[Peetwo]

This week's 'Please Explain' & Johannes Leak; plus Lidia Thorpe's demise!! -   

Via PHON:

Via the Oz:



Via Sky News All Stars:

MTF...P2 

[P7_TOM]

First order of BRB business this evening:-

[Kharon]

BRB -Items 2 – 5 Catch up - notes:-

Hats off for Master McKenzie – first class work on the Avmad thread on Pprune; _ HERE – worth serious support, particularly with FOI requests. – Neat work from the ABC – HERE.  It is worth the time to read P2's grab – HERE – great notes and observations, reflecting just how deep and systematic the failure of system has become, deeply confounded within a muddle of their own making.

1 vote for the Hitch Choc Frog hat trick. The para on AOPA voiced what many are saying:-

Hitch - "I was disappointed to read the AOPA letter to members, because it shows they are sticking to the strategy of rebuilding their membership base by showing how good they are at shouting at the devil. Advocacy and activism are needed from AOPA Australia, but it can't be the only string to their bow or they will recruit only those people who engage with aviation at that level. AOPA's message is that membership has dropped because they didn't pursue renewals during COVID because members were "doing it hard". Presumably those hardships were shared with the members of the AWPA, but that organisation didn't experience a membership plunge the way that AOPA did. Their members hung tough. It's easier to keep a customer than to get one back, so perhaps AOPA should have sent out renewals; the response might have surprised them. I think it's time the AOPA board re-focused on why people join associations and what they value in their membership, then create a forward-looking strategy that contains much more than just advocacy.”

Toot - MTF - toot...

[Peetwo]

Senator JNP YSCB PRESS CLUB: 14/09/23 - SOLID GOLD!

Via the ABC :

IN FULL: Senator Jacinta Price addresses National Press Club | ABC News

56,099 views  Streamed live on Sep 14, 2023  #ABCNews #ABCNewsAustralia

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is fronting the National Press Club as the Voice to Parliament referendum looms.
Subscribe: http://ab.co/1svxLVE

Word is that the other Aunty originally intended not to cover JNP's Press Club address live and in full but were subsequently shamed into it...  

And for the best slam dunk JNP comments and answers of the Q&A session...  :

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Qantas | Pauline's Hanson Please Explain

Sometimes in politics, you are flying high but you should never get too comfortable because something can always bring you crashing back down to the ground.

Anthony Albanese might have thought his cozy relationship with Qantas had only upsides and no downsides but there is no such thing as a free lunch.

What's the catch? You'll have to tune into this week's episode to find out.

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[Peetwo]

JNP for PM!! - 

Via the Spectator:

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman

Ramesh Thakur



A moment comes, which comes but rarely in a nation’s history, when a new star is born in the political firmament. In the years ahead, Australians might well look back on Thursday September 14, 2023, as one such moment. That was the day on which Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, spoke from the heart and the head in a nationally televised address at National Press Club (NPC) in Canberra.

Before getting to the substance of her comments, five introductory remarks that set the tone for her prepared speech and the Q&A interaction with the audience.

First, owing to renovations in the building, it was explained that Price had to speak in a tiny apology for a room that was an embarrassment to the importance of the occasion. As Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth laments, that is a stain on the NPC that not ‘all great Neptune’s ocean’ will wash clean. Price herself referred to that only obliquely at the very start of her talk by expressing appreciation for ‘the intimacy of the room’ which, in itself, is a clue to her sense of gentle irony.

Second, David Crowe, chief political reporter for the[i] Sydney Morning Herald[/i] and the[i] Age[/i] (Melbourne), who acted as MC, introduced her as a Warlpiri-Celtic woman. The relevance of this became clear in what followed. Third, he referred to Colin Lillie as her ‘partner’. Six seconds into her talk, Price corrected Crowe: ‘Colin is my husband, not my partner.’

She had me from that point on. With her two comments, Price grabbed and retained my full attention.

Fourth, in 2021, Price wrote a short policy paper for the Centre for Independent Studies called [i]Worlds Apart: Remote Indigenous disadvantage in the context of wider Australia[/i]. She described the plight of Aboriginal-Australians living in remote communities as a ‘wicked problem’ that is almost impossible to solve, with many ‘townships on the verge of breaking point.’

