as an embarrassment.
You are insulting one of Australia’s high achievers who could well be in line for a Nobel Prize – she is a 36 year old lecturer at Macquarie University on the verge of academic insights that could rival a cure for cancer. She is courageously asking the BIG questions. You will hang your head in shame, Prickster, when you learn the following:
Gunn has published a doctoral thesis entitled “Deterritorializing Gender in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene: A B-girl’s Experience of B-boying”.
The thesis questioned why so few female participants were part of the male-dominated scene but spoke of the sport as a “space that embraces difference”.
Worth every penny of funding she gets.
And interesting to note a rare moment of sanity in the Olympic Grifting agenda … breakdancing has been dropped from the 2028 Games program … a real blow, since the Games will be held in the break-dancing stronghold of LA. Big question mark whether it will reinstated for Brisbane … or ever. Hopefully not.
On e guesses that those interested in this street theatre are from a class of both participants and fans that doesn’t generally have to money to travel and take part in expensive matters like the Olympics … let alone have an organising body that can grease the criminal palms of the high living low-lifes of the Olympic backroom.
And this fact bolstered the argument of thoxse who advocate that – with the possible exception of gymnastics – the Olympic Games should be restricted to events where the results speak for themselves … in other words, no judges with opinions of a contestants worth … judgements often made by bitterly disappointed former aspirants to gold, who are open to have their opinions groomed. (Ice figure skating is a hot bed example for this).
Boxing?
Boxing might be OK, because judges count punches and as far as The ‘Pie knows, do not award points for style, only aggression (moving forward). Still, as Jeff Fenech knows, Olympic boxing judges get it wrong sometimes for whatever blatant reason.
Kenny, consider that participants in the Olympics get drug tested – not just for performance-enhancing drugs – and you might find an explanation of why a lot of breakdancers might choose not to compete.
Or why many of them do … you are dealing with the Olympics, remember.
You obviously know nothing of the sport and the people who participate. You’ve been watching too many movies from America’s Bronx.
Kenny if you don’t think breakdancers enjoy some recreational cannabis use you’re a bit naïve. Same with the skateboarders.
…and many Nest commenters.
Aaron Aaron Aaron, you hypocrite. Not only are you a hypocrite, you are an emotional buffoon. Your undiplomatic sprays against the council provide further proof that you are a complete dipshit. The sooner you get voted out the better.
Happy birthday Magpie. Hope you have enjoyed celebrating your latest trip around the Sun. A nugget in the Nest for you old mate.
Thanks on both counts, Third Man.
This is what the kerfuffle is all about.
I really do live a 100m away. This has never been a thoroughfare in the 25 years I have been here. In the dry season, you could make it through from Allambie in a 4wD, but impassable in the wet. The kids on dirt bikes loved it. The grumpy old bastard living on the corner complained to Council and they installed great blocks either end of the track 5+ years ago. Its going to cost a fortune as it is flood prone most of the proposed length.
Don’t worry Grumpy, they’ll install parking meters at Riverway to recoup the cost.
Lucky for us an unseasonal wet August weekend has dumped more than 100mm over the RR dam catchment helping hold the level around 84%. More time and space for TCC to work out a funding formula for the over-budget Haughton pipeline.
Your comment prompted The ;’Pie to have a beak around regarding water usage, but cannot find what the daily percentage of RRD water is used … not contesting what you say, just curious. Anyone know?
Since TCC changed the graphical display of dam levels a couple of years ago it’s hard to make anything useful of the data now presented. Perhaps that was the general idea? The old display had multiple records of dam levels since about 2009 so it was possible to fairly accurately measure the decline in levels over weeks and months and even work out a daily rate. It would be a good thing if that old display regime was returned to service but of course no one with access to the levers (let alone any brains) at TCC reads this blog so why do I bother requesting it?
Townsville is well above the state average in water use. Most use 350 litres a day, Townsville uses 550-600 litres a day on average.
Can you do the maths (The ‘Pie’s weak spot) to convert that to a daily percentage of the overall storage – one supposes all water storage should be included.
Magpie, using the graph provided on the RR dam levels web site I chose four date periods where the decline in water level was more or less smooth and unaffected by sudden inputs. For each of these I calculated the time period in months and the drop in percentage capacity over the period to find an average percentage drop per month. Readers can check my maths by looking at these specific periods and reading the numbers straight off the graph:
1. Apr 2014 (level at 103%) – Feb 2016 (level at 22.6%) drop of 80% over 22 months = 3.6% per month
2. Apr 09 (99%) – Dec 09 (62%) drop of 37% over 8 months = 4.6% per month
3. Mar 19 (102%) – Jan 20 (64%) drop of 38% over 10 months = 3.8% per month
4. Apr 11 (102%) – Jan 12 (69%) drop of 33% over 9 months = 3.7% per month
Taking each of those periods with different period lengths and obviously different weather conditions they turn out to have an average decline in RR dam level of 3.9% per month.
It goes without saying (as if) that the percentage decline relies on there being no rain over the period. So at that average rate, if the dam was at 100% and was losing 3.9% per month it would take 25.6 months to empty – if there was no rain.
Its why for years I’ve advocated water recycling to solve townsvilles problems.
Controlling growth of population is another avenue of controlling water rates and increasing reliability. If water is such a problem, stop building the vast housing estates so beloved of “business”.
An increasing population behind say 200, 000 just brings exponential costs regarding water, power, transport ( traffic jams). Just cap the population or be facing massive costs for water. The smart meter roll-out for water is so they can charge you more for water depending on the time of day – just like smart meters for power.
The other plague taking over townsville is what I call – the failed traffic light theory pursued by councils and state governments. More traffic lights brings more control and better flow of traffic. Whereas in most cases it creates gridlock and added expense. Roundabouts are virtually maintenance free and allow human intelligence to carefully adjust traffic flow better than any machine.
Next time you are driving around look with fresh eyes – would a roundabout actually be a better option than traffic lights which contribute to gridlock, increased travel times and increased fuel use ? Handy tip , stop putting traffic lights on the Bruce highway and reducing speeds to 80. The road by the army barracks should be 100, 80 is too slow. The road out of town heading south should be 100 all the way. We are continually increasing travel times and telling ourselves that this is progress. Stop building along highways , it slows traffic and stretches out and increases infrastructure costs.
From a Labor insider in Brisbane on Sunday:
“They’ve dumped Harper and Walker because polls are telling them they are gone. “They think Stewart is borderline, but are spending all their campaign cash on seats in the SE corner.”
.Hope he’s right.
Hmmmm …. unauthorised flight, 2am-ish, in Cairns. Could a drink have been involved?
I watched both the ABC a Ch7 video coverage of this story. In both cases they cut live to their reporter in…………
wait for it……………
in Brisbane!
Their live reporter was 1000 miles from the action. The “live” reporter could have been on the moon for all the value adding to the story they did, or could have done.
