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Shoe Tossing And Shoe Trees

One evening while walking through our town, I spotted a pair of shoes flung over power lines. They were hanging by the laces, which had been tied together to form a loop.

There they hung, like galahs waiting for the rain. My Dad’s voice entered stage left: ‘What wee bawheid* wasted a guid pair of shoes like that?”

My sentiments entirely. The old man had five years in the army, where he learned habits of neatness and most importantly, how to care for one’s shoes. So yes, Dad would have been disgusted at this world-wide phenomenon known as ‘shoe tossing’ or ‘shoefiti’. Urban myths abound on the whys and wherefores of shoe tossing. It could be to mark a place nearby where you can buy drugs (US reference), a Year 12 farewell tradition (Australia), a symbol of love, a sign that someone has died (generic) or (US again) a way for gangs to mark out their territories.

In Scotland (since we earlier referred to the auld country), when a young man lost his virginity he reputedly tossed his shoes over telephone lines as a sign to his peers. What the girl thought of this version of kiss and tell is not explained. I can imagine, though:

“Well, turns out he was a heel, without a soul.”

Aspiring US politician Ethan Book decided the best way to tackle the shoe tossing mania was to cut the shoes loose. He used a (plastic) extendable pole to clip the laces of hung-up shoes in his home town of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Despite this somewhat risky, year-long neighbourhood goodwill campaign, he did not win Connecticut, District 128.

shoe-tossing-shoe-trees — Shoe tree at Lloyd Jones Weir, near Barcaldine

It seems folks are not content with simply throwing a pair of shoes up on power lines. At times you will find whole trees festooned with footwear. On one of our outback sojourns, we observed a tree on which hung many pairs of shoes, boots, slippers, and sandals. The shoe tree trend, I might argue, has been amplified and accelerated by the likes of Instagram and Tikkity-tok (whatever).

There’s Dad again, reminding me that shoe trees (still in vogue today), are devices you fit inside your (polished) shoes to help keep their shape when stored in a wardrobe. Dad used to polish his good shoes every week, whether or not he was going to wear them, then store them away as described.

Sadly, I never developed these habits of tidiness and thrift, but my unquestionable curiosity and capacity for research uncovered this gem: “leather shoes which are well cared for and worn infrequently can last 20 or 30 years”.

I can at least offer an example – a pair of tan Italian leather shoes bought in 2004, along with a 300 Euro, beige suit from a shop near Rome’s Spanish Steps.

Those shoes are still in pretty good nick, despite my tendency to wear down the outside of the heel. I wear them seldom as they are a narrow fit and the latter aggravates a chronic foot condition.

Which brings me to a memo on my to-do list which states ‘podiatrist’. I’ve been putting it off, not so much because of the cost, but the pain.

A corn slowly grows into the side of my big toenail which, six months or so after treatment, has grown back enough to cause discomfort.

Meanwhile, my shoes lie all in a tumble at the bottom of the wardrobe. The ones I have not worn in a while, gathering dust, keep the more commonly worn ones company. I have only four pairs of shoes, carefully chosen for comfort, with a wide fitting to compensate for the complaint hereto outlined.

There’s a pair of black dress shoes, sturdy hiking boots with long laces, a mangy pair of slippers with velcro straps and my most-days walking shoes. I found last week that the stitching was starting to come apart along the top of the left shoe. One quick trip to the local shoe repair guy and $13 later the walking shoes are as good as new. These days I rarely buy shoes and when I do, the one rule is they have to feel like I’ve been wearing them for months.

If you are of my vintage, you may remember the fluoroscope, a shoe-fitting device in shoe stores. The machine took an X-ray of your foot while it was inside the shoe you were trying on. Children not yet tall enough to look at the bones of their own feet had to rely on Mum. By the time I was tall enough to use a fluoroscope, they had all but disappeared, after decades of children, parents and shoe store employees being exposed to radiation.

As this absorbing video by the US Food and Drug Administration history team shows, the fluoroscope, in common use between the 1920 and 1960s, was a hazard to health.

For strategic domestic purposes this discussion about footwear does not stray far into the topic of women’s shoes, I have always adopted a ‘not my department’ rule. I admire but never query. All the same, my sister had a snigger when visiting us in Maleny some years ago because the town’s shoe store is called Imelda’s. My sister likes shoes and why the hell not!

In season four of ‘The Crown’, which we have begun to watch, much is made of ‘outdoor shoes’ when city guests come to Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Prime minister Thatcher arrives for the weekend in modest black heels and a startlingly blue outfit (which she wears to go stalking deer)..

‘The Crown’ is a curious beast for those of us old enough to have lived through the Thatcher years and Charles’s arranged marriage to Princess Diana. In certain scenes fraught with emotion we feel like yelling out “Look out! He’s right behind you” or “Sir, you are a cad and a bounder.”

But as noted, there are scenes in ‘The Crown’ when much is made of footwear – what’s appropriate and what’s not.

The Queen is frequently seen striding around the muddy Balmoral estate in aforementioned ‘outdoor shoes’, gadding about in an old green Jeep, much like Vera, the grumpy Tyneside TV detective.

As I was saying about the podiatrist, turns out I might have to wait until January for an appointment (unless I drive to the city). No doubt he/she will be wearing a face mask. If I was the one fiddling about with my feet, I’d be wearing a mask too.

I’ll leave you this week with a fine song about shoes, written and sung by Mark Knopfler, whose songwriting career, I believe, outshines his days with Dire Straits.

It’s called ‘Quality Shoe’ and is quite difficult to play (for all you bedroom guitarists out there). Just a suggestion for those who get Scotty from Marketing’s $250 stimulus payment next month, that’s about the right price for a quality shoe.

“Lace ’em up, walk around
I guarantee you can’t wear ’em down
You’re gonna need a quality shoe.”

*bawheid – a person with a big head, or, ‘One who is ignorant and unnecessarily stupid’.

Lockdown vs Covid easing

Lockdown-covid-easing — How soon we forget. Musician Silas Palmer checking off the first of 112 days of lockdown in Victoria (see music video link further down

So let me see if I can understand this – almost 50,000 people crammed, yes, crammed) into Suncorp Stadium/Lang Park amid a global pandemic. It was the largest sports crowd in the world since Covid restrictions were applied in March. Biosecurity protocols involved in buying tickets and entering the venue, was proof enough for the Queensland Government, given that anyone attending could be contacted after the event.

Yes, amazing what governments, big business, broadcasters and multinational betting agencies can achieve.

