Blog Archives
Poor Craig busy chasing martians instead of making coherent statements
–contributed
A bypass road for the Kuranda Range is well into the planning stages by private means and has passed every test as a viable route from Mareeba to Cairns taking 20 minutes off the existing dangerous Kuranda Range track with its outdated, derelict, Barron River traffic bridge.
In spite of the garbage spewed forth by the Labor state member for Barron River and former ambulance attendant Craig Crawford, there would not be one house resumption , there would be no added traffic to Intake Road at Redlynch, no tunnels and it can be built in 18 months for $450 million.
This is $1.5 billion cheaper than Member for Kennedy Bob Katter’s ‘wobbly way’ to Edmonton and without heavy transport-inhibiting tunnels.
In a public tussle between Crawford and Bob Katter every bogey man possible has been dreamt up by poor Craig, in between drinks of course, believing houses will be bulldozed presumably with occupants intact and the job will take 15 years. Then he found two martians drinking at the bar under his house and discovered all his port and brandy had disappeared.
After a brawl with the slippery aliens, a somewhat bruised Craig called the ambos but they were too busy carting vaxx-damaged victims to the overflowing Cairns Base Hospital and told him to visit the local doctor.
He got his missus to drive him the few hundred metres but the clinic staff wouldn’t let him in because he hadn’t been jabbed.
Ah well back to Smithfield Tavern to top up his depleted supplies, nurse his bruises and lie-in-wait near his bar with a baseball bat for the martians to reappear.
Craig is moving his office from Smithfield away from the nearby ambulance station in case he is called to re-enlist as a driver to help replace the 600 ambos he and his Cabinet colleagues sacked because they won’t take the deadly jab. Nor will Craig – the Premier said he didn’t have to.
He is off to Redlynch to set up his new office, fortuitously near the shops and in case the martians come back, he can walk to the bottleo.
After Tablelands commuters threatened to lynch poor Craig last year over the poor state of the Kuranda Range Road and its 1000 daily, heavy vehicle movements, he promised the problem would soon be fixed.
He told ABC Radio he would place driver-less cars on the range and that would stop the cars and trucks from careering over the edge.
That didn’t go too well with many angry truckies thinking he was looking through the bottom of a brandy bottle while he was solving the problem.
Nevertheless now he is installing a system of stop and go lights along the length of the range road trying to stifle the traffic flow.
The cabling contract alone will cost $30 million and it’s anybody’s guess what the completed project will cost or if it will work.
Poor Craig, he wasted $30 million on the range road that was declared obsolete by the Main Roads Department in 2005. Those funds could have provided the necessary corridor for the proposed Reddicliffe Highway from Mareeba to the Cairns CBD.
If the state government had anything to do with the road construction then it would most likely take 20 years to build, one astute engineer quipped.
“We can build it in 18 months,” the engineer said.
Craig was being conservative probably for the first time in his life at 15 years.
ALP instructs cops to back off black criminals
by staff reporters
The hunters are becoming the hunted in a shocking new escalation of Townsville’s youth crime crisis, Katter’s Australian Party Hinchinbrook (KAP) MP Nick Dametto has said.
Mr Dametto said reports of youth offenders pursuing, ramming and throwing bricks at police cars overnight had sickened him.
He said due to the Queensland Police Service’s strict anti-pursuit policy, it was likely the targeted officers had no choice but to retreat and leave the kid crims to continue on their rampage.
It was a shocking state of affairs that was causing community anger to boil over and vigilantism to fester, Mr Dametto warned.
“This would have to be a world first – a situation where 12 and 13 year old kids have so little respect, or fear, of the law that they are actually comfortable hunting down police officers,” he said.
“Someone is going to die, or be severely hurt, unless drastic actions are taken.
“I don’t want to see that in this community – not again.
“The current youth justice system, and the Palaszczuk Labor Government that has presided over this mess for the last six years, must accept responsibility.
Last week half a dozen murris from the war-torn Cape York community of Aurukun were airlifted by rescue chopper to Cairns Hospital after being shot with a cross-bow and hunting bows during yet another regular riot between five warring families. Not a word from their caring local member Cynthia!
“Stop it with the dodgy statistics and the tokenistic press conferences – people are not going to tolerate this for much longer.”
Mr Dametto said with Cleveland Detention Centre at capacity and its rotational door set-up repeatedly failing to deter recidivist offenders, the situation in the North was desperate.
