Base Backpackers - Questions that need answers

It was good to see the local Maggie Island Tourism lobby (TOBMI - the tourism operators group you set up because Townsville Enterprise aren't doing their job) finally having something to say about one of the negative aspects of their industry (and I suspect an operator who isn't a member of TOBMI) - Base Backpackers' monthly Full Moon parties. See today's Bulletin article here.

Base Backpackers post-Yasi. 
Repairs were started but were far from
finished before the last full moon party

Now I've blogged before (here and here) about this Base Backpackers mob and in particular about the way they manage trash the unique and privileged absolute beach-front location that they occupy on Maggie,  but today's Bulletin article has prompted me to put together the following list of questions for the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation, Townsville City Council and the coppers:

1. Was there any inspection of the Base Backpackers site post Cyclone Yasi and before they started booking guests in to ensure that the site was safe?



2. Was there any inspection of the site prior last weekend's to ensure that it was safe?



3. Were there any special restrictions placed on the numbers that could be admitted to that Full Moon party given that the venue is essentially a building site?



4. Will there be any inspection of the repair work currently being undertaken on the site to verify that it meets all relevant standards?



5. How is it that since their early days in Ko Pha Ngan, Full Moon parties have been synonymous with one thing - getting stoned and dancing - and yet since they started on the island I've seen the sniffer dogs once - town-side at the ferry terminal checking people before they came over? Goddamn it - even this old fella knows that it's the best place to score!



6. Is it correct that the Full Moon Party Friday is the busiest night of the month for the local coppers?  Every month?

And finally, a question for The Bulletin:  Could it be that you left the second sentence (in red) of the quote from the Chair of TOBMI out of your piece because Sunferries are major advertisers while Base Backpackers buy virtually none?:

Sunferries (also major profiteers from the Parties) are surely part of the problem and I know damn well you'd be up them if they followed the same practices on the Palm Island run!

"No tourism benefits flow from this event. Mostly the participants are inebriated before they arrive.  They continue to drink on the ferry from Townsville because the cost of the liquor at the event." 

What price for a Ponce?

So Ponce WWW has been and gone.  Although I promised that I wouldn't waste time on him again, I just can't help it - particularly after reading The Magpie's fantastic potted 'history' of the wonderful world of the Windsors.

While for days I've mulled over the writing of a tirade about the sycophantic treatment of the Ponce's visit by all of the mainstream media, I've decided to keep it brief.

The things that I noticed:

• His 30 minute stop in Townsville to change flights probably isn't going to bring a flood of tourists


• His 1 hour stop in Cardwell must have been a real fizzer for the locals and the hundreds that drove up from Townsville for a gander


• That almost to a man (snide joke), Editors sent female journos to cover the visit


• All of the still and video pics we see of the Ponce are set-up to maximise the "thronging masses" effect - turning 20 into what could be thousands


• Most of those we see in those pics are women who seem to either be there for a perv or because they are trying to convince their little girls that yes a prince charming will really come along and make their life idyllic


• None of the pics I saw had a black face in them - none of the mob that I know in the Hinchinbrook were to be seen


• The BBC's coverage of this part of the Ponce's pre-wedding profile enhancing visit to the top disaster spots in the Commonwealth was brief, included the necessary happy snaps of the type mentioned above and was interspersed with dramatic file footage of the worst Yasi's rubble - not exactly the idyllic "back-in-business" images the Ponce boosters have been banging on about for the last couple of weeks.

And finally - I also noticed that the Ponce flew into Townsville on a RAAF VIP Jet and then out again (after shaking Les' hand) in a convoy of 3 Black Hawks which took him in a couple of leisurely hops up to Cairns for a bit of a crack in the Casino and to pick up the VIP Jet again to take him down south to the other disaster highlights of his tour. 

Which of course got me thinking about the cost of all of this.  Now, apparently, a VIP Jet costs $28,000 an hour...so to tie one up for the Ponce's 5-day visit of Oz's disaster highlights would cost something like $3.36 million!

