The Doust Files, Albany Advertiser 31/8/2010

Have you got your Rate Notice from the City of Albany?
Have you burnt your Rate Notice? Did you want to burn your Rate Notice? Did you want to stuff your rate notice up … a drain pipe?
I am tempted to ask if there was, perhaps, something else you might prefer to burn, but that may well hasten my arrest under the criminal code for incitement to riot, or cause havoc, or, at the very least, disrespect to legally elected representatives in a due and democratic process.
Which leads to me suggest what asses we are, you and me, the lot of us, including Len, my retired Bruce Rock farmer mate and Phoebe, my young and funky lawyer friend who yells at me from across the street.
What are we doing? Why don’t we stand up and make ourselves available? We would never have got ourselves into this mess. Would we?
I’ll tell you why, because it’s a thankless task, local government, any government. I’ve got mates in a couple of houses of parliament and every time I see them I say: “Get out! Now! While you still have a smidgeon of sanity and you still have at least one friend.”
Anyone going in should go in with a set term in mind, say six years. Then they should bugger off, go home, back to the farm, to the law office, open a gelato shop and give some other poor sod a go.
Nothing worse than watching tired old pollies hang on for dear life because that’s all they know, all they’ve ever done since the old days when they had a real job and they still think they have it, but they’ve forgotten what it is.
Well, there are a couple of things worse, like accidentally ironing your tongue, or being run over by a rotary hoe, or being forced to eat rhubarb with potato.
Watching the current Federal campaign has reminded me what is wrong with the grass roots: there’s no vision. Both leaders argue over the same policies, each one offering fifty bucks more than the other, hoping we will go: “Hey, wow, fifty bucks, that’s great. I can buy a new pillow.”
And that’s what’s wrong with local government, no vision, no grand plan, just knee-jerk responses to jerking knees.
As Pete, my Noongar mate often reminds me, Albany was the first wadjela (white fella) town on this vast west coast: “Surely we could make something of that by embracing the two cultures, make the town a symbol of transition. For a start, what about using Noongar and English in all signage and all visitors to the region to be welcomed by the mayor and an elder.”
Then there’s the brilliant idea I’m sure many of you have heard about to return Albany to its original name, Frederickstown, once a year, for one month and fill the place with activities and historical re-enactments.
Pete reckons Lockyer’s mob were late-comers and he’d like to go back to Kinjarling, the original name for the region, meaning place of rain.
These are big visions. They may not be your visions, but why not give them a try. If they don’t work, we could mix and match and try others. A town that continually re-invents itself would be exciting to visit.
Too many people over the last couple of weeks have come up to me and said: “What are you going to do about it, Jon, the rate hike?”
First of all I commiserate and then I say: “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to write a column. That should make the buggers quake.”
There, I’ve done it. When they bring the rates down next year, you’ll know who to thank.

The Doust Files, Albany Advertiser, 17/8/2010

At the time of writing this column, I am somewhat relieved to know that this most boring of elections is almost over.

Never have I known such a vacuous contest, with both leaders touting policies that could, just as easily, belong to the other.

Those of you at least as old as me will well remember the great contests of the past, even the 1962 stoush between the magician Menzies and the artless Caldwell makes this current bout look like something  from World Championship Wrestling.

And who could forget Fraser versus Hawke, then Peacock up against Hawke, followed by Howard v Hawke, then Peacock again, then Keating versus Hawke, then Keating chucking cake at Hewson and, oh yes, Lazarus himself, Howard tumbling Keating.

What tussles. What drama. You could even, hard to believe I know, tell the difference between the party platforms.

My personal favourite was the Fraser Hawke clash of 1983 and I saved the entire election campaign in political cartoons.

In those days telex machines were standard issue in state government offices and I worked in one as a contract journalist.

Each and every day reams and reams of telex print outs were tossed in bins and then laid to rest in the Shenton Park garbage dump.

But not where I worked. I lovingly saved reams, stuck them on my cubicle walls and on their backs I glued every single political cartoon from the nation’s major daily newspapers.

The epic 1983 battle is probably best remembered for the carton by Ron Tandberg (Melbourne Age) of Malcolm Fraser with his pants down.

But how did we get to this contest, this inane slap-up devoid of real difference and absence of vision, where the only recognisable difference between the leaders is that one is a man and the other a women and even then we can’t be sure because they both wear pants?

Until they go to the beach, then it’s obvious, because one is clearly smuggling feral animals, which, by the way, is a Federal offence and I’m surprised he hasn’t been on Border patrol.

I blame Bob Hawke. Sorry, let me rephrase that, Mary Wheatley would blame Bob Hawke.

