1. An election is in the air
Strange things are starting to happen with a Qld state election due in October.
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath proposed changes to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) Act in state parliament that would carry a six-month jail term for people who published CCC allegations about political candidates during an election period.
Then withdrew the bill a day later.
The Government are saying that they were merely implementing a recommendation of the CCC, but given the time needed to pass it through the committee stages, there is no time to deal with it before the election.
However, they say they will not pursue the bill if re-elected.
Makes me think it was a shot across the bows in view of dirt the expected to be thrown.
Last week in Indooroopilly a light plane was seen with a banner, “A vote for Trad is a vote for Labor”.
Jackie Trad, you may recall, was Deputy Premier, Treasurer and a toe-cutter, until she was cut off at the knees by Premier Palaszczuk after surviving corruption allegations (just).
Our electorate of Cooper is held by Labor royalty in Kate Jones, whose real opposition is the young Katinka Winston-Allom, the latest starlet uncovered by The Greens.
Katinka lives a stones throw away from us, and indeed, when a nipper, was taught by my good wife in pre-school. We’ve already had two flyers in our letterbox.
The report, in brief, is that there is no lack of self-esteem with Katinka and family. No lack of money, either.
I wish her well, and good life with her partner James and their dog, Leo, but not in parliament.
Many conservatives in Brisbane worry about being governed by farmers and provincials. The Greens flyer highlights that seven seats are winnable by them, so they are shooting for the balance of power. This also scares many conservative types in Brisbane. Labor under Beattie was seen as the best conservative government available. Palaszczuk has been there two terms now, so a hung parliament looks likely. I would tip an LNP government, with backing from Katter Australia Party, who will not have forgotten how badly they were treated by Palaszczuk after the last election by downgrading their entitlement to offices and support staff.
However, much can change, and politics in Qld often surprises.
2. 75 years since World War 2 ended
After Hitler died on 31 April 1945, Germany’s surrender was a rolling affair, ending about a week later:
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At 02:41 on the morning of 7 May, at SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, the Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditional surrender document for all German forces to the Allies. General Franz Böhme announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway on 7 May. It included the phrase “All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European Time on May 8, 1945.” The next day, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and other German OKW representatives travelled to Berlin, and shortly before midnight signed another document of unconditional surrender, again surrendering to all the Allied forces, this time in the presence of Marshal Georgi Zhukov and representatives of SHAEF.
Surrender was not in the Japanese playbook. However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atom bombs on August 6 and 9 respectively, so on 15 August Japan surrendered. Last Saturday Australia reflects on Victory in the Pacific 75 years after history’s deadliest conflict ended:
- More than 1 million Australians served in the armed forces during the war.
- About 40,000 of those servicemen and women never returned, either killed in battle or dying in captivity.
In 1940 Australia’s population was about 7 million.
As you know, I’m ancient, and was at school in 1945. I have memory of the teacher pointing to the Coral Sea on the map of the world next to my desk, telling us that the Japanese came that close to Australia yesterday.
Years later I found out that I must have misunderstood her, because the Battle of the Coral Sea took place on 4 to 8 May 1942.
No doubt it was yesterday three years earlier. Scared the bejesus out of me at the time.
3. Coronavirus pinatas and screaming into Iceland won’t solve your anger problems
The New Daily reports on new ways of making money out of anger and frustration generated by COVID-19.
In the US you can buy virus-looking piñatas, which you can smash to take out your frustrations:
For those, like me, who didn’t know, a piñata is:
-
a container often made of papier-mâché, pottery, or cloth; it is decorated, and filled with candy and then broken as part of a celebration.
Then there is Iceland:
- “Record your scream and we’ll release it in Iceland’s beautiful, wide-open spaces. And when you’re ready, come let it out for real. You’ll feel better, we promise.”
Psychologists are saying that if you make a habit of doing this, it is a really bad idea. I’ll leave you to read what they say – the video is rather different from the text.
In my experience, expressing anger as a beneficial form of release tends to be an American idea, but is quite widespread here too. It provides instant gratification, but does a lot of damage to others. Piñatas and screaming into the wilderness are meant to turn the exercise into fun without damaging other people.
