The Townsville City Council decides that everyone must share some pain – except Townsville Enterprise, Kid Crisafulli becomes a fashionista commentator, and our old Townsville judicial jockey Clive Wall socks it to the crims big time down on The Coast - but the Court of Appeal isn’t amused.

Yup, not surprisingly, the man they call Judge Dredd gets a kick in the teeth from the Court of Appeal, but The Magpie muses if it is a kick that may help boot him upstairs.

James Ashby, who is giving new meaning to the term ‘sinking the slipper’ appears to have just done to the Australian taxpayer what he is accused of doing to some young boys in Townsville.   

Kid Crisafulli continues an emerging LNP tradition of modern lifestyle criticism – he’s had an unusual stab at fashion commentary.

And kiss and TEL – Townsville Enterprise bigwigs cosy up to the Townsville Council and manage to get another whacking dollop of ratepayers dosh to keep them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed – that style is rumored to be a penchant for running close to the financial wind.

And those extremist Mulslim meatheads suddenly learn about the law of unintended consequences.

All here in this week’s nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

History has been full of vindictive, scheming queens with exotic tastes.  Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, Russia’s Catherine the Great, Alan Jones – and now, Australia gets another in James Ashby.

James Hunter Ashby - ironic middle name. 

This delightfully exotic chap now has $50,000 of our taxpayer money, handed to him by a government that’s on an austerity drive.  Attorney General Nicola Roxan gave the truly curious grounds that although he’s a nuisance with no case against the government – a case which he brought for not protecting him against Slippery Pete Slipper’s alleged romantic advances - it would be cheaper than a prolonged court case (which she clearly believed the government would win because she described Ashby’s claims were ‘vexatious’ and fanciful).

Eh?  That is truly astounding coming from the highest judicial officer in the land. That sort of reasoning might be acceptable in civil cases, but The ‘Pie imagines it is unheard of in this sort of scenario.  Looks like some sort of hush money. One is entitled to think that there is a whole can of worms on the negotiating table and Ashby – an accused but as yet unproven paedophile but who is no cowering virgin victim of his former boss – bluffed the government that he had the opener. By any reading, he has been gifted fifty grand for threatening action against the government.

But now, showing more front than Clive Palmer in a belly-flop contest, Ashby said through pursed lips that he took exception to Roxon’s comments and would now sue her for defamation. Well, he’s presumably got 50 grand of our money to fund the action.

But 50 grand is chicken feed next to Slippery’s own on-going costs to the taxpayer while waiting to find out if he’s guilty of acting on his own exotic tastes. Here is a leopard who can’t be embarrassed into changing his spots. Get this - since he was turfed out of the Speaker’s Chair 190 days ago, this repulsive bible-bashing oilster has been doing official meet’n’greets and travelling overseas (four times) to the tune of  $173,000. And he probably hasn’t even yet submitted his latest slew of $300 cab fares run up on that special Peter Meter for the trip from Brissy airport to his Sunshine Coast home for a little R & R after his onerous schedule. Read the gory details here.

Bentley isn’t amused, either.

Other matters.

Let’s look at how a man in tune with community expectations of justice hits a sour note in the ivory tower of the Court of Appeal.

District Court Judge C.F Wall, the man known on the Gold Coast as Judge Dredd,  is also not a leopard to change his spots.

During a decade In Townsville, Judge Wall showed he was of a very independent mind when it came to sentencing, and openly declared he wasn’t worried about having his sentences downgraded on appeal. (Most judges dread it, especially those with an eye to future prospects.) Clive once famously said that ‘the appeal court just tinkers, while I’m working at the coal-face ‘(a remark that prompted barrister Mark ‘Sludge’ Donnelly to suggest that his initials CF stood for coal-face).

Judge C F 'Coalface' Wall

But Clive Wall’s approach to making the punishment fit the crime intensified when he went to the Gold Coast, where the level of lawbreaking naughtiness was of a more flagrant order than here in balmy NQ.