In a country known for its ‘wealth, education and safety,’ they are ‘outliers’ whose problems ‘are immensely challenging to understand, and their challenges [are] hard to address’. She issued a clarion call for a ‘solution that targets communities based on evidence, rather than assertions about race and culture, and focuses on establishing the safe communities that any Australian would rightfully expect on their doorstep’.

Thus Price has a demonstrated commitment to trying to understand and address the sorry state of affairs in remote Aboriginal communities. She brings the requisite dose of realism instead of starry eyed romanticism to her portfolio.

The full speech (but not Crowe’s introduction of the speaker) is available on YouTube here.

As of September 19, it has been viewed by around 114,000 people. By way of comparison, the previous week’s address by a leading ‘Yes’ campaigner Marcia Langton, who will feature again shortly, had been viewed 18,000 times despite being available for a full week longer. It deserves a global audience, for the issues she discusses with exceptional eloquence, clarity, courage of conviction, and flashes of passion are relevant to public policy debates in every settler country (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA).

Fifth and finally, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the Magna Carta of the international human rights regime. Article 1 declares: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.’ Article 2 follows with: ‘Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, … birth or other status.’ On any plain reading, the proposed Voice would violate this foundational global document.

Price used the platform of the NPC to lay out both a grounded critique of the Voice initiative and a compelling alternative vision. She devoted a lot of time to dismantling the flawed assumptions and false claims of the ‘Yes’ campaign, all of which can be expected to be challenged. She has confronted the entire establishment and orthodoxy of Aboriginal political power and left them distinctly discombobulated.

Price has set down markers against everyone who would divide Australian society and embed separation in the Constitution. But she doesn’t just reject the Voice. Her political agenda is first to defeat the Voice in the referendum and then to merge Aborigines into the wider Australian society.

Over the course of an hour, Price demonstrated astonishing range, depth, and grasp of on-the-ground issues. Her truth-telling – a perfect example of tough love – is not for the faint of heart and the squeamish. It is likely to bend the trajectory of the campaign and confirm her as a force of Australian and Aboriginal politics to be reckoned with. She is a national leader in the making with the potential to go to the very top of public life.

Of course, before Price can make it to the top, she will have to broaden her portfolio responsibilities beyond indigenous affairs. But she has shown she has the necessary qualities for an effective centre-right leader. Mercifully too, she is not a careerist pursuing power for the sake of power, but seems interested in public office to make a difference for the people.

Price quickly identified the inherent contradiction at the very core of the Voice idea which fatally undermines the ‘Closing the Gap’ slogan. Given the difficulties of constitutional amendment, if the Voice is created, it will be forever. Therefore it is built on the assumption of a permanent gap and Aboriginal disadvantage. This will result, she followed up, because the city-based activists who have benefitted from the range of benefits, services, and programs dedicated to helping Aborigines are seeking to make their advantages permanent.

The price will be to turn Aboriginal-Australians into perpetual victims. By contrast, her own preferred pathway to progress is through a mix of institutional accountability of the existing machinery and programs, and individual agency and responsibility.

Instead of creating additional layers of Aboriginals-centric bureaucracy, she urged sharper focus on making the existing structures work to their benefit, conducting a full forensic audit of just where the annual $30-40 billion expenditure on Aboriginal programs is going and how effective it is, demanding accountability of institutions while encouraging individual and tribal agency and responsibility, and looking to the day when a separate Minister and Department can be abolished as public policy and benefits shift progressively from race to needs-based programs.

Price refutes the notion that ‘inner-city activists speak for all Aboriginals’. When she rejects the assumption underlying the Voice – that all Aborigines feel, think, and desire the same things as colonial-era stereotyping – she reminds me of an old [i]Punch[/i] cartoon. A society lady introduces a guest from a West African country to another from India with the words: ‘You are both natives. You must have a lot in common.’ Her vision will appeal to a much broader cross-section of Australians than just the Aborigines.

