Bernardi has a free 256-paged tome on his website called The Conservative Revolution.

Have a read a bit and looks good.

So no money will be spent for the “yes” or “no” campaigns:

Basically an admission of defeat. An Albo tick-a-box exercise for the next election.

Bernardi has a free 256-paged tome on his website called The Conservative Revolution.

Or you could go outside and shout at pigeons or clouds. And enjoy some fresh air and sun.

My late uncle first “went droving” out of Alice Springs in 1947.

There was nothing but an infrequent exchange of letters until 1968, when he turned up “Down South” – manager of a certain cattle station, married to the station governess, with family in tow.

So no money will be spent for the “yes” or “no” campaigns:

They can count on the likes of the ABC, the public service pinning up posters, businesses wanting to win government contracts proving that they have the right kind of thinking, virtue signalling from businesses not desperate for government contracts, small businesses like cafes wanting to avoid scenes with customers who demand everyone they meet agree with them, and HR departments filled with ‘soft-science’ graduates with the substance of an algal film but desperate to pretend their disciplines are, in their way, as rigorous and ineluctable as mechanical engineers and accountants.

Government is a colossus, and what it does not control directly it controls with a nod that everyone understands is a command beyond any hope of appeal. It just so happens that only progressives will use it so because they think that is what government is for.

There were two aspects to the “censorship” discussed in the Twitter Files.

First, there was the deletion of posts nominated by the Biden and Trump camps

Dickless lies. Trump never asked for any censorship. Rather the 2 aspects were:

Demorats lying about Trump which is positive censorship; and secondly the demorats lied about:

1 Hillary and obuma’s bugging of Trump’s Whitehouse and framing of Vice Admiral Flynn
2 The Russia Dossier
3 Russia connections with the demorats
4 Joe’s treason in using his positions, senator, VP and POTUS to sell advantage to Russians, the chunks, Ukraine and the ME
5 Joe and Hunter’s sexual perversions
6 Joe’s dementia
7 Demorat collusion with big tech
8 Hunter’s laptop
9 All lefties having no dicks

A few days mustering and some yard work during the school holidays was enough pastoral bliss for the year.

Um… er… ah…. erm…. um…. When does the ‘camping’ part take place?

Yep. Most guys get driven into town each night for a parma, beer and hot shower each night. Beginning to think JC might be onto something.

What’s the interest rate on the mortgage for the rack of lamb, Callie.

Waltzing Mathilda today. Jolly jumbuck time. Just stuff it in your tuckerbag.

thefrollickingmole says:
December 5, 2022 at 5:47 pm

Droving is basically camping with cows

Kevin Costners poor received follow up to Dancing with wolves?

Still better than Cow creek

Or silence of the cows.

Ha, Driller claims he was droving cattle at three years of age. Americans have Kevin Costner. We have Salvator Costner – the one time three year old cowboy.

JCsays: December 5, 2022 at 5:10 pm

What a stupid comment.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity says:
December 5, 2022 at 5:58 pm

JCsays: December 5, 2022 at 5:10 pm

What a stupid comment.

Agreed , but it’s more than that.

You’ve never moved cattle in your life. I was doing it from before I can remember, certainly by 3yo.

But it more than stupid. It borders on psychopathic dishonesty. It’s also insulting our intelligence, but being a stupid loser, you really wouldn’t be able to know better.

Driller, you’re an abomination of our species.

We didn’t have many 3yo in the yards. They couldn’t reach the gates. They would have if they could get around that issue.

General Public Unaware of Push to Normalize Pedophilia in Culture and Academia: Counselor

JC has moved plenty of cattle over the years. Mostly from one side of his plate to the other.

Maxine Waters’ Disgusting Suck up to Sam Bankman-Fried Receives an Even More Disgusting Response

Progia

How those activities you mention an example of a 3 year old kid driving cattle for 15/2o miles a day on a horse?

Dan’s going to be such a drag on Eblow’s government he may have to be rolled internally.

I don’t think anyone in the VIC ALP caucus would strongly object.

Opinion
Urgent changes needed to halt new ‘stolen generation’
Sue-Anne Hunter
Deputy chair of the Yoorrook Justice Commission
December 5, 2022 — 11.39am

Through 20 years working within the Aboriginal child and family welfare field, I have seen first-hand the way children removed from their families – and their connection to culture – become adrift from all that is needed for them to grow up strong.