He, on behalf of the KAP, called urgently for:
- Relocation Sentencing to be trialled as an alternative to detention for recidivist youth offenders
- An innovative strategy that allows for the effective pursuit and disabling of stolen vehicles and ensures public and officer safety.
“Just waiting for these kids to get bored with their games or run out of fuel is not an effective response to these kinds of situations,” Mr Dametto said.
Cairns economy significantly reliant on hinterland industries
Local News
The Far Northern Queensland city of Cairns owes its existence to the Atherton Tablelands and the wider hinterland’s agricultural, tourist and mining industries.
This revelation was central to a public meeting held at Mareeba on Tuesday night when respected Cairns economist Bill Cummings told a large meeting of residents the hinterland contributed $4.5 billion annually to the Cairns economy.
The meeting was held to push the state government into constructing an alternative road access to Cairns, bypassing the dangerous Kuranda Range Road.
Several alternative routes were proposed at the meeting which resulted in a unanimous resolution being carried instructing the state government to begin construction of a new four lane highway by November 30, 2021.
For three generations Tablelands and Peninsula residents have had to tolerate one of the most dangerous highways in Australia that links the vast areas of the north and west to the business hub and port of Cairns.
A report commissioned by the FNQ Regional Organisation of Councils revealed the Kuranda Range Road was officially made redundant by The Main Roads in 2005.
Here we are 16 years later still suffering the ignominy of a state government that spends billions on the pampered south-east corner of the state while totally neglecting the million or more people of North Queensland.
Cairns residents don’t have to put up with inferior, dangerous roads in the same manner as its hinterland brothers. Therefore in light of the enormous economic benefit bestowed upon Cairns residents they should have the courteousness to support an essential road upgrade for the very people to whom they owe their economic existence.
Cairns road objectors should be supporting the Tablelands’ reach for a new road which will greatly enhance their economy as more and new industry will have the ability to open and expand.
Particularly as the deliberate government sabotage of tourism and small business has devastated the local Cairns economy which now hinges on the efforts of its own and hinterland industries.
The state government for the same reasons should follow suite.
A committee of concerned Tablelands’ residents was set up earlier in the year to create public awareness of the need for a new road and has succeeded in attracting at least some awareness from the Brisbane Labor Party although no Labor representatives turned up at the Mareeba meeting.
Similarly there was no response from Tablelands Regional Council Mayor Rod Marti or any supportive response from Mareeba Shire Mayor Angela Toppin.
However Mareeba and Tablelands councils are members of FNQROC which has taken up the slack on their behalf by supporting a new road. – contributed
Cairns’ Labor politicians let the hospital and the city services fall apart
Letter to the Editor
Hi I wanted to get this out in the open,I need your help, I posted it on cairns open political forum someone suggested I should contact other news outlets as the main ones don’t give a sh..t I’ve re-written below the link It would be good if the hospital staff and local police could be interviewed https://www.facebook.com/groups/cairnsopenpoliticalforum/permalink/1206987903086203/?app=fbl
Calling all of our local council to work together not fight to do something #rightnow not for brownie points.
Was at CAIRNS BASE HOSPITAL the night before last. No hand sanitizer in the emergency area at all. People lined up down the halls coming from ambulances. Not enough staff, front counter, cleaners and triage.
Spoke to 2 police officers from the Edmonton branch that were guarding a patient. They said there was only 4 of them on at NIGHT at the Edmonton police station. I asked with all this crime I asked if more resources were being sent up
They said medical and police were severely underfunded. And they blamed the Queensland Premier Anna for this I thought quietly, I blame our local member. Crime rates are through the roof ! Cairns base hospital can’t cope, Staff are over worked, they are rushing people out the door that do need to stay longer just to get the emergencies and other people into beds
What is going on here? Imagine if covid hit here, winter is looming. We wouldn’t cope something needs to be done immediately.
And the roads in the city that are getting fixed I nearly drove in a ditch around the roundabout that is getting built coming home from the hospital. What is going on here?
from
Annette, Cairns
Barrier Reef $542M funding buys penthouses, Lamborghinis and overseas holidays
Katters Australian Party targets Save the ‘Great Barrier Reef’ industry
North Queensland readers would find it more than interesting the Cairns Post newspaper has ignored this story
KAP Candidate for Leichhardt, Daniel McCarthy has today called for a forensic audit to be carried out on all Barrier Reef government funding warning that the ‘rivers of gold’ crisis funding being allocated to save a reef that doesn’t need saving have flowed for far too long and it was time to reveal to tax payers just how their money was being spent.
