SPANISH NOMAD CALLS IN

From Spain comes a surprising email from an adventurous one- legged grey nomad friend who once plied up and down the Queensland coast in a well fitted out yacht which even boasted a herb garden. I once went snorkelling with him at John Brewer Reef, 70kms off Townsville, journeying there in his son’s outboard . A flipper attached to the stump of his leg , and he was the first into the water ; after some time , we lost track of him and discovered him a long way along the reef , merrily exploring , armed with a speargun.

Some time later, he turned up in the yacht which he, being one of those people able to turn their hand to just about everything , had fitted out . With him was his partner, an intelligent, delightful woman , with a grown up family and a desire to write.

They told of their enjoyable trips and the sea- going nomad fraternity who regularly went north up Cape York with the south east trade winds and reluctantly returned to become landlubbers with the approach of the monsoons. On one of those trips north , some regulars gathered on a beach for the Melbourne Cup and ran a sweep.

Now comes this email informing us that he sold the yacht in December 2008 , split with his sailing partner and last year stripped and fitted out a 22- seater Toyota Coaster bus in which he plans to spend five years travelling around Australia. We expect to see a Spanish galleon in our drive way in the near future.

WAITING FOR BUSO # 4

( Samuel Beckett's whip-lashed tour of Darwin's bus routes .)

It was the time of the Catholic World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney and a blessed event took place in a Darwin bus . An Aborigine entered, saw a woman , who looked like one of those strange beings , a tourist , and asked , “ Are you seeing the Pope ?” With an accent , she responded by saying she did not understand English. He then announced he was black . “So what ? ” she replied . Resuming his opening religious gambit , the man said , “ I saw the Pope , and I cried .” In a confessional frame of mind , he admitted he had been a police officer in Western Australia and had children who were not black like him , “ half-castes ”, a situation which made him feel sorry .

After almost missing the bus , a gabby geezer about my age , wearing a baseball cap, stumbled down the aisle and sat down, asking me if it was the Number 4 . Waving an envelope , he informed me that he has just taken delivery of a ticket for a trip to Adelaide on the Ghan train , a journey he would make with his repaired bicycle at an extra cost of $40 .

Perhaps because I was carrying a cloth bag with a message to save the curlews of Magnetic Island , sported a scruffy beard , wore a floppy hat and suspicious Pommie - looking sandals , giving the impression of a nomadic , visiting , geriatric hippie , he asked me from whence I came. Darwin . When did I first come to Darwin ? 1958 . Oh . He volunteered that when he first came to Darwin , 1997, it was a “ cowboy town ”, everybody wearing cowboy hats. Then he told me that there is so much work available in the Territory that even he had been able to get a job.

The day before had been his birthday , and he was off to the casino to celebrate . On alighting , he made a bee- line for the casino , but stopped to speak to a young bloke sitting on the kerb , a T-shirt worn like a hat on his head, sunning his back . The Ghan ticket was being waved before his face.

RAPACIOUS ROAD TO RIO # 2

A brief history of Territory mine rehabilitation , an extract from the Environment Centre , Northern Territory, website.

Since mining began in the Northern Territory with the 1870s gold rush, there has been little in the way of rehabilitation requirements. The small scale of early mining operations and the speed with which operators moved on to other areas led to the abandonment of many mine sites. Dangerous pits and shafts, waste rock dumps and poisonous tailings deposits can be found at many former mining sites in the Northern Territory.

In some areas there has been an effort to rehabilitate sites. For instance in the South Alligator Valley within Kakadu National Park the Federal Government is currently undertaking an expensive rehabilitation program to remove the hazards of abandoned uranium mines at El Sherana, South Alligator, Coronation Hill and other sites. These rehabilitation efforts have been publicly funded as many of the companies involved in mining efforts no longer exist and in some cases the Commonwealth was one of the proponents.

"The Rum Jungle Mine in the Northern Territory, for example, released 130 tonnes of copper, 100 tonnes of manganese, 40 tonnes of zinc and 13,000 tonnes of sulfate into the Finnis River in one year." (Australia, State of the Environment, 1996, Department of Environment, Sport and Territories, 4-22)

Rum Jungle uranium mine near Batchelor provided the impetus for public concern about the impacts of abandoned mines. Rum Jungle was mined between 1954 and 1971 by CRA (Rio Tinto's predecessor) and the Commonwealth. For much of the mine's life tailings were deposited directly into the Finnis River system. On completion of mining no rehabilitation efforts were conducted. CRA and RTZ (now Rio Tinto) consistently refused to contribute any funds towards rehabilitation of the Rum Jungle site.

