(Rose red highway patrol car, snow white bike, Scone)
Lights, camera, action!!! Lights, camera, in-car tape recorder!!! Lights, camera, siren!!!! Very quiet sunny day in Scone today so what's a policeman to do? "We did but see her cycling by ... BOOK her!" And so the rather Australian saga of booking people using bicycles to buy raspberries and blueberries when they're not wearing helmets starts all over again. I had actually waited for their car to go past before I crossed the road, and as they did it did half cross my mind that they might to a u-turn at the roundabout and come back for me. However so engrossed was I in my 'Infinite Monkey Cage' podcast...
... I got quite a surprise when I realised the siren and lights coming up beside were ... well, for me! So I hopped off my bike, took out my ear-phones, asked the policeman to wait a minute while I turned off Professor Brian Cox, and then tuned in for the 'Do you know it's against the law to ride a bicycle without a helmet?' spiel. And so I proceeded to educate the young law enforcer why the law was flawed, and that the benefit claims of helmets and helmet law were dubious, and that scientists across the globe were in dispute on this matter and that therefore it had been highly irresponsible of our politicians to make helmet wearing compulsory on the flimsy advice they had received. I delved into it a little further for him saying there were no laws to stop us overeating or overdrinking or oversmoking which was a good thing, and that people really ought to be able to run their own lives if they didn't cause harm to others. I mentioned that I felt I was imperilled by the government and that self-defence was provided to me under section 418 of the NSW Crimes Act. I lost him here a little bit and he wanted to know if I was 'self-defending' myself from him, to which I replied a categorical no, that it was the government's daft law that had put me at risk, not him. He asked me why I thought such a regulation had been put in place if not for a good sensible reason and I told him that it was the result of good marketing and hysterical doctors - he was very surprised by the 'hysterical doctors' bit. I also mentioned that when I was booked in Adelaide last year the police ended up not proceeding with the prosecution of me to which he commented that they were probably too busy, to which I added 'doing real police work,' immediately seguing into why I though it was such a shame that regulation 256 wasted his time as well given that they clearly had better things to do than book a middle-aged lady on a bicycle cycling on her way home from the shops listening to a science show podcast. I can't really remember what else we chatted about but by now he was well and truly leaning on the bonnet of his car whilst his partner-in-police-work, still sitting in the patrol car, was probably wondering what the hell we were talking about for so long. Anyway with my licence in hand he got back in the car and goodness knows what came up after they punched all my details into the in-car computerised data-bank gizmo but it was clearly cause for much mirth. Finally he reappeared with my penalty notice (and licence), and we bade our farewells and parted company with me saying as per usual: 'See you in court.'
(Me: "Will you be supporting the current government's trashing of the railway service from Scone to Newcastle Station bearing in mind it was an arrangement made as a result of dodgy deals with dodgy developers and dodgy politicians?")
... his answer to that 'Did-Mike-Baird-get-it-wrong' question was a categorical 'NO!' Ah-ha so that means the National Party candidate for the Upper Hunter does support the cutting of our railway service to Newcastle Station which is what I was trying to get out of him with my question but he waffled, and prevaricated, and mentioned my views were opinion, and used community angst as an example of community lack of progress, and gave cosy platitudes about his support for an intergrated safe transport plan ... WTF ... a bunch of donkeys, buses, and bicycle rickshaws could be nicely 'intergrated into a safe transport plan' but we want what we already have and what is already ours: WE WANT OUR EXISTING TRAIN LINE WITH TRAINS!!!!
So it seems that whilst the National Party candidate dodged my open question with political platitudes and smoke and mirrors, he just couldn't dodge the Country Labor Party candidate's closed question:
Q: Did Mike Baird get it wrong? A: No
... So it's Goodbye Newcastle Station and railway line as far as the Nats are concerned - VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE But in my opinion I say, 'YES, MIKE BAIRD GOT IT WRONG' ...
