Asylum Seekers,(the telemovie) and other bright ideas

From the ‘bright ideas file’ of a government gone mad:

Don’t these asylum-seekers get it yet? The rule is “form an orderly queue and wait your turn to be processed by the refugee sausage-machine. Due process. Rules.” It’s not that hard, people.

We’ve done just about everything to stop them coming here. There was that awesome graphic novel that appeared on the Immigration department website (but is no longer there). The Guardian wrote about it though:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/11/government-launches-new-graphic-campaign-to-deter-asylum-seekers

We’ve spent a fortune on glossy communications campaigns:

http://www.customs.gov.au/site/offshore-communication-campaign-people-smuggling.asp

We’ve locked up the cowardly queue-jumpers (and their children) who would prefer to throw away everything they have on people-smugglers’ promises because they think that’s a better bet than taking their chances with the Taliban or Islamic State while they wait for the refugee sausage-machine to come up with their number.

We’ve made their lives unspeakably ugly in detention – so ugly that they self-harm. Some die. Still they don’t get it – what’s wrong with them? How can we get through to these people?

I know! Let’s make a telemovie! That’s SURE to work – everyone watches TV, right? – even people living in terror over there in those war-torn countries…

Imagine the excitement at the departmental morning tea when THAT idea was touted! I bet they almost choked on their sausage rolls.

A spokesperson for the Immigration Department told the ABC’s Lateline program that "television soap operas and telemovies are proven media to reach the target audience when seeking to deliver complex messages."

And they’ve picked Trudi-Ann Tierney, from Put it Out There Pictures, to produce it, by golly they have:

Ms Tierney is an experienced TV producer who worked in Afghanistan for four years making TV soap operas as well as an anti-terrorist police show called Eagle Four which was largely funded by the US embassy in Kabul and which she described as "propaganda".She also worked on Afghan programs backed by other embassies as well as UN bodies and aid agencies.In her 2014 memoir Making Soapies in Kabul, Ms Tierney wrote that: "Ostensibly I was head of drama (for a local TV company); but in truth I was nothing more than a propaganda merchant".

Here’s the whole story:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-09/tv-drama-to-deter-asylum-seekers/6381092

The bargain basement price tag of only $4.1m is another incentive for our government. 

I eagerly await the next bright idea from a government that is allegedly desperate to cut costs, and is willing to defund aboriginal communities and women’s refuges,  cut pensions, make the dole an impossibility for young unemployed, deregulate higher education fees while still allowing the uber-capitalists at the high end of town - the Gina Rineharts and Rupert Murdochs – to rake in the dough by avoiding their share of the ‘heavy lifting’ that our treasurer insists upon the rest of us doing.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/rupert-murdochs-us-empire-siphons-45b-from-australian-business-virtually-taxfree-20150406-1meu0l.html

So… I’ve been thinking about bright ideas, Aussie government, and I’ve come up with a few more to go on with in the wake of your fab telemovie:

• Asylum seekers - the board game. A game with all the randomness and rationality of Snakes and Ladders. 
• Asylum seekers – the phone app – race against the clock to turn back as many boats as you can. Extra points for at-sea detention or boat-scuttling.
• Build your own Manus Island detention centre’ – a construction kit made of canvas and razor wire. Extra guard-posts available at a small cost. Comes without bathroom doors. Build your own Nauru also available.
• Children-in-detention plush toys. Standard models come in male or female. Deluxe model cries real tears.
• Leering guard action figures.  Pose-able action figures complete with guns and erections.

That’ll work, for sure. And if that doesn't disgust you the way it disgusts me, then nothing will.

Stop the World!

Have human beings always been such arseholes?

Just recently, while listening to the radio in the mornings as I sort the mail, I’ve been shaking my head so much that I probably look like a Parkinsons patient. It’s awful. Actually, it's worse than awful.

If it’s not the Queensland government citing VLAD as a good reason to walk over the population in jackboots, and pretending it’s all because of outlaw motorcyclists, it’s men in Taiji luring and slaughtering thousands of innocent dolphins until the water of the harbour is a thick, angry red. Or some fucking council of chieftains in India ordering the GANG-RAPE (by middle-aged men) of a girl whose only ‘crime’ was to fall in love with a - gasp -  Muslim from another village.

On top of all this, our Prime Minister wants taxpayers to give Aussie newlyweds a $200 voucher for counselling services, while rich tax-cheats get an amnesty and the welfare system looks like being overhauled (because, you know, as one Queensland pollie mentioned earlier this week, people on the dole don't care about the community and are trying to screw the system.)

