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Summer Survival in Sydney & Beyond

January 6, 2012 by POH

Wow, so many stories of survival and non-survival to chew on during this festive season, along with left-over ham – and lessons to be learnt.

Firstly, if your boat suddenly sinks 8 kms off the Heads, don’t forget to throw the esky into the water as your lifesaving flotation device. Of course, make sure there’s a few coldies inside it. And if you have time, switch on the EPIRB – its emergency signal will get a rescue helicopter overhead in 45 mins, just time enough to enjoy the floating beers.

On the other hand, if your campervan is bogged or breaks down in an isolated, desert-like, national park in Victoria in the 40C height of summer period, think carefully. The normal rule is to stay with your vehicle, but in this case the lucky survivor walked 25kms with only 4 litres of water, until her mobile phone worked, using the vehicle GPS as a guide. A risky approach, but she got away with it. Alternatively she could’ve tried lighting a fire, even using a car tyre to make lots of black smoke, which could be seen a long way off in that flat country. Keep that in your memory bank for future reference.

Back to the ocean, and the latest shark attack on the central coast of NSW: do not go surfing at dusk, you wombat (mixed metaphor?) – that’s shark feeding time(i.e. they may feed on you)!

If you’re a bikie gang member, it’s a better bet to stay indoors and not linger outside your house in Sans Souci (ironically, French for No Worries), if you don’t want to get shot very dead.

In the same vein, so to speak, do not run out of petrol at night in Harris Park, where a gang of 15 men of ‘Pacific Islander appearance’ may decide to rob you of your wallet and phone, then stab you repeatedly, once they’ve worked out they can’t steal the car.

Be careful if you’re a reformed alcoholic working as a mentor in AA groups up Mullumbimby way. Don’t ride your bike home unless you’re sure one of them won’t deliberately run you down and kill you because he has ‘issues’.

Definitely don’t take a chance dining in a German Club in Canberra, especially if it has a Chinese bistro serving mushroom dishes – unless you’re absolutely sure of the mushrooms’ provenance. Death cap mushrooms are so-named because of their highly toxic poison, and they look like normal ‘straw’ mushrooms. In this case, the death toll is two, including the chef.

With this litany of thought-provoking ‘faits divers’ and non-stop cricket coverage during the summer festive season, nobody could be bored. Apparently the world’s problems are also on holidays. Finally, don’t try and cross the Harbour Bridge next weekend, because it’ll  be closed for renovation. Safer to stay home on the couch – summer is dangerous, and even snakes go to the beach!

Posted in Editorial, Society | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Germany in Europe: Win/Win or No Win?

November 30, 2011 by POH

So much learned commentary on Germany’s role in Europe’s financial woes, that the simple mind is definitely boggling. And it all sounds so convincing. The most predictable conspiracy theorists argue that Germany has finally achieved its WWII objectives by stealth and peaceful means – that is, the economic domination of Europe, aka the Fourth Reich.

Obviously German punters/taxpayers don’t reckon that’s a good deal, as they complain about having to foot the bill for their profligate Mediterranean cousins. But then we are informed that German banks hold large chunks of Greek and Italian (and other) government debt, so they are only helping themselves get out of some potentially large holes if sovereign debt default happens.

Other experts argue that the dastardly French imposed the Eurozone on the reunifying Germans to make sure their dreaded D-mark did not rule the European roost, and leave Le Coq Non-Sportif in the shed squawking instead of crowing. And furthermore, that latterly monetary union has backfired because the relatively weak Euro has allowed German exports to flourish.  Are you following so far?

Daniel Hannan even argues that ‘Germany no longer needs Europe’, and that the Germans should get over this whole post-WWII guilt trip, and stop propping up the bureaucratic mess that the EU is becoming.  And that nobody will hold it against them anymore, anyway.

If you were hoping to get some new wisdom and insight into all these apparently contradictory commentariat outputs, then keep searching. Let’s just hope that this heady mix of Angst and Schadenfreude is not the Vorspiel to Gotterdammerung on a grand scale. 

Posted in Diplomacy, Economy, Politics, World | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Angrier over Afghanistan

November 3, 2011 by POH

I am very angry about our ridiculous war in Afghanistan. What is wrong with us (Australians)? We get outraged when our cattle are not slaughtered properly in Indonesia, and yet we meekly accept another three Australian soldiers killed this week in Afghanistan in that useless military adventure. Total death toll: 32.

What’s worse is that this latest episode demonstrates again why the stated reason for being in Afghanistan is a sham. As previously reported our war aims have segued seamlessly from rooting out Al-Qaeda, to bringing democracy to a blighted people, and now mentoring the Afghan army to look after their own security. In this incident an Afghan soldier turned his gun on our troops on parade and shot dead three of them, in the back. The whole Afghan barracks in that base have now been disarmed, while someone works out who can be trusted further. Most previous Australian fatalities have occurred from improvised explosive devices. This conflict is a bloody national disgrace.

