Lessons from Class

Lesson from Class

G’day Possums,

Often when attending to class shoots I have no pre-conceived idea before starting to photograph.

This is because each class has its own mood and social dynamic and I think it's better to follow the dynamic and not impose a layer of ego.

Before Class

 An idea was presented very quickly. It was about space and the formal relationships of the figures in that space.

Ballet Class: Pas de Deux: Bethany and Jack

Ballet Class

Ballet Class: Teacher

I shouldn't have to say it but none of these images are posed but all are manipulated to some degree...more of that, in a minute...

Wounded Dancer

Olivia and Alex: Pas de Deux

I liked the space the following shots presented it appeard to me like a stage space..

Ballet Class: Teacher

Laura: Jete

 ...and it occurred to me here that the flurry of movement might be enhanced with a slow shutter speed and the camera on tripod..

Pas de Deux

Pas de Deux

Pas de Deux

and later during post process I wondered if I could extend the "space" feel by collaging two shots together....like this ....

Class

....and this....

BalletClass

Wombat Droppings

Federal Liarbril’s did “A-Show-and-Tell” on the first of their policies.

From a position of not believing in the NBN, “Rabbit” Abbott had the man he replaced, Malcolm (“Show-me-the-Money”)Turnbull announce how they had “turned- about” 180 from the last election and now embraced high technology in communication.

 

They have replaced the string between the  two tin cans with copper!

Taaa-Daaaaaaa!!

Presentation: 4/10  

Malcolm looked embarrassed.

“Rabbott” knew he was in a wrong place where people could ask extended questions.

The Foxtel logo behind them sort of gave it all away.

Content: Heeeeeeeeeeee, 2/10

Even the core of the right-wing press was hard put to “spin” their announcement as other than a cheap joke whilst trying not to mention how their “policy” protects the media interests of “The Ugly American” Murdoch and presents Australians with another expensive dogs–dinner much like “Bully-Boy”Kennett’s (the Dorian Gray of the Tardis State) approach to privatisation in Victoria.

So, one policy…. Nah….No policy.

Let’s now see their “spin” on the other 74 pieces of Thathcher-ite / Friedman-ite GFC inspired loony-ness from the queer coots of the IPA that Abbott said at the “Night of the Right”, he supported….

Scott (The-Big-Drone) Morrison actually wants to use miliary drones to locate asylum seeker boats so he can then sool a navy patrol vessel onto them and tow them back to where they came from. Ex Admiral said drily in a TV interview, “Hmmm, it’s 2500 miles back to Sri Lanka, that’s a long tow!”

A Morrison Drone flying a Kite.....

Margaret Thatcher has died.

Many in Britain celebrated her demise by sending “Ding-Dong-the-Witch’s-Dead” to the top of the charts again. That this woman is still impacting on generations beyond the period of her control says much for the divisiveness of her rule and the fact that the gap between rich and poor is now three times wider than it was at the start of her rule points to how nastily anti- social and vicious her policy’s were.

Take note Australia:

  

Tony Abbott is a fan of the “Iron Lady” and it will do you no good after ten years of his rule to complain that you didn’t know that he was going to slash Medibank, cripple health funding, privatise education, SBS and the CSIRO abolish the ACCC, make political donations fully secret, destroy wages and conditions of employment.

Like Mein Kampf, it is all written down in the IPA’s 75 “suggestions” for policy…..   so there is no excuse for saying after the event that “I didn’t think it would come to this”.

Beware.

Tardis State (Where-All-Goes-Backwards) Minister for Skools (note: not, Education), Martin (Plasticine) Dixon has suggested that school councils be given the right of Fire/Hire over principals.

Hmmmm ….yeah, let’s give the “aspirationals” more control over the professionals of their field.

It worked a treat at Mowbray!

What did the liquidator say of the people who ran that place, “… well meaning amateurs!”

Tardis State (Where-All-Goes-Backward), ex Minister for Mis-Planning Matty ( What’s-a-Green-Wedge) Guy has been demoted to holding the drinks tray for developers…. or something like that… and is for once no-where to be seen over the collapse of a wall in central Melbourne which killed a brother and sister ( all of one family’s children) and a research student from France.