Last time I went to Brisbane’s footie stadium with that many people, it was everything that social distancing is not. Ladies, as few of you will have ever seen a urinal, we stand shoulder to shoulder at the trough. If it is busy, there will be a row of blokes behind us, waiting for a gap to appear. Many, faced with a tedious wait for the wash basins, often dispense with the formality.

Just one example.

As of 4pm on Tuesday, rules were relaxed for pubs and restaurants in Queensland and ‘normal’ crowds welcomed back for entertainment venues, including theatres.

As of the 17th, we can now have 50 people in our homes (though why would you, I thought).

The State government allows itself an ‘out’ by being able to declare a restricted Local Government Area, should the need arise.

In this case, only 10 people are allowed in your home, and that includes people who already live there.

Queenslanders can travel anywhere within the State for any reason, with no limit on distance. You can stay overnight within the State for as many nights as you like.

It’s not a level playing field, though. Queensland Health says that special visitor rules apply for aged care facilities, hospitals and disability accommodation providers.

At the same time these changes were pending, an outbreak of Coronavirus cases in South Australia demonstrated once again that Covid-19 is the gift that no-one wants, yet it nevertheless keeps on giving. Queensland too was finding new cases, most associated with quarantine from people returning from overseas.

But regardless of mixed messages, Queensland Health advice is still that you must practise physical distancing as much as possible and wash your hands regularly with soap and water. Use (60%+) alcohol-based sanitiser, avoid hugs, kisses and handshakes and keep 1.5 metres away from other people. Or as we say here – a kangaroo apart.

While Queenslanders are getting all enthusiastic about the ‘return to normal’, the Covid cluster that emerged in South Australia is a timely warning that this virus is not going away. SA is dealing with its untimely cluster by re-introducing some restrictions, the oddest of which is that you are not allowed to stand and drink in a pub.

“Mate, don’t stand at the bar coughing over everyone. Come over here to my table and cough on us instead.”

SA was to go into a six-day severe lockdown to hopefully stamp out the growing cluster of cases (34 and counting). However, today the ABC news advised that the lockdown would end on Saturday night, three days early.

I realise that my somewhat cautious approach to full slather mingling may upset people who think Covid restrictions are too much-too long. I chatted to a few people who have either been through the quarantine ritual or are Aussie ex-pats looking on from a distance.

Morocco-based Suzanna Clarke, who operates an accommodation business in Morocco and France, can’t believe what she is seeing on social media. A Brisbane friend posted photos of musicians mingling at a ‘session’ (where folkies gather at an ale house to play diddly tunes and sing songs).

“No social distancing, no masks needed! Consider yourselves extremely lucky,” Suzanna wrote. “There is no way I would be attending a similar event on this side of the planet.”

Morocco (pop 36 million), has recorded 307,000 cases and 5,031 deaths. Suzanna says it is hard to know what’s currently going on.

“It’s also very hard to get a PCR test – even if you can afford it. So the numbers are likely to be much higher. The government doesn’t want to go into lockdown again because people will starve. Literally. Unemployment benefits are only available for a few. My business here has been shut since March. My business in France was starting to pick up, and they went back into lockdown.

So every booking I had was cancelled. We still have wages to pay, so we’re trying to get by on what we have, and raiding our savings. We are, of course, are among the lucky ones.”

Musician friends Silas Palmer and Sarah Busuttil recently posted a series of videos on Facebook depicting 14 days of life at the Howard Springs quarantine facility in Darwin. They flew from Melbourne to the Northern Territory, en route to Queensland and northern NSW to visit a gravely ill family member.

Since this week’s missive is somewhat dire, I thought I’d share this cheerful video the duo made during Victoria’s 112-day lockdown.

(Collins’ Dictionary word of the year, by the way!).

Meanwhile, the world’s share markets have, as usual, over-reacted to news that Big Pharma has a vaccine ready to go. Global share markets rose 10% in a week.

FOMM reader Mr Shiraz, a strict follower of Covid prevention protocols, had this to say on Facebook:

“I have been thinking about the excitement elicited by Covid vaccine announcements (Ed: described in share market reports as ‘vaccine optimism’).

“It has taken us more than three decades to get polio 99% eradicated. To imagine a Covid planetary vaccination program being anywhere near good enough for “normal” life to resume in five years is silly.”

A recent article in the UK’s pre-eminent medical journal, The Lancet, advised that we get used to social distancing, hand sanitisation and wearing masks because it will be with us for “several years”.

Science magazine Nature concurred, citing a team of researchers in virus hotspots at Anhembi Morumbi University, São Paulo, Brazil. They ran more than 250,000 mathematical models of social-distancing strategies.

The team concluded that if 50–65% of people are cautious in public, then stepping down social-distancing measures every 80 days could help to prevent further infection peaks over the next two years. Bear in mind that this research was published in August, which in the context of a fast-moving pandemic is probably a bit old.

Current international statistics are extremely worrying:

US 11.6m cases, 250,000 deaths;
India: 8.91m cases, 131,000 deaths;
Brazil: 5.91m cases 171,000 deaths;
France: 2.71m cases, 46,698 deaths;
Russia: 1.99m cases, 34,387 deaths’

Australia looks comparatively healthy when you consider there have been 27,777 cases and 901 deaths since January.

However, there have been 93 recent cases, including 21 reported in the last 24 hours. Drilling down into Queensland’s stats, we have had 1,190 cases, 6 deaths and 12 active cases, including 3 in the last 24 hours.

Well excuse me. Much as I loved watching Queensland snatch the Origin series away from New South Wales, I won’t be going to any major sporting events, this year or next.

As Mr Shiraz says: “Let’s adopt a new normal expectation.”

When Aussie families lived in kerosene tin huts

This week we are leaving president-elect Joe Biden to struggle with his Disunited States, to reflect on a time in Australia’s history when homeless people were forced to build kerosene tin huts. This Depression-era story may also give us pause for contemplation as the year-long corona virus pandemic sends many nations into deep recession. No-one wants to use the D-word but also no-one can predict how long countries will have to deal with Covid lock-down periods.

As you may already know, if you also subscribe to our Goodwills Music page, we wrote a song about it. I had the idea couple of years ago when visiting Morven, in south-west Queensland. The show piece of the historical village there is a Depression-era kerosene tin hut. It was built by the late Bob Johnson, whose widow Ethel runs the village.

A sharp-witted reader wanted to know if I was ‘trumpeting’ the new song in last week’s piece about Nellie the Elephant and the price of democracy. I prefer to think of it as drollery (listing it as one of the news stories you may have missed because of the mass media preoccupation with the US election).

Sometimes I have an idea for a song and it loses momentum because I can’t match the lyric to a tune (or maybe I’d rather watch Grey’s Anatomy). Kerosene Tin Hut sat in the drawer for a year or so until She Who Now Also Writes Songs helped me stitch the lyrics together.

