January 2020 - The Best Mouse Tap

Modest Expectations – Hiroshima

I have always been a great admirer of Winton Turnbull, who was Country Party member for first the Federal seat of Wimmera and then Mallee for over 26 years. Turnbull was among a number of parliamentary members such as John Carrick and Tom Uren, who spent time in Japanese Prisoner of War camps – he was in Changi.

Turnbull was the member who, in his slightly stuttering voice (not bellow as elsewhere sneeringly reported), announced in Parliament that he was a “count-ry member” at which the quicksilver Gough Whitlam interjected “I remember.”

He was also the butt of an Eddie Ward interjection. Turnbull was holding up a bunch of skeleton weed, when Eddie inquired which was the weed. It is a pity that there was nobody quick enough on the Labor side to emulate Mr Ward when Morrison came into the House that day brandishing a lump of coal.

Turnbull was such an assiduous local member, that he was known as the member for “currants and raisins” such was his advocacy of the dried fruits industry. He was well respected despite being the butt of some memorable interjections.

However, what distinguished the member was that he never took a perk, never took an overseas junket. He never missed a sitting of Parliament and thought his time was better spent traversing his huge electorate looking after his constituents rather than cavorting at The Ritz or the George V. He was a person of the utmost probity; a pity that his legacy has been supplanted by the National Party pork barrel.

Bridget McKenzie

And now by contrast is Senator the Honourable Bridget McKenzie, characterised somewhat briefly early this week in her entry in Wikipedia as Minister for Pork Barrelling.

So much has been written about her that even if she survives, as Minister without Portfolio, her parliamentary life will not be a happy one. As the current Minister for Agriculture, the pressure from the farmers will grow for the Government to develop an objective policy both for the short and medium term as climate change alters the viability of various primary industries. The whole dairy industry with the advent of climate change appears to be one such industry. Cotton and almond growing are others because of their voracious appetite for water. And these are just three of the problems that are afflicting primary industry, especially as climate change has underpinned the ongoing drought and integrity of the Murray-Darling Basin.

However, if she substitutes the pork-barrel for policy, this Annie Oakley from Alexandra will reinforce the fact that she looks at home with a double-barrelled musket – and not much else.

Yet Agriculture is the portfolio of McKenzie, the ridiculed former sports minister, where every day there is another nose discovered in this particular trough. Obviously she did not do this on her own as some vicarious quirk. The more the Minister is defended the more vocal is the disgust and the more one realises how many other Ministers have been to the trough.

However why do we, the cynical populace, single out this particular rort? It is just de rigeur for the way this country has been governed since rum was the currency.

Probably the brazenness and the particular arrogance of the central player, especially at a time when so many people are doing it hard – and the media images are of her laughing – as if she is mocking the Australian community.

The National Party is essentially a Queensland and northern New South Wales party. It hangs on in Victoria at the extremes of the State, but Victoria is centred very much around Melbourne and regional centres and eventually the National party seats seats will be distributed out, and with that the entitlement to be on the Coalition ticket.

However, even before that happens there will pressure from Queensland, and obviously if he has got the numbers to be the new Deputy Prime Minister, Littleproud will challenge the hapless McCormack. And if Littleproud wins, then McKenzie can retire to a lucrative “consultant position” in the footsteps of Pyne, Bishop et al. The pension would be greater if she retires as a Minister not as a backbencher, where her final salary will be halved if that was her final position. Watch this space!

Julia Creek, Colonia and Me

I read where this cattle station family from Julia Creek had just relocated to running a B&B outside Colonia in Uruguay. That was quite a shift I thought, but having been to both places, I thought that this family migration could anchor a yarn about my time in both places.

I remember when I was working at Mount Isa I used to go out to Julia Creek which was a respectably sized speck on the map east of Cloncurry, but part of the territory that I was working in at the time. I went to meet the local doctor, and there they were, direct from central casting for a “Country Practice” not the tripe, which roams around TV currently under the name “Doctor Doctor.”

The then local doctor was a tall young English doctor, whose military bearing and quiet reserved manner was what the community perceives as the good doctor, which he was. The director of nursing was Scottish born and she was vivacious, unconventionally good looking and highly competent as well as being popular with staff and patient. When I met them at the hospital, my instinctive reaction was that both being from the United Kingdom, they were “an item”.

How wrong could I be, and fortunately I did not put my foot in it, but I was subsequently introduced to the doctor’s wife. Attractive, vivacious, she was running the public relations for the world women’s tennis from Julia Creek. When she needed to go somewhere, she would exchange her check shirt and jeans for a tailored suit and taking her laptop, fly from Julia Creek to Brisbane via Townsville and then onwards wherever she had to go in the World. They were meat for a TV series, but what soap opera writers would have thought the scenario credible at that time.

However, like all magical situations it eventually ended and that bugbear of lack of succession planning intervened, and Julia Creek went back in its health services to square one.

The problem is that no small country town where the economic justification from a reasonable Medicare reimbursement point of view is a population of 1,000 per doctor, and the community expecting 24/7 year in and year out service without burnout, is wishful thinking.

That was over 20 years ago and as I wrote then about Julia Creek: “flat savannah country: pubs, railway station, hospital, this is travelling the outback, along the song lines of the bush troubadours past the turnoff to McKinlay where the pub scene for the first Crocodile Dundee film was shot.” Nothing much has changed, except for those flooding rains and intervening drought.

However, turning to Colonia, where the Julia Creek couple with their family have recently migrated. Colonia is a town in Uruguay. Uruguay is a place I consider in three parts in regard to population. The population is about 3 million, a third who live in Montevideo and a third of the Montevideo live in condominia alongside, if not overlooking the River Plate.

Montevideo is at the same latitude as Sydney and along the River Plate towards Punta del Este there are endless sandy beaches. The river Plate resembles Port Phillip Bay in so far that due to its width Buenos Aires in Argentina is over the other side of the estuary, but not visible. At Punta del Este you can see where the River Plate empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is like having the Gold Coast just up the road.

However if you go the other way from Montevideo you end up in Colonia. Alongside the River Plate, it is all cobblestone alleys and low-slung adobe houses, and the church dominating the square. You can almost feel that somewhere there is a Ramona listening to the mission bells. The town was contested at one time between the Portuguese and Spanish, and the influence of each can be detected in the layout and town architecture. Again the sandy beaches are not far away.

I went there last year and had a memorable grilled steak Uruguayan style for lunch at the El Viejo Barrio, which fortunately given it was winter was very cosy inside. Nevertheless, like Sydney it has a mild winter, and now that the South Coast of NSW has been devastated by fires, Uruguay is an attractive alternative spot for a summer vacation. It is cheaper than Australia, and if you as a foreigner use a credit card, you get 15 per cent off the bill. Their currency has been buffeted by the international situation, but not as much as the Argentinian and Chilean currencies have been.

I hope the Australian couple make a go of it, and finally it is tragic that I have to say this, but I am in no way benefiting financially by this recommendation. I paid my way across South America without there being any need for a barely visible acknowledgement at the foot of this blog that I received sponsorship. I thus recommend Uruguay without any thought of financial consideration for a smoke-free holiday.

Tourism

I have always thought Tourism Australia has been stuck somewhere in the mid-secondary school years where bedrooms are coated with pinups and memorabilia relevant to the school year heroes and heroines. However, how relevant is it to project those teenage images for Australia as a whole when you are encouraging visitors to Australia.

Australia had barely recovered from that ludicrous advertisement shown at the Super Bowl in 2018 of some American dill as a supposed American love child of Crocodile Dundee and then that “PhilAusophy” essay in smug meaningless.

The latest opus whose release was aborted by the bushfires featured – predictably – Kylie Minogue, whose home for the past 20 years has been the UK and Adam Hills, who has lived in the UK for the past decade.

