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Agonies of a "conspiracy theorist" 2: The Brompton Files
Richard Tonkin is an investigative citizen journalist from Adelaide. His last piece on Webdiary was Another Alexander Downer fraud.
by Richard Tonkin
Sometimes clearing local land dwellers out for business purposes is quite successful. The British managed to evict many Highland Scots from potential sheep pastures by religious trickery. The children of some of those evicted ended up poisoning the flour in Aboriginal workers' rations to clear Australian land for similar purposes. I've got a strong feeling that something similar almost happened to my family.
There's a little block of land that Adelaide magnate Robert Gerard, who recently resigned from the Reserve Bank Board due to allegations of unethical tax practices, might consider as desirable real estate. This defence site map will help explain.
Just above that little square of Adelaide city, between the road and the railway line (which now, thanks to Dick Cheney runs directly to Darwin) is a considerable acreage of factory land that is thought to be owned by Clipsal, and therefore sold in the company's globalisation by Sneider. However, sources within the company believe that Gerard retained the property and so would be able to do what he likes if his former business enterprise moves to China.
Almost abutting this to the west, fencing the factory in from the road, is my family's pub.
In 2001, due to a development application miscategorisation by our local council (given the dwellings were inappropriate to the Desired Future Area Plan characteristics in not being built to withstand the noise of the prevailing business district ) we learned that a set of townhouses was to be built behind us. Because the above-mentioned miscategorisation eliminated public consultation, we found out by watching the contractors laying the pipes.
Much later, by doing a land title check and confirming the information elsewhere, I found that the land for these townhouses had been acquired by one of those companies that specialise in investment ("two-tier") property sales ... this particular group had been the catalyst for legislation changes in their home state of Queensland. An odd choice of owner for such a slice of land, wouldn't you say?
Still later, prospective buyers being shown through the townhouses were told they need not be concerned about music noise from the pub, as it soon would not be a music venue. Apparently the agents weren't aware of the protective legislation that was about to be passed bi-partisanly by the State Parliament.
However I digress. In the two weeks between our discovery of the development, with its massive subsequent broadcast by most facets of the Adelaide media, and the rally in which five thousand people marched on Parliament to save live music venues, the local mayor came to have a conversation with my father. Due to City of Charles Sturt Mayor Harold Anderson's written threat of a defamation suit on my father for having discussed the matter with a councillor at the rally, I won't divulge the contents of the conversation. Suffice it to say for now that when our lawyer requested our rightful copy of the official tape of the conversation a written reply was received that said that as the conversation had been considered insignificant the tape had been erased. Copies of that reply have found their way to many sets of eyes, I think.
Referring back to the map, I'm surprised that the other train line doesn't appear. It runs parallel to the marked road down to Port Adelaide. This places the industrial land in a coveted strategic position - between two railways that both run to places of dramatically increased activity.
If the land on the other side of the track, the townhouses and the pub were acquired the industrial acreage would have frontage on Port Road.
On the northern border of the factory a hundred and fifty townhouses are under construction. There's a couple of interesting board correlations between these townhouse developers and Halliburton but to play it safe I'll venture no further than to say that Adelaide is a city with very few "degrees of separation."
Here are two other pieces of information that may or may not be important: (a) For his New Year's Eve party in 2004 Gerard hired the Ghan to shuttle his merrymakers from his factory door all the way to Darwin; (b) About six months later Defence Department base plans were found in a public bin near to the factory. A report in the Adelaide Advertiser said that DoD were looking into it, but no results of that investigation have been revealed.
In South Australia control of development approval has just been stripped from local councils. New legislation passed by the State Government last week requires the majority of seats on Development Assessment Panels to be filled by independent experts. This event resulted in my little missive that was published in the Adelaide Advertiser on Tuesday: [extract]
While some councils serve their population in making planning decisions, some, I suspect, serve their councillors' pockets. In my opinion the levels of corruption in planning decisions has diminished the credibility of local government to a point nearing incredulity amongst rate-payers in many parts of metropolitan Adelaide. Such a move also reduces the impact that interested commercial parties might have on a planning decision. Any councils that grumble about the State government's plans should be looked upon with suspicion.