As you may gather, we were brought up by parents who lived through the Great Depression (and WWII). They were frugal, good at recycling before it was a thing and were fond of sayings like “never a borrower or a lender be”. Goods could be bought on lay-by, but never on ‘tick’.

That generation was good at saving to buy a particular item deemed necessary for a family – like a fridge, or a washing machine (once the copper and the mangle went to historical villages). I remember once complaining about not having a wardrobe in my bedroom. Dad brought home three wooden butter boxes from the bakery. He stacked them one on top of the other and Mum made a curtain to hang on the front. This is where I stashed my Famous Five collection (I’d grown out of them), and recently collected Mad magazines.

People who battled through the Great Depression (1929-1939), became adept at “making a muckle out of a mickle” as Mum and Dad would say.

Not much has been written about that period in Australia when shanty towns were developed on common land, usually on the outskirts of towns and cities. This happened as unemployed families were either evicted from rented dwellings or worse, lost the homes they were struggling to buy. Small communities formed on Crown land, where the inhabitants did not have to pay rent or rates. They erected corrugated tin huts or, more commonly, kerosene tin huts.

Maleny reader Mike Foale remembers the kerosene tin era, but for different reasons. He contacted me after I’d sent the new song around to a mailing list.

Like others, he asked the obvious question – where did the kerosene tins come from? Kerosene was widely used in the 1920s for cooking, lighting and refrigeration, but also provided cheap fuel for tractors.

Mike recalled from his days growing up on a farm in the Mallee that the early tractors of the 1920s to the 1950s ran on kerosene, as did other stationary engines used on farms.

“Kero was imported in four gallon (20 litre) square-top tins, with a box around the tin for travel security.

“On our farm, the boxes were converted into shelf units. Dad had to sell the early tractor off (a Caterpillar) for lack of maintenance services in the Mallee. So I grew up in the 1940s with draft horses doing the farm work, but the shed was full of empty kero tins.”

Kerosene tins were popular in Tin Town because they could be cut into square tiles with tin snips then stapled together over a bush timber framework.

Western Plains Cultural Centre local activities officer Simone Taylor has researched the ‘Tin Town’ which existed in Dubbo, NSW. The town formed in the late 1920s during the onset of the Great Depression and disappeared 20 years later. Ms Taylor told the ABC in 2018 there was a a lot of stigma attached to ‘Tin Town’.

“The shanty’s residents were pitied by the people of Dubbo. I think the people in Tin Town were getting on the best they could, but in newspaper reports it’s clear the town was seen as a social issue to solve.”

Tin Town survivors recall the hardships – there was no electricity and only a single community tap to access water. Council collected rubbish and sewage every week for a small fee.

In Dubbo, as in other locations where Tin Towns evolved, kerosene tin huts were erected on Crown land. They did not appear on official maps, so historians rely upon people’s memories and references in old newspaper articles.

Australian National University historian Joan Beaumont told the ABC that Australia was one of the countries worst hit by the 1920s crash. Communities that relied on wool and wheat exports suffered the most as global demand fell away. While the evidence suggests that Tin Towns housed families and pensioners, Professor Beaumont said single men without strong family connections were more likely to live in tin shanties.

Why is this relevant today, you might ask, when our wealthy are uber-wealthy, well-educated professionals are doing well (in two-income households) and the middle classes are, well, in the middle?

The massive disruption to the orthodox economy caused by Covid-19 has forced even conservative governments to use Keynesian economics to manage the crisis. The theory evolved by John Maynard Keynes advocates increased government expenditure and lower taxes to stimulate demand. This, rather than monetary economics (controlling the supply of money), is more likely to help avert a global depression.

There is a domino effect when people who depend on a wage to pay rent or service a mortgage, not to mention car loans, credit cards and ‘60 months nothing to pay’ consumer lures, lose their source of income.

The job goes, the search for work is fruitless, the bailiff comes calling. Suddenly, you are living in your car (the 21^st century version of the tin hut). Those of us with a proper roof over our heads ought to count our blessings – count twice when rain falls.

As this recent Sydney Morning Herald article informs, the early help offered to get homeless people off the street in 2020 is being wound back. While the official homelessness figure is north of 116,000, the Australian Homelessness Monitor found that 290,000 people sought homelessness services in the year before the pandemic.

Homelessness numbers fell between April and June this year as a result of Federal government assistance, a moratorium on evictions and a targeted campaign to get rough sleepers indoors. But the future is looking somewhat bleak as supports come to an end.

Telling people to stay home during a Covid spike is all well and good if you have a home in the first place. The alternative may well be descensus in cuniculi cavum (descent into the cave of the rabbit), or in 2020 vernacular, down the rabbit hole.

Kerosene Tin Hut – a new song from The Goodwills

In the depression years, poverty and homelessness drove people to build shelters on common land, often on the outskirts of towns. Inventive Aussies cut kerosene tins into tiles and stapled them together over a sapling framework. The huts would often be lined with animal skins and/or hessian soaked in lime. Over the villages would develop, its residents sharing a tap and a community garden. There is a replica hut in the historical village at Morven between Roma and Charleville. If you are driving through, check it out

To listen to the song and download it, visit our Bandcamp site:

Since posting the song to Bandcamp we have also released a DIY video of us performing the song inside the kerosene tin hut. You can find it on our video page or here.

Our Obsession With U.S. Politics

US-politics-obsession — Image by Rolf Dobberstein, www.pixabay.com

For reasons attributed to the way my mind works, the 1950s children’s song ‘Nellie the Elephant’ has been in my head for months now.

If the complete domination of the airwaves by the US election is getting you down, just sing this happy refrain:

“Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with a trumpety trump – trump, trump, trump.”

Yes, once heard never able to be un-heard.The song (Ralph Butler/Peter Hart) was first released in October 1956 by Mandy Miller and an orchestra conducted by Phil Cardew. (There’s also a 1984 cover by punk band Toy Dolls).

On Wednesday, every TV channel had live (and ongoing) coverage of the US election vote count, interspersed with snippets of local news. The blanket coverage continued yesterday and today. At one point we switched off and went out to sow grass seed and count birds.

This short discourse on our obsession with the US election begins with the obvious observation: “Why the hell should we care?” Surely we have enough problems of our own to solve without being mired in America’s divisive political miasma.

Media coverage of the US election this week (and what seems for a long time now), quickly relegated the triumphant third term return of Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Pałaszczuk to a lesser position. It also relegated our own (small) battles with Covid-19 from top of the news, where it should be.

