Frog's Hollow Flying School (for Chinese students) turned down.

[kaz3g]

Thank you everyone for your contributions...all appreciated.

 

i recall many years ago that those ranges used to be marked as Designated Remote Areas and you couldn’t enter them unless you had HF radio and flew full SAR.

 

The “Corner” is notorious for its beauty, and also for its rapidly changing and extreme weather as many sailors will attest. I spent a lot of time at sea out of the Lakes and Mallacoota, and the bars at both locations can be pretty exciting. 

 

So I think I’ll look for a stretch of calm weather, probably March, and go across the Range but will come back the long way with perhaps an over nite at Mallacoota.

 

kaz

 

 

[bexrbetter]

It's a disgrace that our so-called "leaders" of the country have allowed this to happen. The bottom line, Chinese investment in Australia should be subject to the exact same rules as China applies to Australian investment in China.

Those rules are; Australians cannot have a majority interest in any investment in China. The Chinese Communist Party must be a 50.1% partner, in the form of an opaque CCP-owned puppet company.

 

The CCP has total, unfettered control of any foreign investments in China, and also demands other major concessions from investors, such as handing over all technological knowledge and rights owned by the foreign investor.

Absolute fooking bullshot.

 

here's some fact: I officially own 3 businesses in China, 2 are joint venture with private Chinese that I own 60% of each (negotiated with the Partners, nothing to do with any alledged rules), and the other I own outright 100%, and the CCP has nothing to do with any of them. What they do do, is fall over backwards to accomodate me, advise me, give me tax breaks for development - China being successful has little to do with cheap labour, and lots to do with actually wanting and helping you, something the Australian 2 Party's decidedly do not do.  

 

The "technological handover and rights" is a total load of crap. I have 7 IPRs, and I own a Chinese Law firm, so who knows about this better than me. And the protection is A grade, and I could give 2 hoots what "someone knows" otherwise on the internet. Our Law Firm has NEVER failed in an IPR suit, because they are Chinese and know Chinese Law, not some Western company who has had their IPR ripped off and hasn't a damn clue how to pursue it. the stories I can tell.

 

Ignorant people wrote this, lazy ignorant people believe it, or rather should I say, want to believe it.

 

Lastly, China is only one of 4 countries that is in a Trade Deficit to Australia (we make a profit from China), and while I certainly believe in ownership restrictions, no Australians step up to invest anyway, and the 2 Partys which a number of you idiots keep voting in certainy don't, so you decide if you want at least some economy and employment allowing some levels of foriegn Investment, or none while you wait for Australians to step up..

 

 

[bexrbetter]

 The people wanted these programs because the Conservative governments  from 1949 to 1972 had done little to improve infrastructure, except maybe for the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

 

We had oustanding manufacturing industries then, was just looking at all the LHD Holdens and Falcons being sent overseas in droves for example.

 

What's the point of infrastructure if there's no manufacturing to use it, balanced investment is needed.

 

 

[old man emu]

The Labor Governments supported the car industry. Under whose government did the multi-nationals walk out of that industry?

 

 

[Methusala]

I refer to Australia as the "upside down country". When all is going well with the economy the Aust voters ditch the Labor mob to install the economic idiots such as Peter Costello (who gave away the economic benefits of the resources {construction phase} boom to tax cuts). These where artfully angled to the well off but lower income cohorts loved their small cut as well. When Australia was riding high with the OECD nominating the Australian economy as the best managed in the world voters took the bait( don't vote for a tax on the miners) and voted in the individual who would qualify hands down as the worst equipped to be leader, onions anyone? We have seen the local vehicle manufacturing industry destroyed and the area where Australia has the best resource base in the world, converting sunlight into clean energy for a fraction of the cost of fossil fuel burning, left to others to capitalise. This thread could continue until the cows come home but trying to convince some that politics is not about "one side is exactly the same as the other", NEVER WORKS HERE. Enjoy the present but don't stress about down the track! Don

 

 

[turboplanner]

That the CIA where involved, there's not much doubt. Kerr was known to have CIA links. We are not even allowed to examine the correspondence between Buck Palace and Kerr almost 50 years later. It is a fact that a motion of "no-confidence" was passed by the Parliament in the Fraser caretaker govt but this fact was ignored when Kerr prorogued The Parl't for the election. There are long lists of the Whitlam govt's achievements in foreign affairs, universal health cover, urban development, education, aboriginal affairs and, of course, Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles which has achieved a stratospheric value since being purchased. To argue that his period in office was marked by wasteful spending and policy confusion is to display extreme naivete and ignorance.