I can't help but wondering if everything I've just related is merely a local story or a possible example of how facets of national and international plans are enacted on local levels If the land on which our pub stands (did I mention it's ten doors down from a Defence Housing Authority office?) was going to be useful in ongoing defence-related plans then quietly rendering the business residing there inoperative would have helped in a profitable acquisition. My family's protest, the media coverage and the five thousand protesters were elements that wouldn't have been factored into any "development facilitation strategies."
I'm pretty sure we've stuffed something up for somebody. I'd give my right arm to know the full extent of plans for this area, and how they might relate to the national defence picture. Maybe there's nothing in it, and all of the above pieces of trivia have no connection to each other.
However, as you can see, it's not the greatest suburb for a "conspiracy theorist" to be living in.
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Too many welsh rarebits
I had a notion that the mayor of the port that has been Halliburtonised into a Missile Shield construction site might, by dint of owning a local paint factory, receive the job of supplying the whitewash that disguises the red, white and blue under green and gold.
Waking up, I feel better.
Baghdad Or Brompton?
That's the headline on our inner-west freebie doorstopper, the Weekly Times Messenger. The story's about the land abutting Gerard's and the station, which until a few weeks ago hosted a disused gasworks.
You can still kiss your love by the gasworks wall in this Dirty Old Town, but the gasworks wall (if they keep it) will most likely surround another mini-suburb of Little Boxes made of ticky-tacky.
Here's the catch, which I'd forgotten until I read it in the paper today: The land (and therefore I assume Gerard's) is reportedly zoned industrial. Funny, I thought it was mixed.
Maybe I'm thinking about across the tracks on our side, where dwell the pioneering townhouses (now, thankfully, mostly occupied by live music fans) which were constructed by a notorious Queensland based two-tier property racketeer (yes I have the title), who employed as a builder the bloke whose wife goes shopping with that of the SA Attorney General.
While I was looking for spies amongst the punters the builder's wife's best friend had taken a job as one of our bartenders.
Back to the gasworks wall. How are they going to build townhouses there if it's zoned industrial? Moreso, how is Robert Gerard? It would be easier if a plan was pre-arranged with the local mayor, wouldn't it? It would be even easier if the mayor had a history of suggesting throwing money at a development problem to make it go away. Throw in a major landowner with a national reputation for money-laundering and donations and making fairy bread is difficult by comparison.
Come to think of it, it's getting more like Baghdad every day.
Secret gov't stuff
Allow me to be the first to dip a toe in the water, as we wait for things to flesh out.
Two quotes from The Age re the Balibo enquiry:
---
The underline is mine. Has the secret door been opened a crack? Can we get our foot in it before they slam it in our faces?
On Behalf Of... ?
Point taken, Chris... what the hell were ASIS doing in Chile? You'd assume that any such operation would be under CIA command, wouldn't you? In what other international activities have and are our people acting on behalf of others?
It's this kind of thing that makes me think that it's impossible that (given US intelligence was in the know) Aussie "diplomatic envoys" didn't know about our "material support for terrorism" in Iraq. For all we know AWB, in it's government controlled days, was acting on behalf of the CIA.
That little underlined phrase opens quite a Pandora's Box of possibilities.
Must mention how much I enjoyed your pieces. Have you one up your sleeve for Webdiary?
PS I've just been looking over an Alan Ramsay SMH piece from 2005 and would like to share this exquisite paragraph with you
[extract]
I've often wondered, given the close link Gerard has to KBR through the Clipsal 500. whether it would be possible for him to be acting as a funnel for Cheney's political money. When the drys, under Olsen, came to power a post-deadline tender by Halliburton/KBR was successful in winning operational control of Adelaide's water supply. If always wondered if Olsen might have been "softened" by the donation of a few Hallibucks. Based on his history I couldn't think of a better bagman for Cheney than Robert Gerard
Olsen and Hill now share the same New York apartments from which to carry out their US activities.
ABSURD ...
So just get a Santiago diplomatic list from 1975, turn to "Australia," and back track all entries. Check also 1974, and 1976. And the not very complete DFAT Statement[s] of Service Appointments and Biographies, better for its gaps than its entries.
And who was lurking there for the banks, miners and all sorts of commercial agencies? Soldiers, sailors and airmen?