Mary was one of those champion country women who could darn a sock, ride a horse over a cliff, shoot a pig, strangle a fox, crochet a delicate doily, nurse a dying chook, and bake the best Pavlova ever.

What’s she got to do with it? She once said at a party up at our house in Bridgetown, while Hawke was still president of the ACTU, that he would be the next Liberal Prime Minister. We all laughed.

What she meant was, if Hawke gets in he will take us on a lurch to the right, which he did. And we’ve been lurching to the right ever since.

The two major parties are so far right that even Bob Menzies would be shaking in his grave, right alongside Malcolm Fraser, who isn’t there yet, but clearly sometimes wishes he was.

A few people I know are disappointed that Kevin “Elmer” Rudd and Malcolm “Mad Max” Turnbull are not facing each other. At the very least, the level of debate would be well above the current denominator.

Very few of us, of course, would have any idea what the hell they were talking about, but big slabs of me misses the drama, the difference, the facing off of two massive, delusional egos, tragically flawed and destined to fall and rise and fall again.

Oh, the good old days.

POSTSCRIPT:

It's all over now, but not quite. 

Here are what I believe to be the best outcomes of the election: the rejection of Wilson Tuckey, the rise of the Greens, the election of a 20 year old, and the two major parties get what they deserve - hung!

Column 2, Albany Advertiser 3/8/2010

Down on the beach I am known to many as “the guy with the cut off pants”.

Or “the guy who is always picking stuff up”. And sometimes, simply, “that guy”.

Those who walk regularly along that wonderful stretch of coast between Ellen Cove and Emu Point don’t have time to get names, we’re too busy walking, getting our daily, breathing that air direct off the Antarctic, embracing the Great Southern Ocean.

Yes, I said embrace, even at this time of the year. I can tell you, there is nothing more bracing than walking into the Great Southern and allowing the freeze to creep up your body until you no longer have any feeling below the waist.

Then there’s the first dive, oh, help me please. That’s when the freeze takes charge of your head and leaves you bereft of thought, sensibility, memory, or taste and when you are done and the ocean spits you on the beach like the rag you are you run like hell for those hot showers.

Who is responsible for those hot showers?

This person should be nominated for Citizen of the Winter Months.

I love this person. I will care for this person in old age and deliver chocolates and garlic to his or her door on demand, on request, at any time of day or night.

Excuse me, I left the scene of the column. This offering was to be about the debris I find on the beach. Deviations, be warned, will occur regularly.

The debris gets to me. I can’t help myself. Have to pick it up.

In the beginning I only picked up the big stuff, the plastic bags, nappies, tin cans, plastic bottles, large lumps of poly something or other and large clumps of fishing line.

I walked by the small stuff, thinking, well that won’t cause any harm. It won’t kill anything.

Then I read about the swirls. The swirls changed my attitude. Now I pick up every single item, no matter how big, how small, even if it’s not there and I can’t see it.

What are the swirls? Good question.

Out  there, in the big blue yonder, as you can imagine, people are dumping all kinds of trash into bays, off ships, into rivers, drains and much of it finds its way, eventually, in to our great oceans.

And when it gets there it floats along, inanimate, sometimes swallowed by an unsuspecting fish or mammal, but often just floating, drifting in the currents, taken along by ocean movement, until it meets a swirl.

A swirl is an eddy like current that collects stuff and sends it around and around and around forever and ever.

They are like cities of waste in the middle of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans and to attempt to remove them would be to cause havoc and destruction to all other creatures in the immediate vicinity.

There are a number of massive swirls in the planet’s great oceans, packed tight with human debris and there is not a thing we can do about it, except hang our heads in shame.

Oh, two other things: don’t dump your stuff and, if you are not a dumper, do the planet a favour and pick up the dumpers dumping as soon as you see it.

Ps: From now on I will refer to Perth as The Big Swirl and Canberra as The Pig Swirl.

COLUMN 1

This was the first of my new columns, published once a fortnight on a Tuesday in the Albany Advertiser, Western Australia. It had to happen, bound to happen, because I like writing a column. But once a fortnight? Yes, this gives me time to finish a book, to surf, run, drink tea with friends and make a living. Oh, by the way, I have started another blog, just about socks, and all forms of public art protest. You can follow it here SOCK IT!

And now, the new column:

 An election? Oh, no, not again.

Didn’t we just elect a bunch that were going to fix all the problems created by the last mob who said they had fixed all those created by the previous mob but there were a couple left over and we’d better elect them again because the others might really stuff them up, instead of just muck them up?