By contrast in a recently shown episode of Griff Rhys Jones’ Griff Off the Rails: Down Under, with a background of the Opera House, there was Ross Noble, the British-born comedian telling us viewers how much he loves Australia. His enthusiasm for being one of us should be tempered by the realisation that his home in St Andrews, north-east of Melbourne was burnt down in the bushfires of 2009; he had to regroup, and here he is, optimistic about Australia, ten years later, the best Ambassador Australia could have at this time. He has come back; he has more than survived

You know, it is extraordinary but here we have a raft of well-known Brits: Julia Bradbury, Jane McDonald, Griff Rhys Jones and now Michael Portillo all at it – selling Australia, mostly concentrating their efforts on Australian railways, but not solely. Their efforts have seemingly been ignored by the character, our Prime Minister, also known as Scotty from Marketing, which is somewhat surprising for someone who needs every straw he can find.

It is a little known fact that Morrison learned his marketing skills growing up alongside the Poseidon Adventure and the Towering Inferno – two of the best disaster movies ever made. He has this exquisite sense of timing of being able to advocate calling the military out in emergencies at a time when one of the military helicopters has just started a bushfire. The apologists say they are not trained for domestic emergencies, but that hardly excuses the defence forces setting fire to the ACT.

Another Bridget legacy

When she was Minister for Sport, Rural Health and Regional Communications in the Turnbull Government, she signed on the appointment of a Rural Health Commissioner, and an academic general practitioner, Paul Worley, got the job.

He was re-appointed in late October 2019 until 30 June 2020 by another National Party stalwart, Mark Coulton, the member for the NSW drought stricken electorate of Parkes, the Minister for Regional Services, Decentralisation and Local Government, hardly a ringing endorsement despite all the hype, and “rural health” has disappeared from the title.

I am not sure that just reeling out a number of rural generalist positions to be absorbed by the Queensland regionalised health system is the answer. From personal experience some rural general practitioners are first-rate teachers and they integrate teaching seamlessly into the practice. Others are not; and training is minimal. Very hit and miss.

However, the advocacy of rural generalist positions has suited the vested interests that have pursued the rural generalist model for years. Essentially, this initiative is a fancy title for training general practitioners in the country to deal with emergencies, and getting the Queensland Government to pay specialist rates for these doctors.

It is unclear whether this model has enhanced retention rates of general practitioners in rural practice. From personal experience, the program has minimal effect in Victoria, and it is unclear whether Professor Worley’s photo-opportunities that would have rivalled the travel of Bill Peach, has yielded any change in behaviour.

The other Worley report concerns allied health professionals, and while it is clear that they do not want a counterpart of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, preferring to maintain the status quo in regard to infrastructure, there is special pleading, which I have become accustomed to read. In the end it is all obtaining access to Medicare benefits, which I have argued elsewhere is on the face of their argument unconstitutional, but then who would argue against it politically. Only the central agencies have stopped entitlements under Medicare becoming a flood of pork barrels.

Having had a close association with the development of the successful rural medical school, rural clinical school and university department of rural health program – both before and after the publication of my Rural Stocktake report in 2000 – I am well aware of what does not work, but one of the problems I have encountered in public administration is a basic tenet of same.

If it does not work, don’t do it again.

In your remaining time, Professor Worley you may wish to reflect on that dictum.

A different Turnbull

I started with Winton and am ending with Malcolm.

You have had your time, Malcolm. Your recent bleat in the Time magazine makes uneasy reading. Complaining about your own failure is not a pleasant sight, anymore than reading about a quixotic Rudd tilting at the Murdoch windmill.

However, your grand entrance once into an airport lounge with your entourage gaining attention by singing snippets from Gilbert and Sullivan gave a clue to your future. Light, mildly entertaining, trivial.

However, I suppose it’s better that “Nessun dorma” which rang out nightly when Rudd was Prime Minister.

Mouse Whisper

I shudder to think what Dutton’s advice would have been if he had been around during the poliomyelitis epidemics. Christmas Island would be very crowded I suspect. Thank God, he never read about “lock hospitals”.

My Blogmaster was a small child then. He stopped inter-school activities but still went to school – but one thing we had no ice cream. He said he was never fearful; just accepted the risk, as his parents did, heightened by living in an unsewered area, as much of outer Melbourne was at the time.

Modest Expectations – Overlord

This is one for the arsonist-is-the-cause crowd that sit in the Conspiracy Corner of the Coalition Party Room. On a recent day of complete fire ban with the North-East Victorian bushfire front near at hand, some idiot was out there with a slasher cutting dry grass. Not the first time he had done this on a day of complete fire ban. Inevitable spark and a grass fire erupted. Fortunately the fire was brought under control before it could threaten the herd of prime cattle up the road, not to mention the residents.

It is a bit immaterial how this joker voted but obviously by his actions he was a climate denialist in as far as denying hot weather should have been hampering his stupidity. However, not much better than mining for coal on a complete world century ban on temperature rise.

Let’s play Premier

One of the reasons nothing gets done is that everybody is always in meetings. One of the frustrating things is that the person with the current designated responsibility seems to be positively Arthurian in the number of round tables around which he is perching.

In Tasmania, a former auditor-general, Michael Blake heads the review of fire services. He replaced a real estate agent as head of the review in early 2019, the initial report having been made in 2018.

He has headed reviews before, which means that in the parlance for appointment to such positions, he either is seen as a “safe pair of hands” or else someone who “won’t rock the boat”. In reviewing the 2016 Huonville floods, he wrote presciently:

“Finally, and I raise this with no particular view about the causes, perhaps greater attention may be needed to agencies we establish or why bother to set them up? I refer to agencies like the Tasmanian Climate Change Office. Its research indicates temperatures will rise and rainfall will remain unchanged but there will be more intense rainfall events. The implications of this research need to be considered for the benefit of all Tasmanians…”

However, the current fire review does not give one a sense of anything being done – and hence does Tasmania have to have a catastrophic burn before anything is done?

Last year, a review of fire services regulations was initiated, with 35 questions asked and 39 responses (plus 4 appendices) received. Let us quote from the short response of Sustainable Timber Tasmania:

Agree the Act should be amended to exempt hazard mitigation activities from LUPAA. Given the Statewide Strategic Fuel Management program is based on tenure blind treatment of fuels, and TFS, STT and PWS are partners in the program, any provisions to TFS in the Act should also apply to STT and PWS when undertaking hazard reduction activities on private land (where these provisions are relevant and appropriate).

Concentrate on tickling the regulations and one gets bureaucratic, acronymic obfuscation – and no commitment and no money.

Instead, let’s lay out a plain sheet of paper. You, the reader are now the all powerful, all knowing Premier of Tasmania.

It is not conventional bushfire season; there are probably only four months in the year when bushfires are unlikely, and thus we have to choose a time when it is furthest away from bushfire season to get a lead time to accomplish a preventative strategy.

You, the Premier for the point of this exercise, lay out the topic of bushfires. You call in the 29 local councils to show you their fire plans and you ask them to detail individual budgets and resources. You know Central Highlands, West Coast and Huon have the lowest density population but the greatest “pristine wilderness” – the signature of Tasmanian uniqueness, which you know has been continually under threat by the timber cutters and the engineers who do not care a dam. Tourism meanwhile is cast against the image of a scantily clad model frolicking with a stuffed thylacine uttering jolly Australian obscenities. These images are the dilemmas that you, dear Premier, face.

There is another more pointed dilemma. It was understood that rainforest on the west coast had not had fires for hundreds of years. However, man has been careless in allowing weeds to grow – gorse, blackberries and bracken for starters. We also do not want fire in the peat that underpins so much of the button grass, whose tannin residues wash into the creeks and river to give the tea colour. Peat bog fires can form an eternal flame in front of which Tasmania weeps. But enough of your tears, does Tasmania have the expert advice on how to isolate the weeds in any removal and then the will to do so?

