There has been some amazing great story's come out of the floods. But there are also the ones that will never be told because in this country we tolerate idiots in government jobs and no one wants to point the finger in case it somehow blows up in their face.
Sorry, but at my age, I have become totally disenchanted and someone needs to tell it like it is, so I will start the ball rolling. Please join with me to lift the lid on idiots with uniforms.
Take Qld transport. In Dalby district.
Dalby hit the news with a record flood in the Condamine River that damaged the water treatment plant. And water needed to be trucked in in the middle of floods. Truck drivers worked hard to get us water.
Officers from Qld Transport booked drivers for so called over
loading.......... what Idiots. Who pays? It'll get squashed and probably has already, but what a waste of resources at a time when manpower was critical.
Farmers crossing a road with a tractor to feed starving, flooded stock were pulled up, the tractor measured, and they were booked because it was slightly wide. Not only that, they were forced to leave the tractor and go to town to get an over wide permit before they could move it back into the farm. And this happened on an already closed road where the farmer was the only person around. Except for the idiots.
These are not rumors. They are facts. This morning, I was booked for
driving down a closed road to check livestock that were reported out on the road and, at the same time, pick up my employee who had walked over the bridge to come to work. My house happens to be 50 m past the road closed sign, so apparently I cannot even go in and out my gate. I tried to reason amicably with 2 idiots. Of course I got more than a little agitated when they refused to let me down the road to my farm. As a result they pulled a tape recorder, so I made sure that it recorded their stupidity. I even had to insist that they returned my driver's license. I'll definitely win the court battle as my employee witnessed the whole affair. But what a waste of time and resources.
Over the last 3 weeks, there have been Qld Transport officers stationed outside our farm booking innocent locals for about 8 days. 2 guys sit in a vehicle with the engine idling and hazard lights on 24/7. That would be 3 shifts, plus motel and other costs. Now most of these guys were reasonable people. I had to chat with them every time I went out my gate. Some were idiots like my experience this morning. But the real idiots in this case are the people who sent them out here to guard an obviously flooded and closed road. And never bothered to check when the water went down, and left them there. We, the taxpayers, pay them to be there and also pay fines for trying to get on with our lives in tough times.
Wrote the above in the hour before I went to Brisbane to help clean up the mess in our flooded premises there. While in Brisbane I was told a true story about the truck drivers delivering food to Gympie. As happens in times of desperate need, trucks rolled out of the Brisbane warehouses stacked with as much as they could get in. After all, the media was screaming for food for Gympie. Queensland Transport then intercepted the trucks and fined the drivers for overloading.
What Senior Idiot in Qld Transport decided that he could solve Queensland's financial crisis by fining drivers? And sent dozens of men out to embarrass the Government when they could have been helping people in need.
And did you hear about the farmer who was ferrying food and other essentials for himself and neighbors across the flooded Condamine.
Well, the SES and Police decided that was their job. Apparently it is illegal for us farmers to even launch our boats to help ourselves or rescue our livestock. So they sent him home after warning him that if he continued to help, they would prosecute. As he was putting his boat back on his trailer on the other side of the river, he heard horns blowing and looked back to where he had been sent away from. There were the professional idiots, in the middle of the river, sinking. And, as we normal citizens are stupid, he had to re-launch his boat and go back and rescue them.
Apparently they had forgotten to put the plugs in the bottom of the boat and their training had not taught them how to simply put them in after they discovered it and then how to bail the boat out. He should have let them drown. That would be called "natural selection". But again, they had been sent out with an attitude rather than real training. So who is at fault? Need I answer that?
As I said at the start, there have been many, many great deeds by the vast majority of people, but when a society gets to the point that ordinary people are stopped from helping each other and are forced into submission by bureaucrats, Where are we going?
Please add your story's and keep this going. somehow, we have to reverse the stupidity that makes our nation the dumbest in the modern world.
Our great grandfathers would be appalled.
And if any of you have the personal emails of any Politician, or Media people, please make sure they get a copy.