Covid and the obsession with events in Trumpistan lessened the usual impact of two major Australian sporting events. On Tuesday we had the Melbourne Cup, run without the usual crowd (100,000+); no outlandish hats, frivolity or drunken behaviour. Masked strappers led the horses in to the parade ring, while anyone within coo-ee of a television camera conspicuously wore a mask. This is Victoria, after all. The 2020 Cup was run and won, the day marred by the death of the top weight horse Anthony Van Dyck, which broke a fetlock and had to be euthanased. The other scandal from Cup Day, which added fuel to the ‘Nup to the Cup’ animal rights movement was jockey Kerrin McEvoy’s $50,000 fine for over-use of the whip on second-placed Tiger Moth.

Meanwhile in Adelaide, rugby league players lined up for the first of three State of Origin matches. The matches would normally have been held in May and June but this year, Covid restrictions forced a re-organisation of the classic inter-State contest.

The games are to be staged over three consecutive weeks; next Wednesday in Sydney then the following Wednesday, November 18, 2020, when Brisbane will host the third game and possible decider, depending on whether NSW wins next week.

There were other news stories this week which were not about the US election or Covid-19. Here’s a few you may have missed.

Reserve Bank cuts interest rates to 0.10%;
China suspends Australian wine imports;
Australia Post CEO resigns;
Girl, 3, found alive under rubble after Turkey’s earthquake;
Parrot saves owner from house fire – “Anton, Anton, wake up”;
Diego Maradona is to have brain surgery;
Queensland wins State of Origin 1, beating NSW 18-14;
The Goodwills release new single after lengthy hiatus.

President Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court is a good example of the extent to which we have become immersed in American politics. The US Supreme Court became topical when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died after a long illness. President Trump, as is his constitutional right, (although going against convention – no surprises there. Ed) recently appointed Justice Barrett, a favourite of conservatives, to replace Justice Ginsberg. Appointments to the US Supreme Court are rare, as Justices are appointed for life.

This issue dominated traditional media and social media alike for weeks, the focus being on the likelihood of Trump appointing a conservative judge before the election (which he did).

Meanwhile in Australia

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced the appointment of two new Justices to our equivalent forum (the High Court of Australia). Federal Court Judges Jacqueline Gleeson and Simon Steward will replace outgoing Justices Virginia Bell and Geoffrey Nettle. The latter are due to retire at 70. The compulsory retirement age was brought in after a referendum in 1977.

Unlike the politically charged US Supreme Court, Australia’s High Court judges are appointed by the Governor-General in Council (which means he suggests potential candidates to the Attorney- General and then the PM, who makes the appointments).

Mr Morrison thanked the outgoing justices for their work.

“Every justice appointed to the High Court carries a significant burden to uphold the laws of our land,” he said. “I congratulate Justices Steward and Gleeson and I wish them all the best.”

As this ABC report observed, our High Court process stands in stark contrast to that of the United States, where Supreme Court appointments are “fought tooth and nail in a politically charged atmosphere”.

An article in ‘The Conversation’ argued that Australians in general know very little about the workings of the High Court. The Canberra-based court and its panel of seven Justices is the last resort for civil cases which have been through at least one other legal forum.

The High Court’s independence is no better demonstrated by the recently decided case, Hocking v The Director of the National Archives. An academic, Professor Jennifer Hocking had sought access to the correspondence between former Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the Queen during Australia’s constitutional crisis in 1975.

The High Court held that Kerr’s papers were public record and not, as had been previously ruled, his personal correspondence.

The National Archives of Australia spent close to $1 million defending its position, an amount which could double after the High Court ruled that it pay Professor Hocking’s costs.

Even though a Pew Centre research report said 71% of Australians closely follow US news, it serves us better to be informed about domestic news. Start by following the High Court’s upcoming deliberations on Palmer vs State of WA over the ‘hard border’ closure.

The High Court of Australia is completely transparent (cases and judgements are available online). But as senior lecturer in law Joe McIntyre said in The Conversation article: “Whereas appointments to the US Supreme Court are a highly visible festival of political intrigue and showmanship, the process in Australia is a secretive affair occurring strictly behind closed doors.”

As I post this week’s FOMM, US news channels are proclaiming Democrat candidate Joe Biden a narrow winner of the 2020 US election. Whether or not this is confirmed in the days and weeks to come, if you are one of the people who think Trump has to go, keep your spirits up (perhaps for another four years) by humming this ear-worm of a tune:

“Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with a trumpety trump – trump, trump trump.”

(Wikipedia says the rhythm and tempo of this song is often used to teach people cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (100 compressions per minute).

When Campbell Newman lost his seat

Campbell-Newman-Pre-Polling — Up to 60% of Queensland’s eligible voters will vote early or register a postal vote in the State election.

Queensland heads to the polls tomorrow, four years and nine months after the historic defeat of Campbell Newman and the LNP Coalition. I thought it would be interesting and educational to revisit those restive times, when Campbell Newman became only the second sitting Premier since Federation to lose his seat.

Mr Newman’s seat of Ashgrove was taken by Kate Jones, who ironically is quitting politics in 2020 to pursue other interests. The Tourism Minister’s last hoorah this week was to attack Clive Palmer on national television, saying his claim about a Labor death tax is “bullshit”.

Even with Campbell Newman losing his seat in January 2015, it was a close-run thing. Incoming Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk formed government with the help of one independent, Peter Wellington. The Labor Party increased its majority by four seats in the November 2017 election, despite Mr Wellington deciding to quite politics. So tomorrow’s poll is a contest between two women – Annastacia Palaszczuk, who is attempting to win a third successive term, and Deb Frecklington, in her eighth year in politics, hoping for a promotion from her highest position in the Campbell Newman government (assistant Finance Minister). Whoever wins, we are stuck with them for four years, courtesy of Queensland’s second referendum on fixed terms, which was got a Yes vote in 2016 (after a No in 1991).

In researching this topic, I uncovered a FOMM written in early February 2015, a year which also saw Prime Minister Tony Abbott ousted by Malcolm Turnbull before the former completed his term.

My blog on the Friday after the 2015 Queensland election called for more compassion, in politics and in daily life. It was also an attempt to soothe the “bruised egos and wallets of those who backed the wrong team”.

Flashback:2015

We talked about compassion over the festive season, and how we could all try a bit harder. A few wise people wrote to me at the time and suggested that first you have to give yourself a break. But that week I felt an unlikely pang of compassion for Tony Abbott, under siege from his own party and the media. Just imagine how he might have felt going into the Press Club on the Monday after Queensland voters turned on the LNP.

The PM has a thick hide, obviously, but I imagine he might have had to do some meditation or yoga before he fronted the media pack. While it seems clear that the LNP’s narrow defeat in Queensland, with Premier Campbell Newman losing his seat, was all about that government’s arrogance and can-do-ism, inevitably Tony Abbott got the blame.