Seems there’s a bit of rather putrid “buck-passing” between Melbourne City Council and the Planning (sic) Dept. of State Govt. as to who approved the wall and the hoardings on it.

Pretend Premier, Dennis (Inutilis Rusticus) Napthine has collaged the Dept of Environment and the Dept of Forestry into one: as one wit said, “….departmental mergers linking the environment to agriculture and planning to infrastructure was like putting an arsonist in charge of the fire brigade!”

And when questioned on radio a week after the slaughter of the 800 “protected” water birds  “Inutilis Rusticus” said he would “… look into the allegations!”

Probably with the same assiduousness as looking into Geoff (“What’s-a-Car-Allowance”) Shaw’s alleged rorts.

It seems odd that as an ex-Veterinarian, Pretend Premier Napthine would condone and support the mass slaughter of protected native species…and extend the slaughtering opportunities to 12 year olds. 

Promising a new ‘‘open for business’’ culture with fewer bureaucratic bottlenecks, Pretend Premier, Dennis (Inutilis Rusticus) Napthine has announced plans to merge the departments of transport and planning to create a new mega-department of Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure.
(But there’s no plan that we can discern except for making it easier for developers to make profit from state owned assets)
Sounds like a Kennett of an idea to me!
The departments of environment and primary industries will be merged into a single entity, led by Agriculture Minister Peter(Quacker)Walsh. There will also be a new Department of State Development and Business Innovation, jointly overseen by State Development and former Police Minister, Peter(I-Know-Nuffin) Ryan and Innovation Minister Louise (Meow) Asher.”
Who said the Liabrils lacked humour?

Only imagination!

Labor continues to implode …it will soon be a Black-Hole.

They’ve announced 2 Billions in cuts to University’s to pay for Primary and Secondary education…Conservative State Premiers are furious …they wanted to do that!

Pretend Premier (“Inutilis Rusticus”) Napthine railed about it conveniently misleading the public by saying that he had increased funding to TAFE whilst at the same time ignoring the increase was only half of what Big Bird Baillieu (Genus:Silvertail Incompetens) had cut in the first place!

Melbourne Football Club is providing the best argument yet for pay by performance!

Cheers Petals,

Shane.

The Australian Index

to see Naught and Wombat Droppings

G’day Petals…..

Well, we were planning it and it has happened.

Solar array with some pruning needed.

 It’s a 5KW+ system and should make us almost self sufficient for electricity.

Which made us think about what it may have been like here in Victoria before it became the “Tardis” State (Where-All-Goes-Backward) and Bully-Boy Kennett tore the State Electricity Commission to pieces, corporatised and then with Little Johnny Howard’s help, privatized it.

Owned by the people of Victoria the SEC actually made a profit and was putting part of that profit into re-newables research like Solar and Wind generation.

This research was one of the first things that “Bully-Boy” Kennett halted.

So now, thank to the imagination and forward thinking of the Liarbrils at both State and Federal levels we, in the Tardis State have a multiplicity of both generation and supply companies.

 Where before there was a single State monopoply with the standardization  and efficiencies of a single standard, each company now “does its own thing” in terms of infrastructure and attempts to make as much profit as it can to send back to its shareholders in either Singapore or Hong Kong!

Could our electricity have been cheaper and less polluting? You bet!

Well we now know, we were really “Jeffed”.

Once services like Telephone, Gas, Water, Electricity, Education and Health have been privatised we have to become complicit as part of the “Market".

We have to “get-our-share” because it’s not a service that is offered any more it’s the opportunityof profit.

“However, the price exacted from the community

for these achievements—reduced government services, declining

health and education facilities, a relatively disappointing employment

performance and the impression of growing social problems stemming

from gambling—has figured in attacks on the government by

its critics. So, too, have allegations of governmental impropriety, particularly

in its relations with certain business interests and in the behaviour of ministers and bureaucrats supplied with publicly funded credit cards.”

However not unlike the present “Tardis State” of play, it didn’t matter what the media might criticise  .. the public’s was not listening…..

http://www.sisr.net/apo/kennett.pdf  Economou and Costar

Sound like today but in fact was more than15 years ago when “Bully-Boy”Kennett (The Dorian Gray of Tardis State Politics) was raping anything of value in the State.