A timber industry representative arrives at the table advocating tree thinning. Tasmania has already suffered from the euphemisms of timber predators. And judging by their current contribution to the fire services review they know one course of action – woodchopping. Where are the groves of huon, king billy and celery top pine? Let us show who’s boss by cutting down the tallest trees we can find; after all is that not thinning?

OK you’ve cut down the trees. I presume you are not leaving any detritus on site – it’s not about cutting down trees to leave fuel for bush fires? In good industry parlance, you’ve cut down the trees and now you want the government to give you permission to do what you have already done. Sorry, didn’t you get the message that times under my government have changed?

As I have said to those who may be tempted and then get caught for malfeasance such as looting or deliberate arson, I will allow them to cut down one tree – the one upon which he or she will be hanged.

Finally, there is also the major question raised in the report on the 2009 fires in Victoria about the danger of electricity delivered above ground since it was shown that powers are a source of fire. The question arises therefore, in vulnerable areas, of placing the powerlines underground, where they may have a life of up to 80 years before needing renewal. This again is a consideration that you, as Premier for the day, need to consider.

Once upon a time a young fellow could spend his vacation time in the bush fire-spotting. How can drones substitute? Are they the best way to detect the first signs of smoke? Drones? How many drones operating around the clock or when the probability of lightning strike is high are needed? Is the technology up to it?

Accessibility by roads: have our forest trails been graded and are they able to take increasingly large vehicles and what of bridge loads? What about access to water? How many training exercises have you done since last summer? I can ask the fire chiefs that.

What vehicles do we need? It seems that these new fire vehicles can also clear a passage into the forest to the seat of the fire and some are able to evacuate people in emergencies. What are you doing about that?

And the fixed wing aircraft including seaplanes and the helicopters, how many do we need permanently and on lease from the beginning of summer? Or is the beginning of summer already too late? Are our landing strips sufficient for these aircraft to land as close as possible to the fire and in emergencies?

What about boats? The current array of defence force boats seems unwieldy to be of much use. Can a ship the size of the S.S Adelaide be able to dock in Macquarie Harbour or any of ports around the coastline? After all, to paraphrase that Minister of the Crown who famously said: “Tasmania is an island surrounded by water.” Therefore, up front the sea should figure in any plans, not as an afterthought.

Now that most valuable of resources – fire fighters. Each of your communities provides the people to fight fires. How many do you have? What is the optimum number? How easy is it to get reinforcements from elsewhere in the State and outside the State.

And what of the community – you know those who don’t have house and contents insurance and bludge on those who do (not forgetting that the fire levy is part of the insurance premium). Sorry to use the word bludge but if you build a dwelling without having insurance, and then presumably hope the community will bale you out … It shows a degree of irresponsibility (although who will bale you out in you are burnt out is probably not a conscious thought when the house is built or bought). In this worsening climate, the luxury of being uninsured is no longer an option. And there is the other side of the two edged sword: for the majority affected by bushfires, probably since 2009, the building codes in fire prone areas have become so much more rigorous that even those with basic home and contents insurance will not be adequately covered to rebuild in the same area.

Now submit your answers, and we shall excuse errors of omission and commission, because the answers will not remain gathering dust, or is it ash.

The Progress of John Barilaro

Canberra Times 9 April 2019: The report of Mr Barilaro’s announcement on postponing any brumby cull in Kosciuszko National Park (“NSW puts ‘immediate’ brumby cull on hold”, April 8, p.7) exposes his approach to facts. Mr Barilaro: “before we can determine how many brumbies are to remain …”

Fact: an exhaustive process in 2015-16 determined how many brumbies should remain. The answer was 600 to 750.

Mr Barilaro: “a draft management plan needs to be drawn up”. Fact: a draft management plan exists and is available on the web – the Kosciuszko Draft Wild Horse Management Plan of 2016.

Mr Barilaro seems determined to keep asking until he gets the answers he wants, even if this involves spending the tax-payers’ money on yet another committee, another report, and another survey. The broad-toothed mice and other species whose existence is threatened by feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park are running out of time.

Canberra Times 26 July 2019: Acting Premier John Barilaro has launched an extraordinary on-air attack at ABC South East NSW, appearing to encourage people to stop listening to the station. He also heatedly exclaimed he would not leave politics while the independent broadcaster continued to operate.

Canberra Times 13 November 2019: Mr Barilaro had a spat with a union after his party was accused of hindering bushfire preparations across NSW with “crippling” staff cuts. A political blame game has broken out – even as bushfires continue to rage – with Mr Barilaro criticising the National Parks and Wildlife Service for not doing enough hazard reduction in the lead-up to the fire season.

The Public Service Association, which represents park rangers, hit back by saying Mr Barilaro was “tastelessly blaming” public servants after his government slashed staff numbers. The PSA says there’s been a 35 per cent cut to fire-trained positions in the state’s national parks, which are now being managed by “skeleton staff”.

But the NSW government says the number of firefighters in national parks has increased from 1050 in 2011 to 1226 in 2019. Mr Barilaro refused to back down when he was grilled in State parliament on Wednesday. “The truth of the matter is that we still live with (former premier) Bob Carr’s legacy – lock up the forest and let it burn,” he said. “I make no apology for my comments. The PSA went out and fibbed in relation to the reduction of rangers dealing with fires in national parks.”

Mr Barilaro in a separate statement said he wouldn’t be lectured by those pushing a “green-left ideology”. “There are things to learn out of every bushfire emergency and what’s clear is that more hazard reduction work needs to be done during times where it is safe to do so,” he told AAP. “We can’t be dictated to by a green-left ideology that advocates locking up bushland and leaving it.”

PSA acting general secretary Troy Wright said politicians should focus on preparedness – not political ideology. “If the origins of these catastrophic fires across the state are in national parks then it is the National Party and part of the Berejiklian government that are responsible for the lack of preparedness,” he said in a statement. “It is the complete absence of proper funding, not some mercurial green movement as the Nationals allege.” Australian Workers’ Union national secretary Daniel Walton is calling for an inquiry into firefighter staffing levels in national parks. “Every day we are hearing from members across the state about how their resourcing is poorer than it’s ever been and the knock-on effects that’s having,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The AWU has been warning for years that fire services are grossly under-resourced. We just don’t have adequate resources to deal with catastrophic events that are becoming increasingly common due to climate change.

I thought the call by Mr Barilaro to stop listening to the ABC particularly tasteless, but then he was in London on holidays while the South Coast burned. Without the ABC broadcast, there would have been nothing, no communications, broadcasters putting themselves in some risk, but then the Savoy (was it?) does not take the ABC.

Now Mr Barilaro, you can weep for your beloved feral horses, but weep also for the koala and other native animal habitat that the horses have destroyed or by land clearing which had been done to increase their vulnerability.

Hazard reduction burns, well your majority in Queanbeyan may be slashed when the few remaining days of the year are coated in smoke, year in and year out. I’ll assure that everywhere there will signs saying Barilaro Hazard Reduction Burns, if and when it happens.

As I leave you bouncing hyperactively on your bar stool, some might hear one say you are full of la cacca di toro or would you prefer merda in the first degree.

I’ve worked in a town that speaks Italian, but correct me if my Italian is wrong.

However, the Premier has seen fit to anoint you to clean up the mess, but while you were away in London determining which chianti you wanted from the rack, remember Andrew Constance, your fellow Minister was there, every day, coated in bushfire ash, a true Australian – in every sense.

Mouse whisper

Has any estimate been done of how much vermin has been killed in these fires – foxes, rabbits, feral cats and dogs, deer, wild pigs – and of course those feral horses?

But hopefully there are still alpine dingoes. Somewhere. They seem to be forgotten in the destruction.

G’Day

The late Robin Day once came to Australia to do a BBC Panorama program to get the everyperson Australian view of the prospect of the UK entering the Common Market. He wanted an Australian view and he sought advice from Zelman Cowan, the then Dean of Law at the University of Melbourne, to gather a group of students whom he could interview. We were gathered before while he talked to us, and his belittling tone reminded me of why we of Irish descent had some difficulty with the monarchy.