An initial attempt to clean up Rum Jungle was made in 1977, which led to the setting up of a working group to examine more comprehensive rehabilitation. A $16.2 million Commonwealth-funded program got under way in 1983 to remove heavy metals and neutralise the tailings. A supplementary $1.8 million program to improve Rum Jungle Creek South waste dumps was undertaken in 1990.http://www.sea-us.org.au/oldmines/rumjungle.html

Major environmental problems remain on site at Rum Jungle with serious acid drainage problems emerging. In 2001 the lease area is yet to be returned to traditional owners. Rum Jungle prompted regulators to at least publicly state the need for mining companies to meet their rehabilitation responsibilities if not ensuring that these responsibilities were met via legislation.

RAPACIOUS ROAD TO RIO #1

Instead of pussyfooting about with a piddling $38million information campaign , the Rudd government should acquaint the nation with the track record of the mining giants lining up against Australia, willingly aided and abetted by the Coalition hand maidens who are being showered with moolah. For example, Rio Tinto -

In the book Plunder , by Roger Moody, he described Rio Tinto’s activities as ranging from “brow-beating opponents, leaning on governments and price-fixing , to violating international law , union-busting and management of one of the world’s biggest commodity cartels”.

The company was founded in 1873 to mine the Rio Tinto copper deposits in the Spanish province of Andalusia , several hundred miners dying from lung diseases between l877 and l877. In 1920 many left wing miners were sacked after a strike which lasted four months over mass sackings and being paid with food. In the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, Andalusia was a stronghold of the Republicans against the fascist Nationalist forces of General Franco. Rio-Tinto’s chairman , Sir Auckland Geddes told the 1937 annual general meeting in London :”Since the mining region was occupied by General Franco’s forces, there have been no further labour problems…Miners found guilty of troublemaking are court-martialled and shot.”

In the 1950s and 1960s the company underwent massive expansion. Two thirds of its Spanish mine was sold and it extended is operations into “safe” countries like Canada, Australia, the US , New Guinea and South Africa..

At the time of the apartheid regime in South Africa the company exported uranium to England , under both Conservative and Labour governments, in defiance of UN sanctions . In 1962 Rio Tinto merged with Consolidated Zinc , the new corporation called Rio Tinto –Zinc (RTZ), mining uranium, gold, iron ore, bauxite and zinc and running several smelting companies.

The Weipa bauxite mine -67 percent owned by Conzinc Riotinto of Australia- saw the forced removal of two Aboriginal communities from their land at Weipa and Mapoon .Pre-issue shares were offered to select Australians , including the Queensland treasurer and acting premier, Gordon Chalk, and his family, and the then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs , the soon to be premier, Joh-Bjelke-Petersen .

In the 1980s, Rio-Tinto smashed unions at the Robe River iron ore mine , pioneering the introduction of individual contracts in Australia . The same action was taken in NZ at the Tiwai aluminium smelter.

A Rio Tinto subsidiary, Coal and Allied , was involved in action against unionists in the Hunter Valley of NSW which is being torn asunder by mining, impacting on the health of locals, the NSW Labor government turning a blind eye to the situation , one more reason why it will be booted out at the next state election.

GOOGLE RIO TINTO AND YOU WILL LEARN MUCH , MUCH MORE .

One of RTZ’s partners in a New Guinea goldmine was the “Ugly Canadian”, Robert Friedland , also known as “Toxic Bob” after the Galactic Resources Summitville mine figured in what was said to be the worst US cyanide release , in Colorado , and mine bankruptcy . The mine closed in 1990 and it was estimated it would take $120million to clean up the bankrupt mine site .The former environmental manager was indicted for intentionallyy dumping lead and cyanide directly into streams. Friedland nimbly stepped aside from the company shortly before the EPA came charging in and he blamed others for a situation described as the Exxon Valdez of the mining industry.

Author Moody had this to say : “One might conclude that no respectable miner would now touch the wily Canadian with a dragline. But over the past 18 months, as the full extent of the Summitville Horror has registered and Friedland has plundered ever southwards, one company has cordially negotiated with the pariah. Britain's RTZ, corporate mining's leading power and self- appointed advocate, will team up with Vengold to hold 40 percent of Papua New Guinea's massive Lihir project – the biggest untapped gold deposit outside of South Africa. "

PNG soldiers revolted when it was revealed that Executive Outcomes, a mercenary force , had been engaged by the government to invade Bougainville and reopen the Panguna mine, controlled by Friedland.

There is a massive , coordinated economic war going on in Australia right now and it is up to the voters to disregard the dire threats of the mining juggernauts .