Still, most folks South of the Tweed River would not have picked up on this ridiculousness.
Pilot pissed? Hummmmm?
If the helicopter had skids the pissed pilot would have most likely crashed when first lifting up to the hover.
If the helicopter had wheels it is possible that the pissed pilot did a forward rolling takeoff going through effective transitional lift on the ground roll then into wobbly flight.
Having tried unsuccessfully to ride a pushbike while pissed the thought of trying to fly a helicopter, or fixed wing for that matter, while pissed frightens the hell out of me.
(Some would argue my flying sober was scary enough.)
Your possible informed commentary doesn’t considered that the crash was atop a hotel … so it would’ve had to get up there, at leasst above it. to crash.
And BTW, The ‘Pie was not accusing the dead pilot of anything, just raising the likely outcome of inquiry.
Yes, many possibilities but what has been established is that the use of the aircraft was unauthorised. Pilot up to no good. This will be interesting to follow.
Wonder if any of our dusky young friends have learned to fly, getting bored with cars?
And, for Annie Guest, ABC reporter, helicopters don’t have propellers, FFS. Get it right.
Seven year olds know helicopters have rotors. Main rotor, the big one on top. Tail rotor, the little one at (surprise surprise) the end of the tail boom.
I know very little about a vast number of subjects. I know a great deal about one or two subjects. When the media feeds me inaccuracies about stuff I know, what manner of crap am I being fed by the media about subjects about which I know little!
That is the eternal argument about accuracy in everything for journalists. If you can’t get the small things right, why would be believe it when they give us a big story.
And on that point, haven’t looked it up for veracity, but one report described it as a ‘plane’. New one on The ‘Pie.
I guess he’s also a liar, Mack Sennett couldn’t have done it better~!
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/act-police-release-cctv-of-wild-arson-bungle-in-gungahlin/news-story/a16935046d3089f7de1c6011977e91e7
And a commentary on the parlous state of our economy, dartardly deeds committed by grown blokes – read idiots – riding dinky bikes.
Anmd the story didn’t say so, ut it looks like another chapter in the chop-chop and bootleg fags warfare.
They’re at it again!!!
And if it isn’t enough that we get the usual bullshit we regularly see from the Dudley Do Nothings, now bthe Townsville Chamber of Commerce have a few questions to answer, or they’ll end up in the same basket of irrelevancy as TEL.
Not one single word about just what TEL has achieved, not one single bloody word that could be taken as a KPI.
DSo can the Chamber please let us all have a copy of the citation that led to this demeaning buffoonery. Perhaps a brief explanation of any discussion that led to this unfathomable ‘award’.
Please.
‘The world class innovation of local businesses ….????’
What does that even mean? THAT IS JUST A GRADE, ROLLED GOLD, NICKEL PLATED CRAPOLA.
Honestly, this has got to stop …. the ratepayers of Townsville should be immediately relieved of the burden of the totally unjustified financial support ($750k per annum) for this unaccountable mob.
Maybe councillor might consider more modest ways of achieving what little TEL does … and put the savings towards NOT installing parking meters on the Strand.
Pie,
TEL investment by TCC
21/22 – in kind $75k & cash $650k SLA
22/23 – in kind $16k & cash $650k SLA
23/24 – in kind $16k & cash $650k SLA
24/25 – in kind $16k & cash $650k SLA
+ $2,850,000 (events & bid funds)
TEL are the Raygun of regional advocacy.
TEL is known locally, and around Queensland, as being as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Shut them down and give their supposed role to TCC and the Townsville chamber of commerce. You would save money by having the chamber undertake advocacy work while TCC does the operational work. As for TEL’s $750k price tag, that covers wages basically. It doesn’t cover the operating budget and consultant work/reports etc.
“May I ask if TEL received $450k to organize events? And do they also have the TCC events department in place who hire private contractors for event organization? Is that correct?”
TEL KPi’s are none, below was the 23/24 one…
1. Attraction and establish requiring and production renewables
2. Enhance, promote, support and advocate for growth in existing tourism offerings.
3. Advocate and support business case development for new tourism destinations.
4. Explore the opportunity to re-purpose unused office space in the CBD for high density living.
5. Promote and advocate for council priority projects in the unlock the north document.
Sorry, don’t understand your first line. Is there a typo there I don’t get? ‘None’ and ‘one’ … what??
Apologies Pie,
I have a solid contact within the walls of council and there’s a lot going on.
TEL KPi’s for the enormous extras, now they’ve taken over events, which is ludicrous, has none this year, last year was just words, no actual measurable, or at least none that stack up to a business case. I’d suggest Claudia goes where the money is, people need to find out exactly what they get, not just figures plucked from previous events.
This sits squarely on the shoulders of the director of community, Van. She decides who gets grants, funding etc. places like the chamber getting $145k p/a for 3 years, cowboys $250k p/a for 3 years, the Fire $300k p/a 3 years, dancenorth $150k p/a 3 years, and yet we the community actually get bigger all. I have heard our whistle blower is Mr Ellis, which makes sense, given he’s LNP, and Phil Thompson released the Haughton facts from a position of parliamentary privelige.
This department, and Ban needs scrutiny, a line on a budget page doesn’t tell the truth about what’s going on. I’ve been told if this blows up, the corruption goes back 15 years, which is bigger than Ipswich and Logan and as big as the Fitzgerald enquiry, if you look at the contracts. Is it any wonder the operations team run council, they’re all in on it, tha mayor and councillors have no idea, or at least the new ones.
Who is Van or Ban?
As for TEL, the council votes on the final amount so we can’t place all the blame on a staffer or executive, they make their assessments that can be examined by council – in closed session no doubt because these applicants will claim C in C for sure.
The ratepayers have a right to know what they are giving their money towards, even if it’s just broad brush explanations. But in TEL’s case, there is absolutely NO excuse for them not to be provided with KPIs by the council. KPIs that are made public knowledge.
TEL is a grifting, dysfunctional rort at all levels of governments’ foolish largesse. And those who assist in this blatant dishonesty are just as complicit and irresponsible.
Nester , re your solid contact within the walls of Council . The fire relocated from Murray to the entertainment centre $1.5 mil sponsorship deal with the Ville + $1.5 mil 3 year deal Qld Govt announced August 2023 so i question your contacts $300k a year from Council . Ex board members of Townsville Chamber commented no funding from Council and current members have access to yearly financials . How solid are the other numbers you claim ? .
G’day Pie,
Van Ta Placidi – Director of Community, Lifestyle and Environment.
It was already voted on and accepted, 26th June, with budget. It was presented to councillors in a workshop on the 17th May.
@Mike it was meant to read Australian festival of chamber music. And Townsville fire got a $235k economic. Partnership grant. 3 years
Well they’re none because they’re not KPIs. KPIs are measurable and have a defined goal.