Later in the filmed interview, he turned to me and asked my view. The substance of my response… “I’m a republican. I couldn’t care less what the UK does.” and unexpectedly from the front row someone piped up “And I don’t like the Poms too”.

A shaken Day was led away by Zelman Cowan, who was heard to say “Totally unrepresentative opinion.”

The next year, I happened to come into the student common room at the maternity hospital, where I was doing my obstetric term as a medical student, and there he was on television – Zelman Cowan coming off the Shrine steps burbling something about the indissoluble ties between Australia and the Mother country. I did not wait for any further balm and went out to deliver another baby.

I wrote this following poem in memory of Robin Day and Zelman Cowan and all those people who have been unable to dissolve the indissoluble ties.

Australia Day

Once upon a pastured lawn 

The Pom called Robin Day did ask 

To serried ranks we stood

Respectful 

Should we seek republic

And the answer unexpected

To knees once genuflected

To Day we all said aye.

 

January 26

A day of Independence 

When India

Grew up and threw away it swaddling clothes

A cope with mace and orb and sceptred crap

Lie shattered upon brown flattened earth

For a people confused by Battenburg

But now Republic Day they all say aye

 

January 26

A good man stood on Botany shores

Sent from porphyric hungover king

Possession gained with jack of Andrew, Patrick, and of George

But no place for David, no daffodils nor leek

Yet this Southern harsh and sunburnt land earmarked for gaols

He christened green and pleasant New South Wales

In homage today we whitefellas celebrate that day

 

January 26

Summer invasion to those not tanned

To frolic in illusory freedom

The Jack still flutters

A cornered eye

The Southern Cross is overseen.

By stiffened queen

To celebrate a day of smoke and sand and foaming ale 

 

Robin Day is long since dead

That rank of 61 or was it 2 now thin and worn

Who once called aye for change

Yet Her of steely Albion eye

Or He of fumbling foreign voice survive

Shall we now spent and grey

Not live to have a true Australia day

Which we can call our own

 

A lone voice rings out

Make September First Republic Day

Is it not the first day of Spring

Is it not when wattle bloom 

A sprig for all

Is it but a symbol of youth and vigour

This day which is

The First of September.

Modest expectations – Carthaginian Vanilla

How appalling is Mr Albanese suggesting that the Parliament adjourn for a whole day as a part of respect and condolences admixed with confected piety.

All that does is delay what he then said is vital – that is, the passage of urgent legislation.

Otherwise such a gesture is symbolic of Parliament – hypocrisy and inaction.

By all means apologise that you did nothing about preventing the bushfires but spare us the crocodile tears – and get on with the business of government. In fact you should be meeting earlier.

And incidentally get away from this Albo and Scomo nonsense. It sounds as if they are clowns.

Fell or Fall

I have written about clearing the trees around the house surrounded by bush. That’s fine if your land does not abut land where the owners can’t be found. The chap who cleared parts of the block and the boundaries asked Council about the absent owner. The Council were not particularly interested; so we went ahead and took down the trees on the boundary and in so doing, cleared the scrub from a large section of the block. This was last year. There were several trees that required a specialist arborist to fell them safely so that they did not fall on the house – a possibility if you do not have the specialist knowledge. In addition the insurance companies take a dim view of those who are literally “cutting corners”.

Even with gutter guard to prevent the accumulation of leaves in the gutters, these trees were a fire risk. We have a celery pine growing close to the back door. That was spared but pruned, as was the leatherwood, so essential for the bees to make honey with its distinctive flavour.

However the mass of fallen trees if left present a problem. It was bought to mind by the allegation that the NSW Forestry Corporation leaves what is called “slash” after they have cut down trees. This outcome should be remembered anytime the foresters say we need “to thin the trees”. As you drive through areas which have recently been harvested, there is always a lot of residual wood left in the cleared coup. Around settlements, some trees when they are cleared by Councils are wood chipped, but these wood chipping enterprises seem to be carried out alongside roads where bringing in the appropriate machinery requires clear access.

But back to our block – left with a large pile of wood, there were several ways to go. We could have a controlled burn – a “pile fire” – with the local volunteer fire brigade using it as a training exercise. That proved not to be feasible. The pile of wood was on the absent landowner’s property. Then there was the problem that there was never suitable weather for such a burn to be organised safely, or so the local fire chief said.

In the end, we had the pile of wood removed, some of it would be used as firewood as many of the houses still have open fireplaces, but the rest moved to garden waste – still flammable but away from the property.

There is still a way to go, but bushfire prevention needs a concerted approach if the community is not to end in charred regrets.

Next to our property is a deserted miners cottage, which was illegally moved on site many years ago. It had been lived in, but now the empty land is covered in blackberries. Blackberries have also threaded their way along the foreshore and there has been no attempt to remove the bushes; the trees have been allowed to increase in number, because some eucalypts and melaleucas proliferate at a great rate. There is now a thick line of bush between the foreshore and the heritage footpath – so much so that visitors walk on the road at night because the footpath is too dark. The only clear line of sight to the harbour along this foreshore is in front of the former mayor’s property.

In the end in this over-governed country, we the ratepayers depend on the competency of local government and its finances are dependent on the ratepayers and the amount of money that trickles down from the State and Federal governments. So, can I ask what is being done about those people who buy a bush block and then do nothing to clear vegetation?

In our case on each side that is the situation. We have taken unilateral action, as we prefer prevention to “re-embering” a once pristine countryside.

Tasmania is here to burn. This is a serial problem, a new ABC soapie called “Burnt Hills”?

Postscript

I bought my wife a chainsaw for her birthday. No, we shall not destroy the habitat of the New Holland Honeyeaters or the wrens, who of course love a pile of rotting timber as a habitat. Then perched in the trees are the yellow-tailed black cockatoos. Green rosellas come calling once in a while – they are particularly fond of stripping fern fronds. There is still plenty of bush, but as the local fire captain said, keep it at least 30 metres back from your house. Enter the chain saw.

However, there are still those melaleucas, which are constantly sprouting. We cut them down. What next? The wood has few commercial usages, beyond a brush fence which was constructed years ago when the Council accidentally cleared a piece of our property and we needed a temporary fence while the undergrowth grew back.

Here on the west coast of Tasmania I thought we would be free of the bushfire smoke. However silly me – the population and wildlife of the West Coast are enshrouded in smoke. I worry that my grandchildren will show photographs of what their grandchildren will never have seen as they splutter with their chronic respiratory disease – blue skies.

A small question

One of the intriguing facts of the recent bush fires, which came to light in the fire started in Ebor, a self-styled village in the northern tablelands of NSW, is the impact of illicit crops. Here some guy tried to “back burn” to save his marijuana crop and in doing so set the bush alight with horrendous effect. I have been through Ebor some years ago, and chose not to stop. It is duelling banjoes country.

Even more dangerous are “meth labs”? A large one of those turned up as well. The bush has a way of hiding all manner of things, but the production facilities are flammable.

I have tried to find out whether growing marijuana in the bush leads to small isolated communities resistant to bushfire evacuation for obvious reasons. If marijuana growing in isolated communities can be substantiated, then such horticultural endeavour presents a hazard to human life, if nothing else. The answers don’t lie in intensifying police action, which in turn leads to hiding cultivation in more and more remote inaccessible bush.

However, it is a vexed situation as was tobacco cultivation in the Ovens Valley – the last place in Australia where it was commercially grown. I was working in Myrtleford in the years of the last tobacco crops grown there; we watched the whole farce of growers, “standover merchants” and various government agencies chasing one another around the district at harvest time which was enough for the government to enact their own variety of “chop-chop”.