BTW Kaz, Moruya and Merimbula are open and have avgas.

The CIA didn't have to get involved, and Whitlam wasn't dismissed because his government spent a  lot of money. The issue which hurt all companies was that as much as his government had some good ideas, they allowed inflation to get out of hand. I was national marketing manager of a large company and we wrote up several "rise and fall" clauses, but the customers were walking away from us at the order stage, or cancelling their orders at the delivery stage. I came up with a policy of issuing a monthly price list, and getting the sales outlets to quote on that month and delivery at that price. We had no idea where inflation was going to go, but at that time it had risen to 1.3% per month, so I increased prices for the next month by 1.5%, and so on. This was before emails and faxes, and was a huge job, but it got us out of the soup. Others just went to the wall. The second huge issue was that the Unions now only had to answer to their Comrade and hero, and got right out of control, pushing costs up even higher. The whole mess was dragging us down and some of the Ministers started to jack up, and Whitlam sacked them one after the other. These events weakened the government to the point where the Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser moved a motion to block Supply. This is a legitimate move, just as a vote of no confidence is a legitimate move, and the convention is that the government asks the Governor General to declare an election.

 

Whitlam decided to govern without Supply, and this meant there would be no money to pay any Commonwealth public servants, members of the defence forces etc. That then triggered a requirement for the Governor General to step in and sack the government, and appoint an interim, caretaker, government until an election could be held. That was done and the Coalition won in a landslide victory, endorsing the action taken by the governor general. (There were more steps than that; Whitlam trying to arrange an unauthorised loan to pay the employees was one) There was huge relief that the boil had burst and we could move on again. I personally met both Whitlam and Fraser and respected both of them. If Whitlam had been younger when all this happened, and had a second go, he would have been a great Prime Minister.   What happened next still amazes me, and shows the level of bipartisanship that exists in Canberra. Fraser had been given a clear message to get the budget under control and wipe out the union power. Bob Hawke was the President of the ACTU. Fraser moved Bob Hawke into Minister Streets office for three months, and between them they worked out a way to calmly bring union operations to a generally harmonious level, by consensus.

 

 

[turboplanner]

That the CIA where involved, there's not much doubt. Kerr was known to have CIA links. We are not even allowed to examine the correspondence between Buck Palace and Kerr almost 50 years later. It is a fact that a motion of "no-confidence" was passed by the Parliament in the Fraser caretaker govt but this fact was ignored when Kerr prorogued The Parl't for the election. There are long lists of the Whitlam govt's achievements in foreign affairs, universal health cover, urban development, education, aboriginal affairs and, of course, Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles which has achieved a stratospheric value since being purchased. To argue that his period in office was marked by wasteful spending and policy confusion is to display extreme naivete and ignorance.

BTW Kaz, Moruya and Merimbula are open and have avgas.

The CIA didn't have to get involved, and Whitlam wasn't dismissed because his government spent a  lot of money. The issue which hurt all companies was that as much as his government had some good ideas, they allowed inflation to get out of hand. I was national marketing manager of a large company and we wrote up several "rise and fall" clauses, but the customers were walking away from us at the order stage, or cancelling their orders at the delivery stage. I came up with a policy of issuing a monthly price list, and getting the sales outlets to quote on that month and delivery at that price. We had no idea where inflation was going to go, but at that time it had risen to 1.3% per month, so I increased prices for the next month by 1.5%, and so on. This was before emails and faxes, and was a huge job, but it got us out of the soup. Others just went to the wall. The second huge issue was that the Unions now only had to answer to their Comrade and hero, and got right out of control, pushing costs up even higher. The whole mess was dragging us down and some of the Ministers started to jack up, and Whitlam sacked them one after the other. These events weakened the government to the point where the Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser moved a motion to block Supply. This is a legitimate move, just as a vote of no confidence is a legitimate move, and the convention is that the government asks the Governor General to declare an election.