In typical style, the PM did not refer to the Queensland election in his prepared comments for the Press Club, although some of his detractors rode that particular elephant into the room. You could hear the knives being sharpened from up here in the mountains. A backbencher got a run on Radio National this week saying he had texted the PM to say he no longer had his support. Whether the inexplicable decision to bestow a knighthood on Prince Philip was the last straw or whether they’ve been keeping a list, we’ll never know. Whatever, I felt a bit sorry for the man. Being PM is an impossible 24/7 job that creates the kind of stress you and I would not want to know about.

“What did Tony Abbott ever do for us?” I hear you say. True, the Abbott government seems to care less about people who struggle financially; the ones to whom a $7 co-payment is a big deal. This (Federal) government scores low on Compassion, as did the former LNP (Queensland Government), which apparently thought it could do what it liked and no-one would take it personally, or be able to do anything about it.

The C-word I’d most like to introduce into contemporary politics is an old-fashioned one – Civility. ‘After you’, and ‘if it’s not too much trouble’, and ‘how has your day been?’. It costs nothing be civil with one another, but from my observations of political life here or in Canberra over the past 20 years or so, there is too much of the ‘us and them’ and ‘let’s get ‘em’. If you’re an Opposition Labor MP you have to vote along party lines, which means you disagree with everything the incumbent government has to say and ditto for the LNP when Labor is in power.

On that basis, the Queensland Parliament will be a shackled institution. The former Premier of Queensland would have us believe that hung parliaments are bad. But just why are they bad? Why not call it Consensus government? Imagine a Queensland parliament with 30 Labor members, 20 Libs, 10 Nats, 10 Greens, 14 independents and five ratbag parties to give us a bit of a giggle and keep the bastards honest. Select the most intelligent and fair-minded member as Speaker and we would indeed live in interesting times, when pollies would have to talk to one another to come up with policies they can all agree upon.

Meanwhile back in 2020

The other election preoccupying not only Australians, but the world in general, is the November 3 US presidential election. Sixty million Americans (about 40% of the expected turnout), have already voted – which may be portentious. Reactions to the polarising President, Donald Trump, have been extreme. Musician Bruce Springsteen, for example, says that if Trump wins, he is moving to Australia.

Bruce has any number of options to work his way through Australia’s migration red tape. As a business migrant he can just headquarter his music business here and tick all the boxes, especially the one that asks how much money he is bringing with him. He could also apply for an ‘exceptional talent’ visa. Above all. he has a very Australian name.

The numbers of American-born people living in Australia has almost doubled since 2001, when the Census identified 60,000. By the 2011 Census, this number had increased to 90,000. Five years later in 2016 it topped 106,000. On the annual growth rate, the numbers of US-born in Australia should now be around 120,000, the sixth-largest American population in the world.

As happens everywhere, people end up living somewhere they went to visit and then met someone (and stayed). But affairs of the heart and family ties is just one part of the puzzle. A 2015 investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald concluded there were economic factors at play. Australia, to a large degree, survived the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which was an attraction for Americans looking to prosper somewhere else in the world that speaks English.

Post-covid and post-Trump, there is every reason to think Australia may again become the magnet for disenfranchised Americans that it was during the Cuban missile crisis (1962), the Vietnam war (1955-1975) and after 9/11 and the GFC.

The Trump factor is fairly obvious, as the ABC’s Lee Sales discovered when interviewing former US Secretary of State Richard Armitage (2001-2005), about next week’s election.

When the life-long Republican was asked what would happen if Donald Trump wins, he simply said: “Got any more room in Australia?”

FOMM back pages: Citizen Kang for President

Covid Election Wins Could Be Catching

Walking the covid election tightrope: Marc Hatot, www.pixabay.com

Election days in New Zealand and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) were carried out last weekend in the Pacific region’s usual civilised fashion. Voters had to run the gauntlet of volunteers handing out how to vote cards, but safe to say no-one carried assault rifles or acted in a menacing way.

Both elections resulted in clear Labor victories, which ought to be a portent for Australia’s Government. Not that Scott Morrison’s Liberal Coalition will be panicking, as the next Federal election will not be held until 2022 – barring ‘incidents and accidents’ as Paul Simon observed in Call Me Al.

Speaking of, did you know that impossible bass riff in the aforesaid song was achieved by playing a conventional bass run backwards? A digression, sure, but pretty important news for bass players, yes?

As I was saying, the next Australian Federal election is at least 18 months away and probably more. That is one of the problems of four-year terms. If you inherit poor, indecisive leadership (Aus), or worse, leadership that seems quite nutty and dangerous (the US), you will have to live with it for what amounts to 17.5% of your conventional life span.

We may not be able to vote in the US election, but many of us are making our feelings known via social media – in short, we’re worried about the future of the world.

We are worried what the higher echelons of the Republican Party might do if Trump loses, calls foul and refuses to leave the White House.

Despite being deemed ‘vigilante groups with no standing in law’, self-styled militia groups have warned they will turn up at polling booths on November 3. I tried to imagine what would happen if two or three armed people wearing para-military gear turned up at a polling booth in, say, Sunnybank (a Brisbane suburb). Safe to say someone would call triple-zero and armed police would arrive in numbers, arresting said people on suspicion. The charge would most like be ‘going armed in public so to cause fear’.

There’s no doubt this will be the most watched election in history, so in view of the complexity of the US system, here’s an interactive guide produced by the BBC.

Next weekend, Queenslanders will go to the polls, to decide whether to support the Labor Government for another four years, or choose the Liberal National Coalition. We are sending in a postal vote as we will be away from home on the day. Incumbent leader, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of the Labor Party, has some hurdles to overcome. Three good ministers have, for one reason or another, decided to resign. Then there are those who opposed the government’s decision to allow the Adani coal mine to go ahead. Opposition leader Deb Frecklington has promised a massive four-lane upgrade of the State’s major highway from Cairns to Gympie (1,513 kms). Colourful independent politician Clive Palmer, who may or may not help the Coalition get elected, mounted an attack campaign just two weeks out, claiming that Labor was planning a ‘death tax’. Labor refuted the claim, made in TV ads and social media posts by Palmer’s United Australia Party.

It might be an over-simplification, but I see 2020 elections being decided almost solely on how well or poorly the incumbent political party managed COVID-19. There can be no doubt that Premiers, Presidents and Prime Ministers are being marked on their response to COVID-19. We could (and should) speculate about what percentage of the close relatives of America’s 216,000 COVID-19 victims, for example, would vote for Donald Trump. Not to mention the close relatives of the 7.89 million Americans who caught the virus.