Price is a threat to the city-based power structures because she rejects the moral foundations on which the existing Aboriginal industry has been created. She is prepared to articulate an alternative moral framework as the pathway to genuine reconciliation and eventual union. This is why veteran Australian journalist Paul Kelly’s takeaway from the NPC address was: ‘Australia’s elites are in the process of being administered a huge shock.’

This includes the corporate elites. In his [i]Sydney Morning Herald[/i] column, David Crowe listed the elite money behind the ‘No’ campaign. True enough, but not the whole truth. Financial support for ‘No’ fades into insignificance in comparison to the serious money backing ‘Yes’. The final month of the campaign will be drenched with a $100 million ‘Vote Yes’ advertising splurge.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese proudly boasted in Parliament:

‘Every major business in Australia is supporting the Yes campaign. Woolworths, Coles, Telstra, BHP, Rio Tinto, the Business Council of Australia, the Catholic Church, the Imams Council, the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League, Rugby Australia and Netball Australia are all supporting the Yes campaign.’

Price noted that politicians could not be found in Canberra to listen to ordinary Aboriginal women who had travelled there to tell their lived truths. They listen instead to ‘the Qantas-sponsored leaders of the activist industry’.

The State of Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission’s ‘truth-telling’ relies on ‘make-believe history,’ in the words of one of the country’s most eminent historians Geoffrey Blainey, to demand a separate child protection and criminal justice system for young people designed and controlled by Aboriginal-Australians. Price referenced the Commission in her NPC speech by decrying the tendency to romanticise pre-European Aboriginal culture. They misrepresent it as some form of paradise, she said, while demonising colonial settlement in its entirety and nurturing a national self-loathing about the foundations of the modern Australian achievement.

Melbourne University’s Professor Marcia Langton is another prominent Aboriginal ‘Yes’ campaigner. On 11 September she explained the resistance to the amendment with reference to ‘base racism’ and ‘sheer stupidity’.

Price responded to Langton at the NPC without naming her. What ‘would be racist, is segmenting our nation into ‘us’ and ‘them’.’ And stupidity would lie in dividing ‘a nation when it has been growing ever more cohesive. To split it along fractures of race rather than try to bring it closer together.’[/size]

Price has copped a lot of vitriol and abuse from the establishment, and not just Aboriginal activists. On 8 April 2021, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC, the public broadcaster) issued a public apology to Price and settled out of court for its coverage of a speech by her in Coffs Harbour on 10 September 2019 ‘which it accepts were false and defamatory.’

Speaking on ABC Radio in November last year, senior Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson said with reference to Price that while the ‘bullets are fashioned’ by conservative think tanks like the Centre for Independent Studies and the Institute of Public Affairs who pull the strings, ‘it’s a black hand pulling the trigger.’ The CIS and IPA ‘strategy’ is ‘to find a black fella to punch down on other black fellas.’

In an article in the [i]Saturday Paper[/i] on 25 August 2018, Langton had similarly described Jacinta Price and her Aboriginal mother Bess of having ‘become the useful coloured help in rescuing the racist image’ of conservative think tanks.

It doesn’t require much imagination to know what would happen to any non-Aboriginal Australian who described Langton or Pearson in equivalent terms.

Australia already is one of the most diverse, inclusive, and least racist societies in the world and there is a lot to like in this big picture. Of course there must be some racists here as anywhere else. But caste, skin colour, and religious prejudices are still far more deeply entrenched in India, for example, than here. And the fact that caste identity is constitutionally entrenched in India has served only to perpetuate caste consciousness and embed it deeply in public policy.

In the Q&A, Crowe asked if Price accepted that the history of colonisation has caused ‘generations of trauma’. Her answer provoked much applause and laughter:

‘Well, I guess that would mean that those of us whose ancestors were dispossessed of their own country and brought here in chains as convicts were also suffering from intergenerational trauma. So I should be doubly suffering from intergenerational trauma.’

The division that will be entrenched permanently by the constitutional amendment is very personal in a ‘blended’ family. The cut-away from her doubly traumatised answer focussed on the centre of the first row of the audience where her Aboriginal mother Bess sat in the centre, amidst her father David who is an Australian of Anglo–Celtic ancestry and her husband Colin who is Scottish-Australian. Price has three sons from her first marriage and is stepmother to Colin’s son from a previous relationship. This means, as they have noted, that, if approved, the Voice would give additional ancestry-based rights, privileges, and access to her mother and three sons but not to her father, husband, and stepson. That sounds like a recipe for Tolstoy’s unhappy families.