Gillard intones the usual platitudes about grief and mourning, and Defence Minister Smith makes a lugubrious statement about reviewing how our troops engage with the Afghan army. Politicians from both major parties continue to parrot ‘staying the course’ and ‘completing the mission’. They make me feel sick. Such dishonesty is an insult to the families of our dead soldiers. We don’t even know who our allies are there, and have no damn idea of how they will perform when we’ve finished mentoring them.

Politicians and media have conflated woolly notions of Anzac tradition into an omerta of uncritical support for a misguided military engagement, which has now lasted ten bloody years. So nobody dares (except The Greens) to raise a dissenting voice, for fear of being labelled unAustralian or disloyal to our troops. This is childish nonsense – our involvement in this war needed vigorous and ongoing debate from the start. And now that the emperor’s clothes are so clearly in tatters, it has to stop before another Australian life is needlessly sacrificed in a futile war. Bring the troops home now!

Footnote:  KC has been a constant critic of this war - previous reports are available in the archives. Part II of this tirade will follow.

Posted in Editorial, World | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Pokies & Porkies

October 14, 2011 by POH

The unedifying spectacle of clubs and pubs going the biff over gaming (aka poker) machines reforms proposed by those brave parliamentarians Andrew Wilkie and Nick Xenophon has been downright ugly. Playing the man and not the ball has been the modus operandi against these two, and scare campaigns run by clubs in marginal Labor-held seats against elected representatives.

Australia’s addiction to so-called ‘pokies’ is strongest in NSW, with half of the country’s 200,000 machines, followed by Queensland and Victoria. Poker machine revenues are about 15% of NSW government’s $1.6b gambling tax take. To say that we are a gambling nation is a serious understatement, with $19b lost in all forms of gambling in 2008-09 in Australia – $1500 per adult. Estimated spend on pokies is $12b.

The uniquely Australian evolution has been to weave gambling, particularly poker machines, into the very fabric of society in those states where they are ubiquitous. Pubs, RSL and sporting clubs of every kind are wedded to their one-armed bandits as prime sources of revenue. Used to support sporting teams and local groups, this dependency is spread seamlessly into the non-gambling population too. With government massively on the pokies tax teat, the push for modest reforms to alleviate ‘problem’ gambling is heroic indeed. And an audience for misleading statements by the clubs and hotels industry is susceptible to easy manipulation.

Truth as the first casualty of war is no exception here. Clubs maintain that proposed mandatory poker machine pre-commitments limits would severely hit their industry and support for local communities, and at the same time, be useless and ineffective. Huh? Even footie commentors were swung into action in the patriotic war against reform. Porkies is a commonly-used euphemism, but in this case the lying and spin are too gross to malign the pork pie again. 

The shortened ‘pokies’ also sounds so much friendlier than poker or gaming machines, with that ring of something banal, harmless and everyday. As we know, language is important, and with this classic Australianism the gambling is understated, and the machine almost humanised. What a shamefully parasitic blight on us all: pokies and porkies, a winning bet? That should be unAustralian!

Posted in Editorial, Society | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Getting Fracked

October 8, 2011 by POH

Sometimes you get a really disturbing feeling that our governments have stupidly declared war on the environment and the people who are an integral part of it, which in this case means not only farmers but all the rest of us who need food and fresh water. A new mining ‘gold rush’ is on for coal seam gas in NSW, where it constitutes 4% of gas supplies (compared to 88% in QLD).

The Crown holds mining rights under everywhere, and Her Maj has allocated mining and exploration licences under some of our prime farming land, including the very productive Liverpool Plains. Against farmers’ wishes drilling rigs arrive and get to business. The extraction process consequences are unproven, with possible pollution of ground water & acquifers, as it uses toxic chemicals to fracture coal beds to release the gas, in a process thus known as fracking. The resulting mix of chemicals and saline water has then to be handled somehow. The drastic effects of this process were shown in the US film ‘Gasland’, where landscapes are dotted with drilling rigs.

As George Wilkenfeld, a Sydney energy & water policy consultant explained recently, drilling has to be continuous to maintain field production; and he outlined the unacceptable risks involved with an energy source which we don’t really need anyway. CSG extraction is very different from ‘natural gas’, which has a track record of proper management.

The threat of drilling even extended to inner Sydney St Peters, where residents recently demonstrated en masse against planned prospection under their houses and parklands. Even more scandalous is the NSW government granting a licence to Apex Energy to drill under Sydney’s water catchment area. Truly unbelievable! Worse than Dart Energy’s licence near Wollemi National Park.