The crop is no longer grown in the Ovens Valley, and it is not a crop that is easily able to be illicitly grown there. The kilns for drying the tobacco leaf are a giveaway although many have now been re-purposed as stylish Airbnb accommodation. Anyway Australian tobacco leaf was never rated as much good, and until the early 1980s it was one of, if not the most heavily subsidised crop grown in Australia because of its inferior quality. I remember being a party before the Industry Assistance Commission Inquiry, on behalf of the medical profession, to argue the case for the subsidy to be withdrawn.

Therefore, given the changing attitudes to marijuana cultivation, would it not be better grown in controlled conditions away from the bush? After all, it would be one way to enhance tourism if they could visit a legal greenhouse and see the crop under cultivation and sample … just a thought.

I have a bone to pick with you

An interesting emergency occurred last week when we were having a meal of fish and chips. A fish bone lodged in my wife’s throat. This once happened to me when I was having a meal in Derby in the Kimberley. It was probably barramundi, and fortunately I was having the meal with the legendary outback doctor, Randy Spargo. The spectre of being evacuated to Perth, a distance of 1800 kilometres, confronted me if the bone could not be dislodged. Water and bread was Randy’s solution, and after the initial trial, we went to the local hospital to pursue his cure. Randy was extraordinary – it was as though he talked the bread down – a “bone whisperer”. Randy had worked for a long time among Aboriginal people and at one point had an Aboriginal partner. Randy had a very calming way of handling a situation that could have turned awkward. In the end, the bone cleared my throat, whether “talked down” or not.

We went back to the café and finished our meal. Next to the restaurant was a meeting of Pentecostalists, complete with glossolalia and very audible groaning, which created a fraught atmosphere when we left for the hospital. When we returned after the bone had “gone South”, all was silent.

So last week we embarked on the bread and water exercise. It was unsuccessful, as was the banana; so we called an ambulance and with the expectation of there being at least an hour’s delay then dialled a general practitioner friend for any other suggestions to try in the meantime. He suggested that the bone might be caught up in a tonsillar crypt, and reassured us that if it was not causing breathing problems we could leave it until the morning and via a referral from the general practitioner to an ear, nose and throat specialist the bone could probably be removed under local anaesthesia. This would be a two-stage procedure, potentially drawn out, dependent on the availability of the doctors.

We were about to accept our friend’s advice, and cancel the call to the ambulance when two paramedics turned up after an hour. The situation explained, Rocco, one of the paramedics asked if we had any Coca-Cola or lemonade – something both carbonated and acidic. As we had Coca-Cola he suggested my wife gargle with it. She went out to the kitchen, gargled and Eureka, it worked almost immediately. A few gulps and all’s well. So we learnt something, because as Rocco said the first response if they had taken her to the Accident & Emergency Department would be to purchase some Coca Cola from a vending machine and see if that shifted the bone.

As there were a few minutes while the fish bone was moving its way down the gullet, I asked how they had found their education. It was nearly 30 years since I undertook a review of the NSW Ambulance Service, and one of my recommendations had been to establish a formal tertiary education course for ambulance officer training, not only to introduce a reproducible training program, but also to assure reciprocity for Ambulance officer recognition between State services. At the time, training was internal and there was no reciprocity between the States. Learning was robotic and one of the teachers was reputed to carry a baseball bat to establish what passed as a learning environment.

It was a time when the NSW Ambulance had more ranks than the British Army such was the promotional system based on seniority rather than qualification. Behind this system was “the Brotherhood”, in which the power of the ambulance service rested at the time. Not a particularly enticing prospect for someone entrusted with review. However the NSW Ambulance Board at the time was progressive. Changes came. It seemed that the education recommendation has survived with these two paramedics being graduates of this system that had its genesis in the early 90s.

As Rebecca, the other paramedic there at the “Fishbone incident” said, looking at me just as they were leaving; “Thanks for the HECS debt!” I think she was joking.

Barramundi

When I have had the best seafood meal, I record it – not the exact date or time as they are immaterial except in a general sort of way. I am too impatient to be an angler and the complexity of the fly fisherman is well beyond my ken. However, I remember inter alia my very best barramundi meal.

It was Good Friday about 20 years ago and the temperature in the shade was in excess of 40^oc by mid morning. We had pulled up at a nondescript store outside Wyndham. There was a sign advertising fish and chips, but given the time and place there was no expectation of there being any tucker available. No fish apparent. One of the young Aboriginal guys there looked at the other and said could we wait a half an hour or so. We agreed to wait.

Sure enough – a freshly caught barramundi appeared. One of the guys had gone down to the Gut and speared one. We didn’t mind waiting and then sitting in the shade, the sublime enjoyment of consuming this most notable meal of barramundi. When you are not expecting excellence, you appreciate it so much more. Legally caught? Of course, with a wink.

And one more thing…

I was a bit taken back by the army chief, Angus Campbell, jumping out of a helicopter onto the deck of the “Adelaide” to be surrounded by many cheering troops and saying what a good job they had done. I thought it would be better if this claque were out working in the community rather than giving the General a rousing cheer on a boat moored off Eden.

I wonder what would have happened if the head of the firefighters had called them in for a rousing reception while there were still bushfires all around. Condemnation I suspect.

Irrespective of the motive, with all due respects it was a bad look, redolent of George Bush declaiming on the Abraham Lincoln under a banner “Mission Accomplished.”

The fact is that the defence force was caught unprepared, and while they are obviously learning lessons with them increasingly visible in helping with bushfires, your self-congratulatory action, Angus Campbell, was a poor, unnecessary image which hopefully will not be repeated.

It is the problem with public relations staff trying to justify their existence.

Mouse whisper

The local vicar on the Tasmanian West Coast also owns the earth moving business. One feels very safe in the hands of someone who can move both heaven and earth.

Modest Expectations – The meaning of Life

Stop Press: Premier Andrews will strive to lead Australia out of the charred wilderness at the next Federal election. He is a builder.

Anthony Norman Albanese will make a great Governor- General.

Yet it is reasonable to believe prophecy is just one step ahead of fake news.

Nevertheless, what is going is eerily reminiscent of the Liberal Party Coalition in 1972 when it entered a period of policy paralysis – Vietnam and China being two unresolvable problems. Despite the apparently huge wave of support generated for Whitlam, he did not win a huge majority in the 1972 election. Despite the narrow margin to Whitlam, the two unresolvable were immediately resolvable.

On the other hand Rudd did have a landslide, and in the process the man from which Morrison is seeking advice, John Howard, lost his seat. Australia was prosperous and yet the Prime Minister lost his seat. This had not occurred since 1929 when Australia was struggling economically; Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce was intent on confrontation. He lost his seat of Flinders.

Over the years the fickle nature of the electorate has come to resemble Queensland where there have been electoral landslides over the past 50 years. Queensland is unicameral and thus landslides are not complicated by a House of plush red seats. Rudd and Abbott both won large majorities, but the Senate – the house of the Red Plush – can muddy the policy waters and in between even in the lower house when there are slim margins and independents calling the shots, policy goes out the chamber in a gust of deals.

So bugger bushfire policy, sweetmeats for the privileged and the rent seekers is the go, with parliament a sandpit.

But underlying Dante’s Australia are the climate change denialists.

Young John Howard was a protégé of John Carrick and Bob Cotton, two guys out of Florentine casting, and he was their Chosen One, but it took from 1974 to 1996 for him to achieve his aim – Prime Minister Howard. To be so single-minded requires a certain sort of brain. But John you are 81 and I admire you for your tenacity. You actually made a much better Prime Minister than I thought possible, because you had principles. Many of my achievements were achieved under your watch, although I am not sure you would acknowledge that.

However climate change is reality, just like getting out of Vietnam and recognising China was a reality so long ago when we were both young. And I sure I know where you stood on these two issues, Young John, just like climate change.

Don’t get it wrong again otherwise Daniel Andrews is a real threat to your protégé, Scotty.

In the meantime, read on …

To market, to market, to buy a plum bun, Home again, home again, market is done.