The psychologists are saying, OK maybe once or twice, but as a standard response it harms you.
I don’t presume to tell others how they should act, but I do not believe we are simply victims of whatever our emotions throw up. I do believe the we have choice about the kind of emotional life we would prefer to cultivate which can change the emotional reaction you experience from triggers which cause anger. See Emotional style: the concept and Compassion, empathy, feelings, emotion.
As an example, I used to become angry when other cars tailgated me. Now I just drive my ute from point A to point B within the speed limit, which is what I’m there for, and is all I can control.
If someone wants so drive so close to my butt, that is there choice. All I do is drive a bit slower, so the accident crash won’t be so bad when it happens. And make sure I turn off before home, so that they don’t know where I live.
Nevertheless, I find that even if I generally retain calm and equanimity, life can still throw up instances that get under your skin. On these occasions, I reflect and talk about it with those who understand me and will put up with me, to understand and learn how I may have contributed to the situation, and how I should act in the future.
Clinical depression is another matter, which I am not qualified to comment on.
Finally, I have a longer term objective to do an exploratory post on ‘mindfulness’. The term means so many different things to different people that it has become just another word for ‘meditation’. Where that leads is problematic, because I understand meditation itself is a Western concept with no equivalent in the language of the tradition it seeks to draw from.
4. Other stuff
We live in interesting times. I’ve just heard Scott Morrison, our fearless leader, say the nursing home care was fundamentally a health issue, which is a state matter.
Wrong, Scotty, residents of nursing homes are not meant to be sick, and when they are they should have access to hospitals.
There was a really good half hour How can we improve aged care? (ANC RN The Money), which reveals that our homes deliver on average 3 hours of staff/resident contact as against the OECD average of 4 hours. We pay staff 10 to 15% less than other professionals. Then there is a range of services which should be available where we underperform.
Our problem is that we just don’t care about oldies. Not as a society, we don’t. The government has been told. We need to double what we currently spend on the issue aged care, which almost inevitably means the rich will have to pay more as we run low on workers who pay taxes.
Our government is proposing to change the environment act (EPBC, I think) to make it easier to ignore the fate of endangered species. ABC RN’s Rear Vision tells of Threat of extinction—how Australia’s environment law failed. Again the government has been told.
On wilful destruction, we stand alone in the OECD it seems.
Be worried when fossil fuel lobbyists support current environmental laws.
As a destroyer Dan Tehan is hard to beat. See Dan Tehan’s uni plan isn’t just cruel – it undermines Australia’s post-COVID recovery.
Greg Jericho tells us The Morrison government is trying to lock in a less equitable economy for years to come.
There is more but some of the older journos have been onto this lot from the start. Dennis Atkins can speak even more freely now that he has retired from the Courier Mail. See Scott Morrison shrinks from criticism but bathes in undeserved admiration.
Earlier Atkins asked Scott Morrison has ‘changed’. But has he really?
Michael Pascoe says No, the National Cabinet has not worked and is not working.
Frank Bongiorno is an academic rather than a journo, but he warned back in May Are we in Accord?:
-
So, we are to have another Accord? No, more like a festival of bad history, if some members of the commentariat have anything to do with it.
On Late Night Live Phillip Adams had a 40-minute chat with Kevin Rudd on the new low point in China-US relations.
Rudd is scared witless about what is going on in the South China Sea. He said the frequency of US sail-through events had increased out of sight. However, there are no rules about how this is done, no understanding with the Chinese about what happens if one boat runs into another. In the next three months, the sinking of an American ship would create a situation which could flare unpredicably.
However, should Biden win, the policy on China would not change to any degree. The main difference would be that American ‘containment’ of China would be more systematic and less erratic.
On the US election, Rudd had Trump down for a win, until the Ukraine plot to dig dirt on Biden was revealed. It was a watershed moment which would shift Republican votes into the anyone-except-Trump, even Biden camp, he said. So now it was too close to call.
The bottom line with Trump is that by openly knackering the post office, Trump had crossed a line. He said Republicans could overlook a lot, Gerrymandering and all, but now those with a brain would have to consider the fact that democracy had been broken.
