PART ONE
(of three)
Here in
you will find some
CURIOUS NOTES BEGINING WITH SOME MODERN HISTORY OF 'THE BYRON SHIRE'
(and other peoples, places, events intwined or otherwise concerned)
in which i bitch and complain and rave on with fragile incoherrence
about the politics, the agents and the illuminati and the capitalism and the real estate,
and capitalist mind control promoted by the American military industrial control complex(and its tendrilous webs) that gets sold as modern media and entertainment.
The manipulation, the devices and control.
The covert facsism.
..In which i digress back into history
(with the aid of artificial intelligence for the first time)
in order to make certain points,
but become concerned with issues other than the ones I was initially intending to comment upon, which then, seem to elude me entirely.
I make analogies between certain events and comic books that were surfacing around the same points in time space consciousness.
I start raving on about politics.
Australian, American politics and war and language.
And Australian history and mind control.
But
Such is life
Just as no story can have any definitive begging or end
but is the result of causes and events which can be traced back indefinitely through time and space
an endless chain of dominoes and webs of cause and effect
and no object, event or being can be observed in isolation but is the temporal product of a chain web of numerous other events and objects and beings
And thus itself becomes an effect, a cause influencing future beings events and occurrences
all intertwined together in impermanent cross hatched web of connected threads
moving through time and space
being acted upon by time and space
And by the American industrial military mind control entertainment and information complex.
'.......AND
When all of space has been dominated and controlled by war and manipulation and capitalist real estate and time is all consumed and controlled because of the cost of living(rent) the
the last frontier of control being the industrialization of consciousness
the engineering of the imagination.
Language is discussed as a medium for manipulation
rather than as a tool for communication or as a medium for learning.
but as a tool to disguise covert fascism.
Would we rather ear bash someone with our own dogma, manipulate and subvert their opinions to match that of our own or try and listen and empathize and learn from what the communicator is trying to express to us?
Certain points in time where the American military complex crosses over with the entertainment media complex are observed and discussed.
The infiltration and manipulation of our society by a highly trained clandestine cabal of capitalist agents is lamented upon.
A brotherhood united by greed, wealth, exploitation and control.
Certain re occurring themes are discussed
The simplification of the conflict being a battle freedom of will versus control
And control goes incognito.
The art of manipulating events without being noticed.
The manipulation of the human soft machine to perform tasks for a clandestine cabal of capitalist controllers.
The human senses being the obvious inputs for the industrial control complex to program the meat drones.
Operated by unseen architects of the industrial hive mind.
The colonization of the continent of Australia is discussed and observed as a potent reference point and much clashing of cultures is observed.
Many historical and contempory quotes are referenced but i neglect to record the sources
I cut and paste many articles and perhaps could have gone deeper in my research, but time is short.
many deceased persons are mentioned
Many links to read further on 'consciousness control' are added.
I rave on about historical indigenous borders on which it is possibly none of my business to comment
The first fleet being like a barrage of bullets shot toward a dystopian future, transcendental entropic nuclear explosion of self as to opposed to communities moving within the cycles of nature.
It will be seen that the indigenous cultures were not really respected but lied to and manipulated with subterfuge and false promises.
That the boat people from Europue did not learn from or appreciate what existed prior to their arrival.
But were an invading paradigm or capitalist exploitation and
cost effective control; the greatest profit, the least expenses in the shortest time frame.
Like the second fleet.
And much of history is ignored or glossed over.
A soft machine society of microwave fleshbots and meat drones industrializing Gondwana.
And so consumed in this process we do not even realize what affect we have on our surroundings.
And the grinding mills of samsara become clogged up with grumpy old souls.
Bad karma pays the bills.
The byron shire being a good example of this conflict this clashing of cultures; historically being a famous meeting place for indigenous peoples for, at least, tens of thousands of years
And into contempary times the most expensive place to live in Australia
commercially advertised as one of the most desirable.
A place where one might want to take a 'vacation'
A place where the rich and famous might want to take a vacation.