Oh, and meanwhile, our illustrious PM says, for the record, after a bunch of asylum seekers with burns accused the Australian Navy of mistreatment, something along the lines of “Who are you going to believe?  The Australian Navy or a bunch of lawbreaking illegal wannabe immigrants?” (yep, always believe the guys in uniforms, right?) 

Um. Well. If recent headlines about shenanigans in the defence forces are anything to go by, I’ll believe the asylum seekers, thanks.  Our defence forces, to their eternal shame, have made the headlines for hazing, bullying and sexual misconduct AGAINST THEIR OWN MEMBERS….. while asylum seekers have made the headlines for, um, seeking asylum.

And all that crap isn't even the TIP of the bloody iceberg of man's inhumanity to man (or, very often, woman). 

As for the environment - well, it's PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE. Always. Fuck the future, all that matters is profit NOW, for RICH PEOPLE here, now. Let's remove all the red tape that stops rich people getting richer, kick poor people in the guts so the bastards will work harder, fuck the environment if there's a buck to be made from it..... 

Am I angry? You bet I am. And even angrier that I am so powerless to do anything about any of it. All I have are angry words: words to send to governments via letter and email (and get back some bullshit pap of standard words copied-and-pasted by some arse-covering public servant); words on petitions that go God-knows-where; words on my blog, which sits out here in cyberspace reaching about fifty people if I'm lucky... words words words. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then the sword must be fucking useless. The world is going down the toilet, and every thinking person knows it. We're destroying the planet at such a rate ....

Ah, there's the answer. We're shitting in our own nest, big-time. It can't last. Perhaps the sooner we send ourselves to oblivion, and let the planet get on without the human race, the better. Sad, innit?

I'm so so so SO sick of it! I’m sorry. I’ve had enough of this shit. Stop the world. I want to get off.

The Betty Country Pub Guide and Photo Tour

I bought my 2009 calendar today – halfway through January they were all on sale - 75% off – wheeeee! And I've only missed 4% of the year – ooh I do love a BARGAIN!!!

For the grand sum of $2.50 I got Australian Country Pubs - and it started me thinking about some of the Aussie country pubs I've stayed in since I started riding.

So... here's the Betty Tour (condensed version) of a selection of country pubs I have loved!

The Homebush Hotel, Penarie NSW. Already mentioned this one in an earlier post – it's in the middle of nowhere, out past Balranald, and a quirkier publican than Phil you are unlikely to meet anywhere!



The Jamberoo Pub, Jamberoo NSW. Rode through a severe thunderstorm (and I do mean severe) to stay there. When we arrived we were pouring gallons of water out of our boots, and wringing out our gloves. The pub seemed so warm and inviting and DRY! I didn't sleep a wink. Rain tinkling down a downpipe outside my room kept me awake most of the night, but one of the staff was kind enough to take the bike gear of our group to a clothes drier.

The Court House Hotel, Boorowa NSW. Only 100kms from Canberra. Me and "The Goilz" are known as the “mud-wrestling bikie chicks” out there (long story). Trust me, there was no mud-wrestling! It was just an ugly ugly rumour. Honest. Graham, the publican, is a rider, and we “kidnapped” him and had a great ride out to Wyangala Dam in 40 degree heat. We all felt like old friends after that.



The London Hotel, Ardlethan, NSW. Brown carpet, low-wattage lightbulbs and a gruesome Ladies' bathroom, with opaque plastic thumbtacked over the missing pane of glass in the door. You don't care about that stuff when you're having an adventure – and we had an adventure all right! Went there with my mate Deb, and we had a ball – met some out of towners whose ute had broken down, and spent a very late night with them at the Bowling Club, then back at the pub playing pool half the night. Was hilarious!



Jerilderie Hotel, Jerilderie NSW. Ned Kelly cut-outs sit atop the buildings in the main street of Jerilderie. Great place with fantastic hot showers and the best savoury mince in the universe. The room didn't appear to be heated though, and there was only one blanket on the enormous comfy bed. It was June, and freezing. Thank goodness I was on my way back from the Wintersun Rally, and had a sleeping bag with me. I dragged it under the blanket and spent a very cosy night. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep before 7.30pm, in the middle of composing a text message. You know, one of those text messages that biker mums send to their daughters at the end of a long day's riding - the "don't worry, I'm alive" messages.




Here's a view down the main street of Jerilderie. Note bushranger Ned Kelly in evidence...

Tathra Hotel, Tathra NSW. Tathra, on the NSW south coast, is one of my favourite places. The bistro had hearty pub food and the locals were friendly. The motel attached to the pub was clean and roomy. Tathra's great – just about every house in the place has magnificent ocean views – but you need to hang out over a clifftop to get mobile phone reception, heh heh.