There’s more, of course, but climate has not gone away. I’ve been watching ABC TV’s Fight for Planet A. It was fun to see Craig Reucassel literally chasing Scotty from Marketing along the beach. Scotty jumped over a wall and ran away.
It was not fun to see Charlie Veron show Reucassel what bleached coral reefs look like.
Dangerous climate change is here, now.
I was going to mention also the ASX company reporting season, now under way. There have been winners and losers, JB HiFi surging 20% in profits and Adairs dividend (manchester and homewares) went up by 37%. I understand that rentals in shopping centres ‘going forward’ are going to be about 75% of pre-COVID with probably plenty shuttered windows.
Generally, I understand, profits are down by about 20%.
Banks are awful. CBA’s dividend is 42% of pre-Covid, Westpac is skipping the a half year. Who knows after that.
I have a broker forecast for NAB which sees dividends at 30% of pre-COVID next year, and only back to 37% in three years.
We have to remember that broker forecasts are based on treasury and government forecasts, where I think there is some brightsiding.
My broker tells me that everyone in the office thinks the sharemarket is too high.
Queensland and Northern Territory Air Services (acronym?) has reported a large loss: about 2 and a half billions, give or take.
Ambi, something about there having been 7,000 interstate flights in recent times, down from 54,000.
“The Age” says 1.9 billion loss, with a picture of the Leprechaun.
What do we find at the end of a rainbow?
A leprechaun or a pot of gold??
Brian: You are sounding a bit snarky: “Our electorate of Cooper is held by Labor royalty in Kate Jones, whose real opposition is the young Katinka Winston-Allom, the latest starlet uncovered by The Greens.” I don’t know Katinka but is “Starlet” the latest sneer leveled at female Greens candidates?
NSW has 6 Greens MP’s one of which is the MP for Ballina. Tweed has a Green lord mayor, Byron Bay has a Green Lord mayor and council and Ballina council has been described to me as “Greenish.” I have just become the Ballina Greens Campaign
co-ordinator for next years local government election. I find living in this greenish environment quite pleasant.
Sometimes a ‘starlet’ turns out to be good value: Natasha Stott-de-Hyphen was.
Some *stars* are duds
Cheryl Kernot
Mal Meninga
The lady from “7.30” who defeated John Howard
Bob Carr
and there was some merchant banker hotshot lawyer from Tinsel Town who was voted in then out by his Party TWICE…..
..and lets not forget Campbell Newman (that would be too convenient for him…parachuted in …shot out with a bag of cash? is the way it looked to me)
And was the Campbell also the heir of a political dynasty?
Like Beazley pere and Beazley fils.
Or the Katters.
Or the Hunts (though Hunt pere was a Minister in the Vic State Parlt.)
There’s a bit of it about: the Courts in WA, the Downers in Adelaide. … and the Quincelanders had Sir Joh and Lady Flo.
(Might have been better for Federal Labor if the Evatt clan had stayed in the Law and Courts….. rather than straying into Federal politics.)
John
The “ starlet “ V “ royalty “ thing did raise my eyebrow but I think it was more bias and team loyalty than snark.
Your reply likewise.
You never know, the LNP may encourage green over ALP to get Deb Freckle-nobody to win the Queensland authoritarian award holder for the next few years.
Either way, most of us should live our lives as if government isn’t there and do shit ourselves.
Jumpy: Keep in mind that the seat under “starlet attack” was the one held by Campbell Newman so it doesn’t really belong to Labor. At least the Green candidate can be relied on to vote against gas and coal.
How could you not vote for someone who says: “The future of Queensland should be sustainable, fair, and progressive. We can have a world-class, universal education and public health system, accessible and robust public services like childcare and public transport, cheap, sustainable renewable energy sources, and representatives that are guided by social justice and sustainability – not corporations’ vested interests.
As your Cooper representative, I’ll work for the interests of our community and put political decision-making back where it should be: in the hands of the people.
In 2017, the west side elected our first ever Greens representative, Michael Berkman, to the Queensland Parliament. With a Greens MP, we amplified the voices of the community to ban property developer donations. We saved the iconic Mount Cooth-tha from private development, and we showed how genuinely democratic, sustainable and fair politics works.