Agree with you there, TELs a joke to the Townsville public.
Not ‘TO the Townsville public’, more ON the Townsville public’.
But that said, the blunt truth is the only thing that is wrong with TEL are the incompetent featherbedded fools running it. A new structure with savvy crew could actually be beneficial.
The inquest into the Wieambilla killings of police by far right religious fundamentalist nutbags has been told by an expert that that they had shared psychotic delusions.
No, really??
They had the same delusions as all other religions and written in their texts.
The thin blue line and challenges to mandates also showed how many of these types are still in the ranks of the police too. Just like Taliban sleepers.
It would be interesting to know on what you base that assumption about coppers. Actually, no, maybe it wouldn’t be.
It’s American.
Not in your context.
In regard to the water statistics, it is easier if you go to the Townsville Dashboards on the TCC website – dam levels, water production and many other things are all there, downloadable in excel. With a few pointers from some water people I know:
Currently Ross Dam is dropping by an average of 300 ML per day (0.13% which equates to Jenny’s 3.9% per month) and we are drawing on average 97 ML per day – that aligns with what I have heard about the evaporation being very high. Total use in the city at the moment is an average of 117 ML per day (including what comes from Crystal Ck).
Whilst Who Cares is right that we use more water here, I am told that, unlike down south, our consumption has high and low years and that 600 L/person/day is the number during a high year and that number includes losses before the water gets to your house (ie it is how much they have to produce, not necessarily what we use).
Looking back at the data, in Nov 2014 when it was very dry, production was an average of 222 ML per day – and of course the population has increased since then.
All that said, from the average punter view of The Magpie, our water needs on a day to day basis appear to be adequately managed.
AFR, thanks for those numbers. Interesting how continuation of minimal water restrictions and other efficiencies has reduced water consumption by so much – I think there has been relatively ‘helpful’ weather also over the last few years. That 2014 consumption figure of 222ML/day was scary when the then Haughton pipeline was only able to deliver 130ML/day.
And still is, BTW, all these years later.
AFR, Putting all that into perspective you have to consider what commercial operators in this city use and residential cop the blame. How many time have you walked into a toilet in a hotel or restaurant to find the water running like a fountain?
Ala, according to the TCC, 70% of “household usage” is watering lawns and gardens. You refer to “commercial operators” including pubs and restaurants. Do you have any idea of the water volume split between ‘commercial’ and ‘household’?
Looking around my neighbourhood I do not think that water use behaviours have changed since the drought, I think that it is the rainfall pattern more so that has reduced water consumption. Alahazbin is right that commercial use has to be accounted for and I believe there is a number they use per person which encompasses commercial use. The real scary part of all of this is that there had previously been talk of a treatment plant at Toonpan to take the Burdekin water direct from the pipe, but since the Townsville Water Security Taskforce solved all of our problems by recommending the “oversized” Burdekin pipeline that we cannot afford, the treatment plant has not been mentioned. That is a worry with Townsville growing and the fact that we are told the Douglas plant struggles to process enough due to the algae. You would think that spending $1.2m on recreation at the dam would not be at the top of the priority list!
AFR, That Toonpan WTP was canned by the Tyrell administration when the Thuringowa sewage network was in such a derelict state that the $millions was transferred to build a new sewage pump station in the northern beaches area.
Bit more complicated than that. Toonpan had federal or state funding (can’t remember which) that required townsville to move to a two part tariff. Townsville didn’t because of community backlash led by Jacob.
https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/entertainment/new-major-events-strategy-aims-to-replicate-townsvilles-success-in-attracting-pink/news-story/660a078f8f193bd1aedc05dd8982bd42
Yes, and how’s that going Trops. (For those who can’t access it by this link can easily google it.)
Answer: how would we know, Brumme-Smith just makes up claims of ‘approaches’ to various acts, but for some reason won’t say who. And the answer to that is because any approach that is knocked backnwill be a measurable failed KPI.
The rolling disaster continues with this new set-up …. recommended of course by – ta da – a consultant.
(And fair to LightOn Smith, he at least asked what acts were being approached, but yet again, when told no deal, he didn’t ask WHY we were being told. Of course, the answer would be a word blizzard of buzz, but that way, the onus is transferred to Ms B-S, and not him for failing to ask.
Keith Urban is coming, November & February, on the back of Pink. TEL is just a marketing agency, much like Smart Precinct, the dregs of marketing companies, nothing more.
Keith Urban has a soft spot for Townsville. The ‘Pie well remembers a poster in the Ogden Street newsroom of an Urban concert on which he had written ‘Townsville rocks’. He actually did seem to like the place.
Pie, Keith Urban was the house band at the Cri many many years ago. “Rusty and the Ayers Rockets.” Too long ago to remember exactly when.
Keith was in fact the ‘Rocket’. They also played at the Regatta and other salubrious Brisbane beer gardens in the 80s. Very much a comedy sing-a-long act as well. I hear Rusty uis still performing.
The brilliant Randy Rainbow has done it again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Eo45EIZPCI
This is just embarrassing
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/queensland-has-been-declared-the-homelessness-capital-of-australia-as-housing-crisis-cripples-the-sunshine-state/news-story/45970504e336532062edd185307c7d4e
A failure of councils and the State Government right across Queensland, too slow to have infrastructure and approvals to keep pace with demands.
The Frog king Henry 4th famously wished for a chicken in every pot … meaning generalproperity could be updated for Queensland in the 2020’s …. A Wellcamp-type settlement in every city – minus the wire fencing surrounds. A large village of demountable one and two bedroom homes is way better than sleeping on the street. Why are we being some class=conscious precious about this? The Olympic success must have looked very different from the pavement. The shame of Australia is that many of the homeless and disadvantaged are such because the governments have made them so with the conditions they have developed against egalitarian fairness.
The housing elephant in the room is the 1 million immigrants, who, through no fault of their own all arriving holas bolas by the gross incompetence of the dept of immigration.
The main area of incompetence is the dysfunctional structure of government departments. Coordinated planning is not in their check list.
Its clear that there is no understanding about cause and effect; and heaven forbid cross department communications in the government sausage factory methodology.
Its a bit like Noddy telling Big Ears to put the roof up first in-case it rains.
Those Welcome to Country rorts (($120+ per patronising pop) are under fire again, with a blunt speaking NQ mayor summing them up as ‘bullshit’.
The result of a (meaningless) newspaper poll had 97% of respondents all for dumping the idea in its present form. Not surprising, since Welcome To Country was never voted on generally, and was always opposed by a significant number of people. Just like the Voice.
The Magpie is opposed strongly against the idea but not for reasons that might be expected. I believe that such ceremonies are insulting to aborigines, patronising in the extreme because they are meaningless, society’s pat on the head for being good little children (“of course it’s your country dear, now go and play with your face paint and burning gum leaves.‘. And it makes indigenous people appear gullible and naive, as woke elites sit back and say ‘Well, we’ve done our bit to make ourselves feel better’.