Mallacoota Hotel, Mallacoota Victoria. My all time favourite town – great roads to get there and had a ball there with my (grown-up) kids for my son's 24th birthday... The pub is very bike-friendly, and offers discounts to bikers.



The Australian Hotel, Coffs Harbour NSW. Has a fantastic bistro which makes the most delicious garlic mash. Oh I am drooling, just thinking about it! One of those big country pubs with wide verandahs and atmosphere atmosphere atmosphere.



The Agricultural Hotel, Singleton. "The Aggie" is right across the road from the railway station. Brilliant if you're a heavy sleeper or kinky about trains. About every 20 minutes another bloody train from the coalmines goes rattling past. All night. The bangers and mash in the bistro were pretty darned good though!

Corryong Hotel, Corryong Victoria. I shared a room with 2 other girl riders, and woke up with their possessions all over me – shoes, sweaters, you name it. Allegedly I had been snoring the night before (yeah, right!), so they had entertained themselves by chucking things at me to try and shut me up. God we had fun.

The Black Stump Inn, Coolah NSW. This one deserves extra special mention! I'd been touring with some friends, and this was part of the trip home. By this time there was only JB and her Ducati, and me and my Suzuki GS500, whose name was Gus.

The day's odyssey began at Port Macquarie and ended at Coolah.

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Disaster struck at Tambar Springs when Gus fell over in the gravel outside the servo (which is a couple of bowsers on the footpath outside the general store.) The lady from the shop told us "The kids reckon bikes always fall over gettin' to the bowser.... fall over gettin' back on the road too". (Yeah thanks, thought I, not yet back on the road.)

On the store lady's advice, we headed to Coolah, the home of the Black Stump, and had a brilliant night at the Black Stump Inn.

 

When we first walked into the bar to ask if they had any rooms, it was like a scene from a movie - a hush fell over the bar and everybody (all 15 of them) turned to look at the "strangers".... An hour later, everybody in the bar knew where we came from and what we were drinking...

All credit to the young bloke behind the bar. Put yourself in his place. Tiny country town. Two short-haired women in motorcycle gear stride through the bar and ask about accommodation. He didn't bat an eyelid.

“Um, so – will that be single rooms, or – gulp – a double?”

As it turned out, we couldn't stay in the single rooms we asked for anyway, because of a problem with smoke alarms. The lovely publican offered us a room in the shearers' accommodation instead. I was a bit reluctant. In my head I had visions of the bunkhouse in Of Mice and Men. The last thing I wanted was John Malkovitch waking me in the middle of the night and asking me to tell him about the rabbits.
 
You should've seen our room in the shearers' "shed" at the back of the pub - vomit-green lino, pink chenille bedspreads with peculiar stains - and it was straight across from the "kitchen" that the boys used, which had nudie posters all over the walls. Yep, real bloke territory....and don't even try to imagine the toilet/bathroom set-up!
 
Being tough motorbike sheilas, though, we were unfazed by it all - particularly as the publican let us stay there free of charge - "it's not real flash, girls - a bit rough, so I won't charge youse". We had the BEST night – and the shearers were nice young blokes who made us welcome. The night at the Black Stump Inn ended up being one of the highlights of the two week tour!


The bikes parked in front of the Black Stump - really and truly!

Well – that's the Readers Digest condensed version – a short guide to some country pubs. My 2009 calendar features some more pubs I wouldn't mind visiting! Watch this space!

An Outback Adventure - Home Sweet Homebush!

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Canberra to Penarie (say it Pen - AIRY) - 670kms or thereabouts.

Where the heck is Penarie? Well, it's a little dot on the map, about 28kms north of Balranald, on the Ivanhoe Road in western New South Wales. It's pretty much due west of Wollongong, and about halfway between Canberra and Adelaide.

Why Penarie? There's a fantastic outback pub there: http://www.homebushhotel.com.au/ , inhabited by a quirky array of characters. Besides, I don't get out west often. I've heard about the Hay Plain, but haven't ridden it - so it was about time!

So... the adventure begins on Saturday morning, after uncharacteristic downpours have dropped a couple of inches on Canberra AND parts west, like Hay - unheard of! The forecasts aren't great, but hey, I have wet weather gear...

At the servo in Yass I meet a trio of riders from somewhere out west. They're heading into Canberra for the annual Toy Run. Nice one! They warn me about enormous clouds of giant grasshoppers out west. Oh, great! Funnily enough, I don't encounter any at all - maybe because it's PIDDLING with rain by the time I get to Wagga Wagga, and maybe grasshoppers don't like the rain. I know I don't!