Price continued in answer to Crowe that violence inside the family resulted more from child marriage of girls than from the lingering effects of colonisation. Then she added:

We haven’t had a feminist movement for Aboriginal women because we’ve been expected to toe the line in Aboriginal activism for the rights of our race. But our rights as women have been second place.

In another blunt response to a question on the growing number of Australians who identify as indigenous, she said: ‘If we chose to serve Australians on the basis of needs and not race, those opportunists’ who self-identify as Aboriginal ‘would disappear quick smart.’

To a follow-up question on the continuing impact of colonisation, from Josh Butler of the Guardian, Price said she doesn’t believe there are ongoing negative impacts but she does think there is ongoing positive impact. Taken literally, this is of course easily demonstrated as false. (Although ongoing trauma from historical colonisation is more likely to be the product of a contemporary sensibility that puts a premium on victimhood and grievance.) In all cases, colonisation had both damaging and beneficial lasting impacts in the various empires.

The emergence of Price as a powerful Aboriginal-Australian voice and an effective campaigner has both overshadowed and, so far at least, is sinking the ‘Yes’ case. She has woven deeply personal stories of family dysfunction, alcoholism, domestic violence, sexual abuse of children, and murders as the everyday reality of people living in remote communities while the academic activists in the main cities obsess over colonial atrocities and a constitutional Voice.

After her NPC address, I believe Price would leave even Albanese in the dust in any public debate between the two. For Albanese seems to lack both the capacity and the inclination to master his brief on this signature initiative. Having repeatedly promised to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full, the text of which runs to 26 pages, he insists it is only one page long. In an act of prime ministerial delinquency, he made the jaw-dropping confession that he had only read the cover page summary and asked ‘Why would I’ read the rest?

Albanese accepted the activists’ maximalist demands in framing the referendum wording that requires a one Yes or No answer to two distinct questions: on recognition, and on a new body to be called the Voice. He rebuffed the opposition leader’s efforts to negotiate a bipartisan question. He rejected advice from Bill Shorten, a cabinet minister and former party leader, to first legislate a Voice body, enact recognition of Aboriginal Australians in the Constitution’s Preamble, let people become familiar with the workings of the Voice and, if it proves successful and people’s comfort level with it increases, only then consider a constitutional amendment at that stage.

Meanwhile, support for the Voice continues a downward slide in all public opinion polls. The rising support for ‘No’ is emboldening more politicians and prominent Australians to come off the fence and also encouraging more citizens to speak up.



The Redbridge poll also asked voters to rank their reasons for opposing the Voice. In order, the top three reasons were its divisiveness, lack of details, and it won’t help Aboriginal-Australians.

As someone whose self-confessed animating passion in public life is the love of ‘fighting Tories,’ perhaps Albanese misjudged the initial overwhelming but soft support for the Voice as a good issue on which to wedge the opposition coalition. Ironically, therefore, should the referendum fail as looks likely on present polls and their trajectory, Price will emerge with strengthened authority and enhanced credibility while Albanese will be a much diminished Prime Minister.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

Net Zero | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

And from Johannes Leak... :



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The Media's Voice | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

While on the voice, from the NT via FB... 



&..



Finally from Johannes Leak in recent days...





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Pauline Hanson's - 'Please Explain' x 2   

 

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The Blame Game | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

Australia has spoken, and Albanese's Voice has been defeated. Surely the Labor Government will accept this result and move on to important issues like an audit of the Aboriginal industry or dealing with the cost of living crisis?

Not a chance!

Get ready for the blame game! Albanese has missed his chance at history, and now someone has to pay, and it won't be him.

Next Johannes Leak & Credlin, via the Oz...



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[Kharon]

Find a drink; light a smoke and spare ten well spent minutes to listen – start about five minutes in. Spot on, centuries old commentary on modern cancel culture.