My Dad once came back from Mexico with a smile on his face. He said: “I met this tourist guide in Mexico City who had the perfect political solution. He said whenever they elected a decent politician, the first thing they did was shoot him.”

Dad thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Now, I don’t want you to think my Dad was some kind of hippy revolutionary, far from it. He was a solid citizen, businessman, farmer, Rotary Paul Harris Fellow and chairman of the Bridgetown Hospital Board when hospitals were run by sensible, normal people who could remember when they had their tonsils removed.

 Stan, the man, my Dad, would not have liked Kevin Rudd. He would have wondered what the hell he was talking about every time he opened his mouth.

He would have thought Tony Abbott was internally conflicted, stood too close to you when he talked and needed to cut his “arrr” output by about 97%.

As for Julia Gillard, well, I’m pretty sure Stan would have been excited by the prospect of a female leader but he would have been concerned about her naked ambition. And he might have made comments that some would have found offensive.

He was, for many years, a member of the Liberal Party, but he never left a gathering without stirring the pot by making fun of something, or someone, Liberal.

He was, in short, a normal Australian bloke with a larrikin sense of humour.

I remember saying to him once, after listening to him complain about the government of the day, which happened to be Liberal: “Hey, you voted for them.’

Quick as a flash, he replied: “No I didn’t.”

 Which surprised the hell out of me.

“Who did you vote for?” I asked.

He never told me and went to his grave without telling a soul.

Because, you see, he belonged to that generation that firmly believed you should never discuss politics, sex, or religion. The first fascinated him, the second he thoroughly enjoyed and the third left him asleep in a back pew.

Whenever there is an election in the offing, I always think of Stan. On the first occasion I put my hand up, for no particular reason other than to fill in the time I had available, Stan loved every minute of my madness.

He even admitted to voting for me. The silly old bugger knew I didn’t have a hope in hell but that was the year Paul Keating went up against John Hewson.

Stan reckoned Keating had a touch of megalomania and that Hewson would have been better off if he’d sent his wife out ahead of him.

Throughout this election campaign I will be calling on Stan’s humour, sarcasm and disbelief. If you stay with me, we might just make it through.

This will make you laugh

THE LATEST SOCK NEWS

(click on above link)

Guess what? Hanging socks works

For more, go here: SOCK IT!

The 2010 Sydney Writers' Festival

IT'S all over now.
This particular writer is exhausted, inspired, liberated, berated, chastened, hastened and slumped.
My back hurts, my neck hurts, my feet, my hands, most bits.
Why?
So much time spent sitting, in your own sessions, in other people's sessions in planes, buses, taxis. Not good for  the back, Tony.
(Have no idea who Tony is, but the name came to me so in it went.)

HIGHLIGHTS
Being insulted by Alex Miller (Lovesong) as he bought me a cup of tea.
Listening in to Tom Keneally, Michael Cathcart, Richard Glover and Jack Marx as they wended they way through Australia's past.
Sitting in a big hall watching and listening to John Ralston Saul, Michael Cathcart, Deborah Snow and Tony Kevin as they named The Five Things the World Needs to Change. Tense.
The final address by Peter Carey when he insulted us, the entire nation, said we were dumb and getting dumber. No-one disagreed.
Then there were two sessions I participated in.
One with Susan Maushart (chair), Richard Glover (ABC radio) and John Dale (crime writer and novelist).
It was our job, the men, to examine ourselves and discuss masculinity.
It was Susan's job to lambaste us and make us look silly.
We all succeeded, with great humour.
For more, click: Masculinity  
Then there was a delightful session on memoir with two fine writers: Brenda Walker and Mark Tredinnick.
For more, go here: Memoir

It was a fine festival and run with charm and calm by Chip Rowley and his team of yellow shirts.

Jon Doust with Lone Frank, author of Mindfield.

Brenda Walker, Reading by Moonlight, Jon Doust Boy on a Wire, Mark Tredinnick, The Blue Plateau.

WHAT A GREAT IDEA

A suspected Urban Sock Bomber has made application for the notorious Esplanade Hotel Site Sock Fence to be listed by the Heritage Council of Western Australia.
If listed, the developers will be unable to build on the site due to the listing.
It is not known weather the Heritage Minister Mr John Castrilli will take an active interest in the application, or, in deed if he has ever heard of the Esplanade Hotel Site Sock Fence.


It is also not known if the Sock Bomber involved refused to be named, or could not remember his name.

THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER

ELEANOR HALL: Australian apple growers are warning today that if the World Trade Organisation has overturned a ban on importing New Zealand apples it could crush the local industry.