Imagine what we could do with Greens representatives working together in State Parliament, and next door to each other in Maiwar and Cooper.
Help us find out.
Get in touch
Katinka Winston-Allom, candidate for Cooper”
Is that a Party political speech?
Mr J, please be respectful of the Freckle’s name. You’ve already been warned about this.
John, Ros Kelly has won Cooper twice in a row, so it ‘belongs’ to Labor more than Maiwar belongs to The Greens. But of course we can take nothing for granted.
In terms of “snarky”, yes, I knew that it sounded that way, and that was intentional. It was about as much as I could say on a blog on the basis of the report I received.
On Greens’ plan all the u-beaut policies mean nothing unless we tax mining to extinction and rob the banks. On the latter, the rationale says that the banks did not earn a single legitimate dollar in the past five years, then suggests a state levy which if copied by other states would leave shareholders with exactly nothing.
And all that was pre-COVID.
Michael Birkman has talent, but from where I sit he also has a talent for sounding as though he agrees with people when he doesn’t, and routinely takes credit for the efforts of others.
The Labor candidate is Palani Thevar, who is straight as a dye, doesn’t have a political bone in his body. Personally I hope he wins, but I don’t expect he will.
Qld Labor has disappointed me on a number of important issues, which I may canvass if we lose.
The Northern Rivers area to me feels and looks like a green paradise, and I wish it and you well, but north of the Tweed is a different place.
Campbell Neuman, Lowly Mayor to Property investor? Where did he get all of that cash?
https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/ex-queensland-premier-campbell-newman-buys-tassie-car-yards-20190621-p5202w
Ms Alberici has reached a settlement with her former employer, the ABC.
She claimed mistreatment by ABC management and said PM Turnbull had pressured the ABC over her reports.
In Nine newpapers, the former PM responds:
Mr Turnbull wrote: “Pointing out factual errors in a journalist’s work is not bullying – and even more so when the errors were later acknowledged. It is a pity publication of your lawyer’s letter revived this issue as it distracts from your many achievements.
“The claim that I called Morris about Emma is denied both by me and the ABC. As to her 14 Feb 2018 article on tax, it was full of errors, confused basic accounting concepts and was widely and publicly criticised including by me in the House.
“The 14 Feb article’s errors were later acknowledged by the ABC. Its publication showed a failure in, or bypassing of, the editorial process at the ABC. With so much fact free propaganda posing as ‘news’, the need for the ABC to be accurate & objective is greater than ever.”
Interesting.
This is a Government funded TV service, apparently.
Ambi, is this “climate denial” Malcolm Turnbull? or the revised history Malcolm Turnbull? You can’t take anyone who has been within spitting distance of Tony Abbott, who hasn’t actually spat at Toxic Tony, seriously especially when they are claiming some one else is inaccurate. That is especially true when discussing anything vaguely considered to involve accounting. Remember how Liberal Australia is the epitome of Climate Action best practice and affirmative action?
Meanwhile, dodgy business in Federal electorate offices in Victoria…..
eerily reminscent of the Vic Labor ‘industrial scale branch stacking’ that saw the departure of three Vic Labor Ministers recently.
From Nine newspapers today:
Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar and his office directed and endorsed the employment of political staff funded by the taxpayer in the office of senior Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, according to freshly leaked private messages between the two offices.
The messages reveal Mr Sukkar personally sought the removal and replacement of Mr Andrews’ electorate officer, who was resisting the employment of the new factional staff in Mr Andrews’ taxpayer funded office. Mr Sukkar also ordered a meeting with Mr Andrews where the scheme to place operatives into his office was arranged.
Mr Sukkar’s office also set tasks and employment goals known as key performance indicators for Mr Andrews’ electorate officers including arranging a gala fundraising dinner called “A Night for the Right” at the RACV Club with News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt as the guest speaker.
The Parliamentary Business Resources Act and the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act require MPs to hire, fire and manage their own staff and ensure they do not do factional work while employed as electorate officers. Electorate officers are meant to conduct work relating to an MP’s constituents such as answering letters and organising local events.
Geez, when the CMFEU quits the left of ALP with such scathing condemnation then ya gotta think how bad things are going.
