Good n' gammon XXXII: The Darwin Council reciting Satan's Prayer edition | NT Independent

Good n’ gammon XXXII: The Darwin Council reciting Satan’s Prayer edition

by | Dec 4, 2020 | Opinion | 1 comment

Another week in the NT and a week closer to world takeover. From the million dollar fish in a barrel, to the launch of a new NT currency called the Gunner, to a set of steak knives with every economic reconstruction. This is what is good and what is gammon this week.

If you have something that is good or gammon you can email news@ntindependent.com.au or call the Chief Gammoner on 0492 426 427.

It is getting to that time of year

It’s bloody hot and almost Christmas. And we will drop the cynicism enough to plug Darwin Council’s lighting of the Christmas tree in the mall at 7.30pm tonight (Friday December 4) which includes a performance by the Colours Choir and other free entertainment. We hope the Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis belts out some ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, or “Do you hear what I hear?”, as well. Activities begin at 5pm, tree lights up at 7.30pm.

The Carols by Candlelight family concert will be held this Sunday at the George Brown Botanic Gardens. Entry is by gold coin donation and carol books and candles are available to buy. This year’s benefactors are Variety NT, the Children’s Charity and the Down Syndrome Association of the NT. Lions will be cooking sausages, hotdogs and hamburgers with drinks for sale and BYO chairs and picnic baskets are welcome. Gates open at 4.30pm and the music starts at 6.30pm.

*** Due to COVID restrictions (the amphitheater is limited to 4500 patrons), it is essential to book at http://darwintickets.com.au-event-12054. Digital and paper tickets will be checked at the gate. Please stay home if feeling unwell.

Community Christmas activities are good.

The Million Dollar Fish in a barrel

It might just be us, probably actually is just us, but there seems to have been a lot of the so-called million dollar fish (mostly worth $10,000) caught recently. And the NT Independent can only think of one reason why. The government has stuck them all in a barrel in the Department of Chief Minister and have “tourists” aka public servants lining up to wet their line.

The latest lucky fisho who caught a $5,000 charity fish was Hayley Palazzi – who herself won a remote fishing charter out of the haul – and who just happens to be the strategic communications and engagement director for the Department of Chief Minister.

We suspect it will be Department of Chief Minister honcho Jodie Ryan who reels in an actual $1 million fish when it is actually caught. Or maybe the Chief Minister Michael Gunner himself.

You can’t stop progress.

If it was a private company running this competition, there would be no way an employee could win. But this is the Territory, and as we well know, there are no consequences. We thought the whole idea was to attract tourists to the NT to fish.

There seems to be no complete list of winners online with info on where they came from, but from what we can see of the last six winners announced, five have been Territorians.

The government doesn’t say how many people actually come to the NT for the competition, but from its own statistics from season four, 29 per cent of those registered were from outside the Territory, which was 7,094 people, and four out of 10 registered interstate and international visitors said they travelled to the NT specifically for the competition, which was 2,838 people. Of those registered, in total 82 per cent actually went fishing, which would probably be a much higher percentage of Territorians than southerners, so it is impossible to tell how many people actually came.

Last season there were six fish caught in total over six months, with at least five of them Territorians.

Now nine have already been caught since October 1. Is there something fishy going on?

We know the big barrel of fish is sitting in Jodie Ryan’s office. And something with Shimano written on it is nearby.

As the old NT proverb says: “Give a public servant a fish and they’ll eat for a day. Teach a public servant to fish in a million dollar fish competition, and they will rort the system of $10,000 at a time for years.”

Charity fish are good.

Equality for all, including the Dark Lord

The Darwin Council has recently had a fight over a proposal to scrap the Lord’s Prayer from being read at the start of council meetings.

Alderman Gary Haslett bizarrely called scrapping it cultural vandalism.

We would like to see what he would make of the Noosa Temple of Satan’s Facebook post saying it had sent a letter to the Brisbane City Council to remove Christian prayers from the meetings, saying they would be making a formal complaint under the anti-discrimination act.

Sunny Coast Satanists know hypocrisy when they see it.

That the Darwin council recites a Christian prayer before meetings, as does the Legislative Assembly, is cultural vandalism.

Doesn’t god (which ever one you want to choose) already know what is going to happen in the future, and actually planned for that, so isn’t prayer pointless?

We believe in freedom of religion but do not believe in a secular council or government including prayer, let alone sanctioning one religion by leading a prayer.

Secular governance is good, a prayer before a council meeting is gammon.