Media reports that the WTO will lift the 90 year ban are yet to be confirmed.

But apple growers are already warning about biosecurity and there also questions about whether the ruling could pose a broader threat to Australia's strict quarantine regime.

TO VIEW FULL REPORT: abc

Jesus help us! Someone. Anyone. You ...

Read this.
Be afraid.
Do something about it.
Sign this petition
Click on this website (extract below).
And email them: IRAAP@daff.gov.au

BAA 2010/08-Provisional final import risk analysis report for fresh apple fruit from the People?s Republic of China

This Biosecurity Australia Advice notifies stakeholders of the release of the Provisional final import risk analysis report for fresh apple fruit from the People’s Republic of China.

The provisional final import risk analysis (IRA) report recommends that the importation of fresh apple fruit to Australia from China be permitted subject to a range of quarantine conditions.

The recommended quarantine measures include area freedom and a systems approach to manage quarantine pests and diseases, supported by an operational system to maintain and verify the quarantine status of consignments.

Here's my email:

Dear people,

Your provisional recommendation to import Chinese apples is nothing short of insane.

Apart from the false pricing of such importations, a price structure that kids the global economist into believe that he can land fruit cheaper into Australia than it can be trucked from the town next door, what about the carbon footprint?

What about the unknowns?

What about fruit quality?

What about fruit life?

What about this “The provisional final IRA report identifies 16 quarantine pests (11 arthropods and five diseases) that require quarantine measures to manage risks….”

Why take a chance?

Yours,

Ex-fruit grower,

Related to many fruit growers

Buyer of local fruit, only

Jon Doust

Albany WA

Doust at the Sydney Writers' Festival

When I’m Not Writing, I ...
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Start: 13:00
End: 14:00
Venue: Sydney Dance Company, Studio 4
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Facilitator:
Event Type: Panel
Jon Doust, Joe Meno, Lone Frank and Ali Cobby Eckermann talk about the
other passions and interests in their lives.

Reading Muster 4
Date: 20/05/2010
Start: 16:00
End: 17:00
Venue: Sydney Philharmonia Choir Studio
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Facilitator: Jill Rawnsley
Event Type: Reading
Australian writers pass the word around, reading their own work.
Emily Maguire, Steven Amsterdam, Fiona McGregor and Jon Doust are rounded up by our Drover, Jill Rawnsley.

On Masculinity
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Start: 10:00
End: 11:00
Venue: Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Facilitator: Susan Maushart
Event Type: Panel
What’s entailed in being a bloke in Australia today? Richard Glover (The Mud
House), Jon Doust (Boy on a Wire) and John Dale (Leaving Suzie Pye) tell chair
Susan Maushart.

This year's Miles Franklin Long List

Lovesong	Alex Miller	Allen & Unwin
The Bath Fugues	Brian Castro	Giramondo Publishing
Jasper Jones	Craig Silvey	Allen & Unwin
Sons of the Rumour	David Foster	Pan Macmillan
The Book of Emmett	Deborah Forster	Random House
Siddon Rock	Glenda Guest	Random House
Boy on a Wire	Jon Doust	Fremantle Press
Figurehead	Patrick Allington	Black Inc. Publishing
Parrot and Olivier in America	Peter Carey	Penguin Group (Australia)
Truth	Peter Temple	Text Publishing
Butterfly	Sonya Hartnett	Penguin Group (Australia)
The People's Train	Tom Keneally	Random House

The Miles Franklin Award

Something Afoot in Albany

The following piece was received by his blogger from an anonymous source well known to him. This piece, let the blogger make it quite clear, was not written by him, but by the anonymous contributor, henceforth to be known as "Sock Man".

It’s common knowledge that our dear council (Albany City, WA) can’t afford to fund a tea-party, let alone the shortfall of a fully operational, publicly subsidised, modern, on-a-plate-gifted, entertainment centre.

Why is this? Because on top of some serious long term, systemic financial mismanagement, their investment policy allowed them to put all our eggs in one basket. Sadly, they picked the wrong basket.

They were sucked in by the promise of better than market returns. About half a per cent better that is. Or would have been if they hadn’t had to factor in the capital loss, which turned the return somewhat negative.

And now they’re sitting on a fence waiting, having knocked back offers for the ‘investment’ at a discount of seventy per cent, in the hope that some bumbling, idiot solicitors can negotiate a better settlement with the liquidator of a fallen Wall Street icon.

(Is it strange that only Lehman Brothers was allowed to fall over? I wonder if LB was the only bank that had the majority of its exposed investors sitting away from American soil.)

