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ns in new window email share on x opens in new window x like loading 15 comments posted in australian history biography european history tagged ann flinders archaeology egypt euston station flinders petrie matthew flinders william petrie pauline hanson and alpacas posted on 19 03 2017 7 comments my sister lives outside pomona a small township in the sunshine coast hinterland one saturday nearly 20 years ago we decided to go to the agricultural show together in the neighbouring town of cooroy i love agricultural shows not the big commercial jobs like the ekka or the royal easter full of overpriced rides and rip off show bags but the small local affairs these used to be a staple of every small town with the cwa selling tea and sandwiches reps demonstrating new harvesters and post hole diggers and competitions for the best cakes and fat lambs they are now a dying breed like the fat lambs tastes have changed from cake stalls to sausage sizzles and farmers buy their agricultural machinery after doing their research on the web or they do in south east queensland my sister has the nbn whereas i m still waiting for it here on the outskirts of brisbane in 1998 cooroy teetered on the edge of the new economy since then the butter factory has reopened as an arts space the timber mill has closed but there s a new microbrewery the area is full of refugees from high house prices not just in brisbane but from sydney and melbourne as well and telecommuters in the knowledge economy are thick on the ground people from the other older economy have been left behind within an hour s drive of noosa are some of the poorest postcodes in queensland the cooroy show should have rung clearer bells though at the time i just found it curious that amongst the cakes and cultivators 2 groups stood out there were several booths advertising the one nation party which was just gearing up for the queensland election and there were alpacas wherever you looked both were attracting queues i ve always associated pauline hanson with alpacas ever since the short curly topknot the stiff neck and square jaw fiercely defensive of the group they are protecting the tendency to spit and then there are those cute alpacas the people in the queues at cooroy in the late 1990s were at the end of their tether their way of life under threat from economic changes they could not control dairying was failing the timber industry too the market for canned pineapples and vegetables had shrunk at the same time big producers were taking over strawberries and tomatoes with the capital to install hothouses and hydroponics james ashby was spokesman for one of these new strawberry farms at beerwah when its hydroponics system was mysteriously poisoned suri alpacas from wikipedia the salesmen with their alpacas appealed to desperate people australians have always had a tendency to seize on new agricultural fads in their never ending search for a staple the next big thing ever since john macarthur imported merino sheep in a ship he renamed the argo in honour of the golden fleece some of these products like merinos took off most become at best a niche market some disappear entirely remember when jojoba beans were a thing the first alpacas were imported into australia in 1858 a few years earlier the nsw governor and the businessman thomas mort decided that alpacas might be the new big thing they asked charles ledger an englishman who bred alpacas in peru to import some of the animals and he finally arrived in sydney with a group of south american shepherds and a flock of over 200 alpacas llamas and vicunas after a hair raising journey for men and beasts alike from peru to bolivia to argentina to chile and finally across the pacific to nsw unfortunately by the time he arrived the government had changed and nobody was interested in alpacas any longer henry parkes took his daughter clarinda to see some of them at the sydney domain at cooroy the slick alpaca salesmen didn t talk about wool or meat or even the alpaca s potential value as a guardian animal amongst a herd of sheep they talked about how valuable they were as breeding animals because after buying high next year the farmer could sell on their offspring for equally high prices it was all a bit like a pyramid scheme but for desperate people the promise of breeding alpacas represented the last throw of the dice at the one nation booths there were also slick salesmen those people filling in forms and paying their money thought they were signing up as members of the new political party it later turned out they were just supporters with no input into party policy and in 2002 the party was deregistered for not having the necessary 500 members like alpacas though the one nation party represented a last throw of the dice a few years later their neighbours in fairfax elected a noisy plausible businessman donald trump lite clive palmer in the saturday paper paid link yesterday karen middleton has a fascinating article about one nation s business model she quotes a number of disaffected ex phon party members from western australia it s not a political party said a former president of the wa branch lyn vickery most political parties under the electoral act are supposed to be incorporated associations that s what the electoral commission prefers this is in fact a business and in fact it s a pyramid business much like amway the trouble with pyramid schemes is that they depend on growth without constantly expanding they invariably collapse a pity most of them aren t as cute as alpacas share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on x opens in new window x like loading 7 comments posted in australian history biography environmental history uncategorized tagged auspol alpacas charles ledger cooroy karen middleton one nation party pauline hanson pyramid scheme open house in brisbane 2016 posted on 05 10 2016 leave a comment next weekend 8 9 october is open house brisbane when a wide variety of buildings are thrown open to the public the idea began in england where there has been an open house london since 1992 but in the last few years the idea has spread more widely melbourne has been involved since 2008 and in all other capitals as well brisbane sydney hobart adelaide and perth now have open days as well nothing yet in darwin by the look of it and i haven t checked out our regional cities the aim is to open up interesting buildings that are not normally accessible to the general public private institutions such as clubs and societies government offices commercial buildings that are old or beautiful or interesting or all three are open for us the curious public to have an annual snoop around i was lucky enough to be in london one year quite accidentally on its open house weekend with more preparation and more stamina i might have seen more but as it was i spent a happy hour or so pottering around marlborough house the building is now the commonwealth secretariat and usually closed to visitors marlborough house was built as a town house for john and sarah churchill first duke and duchess of marlborough and is just the sort of pied à terre you might expect from a couple whose idea of a country shack was blenheim palace marlborough house wallows in stucco ornamentation gilded cornices and chandeliers sarah churchill first hired sir christopher wren as you do but sacked him presumably for not being sufficiently over the top john