A select few crisis-crying people have done exceedingly well from millions of dollars in tax payer funded grants whilst the rest of the marine tourism industry in Cairns and Port Douglas have suffered tremendously.
“We have the third largest territorial sea of any nation yet no politicians currently in Canberra have the slightest grasp on reality with our oceans, and it now seems government doesn’t know or has been turning a blind eye to where the reef funding money has been funnelled and a full and thorough forensic audit will determine what’s been going on with the $102 million been spent on Crown of Thorns alone,” said Mr McCarthy.
Dan McCarthy KAP calls for forensic audit of half a billion in Federal reef funding
The negative publicity in the world wide media is a result of outrageous false and misleading claims made by those milking the gravy train has destroyed the reputation of the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.
“The knock-on effect caused by the reef’s trashed reputation has flowed through the North.
“Cairns Port expansion plans are held to ransom by the Federal governments Reef 2050 plan along with the unnecessary State Government vegetation management laws and increased green-tape where virtually every farmer in North and Far North Qld has also been vilified along the way.
“It’s high time to restore integrity into science, policy and research funding for the Great Barrier Reef.”
The current media reports of the sacking of Prof Peter Ridd by James Cook University is currently before the courts and is deeply troubling.
“As far as I am aware Prof Ridd was simply offering a scientific view that the science in relation to reef funding should be quality controlled.”
The federal government handed over $102m to a group of researchers to implement control measures for the coral-eating crown of thorns starfish (above). Current research shows a one-off injection of a bovine enzyme easily kills the starfish.
Recently the Crown of Thorns starfish funding had been under scrutiny in wide spread revelations in the media.
“We all want to protect the GBR that’s for sure. However, I have been inundated with phone calls from people across the marine sector and the public who are absolutely ropable over the reef funding scandal that has come to light.”
McCarthy has a deep understanding of the threats and the reality of what’s actually happening on the reef, having worked on it for most the last 30 years and in every sector of the marine industry.
“I have long been concerned that the relationships and arrangements for reef funding were ‘a little cozy’ between a couple of individuals and their organisations and members of parliament, but what has been revealed in recent wide spread media of late it appears the situation stinks of jobs for the boys to say the least.”
Hard working Australian tax payers are having hundreds of millions of their dollars directed into the ‘save the Reef’ industry.
Now it appears some of this money may have been funnelled into saving for retirement, penthouses, expensive luxury cars, hobby farms on the Tablelands, overseas holidays and election campaign funding for a select few. It certainly does not pass the pub test.
Mr McCarthy is furious at many of the matters being raised particularly with what equates to ‘Donor Democracy.’
“If what is alleged in these media reports is true I think it disgraceful. Australian’s are fed up with seeing their money being swallowed up in deceptive, self-interested projects under the guise of saving things,” he said.
“I support Dr Peter Ridd’s proposal that at least one per cent of the funding that goes to the Great Barrier Reef is spent on checking the science, verifying the findings and providing quality assurance.”
There are many further questions to be asked as to why the Federal Government gave $440 million to a private company that never asked for the money nor has the capacity or idea as what they intend to do with it.
Islamic Yanner a disgrace to the Aboriginal race
Yanner nearly jailed for an attack on a woman in 1997
Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner yesterday verbally abused One Nation leader Pauline Hanson accusing her of being a racist and telling her she was not welcome at the indigenous art show she visited in Cairns.
Yanner, whose Christian name is Jason, comes from the Gulf community of Doomagee near Burketown and like Hanson is no stranger to controversy.
Indigenous industry sources have told Cairns News Yanner converted to Islam about 10 years ago which explains his vile attack. https://www.facebook.com/PaulineHansonAu/videos/492107537660230/
Hanson laughed it off, later releasing a Facebook clip asking Yanner to stand with her against the corruption in various land councils and in government.
Yanner is regarded as a thug among some of his own people and his outburst will win him no friends within the wider Aboriginal community and certainly none at all in the white community.
A Traditional Owner and elder from Cairns called Yanner a “…disgrace, and our community will not tolerate this attack on a woman.”
Murrandoo Jason Yanner, regarded as a thug among the wider Aboriginal community verbally assaults Pauline Hanson at an art show.
Yanner was given a suspended jail sentence by a Mt Isa court over his role in a vicious pub brawl. The Court of Appeal found Yanner’s sentence should be increased, ordering he be jailed for 18 months, but wholly suspended the sentence for a period of four years.