Have they any idea how fat the liquidators are? Have they any idea how fat the solicitors aim to become? What should we do in such a situation, apart from re-inventing our investment policy – assuming we ever have anything to invest again?

We’d look at who got us into this mess and see that they still have some cash in the bank and sue their arses off or, in this case, their asses: Standard & Poors, Moody’s Investor Services and any other incompetent ratings agency that gave the sewer-scented, over-leveraged mortgage-backed securities a triple-A rating.

They’re the guys who weren’t doing their jobs. They were the guys that allowed the mushroom growth of these smouldering incendiaries. So, it stands to reason, they’re the guys to sue.

The facts:

- they’re still in business

- they make millions of dollars extorting companies and governments to dole out cost-effective credit ratings

- they’re more than likely liability-insured, albeit by American Insurance Group.

Conclusion: they’re the people to sue. If only for the joy of seeing the sanctimonious bastards squirm.

All in all, I find the council’s inability to invest our reserves and subsequent fence-sitting a little bit on the nose. Just like the socks surrounding that iconic Albany site, the Esplanade sand patch.

Have you seen them there? Socks, socks and more socks, dancing in the breeze, like Tibetan prayer flags on a high plateau in the Himalayas. Spooky it is, wandering at night around the cyclone-meshed compound, watching them stream out. Little hands imploring your help.

I even wonder what the fence is there for. To stop us stealing the sand, perhaps? Or is it merely a “Keep Off, It’s Ours” gesture.

Whatever, it’s obvious they’re not going to rush into replacing our lost pub and equally obvious the combined might of City of Albany and Department of Racing, Gaming & Liquor can effect no leverage to change that.

Perhaps we need more than socks. Perhaps we, the people, should take it, the fence, down as the Berliners did back in the 80’s, and establish our own freedom over this most splendid of sites and indulge in that noble Australian tradition of squatting. I believe our uninterrupted use for ten years would see them lose possession.

Ownership would then cede to the USB (Urban Sock Bomber). And the sockless of Albany can boldly step forward to claim their share.

The socks will not go away

Do socks breed?

ALBANY
Tuesday

THE wild and crazy sock fence is loosing all inhibition.
A spokesperson for the Urban Sock Bombers (USB) said that local people had now embraced the fence to a "very high degree".
"Sometimes we go down there late at night to fill another couple of fence panels and we are amazed at the number of new items wafting in the breeze," she said.
"And we when we go to the beach the next morning, we also note the new items that were hung after we left."
These include bras, towels, t-shirts, underpants, thongs and neck ties.
The fence is still predominantly festooned with socks, but an ever increasing range of styles, colours, and eras.
"What is even more interesting is that tourists from all over the globe are now taking photographs and even giving up their socks for the protest," the USB spokesperson added.
"I was at a music concert last week and the MC mentioned the sock fence and patrons immediately began removing their socks and handing them over to USB representatives.
"It was very moving moment."
Another USB insider said he had spoken to people from Melbourne, Idaho, the Philippines, Guatemala and The Virgin Islands.
"All claimed they would go home and send socks," he said.
"Someone said they heard Jay Leno had mentioned it on his top rating American talk show and another said they thought it had been brought up in the United Nations General Assembly."
Whatever the truth or otherwise of such statements, what is clear is the the Albany Esplanade Sock Fence has made a tired and easily bored world sit up and pay attention.

Urban Sock Bombers

SOCKS

ALBANY
West Australia
January 2010

FOR over three years owners and developers of the old Esplanade Hotel site on prime real estate patch, Middleton Beach, have promised to build a brand new luxurious complex.
So far?
Nothing.
The future?
Nothing.
The permission to build has lapsed and there are no plans before the City Council.
This means, nothing.
A small, but tireless group, referring to themselves as the Urban Sock Bombers, USB, have taken to the perimeter fence with glee.
And socks.
And what a difference it makes.
Already one bus loaded with bemused tourists has been seen to stop and set free its inhabitants, who then proceeded to clamour, click, click and click.
Head USB, who wished to remain nameless due to fear of an avalanche of sock-bomb site offers, said that it all began as a public art project.
"Our intention was to say, through the sock display, 'This site stinks'.
"It has now taken on a life of its own and it is my firm belief that it could become a tourist attraction and have an economic impact on the town."
As the sock wall grows, others have begun adding peripheral items to the wall. The USB chief asked that these folk create their walls on other fence panels.
"We want to maintain the integrity of the sock," he said. "If they want to put other items up on our side of the fence, they should bugger off, or put a sock on it."
It will come as no surprise to many observers of political movements that, even at this early stage of the urban guerrilla campaign, there are already ructions and splinter groups are forming.