Another Cyclone

Noel?


We'd BETTER be generous.

Looks like this is the brave new world of global warming...just as predicted.


More extreme weather events....

Soft rain falling here.

Hope you dressed warm.

My prediction is the media won't give a toss, unless there's a way to tie it to Innisfail or maybe Darwin. There's already reports about "what this means for the people in the region being hit again", like 1000 kms is nuthin'.

..and besides, shouldn't be too many white people hurt

(Some of my rellies rode out Ingrid at Cat 5 on the very small and flat Golbourn Island last year....I thought they were gone for sure. No media at all.)

Sheeesh! Hinge - I'm there in a month! Get rid of this crazy weather - f'gudnesssake!

Apparently this has been the first 'proper' wet season for yonks. It's been raining for ages can't think of a 24 hour period when it hasn't at least sprinkled.

Should be fine by the time you get here - really. Unless global warming has really changed things....

There have been cyclones as late as June.... !

What a cheerful thought.

Lockhart River has regular suicides and riots. It's a very dysfunctional community - but it only just got a mention in last weekend's Cairns Post. An auditor up there to check the 'councils' books spent three nights there a suicide the first night, a suicide the second night, a riot the third. Nothing in the news about it. It's Australia's ugly backside.

I think your media prediction is right. I'm sure Johnny wouldn't like to see any focus on it - seeing how the Cape York Authority (aka Noel Pearson) runs the place, and he is John's coconut of choice....

hmmm, looks like they got a nasty graze but escaped the full force of the inner eye wall. Will we see pictures tonight? Probably handycam stuff.

Should we start bets on the point of NT landfall?

OK - I pick Gove/Nhulunbuy

Damn!

Alright, I'll take Groote Eylandt, but only because I like long odds.

A few roads cut off by flooding in and around Cairns - but I could still get to work - damn. Took some people 45 minutes to travel 4 km.

Near wet myself when I heard someone say 'Yorkey's knob has been cut off!'

Is the flooding gonna get much worse hinge? Monica seemed to amble pretty slowly across the cape.

(oh, and pass on our best wishes to Yorkey)

My bet is looking better, btw.

More info?

On what Deb?

Lockhart River/Pearson etc. if you please.

<listening in ignorance>

Gawd. Noel Pearson heads up Cape York Partnerships, he's also one to make 'The Australian's pages for his 'hard line' on passive welfare in indigenous communities.

You can read more about CYP at http://www.capeyorkpartnerships.com, but I haven't seen a site that says less specifics about an organisation for a long time.

The current government loves him and is quite willing to bend it's own rules to accomodate him. Which is fine, rules are for bending. The question is whether they are worth bending for him? Does he have the support of his 'people'? Are things getting, or even looking like getting, better for them?

The government (shock horror) seems to be taking the strategy of distancing itself form aboriginal affairs first by closing ATSIS (the service delivery part of ATSIC) then pursuing an outsourcing model of service delivery, ie requesting tenders for service delivery contracts from non government/private organisations, like CYP.

My problem is with that model. The government may argue that private organisations are more efficient in fund use than the public sector (at least the public sector doesn't have to turn a profit, John) but I would argue that their chief aim is to abrogate their responsibility for their own citizens.

They do it over and over again, to achieve plausible deniability. Something bad happens and they say 'we're not responsible - we hired someone to look after that for us' and it will happen with the Cape York communities.

Enough waffle for now.

Oh, I agree re the outsourcing...thank you.

You do not like Noel, I take it? Interesting...


I opened a thread about the welfare stuff a while back....do you think it all bad? I don't....and neither do a number of Aboriginal organisations, I gather.


Mind you....trusting THIS government with stuff like that....uggh.

But...I DO think they have had some ok ideas..especially in concert with communities. Like the no school attendance/no swimming pool, stuff like that.

Interested in your views.

You work in that area?