Everybody is concentrating on Scott Morrison in these extraordinary times because politics Australia has never seen such a transparent calculating self-marketeer as its Prime Minister. In this season of the bushfire, his prime aim is that he must not let it consume his base – the Liberal Party of NSW.

He has been wrong-footed, and there is discontent within the ranks. Worse, the country is watching and listening to the ABC and not the Murdoch publications, and Alan Jones, the parrot on his shoulder, is also away. The belated announcement of the call up of reservists, the deployment of aircraft and ships are all good anchors on which to embed images of a forceful leader.

Undermining the NSW Premier is an essential strategy. She and her head of fire fighting have been criticised unsurprisingly with the Daily Telegraph implicated, especially in the plotting. Shane Fitzsimmons has the temerity to say nobody told him of the deployment of defence force staff. Then the blame is smudged in the need for all to come together. Nobody wins by personal spats at a time when the country is burning; but seeds are sowed for a time in the future when social media starts to be infected by stories about what could have been done better before the intervention of the Marketeer.

In marketing terms, the emphasis must be taken away from the States – the fire fighters, which are the Premier’s responsibility and thus the essential ingredient in halting the fires. The emphasis must be transferred to men and women in uniform, his responsibility. The fire fighters only have fire trucks and a few aerial helpers, but the real toys are held by the Defence forces. The Defence Forces can provide the imagery of might, even if they in the present circumstances providing a very public but, if analysed, marginal impact.

A good marketeer demands images and big ships and big aircraft with attendant servicemen and women helping the small child onto a helicopter conveys both concern and relevance. “Army heroes” – The Daily Telegraph shouts on the front page – is ferrying people away in helicopters heroic? Soldiers doing their job – but heroes? In these Telegraph front page images, there is not a firefighter in sight.

After all, the community wants good news stores of heroism and the Defence forces – a federal responsibility – coming to the rescue is the story.

Now the images are collected and the Murdoch Press assured, control of the ABC is the target. Reading the hostility towards Morrison on Twitter by prominent ABC employees will test how strong Ida Buttrose will be under the inevitable “ember attack” by the Murdoch claque. A strategy of inserting a number of friendly commentators repeating the Prime Ministerial mantra into the ABC reporting schedule is underway. I suggest one look at some of the commentators based in Canberra who show the first signs of this phenomenon – earnestly repeating without commentary the government’s media release. Once this is done to the ABC seen as untouchably “independent”, then media control is complete. The ABC becomes a loyal servant, and who cares about a journalist without an outlet.

Prince Valiant coming to save the damsels in distress with an audience of faithful knights and yeomen is a perfect marketing morality play. However, the Prime Minister has a long path to cement that role given the uncertainty of his out-of-town rehearsals, but there is always Jon Shier as producer.

However in deploying the defence Forces, Mr Fitzsimmons recognised the problems when a group untrained in fire fighting are dumped upon him, and he went public. I am sure if he had been informed he would have suggested an appropriate role, but normally outwardly calm, he was obviously irritated that he was not told prior to the Prime Minister’s announcement.

After all, the current Minister of Defence, Linda Reynolds should know. She has had an interesting career. She has had an astonishing rise to one of the major portfolios has this Senator from Western Australia. However, she had two parallel careers: one working as a employee of the Liberal Party and the other as a member of the Army reserve from the age of 19 years, rising to the rank of Brigadier and being awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross. This is a relatively recent award given for conspicuous “non-warlike activities”.

She was wrong footed in taking the Prime Minister’s lead by going to Bali with her family, while Australia burned over Christmas, and leaving her portfolio to Minister Littleproud.* Modest Expectations Joel 11/10/19

Having been in the Army Reserve for 29 years, she would know the capability of the reserve forces. Given the gravity of the present situation her first response was surprising in seeming to criticise Mr Fitzsimmons rather than indicating she wanted to cooperate.

However, she made a big deal of the deployment of reservists when the Prime Minister announced it as unprecedented. The obverse question is why the reservists have been left idle domestically for so many years; again, Minister Reynolds should know. Hence if she thought they could contribute why did she delay any recommendation given that she would be well aware that mobilisation of such resources takes time. Or did she recommend in a suitable time that they be deployed and her advice was initially rejected. I presume she is not a muppet, saying nothing when all these disasters were unfolding.

One of tasks foreshadowed for the reservists is burying dead stock; and I think it a bit harsh when my friend said when that is finished they may be asked to bury the Government.

Somebody who knows

Chris Brook PSM FRACP State Health and Medical Commander (Emergency Management) Victoria 2009

You don’t need an analysis of the response to the 2009 Victorian Fires or the 2010 Queensland Floods. It’s all on the public record and in people’s living memories. What you also already know is that the then PM Kevin Rudd was front and centre from the outset in both events and was praised for his initiative.

That’s not to say that his promises were prudent, nor even fulfilled in whole, but he was everywhere.

In both cases there was a massive rebuilding and recovery effort, largely due to the important work of the States continuing long after Federal intervention had come and gone.

But this misses the real story of the here and now.

It looks to me as though Morrison is set to reinvent himself, as he must, to get through this. All of the anti-climate change rhetoric and anti-socialist left tirades do not change the fact that he has lost the respect of a good part of the community – although the hyper partisan Murdoch press remains staunchly supportive.

He must by now realise that his precious wafer-thin budget surplus is gone and that long term economic damage has been done.

For the fire affected coastal and alpine communities the damage to domestic tourism – their lifeblood – will last for years.

So he will pivot embarking on a huge rebuilding effort; a stimulus thus cunningly concealed. If he’s clever the cost will be described as a capital injection (from borrowings but no one will worry about that) and he can still claim that we are in surplus on the current account.

Gorse – an example of Government indifference

Janine Sargeant – Tasmanian ratepayer & regular blogger

Recently I wrote to the Premier of Tasmania because I was concerned about the rapid spread of gorse along the Zeehan to Strahan road on the west coast of Tasmania. Its spread is symptomatic of the disregard of the environment by all levels of Government, given that gorse as well as blackberry are two of the biggest invaders on the west coast.

If an example of where fuel reduction is needed, this is one hell of a big one.

Fuel reduction is but one element in what should be a comprehensive Statewide fire management plan; the lines of responsibility are clear, readily accessible and the expected results can be easily tallied against the actual achievement.

On Tasmania’s west coast, it rains – a lot. However, it is now clear from the NSW South Coast experience that temperate rain forest can burn. The only thing that prevents it occurring in Tasmania is the level of rainfall, which this year has been about two metres. By way of contrast, the NSW South Coast’s rainfall this year was about half the expected rainfall, between 40 and 60cm, as it was also last year. Much has been said about the desperate lack of rainfall across much of Australia in what is the driest and hottest year on record.

However, despite the rainfall, Tasmania is vulnerable and the gorse invasion is just one symptom of Government’s neglect of the fire risk.

I would hate to have to quote this next summer because nothing has been done and the West Coast has been burnt – with gorse being a prominent culprit.

DIPWE defines the spread of gorse on the west coast as “widespread infestation”. Gorse is a declared weed under the Tasmanian Weed Management Act 1999 and “a Weed of National Significance”. Government’s response is supposed to be to “prevent further spread”, a response in word only as there is not action. Gorse is a major issue in a region that is heavily dependent on “wilderness”, native forests, wild rivers, spectacular scenery and unique fauna – these define the reasons why tourists come to Tasmania.

However, apart from being a hugely damaging invasive weed environmentally, gorse is a major fire hazard, because of its oily content and tendency to shed its dead wood as it grows.

Some years ago there was a gorse eradication program in this area, which seemed to be keeping this weed in check, but there is no evidence of anything being done recently and as a result, the spread of the gorse has gone unchecked. There is no evidence that agricultural contractors, utility maintenance crews, road and earthmoving contractors and other people visiting the areas infested with gorse, are required to undertake basic hygiene measures to prevent spread of seed; this doesn’t happen. In fact it is reported that the roadside mowing that occurs from Zeehan south towards Strahan is actually spreading the infestation closer and closer to Strahan due to seed spread because the vehicles are not being cleaned.

