Cops And Dobbers, Bugs, Mugs And Grubs

SO here we are, greatly entertained in Victoria, which people from Sinny tend to believe is a bit on the dull, grey and boring side. They have never heard of the Office of Police Integrity, obviously, which only this morning released a fascinating, 80 page report on all sorts of quite scandalous matters -- and one of those, some might conclude, is the report itself.

Here is how interesting it is to be in the Garden State at the moment. If what follows sounds like a plot synopsis for several years' worth of The Young and The Restless episodes, complete with a blood-sucking rent boy and wallopers gossiping like high schools girls, accept that this is the stuff of everyday life south of the border. Here goes with the background:

Christine "Flame Broiled" Nixon was the former Labor government's police commissioner whose anticipated departure prompted quiet but intense jockeying in the upper ranks of the Force. Simon Overland, who succeeded her, had what was perceived to be a very close relationship with the OPI, which bugged the phones of potential rival Noel Ashby, then-police union chief  Paul Mullett and others, picking up in the process highly confidential information about the investigation of a murdered vampire gigolo (no, that's not a joke) learned indirectly from Overland, whom suspicious minds might be inclined to believe was baiting a trap or, as some policemen put it, "flushing the pipes." -- not that Overland would be that venal, of course.

Take a deep breath and read on....

This led to charges against Ashby, Mullet and others, but those cases went nowhere because prosecutorial incompetence stuffed the pooch. Then the Liberals took power and tolerated Overland while demonstrating no active public support and a marked degree of quiet contempt, especially after he was accused of doctoring crime statistics before the 2010 election, allegedly to make the Brumby government look good. Overland went to the OPI and asked it to investigate who was leaking against him, which involved more phone bugging of ministers, their family members, ministerial aides, reporters and, quite possibly, Gog and Magog, the 19th century automatons that strike the bell on the hour every hour in Melbourne's delightful Royal Arcade.

Still on the case? Good. Now we are getting to what is going on now ...


Meanwhile, the Ombudsman continues to feud with OPI, Overland has gone, top coppers remain anxious to claim the Commissioner's office and Bill Tilley, member for Benambra and a former walloper himself, has this morning resigned as a parliamentary secretary dealing with police matters.

But wait, that's not all.

Country Party leader and deputy premier Peter Ryan has an aide -- make that "had", he also resigned this morning -- who was still on Victoria Police's payroll. No fan of Overland, he sided with Sir Ken Jones, Overland's perceived chief rival and a Pommy import, who some months ago went back to London amid charges that he was leaking too (to Bill Tilley, who leaked again to the press). On top of all that, the Premier's chief of staff was holding sly meetings with Sir Ken, about which neither man uttered a word to Big Ted or Peter Ryan.

Well here we are, still with no top cop, old feuds raging from Spring Street to Queen Street and new ones breaking out all over town ... and ... and ... and .. the Baillieu government seemingly in no haste to clean the stable or implement its promise to launch a new, co-ordinated anti-corruption body that would shut down the OPI, get the ombudsman out of the frame and, ideally, do a lot of good for Victoria.

If Team Ted ever gets around to doing as it pledged, it should pay particular attention to a specific section of today's OPI report. Interpretations may vary according to perspective, but at the Billabong the document seems to speak of an organisation with just the hint of an agenda. Read pages 25-26 of Crossing The Line very carefully. Notice how Overland's reluctance to give the minister the liaison officer he requested is rather skated over. If you cannot spot the logical and interpretative inconsistencies in its account of how previous ministers gained their police advisers, you probably think policing in Victoria, and the overview of policing, is just peachy.

It isn't. Nor is it likely to be until Big Ted extracts the digit. We can only hope that happens soon.

Meanwhile, read the report, observe what your tax dollars buy and, above all, enjoy what passes for fun and games in Victoria.We really are a lively lot down here.

The Age's Sward Of Justice

MELBOURNE'S Occupists must be feeling most unloved these days, having been evicted from the City Square and finding themselves with no particular place to go. Treasury Gardens is mooted as one possible site on which to build a just society, albeit a small and stinky one, but the campers would be preaching only to the converted. As the original Occupists, the park's possums have long presumed the right to invade private property, keep residents awake and crap in their ceilings. As for public servants from the adjoining government offices, they need no convincing that wealth is to be left in a citizen's care only until the state can manufacture its next excuse for additional levies, taxes, fines and speed cameras.

But there is one place the Occupists are welcome  -- the patch of grass outside The Age office at the corner of Collins and Spencer streets. Best of all, the invitation to relocate is almost an official one, courtesy of senior investigative reporter Melissa Fyfe, who is all for it, as she explained to tweeting activist Perry Stalsis (who surely has the stomach for revolution):

Perry Stalsis: @melfyfe been trying to move #occupymelbourne to grass outside Age office, where we can be seen and reach commuters. Your thoughts
15 hours ago
in reply to @PerryStalsis1 ↑
Melissa Fyfe:@PerryStalsis1 a good idea, I would have thought. Do you think you can do it?11 hours ago

Blow off the Treasury Gardens, you anti-capitalist crusaders, and move to the Age's front door. As Fairfax shareholders can testify, your hosts share a no less pronounced aversion to the profit motive. And it is not as if Age journalists would be critical, not at all.With just one exception, they love you guys.

Melbournians would benefit as well. Could there be a better example of what the paper represents these days than a filthy, chaotic, noisy and incoherent mob of group-thinking public urinators taking up residence in The Age's front window?


(Thanks to tipster Spencer Collins for spotting the tweets and dashing off a very informative email)

Jessica Rabbits On

BLONDE columnist Jessica Irvine, another Silly girl, denounces rent seeking, of which she believes any industry  campaign to foil fresh and higher taxes is an example. Members of the Criminal-Australian community should now feel free to make off with Jessica's handbag. It would be nothing less than rent seeking were she to object.