And then there's the cost of the 3 Black Hawks for a day, and all of the security guys you see in the background, the coppers who are controlling traffic, the forward party who came through to check for terrorist danger spots and good camera angles, the Council crews that where were out the day before trimming the hedges, Anna taking a couple of days off work to hold his hand, etc, etc,

So... let's say the Ponce's publicity tour cost us $5,000,000 (conservatively I'd guess).  Somehow, I don't think that the report I saw on the BBC is going to result in 1,840 poms deciding to come on their own tour of recent Oz disasters - staying for 27 nights and spending $2,717 each (the national average for international tourists).

However, I am quite sure that millions watching the meeja dribble in England will no doubt be seduced by the images of a kind and caring future ruler/saviour - just what you need in the lead up to once-in-a-lifetime souvenir sales opportunity.

The reality is folks - you and I have just been milked (as has always been the way of the Windsors) in order lift the Ponce's profile (and pre-wedding souvenir sales) back home.

Postscript:  The Times has no mention of the Ponce or his Queensland visit on their site's front page and have aparently only published 4 stories about it in the last 7 days while The Sun (who make their money out of the celebrity con) has only published two!

Prince, Ponce or profiteer?

Ponce W.W.W. 
PLEASE DON'T FEED.

I wasn't going to post about Ponce Windsor Willy of Wales' (WWW) visit to this year's disaster spots in the white parts of the world, including of course our own North Queensland.  I didn't really want to draw any more attention to the bludger than he's already getting

But having to explain to my 15 and 12 year old who exactly The Ponce is, why anyone would care and whether anyone does in fact care, has lead to this.

While no doubt a few octogenarians will get a kick out of it, I can't help but think that the Ponce's visit is, in fact, nothing more that the royal souvenir industry's equivalent to the movie, book and music industry's pre-release publicity tour.

The reality is:

1. the Ponce is getting married some time soon (I have no idea when but that is irrelevant to the argument)
2. the Family finances aren't real flash and there's talk of cutting their tithe
3. that wedding is gonna be expensive
4. the Family is also coping heaps at home from the peasants as they get screwed by the new Tory Government

So......Souvenir sales in lead-up to the wedding are critical to The Family
So......Blanket coverage across the white world of the Ponce communing with the huddled masses has to be good for sales.

Of course, apologists like those journalists and politicians who cream themselves at the thought of getting a gig with a Ponce will tell us that it will help our tourism industry by letting the world know that North Queensland was open for business.

When was the last time you watched the evening news, saw some Ponce eating sausages in the rubble of a disaster zone and thought "I must book my next holiday to that place tomorrow"?

If you happen to see him while he's out and about - tell him to go home and get a real job.

It's all about what's not said

Did you happen to see the piece on Palm Island artist Billy Doolan on the 7:30 report?  If not, it is well worth a look and Billy is certainly deserving of the national attention and recognition given the quality of his work and growing international reputation . (Transcript and video here).

Watching it reminded me of an unfinished post which I'd started in response to a Townsville Bulletin article on Billy back on 17 Feb. While that article also gave Billy local attention and recognition, at the time it annoyed me that the Bully tagged Billy as a "Townsville Artist" where of course he is a Palm Island man and that the article was run well back into the paper and not (for example) headlined in the weekly Arts Section. 

There was also something very familiar about the paper's pic of Billy which I couldn't put my finger on - until I found this piece by Chris Johnson in The Age.  As soon as I read there that Billy had been a resident of Happy Valley (for non-locals, Townsville's equivalent to a "fringe camp" or "town camp") the penny dropped.

I had met Billy at Happy Valley a number of years ago.  I now clearly remembered him as a strong and proud man, a leader - far from the image of Happy Valley itinerants and drunks that The Bulletin (among many others) are so fond of betraying.

And of course, while effectively regurgitating The Age article published 47 days beforehand, the Bully managed to exclude (airbrush) any reference to Billy's association with the Valley.  After all, we wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea about that mob would we?