Aye, and that's because the lid there's a sounding-board; and what in all things makes the sounding-board is this --there's naught beneath. Herman Melville “Moby Dick”

Mourners, early C15th..... or bankers looking sad over profit.

Announced this week….pay-outs to top(?) executives who are ”moving or-have moved-on”…

Marius Kloppers, BHP Billiton:     $75,200,000.00

Allan Moss, Macquarie Bank:       $80,000,000.00

Chris Cuffe, Colonial First State:  $33,000,000.00

John E Flint, Santos:                    $16,800,000.00

John Alexander PBL:                    $15,000,000.00

Chip Goodyear BHP:                    $60,000,000.00

Brian Gilbertson BHP(again):       $12,000,000.00

                                           Total $292,000,000.00

So, that seven individuals and some, allegedly not very good at their jobs, can pocket monies sufficient for funding a school or small hospital is a gross obscenity.

Banker's response (left) to criticism on profits... ( Eglise, Mortemart, France)

Top Tax rate in 1983 was 60%…since 2013 it has been 45%

Advance Australia Fair(?)….or is it toward a new feudal system?

Legal Aid Victoria can’t fund assistance as it has a $3,000,000.00 deficit and a lot of the money went on the defence of drug dealer Mokbel and another crim, Dupas!

So “Tardis” State “Big-Bird” Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens) changes the eligibility rules for aid for youth and mental health crime and happily lets them fall through the cracks.

“….thing of naught….” Midsummer Night’s Dream W. Shakespeare

Matthew (What subdivision) Guy has pissed off Yarra Valley residents bypassing an appeals process and allowing another golf course to be built…

It seems that some 40,000 speeding fines are going to be overlooked beacause

Big Bird, Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens) in slashing the number of Public Servants to save money finds there are not enough staff to process these fines and is losing millions in revenue.

Another nail in the coffin of the “better-economic-credentials” of the Liarbrils and more proof that ideology instead of common sense produces silly outcomes !

You Don't Have to be Buddhist to Know Nothing: An Illustrious Collection of Thoughts on Naught packs in an intriguing collection of thoughts on the nature of ?. Nothing. The idea of nothing is explored by some of the finest minds in a collection of reflections on the spirit and nature of nothing? new age collections especially will relish this Buddhist approach.  Joan Konner, Editor.

Greendale panorama

Greg Hunt (Liarbril) Federal shadow Minister environment… he of limited (should we say naught?) imagination and of being terminally and factually incorrect, raised a laugh on ABC’s “Q and A” when he boldly stated that “… I can guarantee you that China will never have a Carbon Pricing System!”

Two days later China announces it’s going to institute a Carbon Pricing Scheme to assist in tackling pollution and global warming. Odd that this stupidity doesn't get the run it deserves in the press as this bloke will likely be on the front bench when the Liarbrils win the federal election in September.

"Naught is your science of man, naught is your science of the stars," said the archdeacon, commandingly”. Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo

On a foot-note:  Shaun Micallef’s “Mad–as-Hell” has returned on ABC TV and given its political insights I’d like to suggest a program switch to ABC management…..

…drop Micallef’s time-slot back to 7:30pm and put “The 7:30 Report” on at 3:30! 
Whether it's a.m. or p.m. really doesn't matter, particularly after L.Sayles' hideously inept interview with Bob Brown over "Sea Shepherd" and the Japanese Whalers in Aussie waters....perhaps a look at the competence of E. Alberici or T. Fullerton might suggest another approach?

Is there naught that we may do to save her? At earth’s Core E.R.Burroughs.

Cheers Possums,

Shane

..and they're running!

G’day Possums,

Shane tripping

Here’s a little video I made t’other day of “Ballet Theatre Australia’s” Summer School

Ballet Theatre Australia, Summer School 2013.mp4

And some visitors to our back yard…. I only hope that the Bogan neighbour who has been shooting ‘Roo’s on his property misses this one and her Joey

'Roo and Joey

And some shots taken at “L’Osteria” of someone photographing the Antipasta  … food was excellent, service delightful, décor’s been there since 1986 so it has a real Cucina ambience and prices are very reasonable….. 

Recording gustation

L’Osteria, 616 Nicholson St Fitzroy Nth. 