Out past Collingullie there's a place called Galore, which has the Galore Store (there's a store in Galore, the Galore Store, but out in Galore there's not much more!) and I start feeling as if I've stepped into the pages of a Dr Seuss book...

Well past Galore (and the Store) is Narrandera. That's pretty much the end of so-called 'civilisation', ha ha - and only about half way to Penarie. After Narrandera the distances between towns streeeeetch, and I'm basically heading into the outback. My next refuelling stop is a little roadhouse at Waddi. I stopped here once before, coming home from a Wintersun trip, in thick fog. Back then it was a haven of warmth, and I almost missed it because of the fog. It's unrecognisable in clearish weather!

In Hay a couple of people chat at me and tell me it's a crap day for riding. I agree! I've been on the road since about 7.30am. It's now 2pm, my shoulders are aching and I still have to fight the wind across the fabled Hay Plain. The wind is howling, the sky seems to have dropped MILES closer to the earth, and it's feeling pretty ugly. Press on, press on!

A mob of sheep is doing its thing on the road - sheep are so DUMB! I slow to a crawl, and the sheep run hither and thither across the road, changing course every couple of nanoseconds... The stockman, looking every inch the hero in an Akubra hat and a Drizabone, and astride a beautiful horse, gives me a noble and friendly wave as I negotiate a wobbly path through the mob. Forget Dr Seuss - all of a sudden I'm in a bloody Banjo Paterson poem!

Wow... the landscape out that way is amazing. It's almost sinister (but that could be because of the bleak weather...) I'm reminded of Henry Lawson's poem "Up the Country", where he talks about the hostile landscape that wants to trap the weary traveller...

Woodland gives way to stunted trees, and the grasslands disappear altogether. Dome-like shrubby things abound, and the colour of the ground changes from grey-brown to cream, to red-brown. It's so FLAT, you can see for ever.

Sad little piles of bones, in various states of bleachedness, appear every few metres by the roadside.

And then there's the dust... Between Hay and Balranald, big drifts of dust are whipped up by the wind and wafted across the road. Just what my bike needs - a good sandblasting...


My fellow travellers all appear to be trucks the size of apartment buildings, and mostly going the other way. If I forget to duck down as far as I can behind my screen to rest my chin on my tankbag, the enormous gusts of wind they generate try to rip off my helmet (and my head!)

The cattle trucks are the worst - the following blast of air is always full of cattle piss.

Why am I doing this? Because I want to get to the Homebush Hotel, that's why! Eventually I do! It's about 3.45 when I pull up out the front. Mine host, His Excellency Phil, kisses me hello - I ask you, how many places can you go and get that sort of welcome? - and gets me settled in.

After a shower I feel a little more human (although my shoulders still ache like buggery), and then the fun begins!

The Homebush Hotel is the last remaining pub of 15 which once existed on the 200km stretch of road between Balranald and Ivanhoe. (That must've been a helluva boozy pub-crawl on horseback, way back when...) Back in the old days it was also a Cobb & Co stop, and is one of the oldest continually-licensed premises in the country.

These days it's been extended (with grants from the Heritage Council that ensure poker machines will never EVER be installed there!) and Phil has grand plans to turn it into a hub of combined cultural activity and outback hospitality. The second "Country Muster" will take place next Easter. Don't miss it!

I have a fabulously boozy evening with the entire population of Penarie (that's about 5 people) and a couple of "interlopers", like Wayne's Mum and his lovely girlfriend, Valerie. What a hoot! My new friends are great company!

Sunday is quiet - a gal has to conserve her energy for the monster ride home! A busload of RSL people from Sea Lake (Victoria) descends for lunch and a tour of the Historic Homebush, and those of us who are left when they go have a few quiet drinks.

The ride home begins at about 6.45am, in the midst of a dazzling outback sunrise. I've been warned by Wayne, one of the locals, that there will be roos on the Ivanhoe Road, so I'm not surprised when 3 of the little buggers start hopping along parallel to the bike. As long as they stay parallel it's all good. But you can never trust kangaroos.... I stay slow...

I see wedge-tailed eagles rising - enormous and majestic - from the side of the road... Major Mitchell cockatoos fly upwards, wings spread, their pink and white feathers back-lit by the climbing sun, and it's just breathtaking! There are emus watching me traverse the Hay Plain... I shriek and sing and giggle like a madwoman inside my helmet - I'm having such fun in this crazy alien landscape!

