Thank you Bob Katter

[bigrich]

don't let CZ515 bait you so easily OB . he's always going to be a pessimistic "glass half empty" type of guy . agree to disagree . this is not a personal attack on CZ515, these are my personal opinions and i reserve the right to express them on a public forum

[bladeracer]

i agree . i'm in logan myself ,and i know exactly what your talking about . and there's a lot of halfwits in modern suburbia's like logan , who shouldn't even have a drivers licence let alone have access to firearms . our modern society does not teach people to take responsability for their actions , or that there are consequences for actions taken . i appreciate bob's views and opinions (i've voted for him many times to spite the majors and greens), but our society is not one you could give widespread access of firearms too . seriously, would you let a mob like on the tv show "housos" access to firearms ? i know it's a tv show , but those characters are very close to the truth of segments of our modern society .
i think continuing training with firearms in the school cadet system is very good idea . it allows the system to "weed out" people who are undesirable for firearms training/access .

Do Cadets nowadays get to do any shooting though?

[Oldbloke]

Do Cadets nowadays get to do any shooting though?
They were 20 yrs ago

[bigrich]

i was at ssaa ripley range one weekend pre covid and a group of cadets were there do live fire at the range as well as other training activites . they were camped on the grounds if i remember correctly .

i don't know how often firearms training happens with the cadets , but i feel there should be more of it . as well as general bushcraft , which leads to learning how to think with common sense. no common sense in a survival situation results in injury and/or death

i reckon "the mad hatter" would approve

[bladeracer]

Do Cadets nowadays get to do any shooting though?
They were 20 yrs ago

Good to hear!

[bladeracer]

as well as general bushcraft , which leads to learning how to think with common sense. no common sense in a survival situation results in injury and/or death

Cadets is where I learned you don't need to entrench yourself to sleep in the bush, you can simply scoff some biscuits and lay down and close your eyes, you don't need swags and tents and fires and cooking and wifi.

I think we were blessed to have a crazy ex-Vietnam vet NCO as our training officer

[Oldbloke]

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/solom ... 5a9tr.html

Solomon Islands initials security deal with China, ignoring Australian protests

Singapore: Solomon Islands has initialled a security deal with Beijing, paving the way for China to take its first major stake in security in the Pacific and testing Australia’s century-long influence over the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele will now formally sign off on the deal after details of the draft agreement were ironed out on Thursday by officials from both sides.

Honiara’s Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet said in a statement on Thursday that officials have “initialled elements of a bilateral security cooperation framework” with China. The office said the government would continue to work with all partners “in providing a safe and secure nation where all people are able to co-exist peacefully”.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the agreement was “beyond reproach”.

“It is beneficial to social stability and lasting security of Solomon Islands and the common interest of regional countries,” he said.

But the imminent signing of the deal is a firm rejection of days of lobbying from Australian and New Zealand to reconsider and a failure of decades of engagement with the Pacific region. China will now be elevated alongside Australia as Honiara’s major partner less than three years after Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China.

The draft agreement will allow Chinese navy ships and defence forces to be based in Solomon Islands to protect billions of dollars in Chinese infrastructure investment in the developing country. The deal followed protests and riots in November in which Chinese buildings in Honiara were attacked.

‘Doomed to fail’: China brushes off last-minute pleas from Australia over Solomons security deal
“Solomon Islands reiterate that the framework of cooperation is to respond to Solomon Islands’ soft and hard domestic threats,” the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet said. “Solomon Islands continue to roll out the implementation of its national security strategy and uphold its foreign policy of friends to all and enemies to none.”

Lieutenant General Greg Bilton, the Australian Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations, told reporters in Canberra on Thursday that any stationing of Chinese navy vessels in the Pacific nation would “change the calculus” for Australia’s defence forces.

“We would change our patrolling patterns and our maritime awareness activities,” he said.

Honiara, the capital, is less than 2000 kilometres from Australia’s east coast. Solomon Islands is a key strategic point in the Pacific, providing access to shipping lanes from Australia and New Zealand up through Asia. The presence of Chinese navy ships would drain Australian defence resources and potentially cut off supply lines in the event of a conflict.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta urged Solomon Islands to remember their contributions to the Pacific in the days before the deal was signed.

But Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare described their warnings about China’s intentions in the region as “nonsense” in a speech to Parliament this week, arguing that they had been consumed by “geopolitical and ideological hatred”.

“The time has come for nation-states to face the realities about all the nonsense we are made to believe,” he said.

China has militarised three islands in the disputed South China Sea and flown hundreds of warplanes toward Taiwan’s airspace over the past year.

Sogavare explicitly linked Chinese investment in the nation’s infrastructure to the proposed security deal and suggested Beijing would be given the right to protect its investments by force.

“Lack of development, especially in major infrastructure in our provinces continues to plague us. Lack of development leads to security issues,” he said. “That affects our national security.”

Defence Minister Peter Dutton said China had targeted Australia, Japan and India.

“I mean this all adds up to a course of conduct that China’s embarking on,” he said on Thursday. “The aggression that we’re seeing in the South China Sea, the military presence now in 20 points in the South China Sea, the East China Sea activities against Japan, are all deeply concerning.”

Dutton said Australia did not believe it is in the best interests of Honiara to be engaging in an exercise that could lead to a military presence in Solomon Islands.

“Frankly, I think that’s the view of many of the neighbours and others within the Indo‑Pacific, and we’ve been very clear about that,” he said.