And not have their expensive holidays disturbed or spoiled by riff raff.
To become the illumanatti resort that it is today.
Do we want to live in a capitalist cost effective mercenary society or a society which strives toward wisdom and learning and compassion?
Is wisdom and compassion a luxury in a survivalist environment?
Are CIA world police implementing covert ''Pax Americana'' policies, destabilizing global society on all levels to intentionally create a survivalist environment?
Human cloning and certain camouflaged alien breeding programs are eluded towards,
a clandestine cabal of capitalist controllers are named and accused:
The fucking germans in America.
Some of the Cia's experiments and projects in controlling consciousness are discussed.
I sincerely apologize for my garrulous incoherence and my grim disposition and prosaic decoupaged repetitive ineloquence.
For a desensitized bleak undercurrent, a grim humor which pervades these grim tomes when I am discussing things that are not at all funny but are in fact terrible dystopian atrocities.
I can only say this is a reaction to grim and ridiculous nature of the events discussed and the characters instigating them.
This is actual the third time I've tried to write this as it keeps disappearing getting or deleted
either due to my own absent minded ness or external influences
...or perhaps it was one of their psychic super soldiers sitting behind from the base near the old indigenous camp near the library in Coffs Harbor.
And I will probably continue to add to the text some threads I accidently deleted.
i can not be certain
where the divide is
in any case they are watching
i hope you learn something from taking the time to process these words perhaps i noticed somethings which others did not.
THE CONTROL VIRUS
''Cook’s logs and diaries, along with the journals of botanist Joseph Banks, provide the earliest written European accounts of the Australian coastline. Throughout their voyage up the coast, they frequently recorded seeing columns of smoke inland, which Cook accurately recognized as a "certain sign that the Country is inhabited" ''On May 15, 1770, Captain James Cook sailing north along the Australian coast in the Endeavour passed and named Cape Byron. In his log, Cook recorded the location and described the notable sharp-peaked mountain lying inland from the point. He named the prominent feature in honor of Captain John Byron'' ''Joseph Banks, botanist on Endeavour, records sighting aboriginal people in his journal of 15 May, “…..we observed them with glasses for near an hour during which time they walked upon the beach and then up a path over a gently sloping hill, behind which we lost sight of them. Not one was observed to stop and look toward the ship: they pursued their way….”
''Captain James Cook first sighted and named Cape Byron on May 15, 1770, but it wasn’t until 1828 that European explorers Capt. Henry Rous and William Johns made the first recorded white landing. Rous’s crew mapped the area, identifying The Pass (Currenba) as a prime anchorage spot''
The iconic Cape Byron Lighthouse is a frequent subject for local tattoos. This imagery blends with the town's broader cultural reputation; there are many well-known groups referred to as cults that feature "Lighthouse" in their names, Byron Bay has historically attracted spiritual groups, alternative lifestyles, and high-control or "cult-like" communities due to its alternative roots. Cape Byron Lighthouse itself is a famous heritage-listed landmark, the surrounding bushland has been the epicenter of several high-profile disappearances, investigations, and new-age groups. a controversial life-coaching organization called the "Lighthouse International Group" was exposed by the BBC. Though originally based in the UK, the group attracted international devotees before facing mass resignations, allegations of family estrangement, and subsequent legal actions.
Do you, or does anyone you know have mysterious stories about missing time and weird light house tattoos appearing on their epidermis's without remembering how it got there? Walgun is the very crest of the headland, where the Cape Byron Lighthouse now sits, is traditionally known as "the shoulder". It provided Bundjalung people with an elevated 360-degree view and is reported to have been a significant site for men's ceremonies, lore-making, and initiation. Unfortunately, some ceremonial sites were destroyed during the construction of the lighthouse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
AR$EHOLE$
We got illumanatti cia agents watching incarnations like warlock monks, herding the homogenized brain damaged human cattle onto the production line in the factory of eternal doom at worlds end. They've expanded their big cia illumanati spy schools from sea world and the gold coast across the border and they seem to have developed and enhanced techniques of inducing trauma and anxiousness.