The relentless sameness of the landscape does strange things to your eyes, and creates optical illusions - but the lone man in the hi-vis vest, pushing a wheelbarrow across the Hay Plain is no illusion. The Australian flag flutters proudly on the front of his wheelbarrow and he looks so tiny and alone out there. [note to self: google to find out what the heck he was up to!] By the time I realise I'm not hallucinating, I've flashed past him and missed a fabulous photo opportunity.

A little later I pull over to take photos of the countryside (there are no grey clouds today!) Somehow one of my contact lenses is blown out of my eye, and I have to retrieve it from the bloody road! It would be quite a sight for a passing motorist (if there WERE any!) to see me crouching by the bike, trying to find a spot out of the ever-present wind so I can put the bloody thing back in!

The trip home takes me a different way - after Narrandera I go via Grong Grong, Matong, Ganmain and Coolamon. The grasshoppers start just before Ganmain. Clouds of them fly at me. Some are big enough to make me say Ouch when they hit my gloves, legs and boots. They make an interesting plick noise when they hit my visor.

At Old Junee a hare lopes across the road in front of me. I don't squash it - that would be mean...

I refuel at Cootamundra (I'm feeling peckish by now, but it seems close enough to home not to bother stopping for food.) I ride through ever-denser clouds of grasshoppers (Ouch, plick, OUCH!) and finally arrive home a bit before 3pm. The landscape here is so tame, so safe, so familiar - and I really want to head back over the Hay Plain to Penarie again!

There are three blokes who run the Homebush Hotel: His Excellency Phil, Sir Edward Edward Edward, and Captain Smyth - and what an interesting crew they are! His Excellency Phil, who's a muso as well as a publican, an entrepreneur AND a pisshead is pictured below. He's fabulous!

















Turns out Captain Smyth and I went to the same primary school in Sydney, many many years ago (not at the same time) and we both remember certain teachers! That coincidence is just too amazing, and I intend talking to the Captain some more! Penarie (and home sweet Homebush!) here I come again!

Anniversary

Today is an important anniversary for me.

42 years ago today, my mother, my two younger brothers and I stepped off a BOAC flight onto Australian soil for the first time ever. 15 November, 1966 - the weather was gorgeous as we stepped onto the tarmac in Sydney. It was some ungodly hour like 6am, but it was light, and bright, and WARM ( we had just left a dark Novembery England, remember...)

Brand new Pommies. It was balmy, the light was eye-stabbingly bright, we were blindingly white and English. We were fried to crisps very shortly thereafter!

42 years ago I was 7 years old, and while it was all a bit exciting coming to a new country and all, and going on an aeroplane for the first time (yeah, great, all I did was leave a 12000 mile trail of vomit across the planet) I didn't want to be here. My life (such as it was!) was back in England.

This hot country where kids ran barefoot in the everlasting summer was not where I wanted to be. Oh God, I cringe sometimes when I think I must've been the most pompous 7 year-old Pom in the entire country. All I wanted was to go back to England.

When did I become Australian? I'm not sure...

I stopped missing England when I started high school in 1972;
I became an Australian citizen in about 1998, I think;
I started thinking that England was a foreign country when I visited in 2005, and the green hurt my eyes...

It happened sometime in amongst all of that - and I still can't say exactly what it means to be Australian, because all that "football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars" stuff makes me cringe.

I suppose what it means to me is that I can't seriously imagine living anywhere else - this is Home. I don't love everything about this country - in fact, there's plenty of stuff I don't like - the racism that pretends it doesn't exist; the worship of larrikinism (yeah, it can be cute in small doses but after a career as a schoolteacher I'm over it); the underdog mentality that seems to coexist so uncomfortably with the "wannabe" mentality; the "cringe" mentality (I confess, I cringe about Strine, but still feel as if it's somehow mine)...

When I think about being Australian, though, I guess what I'm identifying with is a love for the enormous expansive varied mish-mash of people and landscape that makes this place so wonderful.

I notice it most when I'm riding, and particularly when I'm riding a long way from home, especially when I'm by myself. Nothing makes me feel more Australian, and more comfortable, than pulling up at a country pub on my bike after a 500km ride, staggering into the bar, asking "can I have a room?" - and hearing the publican say "course you can, love, where you from?" It's the voice of belonging, of Home. I tried it a few years ago (sans motorcycle) in Portugal, and somehow something was lost in the translation... Give me a country Aussie pub any day!

I came to Australia in 1966 as a child of my parents - it was their choice to come here, not mine... I floated here on the waves they created - and quite frankly I resented it for a long time. It took me a while to appreciate what a great choice it was, but after 42 years here I can say this: I'm an Australian and I love it!