Left’s biased compassion
I MUST admit I’m hooked.
Anybody who drives 2000km to go fishing – as I am about to do, yet again – is at the very least an enthusiastic angler.
Living in Townsville, it is not as if you have to go far.
There are the rock walls at the port, the granite headland at Pallarenda or a host of coastal creeks and rivers to choose from.
But if I’m mad about the road trip then so too are my companions, dear friends all.
We have a contingent of seven this time who are going fishing in the wilds of the Northern Territory.
Cars, boats and a tangle of tackle will be loaded up and carted across the Never Never.
Every two years a fishing adventure is held, always to some remote location.
It seems the more remote the better – but this is debatable.
This year we are returning to a speck on the map in the western corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria to fish on the McArthur River.
Borroloola is the main town in an area where terrible massacres of Aboriginal people occurred during early European settlement.
It is a long way from anywhere, which is probably why the fishing is so good.
But it does attract a lot of people in the winter months.
On a previous trip we witnessed a large family group, settlers from Cambodia, we understand, living in huts in the mangroves and catching mud crabs for a living.
I can only think how difficult a life that must be.
There are a lot of large crocodiles and the sand flies swarm at sunrise and sunset.
At night sitting in a houseboat where the depth in the river reaches surprisingly to more than 20m it resembles a scene from Life of Pi.
Schools of bait fish are attracted by the light, enticing predators like the prehistoric looking giant tarpon and the barramundi.
Above you is a swirl of stars from horizon to horizon.
Here you can let the worries of the world ebb away. WITH all the kids now coming off Nauru, will the “compassionate” Left turn its attention to the suffering here at home? Don’t hold your breath. There’s no excuse for their silence with two more stark reminders about the struggles kids who are out of sight and out of mind of the innercity people who use their voice to tweet and march about almost anything else than this.
For the first time in 18 years a baby has been born with syphilis. This is an entirely treatable, and more importantly, avoidable condition.
In the past couple of years, according to the health department, there are 887 cases in the Northern Territory and 196 in Western Australia, 184 in Queensland and 44 in South Australia.
Most shockingly there have been 15 cases where infected mothers pass it on to their unborn children with a heartbreaking seven babies dying.
These numbers made no impact on the news with virtually no coverage bar a single story on the ABC’s website.
The second jolt of reality came late in the week when Territory Families confirmed they undertook 10,448 investigations last financial year.
There were at least 2366 confirmed cases of child abuse.
Even worse was their admission that 22 per cent of cases investigated were left alone only for the same child to be the victim of more abuse in the next 12 months. Last year that number was 17 per cent.
Again, virtually nothing in the media. Nothing on Twitter and nothing on TV. The moral Left are selective at best about what they care and campaign about.
They just do not want to engage with the reality of what happens far away from the cities. Instead they complain about Australia Day.
ScoMo respects region
MUCH will be made of Malcolm Turnbull’s appearance on the ABC next week. He will be welcomed with open arms despite leading an attack on their news people that led to the managing director and chairman losing their jobs.
They will get the leather jacket version of Turnbull who will claim the evil conservatives who won in a landslide in 2013 stopped him being the PM he intended to be.
Of course this is not true. He rode high in the polls for months and squandered his chance to lead. His record was losing 14 seats and plunging the Government into a oneseat majority that he went on to destroy by leaving the parliament.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Scott Morrison will answer questions from regional Australians when he appears with me in Townsville on Sky News on Wednesday night.
This was an opportunity I personally offered to Turnbull when he was PM last year, but he chose to ignore those people.
Morrison deserves credit, not because he’s coming on Sky News, but because he wants to look Townsville locals in the eye.
The media will play their favourites, but you be the judge of who really cares about you.