But for God's sake, do it in camera.
Cmdr Frère Jihad Jacques Pinochet OAM née Woodforde
Lurking in the undergrowf....
G'day yourself Phil.
Yes, I have been lurking postless around WD. After a couple of barren efforts to post comments about 9-11 in WD (no banana), I took my yoyo and went to play in the sandpit with the hydrocarbon kids.
Some things are so self-evident, it's a revolutionary act to even mention them. It's a caution.
- anyway, love to all - especially Tonkin, Wall and Woodforde. Is that like Bremer, Bird and Fortune?
GEOPOLITICAL ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Message in a battle - history's whistleblowers
(Luke 19:45-48) 45 And He went into the temple and began to cast out those who sold therein and those who bought, 46 saying unto them, "It is written, `My house is the house of prayer,' but ye have made it a den of thieves. Ask any mining metallurgist, or, for that matter, the Rainbow Serpent." 47 And He taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the News Ltd scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy Him; 48 and they could not find what they might do, for all the people were very attentive to hear Him, particularly on-line. Yea verily, sayeth Frère Jihad Jacques OAM née Peter Woodforde, Snoop Dogg’s representative to Whitehall of the New South Wales Colony, Van Dieman’s Land, Port Phillip, Moreton Bay, Port Essington, Swan River and the South Australian Colony, sayeth also thanks to Chris Shaw for the kind words, as such.
the Captain of the Push
G'day Richard Tonkin II.
I dunno whether one should laugh or cry, when one sees that some of the s**t, c**p and corruption (aka lies, cheating, stealing etc.) that I deal with on an almost all-day-every-day basis turns out to occur at all levels of government and business - although the murdering theft bit is 'monopolised' by a (relatively) few bald-faced lying criminals.
(Good word, that, eh? I mean monopoly. As in "USrael has a near monopoly on mass-murdering for spoil.")
I did go 'back' to check your earlier item, and ran into its precursor. Near the end of that is a post from Chris Shaw (g'day.)
Chris gives a good description of the purported dope/CIA nexus in a discussion about Hicks, who is in the news again.
PS Chris's link to the 'Bastard From the Bush' fails, here's a new one.
Robert Gerard Moves Out And Cashes In
Epilogue, May 2007
[from The Advertiser, Yesterday]
Gerardcorp have blocked public access to their land next to the station. The adjacent fish factory is moving to Townsville, though I reckon that the story of an amusement park there is a red herring.
One year later, and this story is only warming up.
Halliburton Sacked By U.S. Army !!!!!
Happy happy day.... I've been skipping around the kitchen since I heard this on the radio. Halliburton's army supply deal has been cancelled, and the global supply job will be retendered later this year.
There's a catch however. This means that instead of one global corporation following yank troops around the world, now there will be four or five.
[Reuters extract}
But the good news is that even the U.S. troops have decided to never be manipulated again (at least on such a major level) by a blatant commercial profiter..... oh who am I kidding- I just want to wear rose coloured glasses again for this one day!
At the very least the leverage the contract provided for manipulating the Australian government will be gone...
In that spirit, I'd love to see Brendan Nelson do the same thing here...
Etceterae
Have a look at my post that's now linked from Halliburton Watch. It's relevant as if local Ausaid / industry lurks begin to be uncovered, the wheat board inquiry will, as the cliche goes, be as a tea-party by comparison
While the former Hal global vice president is laying railway at his Star Warship plant in Port Adelaide, nothing is impossible on my side of town.
Oh... something I forgot to mention... on the map, just south of the Osbourne Maritime Precinct is a cement factory. Doubling as board member and KBR Consultant you'l find none other than Halliburton Australia architect Malcolm Kinnaird. Did I mention he's the commodore of the yacht squadron that's westwardly adjacent?
PS two of our locals are on the front page of the Advertiser today debating drugs vs alcohol with the local Australian Democrats leader over a pint... life is never dull !
CONSPIRACY IS AS CONSPIRACY DOES
or Piracy of any kind, for that matter…
God Bless NumbErica, with Dubya as an optional extra-terrestrial.