Meantime, the NSW government’s submission to the Legislative Council’s ‘NSW Coal Seam Gas Enquiry’ extols the essential role for CSG in meeting NSW’s energy needs, with a “balanced co-existence of mining and agriculture….(which) necessitates appropriate management and assessment requirements on CSG and mining activities”. Weasel words to say that they are going ahead without knowing the consequences of fracking, and without the Enquiry’s findings. And to boot, the government is relying on ‘confidential’ data supplied by the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association consultants to prove that CSG carbon emissions are so much lower…. puh-lease!  Whatever happened to the cautionary principle of risk management?

The final observation on this disgusting state of affairs is to state the bleeding obvious – we live on the world’s driest continent, with a dismal track record of abusing our water resources. If we can’t protect our greatest natural treasures, those mysterious acquifers, and our river systems, then we really do deserve to be well and truly fracked! Meantime, we continue to suck it all up, including the greed, political cynicism & expediency. And a related subject for another day: ignoring the real possibility that we can satisfy Australia’s total energy needs from renewables, including the oft-cited baseload power requirements.

Posted in Economy, Editorial, Environment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Shark Season

October 5, 2011 by POH

Well, actually it’s shark season all year round because the ocean is where sharks live. But as most of us humans don’t venture into the water much in winter, we can consider the mass onslaught, so to speak, of the summer months as shark season. As regular KC readers know, despite its inland location Kookynie has a tradition of body surfing, practised these days by a very small coterie of avid afficionados. Add in the ocean swimming practitioners, and that makes a handful of alert citizens vigilant to the shark menace, so time for an update on that perspective.

According to University of Florida shark researchers, in 2010 there were 79 attacks on humans worldwide, of which 6 were fatal. This was the highest recorded in 10 years, and represents a 25% increase on 2009, but you’ve got to concede it’s a statistically small base. That’s kinda the good news: your chances of being attacked by a shark, particularly, for example, at netted metropolitan Sydney beaches are extremely tiny.

The not-so-good news is that the south-western coast of Oztralia has witnessed three fatal shark attacks in the last year or more, so roughly half the worldwide fatalities have occurred on either side of the Great Australian Bight. Yeah, some pranksters might say that’s a spelling mistake! The latest was on a bodyboarder in September at Bunker Bay, in the vicinity of WA’s legendary Margaret River.

KC’s environmental travel team visited these southern and western coastlines back in 2009, and definitely experienced that ‘sharky’ feeling on many occasions – this photo of a tiger shark cruising in shallow water was taken in Shark Bay (oh yeah) in the exact spot we had just swum in!

So, as the local ocean-going cognoscenti gather in the Kookynie pub, over a pint or three of KB (Kookynie Bitter, of course), sober (ha!) assessments are being made about the coming season’s risks. On those lonely Bight beaches, scanning ‘out the back’ before entering the water is serious.

Posted in Editorial | 4 Comments »

Women Shooters of the World Unite!

October 1, 2011 by POH

Progressive forces in shooting & hunting are gathering strength, as women take a more assertive role in this male-dominated field. Linking the right to bear arms with traditional feminist concerns like women’s shelters, healthcare, skills training, crisis counselling & childcare makes so much sense. The vanguard of this enlightened approach is the International Coalition for Women in Shooting & Hunting (no kidding!), headed by (sole trader?) Dr Samara Phedran. It’s unclear who or what the ‘international coalition’ is, but it helps to think big.

ICWSH research, no doubt relying on the good doctor’s scientific training, has concluded (based on statistically insignificant sample sizes) that Australia’s draconian gun laws have not made any difference to the incidence of mass shootings here compared to NZ without such laws. Having established this unlikely nexus between useless gun control and worthy women’s issues, she argues that money currently spent on the former would be better diverted to the latter. No doubt further research will also prove that women’s hormones are a match for men’s in testosterone-dominated shooting & hunting culture. This is all cutting-edge stuff, and so beguiling!

In recent times Kookyniers have been drawn to a nascent political party struggling for recognition - the Indoor Shooters Party. It already has a solid female membership because of the domestic nature of indoor shooting, but lacks analytical resources to inform its policy platform development. Negotiations may be under way to affiliate ICWSH with the IndyShooters and help with more evidence-based policy-making.

The aim is to galvanise Orstralian womenfolk into action and eventually upgrade those shotguns to something more automatic. Feral animal control indoors is tricky. Rural Australia and possum-infested suburbs will benefit from this partnership, by raised awareness and promotion of the benefits of indoor recreational shooting.

Posted in Politics, Society | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Parsing Pollution

September 29, 2011 by POH

We’ve probably all had that uncanny experience, while roaming and pillaging through this over-stuffed media landscape, of reading an article, essay, opinion piece which expresses almost exactly what we have to say on that subject. A satisfying frisson of solidarity sparks those lonely synpases.   