The ultimate insult is when spectators at a major events are asked to stand for ‘The Welcome to country ceremony AND the national anthem’. Equating the two is the ultimate deeply divisive and should not be tolerated – by ALL Australians.
It would be good to see as this repudiation grows for people to certainly stand … and then turn their backs while they are being supposedly welcomed to their own country.
The only smoking I do is my Winfield Blue’s, Cuban cigars, and the occasional cone. Now I know that the woke people won’t appreciate cigarettes being mentioned but I don’t give a fuck. You can stick your disapproval and your First Nation smoking ceremonies up your ass.
JPS
At a recent attendance at the Civic Theatre there was a so called welcome to country that almost made me sick.
Then there was the acknowledgement of leadership past (?) present (why are your school aged children on the streets in school hours) and emerging (school aged violent home break ins cars stolen) etc, etc. 50,000 years of cultural and technological stagnation suggests no ambition and fuckall interest in the future.
And then there is the stolen car generation, the emerging leadership cohort. It just gets better and better.
Was the police helicopter low and slow over your neighborhood today?.. And where will your car be tomorrow.
And remember, all this from a bloke who had one shot at infamy, and achieved it.
Is the welcome to country legislated in QLD?
I notice the state members do it automatically, at a recent event, I saw the state and federal members each do it, then the mayor? 4 times in 30 minutes.
When does it become unwelcome to all?
Are we perhaps playing it up because we don’t know how to deal with a situation?
I’m pretty sure I saw the YES campaign get defeated, and now the state governments are systematically implementing change in all areas of government. If it’s true and our First Nations spend is greater than our defence spend, we are in trouble.
Our First Nations spend is not greater than our defence spend, maybe don’t get your facts from Facebook.
I do not know what the figers are now and could not be bothered to look, but in 2007, from one of the newspapers at the time it was claimed the Australian taxpayer stumped up, by simple mathematics, $74,000 per aboriginal man, woman and child, each year.
Sure, they did not get much of it. Beneficiaries would be the smarmy slimy whites in the aboriginal industry. But hey, see for yourself. Oh, that’s right, you whities cannot enter aboriginal towns.
Years ago my work took me to a bunch of these shithole places with no economic reason for being. The stories and photographs are one thing. The ever pervasive stink of burning wet garbage, domestic violence and freely wondering pigs is another.
You have never been to these places, and guess what, that is most of Australia, because you are prohibited persons, in your own country.
I cannot convey the gravity of the reality here in these shit hole communities, and you have fuckall chance of learning about it for yourself first hand.
By the way, this is called truth telling.
Taxpayer dollars squandered.
That claim from “a newspaper” 17 years ago is bullshit, you probably made it up.
OED,
No, not made up. I remember it as it was in that article I first came across the term Foster Generation to describe the cohort of aboriginal children in foster care.
In my entire school career in the 1950s – 60s I was taught just one thing about Aboriginal Australia: there is a tribe in central Australia called “Arunta” (sic). There were a few Aboriginal people living around the town but I never met one. I was too young to vote in the 1967 Referendum but following the Freedom Rides I did come to understand that there were some shire councils jn NSW that were openly racist in that they had by-laws on their books to actively exclude Aboriginal children from their public swimming pools, apparently with popular support.
So it’s not surprising that people my age and older know very little positive about Aboriginal Australia and little interest in taking up the subject this late in life, even though some quite radical changes in the legal and constitutional status of Aborigines has occurred in the last 20-30 years. The concept of Native Title was virtually unknown to the general public before it became a thing in the High Court and played out in all kinds of unavoidable ways right before our eyes. In our ill-educated ignorance we couldn’t conceptualise it let alone accept and accommodate it. So, many chose to resent it. Many also resent same sex marriage, dole bludgers, foreigners and any number of religious philosophies, sometimes with trenchant militance.
This resentment is not something we should seek to pass on to our children and grandchildren. Fortunately our society now tries to educate our young people about Aboriginal Australia (and other minorities we have invited to join us). Our schools and media popularise knowledge about tribal names, lands, languages and customs and aims for the positive rather than the negative. If you want to walk out or turn your back on a Welcome to Country just do it. Don’t expect that your example will inspire anyone to join you. The trend is in the other direction.
As if on cue:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/14/in-bathurst-memories-of-dispossession-and-war-simmer-beneath-the-surface?CMP=share_btn_url
Awareness and respect for indigenous Australians and their cultures, wilfully and disgracefully neglected by past generations, is now not only accepted but is also supported – ethically and financially – by the general population.
Your absurd conflation of implied broad-based racism with Welcome to Country ceremonies (a joke created, by his own admission, by comedian Ernie Dingo) is a view that does neither side of this obvious divide any benefit. The ‘Pie gave his reasons for opposing this sniggering sideshow – a sly and handy money spinner aboriginal joke on whitey – reasons which did not include any denigration of indigenous recognition and the desired but yet to be wholly achieved two-way participation in our new integrated society here in Australia. That integration is a two-way street, but both sides are continually crossing the centre line to drive their arguments on the wrong side of the road.
In typical style, Jenny, you are trying to hijack comments to widen the agenda into a broader area to accuse those of us who disagree with WTC ceremonies of overt racism.
You should be ashamed of your shamelessness, your promotion of social division, and your complete lack of pride and loyalty to the traditions and mores of modern integrated Australia.
“Ceremonies of overt racism” oh fuck off Magpie.
We have poncy Ceremonies in all walks of life, when you attend council meetings, parliament, when you go to court, when you become an Australian, when you go to church, when you go to ANZAC day, when you get married. And all of them are bound to cultural practices. We have these Ceremonies because of who we are, and where our legal, religious and legislative processes originated. Welcome to country is no different, its just acknowledging a culture thats differentand originalto this country. And on many of these Ceremonies someone dresses up and receives payment to perform the ceremony.
WTC are undignified jokes by both the performers and the enablers. And none of those other matters you choose to line up next WTC promote division within the community.
Judges wigs are undignified jokes, as are mayorall robes, and there’s some ridiculous parliamentary proceeding. No one in the community chooses for them to wear these ridiculous outfits or perform ridiculous ceremonies. But we are subjected to them. Most people choose to ignore it rather than carry on like idiots.
Interesting point. The ‘Pie’s good friend the retired judge Clive Wall, almost never wore a wig in court, much to the relief of many a barrister. They could only be bareheaded if the judge was.
They’re no more jokes than any of the other things, and there’s nothing divisive about literally welcoming people.
Tell us where you live and we’ll turn up on your doorstep to welcome you home after work. That’ll be $200, please.
Magpie, you reckon WTC is “a joke created, by his own admission, by comedian Ernie Dingo”.