Their attempt to appropriate Billy as a "Townsville Artist" (that is, one of our own) became all the more annoying when I read that Billy has been living in Melbourne for half of each of the last eight years (he's clearly a smart businessman too).

Oh - and I also discovered that Billy is in fact a "major Queensland artist" - certainly worthy of more than a throw-away piece in the local rag of the town that likes to claim him as their own.

While not really surprised by The Bully's approach, I have been particularly annoyed by what appears to me to be the complete ignoring of Billy Doolan and his international standing by the arts establishment in this town - and believe me there is one.  Search the Bulletin's site for "chamber music" and you'll get 67 results.  Search Billy's name and you get just one.

Say no more

There's important news and then there's REALLY important news

Just in on my RSS Reader. 

Ah!, priorities.

X Base Backpackers Trashed! But don't blame it on Yasi

Before Yasi - The Boardwalk
and beachfront rubble

I posted some time ago about base Backpackers (X Base) here on Magnetic Island and their apparent disregard for both the environment they seek to make money from and for the responsibilities that come with having one of the most unique commercial tourism sites in North Queensland. 

As I understand it, X Base Magnetic Island is the only 'resort' (loosely defined) in Australia and one of the few in the world where you can lean to scuba dive on coral from the beach.  To do so anywhere else involves a boat trip and associated expense and is a prime reason for backpackers coming to the island - it's the cheapest place to learn to dive and or get your hours up for an instructors ticket.



Before Yasi - Part of the pool retaining wall
showing broken infrastructure and rubble



As the first two pictures show, the Recreational Tourism Group Pty Ltd,  (the owners of X Base who are in turn owned by, amongst others, Babcock & Brown and Accor Hotels) have for a long time treated their absolute beach frontage with contempt.  The second of those pics is of their beach frontage damage that was never repaired/removed after (I think) Cyclone Tessi in 2000 or maybe a king tide since.

That second pic was taken on Tuesday afternoon - the day before Yasi hit.  The 'resort' had (rightfully, given its location) been fully evacuated by then.  On my Yasi night post I wondered what would be left the next morning. 
The results are below:



After Yasi - This more or less corresponds to the second of the before pics.
The spot in the before pics is on the left of this one, next to the bolder.



After Yasi - From a different angle - there is/was a swimming pool behind that wall

 

After Yasi - The (private) ramp to the beach which has to stretch below the high tide mark.

 

After Yasi - The boardwalk corresponding to the first of the before pics.

The rubble shown in that before pic has clearly moved.  Some has been lost to the sea

These results were completely predictable - a sure bet.  While none of the buildings at the 'resort' appear damaged, their sea frontage is a wreck for only one or, more likely, both of two reasons:

• Their sea frontage structures should never have been built there in the first place.  The seawall by the pool and the rocks under the boardwalk have to (at best) be on the high tide line.

• The structures were extremely poorly (read cheaply) built and certainly not constructed to a standard that would survive the inevitable storm surge.  Some closer pics of their seawall footings which I hope to get over the next few days will provide ample evidence of the shoddy construction.

While there are a lot of questions to be answered about why this was allowed to happen and/or never redressed, the reality is that the Recreational Tourism Group Pty Ltd and X Base are responsible for their structures and they have done nothing in the years that they have been custodians of the beach to ensure that those structures were both attractive to visitors and safe to the environment (and to visitors and beach walkers for that matter).

Given the damage that they will have inflicted on the beach and  inshore reef, I reckon it's time to go this mob - after all, the damage was within in their control and as such is their fault, NOT Yasi's as they will no doubt claim to their insurance company and Authorities. 

Copies of this post will be going to the EPA, National Parks, GBRMPA, Townsville City Council, local members and the relevant State and Federal Ministers over the next day or so.

Vandals!



Getting your bearings: Nelly Bay looking west on the morning after Yasi.
X Base is located at the end of the Bay, just out of frame.  There are no other beachfront structures between where this pic was taken and where X Base are located at the end of the Bay

Just exactly how substantial is "substantial"?