In New Zealand, PM Jacinda Ardern took a hard line and went straight to a strict lock-down that lasted months. By doing so, the country limited the incidence of the virus to 1,883 cases and 25 deaths.

The ACT also continued to hold the line. On October 16 it said there were no new cases of COVID-19 in the Territory. Official figures show that of the 113 cases since the pandemic began in March, 110 have recovered. There are no COVID-19 patients in Canberra hospitals. The ACT has recorded three deaths.

What is astonishing is that the Territory has tested what amounts to 24% of its 2020 population of 418,800. The number of negative tests recorded in the ACT is now 100,630.

And, despite motions of no confidence and a seemingly relentless campaign of disparagement and criticism of Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, that election too is not until November 26, 2022. Andrews has most recently taken to comparing COVID-19 case results in Victoria with the UK, in March and now. The contrast implies that Victoria dodged a bullet, with additional daily cases mainly reduced to single figures.

By contrast, a Pew Centre research report in August found that 39% of Americans know someone who had been hospitalized or died of the virus.

No-one can under-estimate the scale of work involved in testing people in the US (population 331 million). The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) reported that since March 1, 61.12 million specimens have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 by public health laboratories and clinical and commercial laboratories in the US. As of October 16, the weekly result was: 2.61 million specimens tested for diagnostic purposes and 141,317 (5.4%) were positive. In short, 18.5% of the population has been tested.

Compare this data with Queensland’s Covid results (1,184 cases and 6 deaths since March). Sure, it makes the mitigation measures look like over-kill, but look where we are today – 4 cases between October 4 and 19.

As for next week’s Queensland election, Premier Palaszczuk has refused to be swayed to open the border between Queensland and New South Wales prematurely. It’s been an unpopular decision in some quarters and will cost her votes. But the statistics support the border closure (on March 17): 1.19 million tests have been carried out in Queensland since January 2020, with 0.1% returning a positive result.

That’s equivalent to 36% of Queensland’s population being tested. This figure may be unreliable insofar as some of the tests may have been done on people from outside the state. But even so.

So be thankful we do not live in the US or the UK, where the virus has run amok, as it apparently does in densely populated countries. In an understatement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently conceded the UK’s Covid figures are worse than when the country went into lockdown in March. The cumulative tally is 789,000 cases and 44,198 deaths. But the second wave (or is it a third?), took daily new cases from 7,143 on September 29 to 26,687 on October 21. Ironically, given criticism of Johnson’s handling of the crisis, he will not have to face an election until May 3, 2024.

As Paul Simon (or is it Chevy Chase?) sings in this video: “I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore.”

Call me Al: https://youtu.be/uq-gYOrU8bA

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Mental Health Challenges Aplenty in 2020

mental-health-depression — Nibbler feeling blue after a visit to the vet

Over the past six years, I have written at least 20 blogs about mental health and my particular affliction, anxiety/depression. The Black Dog Institute says one in seven Australians will experience depression in their lifetime. It carries the third-highest burden of disease (in terms of cost to the community), in the country.

So if it has never affected you, be aware. The Black Dog can sneak up on you, as we can see:

One in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness in any year;
The most common mental illnesses are depression, anxiety and substance use disorder(or all three at once);
Of the 20% of Australians with a mental illness in any one year, 11.5% have one disorder and 8.5% have two or more disorders.
54% of people with a mental illness do not seek treatment.

And those were the statistics before the pandemic came along in March and set anxiety and depression loose.

To its credit, the Australian Government stepped up in August to offer people an extension on the subsidised specialists’ scheme.

Under Medicare, a GP can refer you to a psychologist or other mental health specialist under a plan which will pay $124 per session for a maximum of 10 sessions a year. This means if your counsellor charges $165 (the going rate for a clinical psychologist), you will be $41 out of pocket, or $410 over the course of treatment.

The Federal Government extended the scheme by an additional 10 sessions for people whose plan had run out, and whose lives were directly affected by COVID-19 lock-downs.

The extended scheme, which cost $7.3 million, will run out in March 2021.

The front line treatment of a mental illness like anxiety and depression is medication, counselling and cognitive behaviour therapy. The latter means trying to change your reactions to things that trigger your moods. Increasingly, GPs and specialists will try other methods before they resort to medication. It depends if your mood disorder is bio-chemical or triggered by trauma or personal circumstances.

I recently read the biography of now-retired rugby league great Darius Boyd, who spent the latter half of his career in therapy and then became a mental heath ambassador. For much of this season, social media trolls posted nasty things about Darius, whose form fell off (as it can do with players past their peak), as also happened to his team, the once-mighty Brisbane Broncos. Darius now spends a lot of his time as a mental health ambassador, important work when you consider that 72% of men do not seek help for mental health problems.

Men are also at greatest risk of suicide but least likely to seek help. The Black Dog institute says that in 2011, men accounted for 76% of deaths from suicide. Other groups at proportionately higher risk include indigenous Australians, the LGBTI community and people in rural and remote areas.

You may know that this is Mental Health Week, which includes community activities to bring these still-stigmatised illnesses into the daylight. There’s the One Foot Forward initiative, where people volunteer to walk a certain number of kilometres through October and raise money through sponsorship for the cause.

An Australian survey of 5070 people found that 78% said their mental health had worsened during COVID-019. One in four were worried they would be infected and one in two worried that families or friends would be infected. Psychological distress levels were higher, with raised levels of depression (62%), anxiety (50%), and stress (64%).

A World Health Organisation report in May warned that significant investment in mental health support was needed owing to COVID-19. Those at particular risk of COVID-related psychological distress include children, women minding children and/or working from home, older people, those with existing mental health disorders and front-line health-care workers.

Depression, or what Winston Churchill famously dubbed the Black Dog, comes and goes, whether you take medication or not. The severity might be dampened down, but you still don’t want to get out of bed or finish reading the second or third book you started.

I find walking, bird-watching and playing guitar the best diversions and, surprisingly given my tendency to introversion, I rarely knock back opportunities to socialise, even when I’m feeling off the boil. It’s not quite ‘snap out of it’ – unhelpful advice too often doled out by people who don’t understand mental health – but it is something.

If you could capture the molecule that for no reason decides to tell your brain “ wake up, you are no longer depressed”, I’d bottle it and give it away free to fellow sufferers.

Periods of respite come along; I felt momentarily cheered when a young friend told me she was with child for the second time. I was cheered further when seeing my fledgling rose garden start to bloom. Cheerfulness came with two snail mail letters, one from a friend in her mid-80s, who wrote a long letter for my birthday, which she never forgets. She befriended our family in Scotland (I was five) before we emigrated. Mary posted the letter in New Zealand on September 22 and it turned up on the 14^th October – just one example of how COVID-19 has broken down communications with family and friends.