L'Osteria

Only complaint : why are Australian restaurant patrons sooooo noisy?

Wombat Droppings

The Truth of the Matter

Five Rozzers collected Thommo, strip-searched him and charged him to face 150 charges of being very naughty, (in an act of exquisite timing, that is not at all political) telling him that he can’t visit “the girls” any more but we don’t know who they are. Yet!
Will they treat Tardis State (Where-All-Goes-Backwards) Liarbril, Geoff Shaw similarly when his turn comes?
Thommo allegedly spent $40,000 of the Union’s money.
Allowing for inflation over the years this would be pretty equivalent to the $25,000 Peter“Rottweiler” Reith’s son diddled on his father’s parliamentary phone.
But in Peter’s case “… it isn’t a hanging offence!”
Liarbril  hypocrites!
Take note of the sale of State School land to Private School developers and the sale of Public Housing land to private developers under Big-Bird Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens) here in the Tardis State (Where-All-Goes-Backwards) . Gosh, he’s got form here… 
Have Australians have lost any sense of being a unified, tolerant and coherent society? Or are they just selfish, individualistic “aspirationals” in a narcissistic society?

Is “Individualism”  democratic? 

It would appear to the “Coot’s–With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” of the IPA, that Medicare is just “a radical policy…” not a humane or civilized one. 
Despite the many obvious problems of a non-socialized health care, the Trolls of the IPA would seem to prefer a Third World Health Scheme like the American one where your credit card is checked before admission and people die for want of affordable post operative medications?
That’ll be the one “Rabbott” WON”T talk about, a sleeper… like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme…watch that space…..

Apart from the ”…..ABC bias is not the only problem.”… the “Coot’s–With-Queer-Ideas” have come up with a 75 point plan in lieu of policy for “Mr Rabbott”… here are some of them….presented as a set of values that pretend to be rational...

9/ Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

15/ Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be 'balanced'

17/ End local content requirements for Australian television stations

36/ Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

38/ Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

41/ Repeal the alcopops tax

44/ Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

50/ Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function
51/ Privatise SBS

54/ Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

72/ Privatise the CSIRO.....      “…. policies that would make Australia richer and more free.”

Well, they would make some individuals and companies much richer and much freer from social responsibility but the rest of us….? 

Hmmmm....a sort of proof of what David Suzuki said "Conventional economics is a form of brain damage"!

 I mean, these vicious Troll’s wish list of ludicrously anti-social rubbish points to a grim future under Mr “Rabbott” should he win the election and these nasty capitalist apparatchiks are his advisors.

 A “Rabbott” Abbott win in the election campaign would mark the culmination of Howard’s mean-ness of spirit  ideaology and the further dismantling of a Civil society.

 “Abbott..is likely to have an intimidating mandate…” according to the IPA’s ( “Coot’s-with–Queer-Ideas, etc”)… interesting language, an INTIMIDATING mandate… sounds very much like a threat to me… as if any criticism of the effects of what is promulgated will be unjustified.

As this country is taken back to a C19th welfare system and the divide between rich and poor widens and as quality education and health services will only be for the wealthy some of us may wonder why we allowed it to happen but I fear most will not, until, years down the track they realise how much they have lost and how it will be doubly difficult to re-instate.
Cheers Petals
Shane

...on Holiday at TarraWarra with Jeff and Robert

G’day Petals,

As it’s holiday time Mrs Wombat and I took a trip to the other side.

Tarrawarra panorama landscape

The Yarra Valley that is, to attend a retrospective of painter Jeffery Smart at TarraWarra.

TarraWarra Gallery

Although we would have seen this show at some stage the “critique” by Robert Nelson in “The Age” (9-1-13) “Smart Ticks Boxes with Signature Style” prompted a sooner-rather-than-later excursion whilst the critiques’ effect was still fresh in mind. 

It seemed to bear little relation to the tenor of the Smart work that I knew.

It was worth the early visit, for as the day panned-out there were many metaphors of 

contemporary society to be experienced other than in the paintings.

Amongst our favourite paintings were: “Self Portrait at Papini’s”, a work like “Morning Practice, Baia” and Clive James’ Portrait which seem to contradict Nelson’s assertion that “…….Smart is not an allegorical artist”.