I see that the Queen of all things English (and apparently you and me) has "made a "substantial" private donation to the Queensland flood relief appeal, according to a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman"

While initially I was pretty p*ssed off at the hubris in her issuing a press release to tell the world of her generosity - after all, I haven't seen most of the major donors on this list seeking international coverage of their generosity, but then I got to wondering how much she actually donated? 

How much do you reckon would be "substantial"? - $50,000, $100,000, $1 million maybe?

Well within the next four years or so Australia will be spending just 0.5% of it's gross national income on aid programs.  If Queenie were to contribute just 0.5% of her estimated $450 million (USD) net personal worth  her donation would have been $2,250,000 (not accounting for what some estimate as her $17 billion in property holdings worldwide and certainly not accounting for the kids own 'accumulated' wealth).

My guess is that her "substantial" donation was a lot closer to 0.01% of her fortune ($50,000) than to 0.05%.

The sooner we are rid of her the sooner we don't have to put up with this p*issweak attention seeking (let alone the never-ending tripe about her bloody spoilt little children).

X Base Backpackers - crapping in their own nest and everyone else's

Without actually reading the story, the Council battles to keep beaches beautiful headline in yesterday's Bully reminded me of these pics taken a few days ago on the beach in front of X Base on Magnetic Island:

A thong, beer bottle, glasses and can scattered below the high water mark



Garbage on the beachfront rocks

Building rubble on the beachfront

Not only are X Base desecrating a public beach by failing to do a simple task like a daily beach clean-up, and are abusing the only absolute beachfront commercial property on Magnetic Island, by publishing these pictures, hopefully their brand will be permanently damaged by their environmental ignorance and abuse.

Then of course, from a straight business perspective - how stupid is it to have your front door and single greatest commercial asset littered with crap?

You can prove how dumb they are and help ensure that brand X Base gets it's dues by sharing this post with as many people as possible and by emailing base Backpackers at info@stayatbase.com and letting them know how you feel.

I understand that, owners of the X Base and base Backpackers brands, the Recreational Tourism Group Pty Ltd, ) is in turn owned by (amongst others) Babcock & Brown and Accor Hotels.  Accor is of course one of the biggest hotels chains in the world and also owns the Four All Seasons on Magnetic Island (and a few in Townsville as well)  so maybe an email to them will be helpful too.  However, and interestingly, I couldn't find either a corporate or a complains email address for Accor Hotels or the Accor Group so I'll be leaving my comments on their Investor Relations contact form here.

On a Mission from who to do what??

Today's Bulletin report of the further decline of the NQ Fury held no real surprises for me - they lost again and only managed to draw about 6,500 to their match in Melbourne, so what's new!

What did surprise me (only because I take so little interest in the team or the sport and so hadn't previously noted) was that the financially failing Fury are now (apparently) sponsored by religious charity, Mission Australian - in fact, they are The Fury's principal sponsor partner.

Exactly why a charity would sponsor a sports team is well beyond my logic (perhaps they were concerned that Lifeline and the Salvos are beginning to dominate the local market and they therefore needed more exposure??).  However, and more to the point, I wonder how many people donating to Mission Australia are aware that some proportion of their donations are being used to prop-up a failing football team?

I certainly wouldn't donate to any charity who sponsors a professional sports team in an industry that so extensively promotes alcohol and misogyny.

0.01% of Townsville citizens can't be wrong

Today's Bulletin includes a report on the Townsville Residents Against Crime rally at the Showgrounds (talk about wishful thinking) for the community to express their concern about law and order in the city.

Presumably the outrage from the 20 citizens who attended led the Bulletin to 'observe' that "the group is also concerned about the growing itinerant problem in the CBD..."  