There needs to be an integrated control approach with a combination of methods: herbicide, mechanical, burning and biological control, for maximum chances of long-term success.

Tasmania’s environment, wilderness and forests are an incredibly rich resource that must be protected and in the face of what has been happening across NSW and Victoria, the Tasmanian Government needs to sit up, take notice and act before Tasmania too is wiped out by fires. The gorse invasion is one element of a potential major fire problem that being ignored. My letter to the Premier is ‘being considered’; I hope the response is a little more enthusiastic.

Mouse Whisper

My marsupial relatives, the dunnarts on Kangaroo Island remember that during the 2007 fires there were over 800 people, seven fixed wing water bombers and an Elvis Skycrane Helitanker, all assisting in firefighting efforts.

Now dunnarts smell smoke; and run at the first whiff.

Thirteen years later I have asked on DunnartMail how are they and if the resources committed in 2007 are different from that committed today. The fire in 2007 was contained quickly and the Dunnarts replied to my query.

Unfortunately, this time I have had no response. Communication has been lost.

There may be 500 firefighters, with about 50 of the Reynolds reservists there as back up, and there is at least one 737 waterbomber. Maybe the response is comparable to the 2007 effort and has not slipped backwards. Probably not. Who would know. But what of my cousins?

Now they may be extinct – a terrible, terrible outcome.

I weep for them – they were such a close-knit community.

Modest expectations – Montana

This is a story about the unexpected – an unremarkable story on the face of it, but like many stories of its ilk, instructive.

In August, as I have recounted several times in my blog, I was in Chile and in particular Valparaiso. As I was hobbling down a flight of stairs and across a doorway in the restaurant, my hand caught on something sharp. Whether metal or wood, it created a spectacular gash over my fifth metatarsal right hand. It as not particularly long, but it bled. My canes clattered to the floor. As I had nothing immediately at hand except paper serviettes to staunch the bleeding, and rudimentary Spanish to say “Ayuda”, it continued to bleed profusely. It took some time for my companion, who was sitting by the window in this upstairs-downstairs configuration, to come and put order into stopping the bleeding, by pressure.

Eventually Chilean band-aids were produced and these reduced the bleeding to an ooze. The wound was not stitched, but there was a bit of debridement and the edges of the wound were roughly opposed – without seeking outside medical help. I thought that was one reason it took a long time to apparently heal, but the skin remained pink as the scar tissue started to form.

One day about a month after I had returned home a lump appeared at the site of the scar. It grew relatively quickly, but the skin did not ulcerate. I went to my long time plastic surgeon in Melbourne. I thought there must have been some retained fragment – a foreign body that had been missed. The surgeon who has operated on me on a number of occasions said nothing except after a little hesitation, that he would take it off immediately.

I was surprised by the length of the incision and its depth; I should not have been so surprised when the pathology came back – squamous cell carcinoma. Sometimes in wound tissue an aggressive skin cancer can erupt. That had occurred in my case – Marjolin’s is the eponymous name for it – normally these cancers appear as an ulcer, and this would probably have occurred in a few days if it had not been removed.

That was a month or so ago, but now the area has healed and the scar from the incision is barely visible.

A very good astute surgeon, now onto my next experience…

The Surgeon Never Replied

Below is a letter I wrote to a surgeon just prior to a proposed operation three years ago. I have still not had the operations, and although I have a few mild symptoms I have not had to endure the morbidity or my family the funeral costs which could easily have resulted from operative intervention. I am writing this blog to provide an informed consumer perspective on my doubts about spinal surgery.

The other problem with surgery, especially with severe osteoarthritis in the shoulder joints, is that when you are being moved about during cervical surgery the anaesthesia will mask any incidental damage being done in the shoulder. One does not feel the pain of tearing a ligament or muscles or the rotator cuff of the shoulder joint until one comes out of the anaesthesia, and suddenly there is another centre of pain. In the aftermath of proposed surgery, pain relief for me is always going to be tricky because of my sensitivity to opioids. That does not matter to the orthopaedic surgeon – the surgery itself is the centrepiece, not the subsequent morbidity nor the rehabilitation. After all, I was facing three major orthopaedic operations in short order – nearing the end of my eighth decade.

The following is my letter to the surgeon appropriately de-identified sent in the days before the operation.

I thought I would explain the reasons for deferring my operation. I am sure you respect that the choice I have made has not been undertaken without much deep consideration of balancing the risks and benefits. My response was largely generated from our last consultation and your subsequent letter to Dr A.

I note you made a comment that if I stressed my spine that there was a possibility of worsening the condition but I recently spent nine days in Malawi on a number of extremely rough terrains in a four-wheel drive without any apparent change.

Currently I have very mild numbness in my little and ring fingers intermittently in the morning on waking – not every day!

If one reads my latest MRI report it demonstrates that I have significant pathology in my cervical spine, yet I am virtually symptom free. You list the risks associated with the procedure without setting out the probability of any them occurring. Hence I take the paragraph in your letter to Dr A to mean that they are considerable risks. I thought it preferable to have the MRI at JHospital well before the operation rather than the day before – and there is no doubt that JHospital runs a very professional operation. However, so does the Diagnostic Imaging Department at IH, with which there appears to have been an unfortunate failure in communication (with yourself. I am sure you did not meant to criticise the IH nor the fact that at that time it was more convenient for me to have my imaging undertaken there.

In addition you intend to take iliac crest bone which, as you rightly point out, is better than cadaveric bone for the putative operation on my cervical spine

However I have chronic polymyalgia rheumatica, the aetiology of which condition remains obscure, but there is one observation I would make which is that any shift in the dose of cortisone (currently 4 mgs a day) has a far more marked clinical effect than would be expected – manifested as stiffness and muscle weakness. There is no mention of the possible impact of operative trauma on such a condition, but you would have more information than I do. Therefore, that is one matter that needs to be resolved. The other of course is the effect that the cortisone has had on my bone given that I have been on the drug for three years, despite taking Vitamin D regularly.

I am nearly 77 years old, which is a factor, and the fact is that my cervical spine has significant pathology. The question that is raised is whether there is any guarantee that intervention would not have a cascading effect requiring more operative intervention for diminishing returns.

In relation to my lumbar spine, I do have symptomatology of mild spinal claudication as you have noted as 5/10, but as one senior physician said to me the other day, the major problem is my right knee – and knowing the success of such an operation would it not be preferable to do any operative intervention starting with the knee?

The question then arises of whether the operative schedule should be in reverse, and would a laminectomy guarantee relief of my symptomatology – particularly my ataxia and loss of proprioception? Your letter would seem to suggest otherwise. Is the fact that even if I had a lumbar spine operation I would not be helped? What are the odds of improvement given my age and lumbar pathology.

I walk with two sticks for social reasons not because I need them invariably. For instance, I challenged myself the other day to walk without sticks but accompanied for three blocks to the coffee shop. There was some pain in my knee, minimal pain in my back and no symptomatology referable to my neck. The pain did not stop me at any stage, there and back.

I continue to do hydrotherapy twice a week and find it very helpful and, so as to clarify your comments in the letter concerning “Panadol Osteo” dosage, I am taking 4 tablets of Panadol (625mg) a day in divided doses and not six as previously. Do you think that a significant observation?

There are a number of other matters in your letter to Dr A, which could be better put. The comment concerning my heavy smoking history is totally ambiguous given that I have not smoked for 36 years, and it was taken not from any direct interrogation but lifted from my “confidential note”. The fact that I produced those notes to inform you so that it saved time and helped you to take a comprehensive history. I am sorry to have to make that point, but in providing such information it should be attributed and not just “noted”.