 

Whitlam decided to govern without Supply, and this meant there would be no money to pay any Commonwealth public servants, members of the defence forces etc. That then triggered a requirement for the Governor General to step in and sack the government, and appoint an interim, caretaker, government until an election could be held. That was done and the Coalition won in a landslide victory, endorsing the action taken by the governor general. (There were more steps than that; Whitlam trying to arrange an unauthorised loan to pay the employees was one) There was huge relief that the boil had burst and we could move on again. I personally met both Whitlam and Fraser and respected both of them. If Whitlam had been younger when all this happened, and had a second go, he would have been a great Prime Minister.   What happened next still amazes me, and shows the level of bipartisanship that exists in Canberra. Fraser had been given a clear message to get the budget under control and wipe out the union power. Bob Hawke was the President of the ACTU. Fraser moved Bob Hawke into Minister Streets office for three months, and between them they worked out a way to calmly bring union operations to a generally harmonious level, by consensus.

 

 

[turboplanner]

That the CIA where involved, there's not much doubt. Kerr was known to have CIA links. We are not even allowed to examine the correspondence between Buck Palace and Kerr almost 50 years later. It is a fact that a motion of "no-confidence" was passed by the Parliament in the Fraser caretaker govt but this fact was ignored when Kerr prorogued The Parl't for the election. There are long lists of the Whitlam govt's achievements in foreign affairs, universal health cover, urban development, education, aboriginal affairs and, of course, Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles which has achieved a stratospheric value since being purchased. To argue that his period in office was marked by wasteful spending and policy confusion is to display extreme naivete and ignorance.

BTW Kaz, Moruya and Merimbula are open and have avgas.

The CIA didn't have to get involved, and Whitlam wasn't dismissed because his government spent a  lot of money. The issue which hurt all companies was that as much as his government had some good ideas, they allowed inflation to get out of hand. I was national marketing manager of a large company and we wrote up several "rise and fall" clauses, but the customers were walking away from us at the order stage, or cancelling their orders at the delivery stage. I came up with a policy of issuing a monthly price list, and getting the sales outlets to quote on that month and delivery at that price. We had no idea where inflation was going to go, but at that time it had risen to 1.3% per month, so I increased prices for the next month by 1.5%, and so on. This was before emails and faxes, and was a huge job, but it got us out of the soup. Others just went to the wall. The second huge issue was that the Unions now only had to answer to their Comrade and hero, and got right out of control, pushing costs up even higher. The whole mess was dragging us down and some of the Ministers started to jack up, and Whitlam sacked them one after the other. These events weakened the government to the point where the Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser moved a motion to block Supply. This is a legitimate move, just as a vote of no confidence is a legitimate move, and the convention is that the government asks the Governor General to declare an election.

 

Whitlam decided to govern without Supply, and this meant there would be no money to pay any Commonwealth public servants, members of the defence forces etc. That then triggered a requirement for the Governor General to step in and sack the government, and appoint an interim, caretaker, government until an election could be held. That was done and the Coalition won in a landslide victory, endorsing the action taken by the governor general. (There were more steps than that; Whitlam trying to arrange an unauthorised loan to pay the employees was one) There was huge relief that the boil had burst and we could move on again. I personally met both Whitlam and Fraser and respected both of them. If Whitlam had been younger when all this happened, and had a second go, he would have been a great Prime Minister.   What happened next still amazes me, and shows the level of bipartisanship that exists in Canberra. Fraser had been given a clear message to get the budget under control and wipe out the union power. Bob Hawke was the President of the ACTU. Fraser moved Bob Hawke into Minister Streets office for three months, and between them they worked out a way to calmly bring union operations to a generally harmonious level, by consensus.

 

 

[turboplanner]

That the CIA where involved, there's not much doubt. Kerr was known to have CIA links. We are not even allowed to examine the correspondence between Buck Palace and Kerr almost 50 years later. It is a fact that a motion of "no-confidence" was passed by the Parliament in the Fraser caretaker govt but this fact was ignored when Kerr prorogued The Parl't for the election. There are long lists of the Whitlam govt's achievements in foreign affairs, universal health cover, urban development, education, aboriginal affairs and, of course, Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles which has achieved a stratospheric value since being purchased. To argue that his period in office was marked by wasteful spending and policy confusion is to display extreme naivete and ignorance.