The Attorney General had appealed a Mt Isa District Court sentence in which Yanner was placed on community-based orders.
However, in a split decision, one of the three appeal court judges, Chief Justice Paul de Jersey, found Yanner should actually serve time in jail – recommending an 18-month sentence suspended after six months, with an operational period of four years.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Murrandoo Yanner should be actually imprisoned,” Justice de Jersey said in his written judgment.
“His substantial episode of unprovoked vicious and brutal thuggery involved as many as four innocent victims, people who were thereby both physically injured and emotionally traumatised.”
Yanner and his young brother, Bruce Lee Yanner, 21, were involved in the fight outside the Burketown Hotel in May 1997. Yanner had pleaded guilty in the Mt Isa District Court to three charges of assault causing bodily harm and one of assault causing bodily harm in company, over attacks on a woman, a Telstra worker and a male nurse.
Lock out laws rile some Cairns night clubs, but majority agrees says Knuth
Changes to State Government liquor ‘lock out’ laws have divided the community in Far North Queensland, with letters to newspapers and radio talk back callers equally opposed and agreeing to the changes.
Taxi operators, nightclub owners and young patrons have criticised the Labor Party’s legislation that will see a reduction in drinking time, with last drinks at 1am instead of 3am.
Some venues can apply for last drinks at 2am with an additional 30 minutes grace before lock out.
Shane Knuth KAP (google pics)
The new regulations come into force on February 1, 2017, allowing a 12 month phase-in provision insisted on by Katters Australian Party MP’s Shane Knuth and Robbie Katter.
Those with a criminal history of violence or drug dealers will not be allowed entry to venues.
The regulations are to be reviewed in July 2018.
Emergency services personnel have shown total support for the new laws, praising the KAP for its insight into the burgeoning alcohol culture of young people.
The Australian Medical Association welcomed the changes, believing the shorter hours will go a long way towards halting ‘coward punches’ and drug-fuelled violence.
“The police asked us to include the banning of known drug dealers and users within night club precincts and the management of this is up to the night clubs,” Mr Knuth said.
“We indicated from the beginning we would not support the regulations in their original form.
“In Sydney, with its similar laws, clubs introduced food towards closing time, helping patrons to sober up before leaving.”
Our Nightlife Queensland Secretary Nick Braban attacked KAP for supporting the winding back of trading hours describing the 1am lock out as “draconian” that would cost jobs and kill business.
The LNP, in opposing the changes, has waded in accusing KAP of “backflipping” and causing chaos to Cairns’ status as an internationally renowned tourist destination.
Michael Trout tourist operator- ex-MP (google pics)
Former LNP Member for Barron River and tourist operator Michael Trout, said KAP is not welcome in Cairns.
“It no longer has any relevance,” Mr Trout said.
“KAP is too close to the ALP and is now seen as being in bed with them.
“The night chaplains are upset and an ABC poll showed 75 per cent support against the changes.
“I thought they (KAP) would never sell our town down the drain. It is not a beat up and is not going to go away.”
Advance Cairns and the Cairns Chamber of Commerce joined the fray believing the early lock down would create transport issues.
Cairns Taxis chairman Layne Gardiner said the city’s 137 cabs would not be able to provide the same level of service when venues are unable to serve alcohol after 3am.
He said when large numbers of patrons leave venues simultaneously, on big nights, trouble usually breaks out at taxi ranks.
“I think that when they start to wait on ranks, that’s when fights do break out and unfortunately we are the end result who have to take them home,” Mr Gardiner said.
A KAP spokesman said due to the large number of calls and emails received by Mr Knuth and Mr Katter, the majority of Queenslanders supported the changes leaving Cairns as the main objector.
Rob Katter and Shane Knuth KAP – (google pics)
KAP moves into Cairns
Robbie Katter (second right) told the newly formed Cairns branch of KAP he would assist Cairns people with infrastructure development provided they supported the party, because he “could not do the job on his own.”
Katters Australia Party is spreading its wings over Cairns at the request of a group of keen supporters who on Saturday formed a branch with the intention of contesting the next federal and state elections.
State leader Robbie Katter, the Member for Mt Isa spoke to the gathering of small business operators and residents at the Shangri La hotel urging them to back the party in state and federal parliament.
“We have had some significant wins in parliament over the past year, particularly with freeing up sugar marketing and introducing a bill to regulate ride sharing company, Uber,” Mr Katter said.