The awards for doing your jobs

How broke is the Northern Territory Government? Not broke enough apparently.

Last month it held the annual Chief Minister’s Awards for Excellence. It was scaled down to just one category which was the response to COVID-19. But there were still many winners.

We are not suggesting they did not do an outstanding job of dealing directly with COVID-19 and the spherical issues that the coronavirus created.

It is not the acknowledgement that we object to, it is the expensive awards night in a year when the Gunner Government announced we would have a net debt of $8.4 billion by the end of the financial year.

Last year the awards cost $98,000 according to internal government documents. But money is obviously not an issue; this week the government awarded tenders worth about $575,000 for sculptures at Nitmiluk National Park.

Spending money we do not have is gammon.

Coronavirus coin

No matter how hard you worked, getting one of these would make it worthwhile.

Did they hand out the coins?

While the award winners are all named on the awards site, strangely the Chief Minister didn’t put out a press release after the event.

Considering the theme, we hope they made the cost worthwhile, and Mr Gunner handed out his very special and tasteful COVID-19 commemorative coins which the government splashed out $23,000 for earlier this year.

Those bad boys – all 10,000 of them – are only going to skyrocket in value.

If you want to get your hands on one get down to a Cash Converters near you.

Investment in rare and very strange coins is good.

The new Territory unit of currency, the Gunner

Introducing the Gunner: Guaranteed to reach levels of hyper inflation that will put Venezuela’s bolivar to shame.

Introducing the Gunner

But we think the minting of this coin is just testing the water for the future scrapping of the Australian dollar in the NT and the introduction of a new currency. Enter the Gunner.

When we are going to be the ‘comeback capital’ why would we limit ourselves to being saddled with the rest of Australia and its listless currency.

We see a huge future ahead with the Gunner as the de factor global currency. The future is so bright here we will have to wear shades.

The NT taking over the world is ambitious but realistic.

Job done. Problem solved. But wait…there’s more

This week the Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission’s plan for saving the Northern Territory’s economy post-coronavirus was released and the production values were awesome, lots of nice graphics and graphs.

But it had all the feel of a marketing campaign trying to sell something to Territorians, with the guts of it created by NT Treasury and business agencies and sold to us on the basis of the names and faces of Andrew Liveris et al. And we wonder how many hours this group actually put into this themselves.

So while CDU research fellow and NT political observer Rolf Gerritsen described it, as a “good strategic planning exercise” it has the feel of a morning television advertorial.

“Hi, I’m Michael Gunner from the Labor party, and this is one of the Territory Government’s best offers yet. It slices. It dices. It even makes Julienne fries. It fixes the economy. Let me introduce you to the King’s Collection Northern Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission report. And how much would you expect to pay?

“But wait. Don’t answer that yet, there’s more. If you call and order our deluxe Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission package personally signed by Andrew Liveris in the next 15 minutes we’ll throw in a highly paid public service job you cannot get sacked from.

“But that is not all. Say the name Michael Gunner when you call and we’ll throw in a second Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission package completely free of charge!

“But there’s more. We’ll throw in the King’s Collection of knives. Stainless steel knives that will stay sharp forever. Well probably not. They cut perfectly every time. And yeah, definitely not.

As an added bonus, with every Northern Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission report sold we’ll throw in a pair of run-free pantyhose.

“This is truly amazing offer. But’s there’s more. We’ll throw in a free baseball bat to help you defend your family from our out of control crime personally signed by me.

“But I know you want more. What about no consequences? No matter what you do, be it incompetence, be it corruption, be it laziness, we promise there will be absolutely no consequences.

“And so how much would you expect to pay? Forget it. The answer is nothing because we have endless government credit that will cover it all. Ring us in the next 15 minutes and we will also throw in endless platitudes about the future of this joint as well as a gold embossed wooden toilet brush with ‘comeback capital’ hand carved into it and signed by me also.

“Go on. Treat yourself to your new, imaginary prosperous life in a well functioning democracy today. Get in now before reality comes crashing down around us.”

A free new economy and a set of steak knives would be good.

 

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1 Comment

  1. I am hoping this article is classed as ‘fake news’ and doesn’t get out past our borders. My down south family are pretty quick to point out the ridiculous and unbelievable ways this government spends my money and looks after their own. If this gets out I will have to suffer through the “you got to be kidding” jibes and jokes when next I have to speak to the family.
    What the hell! Where’s this barrel of fish and how do I sign up for ‘a free new economy and a set of steak knives’.

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