A copy of the letter was sent to Dr P who retired at the end of June and my doctor is now Dr Q locally. Given that the letter was sent to Dr A, who made the initial referral I am at a loss to understand how that occurred. The copy to Dr P has been archived at NHospital with certain agreed caveats. I believe that any copies of correspondence should not only be sent to Dr Q but also to Dr R, who has been the rheumatologist responsible for my treatment for PMR since 2013, when Dr A referred me to him, Dr A having made the initial diagnosis.

You have not referenced my severe shoulder osteoarthritis, which would be a consideration in any cervical spine surgery? (Here a confidential matter relating to another person has been excised from my letter.)

There are there other matters that puzzle me and that, given all the potential complications set out, I understand you will be away the week after the proposed date of surgery – and if that is true who would undertake my post-operative care, should any of the dire consequences set out in your letter occur.

The second source of my puzzlement is an initial comment you made that you would be prepared to operate on my back four days after my cervical spine operation. Does that still hold true?

The third matter is your comment that “ agreed with your need to alter the plan on the day before”. I must have misheard but I do not remember agreeing to a change in plan –especially as it would appear that a substantial part of my cervical spine is affected and yet I am virtually asymptomatic. My cervical symptomatology is better than it has ever been given the problems I had with it 20 years ago, and which were relieved by some excellent physiotherapy.

Those cervical symptoms were resolved a long time before I first presented to Dr A. It is certainly not a decision I would take the day before the operation, given the seriousness of the complications you have listed. Hence this was my reason for undertaking the imaging a substantial time before the proposed operation.

The underlying question is would it not be better to reverse the operative schedule on the basis of relief of symptomatology and enabling me to walk pain free, with a reasonable gait and with an improved ability to negotiate stairs, reverting to what I could do in early 2013 before the onset of the PMR, which seems to have acted as the tipping point for all this?

As you foreshadowed in your letter you have awaited my further advice –and my basic response is the question above couched against the previous consultation, but not with the benefit of you reviewing the MRI and spinal X-rays

I asked for a number of second opinions. The average elderly person who is suffering from degenerative disease does not have that option because information in the health sector is so asymmetric.

To me the non-response to the letter reflects on the person. Here there is an arrogance characteristic of some of the medical profession. They do not see it, especially when they have only patient contact and are acting like a high paid tradesman, who comes in does his job, gets paid and moves on. From my experience very few tradesmen ever come back to view their work. Unfortunately, I was brought up to be a doctor and now as a consumer my perspective has only shifted to the other side of the desk. There should be debate, including this doctor who has remained silent for over three years.

Boeing Sub-Max

In a investigative piece on Boeing at the time that it was amalgamating with McDonnell Douglas to monopolise the American plane construction in 1997, Boeing’s warts were well and truly revealed. McDonnell Douglas had some very good planes, but inter alia fell over because of its failure to build economic wide-bodied airliners, despite in 1995 receiving US$334m in rebates from kindly Uncle Sam.

Meanwhile the Pentagon was awarding Boeing US$1bn for “restructuring costs” and so eager was Export-Import Bank to ease any problems that Boeing might have, was renamed by some in Congress as the “Bank of Boeing”.

If you want to blame the Republicans for allowing this monopoly to occur, well that’s just not true. Increasingly when the truth of this has emerged, since there in the centre of these appalling decision, smoking a cigar in his Oval office was Mr Teflon – Bill Clinton.

He agreed with the advice that the Boeing position was legal because of the pressure it faced from Airbus. As the1997 correspondent said: “Using this logic all the US automakers could merge because the ‘Big One’ would still face foreign competition. Too bad the Detroit lobbyists can’t figure out a way to hide price hikes in the airline tickets and Pentagon procurements.”

Now Boeing is being confronted with a major problem – its latest airliners appear to be duds – and dangerous duds at that.

I have flown on most types of Boeing: 707 through to 747 internationally, 727 and 767 domestically, and even the 717 and 757 although not as commonly as the workhorse, the 737. They have all been good aircraft, although the Qantas 747s are becoming creaky and by preference I try to avoid them.

A former retired Boeing engineer and policy analyst has been reported recently as saying: “(There has been) a shift in the culture at Boeing from one which strove for engineering excellence to one focused on cost cutting. This deliberate strategy from the very top of the company led to massive, ill-thought-out outsourcing and the discarding of engineering talent as work was moved out of the Puget Sound region…(and in turn) has led to major failures on Boeing’s latest two major airplane development programs — first the heavily outsourced 787 Dreamliner and then the minimally upgraded 737 MAX. Both planes had to be grounded over safety issues.”

This failure has left companies in the supply chain in tatters. Fiddling and tweaking has not worked. Other airlines are running out of patience and are ordering planes from Airbus. As the airline fleets age then attention turns to maintenance; and if cost cutting takes over there as at Boeing, then air travel becomes not just an atmospheric pollutant but also a health hazard.

As has also been reported locally in the Seattle media “Boeing hopes for its first good-news event: the long-delayed first flight of the new 777X, with its massive composite wings. In late January, Boeing’s new leadership will reveal the latest tally of the cost of the MAX grounding, updating the $9.2 billion estimate through October. The rest of the year is likely to be a long slog, getting the MAX program restarted and slowly ramping back up again. No one can yet foresee the long-term impact.”

It sounds forlorn, since many of the mistakes Boeing has made in the 20 years interval have been glossed over by Government not holding them to account and the accompanying high profitability of the 737 until the MAX version came on line.

There have been failures such as not exploiting the 717, which, as one our own Alan’s choices, was particularly shrewd. There is now an increasing requirement for jet airliners with 100-150 seat capacity to run on regional services. The 717 fulfilled that need, but it was given the cold shoulder at Boeing because it was essentially a McDonnell Douglas enterprise and Boeing stopped making them. Only Delta, Hawaiian and Qantas have the plane in any numbers, and they are not selling them. Now through its Bombadier subsidiary, Airbus is filling the need. In the end the 717 will suffer as we all do – it will need spare parts that are no longer there.

However, all is not lost on the bottom line. There are the cost-plus projects where the Defence force chiefs inflate their budgets with expensive projects. Because they are seen as symbols of military might, it is interesting to reflect on the giant transport plane, built by Boeing, the C-17. With a budget of between USD200-300m a year for each one, one official labeled it the Golden Turkey because of its cost and its vulnerability to being blown apart by $22 mortar shell. Perhaps it has been made less vulnerable, especially after one crashed into an Alaskan forest in 2010.

Nevertheless more recently than that, someone who had experienced the joys of travelling in a C-17 said despite all the hype of being long range and being able to be refuelled in midair, it was more like a “stopping all stations conveyance” between the United States and Afghanistan, even including a stop for repairs.

Despite all the rending of garments, the Defence establishment continues to pour money into Boeing. In 2018, Boeing won contracts to build a new pilot training jet for the Air Force, an in-flight refueling drone for the Navy, and a fleet of the Airforce security helicopters.

As reported, Boeing’s “Defence revenues” had fallen by more than one-third over the timeline of a decade: from USD32.1 billion in 2007 to USD21.1 billion in 2017. But, President Donald Trump’s higher defence spending and three new military contracts put Boeing back in the game in 2018.

Still, to put all of the boondoggle in perspective, the Boeing commercial division in 2018 before the Supermax crisis billed USD60bn by airlines around the World.

Cap in hand to the Government you would think can go only so far, but Boeing has shown it has a capacious chapeau.

Mouse whisper

Just a message for the Nimbin anti-vaxxers …

Your child about two years old gets chicken pox; has a high fever – starts fitting – you prescribe one of those herbal remedies that incidentally has aspirin hidden away in it. Child severely incapacitated mentally – or dies.

Remember the name Reye, who first described the mixed brain and liver symptoms and signs as a syndrome in small kids.

Chicken pox plus aspirin; vaccinate against chicken pox. Reyes Syndrome no longer. QED.

Ralph Reye incidentally was an Australian pathologist – normally they are the doctors who deal with the dead.

Like polio, Reye’s syndrome was nearly eliminated until your mob came along.