Dubya’s Kirribilli landing site is concealing a huge spacecraft, laser-boring an immense exactly circular hole through the earth to Arnia’s Kalifornia.
And thereby tapping into geo-thermal energy sources of which even future ERA directors now cooling their heels in senior portfolios could only dream.
Standing in the neoConga-line of suckholes, piling up the dosh, and practising falling off the sofia while choking on a pretzel to the point of Hutchensesque blackout and watching football.
As devoted savants are wont to do, practising over and over while one of the butlers rolls another 44 gallon drum of Grange Hermitage up the steps from the wine cellar.
And die Frau (an honorary title inherited from the Kavieng post-WWI German reparation plantations scam) all in wide brown and fawn and beige, with tiara and long umber gloves, glowers insanely into a room full of mirrors and works on her First Lady routine to go with the pretzel thing.
All in the hope that one day, when Davids Irving and Flint are both freshly and fairly deadish, the wide matching brown land will revert to a democratic tan republic.
With the Head of State and all his baubles chosen by something a little more democratic than hands up the skirts of the Punch’n’Judy show of the Ruling Party Room. Focus groups probably.
A little like old Kazakhstan, or Pekin with the hands up the skirts of the nearest Panchen llama, alpaca or vicuña.
Then off to Yarralumla to consult the Pirate Oracle midst many noggins of ye rum in his/her cabin and much basso throat singing and nose flauting amid the ringing and tinkling of bells and the burning of much sandalwood and scented sticks and bark of the East to drive away the fever mosquitos which swarm on the accursed Walter Burley Griffin coast.
Australian national political culture and ideology was set in concrete aboard fleets where the most seasick and pregnant convict woman swathed in smallpox blankets could expect to be raped severally each day, as could each of the convict lads indented to shock Jocks, Taffies, Geordies and Cockneys. And loyal Orangemen.
And so it goes on today, with the cruelty and insanity and greed marching resolutely on, beside Sydney Cove and Circular Quay, flushing its poxy shit into the Tank Stream.
Power comes out of the barrel of a gun, as that great railway rapper Mao Zedong was wont to threaten at Party meetings.
The Consul from the Golden Mountain over the Sea listened to that bit quite intently, and asked Barbara to ensure that the idiot son learned it off by heart in his drunken and drug-addled stupor.
And he did – and the guns did, too, from Kabul to Kurdistan. That’s how you make a a quid these days.
Not so much as a wink
Richard: Not so much as a wink, in three years. And, oh the satisfaction! Cheers.
If it smells, it's almost certainly rotten
Richard: Could tell you quite a tale if I had an hour of so about local councils, nimbys, vested interests, dodgy procedures, councillors with an eye out for opportunity, tape recordings, defamation, court - in fact the whole box and dice which seems to be par for the course where development is the name of the game.
Just remember. If it smells, it is almost certainly rotten.
And if you find yourself in the mood to sue, then get the top QC in the field before the other side collars him/her first; pursue your case with a grim determination and never ever be the first to blink.
Oh yes, the cost? Well never mind that, but we found a good rule of thumb was to take the lawyers' estimate, then treble it.
Cheers and good luck. All smells a bit fishy to me. Dead fish too.
Fourplay at Fox
Talk about worn-out, Geoff Pahoff, I turned up $20 in the lining of a mouldy duffle coat. Now I am wondering what to do with it. Like you, I enjoy a good ripping yarn, but I haven't bought my ticket to the Fourplay gig, just yet.
I'm thinking of an investment for my grandchildren (photos available on reuqest). Several causes are worthy. I could chip in with Buffett and Gates (The Buffett Donation), the armaments industry (Buy F-22 Raptors or face air gap: Beazley), or the reconstuction trade (Scams and waste eat $2 billion in hurricane aid)? Billions to be made, with huge dividends, in those latter two, and probably better than tobacco (Bracks defends tobacco investments). The Murdoch empire is heartily endorsed by Peter Costello (Australia's role in the biggest world game), so must be good. For one thing, I'm looking forward to Murdoch's Fox manipulating the events in Gaza. As far as Adelaide is concerned, at least we can pop over and check out the facts for ourselves, instead of third- and fourth-guessing some special interest group's protestations.