... of course he shouldn't be cutting the line to Newcastle Station, and of course he shouldn't be opening up that 2km rail corridor and allowing dodgy development to continue notwithstanding those documented dodgy deals with dodgy politicians and dodgy developers, and I'm sorry but after being told ad nauseam that we 'build the lifestyle we choose' and that 'we've all got the same goal' and that 'we're all working towards protecting and enhancing whatever situation we live in,' it is quite clear to me that the 'we' is a figurative 'we' and that the majority of us just don't qualify for the 'We' Club, otherwise ... Why are plots to cut the railway being upheld? Why are more mines being approved? Why is TAFE being destroyed? These are not the 'lifestyle choices we're choosing,' and I think they rather indicate that we've certainly not got the same goals as Mr National Party Candidate And furthermore, I just don't believe that mining can co-exist with agriculture, and no, the last 100 years do not prove to me that it does ... No, I'm far more inclined to believe the country labour party candidate when he says that the benefits of coal mining don't always go back into the community and that 'bullish' predictions of seaborne coal point to 'Coal Armageddon' in 2030, and that 'bearish' ones point to coal having already peaked.
And I'm with him on the need: (1) to build community resilience to 'coal-afterlife' and (2) to embark on a planning exercise to preserve productivity with the lowest impact for when we reach the lowest price on coal (in 6 years) rather than low productivity and high-use conflict within the community. Now that's a workable vision. So in terms of transport, YES MIKE BAIRD GOT IT WRONG! ... and in terms of coal mines ... oh boy ...
In view of next month's state election, I headed up to Willow Tree in New South Wales yesterday to 'Meet-the-Upper-Hunter-Candidates' in this 'to-date-safe-seat' of Upper Hunter.
Hosted by the Mookie Landcare group, the meeting was held at the town's iconic Bowling Club, and amidst patty cakes and lemon slices, talk of coal mines brought to mind this chillingly-deadly spoof..
Hmmmmm ... got me thinking:
1. 'Fuck you' to those who can't see that there has to be life after coal! and let's ...
2. Vote for someone else (like they did in Victoria!) ...
... doesn't have to be Greens mind you ... here in the Upper Hunter Country Labor has been revitalised!
Since Christmas, the impact of the NSW government’s actions to open up the Newcastle rail corridor for development has left countless Upper Hunter families gasping at what this means for them - and they know it ain’t going to be pretty. Barring the National Party candidate who was too busy to attend, other would-be-candidate-hopefuls for next month’s NSW State election met with concerned Upper Hunter residents in Muswellbrook last week to listen to community sorrow and anger as one of their few accessible life-lines to the city has been systematically destroyed. Residents expressed their displeasure at the legal hoop-la the NSW government has embarked upon to avoid provisions of the Transport Administration Act which forbids cutting of a railway line except by an Act of Parliament. No-one in the Upper Hunter is impressed by the government’s attempt to vest ownership to the Hunter Development Corporation for railway acquisition purposes nor by their partnership with General Property Trust under the auspices of the government owned Urban Growth NSW. No-one in the Upper Hunter is fooled … no-one. To a candidate (excluding the National Party one who was not there due to ‘busyness’ commitments), they promised reinstatement of railway lines if elected and manna from heaven - and perhaps we can believe them ... can we? But it was the stories shared by residents of their life-journeys on the Hunter line that revealed the true extent of the blow dealt by the NSW government to this rural community yet again. The sick and their health appointments, the grandparents and their outings with grandchildren, the students and their classes, the families and their shopping trips, the rites of ‘unaccompanied-teenage’ passage as their families allow them to take the train to the beach (I well remember letting my four go for the first time), none of these trips will be possible anymore if the NSW government has its way and destroys our public asset, our essential rural connection to our city. Just maybe the fate of the Queensland LNP will be a salutary reminder to Macquarie Street … because given that this government has stopped listening to us as they sell off our railway and our lives, come March we will probably kick them out too.
