They bowed and said it was an honour to serve; and he would be welcomed back into the fold if he only played it straight.
He bowed in return, and said the honour was all his.
He had been frightened, bewildered and confused, not helped by his descent into a self destructive episode, and wondered why these things became so suddenly blank, and so terrifying.
The soldiers, restless through the long nights and the periods of absence, re-established their tents on the flanks of the valley walls; and waited. Synchronicity ran strong. This descent into the normal, the physical realm, had all been done before, an attempt to escape their ever prying eyes. But now that game was lost, other strategies had to come into play.
The edifices were crumbling. The people had lost all faith. Every time the the Prime Minister opened his mouth, with his distinctive Australian whine and lecturing preposterousness, he lost credibility. No one believed a word that came out of his mouth anymore.
Putrid, that was the synopsis of the general malaise, the confusion and dysfunction which had enveloped the country. Nothing worked. Everyone was running to stand still.
And today's government garbage was an announcement for a $10 billion fund for more social housing, 30,000 homes to be built in five years, another preposterous waste of taxpayers funding. The last thing the country needed was another ghetto, but that is what these places turned into, almost instantly.
There were 50,000 people, as he understood it, on the housing lists in his area alone.
And all those people who had done the right thing, stood on their own two feet, went to work, established families, bought a house, well bought a mortgage, were now being screwed to the wall by a dozen or more interest rate rises in rapid succession; thousands of them now finding themselves in or approaching negative income.
No one could survive.
While this filthy government continued its communistic takeover, encouraging welfare dependence, public housing, and a deep social malaise.
There were multiple stories from the tradies he knew of the excessive waste in public housing, the sense of entitlement from damaged people who might once have been supported by their families and communities and found the courage to move on from whatever infliction or disaster had been visited upon them; instead, alone, they found themselves dependent on a negligent and uncaring state.
That wasn't compassion. That wasn't progress. It was like leaving a former junkie on methadone for 20 years, for them to not only become degenerated, dependent, unemployable and deeply unhealthy, but to be cluttering up the liver and kidney units of public hospitals for which, as always, the taxpayer paid. And paid. And paid.
Putrid, that was the synopsis of this groaning edifice. Putrid. With a total loss of face.
We will come for you in the dawn.
AUSTRALIAN MAINSTREAM NEWS SITES
ABC
While construction has always had a high rate of insolvencies compared to other industries, experts say these last 18 months have been historically bad.
Most agree high demand, labour shortages and constraints on the supply of materials caused by the pandemic have all led to skyrocketing building costs and longer build times.
For builders who had signed fixed-price contracts with customers before the cost of materials took off and labour became scarce, it meant being caught in conditions where they were too often losing money to build new homes.
***
Indigenous Leader Marcia Langton says it's 'deeply disappointing' she was misquoted by the Australian, and denies she called no voters 'racist'.
She says her initial comments were that 'the claims made by the no campaign are based in racism and stupidity', and says she will instruct a lawyer to ask Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to take the misquoted claims down from his social media.
GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA
Bosses of key Qantas regulators revealed as members of airline’s Chairman’s Lounge
Disclosures to Guardian Australia show airline’s soft diplomacy reaches far deeper into corridors of power than previously known
Some of Australia’s top regulators – including the competition boss Gina Cass-Gottlieb and corporate watchdog chair Joseph Longo – are members of Qantas’s invitation-only Chairman’s Lounge, a luxurious and controversial perk the airline gives to influential policymakers.
Five of the seven commissioners of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are members, including Cass-Gottlieb who is the chair, the regulator said in a statement.
The competition regulator is currently pursuing Qantas over allegations it sold tickets for thousands of flights that it had already cancelled.
At the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic), Longo, and his two deputy chairs have access to the complimentary club, Asic confirmed.
SKY NEWS
Senator Jacinta Price is set to outline her objections to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in her speech to the National Press Club next week.
Ms Price’s 'No' vote pitch was highlighted in a draft version of the speech obtained by the Australian.
The Senator warns the Voice will end up being yet another battleground for many Aboriginal voices to disagree, fallout, and create division.
The speech also includes her vision of what the referendum's defeat will mean for Australia.
The Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians will make the case for the ‘No’ campaign at the National Press Club at 12:30pm, Thursday.
DYSTOPIA DOWN UNDER
As shared by Sky News this morning, new video of Marcia Langton accusing hard No voters, social workers and police of racism has emerged.
The first clip, from a University of Queensland event in July of this year, shows Langton accusing some No voters of “spewing racism”:
“The surge of racist nonense is confined to a minority of Australians. Ordinary Australians are thinking, Yes of course I’m voting for the Voice, and that would be 48, 49 per cent. Then there’s the hard No voters, and I’m hoping that they’re about 20 per cent, and they’re the ones who are spewing the racism.”
Unfortunately for Langton, the hard No vote has since increased to 37 per cent.
In another instance from 2020, Langton calls ‘most social workers’ and police racist:
“Families have been broken apart by social workers, who are by and large, white and racist... We need a radical culture change to stop the police from criminalising more and more people simply because the police are racist, because they get brownie points for rounding people up…”
The video also includes a clip from the Bunbury forum over the weekend at which Langton stated that arguments for the No campaign boil down to “base racism” or “sheer stupidity.”