An analogy – Sea Life & the Land of Oz
SEA LIFE
CALL IT OUT, THE SHIP IS SINKING !
The Korean Ferry Sewol, at 20 years old, had already been on the Incheon to Jeju run for just over one year. At 19 years old, she had been modified by the addition of superstructure, diminishing her survivability index and stability margins but still within legal limits.
The survivability index of a ship is the chances of surviving a disaster scenario
At 8.48 on the morning of April 16, 2014, the Sewol, travelling at 18 knots in benign conditions, took a hard to starboard turn, causing the vessel to heel over to port. The unlashed trucks in the vehicle deck shifted to port and the vessel’s list became dangerous. A disaster scenario was upon them, and within 15 minutes had gone beyond rectification.
Had the inexperienced Third Officer, Park Han-kyul, the officer of the watch, put the helm over to avoid one of the 36 whales species in the area?. Or was there a technical glitch in the steering ? This was never determined but she was in tears by the time Captain Lee Joon-Seok came on the bridge a few minutes later. At this stage the ship was listing 30 degrees with water pouring into the vehicle side deck door and stern door.
The idiotic Captain Lee, using the ship’s broadcasting system at 8.52 gave the instruction for everyone to stay where they were and continued the same message even when the water was rushing into the passenger accommodation. Standard procedure on all passenger ships globally where danger is emerging is to get everyone to muster stations..
The first call for help was made by the ship at 8.55, just seven minutes after the helm hard-over incident .
At 9.07, the vessel confirmed it was capsizing and again requested help
At 9.18, the vessel confirmed an angle of 50 degrees and unable to launch lifeboats
During this time Captain Lee continued instruction for passengers to stay put. At 9.23, the ship broadcasting system failed
y 9.48, the first rescue boat left the scene with Captain Lee on board. There had never been an “abandon ship” message. Below decks, the hundreds of students from the Danwon High School stayed put as instructed, enjoying the changing ship angle, happily videoing each other, until the horror of the water cascaded in and drowned most of them. Iphones recovered from the wreck verified this appalling disaster.
The cause of the sinking was still undetermined by December 2022 , but the summary was the collective incompetence of the officer of the watch and the Captain; and the extremely rapid speed of the capsize and the sinking.
So as an e- seafarer and ship designer, my ears pricked up when I heard a very good friend of mine in the US commenting that it was disappointing watching Australia sinking, but it’s true.
Think about it, merrily sailing along as the lucky country, we have diminished our survivability index, our ability to handle a disaster scenario such as war, by embracing the green environmental cult over the past 30 years and empowering armies of autonomous bureaucracies. Outside the control of politicians, these snowflakes have strangled the growth of companies big and small by an avalanche of rules, regulations and accompanying fees. We have the highest amount of national parks and conservation zones per head of population, 10 times the US and 15 times the UK.
The stranglehold on almost all of our coastline and dredging makes it almost impossible to establish any new ports even small ones. The Queensland Labor / Green Government for instance, passed a “Sustainable Ports Act in 2015” to ensure that no-one else built a port along the 7,000 km coastline, apart from the 10 existing trading ports, most owned by the Qld Govt.
Having a port every 700 km shouldn’t give bragging rights. After all, it stifles regional development, and at the same time ensures that our defence vessels have no strategic bases.
To give some context, Gujarat in India has a port every 53 kms and the UK has a port every 65 kms which ensured that nation’s security through two world wars.
Adding spice to this environmental utopia mantra, there has been a sudden hard swing to “cheap renewables” by the incoming Labor Government which is causing the ship to economically list over dangerously within just a few months. The inexperienced twit in charge of the nation’s most important asset, our energy, is the watchkeeping officer.
This incompetent has drastically altered course veering away from a solid reliable base source of coal and gas energy while chasing an ideology that is unproven, and that the Nation cannot remotely afford.
Check out whether you think the ship is sinking:
The energy, fuel, and food prices have skyrocketed with staggering bills flooding in the front door. Disposable income has vaporised, much to the chagrin many small businesses;
The superannuation system is being attacked, and all taxes are increasing;
National Productivity has tanked;
The Defence budget has hit a brick wall, once again being “reviewed”;
Youth crime has trebled;
The number of overpaid bureaucrats and fee based permits for almost everything, have doubled’
Unprecedented high house prices;
Lack of availability of accommodation for many Australians;
The drop in the value of our currency;
The collapse of our legal system and our health system; and
The collapse of our family values and demonisation of churches.