Such a moment happened to me recently with a column by Jessica Irvine (in SMH), which described simply and clearly how the proposed carbon, or more accurately pollution, tax will work and why it should:

‘Weasel words polluting clarity of scheme’ – by Jessica Irvine (SMH)

More power to her pen & keyboard – one of a handful of local ’economics’ writers worthy of following.

Posted in Economy, Editorial, Environment | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Italian Ignominy: Berlusconi Braggadocio

September 26, 2011 by POH

Italian men may have invented the fashion of wearing coats on their shoulders without putting their arms in the sleeves, but Silvio has taken bravura into new dimensions. Embattled French ex-President Jacques Chirac must be green with envy as he tries to avoid court over corruption charges, while Il Cavailere sails on through multiple court defences over the years. Currently they include bribing his own lawyer to make false testimony (expired 10 yr time limit may stop Berlusconi going down, but the lawyer is guilty so bribery proved); massive tax evasion by his media company Mediaset; and a case involving under-aged prostitutes and abuse of power over police. See previous KC coverage in June 2009 of Silvio’s antics…..plus ca change!

Long-suffering Libyans had no choice about their embarrassing dictator, but Italians have continued to vote Slimey Silvio back in, even while he made a mockery of the Italian parliament (passing laws to protect him from prosecution) and used his media empire to mold public opinion and attack opponents. Italian TV is very trashy and a reflection of Berlusconi’s vulgar taste in Bunga Bunga raunch. Sociologists can decide if tolerance of his outrageous predatory sexual behaviour is a source of national pride, but from outside the country it’s hard to believe he still gets away with openly using ‘call girls’, with the perks of office to faciltate. Our Queen was clearly not impressed by his rambunctious behaviour at a recent G20 gathering.

Phone-tapping transcripts of his conversations are corkers, but one wonders whether he was playing to his audience. Apparently fed up with criticism, Berlusconi was recorded saying that he was over Italy: “I couldn’t give a fuck. In a few months I’m going to go away and mind my own fucking business. I’m going to leave this shitty country that makes me feel liking puking”. Maybe he’s heading for some Libyan desert oasis to join his old pal Muammar.

Big Jacques was known as a ‘ladies’ man’, but again Silvio’s in a league of his own (both aged 74). In the latest phone taps he laments only ‘doing’ 8 women in one night, although he had a queue of eleven waiting. Possibly a ruse to impress the macho Italian electorate, if Berlusconi knew of the recordings - Machiavelli (compulsory mention) would approve.

Final irony on the back of the latest revelation is Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Italian sovereign debt to A/A-1. Did they find Silvio’s virility claims incredible, or suddenly wake up to the other massive ‘overhang’, of Italian debt, or both. Italian public debt is equal to all the so-called PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) put together: another Silvio legacy. Maybe he really is taking revenge on thankless countrymen. Vergognati Italia! Shame!

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Banana Bending

September 23, 2011 by POH

As elsewhere Down Under, denizens of Kookynie are inveterate banana munchers, or were, until Cyclone Yasi wiped out crops and sent prices stratospheric at $15+ per kg - making fresh meat cheaper. Our national favourite snack became an unaffordable habit. However hardcore banana-addicts have resorted to high-strength substitutes for their fix: packaged banana chips. But they are a mixed blessing, like methadone for heroin users. 

At $3.68 for 400g packs at Coles that works out to $9.20 per kg, but of course they are skinless. Now this is where it gets tricky, as banana chips are made of 68% banana, plus coconut oil, sugar, honey and natural flavour (which contains maize-based maltodextrin), according to the label. So lots of added value, sweetness (health effects to be ignored) and long-lasting!

The real kicker is that chips are ‘packed in Australia from imported ingredients’. Yeah, they are actually produced overseas (Philippines, Pacific islands, Africa or the Caribbean?).  Add shipping and packaging to costs of production and local high-cost benders are hard to justify. Apparently last month’s cold weather in QLD and rains in NSW hindered banana cropping, but post-Yasi plantings will be ready for harvesting soon.

Sadly Kookynie’s attempt to cash in failed, as a new banana test plot behind the pub only produced more dust (maybe seeds needed watering?). KSIRO wants to try harvesting desert peas for sale….mmm!

Ever alert for sudden price falls of fresh bananas, we keep a vigilant eye on them as we cruise past in the supermarket. And contrary to claims for the Banana Index, the economy hasn’t gone into recession on the back of higher banana prices. Meantime Working Families soldier on with other fruits and b-chips - that’s the (Anzac?) spirit!

Posted in Economy | Tagged , | 3 Comments »

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