Probably no massive donations as usual.
I believe fallen puppet master Trad was a particular target of derision.
According to QLD CMFEU,
Ouch !!
Double ouch !!
Jeez, that CFMEU is occupying a lot of Jumpy’s mental real estate.
I have an opthalmologist appointment in the (late) morning. Not sure I will be able to see a screen after that, but hopefully all will be well.
Will comment then on CFMEU, but they have given money to Katter before, and there is an argument that in the provinces, as well as in the city, you do better if the CFMEU is not out there campaigning for you.
Yep
And for quite a while in Victoria the ETU (Electrical Trades U) has supported the Greens financially, criticised the ALP etc.
Have a look at the history of Aussie Tradw Unions Jumpy….
Some broke away from Labor, a few union leaders supported the DLP and NCC. Others had leadership positions held by actual communists (CPA, later CPA Marxist Leninist, later SPA); then to add to the variety Laurie Short was for a while a Trotsktist. (Look it up.)
Many unions supported the Hawke Wages/Prices Accord, but quite a few didn’t.
The Labor Party is broad, Mr J.
The “labour movement” is by definition even broader, because the ALP forms a proper subset [look it up, see Venn Diagrams ] of the “labour movement”.
Double trouble.
Jumpy, that bloke Short was a
Trotskyite
a follower of the ideas of Leon Trotsky, who with Lenin and many others led the St Petersburg coup now called “the Russian Revolution”.
After Lenin’s death, Trotsky fell out with Stalin. With a few other old Bolshevik leaders he opposed some of Stalin’s policies internally; then chose exile, wrote and spoke against Stalin; assassinated in Mexico on Stalin’s orders.
(Echoes in Mr Putin’s methods???)
Some commos in various countries who opposed what they judged to be the “Stalinism” of official Communist Parties, called themselves Trotskyites and formed international networks.
(Look it up)
Brian
You are not seeing double.
For a reason I don’t understand, I snuck a comment in twice.
Time was, when the blog interface would pop up a warning: “it appears you’ve already said that”. Not this time.
Ambi, I’ve deleted the second comment, and you are right, that warning did exist.
It seems with software updates you gain a bit, often what you don’t want or need, and sometimes you lose a bit.
No, I won’t talk about the difficulty I have in getting anything done to the blog workings.
MrA, what’s with all the Trot, Stalin, communist stuff ?
What, just because I mentioned the CMFEU ?
Hmm…..
What is this CMFEU of which you are speaking?
Zoot: “What is this CMFEU of which you are speaking?”
In my world they were called the “Koala Bears.” They were considered to be the most protected of a number of protected species. (The sort of koala bears who were always pissing down on people – not the cuddly sort who had control of their bladders.) I was lucky to not need to have much to do with the feds.
John, I may be mistaken but I think you are referring to the CFMEU. Apologies if I’ve misunderstood your comment.
zoot, I think it’s correctly now CFMMEU, but often referred to as CFMEU, not least by themselves. I’ve drafted a long comment, but I think I’d better make it a post.
On CFMEU kerfuffle see new post Qld Labor Left little more than a protection racket for dud members.
Mr J
A point I was trying to make is that the “union movement” or “labour movement” in Australia is
* very wide ranging in its variety of political stances
* partly but not wholly affiliated to the ALP.
From this I draw the conclusion that any misbehaviour, or dud policies that one union may have (in your view, or more widely ) doesn’t necessarily reflect on the ALP, or indeed reflect the policies of the ALP.
Two different beasts.
Especially now that the Parliamentary Labor Party has its own policies and isn’t bound so tightly to Federal Conference resolutions as once it may have been.
A few examples.
When Norm Gallagher (Maoist commo) and his allies ruled the Vic branch of the BLF, that union was at odds with the NSW branch of the BLF (Jack Mundey et al) and with the ALP. Norm was gaoled for corruption. The BLF was deregistered at the motion of the Victorian Labor Govt. .
For a long time in Victoria – 1970s, 1980s a group of “left wing” unions disaffiliated from the ALP, if I recall correctly.
The leader of the Vic branch of the CFMMEU who has had a few encounters with the law in recent years, Mr Setka, has been asked to resign from the union by senior ALP figures and the ACTU.