Self-portrait at Papini’s 1984-85 by Jeffrey Smart, courtesy Artist and the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria

The garage door in “Papini’s” looks to be a “send-up” of Dale Hickey’s “Untitled” 1967-8 and the blue door shadow of the paper, a dead fishes tail (?), leaves a deadpan Smart in between both and the possibility of his exit, “stage right” through the open door.

Dale Hickey Untitled 1967-8

A conflict engendered perhaps between figurative and non-figurative artist-practitioners by critics for the critics’ ego and existence?

“Morning Practice” seems to conjure a personal act of art in a primary sense in its shapes, activity and colours. Balance, form and colour, is a hard act to get together.

Morning Practice, Baia 1969

Clive James happily recounted being painted by Smart and delighted by the large portrait drawings he had seen was then bowled over by being finally represented as a tiny figure high up behind a big wall (fence) happily observing (chatting to) us down below. (pic on right )

TarraWarra Gallery

Asserting too, that Smart paints factories, high rise etc “….because it’s easy to paint….” Is (apart from being Brunswick St.-Barista-Bitchy) belied just by the detail of the crack and the wall texture above the “Hickey” door and in the solid reality of the figure in “On the Roof, Taylor Square” where, in this early work, the juxtaposition of the solidity of the figure and the flatness of the architectural forms behind seem to provide the “airy-ness” one can feel at heights…

On the Roof, Taylor Square 1961

…. but then  Nelson sniffily points out “…abstraction that riddles the design affords freedom from noise and chaos in the representation.” and that “… his Roof-tops 1969… look like flat pieces of graphic design” and further, “Largely sparing himself the pains of incidental light and shadows across complicated forms….” “In Italy… he couldn’t reconcile the inflected architecture with the festive spaces that it frames”. 

All of which only seem to suggest that Robert Nelson would paint Italy very differently to Jeffery Smart and that, ergo Smart should paint differently!

A criticism seemingly based upon what you would like to see, not what you have seen and understood

I’ve always liked the story of Francois Truffaut when, as a literary film critic he was challenged by the film-makers he was criticizing to “… go and make a film!”

He did. It was “The Four Hundred Blows.”

So here’s an example (I assume) of Nelson’s scenic painting style as a background to one of Polixeni Papapetrou’s (his wife) photographs, so you can see in comparison, his work for yourself.

Polixeni Papapetrou.net

Jeffery Smart painted to his own tune. He “hit” an “idea” young and developed it assiduously.

This exhibition is valuable in that you can partially track this development but also experience a wit, a somewhat sardonic view of humanity from the ordinary world culture of roads, freeways, car-parks and airports through the talent of someone who loving the works of  Piero della Francesca and Vermeer presents his subjects calmly in a similarly ordered space that allows the eye an extended looking to discover at its leisure.

Someone who obviously loved drawing, the placing of paint and the enjoyment of “working” a surface so that feeling and thought is revealed.

exterior : wine tasting and restaurant on left, gallery right

This beautiful space “….is the first privately funded, significant public visual arts museum to be set up under the Australian Government’s philanthropic measures announced in March 1999. TWMA operates as a not-for-profit institution, with a charter to display Australian art from the second half of the twentieth century to the present day.”…. and after an excellent lunch, General Manager Simon Napthine came back to our table provide more details of the history of the place as he had overheard us ask some questions of our waitress.

GM Simon Napthine and restaurant.

The corollary of the Besen’s philanthropy to the arts is that it has extended to the staff here and they made it a perfectly enjoyable day for us with their natural good service.

Wombat Droppings

Jenny Macklin (Labor)  put her foot right in it but did something unusual for a pollie. Apologised!

Incompetent Baillieu Liabrils blame Labor Feds for faltering hospital system after Feds cut $107 Million from State of Tardis (where all goes backward) Health while forgetting to mention the $616 Million they have slashed.

But they say, the plan to spend it all on a new Tennis Centre is a good thing for the Tardis State.

Jonathon Moylan has caused much embarrassment to the share trading community with his ANZ letter hoax as they splutteringly attempted to explain just how straight their operations are…. Oohh look… there’s a rabbit!!

