The Frank Hardy classic up the workers! novel floats to the surface on Townsville's troubled civic waters .
The strong feeling against the Townsville City Council and its CEO , Adele Young, who came from Darwin , over the massive slashing of jobs and diminished services is reflected in this two-man demonstration on Magnetic Island . On the right is the former Magnetic Island dump employee Roland de Chazal ,77, who never had a day off in seven years , who got the chop under the restructure , a new part time position going to a younger man . Roland is wearing a T-shirt bearing the letters M.A.C.E. which stand for Magnetic (island ) Against Council Exploitation .
In America , Mace is used to spray people in demonstrations , causing involuntary bowel movements . There is certainly no intention on Roland's behalf to use Mace on the TCC , although a lot of irate ratepayers and others would not mind spraying the unpopular council over its intention to give $18.5million to the highly controversial proposed Adani coalmine.
The longtime island resident dog catcher who also performed assorted vital cleaning duties was also made redundant . Now the council sends a person over on the ferry once a week to carry out the role of a dog catcher , the new arrangement some kind of secret , clothed in bureaucratic , meaningless weasel words.
In America , Mace is used to spray people in demonstrations , causing involuntary bowel movements . There is certainly no intention on Roland's behalf to use Mace on the TCC , although a lot of irate ratepayers and others would not mind spraying the unpopular council over its intention to give $18.5million to the highly controversial proposed Adani coalmine.
The longtime island resident dog catcher who also performed assorted vital cleaning duties was also made redundant . Now the council sends a person over on the ferry once a week to carry out the role of a dog catcher , the new arrangement some kind of secret , clothed in bureaucratic , meaningless weasel words.
The other person in the demo is from Townsville , former council employee Trevor Elson , who took a voluntary redundancy after seven years' service in the Townsville Water and Waste section, preceded by five years in council after hours and emergencies.
Needless to say ,Water and Waste is a vital service in the Queen City of the North : looking after 100s of kilometres of sewerage infrastructure , about 200 sewage pumping stations , dealing with overflows, gurgles, splish splosh , etc .
When redundancies and restructuring had been raised , the initial restructure draft showed Trade Waste Inspectors departing from Townsville Water and Waste (TWW) and becoming TW1s in Regulatory Services. The Source Control (Trade Waste) Team Leader and administration position had been cut . It was pointed out to council you could not give the same service with half the staff .It painted a picture of Townsville ending up that well known undesirable creek without a paddle .
Elson is politically active, once stood as a One Nation candidate in Mundingburra and as an independent for a council election . He intends to play a part in the next council elections. On Facebook , he runs Trevor Elson Political Thoughts, which provides an outline of what went on in Townsville Water and Waste , in which in September 2016 he had been the inaugural winner of the Townsville Water and Waste employee of the quarter award.
It is a straight forward account which would undoubtedly inspire the late Communist author Frank Hardy to write a follow up to the 1971 Outcasts of Foolgarah , based on the confrontation in 1951 between garbage collectors and the Warringah Council , Sydney .
Hardy converted the situation into a battle between the workers and council mugwumps with dire consequences for Sydney's beaches and politicians . Characters included two very colourful and street wise garbos , an easily identified PM with big ears and a media baron . It was a rollicking novel variously described as thoroughly scurrilous , possibly libellous, defamatory , blasphemous . The unique style , again quoting, was said to somersault from the bawdy Australian idiom ( a lot of the brown stuff hitting the fan and surf ) into Rabelaisian irony and, at times, sheer poetry .
There is nothing unseemly or rude in remarks about the council by the former council employees. Trevor Elson is critical of the Townsville Bulletin. He intends coming back to the island again to demonstrate with Roland at the roundabout near the ferry terminal .
Frank Hardy took up the struggle by the Gurindji in the Northern Territory to obtain landrights and wrote a book about the episode .
COUNCIL STINK : It is interesting to recall that the garbage men of Darwin once went on strike and forced the mayor and councillors to collect the rubbish themselves . A British cartoon depicted civic fathers wearing top hats tipping smelling garbage and dead cats into luxury Rolls Royce vehicles .
The editor of the Northern Territory News , Jim Bowditch , a close friend of Frank Hardy's , supported the garbos , which infuriated the ginger haired mayor , John " Tiger" Lyons , a lawyer . After referring to Bowditch as a little cunt , within the hearing of journalist Doug Lockwood, Kim's father, the mayor said he should biff the editor . Bowditch , who had been a commando and had killed many Japanese , scoffed , and intimated Tiger was old and might have a heart attack as a result of physical exertion . Them was fighting words . Tiger ordered the editor outside and the two combatants wrestled in the rose garden at the mayor's residence, much to the annoyance of Mrs Lyons ... The bout made interesting reading in the newspaper and had the whole town laughing.
COUNCIL STINK : It is interesting to recall that the garbage men of Darwin once went on strike and forced the mayor and councillors to collect the rubbish themselves . A British cartoon depicted civic fathers wearing top hats tipping smelling garbage and dead cats into luxury Rolls Royce vehicles .
The editor of the Northern Territory News , Jim Bowditch , a close friend of Frank Hardy's , supported the garbos , which infuriated the ginger haired mayor , John " Tiger" Lyons , a lawyer . After referring to Bowditch as a little cunt , within the hearing of journalist Doug Lockwood, Kim's father, the mayor said he should biff the editor . Bowditch , who had been a commando and had killed many Japanese , scoffed , and intimated Tiger was old and might have a heart attack as a result of physical exertion . Them was fighting words . Tiger ordered the editor outside and the two combatants wrestled in the rose garden at the mayor's residence, much to the annoyance of Mrs Lyons ... The bout made interesting reading in the newspaper and had the whole town laughing.