Ambi, when I went to work for the University of Adelaide in the mid-60s they had an old heritage Workers Education Association building on site, which attested to your statement that the labour movement was wide in the early days, perhaps not so wide now.
Weekend Gossip Entertainment Feature.
Quite likely that non-Victorians might not be familiar with “Liberal Power Broker Michael Kroger”; he has held senior positions in the Victorian Born-to-Govern Party (Keepers of the Jewel in The Crown, etc.)
Well, Nine newspapers have an article about the Right Wing of the Party….. Anyone remember Mr Costello? No, not the comic actor who teamed up with Mr Abbott-the-comic-actor……
Treasurer.
Right-hand chap to Mr Howard.
Student-politician-who-never-Grew-Up.
Yes, him.
Held the knife but never wielded it.
Knew his colleagues would look elsewhere.
Him.
Here’s the goss:
radio interviews given by Michael Kroger (May 2012)
“I’m at my wits’ end with him … this is the Kroger of the Kroger-Costello faction, that should tell you something,” he said. “No, I don’t want to have lunch with Peter anymore. I don’t want to do it anymore. I have been apologising for him and defending him for 35 years.”
The Days Of Our Lives-style split – which led news bulletins across the country – had reached the point of no return a few days earlier when Kroger’s ex-wife, Helen Kroger, had been pushed down the party’s Senate ticket in favour of Costello’s former staffer, Mitch Fifield, and Scott Ryan.
Kroger was furious that Costello hadn’t intervened to stop it and lashed out, saying Costello was “bitter”, like “a bear with a sore head” and wanted to come back to Parliament. He claimed that a few months earlier Costello had approached him at The Australian Club, asking him to encourage a young MP, Josh Frydenberg, to step aside in Kooyong to create a vacancy.
Costello later rejected Kroger’s allegations as “lurid” and wrong.
The bit I particularly like is where they allege that Michael was annoyed that his ex-wife had been badly treated…… it gets very personal in these political dynasties, does it not?
😉
*AFL Bulletin
Attention all Quincelanders!!
Youse are going to be blessed. A great blessing shall descend upon you. Lucky, eh?
It is only a very few weeks hence.
For the first time in the history of the VFL*
and AFL** the Grand Final, which is a quaint sporting event generally located at the Melbourne Cricket Ground***
will be conducted at what can only be described as The ‘Gabba
Praise be!
Youse are so, so fortunate to have it; though youse may be mystified by the arcane rituals: the singing of the Anthem, the roaring of the crowd (if crowd there be), the drinking of the VB, the chanting, the fireworks, the half-time ‘entertainment’, and finally the raising of the Chalice to the heavens and the awarding of medallions to the gladiators.
I reckon you’re starting to get an idea of how lucky youse are…
🙂
Cheerio
Norm Smith/Ablett/Cordner/Magpies/Swannies/Shinboners/Brownlow/Woewodin/Dyer/Blues/Saints/Hudson/
* Victorian Football League
* VFL rebadged as Australian Football League
*** venue for cricket Tests, Olympic and Commonwealth Games, rock concerts, and Aussie Rules matches and Grand Final
Ummmmm
youse are only getting it because we have a touch of the plague down here in The Best Little State.
Ambi, good luck?
Here in Quinceland we think we earned it. There would not have been a season if Qld had not accommodated so many teams and worked out strict protocols.
We do understand that it is a law of nature that grand finals for the Australian Football League must be in Melbourne. However, as you say, the plague has changed that.
In discussion about this, seems Perth has the best stadium other than the MCG. However, it’s a long way away, and players would have to quarantine for two weeks before playing.
As to the crowd, once the play starts people watching on TV won’t be watching the crowd.
We only hope the Brisbane Lions will be one of the teams, playing a Melbourne team. There was a time I recall when the Lions made Mick Malthouse cry. For some perverse reason, we enjoyed that.
AFL has never been quite the same here since those golden days.
AMBI: Good to the Australian Football League finally sending a clear signal that it is not the VFL. Grand finals should be anywhere but Victoria until this message gets thru to High Dray Riders trying to live in a past where only Victorian teams were allowed to play in the finals.