churchill may have beaten louis xiv s armies on the field but louis got his own back architecturally along the rear of the building is a long gallery which was clearly influenced by versailles s gallerie des glaces this room is now the main conference room and it is almost entirely filled with an enormous table large enough so that every member of the british commonwealth can sit down together in a round table discussion except that the table is not round but an extended oval the seating is arranged alphabetically around the circumference from a to z starting at the middle of one long side this arrangement means that m for malta can happily chat across the narrow axis to a for antigua or z for zambia but g for guyana might have difficulty communicating with s for singapore along the long axis when i was there about 15 years ago relations between australia and malaysia were still tetchy after years of very personal antagonism between prime ministers paul keating of australia and mahathir mohamad of malaysia and visions of them glowering at each other across the table during heads of government meetings really made my day so it was a bit of a disappointment to learn that keating and mahathir never met there and the seating is laid out as it was at a much earlier commonwealth heads of government meeting in 1969 as the role of the commonwealth inevitably declines no doubt eventually marlborough house will be recycled once again goodness knows what they ll do with that table they will need to break it up to get it out the door but i suppose that s how they got it in there in the first place meanwhile brisbane s open house day offers some interesting possibilities though there will be fewer nymphs and less stucco generally tattersall s club has a splendid daphne mayo frieze the masonic memorial temple has terrific black and white marble decorations and the former treasury building now the treasury heritage hotel includes a tour of the office of the minister for lands it should be a good weekend they are again thanks to the hooray henrys at the formula 1 race the other day apologies this is an update of my post from 2013 three years ago i was complaining that neither sydney nor hobart had open house days now they do on the other hand the irish club which i urged people to visit 3 years ago has since closed for another architectural perspective on the open house phenomenon this article by susan holden in the conversation is worth reading share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on x opens in new window x like loading leave a comment posted in australian history calendar tagged brisbane open house open house brisbane open house london the currency of corruption posted on 29 09 2016 9 comments the labor party has now lost 2 shadow ministers since the election on 2 july which suggests a high level of carelessness nobody seems to know yet just why stephen conroy decided to leave but the reasons for sam dastyari s resignation are hideously clear accepting money from a chinese donor to pay a a1600 travel bill and 2 bottles of grange he listed these in the donor register as two bottles of wine and says he subsequently gave them to a charity auction it s all a bit sordid not least because the sums involved are so small it reminds me a bit of that line in a man for all seasons when thomas more learns that richard rich has given perjured evidence against him in return for the job of attorney general for wales it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world but for wales richard for 1600 and a couple of bottles of grange sam one can only hope that andrew leigh is finally getting an appropriate salary which he missed out on when for arcane factional reasons the size of the shadow ministry blew out to 31 political gifts are curious things and you can waste a pleasant hour at the moment googling the name of any australian politician and the word grange in a depressing number of cases up pops a gift bottle the most famous recent examples are dastyari and before him the nsw premier barry o farrell who says he forgot all about the gift but nonetheless resigned when his thank you note popped up other recipients though include peter costello who received a 6 pack in 2008 kevin rudd in 2006 and just maybe tony abbott in 2015 6 women don t seem to get bottles of plonk in the same way julie bishop and tania plibersek seem to be cleanskins and the top item under julia gillard grange shows her visiting the milford grange retirement community before the 2011 election which is either admirable or sad depending on your point of view penfolds grange for anyone living on another planet is widely touted as australia s best wine it is expensive but it can always be described on the politician s register of gifts as a bottle of wine just as a rolex can be just a watch naturally it is very expensive especially the older bottles so penfolds has designed a dinky little website to let buyers type in the date they want here o farrell s bottle of grange dates from 1959 his birth year but sadly the system crashes if i enter my birthdate which dates back earlier than the first grange production sigh unlike cash a political gift is not intended to buy a politician outright but to sweeten him up to remind him as he sips his wine or glances at his watch of good old so and so often the gift is an investment in the future a strategic gift to a rising star in the opposition kevin rudd tony abbott sam dastyari is like laying down a bottle of good wine to drink at some time in the future there are fashions in political gifts as in other things sometimes cash is king lawyers still wear robes with a feature known as the money bag a thin strip of material trailing down the front of the gown and the remainder of a pocket on the back once upon a time say in thomas more s time the lawyer would turn his back and pull on the strap to jingle the bag reminding the client that payment was due english wigmakers and professional spoilsports ede and ravenscroft say the money bag is just the remnant of a monastic hood usually though the idea is to gently remind the recipient of a mutually advantageous friendship in the early 19 th century the macarthur family perfected the art of the political gift in 1804 john macarthur s fortunes turned when the colonial secretary lord camden authorized a land grant which he named camden park keeping sweet with lord camden and his secretary george watson taylor was important so when his son edward sailed to england in 1808 he took with him a menagerie of australian wildlife to distribute strategically to potential allies emus from john gould the birds of australia lady castlereagh wife of the colonial secretary got two emus it s unlikely the poor birds survived for very long at mount stewart the castlereagh estate in northern ireland a black swan and a goose also survived the voyage to be presented to lady camden since camden was no longer in office she didn t rate a matched pair but they missed out on a pair of bronze wing pigeons because watson taylor thought that too many presents at one time would overdo the business and possibly coveted the birds himself for edward gave him a very handsome present in the bird way i have made several presents to different people edward added and have not parted with all yet more than a decade later the macarthurs were still greasing the wheels george watson taylor f...
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