[Peetwo]

Airbus Albo | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

Via YouTube:

73,576 views  Premiered Nov 24, 2023

'Pauline Hanson's Please Explain' is back, but Airbus Albo is still missing in action!

Isn't this the guy who promised never to go missing when things got tough and to always turn up to work? Instead, he's spent more time on tour than the Aussie cricket team!

Unlike Anthony Absentese, now that we are back, we will be working hard until the end of Season 2!

And if you are excited about Season 3, the best way you can support the series is by picking up a 2024 Please Explain calendar or a bottle of Christmas Spirit Gin at the One Nation shop!

We have a special sale running until Monday, so you might want to grab a bargain while stocks last!

Support: https://shop.onenation.org.au/

MTF...P2 

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Minecraft | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

Via YouTube:

Help finish the year off strong by checking out our Christmas collection on the One Nation shop: https://shop.onenation.org.au/collect...

The world runs on resources. Australia is the lucky country, we have abundant natural resources, and with them, we help power the world while creating jobs and bringing prosperity to our communities.

But there are those who want to shut down the resource sector for their own ideological reasons. They will do whatever it takes, even if it means strangling the nation in red tape that isn't designed to increase safety or protect the environment, it's designed to shut things down.

This isn't a new tactic. We see repeatedly, no matter what world we are in, as this week's episode will show you.

Plus: The geniuses behind Pauline Hanson’s hit ‘Please Explain’ cartoon

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[P7_TOM]

Your Friday smile – from the ABC

- - - HERE - -

Count the 'Grey beards' and wonder at the tenacity, talent, skill and aviation brotherhood. Bravo and well done 'Boys'..............

[Peetwo]

Alphanese | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

Via YouTube:

Support 'Please Explain' by visiting the One Nation shop: https://shop.onenation.org.au/collections/christmas

With the year drawing to a close, the nation has been thrown into chaos. Albanese's inept government dropped the ball on national security and flooded the streets with criminals!

Is it any surprise, then, that voters delivered the Albanese government some of the worst polling in a decade and branded the PM a 'Beta-Male'?

Can Albanese turn things around? Will he accept any blame? Will he do the right thing? Or will he point the finger at anyone but himself and let the Greens keep walking all over him?

Tune in to this week's episode to find out!

Plus courtesy PML, via Skynews Oz:

Sky News host Paul Murray slams ‘Albo’s three useless amigos’

December 06, 2023 - 10:33PM

On tonight’s episode of Paul Murray Live, Sky News host Paul Murray discusses, Mark Dreyfus, Grim Jim Chalmers, Albanese at the cricket, economic slumps and more.

Sky News host Paul Murray says Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles are now “Albo’s three useless amigos”.

“When I saw the three of them setting up for their press conference today I thought of that great movie from the 80’s the Three Amigos,” Mr Murray said.

“So I might call them, – Albo’s three useless amigos.

“Being the attorney general, the clueless Clare O’Neil, and of course the immigration minister, but of course it ain’t funny what they’re doing right now.”

And with a P2 edit...



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What is a Woman? | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

Outsider's take the piss on Blackout Bowen...

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The Christmas Special | Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

43,248 views Premiered 12 hours ago

Thank you, everyone, for all your support this year. Your generosity has made the 2023 season of 'Please Explain' a huge success and ensured the series will return in 2024!

So from everyone at One Nation, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy Pauline Hanson's 'Please Explain' Season 2 Christmas special.

MTF...P2

[Kharon]

Apropos of SFA.

Don't spend much time (as little as possible) messing about with and worrying over the forum 'stats'. However, any 'trend' or reading interest (or lack thereof) occasionally catches my eye as I scamper through the 'numbers'. Two in particular have become 'interesting' - so I went back a twelve month to take a closer look and followed it through to today's read out. Perhaps there is a message in the numbers for a couple of 'prominent' folks.

Half way through January (near enough) : this month's numbers so far:-

Top score :: Senate Estimates @ 8,500 reads -
Second place :: Air Services @ 6,300 reads -
Third place :: Airports @ 5,100 reads -
Runner up :: ATSB @ 2,600 reads.

A long way behind in the 'Interest Stakes' are the words of:-

Spence (CASA) :: @ 1,960 reads...
Motherless last :: King @ 840 reads..