But hey, some News ! The Captain has appeared on the Bridge ! This incompetent imbecile who through the national broadcaster is advising us us that a new brigade of bureaucrats to ensure the Aboriginals get a better deal will save the Nation and ensure a bright future. He repeats the message constantly while the ship is sinking. Like Lee, he has no cognizance of what’s most important to the people in his charge.
The population, merrily videoing each other in their daily lives, is now finally taking notice of the prices, the crime, the increasing burden on small businesses and even more important, the blatant lies told by this Captain and officers prior to their appointment.
Unlike Lee and several cohorts who were jailed for life, this incompetent team which is sinking the nation, will get away with undeserved retirement gold cards and huge pensions.
Sticking the “FACTS”
Canberra elites applaud themselves
Big week in the capital.
First off, how galling was it watching the Prime Minister leave his press conference on the divisive Voice to a standing ovation from the Canberra elites?
Families can’t pay their rent or mortgages, inflation has pounded the price of groceries, power bills are out of control, small businesses are going under.
But inside the bubble, they’re applauding themselves for coming up with a plan to deface the Constitution with US-style identity politics.
It’s hard to imagine a more out of touch government.
While Albo cries over changing the Constitution, a cost of living crisis is driving Aussies to their knees.
There’s no doubt this kind of political theatre will be punished by Australians.
And the harder it gets to make ends meet, the more the vote on the divisive Voice will turn into a referendum on the cost of living crisis.
Australians will rightly be asking, where are the tears for the small businesses that are closing?
Where are the tears for the workers who haven’t seen real wage growth for years and who watch on as inflation savages their pay packets?
Meanwhile, ADVANCE and its FAIR AUSTRALIA ‘no’ campaign brought a delegation of 22 Indigenous leaders to Canberra to tell our politicians why they don’t want the divisive Voice.
Fair Australia spokeswoman Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who hosted the delegation, summed it up perfectly:
“We stand as one under this flag as Australians – whether we are from the first peoples of this country, whether we’re from those who came on the first fleet, and the settlers and the migrants that come to this country … We are one Australia.”
Because these Australians, who came from as far away from Ngukurr, know that the Voice will divide Australians by race.
But did Albo listen to Jacinta and these community leaders?
Not a chance. Because real Australians like these aren’t applauding him in the corridors of power.
No Labor politician from the PM on down bothered meeting with the Fair Australia Indigenous Delegation.
They were far too busy applauding themselves.
And let me tell you, Australians know they’ve done nothing to deserve it.
Matthew Sheahan
Executive Director
ADVANCE
The divisive Voice.
Probably the biggest bum steer in history.
While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spends every waking minute working out how to convince Australians to deface your Constitution with racial division…
…his henchmen are hard at work.
And here’s a fact.
They’re not breaking a sweat trying to make your life any easier.
Right in the middle of the Easter weekend – while sensible Aussies like you were spending time with their families – Treasurer Jim Chalmers dropped a bombshell on Australian taxpayers.
Here’s how The Sydney Morning Herald reported it:
More than 10 million middle-income Australians will face one of the largest tax increases in history after the May federal budget…
People earning under $126,000 a year will take a hit of up to $1500 because Labor is axing the low and middle-income tax offset.
That’s a kick right in the guts, a hit the equivalent of two extra interest rate rises.
And believe me, you know there’s more to come.
The Grattan Institute, a “think tank” that employs staffers paid for by the Treasury and Reserve Bank of Australia, reckons Albo should raise taxes on retirees.
They want the PM to make “a bold statement of intent in the budget”, which includes counting more of the family home towards the pension assets test.
You and I both know it. Labor will be coming after you in the May budget.
And where is Albo?
Remember when he told you during the last election that if you put him in the Lodge, you’d be “better off”?
Well, what a joke that turned out to be.
Instead of working overtime on the cost-of-living crisis, he was in the news talking about how he would convince retired football players to support his campaign to enshrine racial division in the Constitution.
As The Daily Telegraph’s political editor James Morrow said, it’s as if the divisive Voice is “a new brand of breakfast cereal and not a major constitutional change”.
The bottom line is this. None of it helps your bottom line.
While the inner-city elites play race politics with your Constitution, life is getting more and more expensive.
Interest rates, rent, groceries, electricity – all of it is going up, ratcheting up the pressure on Australian families.
You have every right to ask: What’s Albo doing?
Why is his government working against you, not for you?
Just one more reason to vote against the dangerous and divisive Voice.