(Of course the Bulletin did actually attend the rally didn't they? - not just a call to the organiser after? - surely not?  And speaking of the rally organiser, Mark Smith, by my account this is his third attempt to stir the masses who are right now cringing in their homes, hiding from marauding bands of criminals, 'itinerents' and, even worse, yoof)

So, now it is on the public record and to be repeated forever in Dale Last's mayoral election campaign (I bet he was one of the 20!) - the "itinerant problem" is growing!!
0.01% of Townsville have spoken!!

Playing the race card in Townsville - again!

Dale Last moved his Mayoral campaign up a notch today just as it looks as if Lez will have to do a humiliating backflip on water rates.

And what a better way to move your campaign along than by playing the race card - it's an old trick, 'sucessfully' deployed by Mooney for years after he'd learnt it from the old CLP in the Territory.

Last's latest effort here in today's Bulletin shows him and his tactics for what they are:

• " ...investors were raising serious concerns about developing in the city." Last claims!  Of course, the investors are unnamed and, as such, the claim should be treated as nonsense.  I defy Last to produce one investor who's pulled-out of the inner-city (or any other part of the city) because of small groups of parkies - because of the lack of speed in increasing population densities in the inner-city or because of the lack of parking or simply because the inner-city can't compete with suburban shopping malls maybe, but because of a few parkies - no way.  If there was money to be made, they'd be there, parkies or no.



• The "...Urban Quarter (is) on its knees with businesses going broke because of the public disorder and the problems associated with this group of people there, constantly harassing people." Last proclaims.  This is not just nonsense, it's bullshit.  Businesses in the Urban Quarter are going broke because if its location.  Completely predictable before it opened, until the redevelopment of the old rail yards is complete there is not the population to support two supermarkets in the city centre.  With Coles (the most poorly located of the two) not able to attract enough punters into the building, the rest of the tenants in the Urban Quarter have been pushing it up hill ever since it opened.

Blaming bad planning and business decisions on a few parkies is laughable simply playing the race card.

As for the reporting of Last's campaign launch, the Bulletin could not have made him happier than with the headline "Shops 'go bust' in city of drunks".  Of course neither the Bully or Last were game to admit that if the city deserves such a tag it is because of what happens in Flinders Street most nights.

Had they looked at the source of most serious alcohol related crime and hospital admissions in the city - you won't find a few parkies - you'll find middle-class kids and boy soldiers (predominantly white) behaving badly and a few club owners (and supporters of Last and major advertisers in the Bully) getting rich! 

And of course they wouldn't see any irony (or is that contradiction) in the Bulletin running at least 1 1/2 pages of liquor adds today while also running Last's latest little race-card play

My welcome to Townsville: Shame Anna, shame

Each day as the trial of 20 year-old Tegan Leach has got closer I've become more and more angry that, in this day and age in Australia, a young woman is facing judgement because she chose to have an abortion.

I was toying with what to post but then along came this from No Right Turn in NZ.  The heading in particular says it all for me really:
Like I said, Shame Anna, shame

Barbaric
Something barbaric is happening in Queensland: they're trying a woman for having an abortion:
Abortion is legal in Queensland only by a judge's ruling - and that ruling applies only to women who have gone begging to a doctor and effectively declared themselves insane. It does not cover modern pharmaceutical abortions, and it certainly doesn't let women control their own bodies. The upshot: two young people are now facing serious jail time because Queensland's abortion law has failed to keep pace with the times.

It is alleged that Tegan Leach, 20, and her partner, Sergie Brennan, 22, imported the abortion drug misoprostol from the Ukraine and used it to terminate Leach's eight-week pregnancy. They face jail terms of seven and three years respectively.

Meanwhile Queensland's "pro-choice" Premier Anna Bligh refuses to act, and says that any reform has to come via a member's bill. But she blocked such a bill just two years ago. Like most politicians, she doesn't want to take a position if she can avoid it. The consequences of her cowardice will be seen in the Cairns District Court this week.

The most appauling aniversary

19 November, in a little over a month, will be the sixth aniversary of the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee at the hands the Qld coppers - SIX years and today this:

Is there no end to this for Mulrunji's family?  Is there no justice?

