More Of The Same Yet Different

Hello and welcome to the blog and a brief apology for some unpleasant venting in yesterday's post, but I don't retract the meat of the matter...(so you're taking back the angry gravy but the Roast remains-Ed)...exactly...all day I'd heard a bunch of stuff around the Child Abuse Royal Commission and their latest hearing in Toowoomba, and some of the faux mia culpas coming from the Principal, etc...and I'm in no better mood today...

I was just deeply angered to see him talking around how he had 'spoken' to the teacher who refuted all allegations, and was then re-employed...(and who was the woman who criticised the kids for not having "the courage" to come forward...she was actually blaming the kids for not exposing the man who was assaulting them...no wonder you get angry-Ed)...she was the school's Counsellor or some such...what an extraordinary thing to say.

In the Teachers Registration Board hearing (March 2003-Nov 2004) it was teacher Glyn Dorling's 'explanation'/excuse' that the many physical contacts he admitted with the 7 year old children, were occurring because the children forced themselves on him and he couldn't control them (paraphrase of his testimony)...commit acts of gross psychological manipulation and physical impropriety against 7 year old kids from a position of absolute power, and then when you get caught, blame them.

And the TRB accepted that 'defense' and exonerated him...(mate, he could have said 'because I felt like it' and the TRB would have cleared him because that's exactly what they set out to do, starting day 1 in March 2003-Ed)...yeah, fair enough...

I'll go further and say that it doesn't make me angry so much as deeply traumatised, and I try to deflect some of that trauma with anger...I refuse to let it all get through to me by throwing some of it back...there are just so many similarities between this case and the St Martin's case...in Toowoomba, if the appropriate authorities had dealt with it properly, a dozen 8-10 year old girls would not have been abused...Glyn Dorling was already being protected by the Lutherans after several years of multiple complaints, when they put him in a classroom with our 7 year old children.

Just in case I hadn't mentioned it, I carry enormous guilt about seeing Glyn Dorling in the middle of his "Christian Cuddles" regime one morning in May 2002 and failing to recognise that for what it was, meaning that the abuses continued for another 2-3 weeks...and that guilt has only been multiplied by my failure to resolve the St Martins Issue...but to have it identified to you and then allow it to continue, as Principal John Alexander did at St Martins, and as the Principal did at the Toowoomba school, that's just bastardry, that is true insanity.

And yesterday I took a healthy slice of that guilt and poured it in to an angry post about some of the people I hold responsible...(that's a very sloppy pie if you can pour a slice-Ed)...shhh...perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps it is wrong to blame some of the people I do for what I consider to be their involvement in the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up...but try as I might it keeps coming back to the same thing in the same place, my opinion is irrelevant because the reality defines itself. 

And so today more of the same re the subject matter but a different approach in that I'd like to discuss how wrong I might be about any number of things...but first quickly...despite my several pages of notes, I don't have a particular commentary re the Leaders Debate from earlier this week because I found it wholly without passion and Regional South Australia barely rated a mention...in fact, if the question of Regional services was not raised by interviewer/moderator Chris Uhlmann, I don't think the wondrous land of Notadelaide would have even got a mention..

As per usual, my deep cynicism drove me from any hope of belief or optimism and I struggled to stay focused on the debate, to stay with the herd...plans and promises and visions and versions of events...call me a cynic, but it looked like a 'gentleman's agreement' to go easy on each other...through-out the whole thing, in the back of my mind, I could hear Rob Lucas bleating about how there was nothing the Liberals could do to embarrass the Labor government over the St Martins Issue...

And nothing improves my mood more than the petty point-scoring politic that is currently being played out in Mt Gambier when all of these learned scribes and orators are by any definition culpable in the St Martins Cover-up...(and readers, can I just point out that he's very much aware of just how much the St Martins Issue continues to dominate his life-Ed)...thankyou Ed, you don't need to apologise on my behalf, I can do it for myself...but I digress...  
  
For The Record: for all I know there is absolutely no connection between Rory McEwen and Grant King and the $20million Seaweed Harvesting deal (near Kingston SE) recently announced, or even if they are involved that there's any impropriety, but I do trust my information as being genuine...and my personal experience of Rory and Grant greatly colour my opinion of anything they might be involved in.

However, if there is any truth at all in the situation as it was 'alleged' to me, there are questions to be asked and duly answered...I understand that the main issue, regardless of who is/isn't involved, is that the profits from that project are in-appropriately going into private hands with virtually no recompense for the community...I would suggest that the seaweed is a public asset, and that it is not irresponsible to look at this as the potential misappropriation of public funds.

I will endeavour to pursue this issue as best I can so as to present an accurate reportage and post in the near future...

I'm going to pull stumps here, it's 2050hrs and I'm knackered...(oh, but quickly, an important public notice-Ed)...oh yes?...(the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission has issued a warning about the many state Liberal shadow-ministers and their federal government colleagues who have been in the South East recently-Ed)...the ACCC issued a warning...are you sure?...(yeah I heard the bloke from the ACCC on the radio stating that consumers needed to "beware of travelling con-men'-Ed)...

Hilarious, and nearly as funny as the burgeoning vacuum where the Labor campaign should be...(taboomtish-Ed)...strewth, who writes this material?...anyway, I don't know which is worse, a flood of Liberals or a Labor drought?...and sorry, there was a genuine ACCC warning about people trying to sell 'left-over bitumen' and taking the money and not completing the work.

Tomorrow: A Maher Trifecta

Former Labor candidate Viv, and current candidates Jim (seat of Mt Gambier) and Kyam (Upper House) were all in the media today, all in my face today...(well, Kyam was in your ears which technically aren't  part of your face-Ed)...finished?...(yep-Ed)...and there's always the counter-point of contradiction from the Liberal party...(yay for everyone-Ed)...yes, yay...

I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...

PS: Apologies for short, partly disjointed post but I pulled a chunk of script at the last minute following advice...cheers, Nick.