But it’s not a joke:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/23/ernie-dingo-and-richard-walley-on-the-40th-year-of-their-welcome-to-country?CMP=share_btn_url
That depends entirely on your point of view, your grasp of reality, and tolerance for utter twaddle being foisted on the public generally. Like the Voice to Parliament, no real attempt has been made vto persuade the wider community to come on b oard with the idea … it was just presented without debate on us by the likes of the ABC, and cowardly politicians, thge NRL, the AFL, Qantas and all the other jelly legged organisations that choose the path oif least resistance.
And talk about patronising … Christ!!! (that a word of for a bloke fromn another type of Dreamtime.
And in amongst the Dingo dingbattery is this: In performing a welcome to country, Walley says ancestral spirits and spirits of the land are invoked “to watch over our guests and our visitors while they’re in the country”. It is a permission to visit, he says, not unlike a stamp or visa for your passport.
Up yours, Ernie … and you too, Jen Jen.
Jenny – when do you think most of the lawyers, judges and supporters of the Mabo case went to school?
Grumpy, I’ve been trying to think how to respond to your question. The best I can suggest is that, like you and me, most lawyers and judges went on to tertiary education after high school. There they were exposed to a much wider variety of academic and societal experiences to which they were required to respond, often in writing, in structured and rigorous academically demanding ways. Not that this made them superior or elitist but it did make them accountable. That’s why someone like Michael Lee (Lehrmann defamation trial) is fascinating to follow whilst those High Court judges who once were split 4-3 over Mabo but later could find Cardinal Pell’s jury decision “unsafe”, remain inscrutable.
Jenny. In my personal case, I started law relatively late in life – 25 – after a brief foray in the Merchant Navy and a spell in the ADF. I can tell you that the vast majority of law students were spoiled little rich kids, fresh from private school and privilege. I found them to be insufferable and childish: so much so that I was obliged to hang out with engineers. You are sorely mistaken in your suggestion that Law School offered any type of experience or instruction in how the real world works. For the vast majority of the obnoxious prigs, Law was merely an extension of GPS. You obviously have never been to a barristers’ chambers party and watched the infantile goings-in. I can also assure you that most judges (fortunately none in Townsville) are still as out of touch, unworldly and naive as they were when at university college.
Grumpy, in my personal case I never did law. I have a very restricted and uncurated connection to a small number of lawyers, mostly friends and friends of friends. Most are smart, some very smart. Most are worldly, a couple are out of this world. I was amazed and enlightened by the Mabo case – as I was with the Pell case. I find the law (not necessarily the lawyers) fascinating. But it’s not my actual thing.
Obviously.
Grumpy, since the Magpie brought up the subject of the mayor of Croydon Shire and his disinterest in WTC I turned up a Native Title declaration in that area. A judge made this declaration in 2012:
“The preamble to the Act recognised, on behalf of all people of Australia, that the Aboriginal peoples of Australia inhabited this country for many years prior to European settlement, and that the Aboriginal peoples had been progressively dispossessed of their lands. It recorded that, by the overwhelming vote of the people of Australia, the Constitution was amended to enable laws such as the Act to be passed, to facilitate the recognition by our shared legal system of the native title rights and interests in their land. This is an occasion when the Court is to make orders declaring that the groups of Aboriginal persons in the current applications [adjacent to Croydon] have always been the traditional owners of the land. By the Court’s orders, the Australian community collectively recognises that status. It is important to emphasise that the Court’s orders do not grant that status. The Court is declaring that it exists and has always existed at least since European settlement.”
s gTot to win some sort of prize for judicial gobbledegook = in essence, a court orders that we recognise a status that doesn’t exist in law. That’s a great two-way insult to both parties.
But you again just like cackling on, Jenny, what has that snippet got to do with WTC?
Jenny – so glad you enjoyed it. For your further reading pleasure, may I recommend “Uncommon Law” – a digest of remarkable case by AP Herbert.
Yes Jenny, to appease your white guilt complex, we should educate young people about Aboriginal history too and perhaps we need even more welcome to countries. But it won’t just include your pumped up romantisized version where they were a completely innocent bunch of peaceful natives who never warred with each other, where it was common place to rape and murdered their own children so the white fella had to take them away. People like you have this god/white guilt complex and are merely trying to making yourself feel better about something none of us had anything to do with.
I’m waiting for a story that one of the white guilt brigade has bequeathed their home/s to the local land council as their final act of atonement.
Gees John, where did you acquire your comprehensive knowledge of Aboriginal Australia? Possibly from the same source as your claimed knowledge of my personal “guilt”? In other words you haven’t got a clue. I provided a link to a story about Bathurst NSW. Why don’t you read it, if you can, to find out something about what “we” have and have not done? And for a recent home town example, cast your mind back to the death and burial of Eddie Mabo, an esteemed member of our town and community, whose grave was so desecrated by local racist morons that the family had to remove his remains to Torres Strait where they would be respected and safe.
Jennifer,
What I’m getting at is there needs to be truth telling in both sides. And calling out of the Aboriginal Industry and their lies.
The undeniable problem with the aboriginal elite and their fellow travellers is what they DON’T say. Because they know their ultimate goal is totally unacceptable in modern Australia, led by self-interested quadroons and octoroons. But the regularly promoted guilt money will keep flowing, keeping the chieftain class in the manner to which they believe they are entitled. All the while, the REAL indigenous population is getting the pineapple in the form of funds siphoned off before it reaches where it was intended and where it can do good, a policy applied with vigor as often as not by their half and quarter caste academic and political ‘leaders’.
Oops, there goes The Magpie again, truth telling.
What’s their ultimate goal?
In his journals Watkin Tench, an Officer of Marines with the First Fleet records the brutal treatment of aboriginal women by their men folk. Aboriginal Australian was a dangerous place for women and girls pre colonisation and continues to be in many places to this day. Aboriginal cultural practice is now called domestic violence.
Trench wrote extensively about his experiences throughout his career in the age of discovery and European wars. His journals are in a museum in England, not sure which one.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watkin_Tench%23:~:text%3DLieutenant%2520General%2520Watkin%2520Tench%2520(6,settlement%2520in%2520Australia%2520in%25201788.&ved=2ahUKEwiP5fnI8vWHAxXLXWwGHQT_KPUQFnoECB8QBQ&usg=AOvVaw3xQVamTp6KgB1uB183iM31
Indeed, their needs to be truth telling on both sides. bashing up women is never ‘culture’, whenevr a stronger peson victimises a weaker person, it is thuggery wherever it occurs.
And it’s hard to buy the noble savage narrative when we have documented stories about initiation ceremonies into adulthood for both men and women … the word barbaric is/was totally justified.
https://jwssite.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/rite-of-passage/
Just imagine if some youngster’s mob tried this on today, they’d be jailed for a very long time, despite the howls of protests of attacks on culture. And if the freviled white man, bastard though he undoubtedly was, had not arrived, this would be the aborigines lot to this very day.