The result is a new lost generation of Aboriginal children; lost to kin, lost to culture, and lost to Community. Literally, before our eyes, we are seeing the perpetuation of intergenerational trauma to our newest generation, often from birth.

The child protection and youth justice systems are operating as an inextricably linked pipeline: from child protection to youth justice to the adult justice system. The trauma is passed on and the cycle continues.

Today the Yoorrook Justice Commission begins its next round of public hearings. The commission is investigating Victoria’s criminal “justice” and child “protection” systems, the unjust laws and practices that existed and continue to exist within these systems, and the reasons why governments are yet to make the much-needed systemic changes.

We have all heard individual stories of the failure to protect Aboriginal children and young people within these systems. These stories are not just about individuals; combined they make up the collective narrative of the systemic injustices faced by First Peoples in Victoria from colonisation onwards.

For example, despite our knowledge of the devastating impact of child removal, Aboriginal children in Victoria are 20 times more likely to be removed from their families than non-Indigenous children – a rate greater than the stolen generations.

Similarly, despite the 339 recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 31 years ago, First Peoples in Victoria are incarcerated at 14 times the rate of non-Indigenous people.

Yoorrook’s hearings this month will focus on why. Why are rates of First Peoples in both systems increasing, not decreasing? Why haven’t governments prevented these tragic outcomes despite the multitude of reports and inquiries into both systems over the last decade?

To begin to answer these questions, this week Yoorrook will hear first-hand from Aboriginal leaders working in this area.

In February, we will hear the voices of Community whose lives have been impacted by the child protection and criminal justice systems – including members of the stolen generations.

In March we will hear from representatives of government and institutions, allowing questions of accountability and systemic change to be asked and answered.

Some of the issues we expect the hearings to bring to light include the continuing impact of early colonisation on the failures of these systems; the fact that our very low age of criminal responsibility means that children as young as 10 can be locked up in youth jails; the reasons behind harrowing rates of First Peoples child removal including newborns; the impact of the criminalisation of children in care; how bail and remand laws are affecting First Peoples; over-policing and under-policing; deaths in custody; and calls for independent police oversight.

There is a lot of injustice to address and a lot of truth to be told.

Yoorrook is the chance for First Peoples to tell our truth – our story of resilience and survival, of inequality and loss, of sacrifice and the injustices we continue to endure.

The truths told by First Peoples will help form the evidence base needed for Yoorrook to make recommendations for transformational change in the child protection and criminal justice systems – for First Peoples and for the state of Victoria.

Yoorrook is the chance for government to account for the failures of the past and to level the playing field for all Victorians for the future.

Participating in these hearings will be challenging for many of our people – individuals, families, communities and organisations.

The hearings will likely be confronting to the wider Victorian public, including the bureaucracies intimately involved in child protection and criminal justice. But discomfort must be faced for First Peoples and non-Indigenous Victorians alike.

Victoria, as a state, needs to understand the true story of the colonisation of these lands, and the devastating – and lasting – impact of colonisation on First Peoples. Just as there is trauma in injustice, there is healing in truth.

The Yoorrook Justice Commission will deliver a critical issues report in June 2023 that will detail the evidence from these hearings on child protection and criminal justice and the submissions we are receiving. The report will recommend systemic change to address injustice.

Victorians should be proud that our state is leading the nation in the Truth and Treaty processes.

There will be challenging times ahead, but we have to go through this together if we are to secure change for First Peoples and build a better future for all Victorians based on truth and justice.

The rest of Australia will be watching with keen interest.

Constitutional recognition, a Voice to Parliament, and a treaty will solve all the problems, surely?

JCsays: December 5, 2022 at 6:15 pm
How those activities you mention an example of a 3 year old kid driving cattle for 15/2o miles a day on a horse?

Ten miles. You try to keep up twenty miles for more than one day, or with weaker cattle, & see how you go. Where the farq do you get this “Twenty miles a day” from?

3yo hangs on for dear life to a monkey grip atop a tired old pensioner (sometimes on a lead behind a grown-up’s horse) & pretends they’re part of the action.
If your experience has revealed a better way to bring along a 3yo with a mob of cattle, we’re all ears.

Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation

I think Kevin Costner would be more Brokeback Mountain than Dances with Wolves.. Which reminds me I must follow up my Australia Council grant application for an Australian adaptation starring Warren Entsch.

It’s a little known fact that they were planning a sequel where two Maine lobster fishermen get lost at sea and try to find their way to Port while exploring their sexuality. The film was going to explore the medical consequences of male to male sexuality.

It was to be called “Brokeback Passage”.

Think about it.

Interestingly most of the guys who ride bikes grew up fanging around farms in their youth, although most have swapped to something more age appropriate, a big bore BMW or something. My half brother was still getting around on a Japanese thumper but at least he had swapped in an Ohlins rear shock.

Gottliebsen has a column on Albo’s brain fart in Teh Paywallian. Naturally he isn’t particularly complimentary.

PROOF: Crooked Secretary of State Katie Hobbs Had Twitter Silence Her Critics in Arizona – Prior to Gubernatorial Run – Data From MO vs. Biden

Where does this leave Albanese’s promise that Australia would feed the world?

Maybe he was thinking along the lines of feeding the World Australian insects. I know that there are plenty of cockroaches in Federal/State/Territory Parliaments…………………………

Bolta interviewing some blue eyed blonde proud 3rd generations bint called stella wheildon about the banning of the punters from going to Mt Warning. She is circumspect about the general ban and more concerned that the big symbolic phallus was part of secret women’s business.

I wonder how a party which had policies for banning alarmism being taught in schools, building new coal, nuke and gas, removing all land title rights and making 2 genders compulsory would go?

Consistent with my theory that all demorat women are hideous:

The Democrats new Whip in the House Katherine Clark says one of her kids used to wake up with nightmares about climate change. I’m not joking. This is insane. She should apologize to her kid for scaring them with climate change propaganda.

JC says: December 5, 2022 at 6:42 pm

Another stupid comment.
Not ill-informed, or misguided. Stupid.

I wonder if we can train Killer Whales to knock those damn things down?

Free Willy!

… more concerned that the big symbolic phallus was part of secret women’s business.

Sorta looks like some faction of women have been left out of the moola flowing from Mt. Warning.
They’ve been banging on a bit around the ridges about how it was closed on false information from “some men’s group” etc etc.

Sounds like Snowy 2.0 is going see WA based engineering firm Clough going to God. Another Waffleworth success story. A couple of guys from school started there after Uni. They were twins and one of them was scary smart.

That’s damn rich coming from a Stella Artois drinker…

Easy Tiger. Take it outside.

“I’m not ruining any good horse by putting one of those monstrosities on it’s back.

Apparently it was tough on them. Sidesaddle horses had a considerably shorter working life than regular horses.
I used to think my Great-Grandmother was a feeble near-deaf old thing who knitted & darned all day. Wasn’t impressed. Until my Grandfather informed me that when she was a teenager Great Grandma & one of her (many) brothers used to break horses together around the district. He broke them to the saddle or shaft, she specialised in sidesaddle.

I knew I’d never measure up to that, not as long as I lived.

Lady Hussey might have been more tactful, but it seems Ms. Fulani might also have been more forthcoming about her origins, which in other contexts she is certainly not shy about.

Apparently Marlene Headley, alias Ngozi Fulani, turned up at the Buck House shindig clad in a leopardskin number & bunging on her idea of an “African” accent when she spoke. (Whatever that may mean).

This may have assisted Lady Hussey to assume the muttering tribeswoman clad in animal skins (apparently she looked more like a witchdoctor than a charity executive) was not from a couple of suburbs away.

I used to think my Great-Grandmother was a feeble near-deaf old thing who knitted & darned all day.

Great grandmother achieved fame by hitting a would be house-breaker over the head with a rolling pin – he slumped, stunned, to the floor, she and her daughter bound him with the cord of the electric iron, and rang the coppers. He was well known to them, and they are supposed to have been laughing so much they could barely make the arrest.

This was a lady, born in the year of Custer’s Last Stand, and lived to watch the moon landings.

Webuild pulls the pin on deal to rescue Clough, sending the contractor into administration

By Nick Evans
Resource Writer
@perrybwilliams ?
8:25PM December 5, 2022
Comments

West Australian contractor Clough has collapsed after a takeover by Italy’s Webuild fell through less than four weeks after a deal was initially struck.