So Clive decided his approach needed to accommodate the constant calls for tougher sentencing from a fed-up public. Such calls are not uncommon in many places, and almost always go unheeded, dismissed with silent, lofty legal disdain,. But Judge Wall is one of the very few judicial officers who has acted on the demands of put-upon citizens. He gave fair warning that crims coming before him could expect a bit more than a cup of hot cocoa and a tuck-up in chokey for a few leisurely months, or years, as the case may be.

As good as his word, he quickly took more than one prosecutor, let alone defence counsel, by jaw-dropping surprise. There’s always a tradition that defence calls for a wrist slap – let’s have nine months to serve three’, and the prosecutor calls for a more robust arm twist - say 15 months to do 10 - and the judge will generally decide anywhere in between, but usually opt for the Crown’s suggestion.

Not ol’ Coalface.

He startled not only many a complacent defence barrister, but also set prosecutors back on their heels, to, by taking the rare course of upping the ante of even what the Crown called for. More than once, he doubled what the prosecutor – always the high bidder in sentencing – had called for.

Just as well he’s not fussed about his sentences being ‘tinkered with’ on appeal.  Half a dozen of his much applauded sentences have been slashed back on appeal, with decisions that show a clear divide between the law and justice. The full details are here in this recent Courier Mail story.

But given public sentiment and the change of government since the last appointments to the bench (no matter what anyone says, those appointments are political – virtually every single appointment during Labor’s years was one of their own - and you have to have backed the right horse to get anywhere), The ‘Pie reckons Judge Wall might be tapped for a spot on the Appeals Court himself. The ‘Pie understands he is not a member of the LNP – or any party for that matter – but the current mob infesting George Street can almost certainly see some political capital in recognizing Judge Dredd’s contribution to their much-trumpeted war on crime. We’ll see.

By the by, when The ‘Pie suggested to Clive that his sentencing stance might just be a foundation for a tilt at politics, he scotched that idea when he said ‘ I’d be no good at politics, I’m too honest’.

He’s probably right.

………….

Other matters.

The Kid

David Kid Crisafulli, Queensland’s Minister for Mayors, took an unexpected swerve into fashion commentary during the week, showing a hitherto socially caring side of the Newman Government.

Jack Dempsey, who is minister for Slippery Sidewalks (they call it Community Safety), gave us the first glimpse of the concerned government when he admonished people for being obese by suggesting he was firing only ‘fat-arsed’ bureaucrats. 

Now, the always nattily turned-out Kid Crisafulli has tackled the lax dress standards of Brisbane’s backroom boys. 

During the week, he told ABC radio that many decisions should be made locally in the regions and  ‘not by some guy in a scruffy suit in George Street’.  

A fair call, old son, but there will soon be 14,000 guys and gals in scruffy suits and faded frocks because of your government’s creative ‘non-sacking’ (to quote Campbell Newman) of public servants.

Things aren’t much better on the Federal scene, with Barnaby Joyce’s hidden shallows on display.

Invited to join the Mad Katter’s Cut Snake Party, Barnyard sent us all into deep contemplation when he said thought it a good idea, and would kit himself out with a big hat (‘somberero’ he said), a couple of six shooters and ‘a horse named Chocolate Thunder’. (??? )

Barnyard’s alphabet soup approach to comments on the run was in evidence earlier in the week when he said he wouldn’t run against another conservative for a desired seat in the lower house because in such a situation ‘you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to work out it would be a mess’. Sigmund Freud? What happened to Einstein?  Given that the good Dr. Freud’s speciality was horizontal folk dancing, was Barnyard trying to say one of the candidates would be ...errr ... rooted in the end? Messily?  And Dr Freud would no doubt have been most interested in Barnyard’s choice in equine names.

To The ‘Pie, it just sounds like a whole load of chocolate thunder.

Speaking of which, The Magpie notes that that Dudley do-nothing outfit Townsville Enterprise, the local business world’s sideline cheer squad for those doing the hard yards, has been spared any financial pain of the sort faced by the average ratepayer.

TEL Chairman Kevin Gill - did his hair stand on end
at the thought of losing council dough?