That trend will (from history) continue for the remainder of this month; interesting; ain't it? In a predictable kind of way. Choc Frog in it for the best 'explanation' in less than thirty words (expletives don't count),,

Toot - toot.....

[Peetwo]

Sic'em'Rex: Sovereign aerial firefighting capability - where is it??

Courtesy Michael West:

No money for aerial fire fighting, lots for overseas shipyards.


by Rex Patrick | Jan 25, 2024 | Government, Latest Posts


Marie Bashir Large Air Tanker. Image courtesy NSW RFS Air Support

Rex Patrick reports.

Another day, another FOI fight. Only after the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was threatened with court action has it released its ‘Higher Risk Weather Seas National Preparedness Summit Report’.
In the Report is a strong and clear recommendation:

“Key takeaway: The establishment of a permanent sovereign fleet with [the] capability to cross-load and for use beyond aerial firefighting would augment Australia’s existing capabilities. Multi-use aircraft would broaden the current fleet’s capability and capacity. There are opportunities to explore the private sector as surge”

It’s Deja Vu for firefighters whose pleas were ignored by the Morrison Government, and now, it appears, by the Albanese Government.

Albo’s Secret Hose: bureaucrats block bushfire info as Australia braces for a deadly summer

Scott Morrison famously said ‘I don’t hold a hose, mate’, and it caused him political harm. Anthony Albanese purports to hold a hose, but it’s a secret hose. Rex Patrick examines the Federal Government’s refusal to share emergency management information with the public.

Past warnings

The fire season of 2019-20 began in September and lasted until March. By the time those terrible fires subsided, some 18.6 million hectares had been burnt, 34 lives had been lost in flames, and another 445 deaths had been caused by smoke. Economic losses were $103 billion.

There had been plenty of warnings. As the bushfire season approached, 23 former fire chiefs and scientists warned then Prime Minister Scott Morrison of the looming danger and urged him to boost the nation’s aerial firefighting capacity. Morrison couldn’t be bothered meeting with them.

As other experts issued stark warnings of above-normal fire potential for south-eastern Australia, the Commonwealth government sat on its hands, afraid to acknowledge the reality of climate change.

Huge areas of New South Wales and Victoria were already engulfed with flames when Morrison went on a holiday to Hawaii.

He sought to defend his dereliction of duty with his infamous line: “I don’t hold a hose, mate, and I don’t sit in a control room.” He should have been sitting in a Cabinet room.

Granted, the Commonwealth did provide assistance, especially Defence Force capabilities, but that came much too late.

Royal Commission recommendations

In October 2020, the Bushfire Royal Commission recommended that the Commonwealth, state and territory governments develop an Australian-based and registered national aerial firefighting capability to be tasked according to the greatest national need.

The commission recommended that sovereign capability include large air tankers and type 1 helicopter capabilities with supporting infrastructure, as well as other surveillance, transport and logistic assets.

The Morrison government offered support in principle for most of the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but notably not for the proposal for a national aerial firefighting fleet. They said that it was a matter for the states and territories.

Current situation

Thanks to some sharp questions recently asked by Senator Jacqui Lambie, we have a pretty good picture of the current state of affairs with aerial firefighting capability.

We know that when the Royal Commissioner reported, the Government had 120 Australian registered aircraft on its books. This year it has 125. Unsurprisingly, it’s a similar pool of aircraft.

We have no Australian-owned very large or large air tankers other than the Marie Bashir 737 Large Air Tanker purchased in 2019 and owned by the New South Wales government (which is deployed to assist interstate if required). For the last two years, the government has leased a number of 737 large air tankers from overseas, through a local subsidiary, for $4 million and $3m respectively

Interestingly, the administrative budget has gone from $648,000 in 2020/21 to $1.33M in 2022/23, a doubling in the budget for the responsibility for a similar level of capability being administered.



Clear and present threat vs underwater pipedream

All it takes is a bit of warm weather, which we have a lot of, and a spark. That spark could be from lightning or human-made. We’ve seen a number of serious fires already this high-risk weather season.