Ambi: Good to see that the AFL grand final will finally be held in a part of AUSTRALIA other than Melbourne. Gets the message thru that the AFL is not just a front for the old VFL.
Should continue to have the AFL somewhere other than Vic until you high dray riders catch up with modern day reality.
John and Brian
I have no doubt that Quinceland has bent over backwards to welcome and cater for the footballers from across the nation. (I didn’t mean “lucky” in the sense of undeserved good fortune.)
As to the Brisbane Bears, well, I have a few friends with deep loyalties to the old Fitzroy football club (the Lions); one lives in Brisbane. When the Brisbane Lions played in a Grand Final a few years ago, it brought strong emotions to see all the old Fitzroy paraphernalia worn proudly to the game by the old supporters.
Ambi, be assured, there are many Mexican refugees among us here. If it turns out to be a Collingwood vs Geelong final there will be more than enough fans to fill the Gabba, which with spacing will probably only hold 30,000.
Our main ABC radio sports broadcaster is a clever fellow called Quentin Hull who is equally at home calling AFL, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, tennis, Super Series Lawn Bowls and Nine Ball, and it doesn’t stop there, as he has shown when on Olympics duty. He came to us from Wagga Wagga, so has local knowledge and an external perspective.
He reckons it will all be fine and dandy.
Night time has been specified to avoid the Cox Plate, I think, on 24 Oct.
Unfortunately good weather is not guaranteed. In my experience the thunderstorm season usually appears about 18-20 October. So all you may see that night could be hail stones.
But now that we have offended the weather gods, anything is possible.
Just a footnote on Senator McKenzie and her Rorting Festival, which readers will recall was awfully Sporting.
This from Nine Newspapers:
Former sports minister Bridget McKenzie had a key meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the “sports rorts” scheme after her senior adviser created talking points showing how a more expensive program could fund more projects in marginal seats.
After the meeting on November 28, 2018 the government increased the funding pool for the program, which the audit office found was “biased” toward seats at play in last year’s election, from $30 million to $100 million.
An Australian National Audit Office official told a Senate committee on Wednesday the senior adviser, whose name has not been made public, prepared the document in advance of Senator McKenzie’s meeting with the Prime Minister.
“All the discussion in the document is all around how many applications in a marginal seat can be funded with a $30 million program, how many in a targeted seat can be funded in a $30 million program, how many applications overall can be funded with a $30 million program,” audit office official Brian Boyd said.
It then ran through the same process with a $100 million program to make the case for massively increasing the grant scheme’s budget, Mr Boyd said under questioning from Greens Senator Janet Rice.
Mr Boyd said the office did not know whether the talking points, which were printed out in the days before the meeting, were ultimately given to Senator McKenzie or used at the meeting.
This under the headline
McKenzie adviser made case for more ‘sports rorts’ money to aid marginal seats
Deary me!!
Lucky Victorians, Brian!
We too hear Quentin Hull on the wireless.
I wonder if he works for some kind of national radio network…. surely that would be an efficient way of covering games which might have an audience in other cities and towns??
Aorta Do Somethin’ About It.
Just a tip from South of South of the borders:
most Victorians barrack for ABC = Anyone But Collingwood.
Ambi, the rorting is shameless.
On ABC radio sport, I have analogue and digital radio, and they typically cover both AFL and NRL. On digital there is a separate ‘Grandstand’ frequency, which co-ordinates ABC coverage across the country and across sports.
Then on NewsRadio you get sport updates across the board I think about every 15 minutes.
The main thing I notice is that NRL broadcasts will always keep you up to date with AFL, RU, soccer and netball scores. I don’t listen to AFL coverage, but I don’t think they would distract the AFL audience with irrelevant info like NRL and RU scores.
Ambi: “Just a tip from South of South of the borders:
most Victorians barrack for ABC = Anyone But Collingwood.”
Nasty people say you have to have the first part of a brain replacement to be a Collingwood supporter. You know, the part where the old brain is removed.
Of course, as a West Coast supporter, I hold none of these ancient Victorian prejudices.
John
They are indeed ancient prejudices.
