Hi Is Mise,

I suppose you would have another Hutt River Provence on the island, or in the worst case scenario, a replay of the American Civil War, I can see you cutting an impressive figure on your white horse, our very own General Robert E Lee.
Seriously, I don't think any state would even contemplate such a move, given such change would require a national referendum, Old Joh is long gone. The High Court would find in favour of the constitution and the Commonwealth.

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Dear onthebeach,

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Thank you for drawing my attention to :

• the drought-stricken farmers in Qld and Jack Neilson's campaign to help them out:

I must confess I had never heard of Boulia before, but having looked it up on the map I see it is west of Longreach, I’m not surprised they have droughts out there. It must be pretty rough, arid country I reckon. I don’t think I’d like to live there.

• Ambulances queuing-up on the ramps of emergency services of hospitals in north Brisbane:

I thought Talhia’s (a nurse) comments at the end of the article were interesting. As she says, there’s probably a lot better the Qld Govt. could do with public money instead of spending it on luxury cars (Audi, BMW and Mercedes) for public servants who use them as private vehicles on weekends to do their shopping.

• the “Struggle Street” documentary controversy on the (low income) Mt. Druitt suburb of Western Sydney:

Daniel Piotrowski, who says he has lived all his life in the area, indicates in the Mail Online article: “the outrage over Struggle Street, Wednesday night's SBS documentary, was really a load of rubbish. The stories of its subjects were sensitively told and shed light on confronting problems”.

I suspect he is right. The SBS reporters probably had good intentions and thought they were doing the local people a good turn in shedding light on their poor living conditions in the hope that the relevant public authorities might be prompted to do something to improve them.

Piotowski’s explanation, that the controversy was triggered by the mayor of Blacktown who saw the documentary as adverse publicity throwing oil on the fire of existing “postcode racism”, seems eminently plausible to me.

The good intentions of the SBS reporters apparently backfired on them. That, unfortunately, is a not so unusual phenomenon.

It reminds me of the French in Indonesia who, in an attempt to eliminate an epidemic of rats, offered a generous bounty for every rat pelt brought in. But instead of eliminating rats, the locals started farming them !

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Having a Republic is not going to change political corruption or mismanagement, as some of the Republics in existence are the most corrupt Government on the Earth. If we believe a Republic is going to change that it is fairy land. Perhaps Republicans dream of that believing it will solve all our problems.

Hi Josephus,

I am a republican, but I don't wake up every morning thinking about it, its not a top priority, there are indeed more pressing issues to deal with, that is not to say a republic debate cannot be on the agenda.
Changing to a republic is not a panacea for all of societies ills, far from it. I'll go as far as saying as a republic I would expect the crime rate to drop by 0%, homelessness by 0%, poverty by 0% etc.

Paul,

Robert E. Lee never had a white horse and if the people of a State decide to leave the Commonwealth there is very little that anyone can do, other than lament.

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Dear Poirot,

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It’s nice to hear from you too. Everything’s fine in Paris.

Poor old Charlie Hebdo seems to be on a slippery slope though. I’m afraid the aftermath of that terrorist attack is really beginning to pay its toll.

I’m not sure it’s going to be able to survive much longer unless some brave and brilliant young caricaturists miraculously step forward in the very near future to save what's left of its soul.

It’s not a problem of money. It’s a question of courage, talent and commitment to an ideal – at least, that’s what it used to be.

Gone with the wind ? … a bygone era ? or, should I say … simply blasted away !

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Dear Josephus,

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You wrote :

« Having a Republic is not going to change political corruption or mismanagement, as some of the Republics in existence are the most corrupt Government on the Earth. If we believe a Republic is going to change that it is fairy land. Perhaps Republicans dream of that believing it will solve all our problems. »
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The World Audit classification tends to indicate that the degree of corruption of a country is inversely proportionate to its degree of democracy. The more democratic the country the less corruption and the less democratic the country the more corruption (irrespective of the type of government) :

http://www.worldaudit.org/statpage.htm
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That, of course, does not prevent anybody from dreaming - whatever his or her preferred type of government may happen to be.

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