TEL CEO David ‘Daddy Warbucks’ Kippin and Chairman Kevin Gill trotted along to council recently with their begging bowl and made an impassioned plea for enough ratepayer money to at least keep paying Daddy Warbucks the best part of a quarter of a mill a year in salary.  This sort of stipend of course would not be possible if membership subscriptions were TEL’s only income – an income stream reported to be diminishing at an alarming rate as disillusioned members drop of like Morteined flies.

Jenny Hill aka Mayor Mullet shows she’s not really a green-eyed jealous harridan despite Daddy Warbucks pay is more than $100,000 more than she gets for the city’s top job. She sportingly voted to not only keep the current $750K+ contribution to TEL but to also add CPI to it, bringing your annual contribution, folks, to just under $800,000.

Just think about that when you are paying your next rates bill, and see if you can find what you got for your dough.

Funny how there was no mention of knocking off part or all of this waste of scarce council resources when Mayor Mullet was looking for savings to fund her ludicrous campaign promises.

By the way, almost forgot, Mayor Mullet is also the deputy chairman of TEL (no conflict of interest there?)

TEL boss David Kippin

But despite our generosity, The ‘Pie hears that David Kippin, who has admitted to at least one Magpie friend that he inherited a mess when he took over, appears to have been unable to pull back burgeoning operating costs. The modus operandi of what appears to be a make-work operation sweating to justify its existence continues apace, but there are so far unconfirmed but alarming reports about the financial situation at Enterprise House.

Transparency is not a strong point from this mob. Substantive reports of achievements meriting such ratepayer generosity are thin on the ground, and the occasional TEL activity report to the council (one of which The ‘Pie has read) contains enough hot air to create a new tourist niche of balloon rides over Castle Hill. 

Maybe that business could be called Chocolate Thunder.

And that is also a phrase that applies in spades to those violent Muslin extremists out spoiling for a street fight in Australian cities. 

The ‘Pie has contemplated the behavior and attitudes of these medieval clowns, and after questioning himself as to his own tolerance level, has decided to stand up against these intolerant ingrates who are trying to invest in Australia the hate and division so prevalent in the UK, and much of Europe. Their actions amount to nothing less than a campaign to attack our free speech, while leaving them free to say what they like about whomever they like. So have a look at a YouTube argument from a Pommy bloke who puts the alternative – and very valid point of view – without yelling or swearing and without advocating killing anybody. See it here. We in this country should look on this very worthwhile summation of modern-day Britain as a warning sign for ourselves.

And the tumult caused by the unrest over a shoddy film clip denigrating Islam’s prophet has seen humor emerge as a leveler around the world, especially on Twitter, which is now carrying humorous messages with the hash tag @muslim.outrage. Tweets include ‘I lost my son at the airport but couldn’t call out to him, his name is Jihad’, and ‘ I’m not coming to this nightclub again, it doesn’t have a prayer room’. As Salman Rushdie said about free speech ’No one has the right to NOT be offended’.

 So with that in mind, The ‘Pie announces he has just four tickets left for a special show spectacular. Donny Knieval, son of Evil, is coming to Australia where he will attempt to jump over a rioting crowd of 500 Muslim extremists. To make his attempt to soar above the milling crowd, Mr. Knievil will be using one of the world’s most powerful vehicles for the show, as seen below.

Enough now , it is away to Poseurs” Bar where the old bird will as usual join in  robust debate on many subjects, never once to back down or take any – you guessed it - chocolate thunder.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR COMMENTEERS:

IT'S EASY - FIND YOUR VOICE AND A NAME

FOR THOSE WISHING TO MAKE A COMMENT, HERE IS THE PROCEDURE.

1. Click into the comment box at the bottom of the blog (and below existing comments if any) and write your comment. 

2. Click on the menu button next to The Daily Astonisher field below the comment box.

3. Scroll down that menu until you reach 'name' and 'URL'.

4. In the 'name' box, type your name or whatever monicker you want to go by (IGNORE the URL box).

5. Click continue.

6. Click publish. 

The 'Pie will then do the rest - checking for legals, taste, language, idiocy - and then - maybe - publish your gem.

ANONYMOUS IS SOOOOO BORNING.