Without a sovereign aerial firefighting capability, Australian lives and property are put at risk. And yet the Federal Government has not acted.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has managed to find $12B in taxpayers’ money to invest in a grandiose AUKUS submarine program to fulfil the wet dreams of our military brass, but he can’t find the much smaller amount needed to invest in a modest sovereign aerial firefighting capability.

Lambie, the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Australia’s Disaster Resilience, is unimpressed.

“Bushfires raged in Queensland and Western Australia in the last few months of 2023, with many losing their homes and businesses, and in two tragic cases, their lives. In Tasmania, a community on the East Coast was cut off for 24 hours! The Royal Commission report was very clear, Australia needs a sovereign aerial fire service that is up to the job.”

She went on to say, “This government seems to be happy spending our taxpayer money on nuclear subs we won’t see for years, instead of finding the money to protect Australian lives and homes. Our sunburnt country is often burning, and scientists will tell you that it’s only going to get worse, we must be prepared for what is to come – anything less is a failure of leadership.”

Join our Team! AUKUS foreign expenditure sinkhole blows out to $12B … already

The Albanese Government has just announced another $3B into the US submarine industrial base, in addition to the $4.7B already committed. It’s money that should have been spent in Australia instead.

Albanese’s hose

Lambie’s got it exactly right.

Scott Morrison notoriously said he didn’t hold a hose. Anthony Albanese can’t seem to find money to buy a new aerial hose. When the next big fire starts spreading, we’ll need that hose.

To paraphrase Mark Knopfler, “Money for nothing, ships for free.”

Report link: https://michaelwest.com.au/wp-content/up...Report.pdf

Meanwhile over at Fort Fumble it's totally acceptable for Su_Spence the former Chair and Bridges to go for a joy flight with a aerial cowboy and recognised repeat offender for breaching the CASRs, while it is still not acceptable for firefighting and EMS crew to be pax on former military aircraft - see  Croco-shite cover-up: Su_Spence surveillance and Board bias?? & CASA (some) AQON BACK?? & 303. CASA - Emergency service agency personnel allowed on ex-military aircraft   WTD??   

Next, Ringmaster Rowan's Clown Show - 

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[Peetwo]

Of Mandarins and minions: Taipans to be buried instead of being sent to Ukraine??

Common theme here (Defence v CASA), where it appears that despite voting in Albo and his dodgy crew, the real rulers of the land are the Bureaucratic Mandarins and their minions, via APDR (excellent catch Sandy -  ):

Australian Army blocks Taipan helicopters for Ukraine to cover up their own failures

By Kym Bergmann -08/02/2024

The truth is finally starting to come out.  It took only 90 seconds and two questions from Senator David Fawcett to Foreign Minister Penny Wong to confirm what many have long suspected – the only thing between desperately needed Taipan helicopters being donated to Ukraine is a veto by the Army, which the government is too weak to overrule.

The following exchange took place on Wednesday 7 February:

Sen Fawcett: The reality is that Ukraine first expressed an interest in using the Taipans for casualty evacuation during a meeting I held with them during a NATO conference in October last year – and I made sure that your government was advised of that interest even before I left Copenhagen and returned to Australia. Minister – why didn’t the Albanese government even bother to pick up the phone to consult the Ukrainians before deciding on a plan to dig a hole and bury the helicopters?

Sen Wong: As I understand it, in relation to these matters the Government has acted on advice from Defence.  The advice I have is that the advice from Defence is that these were not the right platform for Ukraine and the Government and Defence made decisions on that basis.

Sen Fawcett: Minister, I think the Ukrainians are well placed to decide what platforms will keep their soldiers alive (shouts of Hear! Hear!). Now that the Government has a formal request from Ukraine – and it has been established that a number of helicopters remain airworthy in Townsville – will the Albanese government reverse its decision and donate the aircraft, even in their current state, to allow Ukraine to work with its NATO partners that continue to safely operate the same type of helicopter to establish an Aeromedical capability to save the lives of their people?

Sen Wong: In relation to this issue, I will continue to take the advice from Defence about the best way forward for this platform, but also I will make the broader point that the government continues to keep under review the nature and breadth of the assistance to Ukraine.