The inner suburbs – the earliest developed, generally in terrace cottages or slum shacks, had the earlier footy teams: Collingwood, Richmond, Carlton, Fitzroy.
In the early 1950s the commo scribbler Frank Hardy wrote a novel “ Power Without Glory ” about a scoundrel John West who ran an illegal tote in the suburb of Carringbush. Hardy was prosecuted for criminal libel but acquitted.
Some say Carringbush was Collingwood, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
Btian, we hear Grandstand regularly on ABC local radio (Melbourne and occasionally relayed to regional radio ). On AFL broadcasts they will mention progress scores in other AFL matches, and sometimes a horse race result; or news from the national soccer league; I think Rugby League rarely.
Fran Kelly’s sports commentator covers a wider range of sports, female and male.
Powerline has an outstanding Week in Pictures this week.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/the-week-in-pictures-bad-hair-day-edition.php
Enjoy.
Well, Rio Tinto has undergone a decapitation.
And it isn’t over yet. Rio knows that Australia’s biggest industry fund Australian Super is looking for board changes and will continue to agitate until there is a larger weighting of Australian directors around the table.
Rio’s concession to making itself more Australian-centric is to elevate one of its three Australian-domiciled directors, Simon McKeon, to the role of ‘senior independent director’. It’s a start but it won’t be enough for shareholders looking for a more extensive overhaul.
In June, Rio’s board figured it could snuff out the embers of dissent with its announcement of an internal review conducted by one of its own directors, Michael L’Estrange.
The move was designed to reassure the small number of shareholders that had raised concerns with the Rio board that it was looking at accountability and solutions to ensure that such a debacle would never happen again.
The board had studied various other executive and board lynchings, in particular that of Westpac. But where Westpac’s board had overseen the incineration of billions in capital, Rio hadn’t. Rio thought it was safe.
It turned out to be an epic miscalculation. Just how epic became apparent two and a half weeks ago when the findings of the internal investigation were released.
Described variously as a “whitewash”, “riddled with problems” and “unbelievable”, the review of cultural heritage management did nothing to allay shareholder concerns.
* * * * * * *
Thinking back to the 1960s…
Wave Hill walk off
Frank Hardy
Abschol
Lord Vestey
agitation for land rights
Nugget Coombs
Charlie Perkins
Whitlam Govt
Fraser Govt
land rights
Bob Hawke
land rights
Mabo decision
Paul Keating
“From little things, big things grow….”
– Paul Kelly
International mining companies like Rio and BHP usually understand how important reputation is when it comes to things environmental and cultural damage. Rio’s CEO and other senior execs sacking shows that its directors and shareholders understand this.
By contrast: “Adani granted injunction to stop activist Ben Pennings using ‘confidential material'” suggests that Adani may have a different approach. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-11/adani-granted-court-injunction-ben-pennings-galilee-basin/12654486
oops.
I believe that slab of quotation (5.40pm) came from Nine Newspapers.
Re John Davidson’s claim that we “Keep in mind that the seat under ‘starlet attack’ was held by Campbell Newman so it doesn’t really belong to Labor”.
The seat of Ashgrove was held by Labor from 1989 to 2013, first by Jim Fouras then by Kate Jones from 2006. Campbell held it from 2013 to 2015 when he was defeated by Kate without the need to resource to preferences.
After redistribution the seat of Ashgrove is no more. At the last election Jones successfully contested the new seat of Cooper made up of Ashgrove on the Paddington side of Enoggera Creek, The Gap, Red Hill, and parts of Bardon, Milton, and Kelvin Grove. These new areas contained a number of Labor voting boths.
Kate walked to the same primary school from the late 70s to the as Katinka living with her single mother in a rental property from the late 80s to the early 90s. Since then the area has gentrified considerably, some of the houses no longer recognisable.
Walsunda, thanks for making that point. Effectively Labor has held the seat for the last 31 years, apart from the Campbell Newman interruption for three years. Kate Jones herself has held it for 11 of the last 14.
In the 2016 election the Cooper result was Labor 40.8, LNP 35.6 and Greens 20.6, breaking in TPP terms to 60.6/39.4.
So while it appears preferences did need to be counted, it looks like ‘Labor seat’.