[bigrich]

as well as general bushcraft , which leads to learning how to think with common sense. no common sense in a survival situation results in injury and/or death

Cadets is where I learned you don't need to entrench yourself to sleep in the bush, you can simply scoff some biscuits and lay down and close your eyes, you don't need swags and tents and fires and cooking and wifi.

I think we were blessed to have a crazy ex-Vietnam vet NCO as our training officer

i guess crazy depends on your point of view . in order to survive in extreme or warlike situations , decisions would need to be made that go against "normal" suburban/politically correct rational views . ukrainians would know all about that sadly . as did people in singapore/stalingrad 80 years ago . seems ironic that russians are creating stalingrad type conditions in ukrainian cities now

[Oldbloke]

Lol. Go Bob.

https://youtu.be/pWyn77B6hjY

[Bill]

Old Bob sure does know how to entertain but Im not so sure his Aboriginal Lebanese heritage is one of his strengths.

and I reckon Bob is no less corrupt than any of the city based Pollies

[str8shutr]

Bob Nutter.

For average Joe Public, I'd expect that after viewing Bob's delivery on Sky then they would walk away with that perception.

I think his downfall is partly delivery and partly the factual basis that he levers off.

The delivery is sketchy especially when he has to manoeuvre on the fly when he's called out with a fact check. If you're going to make sweeping generalisations about historical use of firearms in schools in a public setting, then at least work from a firm basis and point to verifiable facts.

I went to a school that had a 25 m rifle range on the grounds. I went there back in the eighties. The school is located about 5 km from the Brisbane CBD. The school had a rifle club and the range was operated on Friday afternoons after school where 22LR rifles were used. Based on the school's advertised extra-curricular activities list, rifle shooting doesn't feature now. I don't know when it was taken off the list.

The point of recounting that personal history is that with a thoughtful approach, this sort of thing could be an option based on the evidence of what has been done before. The risk management practices would need a thorough going over to make it work but it could be done. The issues of cost and community acceptance / motivation would be significant matters to address.

From the Sky clip, Bob states that "at the age of 12 I was given a giant 303 rifle as big as I was at the time". Well if he was, great. At a practical level, and in my view, that's unlikely to be sensibly managed (just in terms of physical strength and ergonomics) by a significant proportion of kids at that age.

Katter's policy statements don't articulate or expand on his thought bubble, so there's an apparent lack of definition of what his vision actually entails. If he'd been smart about it, he could have set out in writing a meaningful plan and stepped through the points on air. He didn't so, I'd expect that he won't sway the thinking of anyone with neutral views on the subject.

That's a shame because the past has shown that there is validity in the risks to peace and security arising from complacency. For example, Churchill held an opposing view as a voice in the wilderness in the 1930s: Warnings about Germany. It was only when the sh1t hit the fan that he was welcomed back to the political fold with open arms.

Shining a light on national defence and the mechanisms to achieve it is a useful function of opposition and independent parties. Especially for our situation when $5.5 billion has been written off over upgrades to our submarine fleet (to name just one recent example). If delivery of high tech alternatives are years away, then it's not unreasonable to ask how to fill the gap on a beer budget using the skills and abilities of our population as a back up plan. It's like any kind of insurance, you pay a premium without the desire to make a claim. However, when the time comes to draw down on the insurance, that's when you find out whether you've ticked off the right coverage items in the policy schedule.

I'm not convinced that Australia has itself covered but we need people like Bob to draw that out and sensibly integrate proposals for firearm education initiatives into that political dialogue. Unfortunately, I reckon he fell short on this occasion.

[str8shutr]

Here's Bob on 7:
https://7news.com.au/politics/federal-politics/bob-katter-says-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-justification-to-give-aussie-boys-guns-c-6289139
... watch the vid. Again, doesn't use the opportunity to present a clear case that would sway anyone sitting on the fence. I'd prefer to see him take the time to map out his thoughts in writing and then talk about it. That would at least present a rationale to consider. I think my prior use of the term "thought bubble" is appropriate.

If he's taking lessons/inspiration from Ukraine then I'd suggest he understands the gender situation in the field:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/women-of-ukraine-fight-back-how-theyre-revolutionizing-the-role-of-women-in-war/ar-AAVtnBH
and not the parade ground:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/03/idiotic-fury-in-ukraine-after-female-soldiers-made-to-march-in-heels

[str8shutr]

As a follow up for info, Education Queensland, works to these guidelines:
https://education.qld.gov.au/curriculum/stages-of-schooling/CARA/activity-guidelines/shooting-sports

So, there's a wheel there. Bob, don't reinvent it. Add another 3, build a chassis and put an engine in it.

[womble]

Thanks str8shutr. Bear in mind the media does like to ridicule him and they can edit to that effect.
He also does have a tendency to parody himself and his own public image.
But he does have some old school qualities with never a bad word to say about anyone and amazing people skills.
Sad sign of the times that younger interviewers and the media can be so disrespectful to his generation. They should listen more.
He can tell a tall tale and entertain, but he has a message. Just his way of getting it out there.

[bigrich]

Thanks str8shutr. Bear in mind the media does like to ridicule him and they can edit to that effect.
He also does have a tendency to parody himself and his own public image.
But he does have some old school qualities with never a bad word to say about anyone and amazing people skills.
Sad sign of the times that younger interviewers and the media can be so disrespectful to his generation. They should listen more.
He can tell a tall tale and entertain, but he has a message. Just his way of getting it out there.

Well said and good assessment womble. Talking of making a parody of himself, he used to pose for photographs wearing his big white hat and reflecto sunnies. Makes quite a impression. For all the wrong reasons as far as lefty city dwellers go but

[womble]

Uk’s army cadet force https://youtu.be/QYTsYq37Dtk