Yes, a touch of two-way truth telling is in order.
Now Jenny, please explain to The Magpie, as you undoubtedly will, the error of his argument.
Magpie, so you are in favour of truth telling? When would you like it to start?
A good point would be telling the truth about how any one who points out that brutality and murder by the British military and settlers was matched by the infuriating and barbaric ‘social’ practices of the primitive indigenous people is deemed to be a racist – although they too are telling the truth. And there doesn’t ever seem to be any indigenous acknowledgement of the actual benefits (eventually) of western science, medicine, technology and – yes- government. Another point is not to make an irrational pile-on to people who point out that the Dreamtime is just another religion invented to cope with a harsh reality, and to foster power within the more intelligent elite. Seeing it as a cultural no-go area is hardly truth telling. As the Catholic and other western churches are finding out.
So you think Jenny is white?
Interesting debate getting underway about gambling advertising. The Conversation has a helpful contribution today:
https://theconversation.com/does-free-to-air-tv-really-need-gambling-ads-to-survive-236686
Don’t get me started …
Bugger advertising as a focus, get rid of poker machines entirely, they are not gambling, the players – lets call them what they really, victims of addiction – haven’t a chance in even the medium term, and for most, even in a single session. It is legalised robbery by the most undeserving, especially when linked to alcohol. It’s not a harmless pastime, it is for slack-jawed, glazed-eyed idiots.
Those damned poke-yer machines have also destroyed the “ambience” of many good pubs.
They remind me of the goons “open your wallet and repeat after me, help yourself”
All but killed live music in small venues.
I’d love to be able to flick their power switch off for 30 minutes and watch the zombies’ (withdraw) reaction after about 10 minutes.
They’d probably turn to drink, or even chat, you know the original reason for going to the pub!
There were some very murky characters involved in the poker machine business in the old days. ‘Pie, you will no doubt recall Abe?
Used to work for him in the early sixties, as a doorman and dogsbody at the Pink Pussycat strip joint in the Cross. Saffronn used to turn up on occasionally for a show with his wife and adolescent son in tow. Hard man ‘Last Card’ Louie Benedetto was the manager … got his nickname by beating legendary radio quiz host and gambler Jack Davey in a mammoth card game at an illegal casino, winning on the daring call for a last card.
One of the few things that Sir Joe got right as premier was not allowing poker machines into Queensland. Governments are now addicted to the revenue, so they won’t be removed any time soon.
At last some common sense:
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/melbourne-bans-e-scooter-rentals-as-mayor-says-he-has-run-out-of-patience/ar-AA1oGReQ?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=be738053fea44486b7e136df71cd1091&ei=48
The mayor might have run out of patience, but the hospital has not run out of patients.
DK
I heard/read something along the line of the scooter companies pay councils a not insubstantial rental fee to put the scooters on footpaths. Given the perilous state of TCC finances, I can’t see them giving up this money for jam income stream any time soon.
Be even better if they applied that principle to the V8 SuperPests.
Why are we so dumb as not to make this work? Go to any European country and see how well the system is working. I say keep them and start planning for a lot more in the future….but I’m not so sure they are going to work in Townsville, unless the thieving grubs steal all the cars so there is no other choice. Most other big cities can make it work.
Maybe the sprawl of Townsville is unsuitable, and they just work around the touristy areas (wherever that is). But they are not the problem they were forecast to be, by and large, they don’t cause that many road or pedestrian problems, and the prediction that they would be the target of vandals who would dump them by the dozen in waterways and the like just has not happened. Haven’t read the Melbourne decision closely, but one assumes the ban there does not include privately owned scooters.
Pie, Sometimes, when walking along the path to CB Stadium and come across one of those bloody scooters just parked where it stopped and the lazy operator couldn’t be bothered to park it in a sensible place, I am very much tempted to throw the bloody. thing in the creek. But common sense takes over.
Your consideration for the creek is commendable. As is your restraint.
I suppose opinions count for something but even the Townsville Bulletin had data to contest your view. This is just the first para from a story in May this year:
“Since e-scooters hit the streets in Townsville in 2020, the hospital has been collecting data on the frequency of e-scooter accidents, revealing a staggering rise in emergency department presentations over time. In 2020, the hospital recorded 81 e-scooter injuries . . . . “
Now take out the adjectives and what do you get? That when scooters were introduced, there were 81 injuries that year. That does not equate in any way to ‘staggering’ rise, it was a completely new statistic because scooters hadn’t existed before. So what does the rest of gthe article say? In fact, what are you trying to say?
Magpie, I am not a subscriber to the Bulletin so was only able to find a portion of a headline online. Today there is slightly more revelation of that same headline from May 2024:
“In 2020, the [Townsville] hospital recorded 81 e-scooter injuries. Fast-forward to 2021, and that number almost doubled to 142. By 2022, it climbed to 223, and in 2023, it hit a shocking 278.”
Clearly there is a health issue with e-scooters. I don’t know how the ‘law’ should deal with it but the business model of e-scooter hire is not working satisfactorily.
We can play around with numbers as much as we like, but like others, you have been fooled and coerced into a view by the Bulletin’s use of the poorly supervised adjectival library. First ‘staggering’ – which is ridiculous – and now ‘shocking’, which is also demonstrably idiotic. The Bulletin is always condescending enough to tell readers what to think and therefore what conclusions to draw, aren’t they? These figures are not staggering or shocking – FFS, whoever gets ‘shocked’ by things they read – they are to be reasonably expected when a council grabs the money and makes no allowance for proper policing of scooters … not even negotiating with the police before the fact, who, unless a separate Act is passed by parliament, would be in charge of regulating riders behaviour.
The last media release from the TCC The ‘Pie can find on the matter is from March 2022, when the scooter baby boom jumped from 250 to 450 to accommodate the expanded 23 square kilometres where they are allowed to operate – it maybbe further afield now, but two years ago, that covered Rowes Bay, Belgian Gardens, West End, Currajong, Pimlico, Hyde Park, Hermit Park, Mysterton, South Townsville and Railway Estate.
That makes for a ‘staggering not’ and ‘shocking not’ five incidents a week – or one every 1.3ish days. Grabbing the dough on offer was obviously Jenny Hill’s priority, when she openly admitted she was willing to trust self-regulation on a fleet of road approved vehicle that requires no license and apparently no age restrictions, just a valid credit card. In the release of ’22, she said:
Cr Hill said the safe operation of the e-scooters would be vital for the success of the expansion.
“E-scooters are a valuable form of transport, but it’s essential that individuals are taking the right safety precautions when using them,” she said.
“Each e-scooter comes with a helmet which must be worn, and safety rules have to be followed. These include wearing a helmet, following vehicle laws, maintaining a safe distance between riders and pedestrians, and not riding under the influence of alcohol or other substances.