The arrogance of the Australian Army in deciding what is, and what is not, suitable for Ukraine is a level beyond breathtaking.

The last time the Army was engaged in a conflict of the scale and savagery of the invasion of Ukraine would have been during the Siege of Tobruk in 1941 – and even that was a minor skirmish compared with the ongoing assaults being launched daily by Russian forces.  Taking into account the static nature of much of the current conflict and the use of massed artillery, and the daily casualty rate, one would need to go back to Passchendaele on the Western Front in late 1917 for a closer analogy.

The armed forces of Ukraine have collected more combat experience in the last two years than the ADF has in the previous six decades.  When they say that they can make good use of Taipans it is ridiculous that the Australian Army from the comfort of the offices of Canberra can overrule their request.

Ukraine is well aware that the Taipan/NH90 family have an excellent safety record – and the sensor mix is unmatched in its class.

The motivation is obvious: senior officers in the Army would be highly embarrassed if another nation was able to safely and effectively operate Taipans when they have so mismanaged the program.  While prime contractor Airbus Helicopters is not completely without blame, the poor availability of Taipans is explained largely by:

• Not enough trained and qualified aircrew;
  
• Not enough spare parts ordered;
  
• Unintegrated logistic data bases such as CAMM2;
  
• A deliberate unwillingness to learn from successful operators, such as New Zealand;
  
• Too many geographically diverse centres of support;
  
• A support contract that gave Defence a perverse financial incentive to ground the fleet;
  
• Spurious or unnecessary groundings, caused by a failure to implement updates recommended by the manufacturer
  

This list needs to be combined with an unhealthy, illogical and uncontested obsession on the part of a few senior Army officers to return the good old days of Black Hawk helicopters.

As has been widely reported, the cost to the Australian taxpayer of returning between 12 and 20 helicopters to flying condition will be minimal because there are plenty of volunteers to do the work for free: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-07/l.../103434286

If even that is unacceptable, then the Government should transport helicopters and parts to Europe and let Ukraine’s NATO allies France and Germany – major operators of the Taipan / NH90 family – do the work over there.

At about the same time as Senator Fawcett’s questions, Defence Minister Richard Marles had an extraordinarily softball interview on the ABC’s “Afternoon Briefing” program during which he made a number of inconsistent or misleading claims:

• He said he had no idea how much the Taipan parts would be sold for. How then can he claim that this strategy represents the best value for money for taxpayers;
  
• Claimed that the dismantling had commenced before the request from Ukraine had been received. This is close to a lie – Senator Fawcett advised the government of Ukraine’s interest around October 10; disassembly started around October 19;
  
• He said on several occasions that Army faces a major capability gap with the early retirement of Taipans and was unable to say when, or how many, Black Hawks will be fully operational, despite the expedited delivery of 12 of them. Even if the first 12 are operational by the end of 2024 that does not replace 45 Taipans. There is no logical explanation for why this has been allowed to happen;
  
• Repeated that Australia – not Ukraine – is better placed to decide what is “useful and practical” for the armed forces of Ukraine.
  

Clearly, the Australian Army has convinced the Government to fully back their strategy of destroying Taipans simply to stop anyone else from using them.  In their minds, the fate of Ukraine is far less important than covering up for their own incompetence and mismanagement.

In some remarks at the end of Question Time, Senator Fawcett commented that Army – and the Government – are more interested in saving face than in saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. He concluded:

“That is not the Australia that I know. That is not the Australia that has put its shoulder to the wheel many times to support like-minded nations – particularly here, where we are seeing such a great loss of life and injury to their population as they fight against totalitarian regimes in order to protect the democracy that we share and want to preserve.”

(PS: Some of the comments are well worth a read.. )

Here are the video segments and link for the Hansard, for Senator Fawcett's QWN and 'Take Note Of Answers':

Hansard link: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Bus.../&sid=0000

Comment from Sandy to various recipients (via email):

..Knowing the CASA story and other C’Wealth bodies and their collective self serving ways, arrogance and revolving door machinations, makes Sen. Fawcett's claims quite rational and hence perfectly believable. 


Not to donate these aircraft to Ukraine is reprehensible to say the least... 

MTF...P2