MONEY CAN'T BUY YOU LOVE, A CLP SEAT OR KNEE TREMBLING CHARISMA

A Darwin couple openly boast that they unsuccessfully spent in excess of $200,000 trying to win a Legislative Assembly seat for the CLP. After the strange suggestion that rowdy Dave Tollner ,who, unlike Canute , scoffs at the real dangers of tidal surges, would strike fear in the ALP should he become the CLP leader, would anybody be willing to risk a brass razoo trying to secure a seat in such an outfit . Once more the inappropriate use of the adjective “charismatic” has been used to describe a Darwin politician, this time Tollner . The vox pop conducted by the NT News ( June 5 ) showed that not one of the five people quoted had been overwhelmed by Tollner's supposed charisma when asked if he should be the next CM.

STRANGE HYPOTHETICAL GEOFFREY ROBERTSON HYPOTHETICAL

Scenario : A CEO is instructed not to carry out an hysterical witchhunt for the source of imagined leaks to the media in Cloud Cuckoo Land (CCL). Despite this firm direction, the uppity CEO surreptitiously orders a full email audit of a substantial number of his staff going back to November. Then he scurries about hiding his email request for a Big Brother email probe . Panel , please say what you would do on being given this information .

Pretend government leader : Dunno .
Pretend Ombudsman : Dunno
Pretend Attorney-General : Dunno .
Pretend union leaders : Dunno .
Pretend normally outspoken legal organisations: Dunno
Assorted other pretenders in human resources ,etc : Dunno

Pretend Geoffrey Robertson , after experiencing hot flushes normally associated with puberty blues : This uniformity of dynamic thought and action bodes well for laissez faire Cloud Cuckoo Land . By the way , did any of you consider sacking the CEO , demanding his removal or sending him a protest, rocket or a please explain?

Chorus : Good God , man , that would be doing our job - for which we are handsomely remunerated - which is not the done thing here in CCL !

FOOTNOTE: A hypothetical member of the studio audience jumped to his feet and said he would insert the CEO's feet into a barrel of wet concrete and push it into the harbour .

PM IN VEXATIOUS , FISHY COURT CASE

While Malcolm Fraser should have some beaut photographs of places he visited in the Territory when he was PM , it is doubtful that he has many fond memories of the north. We recently posted the account about the riotous occasion when Fraser, in regal pose, sat on a dais in Mitchell Street outside the Legislative Assembly while eggs were thrown, outrageous things were shouted at the Governor- General, Sir Zelman Cowen, and Queensland Premier , Joh Bjelke –Petersen, held a media dunny stop to predict Aboriginal land rights would ruin the Territory.

Sir Zelman , while observing legal and social niceties, does have a sense of humour and a republican streak , despite having been Lizzie Two-Stroke's Australian representative ensconced in Yarralumla . This writer was present at a civic gathering in North Queensland when Cowen, running the Queensland University at the time , delivered an amusing , off the cuff speech.

In it he recalled how one Queensland civic leader, renowned for long, boring speeches , got to his feet and his knowing audience inwardly winced and prepared for a lengthy earbashing. The situation, however, was saved when somebody passed a note to the speaker which said , Sit down –your fly is undone.

The same year as the hootin’ and a-hollering outside the Legislative Assembly , PM Fraser found himself charged on summons with fish poaching at the Dreamtime Lagoon, in the Woolwonga Wildlife Sanctuary, contrary to the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Ordinance. The person who took out the summons was Roy James Wright , of Darwin, described as one of the Territory’s most colourful fishermen, serving nine months in Fannie Bay for taking fish with a gill net , in the same area the PM fished during his Territory visit .

Wright had claimed, in his own defence , that he had fished at the invitation of an Aboriginal born in the sactuary. When the PM went fishing on April 27 , he did so at the invitation of the Northern Land Council chairman, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, and caught some fish. Fraser had a 35mm camera with him and took many happy snaps during the fishing safari . Included in the 20 strong party were Chief Minister Paul Everingham, Fraser’s Press Secretary , David Barnett, and ex- Sydney Morning Herald journalist , Brian Johns , in the PM’s Department at the time , later a Penguin publisher and head of the ABC.

Local lawyer John Waters , then the NT ALP secretary, appearing for Wright, played the PM like a hooked Marlin or a Long Tom . He told Darwin magistrate , Tom Pauling , now the NT Administrator , that Mr Fraser had committed the offence on the high handed assumption that he was above the law. The defendant had not been under the influence of alcohol which might have diminished his responsibility. Furthermore, the PM was well known to police and had , in the past, demonstrated his disregard for the conventions of Australia and its law

The irritated, huffy QC representing the PM said Waters’ speech had been a political address delivered under the guise of heavy handed humour. It was made by a man who was willing to wound and afraid to strike. A plea of not guilty was entered , but the facts were admitted. Magistrate Pauling found the offence proven but dismissed the charge . Is this episode the reason why you never see Big Mal casting a line in Territory tourism TV advertising campaigns?