“These rules are in place to ensure the safety of riders as well as the people around them. While there are some speed restrictions on the e-scooters, it is ultimately up to the rider to make sure they are sticking to the rules and staying as safe as possible.”
Cr Hill said the safe operation of the e-scooters would be vital for the success of the expansion.
Our former mayor’s avarice matched only by her lack of responsibility makes it no surprise that the figures aren’t staggeringly tripled or shockingly quadrupled.
The Magpie’s personal concern is not for scooter riders but the genuine trauma risked by vehicle drivers who may have a prang with a rider, the result of which, as we have seen, can be up to and including death.
But their popularity seems to advocate that they are of use to many and should just be better regulated on a regular basis. It would be far more beneficial if we put our energies into banning not scooters but poker machines, even if pokie users only ever trouble emergency services with heart failure and stroke, the consequence of the rare and unexpected jackpot. About 1.3 every six months.
Memo Sergeant Gunny Highway re comment:
First up, while the original Sgt Gunny Highway is/was a deeply religious pacifist acting as a rabid red neck only to attract comment, you’re lame attempt to steal his name is pathetic.
Second, it is an offence to publish anything that recommends, encourages or promotes criminal activity, therefore your low-life comment has been deleted.
Naughty Gunney, what has our demented friend been up to this time?
Ha ha clicked on an old blog link and thought it was the most recent one
Same old issues makes it a bit like groundhog day sometimes
So Pie, you were a bouncer in The Cross way back then? What were your weapons of choice as an enforcer? Mine, in order, were dental pliers, playing cards and finally guns………
The ‘Pie’s, and his colleagues’, weapon of choice and convenience was the long straight flight of marble stairs up to the club, with a fold down counter at the top. One vivid memory is that of a regular ‘freebie’ customer, the legendary ‘Bumper’ Farrell, former Newton league front rower and plain clothes copper specialising in summary justice. On one occasion, a bloke we had let in started a ruckus and we got him down the stairs, but Bumper had been really pissed off, and had followed us down. Bumper called him over, saying he wanted a quite word. I remember to this day the moment after Bumper belted the bloke, I saw as though in slow motion, one a bloodied tooth sailing through the air in an inverted parabola. Some passing blue bags took the bloke up to Darlo station, where he was no doubt treated to tea and bikkies and tucked into a feathery cot before being ushered out politely the next day.
They were like that in the Darlo cop shop.
It could’ve been worse back then. If he was – even before the word existed – gay.
ah Darlo in the 70’s and 80’s what a choice place
Your name suggests you used to visit the Wailing Wall opposite St Vincent’s hospital for a little recreational gay bashing.
ahh the good old days
Bumper Farrel. He was a count’s count that count.
But his mother loved him. Maybe.
Good blog this week Hairpie. Aaron Harpic is most definitely desperate. I heard from somebody this week who said they have heard firsthand from Harpic that his situation looks dire and he knows he is going to get voted out. Labor is on the nose in Townsville and people have had a gutful of their the elected officials inaction and limp response to crime and the cost of living. Pack your bags fatboy, October is close. Bye bye government salary and generous superannuation.
See you never Harpic. You have done nothing but line your own pockets you fat fuck. Back to the Bat cave for good and never to return to suck on the public purse again.
Kenny Kennett is obviously not aware that Paris banned them 12 months ago.
Only privately owned ones allowed in that European City..This has increased the number of bicycles on the Streets and little back lash about that sensible decision to ban hire scooters.
Maps of the new paid parking areas on The Strand, Palmer St, and around the Mater Hospital:
https://www.townsville.qld.gov.au/building-planning-and-projects/council-projects/works-underway/townsville-parking-expansion
Doug K . And to think Councillor O’Callaghan had to undergo training for painting Townsville Council in a negative light . Councillors decision to levy parking fees on the sick / visitors Mater Hospital . Against business and visitors the Strand . Voting to stop a shovel ready international hotel next Cowboys stadium with flimsy ” Hilton missed application deadline ” hasn’t painted Council negatively ? .
Of course the Hilton decision has painted the TCC in a negative light, but perhaps not in the way you think, Mike. The no-go decision was a panicked move to avert if possible, delay at worst, an investigation into the history of how the project evolved, who was involved and what dots need to be connected. And if as many suspect that investigation turned up malfeasance, we would be stuck with a massive legal bill and a third rate hotel on a totally inappropriate site.
You are right. $3m in free lease, infrastructure discounts and rates discounts were far too much. Jenny, Prins and co were far too quick to see the Hilton logo rolled out. Due diligence and a new set of eyes soon proved we were in for some more losses. Changing from the original plan to modular was the exit council needed, and Hilton missed the variation timeline. Parklands it’ll be!
The no go decision was made because Hilton downgraded it to a third rate hotel, wasn’t it?
Possibly, but perhaps not the deciding factor. However, the initial promise of a higher entity being downgraded so dramatically and without a single word of explanation (except some incomprehensible, meaningless corporate buzz talk) was widely seen as an insult to the city.
Mr Pie.
Just reading about the absolute shambles in NSW local government elections by the Liberals not getting the paperwork in correctly and sitting and new candidates not making the ballot.
They say lightning doesn’t strike twice but I hope the LNP have post it notes on every wall for the QLD state government election filing dates!
Hello ‘Pie,
You are probably aware of this but if not here it is. You have mentioned this dud judge before.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-14/high-court-to-decide-if-judges-can-be-sued-for-making-a-mistake/104221320?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
Oh, purleeese!
‘tranquil beachside community’, ‘shattered’, ‘devastating’- that’s just in the first sentence.
Then we have the totally insulting nonsense of ‘sending shockwaves through the close-knit community.‘ And Emergency services ‘raced’ to the scene.
Seriously, Bulletin? The manager of your Adjectival Storeroom must have writer’s cramp signing all this stuff out to people who think that are tranquil beachside community shattered devastating – that’s just in the first sentence.
Then we have the total insulting nonsense of ‘ sending shockwaves through the close-knit community.’ And Emergency services ‘raced’ to the scene.
Seriously, Bulletin? The manager of your Adjectival Storeroom must have writers cramp signing all this stuff out to people who think that are novelists and not journalists.
And FYI, people do NOT ‘sadly die’ in newspapers … they just die!!
Think about it, what’s the alternative … unless it’s Donald Trump. And then ‘sad’ won’t be the descriptor.
Sometimes Magpie, you are on point. This is one of those times
Periodically.
It can’t be that tranquil if people are racing buggies around at 2am.
Had a wee dram been taken, m’lord?
Hey BS, they were awake ‘cos they were probably on the pipe, like alot of them out that way!
I just saw the Kiwi PM being welcomed by our PM at Parliament House on TV.