BTW Kaz, Moruya and Merimbula are open and have avgas.

The CIA didn't have to get involved, and Whitlam wasn't dismissed because his government spent a  lot of money. The issue which hurt all companies was that as much as his government had some good ideas, they allowed inflation to get out of hand. I was national marketing manager of a large company and we wrote up several "rise and fall" clauses, but the customers were walking away from us at the order stage, or cancelling their orders at the delivery stage. I came up with a policy of issuing a monthly price list, and getting the sales outlets to quote on that month and delivery at that price. We had no idea where inflation was going to go, but at that time it had risen to 1.3% per month, so I increased prices for the next month by 1.5%, and so on. This was before emails and faxes, and was a huge job, but it got us out of the soup. Others just went to the wall. The second huge issue was that the Unions now only had to answer to their Comrade and hero, and got right out of control, pushing costs up even higher. The whole mess was dragging us down and some of the Ministers started to jack up, and Whitlam sacked them one after the other. These events weakened the government to the point where the Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser moved a motion to block Supply. This is a legitimate move, just as a vote of no confidence is a legitimate move, and the convention is that the government asks the Governor General to declare an election.

 

Whitlam decided to govern without Supply, and this meant there would be no money to pay any Commonwealth public servants, members of the defence forces etc. That then triggered a requirement for the Governor General to step in and sack the government, and appoint an interim, caretaker, government until an election could be held. That was done and the Coalition won in a landslide victory, endorsing the action taken by the governor general. (There were more steps than that; Whitlam trying to arrange an unauthorised loan to pay the employees was one) There was huge relief that the boil had burst and we could move on again. I personally met both Whitlam and Fraser and respected both of them. If Whitlam had been younger when all this happened, and had a second go, he would have been a great Prime Minister.   What happened next still amazes me, and shows the level of bipartisanship that exists in Canberra. Fraser had been given a clear message to get the budget under control and wipe out the union power. Bob Hawke was the President of the ACTU. Fraser moved Bob Hawke into Minister Streets office for three months, and between them they worked out a way to calmly bring union operations to a generally harmonious level, by consensus.

 

 

[turboplanner]

That the CIA where involved, there's not much doubt. Kerr was known to have CIA links. We are not even allowed to examine the correspondence between Buck Palace and Kerr almost 50 years later. It is a fact that a motion of "no-confidence" was passed by the Parliament in the Fraser caretaker govt but this fact was ignored when Kerr prorogued The Parl't for the election. There are long lists of the Whitlam govt's achievements in foreign affairs, universal health cover, urban development, education, aboriginal affairs and, of course, Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles which has achieved a stratospheric value since being purchased. To argue that his period in office was marked by wasteful spending and policy confusion is to display extreme naivete and ignorance.

BTW Kaz, Moruya and Merimbula are open and have avgas.

The CIA didn't have to get involved, and Whitlam wasn't dismissed because his government spent a  lot of money. The issue which hurt all companies was that as much as his government had some good ideas, they allowed inflation to get out of hand. I was national marketing manager of a large company and we wrote up several "rise and fall" clauses, but the customers were walking away from us at the order stage, or cancelling their orders at the delivery stage. I came up with a policy of issuing a monthly price list, and getting the sales outlets to quote on that month and delivery at that price. We had no idea where inflation was going to go, but at that time it had risen to 1.3% per month, so I increased prices for the next month by 1.5%, and so on. This was before emails and faxes, and was a huge job, but it got us out of the soup. Others just went to the wall. The second huge issue was that the Unions now only had to answer to their Comrade and hero, and got right out of control, pushing costs up even higher. The whole mess was dragging us down and some of the Ministers started to jack up, and Whitlam sacked them one after the other. These events weakened the government to the point where the Opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser moved a motion to block Supply. This is a legitimate move, just as a vote of no confidence is a legitimate move, and the convention is that the government asks the Governor General to declare an election.