More on Jessica's unique economic perspectives at Catallaxy.

The Salt Lake City Tribe

THE little-known artist Richard W. Linford is rather pale, prices his works with the brush of optimism and appears to have spent his entire life in Utah.

Therefore, he qualifies as an Aborigine, even if does not as yet understand that fact.

 Here’s the proof:

 

That sensitive representation of Indigenous femininity is part of Linford’s “Woggabaliri” collection.

Yes, Woggabaliri.

Aborigines? Utah?

Andrew Bolt should consider himself lucky the heirs of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young did not join the case before Judge Mordy.

Black Balled Sporting Breakthroughs

THIS could be the biggest and nastiest academic biffo since Stuart Macintyre had Geoffrey Blainey ejected from the Parkville Asylum.

At Newcastle University, Professor John Maynard has just published a book, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe, which insists Aborigines played a game called Woggabaliri, which the Silly’s Craig Foster reports is “the earliest known form of ball sport played by indigenous Australians and, according to the Australian Sports Commission, the game most closely resembled association football,” That is just a bit hard to take seriously, what with Woggabaliri sounding so much like “Wogball” you might be inclined to suspect the name was made up for humourous effect. Dispel that thought immediately, ye doubters and bigots. Maynard (below) is both a proud member of the Woromi People, possibly related to the Litijus-Mordy skin group, and chief of the university’s Wollotuka School of Aboriginal Studies. He is a man to be taken very seriously indeed.

Meanwhile, Melbourne Museum’s Dr Patrick Greene leans strongly toward the view that the very same band of Aborigines invented not soccer but Australian Rules Football, a claim reported four years ago in the Phage. What puts Maynard and Greene on a collision course is that each man cites the same 19^th century etching as his proof. Here it is:

The etching was executed by German artist Gustav Mutzel, who worked from the sketches little-known German explorer Johan Wilhelm Theodor Ludwig von Blandowski brought home after ten years in Australia. A prolific penciler, Blandowski’s images could well spawn an academic growth industry as researchers identify many other examples of Ab-originality. It isn’t all that difficult to eyes not blinded by an invader’s prejudice. For example, here is the first incarnation of the Etihad dome:

Then there is cricket, which Aborigines also invented, as demonstrated by the two fellows in the background spreading covers on the pitch.

 

And rappelling, that is another formerly unrecognised Indigenous sport:

And their greatest achievement? Inventing the New Zealand rugby team. In addition to establishing why the squad is known as the All Blacks, this Mutzel/Blandowski rendering quite clearly captures one of the very first performances of the haka. And you thought the Maoris had something to do with it!

After those preliminaries, it was time for a scrum:

 

Off the field, Aboriginal achievements are no less significant, transgressive sculpture and a commitment to public art being the most obvious. That passion also is captured in the Mutzel/Blandowski portfolio:

And it is also quite clear that Aborigines occupied the City Square before it was built, even to pioneering the curious hand signals which the Occupist tribe has now revived:

These fruitful areas of inquiry await the entrepreneurial academic. All that needs to be settled is the matter of just how difficult it might have been to play either soccer or Aussie Rules with the triangular ball depicted in the seminal engraving. Some might even argue that it is nothing more than an incidental rock in the background.

Solving that riddle should be worth quite a few conferences and research grants in the meantime.

Leslie Cannold, Born Leader

LESLIE CANNOLD, a remarkable woman, is "impressed by the articulateness of those occupying Zuccotti Park and the sacrifices they are making."

Well, yes, that is entirely understandable. Your Wall Street occupists not only match Cannold for coherence, they also articulate what are presumably the Fairfax columnist's concern about the unjust distribution of love tents and baby wipes, as well as the need "to pool oil, water and, er, crops".

Leslie also tells us she has "led grassroots movements". The mind boggles.

Drawn And Pale

WHEN Eric Jolliffe is remembered at all these days, it is as a minor bush artist and cartoonist for the long-gone Pix magazine, a slightly racier rival to Australasian Post, also no longer at the newsagent. Times and sensitivities have changed so much it comes as something of a shock to unearth samples of the sketcher's handiwork, like the cartoon below, which probably dates from the Fifties or Sixties. If Joliffe was thought shocking in those primmer times, it was mostly for his pert-breasted cheesecake, not his racist and chocolate cheesecake. (follow the link to see this and other full-size Jolliffe cartoons).

"I'll have to reduce or nothing I've got'll fit me!"

A minor figure in what the academy is even now making a major discipline, the depiction of Aboriginality, Jolliffe might be worth  a dissertation or two at most, and then only at LaTrobe.  There is another side to Jolliffe, however, one that came to light only with today's re-publication by Andrew Bolt of a young doctor's biographical profile. It seems Jolliffe was also something of a seer and prophet. Judging by the caption and the pair of proto-hippies coming over the rise, the below cartoon must have been sketched not long before the 1967 referendum.

 "When we get a job, a vote and are civilised -- will we have to look like that"

(Again, apologies for the cartoons' size. For some reason Blogger cannot render them large as the originals)

Well here we are, forty-plus years on, and Aborigines really can "look like that" -- right down to striking all but administrators of grants and scholarships (and Federal Court judges) as being entirely white.

"Leila was admitted to medicine as part of the indigenous program."

And Witchetty's Tribe?  It is true they now have the vote, but they're still black, still in the bush, still jobless -- and still regarded by too many patronising and civilised eyes as little more than caricatures. It is a cruel joke, one that makes the dated innocence of Jolliffe's bad taste seem as nothing at all.