I may (hope) have missed it, but I did not see a dark skinned man wearing a nappy and painted to look like a skeleton and moving as if he has sciatica and/or diarrhea waving a burning bush in his face.
All the while to the sound of a bloke making fart noises down a hollow log.
Council matches the concert hall project pro tem for the more widely beneficial Reef HQ rebuild.
So that it, no concert hall (thank heavens) and Feds to be asked to transfer any allocation for same to the rebuild of Reef HQ. And stump up the rest of the promised money.
Decision by council after closed session which decided not to release the business case for a concert hall.
Mooney, head of the committee for Luvvies had a whinge and didn’t vote for the ultimate decision, with Brady Boofhead also naysaying.
Seems like the two neighbours Brady and Liam are working together once again. Knowing full well the Reef HQ build would go ahead, they seemingly want their time in the sun as the patriots for the art community.
Personally I am happy for the Reef HQ decision as it will assist in regenerating our city!
Ellis ( the mouth) & Mooney have gone against Reef HQ, dumb, they should never look a gift horse in the mouth, particularly a short term one.
FYI
STATEMENT FROM PHILLIP THOMPSON
16 August 2024
Concert Hall Cut Cheats Community
The people of Townsville have been screwed over today.
In an atrocious political sell-out, Council has traded a nation-leading Concert Hall for a $60-million pedestrian bridge.
I have serious questions about the timing of today’s decision. I was promised the finalisation of the Concert Hall Business Case by the Albanese Government 18 months ago. The fact it has only gone to Council today, a week out from the Prime Minister’s Townsville visit, absolutely stinks.
This is a clear political ploy to cut the Concert Hall funding, use the money for a glossy announcement on Reef HQ next week, and screw North Queensland and its future.
Councillors were elected on a platform of transparency. The fact that the Concert Hall Business Case remains hidden from the people of Townsville after so long is unacceptable and a major letdown.
Both the Concert Hall and Reef HQ were funded and announced under the City Deal. They should both be delivered as a priority and I call on the civic and community leaders in our city to fight tooth and nail to ensure that happens.
The concert business case was voted on last week for release by the federal government, TCC voted unanimously for its release, I believe it’s now stuck with state now. TCC approved it for public release, buts not theirs to release.
Concert Hall $200M…..
Location: Strand (old lawn bowls club), the hive or Reid park.
$100M federal , $50M state and $50M TCC. Too much for a 1000 seat concert hall!
Of course he’s trying to score points off it, but bad move from Thompson. Better to have Reef HQ back.
TCC/Main Roads are now ripping up the new gutter/footpath access on the corner of Ross River Road and Thompson St that flooded every time it rained.
Pie, The Cross was a pretty wild place years ago that’s for sure ! In 1990, the wife and I stayed in a hotel up on the hill behind the main drag and we were waiting for a taxi outside a strip club which was probably the Pink Pussycat at 9am in the morning when a cab pulled up and we were just about to get in when I heard a loud commotion and a bloke came rolling down the stairs with 2 big bouncers following. We jumped out the way and as he crawled to the taxi they were punching the shit out of him. He crawled across footpath and into the back seat of the cab but couldn’t get the door shut properly but the cabby took of with the doo still swinging and his legs hanging out . There were people everywhere but no-one batted an eyelid. My young Missus was not impressed having just come from a little quiet village in the Phillipines and had not seen anything like that before questioned why I would bring her to a place like that on our Honeymoon. Anyway still married after 24 years. I’ll never forget that day.
His lying goes on and on and on.
Of course, this will raise the question of who leaked the email to the paper, but so what? Public interest trumps whatever tut-tutting the question raises.
Chris Burns is proving to be far and away the best journalist the paper has, and this issue at least, editor Garvey is showing some proper leadership.
I’d assume the email leak is much worse, than anything else. Looking at the dates, Thompson isn’t suing for $100,000, that period is over. I’d suggest this one is a breach of privacy & confidentiality., the fact it was between the acting CEO, and the mayor, printing this would be a problem for the bulletin. It’s a nothing front page, reef HQ is the real news. Just playing devils advocate.
Prioritising stories is a crucial part of an editor’s job, usually deciding through experience and community knowledge what is in the greater public interest. Your comment comes down to a matter of opinion, but the track record of inconsequential stuff of private grief and social media rage farming generally leaves your advocacy open to debate.
Yes Paul, open to debate. In fact mass-debate, which it’s possible you do on a regular basis!
Pie, So why didn’t Garvey show the same gusto when Hill was there? Still no hard questions to ‘food trucks Greaney’ and her cohort.
This Thompson germ has to be one of the dumbest Mayors in history.
Thankfully someone had the balls to leak this email. This is definitely in the public interest.
Council only exists as an entity under State legislation, this means ultimate responsibility rests with the State Government. When the legitimacy of a council is challenged the State has to step in.
Unfortunately like many things in Queensland this State Government has chosen to ignore tough decisions and hope the fairies at the bottom of the garden will fix things.
There’s another thing the state Labor government, including past regimes, won’t be able ignore. The government will not be able to step back from a Magpie exclusive story in tomorrow’s Nest which will not be easily swept under the rug. It’s a matter of collusion and involves the TCC among other entities.
Tease!
That’s the idea.
Absolutely solid work. Whoever leaked the email deserves an award. It’s good to see that some people within TCC aren’t going to let this lying grub get away with his constant lies. What a two-faced charlatan, caught out again. This bloke will stop at nothing in his quest to drain every cent out of any opportunity.
PR, Obviously someone who still wants the toxic mullet there.
Bet the editor wouldn’t have published the Thompson compensation story if it was Jenny Hill.
Jenny Hill wouldn’t have – wasn’t – outed for her misdeeds like TwoNames.And she was smart enough to get successive editors in her legendary Christmas Hold.
100% accurate
I’ve been away for a month, I come home, check the blog, and low and behold Mayor Twonames has been caught out bullshitting again!! How dumb is this c#nt, seriously. Did he not think that word would slip out about him trying to make a quick buck out of the ratepayers? After all, someone has to stump up the money if he wins. I’m so glad that we have internal leaks and whistleblowers within Council. Your tenure is going to continue like this Twonames, people are going to out you at every given chance. You should resign now or else you will be closely watched, monitored, and outed at every opportunity. Years of this awaits you. Ha ha
What’s wrong with the Mayors face? He looks like Michael Jackson before Jackson died. A sort of weird plastic looking face. I’m concerned.
Inflatable, old Twonames the lying, arsehole loser is shitting himself! He’s been busted AGAIN! How many times is that………? Fucking low-life scum!
I agree completely. Let’s keep outing this fuctard.
Thompson eunt domus
Reading through these comments it becomes ever so plain to see that our mayor is a shifty and deceptive parasite.
Ummm are referring to a group of keyboard warriors. Doubt they would say half the things to his face. But yea seems like a great place to get reputable information from hahahhahah