…and Peter (Children Overboard) Reith reckons he ought to be punished …perhaps like he was when his son ran up a $20,000.00 phone bill on Pete’s Commonwealth Pollies phone card!  Howard, (He of the Profligate spending) was inclined to think “It’s not a hanging offence!”

Abbott staffer kicks own goal with a clumsy attempt to paint him as human.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4455364.html    from Anne Summers.

Chris (The Whyne) Pyne has been caught out lying again….again trying to support Abbott’s Neanderthal attitude to women

http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1354159.htm

“Slippery Pete” has been collared by the ACT rozzers and might go to jail if found guilty of defrauding the Commonwealth of about $1000.00.

Pity the Liarbrils’are so quiet about it happening when he was one of them!

Geoff Shaw, Liarbril Member for Frankston is still sitting in Parliament having been found by Parliament to have defrauded the State.

Hey, Big Bird Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens)….. what’s the difference?

Melbourne Airport Carpark holds Tardis State  (where all goes backward) to ransom over easier access to airport.

…and a nice little movie celebrating our Public transport officers….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=tjtbmryzBGM

Cheers Possums,

Shane

to see slash and burn...

G'day Petals,

it's Spring... 

and here are three very recent ballet shots to celebrate it... psst... advertising for a Summer School Intensive at Ballet Theatre Australia in January 2013.

see details on their web site.

Well, there's the nice stuff done..

now on to the Slash and Burn of

Politics

Slash and burn, slash and burn.

It seems the only thing political conservatives do well is destroy.

Presently, Australia’s public education, public health services are being slashed by State governments in Victoria (the Tardis State) NSW and Queensland, intent, they say, on “balancing the books”.

A few commentators have said that this is a dress rehearsal for Tony “rabbit” Abbott and his ideological rabble when they come to power; which is probably true except that the states are allowing him the opportunity to slash much further and deeper into social spending than we will ever have seen before.

And although Abbott’s been “outed” again; this time by David Marr’s Quarterly Essay http://www.themonthly.com.au/david-marr as a brutish and misogynist student activist who seemingly believed in nothing but power for its own sake and though, on one hand, it is nice to know that some things never change, on the other, will it have any meaning in the electorate?

Historians have said that new wars are started by old men for old past causes and hatreds. Mr Rabbit seems to adhere to that point by carrying on like an unreconstructed 1950’s DLP’er (I know 50’s is currently retro fashion but Bob Santamaria still as a hero ? Good grief)!

Which at least takes some attention away from the flip-flopping that the Federal Govt. is doing again, now over the big re-named marine vacuum cleaner from Holland.

At least here in the Tardis State, (where all goes backwards), “Big Bird”, Baillieu (genus:Silvertail Incompetens) has done something positive:

He’s changed the slogan on the state’s vehicle registration plates! 

WOW!!!

That almost rates with his environmental efforts in changing the bulbs in the traffic lights.

Psst,….let’s not talk about the $350,000,000 taken out of Technical and Further Education and the subsequent loss of thousands of jobs and the closure of courses seriously affecting regional economies; that TAFEs are now talking of selling campuses to make ends meet. Or the predictably organised Union bashing (though, the CFMEU are their own worst enemies) or the planning disasters or the teacher/nurse bashing or the reduction of the solar power tariff or the increase in the crime rate or the threat of legal action by the gambling companies for loss of revenue, (another Kennett deal gone pear-shaped? As with public transport, water, electricity and education?) Or the fact that FOI requests are late in four out of five instances and take three times longer to process than is required or that National Parks are being turned into private resorts or just read this

 http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-accused-of-paying-fat-cats-while-sacking-workers.html

This, is a competent Government?

Aus’s biggest, wealthiest and loquacious miner, Gina R., (whose business life started out with $25,000,000 float) has commented approvingly of African workers being paid $2.00 a day and sees this as a possible model for Australian wages.

She also finger-waggingly opined to other mine owners that if Australians wanted more money they should stop drinking, smoking, fornicating, going to the footy and eating pies, picking their noses, going out on Saturday night, wearing clothes, eating and should just find a better job and work harder.

Geez Gina, how perceptive and socially relevant you are for the C21st!

Sorting your own family problems out before tackling the countries (as you see it) might be more valuable and productive for you.

How feudal is her attitude, petals?

Cheers, Shane