I know people who have new grandchildren they are yet to meet, and people who would have liked to be at particular funerals and could not go. Then there were the people who could not visit a loved one who was dying of the virus because of restrictions on hospital visits.

So yes, snap out of it indeed.

But then I accidentally tuned in to ‘Dr’ Trump, self-diagnosing himself as ‘immune’, followed by the Gladys and Daryl fiasco, which tipped me back into the pit. I’m also aware that the passing of my peers – loved ones, friends, acquaintances and fellow musicians – remind me that I’m nearer the end than the beginning.

So I was sad to hear that Irish songwriter Kieran Halpin had died aged 65, and offer this brief tribute. Kieran, who graced our lounge room on several occasions, was a dedicated FOMM reader. He sometimes emailed to say how much he enjoyed particular outback travel pieces. A long while ago, Kieran and family spent a year touring Australia in a motor home, guitar in back. He loved the wide open spaces and the starry nights of the outback and drew inspiration there. An inventive and prolific writer, he had the happy knack of writing songs that other singers wanted to cover. Kieran’s songs like Nothing to Show for it All, Angel of Paradise and All the Answers were covered by artists including Delores Keane, Vin Garbutt, Niamh Parsons, The Battlefield Band and Dutch singer Ilse De Lange. As is often the case, the songs were better known that the man who wrote them.

When I call you in the morning tell you everything’s alright

I can’t see into the future I don’t see the danger in the night

Cos when I hear the siren wailing

I see the flashing of the light

I know that there is trouble there is a battle yet to fight

I may not have all the answers no

I wouldn’t have it any other way

http://kieranhalpin.com/

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Australia’s most over-analysed Budget

We’d been out to dinner on Budget night, so turning on the TV later, I caught the last comment from Lee Sales: “That completes our first hour of this special Budget coverage.”

Budget analysis is a challenging topic for extended television viewing. The ABC borrowed David Speers from Insiders (wearing a blue suit and maroon socks), who took over to talk to a bank of television sets, splitting this up with breath-taking interludes (“Crossing now to Canberra for insights from…”).

It continued on Wednesday morning, while having my first coffee of the day with ABC Breakfast. Good television needs live action images and variety. I was bemused by the vox pops segment when a reporter went into the streets of Parramatta to interview everyday people. It was surely accidental than in the background a homeless person strayed into view, trundling a supermarket trolley, laden with the detritus of life on the streets. As Ralph McTell once famously sang:

“She’s no time for talking, she just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home, in two carrier bags…”

Such was the need for live footage, we had to endure repeated scenes of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg walking across a forecourt, huge umbrellas clashing in the wind as they sheltered from the rain. Around them, photographers, reporters and camera operators were likely making memos on their phones to claim laundry expenses. The pair stopped briefly and touched elbows (photo op) before going inside, leaving the media pack to pat dry their hair with tissues and soggy hankies.

Also in the live footage were scenes of Budget papers rolling off a printing press and being stacked in boxes.

Given that anybody with an internet connection can download the entire set of Budget papers at no cost, the printing of thousands of hard copies does seem like over-kill.

I asked a Treasury official: “How many copies were printed and what is the total cost?”

OFFICIAL

Hi Bob

Thanks for your enquiry.

We do not yet have final costs.

Media Unit -The Treasury

Now you see why journalists spend much of their time cultivating contacts who can find out stuff not yet made official.

Clearly I do not have such contacts (any more) but point you instead to this story, about the Canadian Government’s printing contract in 2017.

Despite a widespread move to the paperless bureaucracy, Finance Canada had committed more than $500,000 to print Budget documents. Opposition members were not impressed.

In 2015, I discovered a Choice Magazine survey of consumers’ household budget worries. At the time, rising electricity costs was the main preoccupation and it is still in the top three. The policy thrust by the Morrison government in 2020 is to push liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an energy alternative.

Although the solar panels on our roof cost around $7,000 to install, our power bills for the calender year so far total $33 and we are now in credit.

Those who made an investment in solar panels in 2015 would be enjoying similarly small power bills, more attractive feed-in tariffs and, five years on, closer to breaking-even on the capital cost of installation. Just saying.

The annual Choice householder survey update in June found that private insurance had replaced energy costs as the number one worry. Some 81% were concerned about the costs of health insurance – up from 75% 12 months ago.

Even in May 2019, long before COVID-19 disrupted the economy, Choice said 65% of people were “barely squeaking by” in terms of household finances.

The June 2020 survey found that private health insurance, fuel and electricity are the main worrying items for households, one in four of which are struggling to make ends meet.

A report from APRA shows a continuing trend for young people (20-49) to ditch private hospital cover because of premium costs.

A one-page item in Tuesday’s Budget will mean a lot to young people, families and people with disabilities. The Government has increased the age at which dependent children can be covered under a family PHI policy. From 1 April 2021, the Government will increase the maximum age of dependants for private health insurance policies from 24 to 31 and remove the age limit for dependants with a disability.

The aim is to encourage young people to continue with PHI when they reach the age of 31 (the age at which premiums for Lifetime Health Cover starts, if the customer has not had private health insurance prior to that date).

Locked up with Laurie, Kerry, Laura and the rest

Labor PM and Treasurer Paul Keating is credited with introducing both the budget ‘lockup’ and Budget night’s televised speech in 1984. I have worked on several Budget lockups over the years. Journalists from all over the country congregate in a (large) locked room within Parliament House.

At 2pm, Treasury officials distribute Budget documents to scribes, who then have time to analyse the key points and prepare stories for the next day’s edition (and post-Budget analysis for TV and radio). Scribes keep on filing updates until their publication deadlines and then adjourn to the bar or a late-night restaurant.

The real Budget stories often surface weeks after the documents have been made public. Business scribes in particular enjoy input from sources in the accounting profession: “Cracker yarn there, Bobby, Budget Paper 4 page 97, 7.1”.

As members of Australia’s rapidly ageing over-70s cohort, we were mild amused to find we are yet again to be stimulated by ScoMo. We were already the recipients of two payments of $750 (each) and now are to receive $250 in December and again in March 2021.

“Crivens”, as my Dad would say (informal Scottish dialect for an expression of surprise).

This money has already been earmarked for the little luxuries one struggles to find within the constraints of a fixed income budget. In my case that may well be a year’s supply of guitar strings, a new set of harmonicas and an ocarina (don’t ask). It may be wiser to put both payments towards a return flight to NZ to visit whanua, when allowed to do so.