Matthew Sheahan
Executive Director
ADVANCE
P.S. Thanks to your support, your ‘no’ campaign – FAIR AUSTRALIA (Powered by ADVANCE) – will be dropping its first national ads next week to convince Aussies why the divisive Voice is such a bad idea. I’ll keep you posted, but I guarantee you won’t want to miss them.
1. Shane Wright, ‘Take-home pay to be slashed as 10 million Australians hit with tax hike’, The Sydney Morning Herald, April 8, 2023.
2. https://grattan.edu.au/
3. Tom Dusevic, ‘Tax rich retirees to fix budget’s $50bn black hole, says Grattan Institute’, The Australian, April 11, 2023.
4. Kevin Airs, ‘How working Aussies are suffering the MOST from the soaring cost of living, spiralling mortgage payments and falling wages – after Anthony Albanese promised we’d be “better off” with him as PM’, The Daily Mail, February 13, 2023.
5. James Morrow, ‘Voters need clear messages from Dutton on Voice, cost of living’, The Daily Telegraph, April 11, 2023.
Comfortable Albo relies on Voice success to avoid being DIS-LODGED
Conventional thinking in the media states that, should the referendum on The Voice be successful, Anthony Albanese will be unassailable as Labor leader for as long as he chooses to stay in the Lodge.
Albanese has staked a lot on winning the referendum. He has put his reputation on the line by personally getting involved in the mechanics of the campaign, prioritising it as the urgent piece of business in his first term as Prime Minister.
A referendum win will be Albanese’s moment as Prime Minister. In fact, The Australian’s Greg Sheridan says Albanese will achieve Howard or Hawke-like status, setting himself and the Labor Party up for multiple terms in government. “If Albanese is successful in getting The Voice referendum passed, he will be all but unbeatable electorally. He will be the millennials’ superhero. He would be the first modern Labor
leader to succeed in changing the Constitution, substantially, in a prog-ressive direction,” Sheridan wrote.
“In political terms, it doesn’t matter what attitude the opposition takes if The Voice is successful. Albo wins and they’re toast.” Yet, the converse is also true. If he loses, Albanese will not exactly be “toast”, but his authority in the party will be diminished and the ambitious ministers underneath him will start to map out their plans for
succession.
All of which makes it perplexing that the Liberal Party has not sorted out its own position on The Voice. So far, only the Nationals have decided to oppose what is a radical change to Australia’s Constitution by re-introducing a race element into it.
Labor insiders say that Albanese wants to lead the party for a similar duration to that of Bob Hawke, who was Prime Minister for eight years.
In other words, to oversee several terms as Labor leader. Despite the poor track record of referenda to change the Constitution in Australia, if The Voice referendum
fails, the rumblings about Albanese’s judgement and ability to sell reform will begin.
Already several Labor frontbenchers have subtly been laying down their credentials as “possible” future Labor leaders.
First, there is the Treasurer, Dr Jim Chalmers, who is determined to become a reformist Treasurer in the mould of Paul Keating or his mentor and old boss, Wayne Swan. Interestingly, so far, most of Chal-mers’ attempts at big-ticket reforms have been rebuffed by the PM. Albanese wants to win the next election and is no way ready to start revamping the tax system. Other contenders include the fiercely ambitious Tony Burke, whose supporters were the first to come out of the blocks in the media on his behalf earlier in the year to declare that Burke was indeed leadership material. Burke, who plays in a rock band in Parliament House known as Left Right Out, was careful to push away questions on whether he could be
“band leader” one day, in a feature article in The Sydney Morning Herald written by James Massola. Instead, Burke bent over backwards
to declare his support for Albanese.
More recently, Tanya Plibersek declared in a book that she might have stood against Anthony Albanese but for family difficulties at the time. Plibersek, who is Minister for the Environment, is almost fanatical about maintaining a high public profile, and her “I could have been a contender” comments caused ripples throughout the party room. Another contender, Chris Bowen, is showing his future leadership contestability by driving a highly ambitious energy-transition reform agenda as hard as he can to make his mark as a big-time reformer.
And, of course, there is Bill Shorten, the former Opposition leader who lost the unlosable election against Scott Morrison. No one doubts that, while ever Shorten sits in Parliament, he has his leadership baton inside his knapsack. Shorten’s test is reforming the out-of-control NDIS. But if he can pull off bringing the scheme into line
without hurting too many people, his stocks will rise again.
Albanese will be hoping the polls showing a majority Yes vote will hold because, if the opposite occurs, life at the Lodge will start to get uncomfortable.
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