How to neutralise an idiot

At first I though that this cartoon by Rex Babin from the Sacramento Bee was the ultimate statement about the US "Christian" "Pastor" who has been stirring up hatred across the world with his publicity seeking threats to burn the Qur’an (no! it's not spelt Koran - well only by white Christians anyway)

But then this morning comes the ultimate statement about the 'affair' by a local Queensland lawyer - it puts the whole thing into perspective and makes the US attention seeking "christian" look like the hate-mongering fool he is:

Well said

Cross-posted in full from B Sides ...because it is spot-on!

The unreflective mirror

This is a quote from a Barry Cassidy article:
via abc.net.au

This election is not about gender, or even policies; thus far, it's not even about Tony Abbott.
Social researcher, Hugh Mackay, is spot on. It's about Julia Gillard, yes or no.                                                                                       

I'm always stunned when journalists say things like this, as if what an election is "about" somehow happens in a world in which they themselves do not exist. Does it really not occur to them that what an election is "about" cannot be separated from how the election is reported?

I'm really tired of reading articles written by journalists who presume their own non-existence.

It's like when you read them saying that "Labor can't get traction" or "this story about the Coalition was buried". Those two states (traction and buried) merely reflect editorial decisions about what was covered. They are basically saying, we chose not to cover these stories. And yet they write about the lack of traction or the buried story as if it happened in a world where they are mere observers.

Truly, I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just perplexed. Do journalists really think that the lack of focus on Abbott (or policy) and the total focus on Gillard happens independently of their reporting?

...and the things that make you shake your head

The Government Mining Tax Adds are a response to a national emergancy

Contrary to the confected outrage being expressed by the Murdoch press and the Federal Opposition at the Government’s citing ‘national emergency” as the reason for their $38 million add campaign about Mining Super Profits Tax, I actually agree with the Government on this on. Getting a fair price for our non-renewable resources is an issue of critical national importance – at least as much so as deciding as a nation whether to go to war.

Unlike those issues however, in this instance we have some of the largest corporations in the world running a bottomless and extremely misleading media and advertising campaign against the proposition that as a nation we should must get the best possible price for our assets. Such a self-interested campaign is a threat to our national well being.

Recommended reading on the Mining Super Profits Tax:

The corporate backlash on Public Opinion

or just about anything here by Fairfax's Peter Martin and in particular this table that he discovered in the Budget Papers:

'Nuf said, I reckon

If I made a lot of noise would my business get free publicity like this?

I've never much liked the Red Baron seaplane tourist business. It’s always annoyed me that if I were to make the sort of intermittent noise that this guy makes from my home-based business I’d be closed down within days.

But perhaps making a lot of noise (and wearing a funny hat) is exactly what I need to do to promote my business – after all the Baron got a free half page spread on the cover of today’s Bulletin and another on page four.

Townsville's pub profiteers: "We are the innocents. It's everybody else's fault (and problem)"

Expect more tomorrow from the local pub owners’ mouthpiece, Greg Pellegini, following his piece in today’s Bulletin claiming that alcohol related violence is everybody’s fault except those who profit from it.

News this morning that the parliamentary Law, Justice and Safety Committee’s Inquiry into Alcohol-Related Violence has recommended 2am closing for pubs in Flinders St will have him crying in his beer.

And a damn good thing too.

Pellegini's argument that “the onus was on club patrons to control themselves, rather than entertainment venue hours being restricted” is a bit like those who profit from pokies (and deliberately design their venues to encourage gambling) arguing that they have no responsibility for gambling addiction, or that the sale of heroin should be legalised but the consumption of it policed.

Clubs and pubs trade into the early hours of the morning for one reason and one reason only - in order that people can drink more and for longer and thus generate more profits.

Finally, ya gotta laugh (or, is that cry) at representatives of “free” (ro do anything) enterprise who argue that their right to profit should be protected by the expenditure of more public money – this time on coppers and hospitals.

A graph that is bound to give you the sh*ts

Say no more !