Hon Craig Wallace M P. Minister For Main Roads mainroads@ministerial.qld.gov.au
hi, my name is robert ellem.
i found this post on a site that i visit and i find it very disturbing. can you inform me of the validity of this statement as i find it hard to believe that any government department could act like this in times like qld is going through at the moment. i will be watching mr briggs case with great interest and the outcome of that case will have a big bearing on how a lot of people may vote in future elections. hoping to hear from at the earliest possible date. sincerely r ellem
This is only the tip of the iceberg, as I am sure there are likewise stories in abundance accross the country... There is always some jumped up half brained manager that will be stupid and thoughtless enough to order such idiocracy.
As for emailing the PTB (Powers That Be) it is a waste of bandwidth emailing Wallace, as the orders came from him to start with....he is an oxygen thief almost as bad as that idiocratic Peter Linsay when he was there.
Enough from my peanut gallery....
To all that have been affected may your recovery be swift and effortless, may all you crops revive to provide a bumper harvest and may your bankers be infested with happiness and disregard for your debts.
Hoo Roo Happy Days Grumps
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Leave only footprints - Take only photographs
LEAVE THE PLACE IN A BETTER CONDITION THAN YOU FOUND IT !!!
Just saw on Vic news, last Saturday a speed camera was set up and nabbing drivers as they escaped from the floods in the Pakenham area. There was no other way out and they all had to go that particular way in a hurry. B...........s.!!
Not quite in the same league, but how about the Property owner in the Stanage Bay area, who has been charged by Rocky Council after using his own machinery to repair the road, at his own expense, [around $4,000] with "Trespassing [on a public road ?] and altering the road without Authorisation."
The road was so bad, that a neighbour had to walk his cattle quite a distance down the road, to this mans' property, as it was in too bad condition to allow trucks in to load them for market.
Beaurocrats can be so bloody stupid.
Cheers, Sheba.
-- Edited by Sheba on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 07:40:37 PM
-- Edited by Sheba on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 10:05:23 PM
I had heard that someone from up that way was rather vocal about how much attention Brisbane was getting and they were faltering, even though the smaller town was worse off. Allegedly he was told to button his lip or be charged with public mischief for inciting bad feeling.
Don't know how true it was but I thought it sucked.
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I must be a binge thinker. I do it a lot at times, then, not much at all.
A few weeks ago, before the big floods, a cousin of mine out Cunnamulla way was very vocal on facebook about people saying, go away rain. Apparently they've had none out there, and badly need it. They had a fire burn out 16,000 acres. Fences and feed was lost, but no stock, luckily.
Sheba, the one you mention was on Todaytonight tonight. You wonder about the mentality of shire councils.
Was in todays paper with the floods at Rochy, The safe place was in the west and nothing in the east on other side of the river and no way of getting across.
Well it was the same here in Echuca when the floods went through. The only safe place for evacuees was over the west side of the Campaspe, if the bridge had gone and no way over, 3/4 of the town would have no where to go for a safe shelter. They should have had the East School or something similiar ready to use.
These power surges by some volunteers and public servants are just too stupid, even life-threatening, to be believable, but believe them I do. The SES vollies do a remarkable job, but there are a few which get carried away with their perceived importance when they put that uniform on. It's very sad really. Heroes in uniform. As for these pubic serpents, you think they'd be required to give a progress report every day as part of their "policing" duties, so their authorities could instruct them to go home. Now that would be common sense, but as we all know, in the pubic service common sense is not all that common. Preying on the suffering of others seems to be the order of the day. Instead of ensuring their safety, and applauding the efforts and initiative of the locals, they are getting stung for bending the rules in these circumstances. It's all crazy. Authority has gone mad and above and beyond the actual call of duty, to justify their existence. Haven't these people suffered enough? Now they have to face prosecutions and fines at the hands of over-qualified idiots.
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20ft Roma caravan - Mercedes Benz Sprinter - SA-based at the moment. Transport has no borders.
Management makes the decisions, but is not affected by the decisions it makes.