 

Whitlam decided to govern without Supply, and this meant there would be no money to pay any Commonwealth public servants, members of the defence forces etc. That then triggered a requirement for the Governor General to step in and sack the government, and appoint an interim, caretaker, government until an election could be held. That was done and the Coalition won in a landslide victory, endorsing the action taken by the governor general. (There were more steps than that; Whitlam trying to arrange an unauthorised loan to pay the employees was one) There was huge relief that the boil had burst and we could move on again. I personally met both Whitlam and Fraser and respected both of them. If Whitlam had been younger when all this happened, and had a second go, he would have been a great Prime Minister.   What happened next still amazes me, and shows the level of bipartisanship that exists in Canberra. Fraser had been given a clear message to get the budget under control and wipe out the union power. Bob Hawke was the President of the ACTU. Fraser moved Bob Hawke into Minister Streets office for three months, and between them they worked out a way to calmly bring union operations to a generally harmonious level, by consensus.

 

 

[Methusala]

I take exception to the view, that is, that the economic troubles experienced by the Whitlam govt, were solely, or even mostly, caused by the govt’s actions. It is convenient to forget the effects of the world wide “oil shocks” of 1974. Action taken by OPEC members to create a spike in the price of oil which reverberated through the world economy causing inflation and unemployment in most economies.

 

The Labor govt had been excluded from power largely through the efforts of the DLP throughout the 60’s and so were very inexperienced. It took most of the 2 shortened terms for Gough to sort out his ministry. Having exiled Cairns and sidelined some others, he was assuming a dominance and control over the parliament in 1975. However, Whitlam's lack of a majority in the Australian Senate, and the hostility of the conservative state governments made it difficult to effectively manage the economy.

 

The CIA were very much active during this period, having achieved the violent overthrow of another leftish govt in Chile and institution of the new “voodoo economics” (as Nixon himself had called it) neoliberal economic policies was the aim. Kerr was known to have been a CIA recruit in his earlier academic roles. Additionally, there is still a blanket over the role of the Palace and Her Majesty's communications with Kerr to this day. BTW peak interest rates were experienced under Fraser’s treasurer, John Howard in early 1981 (23%)

 

While many people and businesses had some hard times in the time of the Whitlam govt, the real economic damage was felt under Fraser. I still recall that he appeared relieved when Hawke won in ‘82. The wages and prices accord, under Hawke was a continuation of Whitlam’s prescription revealed in the latter half of 1975 when Hayden replaced Cairns as treasurer.

 

It is convenient, in some people’s minds, to air brush a lot of the background to the dismissal and events leading up to it. The establishment, represented by the press, business and political conservatives have the whip hand in Australian politics. This partly explains their political success, even though their policies and personnel are largely unimpressive. Don

 

 

[turboplanner]

In this colourful vein I forgot to mention, Whitlam and his deputy didn't wait for a full cabinet to be sworn in, and started making decisions the minute they could. Two people I know believe that one of these decisions, which had the effect of breaching the requirements of the Constitution, making it illegal, has resulted in all subsequent legislation in Australia being illegal. I can't remember the details, but one of them spent time in England going up the legal chain and seemed to be getting close to succeeding  in proving it.

 

I had a first hand example of how Whitlam worked when I received a request to attend a meeting in Canberra at the request of the Prime Minister regarding the future of Australian bus manufacture. Since we had bus plants up I went, and found about another 50 or so people in a room helping themselves to coffee. We didn't see Gough but a public servant stepped up and explained that he wanted to lower the cost of public transport, and so the government had come up with an Australian Standard Bus design to take advantage of mass production. I asked who would be building these buses and was told the government would be, probably in the ACT. That meant our entire Australian Industry would lose their businesses and jobs.

 

He went on to outline the design they had come up with; a monococque aluminium "hull" (to gasps and sniggers) and a flat 8 diesel rear engine with diagonal drive.

 

By this time we were stunned, and I asked what this mass produced bus would cost. To my surprise the speaker very confidently said $80,000.00.

 

I said, We sell school buses for $15,000.00, route buses for $22,000.00 and coaches for $45,000.00, who would be paying $80,000.00?"

 

The man was clearly shocked; he had no idea that a school bus and a coach were different to a route bus, and the prices shocked him.