In the meantime, I clicked onto ABC-FM, to yesterday's Planet edition on Water and replayed it for 2 minutes to get Archie Roach's 'Many Waters Rise'.
Saving The World
Wow. By my quick calculation The Gates Foundation has enough money to buy three hundred F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and still have change to train the pilots and maintain the planes.
Now that should soon sort out a few of the world's problems.
BTW, I listened to the water music for as long as I could. But after four minutes I couldn't hold on any longer.
Lasting four minutes
Did you, notice, Geoff, that the show's presenter is named Lucky Oceans?
I'm disappointed.. I'd expected the local council's death squad around to clear up confusion by now.. cleared my schedule for the morning for naught.
Jenny, your story sounds like a cracker. I'm assuming you won?
Odds on
Geoff Pahofff, as I say I don't know for certain what's what. I've been accumulating bits of this scenario for exactly, come this Saturday, five years.
I'm walking around daily in the realms of a council with particularly close ties to KBR, past a factory owned by one of the most high profile factory owners in Australia, along a railway that was augmented by the Vice President of the US for defence and uranium purposes, and looking northwards to a port down the road where they're building the ships for the US Missile Shield.
Have you ever flicked through my Your Democracy blog? The reason I chose to start it as close to the announcement of the Destroyer deal was that I knew which company would come out on top. Or are you Geoff, going to tell me that it was pure luck that the former global vice president of that company got the gig as overseer? I only cite this to attempt to explain my faith in my gut that in this situation there might also exist more than a touch of callusion.
The number of inspections and requests we were subjected to by the council after going public about the townhouses didn't help either.
I should add that there are other parts of this, involving somebody that I suspect would be an extremely aggressive litigator, that I can't touch on.
I don't have a final answer to what's been going on, and I reckon it will only be when other crumbs of information fall from the table.
One thing I do know is that at a time of closing of the Clipsal plant a massive landspace, five minutes drive from the city centre, is going to be an extremely profitable location. The other is that, according to an Advertiser report I can no longer find, the residential boom has created a demand for industrial land on Adelaide's northern side. These two pieces of data lead to conflicting outcomes, and I don't know if I'm going to be looking at rows of houses, a defence industry support facility, or a combination of both.
I can also name a very few public figures who would financially do very nicely out of whichever or whatever.
Does that clear a few things up for you? Wish it did for me.
Careful
I have flicked through the Your Democracy blog once or twice before.
Be careful, Richard. I might start commenting there.
The powers in charge are not that clever
To Richard,
Its been a while since Christmas but I like a good conspiracy theory.
However sometimes the powers in charge are not that clever.
You may be giving them ideas on what to do next!
Rex Manson
Never Mind Global Warming. This One Is Serious!
I just love a good conspiracy theory. This one is nice and intricate. Mind you I had to read it three times to get to the plot.
Odd choice of owner for such a slice of land? Sure, I grant you. But only in South Australia. Everywhere else, who owns a particular parcel of land is determined by who shows up first with the readies and an acceptable offer. I don't want to know what the system is in the convict-free state.
Defence Department documents in a public rubbish bin? Pretty careless move by someone, I grant you. Especially in Adelaide where I expect the contents of every public rubbish bin is thoroughly and routinely investigated by somebody. Estate agents gilding the lily somewhat to prospective buyers who ask about the noisy pub across the road? Or whatever? Terrible. Completely without precedent anywhere. Local council bigshots threatening defamation suits? Unheard of. Murky decisions about development applications by council officers and councils? Again, it could only happen in South Australia. Everywhere else is a picture of pristine propriety, correctness and transparency. Always has been. There are actually people who want to buy townhouses in of all places Adelaide? Now my head is starting to spin.
As I say, it took a while to twig to the full horror of this conspiracy. I had to do some digging myself. Then the penny dropped like a rock off a cliff.
I found it in the link. The next band scheduled at The Gov. Fourplay. Doesn't that grab you? Here's the Rolling Stone review:
"They spit in the eye of classical romanticism, chain-sawing into these songs and then throwing them together in new shapes."
That's it I tell you! They are planning to flood the whole country with worn-out mixed metaphors and band-speak! Quick! There isn't a moment to lose. This Friday night at Richard's place. Tickets $20 at the door.