As usual, individuals will scrutinise only the parts of the Budget that directly affect them: welfare payments, tax cuts, low-income tax offsets, Job Maker etc.

But if, as the Choice survey highlighted, 65% of households are ‘barely squeaking by’, I can’t see the government’s wage subsidy plan will do much to alleviate those concerns. The Job Maker scheme offers employers $200 a week for every under-30 worker they employ (minimum 20 hours a week). It will also pay $100 a week for employees aged 30-35. The government says this will create 450,00 jobs, whereas Labor says 968,000 unemployed people over 35 will miss out completely.

It remains to be seen if this wage subsidy scheme will be rorted by employers, as has happened with such initiatives over the years. The usual outcome of such incentives is that employers sack people hired under the subsidy scheme once it lapses. (Not to mention the possibility that over 35s will find themselves out of a job that has then been offered to a worker who attracts a subsidy. Ed)

But hey, I’ve already received $1500 and now promised $500 more from ScoMo for doing sweet bugger all. So I should shut up now, eh?

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Native forests recover from bushfires

native-forests-bushfires — Blackdown Tableland National Park, September 2020

We were at least one kilometre into a bush walk at Blackdown Tableland National Park in central Queensland before realising it was recovering from a bushfire. Such is the extent of regrowth since September 2018, it is only when you see trees that have been completely hollowed out by fire that you become aware.

She Who Bush Walks pointed out what she called ‘epicormic growth’ which is what occurs when buds buried beneath the bark of a burned tree burst into life.

You might recall hearing about this particular fire, two years ago to the day, when eleven tourists became trapped at the park’s feature attraction, Rainbow Falls. A fire and rescue worker was winched down from a helicopter to take charge of the eight adults and three children and lead them to safety.

At the time, fire was also raging 300kms away in Carnarvon Gorge National Park, which from all reports has also bounced back from the ravages of fire.

When fire burns out a patch of bush, it is not the ecological disaster it may at first seem. Fire burns plant material above the ground surface, which clears the way for new growth once the ground has cooled and there is follow-up rain.

According to educational material prepared by the Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre & Bushfire CRC, regrowth primarily comes from above-ground re-sprouting.

“ While many trees are killed by total defoliation following a fire, some can re-sprout from epicormic buds, which are buds positioned beneath the bark. Eucalyptus trees are known for their ability to vegetatively regenerate branches along their trunks from buds”.

“Below-ground roots and underground stems can also survive because soil is a good insulator. Plants survive fires by re-sprouting from basal stems, roots and horizontal rhizomes”.

We explored several tracks in the park although after about 8 kms we did not have the energy to climb down to the rockpools (and back up again), fed by Rainbow Falls. The latter is popular with central Queensland residents and holiday makers, who can either camp in the park or travel from campgrounds and accommodation at nearby Dingo or Bluff. (above, epicormic growth).

The park ecology has certainly thrived since recent rainfall. Wildflowers were proliferating along the trails and it was great to see vigorous new growth climbing up the sides of burned trees.

We encountered a group of Aboriginal families, descended from the original inhabitants, exploring the culture trail with a couple of Rangers. A bluff at Blackdown Tableland is the site of a sandstone overhang, under which rock stencils are preserved

The traditional owners, the Gunghalin people, manage the 47,950ha Blackdown Tableland in a co-operative venture with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. As part of this agreement, 70ha has been set aside as a conservation site for cultural purposes.

We chatted to an older woman on the cultural trail who explained why she was going ‘Cooee’ every now and then: “I’m letting the ancestors know I’m here,” she said.

Despite the progressive nature of this management agreement, I could not help but feel a twinge of white settler guilt when reading the history of the park.

Blackdown Tableland National Park was settled as a grazing homestead and perpetual lease property in 1869. Settler William Yaldwin named the tableland after the family home, Blackdown House, in Sussex, England. In more recent times, Blackdown Tableland was gazetted as a State forest and timber extraction site because of its store of valuable hardwood timbers. QPWS says most of the pastoral artefacts are being allowed to decay naturally into the landscape. Wildfires have caused damage to the cattle yards and fences at Mimosa Creek campground.

This week’s FOMM coincides with the first anniversary of the catastrophic ‘Black Summer’ bushfire season across six States and Territories.

The 2019-2020 bushfire season began as early as August in some states and at its worst in February had burned out 17 million hectares.

The statistics are confronting, so I apologise in advance to those directly affected for bringing this up again.

Across six months fire caused:

33 deaths (including nine firefighters);
the loss of 3,094 homes;
5,000 people to become homeless;
the loss of one billion native mammals, birds and reptiles;
More than 85% of the World Heritage Listed Blue Mountains reserve in NSW to be affected;
Fire damage in 153 parks and reserves, 55 of them suffering comprehensive damage;

The Bureau of Meteorology concluded that the fires were the largest by geographic area in modern times. About half of the fires were started by lighting strikes. The rest were said to be of ‘human origin’, the majority accidentally started.

In late September 2019, we left our home of 17 years in the Sunshine Coast hinterland for a new adventure on the Southern Downs. Our temporary home was a 1950s farm cottage at Yangan, 18 kms from Warwick, while waiting for settlement on the house we were buying in town.

Because of serial fires burning in the high country around Cunningham’s Gap and the surrounding areas, the whole valley was often blanketed in dense bushfire smoke. At night you could see the flames licking the tops of the hills. As the weather warmed through October and November we often had to keep the house closed up. Some days the smoke was so bad we could not go outdoors. The towns of Warwick and Stanthorpe were also affected by smoke.

The reprieve came in January with a solid day of rain, followed by heavier falls that topped up our new rainwater tank and partially replenished the town dams. We’re still on water restrictions though, despite a cumulative total of about 450mm for calender 2020.

A year on, after the public in general donated more than $500 million, many people left homeless by the Black Summer bushfires are still living in caravans and tents or sharing homes with friends and relatives.

Despite some decent winter rain, many parts of Australia are still in drought, with dozens of towns on water restrictions. Television news footage of wildfires in California’s Napa Valley this week will be provoking anxiety among survivors of last year’s bushfires.

The Bureau of Meteorology, meanwhile, is confidently forecasting La Nina weather conditions in 2020-2021, which means rain and more rain and an early wet season for the tropical north.

People in the bush, where droughts and bushfires are part of everyday life, tend to be stoic. But on our western journey, it became evident that 2020 has left its mark. COVID-19 restrictions have robbed the outback of its annual influx of tourists and much-needed revenue.

Let’s hope that workers, small businesses, farmers and bushfire victims in rural Australia are not forgotten in next week’s Federal Budget.

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