A World Turned Upside Down: Australian News

Wanderfound · January 13, 2022, 10:10pm

50°C ≈ 120°F

It reached 50.5°C at Roebourne yesterday.
There is a prison there.
This prison has no aircon for the cells.
80% of the prisoners held there are Indigenous.

Wanderfound · January 13, 2022, 10:58pm

Wanderfound · January 13, 2022, 11:01pm

Wanderfound · January 14, 2022, 11:58pm

RAvery · January 15, 2022, 4:44am

And they’re all copying…

Wanderfound · January 16, 2022, 9:23pm

Job agency bullshit was a pointless waste of time even pre-Covid.

Now, it’s just murderous nonsense driven by sadistic classism.

Lucy_Gothro1 · January 17, 2022, 3:19am

I’ll say this much - I’ve never had to go to one to qualify for food stamps.

And I won’t. If it comes to that, I’ll fucking sue the government…I’m sure I could find a publicity-hound attorney to help me out. ;D

Wanderfound · January 17, 2022, 7:47am

This was a nice moment:

Explained: the player who ducked out of view as the champagne was opened was Usman Khawaja, Australia’s only Muslim Test cricketer. He moved away because he doesn’t like being associated with alcohol.

But when Pat Cummins (the team captain) saw what was happening, he got the team to hide the booze so that Usman could come back and join the team photo.

Wanderfound · January 17, 2022, 9:12pm

Wanderfound · January 17, 2022, 10:26pm

Wanderfound · January 18, 2022, 9:05am

Still better than some of the places I’ve rented.

Wanderfound · January 20, 2022, 10:01am

These are the facts, as they were agreed to by the perpetrators. After a long night of drinking, Scott Doody, Timothy Hird, Joshua Spears, Anton Kloeden, and Glen Swain left a casino at 6am in the morning of 25 July 2009. They ranged in age from 18–23. Most of them were drunk, but Kloeden, the driver, was not.

Kloeden, in the words of Chief Justice Martin, then thought it would be fun to ‘take on the challenge of driving along the Todd River bed to the Telegraph Station’. Even more fun, Kloeden then ‘made the offensive and stupid decision to harass the Aboriginal people camped in the riverbed’, nearby Schwarz Crescent causeway. They drove towards a group of at least six campers. The campers fled to trees for safety, except for an elderly Aboriginal person, who was too elderly to respond with adequate speed. Kloeden drove within a metre of him, with the intention of terrifying him by narrowly missing him.

Having driven away Kloeden turned the car back to the camp due to a fenced off exit. Kloeden had not yet had enough fun for the night: he drove over the elderly man’s swag as they passed the camp again. One female camper, who saw the young men coming, threw a small log at their car. Some of the men got out of the car and ‘yelled abuse’ at the Aboriginal campers. The form of this abuse was not recorded.

The night, now morning, was not yet over. Kloeden thought there was more fun to be had, so he drove at another Aboriginal camping group. The three Aboriginal people were sleeping. They were woken up by the car speeding towards them, and fled for their lives. Kloeden parked near the campers, and again ‘words were exchanged’. The sort of words exchanged is not yet on the public record.

After this, the group decided to return to the home of Hird and Swain. Fun was still to be had. Once there, the group picked up more alcohol, Hird’s gun and blank ammunition. They drove along and Hird shot his gun, though at one point it jammed. As they approached Schwarz Crescent causeway, they stopped the car so that Hird could fix his gun. Having fixed it, he shot it again. Justice Martin noted that the car was intentionally stopped so that Hird would be able to ‘scare the Aboriginal occupants’ of the first camp they had terrorised previously.

This goal was achieved. As Swain testified to the police, the campers began running, and obviously ‘feared for their lives’, according to the judge’s rendition of Swain. Hird plainly contributed to this by holding the pistol outside the car in the direction of the camp.

An Aboriginal man, Kwementyaye Ryder, was one of the campers who had been terrorised by Kloeden’s driving in the first instance. He responded this time by throwing a bottle, which hit the side of the car.

Kloeden immediately executed a sudden u-turn. He stopped so close to Ryder that Ryder could grab the bullbar. All four passengers raced out of the car, with Hird the first one out. Without checking the damage to the car, they chased Ryder, who tripped and fell. Confronted with a man ‘lying defenceless and incapable of posing any threat to any of the offenders’, they repeatedly kicked him in the head, and Spears struck his head with a bottle. They told him ‘Don’t fuck with us’.

Swain, who had kicked Ryder in the head twice, noticed he was lying motionless, and that something was plainly wrong. He called out ‘Let’s go’, considering that the most appropriate reaction. They got into the car. Kloeden hadn’t gotten out of the car because he was executing a three-point-turn. Apparently untroubled by what he saw, Kloeden was ‘seen to drive away at a leisurely, normal pace’.

From 2010. The full judgement is here:

You may note that the judge was deeply concerned about the impact on the perpetrators, who he described as being of “good character”.

Wanderfound · January 22, 2022, 10:34am

Wanderfound · January 26, 2022, 9:21am

For reference, this is where the flooded road is:

And this is the detour:

Wanderfound · January 29, 2022, 9:24am

Meanwhile…

Wanderfound · January 29, 2022, 9:44am

Wanderfound · January 30, 2022, 5:28am

—

Courtesy of Kudelka, Tasmania’s strategic reserve cartoonist:

Wanderfound · January 30, 2022, 5:34am

Keating (one of the bastards who destroyed the Australian union movement) discussing Clinton (the bastard):

Somewhat unusual to see the malevolent influence flowing in the other direction. Although our immigration policies have been regrettably influential overseas as well.

Wanderfound · January 31, 2022, 11:36am

Lucy_Gothro1 · January 31, 2022, 4:18pm

Ohhh, I could tell you “welfare” stories that would curl or straighten your hair, depending on its original state!