The decision may spark a fresh crisis for the federal government’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 expansion given Clough and Webuild are in a joint venture to build the energy project, and Clough owed its joint venture partner about $88m at the end of June, from a previously undisclosed $167m loan dating back to the 2021 financial year.

Italy’s Webuild stepped in on November 8 to rescue the company in a deal that would have saved one of Australia’s oldest engineering companies from falling into administration.
Read Next

On Monday, Webuild said the conditional sale would not progress, and it would not offer Clough the $30m loan needed to keep the company afloat.

“On 8 November 2022 Webuild announced the entry into a conditional sale and purchase agreement with Murray & Roberts relating to the acquisition by Webuild of the entire share capital of the Australian company Clough Limited,” it said in a statement.

“Webuild now announces that the parties have jointly determined and agreed that there is no reasonable prospect of that acquisition proceeding through to a successful completion.

“The parties have therefore unconditionally agreed to terminate the SPA with immediate effect.”

Clough’s South African parent, Murray & Roberts, told shareholders on Monday Clough’s directors had called in Deloitte Australia as voluntary administrators as a result of the deal’s collapse.

“In the absence of the interim loan, however, the board of directors of Clough have been left with no choice but to place Clough and its subsidiaries under voluntary administration in Australia with immediate effect,” the company said.

New accounts show Clough borrowed more than $167m from Webuild as its financial woes on the Snowy 2.0 contract deepened, with the company slumping to a $375.3m loss and a $304m working capital deficit for the 12 months to June 30.

Clough has not previously disclosed the $167.7m loan from the joint venture, but its latest accounts show it took the loan in the 2021 financial year, after the pandemic slowed work.

Clough’s latest financial accounts show that almost $88m was still outstanding on the advance from Webuild at June 30.

A spokeswoman for Clough said there had been no previous need to disclose the loan under accounting standards followed by the company.

“The loan information to Salini Clough Joint Venture (Snowy) was recorded in the balance sheet on previous accounts as there was no requirement to itemise related party transactions. Clough is now required to prepare general purpose financial statements that require this type of disclosure,” she said.

The Snowy contract – initially worth $5.1bn – was badly disrupted by the pandemic and the joint venture is believed to still be haggling with Snowy Hydro over claims worth up to $2.2bn.

Financial statements filed with the corporate regulator show the depth of Clough’s financial problems in the lead-up to a November agreement to sell itself to Webuild, with the company bleeding $145m in cash through the financial year and booking a massive financial loss.

In July, Clough chief executive Peter Bennett told staff that the company was debt free and was expected to book earnings of about $35m for the financial year when its accounts were finalised. Mr Bennett told said the company was “debt free” in May, after The Australian first reported that Clough was attempting to find new financing arrangements.

Clough held only $71m in cash in accounts it controlled at June 30, according to financial filings, with another $30.3m held by “joint arrangements”. That is down from Clough-held cash of $198.9m at June 2021, with $47.4m held in joint arrangement.

Clough’s accountants, PwC, noted that the company’s ability to keep operating depended on Webuild successfully acquiring the contractor.

“The group recorded a loss after tax and interest of $375.3m, incurred a net cash outflow from operating activities of $29m for the year ended 30 June 2022 and, as at that date, had a net working capital deficit of $304.8m,” a note from PwC auditors reads.

The accounts show that Clough booked a $48.1m loss before interest, tax, depreciation amortisation and impairments for the year, with its statutory loss blowing out to $375.3m after the company wrote off $268.3m of a $346.9m debt owned by its South African parent company.

Although it has been written down, that debt could also spark the collapse of Murray & Roberts in South Africa, given Clough noted the full amount was still “legally outstanding” in its accounts.

In early November Murray & Roberts blamed Clough’s problems on “margin deterioration” at two of the company’s key contracts, the $420m Waitsia gas project in WA and a $1bn chemicals plant in the US. At the time the South African contractor said Clough would be forced to reverse profits previously declared at the two contracts.

Clough’s financial statements confirm both are now loss-making, with the company stripping $112m in revenue from the two contracts, declaring $18m in “onerous contract” provisions, and writing down $11.4m in goodwill associated with its work on the projects.

“The resulting impact of the above adjusting events are a reduction to profit after tax of $159.1m and net assets of $162.5m, the difference attributable to foreign exchange movements,” say Clough’s accounts.