 

As he consulted his colleagues, and started to suggest we should talk, Jack Violet, a salt of the earth man and the owner of Custom Coaches in Sydney reached the end of his fuse and let go with an expletive laden opinion of the speaker, the government, Whitlam, public servants, boffins, academics (and I've only remembered a few of them), and we gave him a standing ovation.

 

The speaker, by now clearly distressed said that perhaps they'd made a mistake, and we all went back home and never heard of the Australian Standard Bus again.

 

 

[Methusala]

Well, $50bn for 4 subs to be delivered sometime in the next 20 years and untold billions on fighter jets that cant run , can't turn...etc. Perhaps we haven't gone too far in 40 years.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Well, $50bn for 4 subs to be delivered sometime in the next 20 years and untold billions on fighter jets that cant run , can't turn...etc. Perhaps we haven't gone too far in 40 years.

Subs cost what subs cost; it isn't the sub, it what's inside it and linked to it.

 

I heard the USAF pilot at Avalon who said "If ya caint tourn, ya caint fart", but for some years now our weapons platform doesn't require a turn, the missiles make the tight turns.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

... the Conservative governments  from 1949 to 1972 had done little to improve infrastructure, except maybe for the Snowy Mountains Scheme....

 

...Maybe Blue Poles was up the pole...

 I agree with the bulk of your post, OME, but the Conservative side of government bitterly opposed the SMS- then, when it was finished, Menzies proudly had his name put on the opening plaque.

 

Whitlam's purchase of Blue Poles turned out to be a financial master stroke. It's value went thru the roof.

 

 

[old man emu]

I have just read a book about the 1940 Canberra crash of the RAAF Hudson which killed three members of Menzies' Cabinet as well as several high ranking military men. https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/hudson-a1697_the-plane-crash-that-changed-australian-history/

 

The book does not delve into the crash itself, but the political ramifications of the deaths of the three Ministers, Geoffrey Street, Sir Henry Gullett and James Fairbairn which destabilised Robert Menzies’ wartime government. The book describes the political goings on, such as Menzies' trip to Britain and his trying to get himself a seat in the Commonwealth War Cabinet.  It also outlines Menzies' career from the beginning of WWl until his defeat by the Curtin Labor government. 

 

Menzies comes out from the description as more British than the Union Jack, and less Australian than a Kiwi fly-half. As a law student at Melbourne University, he had "a reputation as an "unusually bright and articulate member of the undergraduate community", and was known as a skilful debater. However, he had also begun to develop the traits of pomposity and arrogance that would cause difficulties later in his career. His fellow law student and future parliamentary colleague Percy Joske noted Menzies as a student "did not suffer fools gladly [...] the trouble was that his opponents frequently were not fools and that he tended to say things that were not only cutting and unkind but that were unjustified"

 

 

[turboplanner]

In those days campaigning for elections require putting yourself on the griller at public meetings well salted with the opposition followers.

 

In one meeting a woman interjected with "I wouldn't vote for you if you were Jesus Christ!

 

He responded with, "Madam, if I were Jesus Christ you wouldn't be in my electorate."

 

 

[kaz3g]

Whatever else he was, including a devout Anglophile, Lazarus Menzies was a brilliant debater. I saw him perform at Kew Town Hall when I was in my teens and he cut the floor from beneath his opposition.

 

But his decisions during WWII nearly cost us even more dearly, especially his adherence to British is best in the way of aircraft. That and his willingness to leave us desperately short of skilled men and equipment to bolster the Allies counter in Europe while the threat from Japan was nearing its peak.

 

it took Ben Chifley to sort out our homeland defences and get our men back from Europe. 

 

kaz

 

 

[spacesailor]

The CIA were well in Australia at that time !.

 

"The CIA didn't have to get involved"

 

Just look up the "Nugan Hand bank"

 

(  ? https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/nugan-hand-bank-mystery-michael-hand-found-living-in-the-united-states-20151108-gkthas.html )

 

Governments laundering money, Drugs from Vietnam into Byron Bay, Cheap housing plots to hide illicit activities Assassinations here & stateside. 

 

With no one brought to justice.

 

spacesailor