“We have backed the dredging of the port and have listened very carefully to Cairns business operators and the general community about Labor’s proposed lock out law changes.
“Shane Knuth(Member for Dalrymple) and I are quite agreeable to help the community but we can’t be effective if people don’t support us, and I won’t be around for ever because I might not want to spend the rest of my life in parliament.
“I am concerned that government tenders don’t always go to local firms and we will be doing something about the economic loss to Cairns and other struggling towns when government unnecessarily gives away your jobs.”
A committee was elected and will advertise when the next meeting is called.
Chairman Keith Campbell said he was delighted to be elected to head the fledgling party.
“I have been following Bob Katter for five years and he has been a great advocate for regional development and giving ordinary workers a fair go,” Mr Campbell told the elated group.
Cairns businessman Victor Perazza was elected as Secretary.
Keith Campbell can be contacted on 0448-603-022
NITV journalist accuses police of intimidation after Indigenous march – video | Australia news | The Guardian
Corporate Federal Police overstep the mark-again:
Former indigenous journalist attempts to set up new Aboriginal nation/state near Cairns
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2015/apr/29/indigenous-recog nition-anzac-day-march-police-video
Militant Murris start a big fire on Cape York Peninsula
by
Robert J Lee in Cairns
Three Community Cabinet meetings, hundreds of thousands of dollars in hand-outs to sporting clubs, millions for council beautification works and Main Roads projects done on the cheap will not change the hostile community attitude towards the Member for Cook David Kempton and will not help him hold his seat.
Multi-million dollar grazing property purchases handed over to indigenous corporations, construction of useless walking and pushbike tracks and the demolition of valuable rail assets will drive the final nail into the box of the former Cooktown land rights solicitor.
Liberal Party sources say they know the writing is on the wall for their short-lived domination of the Far Northern electorate which stretches from just north of Atherton to the Papua New Guinea border.
Traditional Owners from communities across Cape York Peninsula say they are infuriated with the performance of Mr Kempton.
Likewise community leaders from southern parts of the electorate which will be the subject of a future article.
“Where are our jobs?” demanded an angry Traditional Owner from Injinoo.
Two outspoken indigenous community leaders have targeted the Liberal Party and Mr Kempton for “under the table deals” with foreign mining companies and inaction over the removal of Alcohol Management Plans that he promised before the last election.
Others are speaking out about the ‘freehold’ housing deal offered to some communities with conditions that are impossible to meet.
David Kempton
Self-appointed national indigenous spokesman Noel Pearson is believed to be “totally pissed off” with Kempton because of his “back door deals” between various community groups, which undercut the influence and domination by the Cape York Land Council and its business arm, Balkanu over varous community groups.
Cairns News is being careful not to specifically identify the issues that have alienated the Liberals from the CYLC and its “jobs for the boys” program, suffice to say the latest land grab over the entire Peninsula by the CYLC and its nominees has inflamed a turf war among competing groups that will be impossible to extinguish.
Another cop-out at Bamaga by the LNP and Mr Kempton will bring down the roof when it hits the national news bulletin.
Predictions by pastoralists of the 80’s and 90’s have begun to take shape as the State and Federal Governments further dispossess white pastoralists of their generational holdings and hand them over to Aborigines.
It goes without saying that abandoned indigenous cattle grazing enterprises have been the bane of the northern cattle industry and the shame of governments pandering to indigenous pressure groups who simply want to live “on country”.
Gone forever is an integral part of the Far Northern breeding herd and gone forever is proven white stewardship of the fragile Peninsula grazing environment.
Former Peninsula leaders predicted the invisible and sticky fingers of the CYLC would eventually control the entire area north of Lakeland.
The late Harvey Schwenke of ‘Strathmay Station’ and former Peninsula Cattlemans Union chairman created controversy 15 years ago when he said the Land Council would one day control the entire Peninsula.
“They will fence across the lower boundary between Lakeland and Laura, place a gate on the Peninsula Development Road and charge entry to any white people wanting to enter,” Mr Schwenke told a Cairns reporter of the time.
It is notable that ‘Strathmay Station’ was one of five large cattle properties recently handed over to an indigenous group.
Just who will replace the Liberal Party on the Peninsula is anyone’s guess but a tip from Cairns News: “Keep an eye on Katters Australian Party candidate Lee Marriott,” a Cape York Peninsula native from Lakeland.
For more information read Cairns News December 12, Entire Cape York Peninsula soon to be owned by Cape York Land Council
Cairns News 