WATERING DOWN WATER

LONDON : Here in Britain , Australians are regarded as capable of making good beer and wine. But when it comes to producing this city’s water supply , the Australian Macquarie Bank , once known as the millionaire makers bank , has been criticised. It bought Thames Water for billions during the heady pre- GFC days and when the crash came its overall business plan for global operations was found wanting . Over the years , it has flushed many Thames Water staff , especially ones with decades of faithful service, down the gurgler. Cost cutting became the order of the day , maintenance was pared back to make the books look good – a bit like the Territory’s Power and Water scenario before things went bang in the night and day.

WAITING FOR BUSO # 3

(Samuel Beckett's never ending bus tour of Darwin and environs)

Another day, another bus , another character. He was conducting a stern conversation with an unfortunate fellow traveller - his reflection in the window.

Boarding a bus , my attention was soon drawn to a young couple , obviously depraved tourists , who engaged in a bout of steamy tongue kissing before alighting at the museum stop. Several stops along , a wild –eyed Aboriginal joined the trip and injected a scarry touch of Jaws into the journey. “Don’t go into the water !” he warned commuters . “There is something in the water that will kill you . Don’t go into the water . I’m fair dinkum. There is something in there that will kill you . I tell all tourists don’t go in the water, there are f****** crocodiles.” In a shrill female voice , which sounded like a churchgoer responding to a jiving preacher in a Baptist tabernacle , a passenger responded, “ I believe you, brother .” At this stage, I expected the faithful to rise as one , clapping , stomping and gesticulating towards Heaven , loudly beseeching , “ Lordy! Lordy! Save us from dem savage NT News page one crocodiles !”

Encouraged, the man intent on keeping Darwin beaches clear of bathers , continued. “ Right! There is something in the water. Don’t go in the water - or you will end up in a body bag .” Sales of sun block and attendance at the Mindil Beach sunset market undoubtedly plummeted that month.

A COW OF AN OFFENCE

Mother’s Day has just been celebrated throughout Australia . In 1811, just 23 years after the first European settlement in Australia, an episode involving a woman created an outcry among colonists . With his wife’s consent, a Windsor man , near Sydney, put a halter round her neck , led her to a road and offered her for sale at 16 pound ($32) , a large sum in those days. As a result, her husband was sentenced to 50 lashes and three months hard labour in irons; the woman was sent to Newcastle and the purchaser lost his money.

MONEY SHARKS THREATEN SOCIETY

The casino nature of the global finance system is revealed yet again in spades when it is reported that “speculators” are gleefully gearing up to make a killing on the plunging Euro and the impact on stock exchanges. In other words, individuals, some of them heroes of the capitalist world, hedge funds and others, like jackals, are going to wage war on the financial and social well being not only of the the entire Euro Union but US, Britain and Australia.

Helping them make life miserable for millions of people and hinder trade are the wolves in sheep clothing, the ratings agencies which utterly failed to detect the global financial collapse when they gave banks and corporations-cooking the books with massive hidden investments and selling worthless paper- AAA ratings , thereby nearly bringing on a depression.

While the IMF and Euro bloc governments , especially France and Germany, were endeavouring to solve the serious Greek sovereign debt crisis, the ratings agencies did not help by giving Greece junk bond status . This contributed nothing to the international efforts being made to try and overcome the enormous problem with implications for other countries. It did, however, play into the hands of the speculators . So while honest open efforts were being made to salvage the Greek situation, the ratings agencies were, in effect, doing their best to undermine those steps and rattle the bourses.

The role, past performance, professionalism and scrutiny of ratings agencies is long overdue . They , as much as the the big, greedy dicks of Wall Street , have undermined the economic health and well - being of the world and mostly, so far, escaped scot free.

JOB SECURITY

Following talks at a ministerial level, a high flyer returned to his office displaying the Colgate ring of confidence and told adoring staff that his job is safe. Attacks against him , he said, were due to a personal vendetta by a certain person. To show how confident he was of remaining at the top of the heap, he then launched a witchhunt to try and find the source of suspected leaks to the dreaded media.

DARWIN AND BURMA

The Larrakia Trade Training Centre Bulletin of April , delivered free far and wide, made this memorable quote: Inpex and Total have a strong track record of social responsibility to the communities where their projects are located world wide , and are particularly loyal in recognizing the Traditional Owners of the land. They could immediately see the benefits such a facility would bring to Darwin by shaping a new generation of skilled tradesmen and women .Through the Larrakia Trade Trading Centre , Inpex and Total will make an important contribution to the social and economic sustainability of the Darwin community.

[ Little Darwin previously pointed out that the French oil company Total is involved in energy projects with the brutal, illegal Burmese regime which includes a pipeline made by forced labour. Prime Minister Rudd recently called on China to re-examine its involvement with the Burmese regime which did not result in the obvious local angle follow up by the Darwin media .]

The financial newspaper , Les Echos, reported that Total had recently been accused of paying bribes to Iraqi officials to gain access to oil supplies ; the Sydney Morning Herald of April 6 ran a story headed TOTAL CHARGED WITH GRAFT IN IRAQI OIL FOR FOOD PROGRAMME.

The NT News has today carried a report that the Burmese National League for Democracy, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, has been dissolved by the illegal regime. The energy and spin still continues as does the oppression of the Burmese .

BELATED PRAISE & KNIGHTHOOD FOR GREAT GOUGH WHITLAM

To attack the Rudd government, some members of that odd group, the Right Wing League of Gentlemen Pundits , employed by variations of the Psychoville Sycophant , have actually been saying nice things about Goff Whitlam when he was the prime minister. Whitlam, they say, had the courage of his convictions to call a double dissolution . In the past, Little Darwin pointed out that it had almost become fashionable for the right, especially its scribblers, to scoff at the Whitlam years and some members of the ALP tried to forget the great leader who led them out of the political wilderness.

Rudd , in dropping the ETS for the time being , is said to lack guts like Gough to stage a showdown and crash through or crash . Rudd, clearly, is not a Whitlam kind of action man. He’s more the academic- delivering the never ending thesis , enumerating point after point, big on ibids and footnotes, with an occasional squirt of rich red Fountain brand tomato sauce to show he is a regular guy. Several times, Rudd was in a position to call an election and annihilate the Coalition, but he did not. The widespread community dismay at deferring action against the greatest moral dilemma facing mankind and the mishandling of other issues has coagulated badly, damaged the government and , backed by the rivers of gold from the mining companies, will see the opposing side ranting even more stridently against anything and everything.

GROAN DEPARTMENT : Asked to name the last Australian prime minister to be knighted, a contestant in Who Wants to be a Millionaire recently stated it was Gough Whitlam. It was that drone Billy "Big Ears" McMahon.