They infiltrate services; government media even health food shops and homeless camps.
Tax payer funded non lethal weapons.
I guess they have to protect all those ugly expensive CIA properties and resorts they put on land stolen off the Bunjalung-also occasionaly pronounced Gunja-lungs tribes.
When the CIA showed up in byron park and began buying up the real estate and selling, even giving hard drugs to the homeless back in the nineties. They established some of their military complex trained psychics in mansions at Wategoes.
They infiltrate national parks and the headland becomes Cape Byron marine park and everyone is like "i cant believe that place wasn't protected already isn't great that national parks are looking after it"
Not if your one of the few surviving people indigenous to that area who hasn't been shot or pushed off cliffs, taken away by some shadey government department, or just expired with depression at all the heinous, manipulative disrespectful practices suddenly surrounding them; with a small relatively happy camp in an old traditional place.
Going into town for a drink at night and finding some common ground with the alternate nineties hippies who flooded the area.
But tourism is here and the commercial mind control movie industry is coming, and the American military industrial complex psychics surround/escort the media like an unseen shadow. Those big rich loud American movie agents seem to like the orbicular beam of the light house, I suppose it reminds them of a premier movie showing in Hollywood or something.
I guess if your a movie agent every night is like a premier movie night if you live near the light house.
Money and arseholes.
Since 1990's that light house has been emanating some very sinister and disturbing photons.
I have extremely well founded suspicions that it became an illumanatti programing station(like a giant antennae emitting charged photons) used by the American military psychic agents to program the Australian entertainment industry.
So national parks, in the mid nineties, again infiltrated by professional CIA agents chase them out of their camps on the headland to make way for the likes of Paul Hogan.
''Im a mega rich and famous Australian film star I can play a bogan or a red neck''
They cut the tracks around Byron Headland and Broken head with black budget psychically trained cia agents organized by Col Alexander. They want the prime real estate, to start a little Hollywood and being the furthest easterly point in Australia its also (geographically speaking) a kind of military position so they spoil sacred places and chase indigenous people away from their power sites.
And lots of those agents end up moving to suffolk park.
Suffocating farts
anyway the place populates with sell out agents.
watching.
manipulating
Mr Hogans most famous early project: the Leyland brothers was an ill disguised covert CIA operation: illumanatti black magic film posse tracing ley lines around Australia stopping at sites, power sites and promoting tourism.
Watching gathering information.
Spreading the control virus.
The great pioneer of the Winnebago warriors and the American perspective of the australian out back.
A massive inspiration for generations of Australians to buy great expensive chunks of metal jacked up on thick black rubber with giant bumper bars and marsupial hypnotizing high beams welded to the front (dug out of the ground in australia manufactured in asia) and take off into the outback in them.
Much of the metal from those bygone eras sits out there rusting back into the ground not that far from where it was initially dug.
CIA Illuminati agents always move with those commercial film crews.
They've learnt to do mind control with film from the studies they do in their black budget psychic control programs.
The CIA are like that, they give little signs like they are trying to gauge how smart you are and how much it takes you to crack you.
The mans name was Hogan(like the wrestler) not Leyland nor were the two agents in the range rover brothers, and after Crocadile dundee and throwing too many dead babies on the barby the CIA Illumanatti, tourism conglomerate set him up at the end of one of the biggest song lines in Australia.
That man buying property at Wategoes and the beach hotel was accompanied by the prescence of the most terrible CIA agents in town.(incidently this coincided with operation peacock in central tasmania)
And the illumanatti purchase of nimbin hotel.
Maybe agents like that just show up and you have no choice.
But the kind of agents that showed up would seem to indicate he was a fascist republican.
Probably worse than John Wayne.
Perhaps an illumanatti alien blow up doll.
Like he went to America after crocodile Dundee and got way too friendly with some horrific republican redneck reptiles.
Working with the CIA.
COLONizing
BYRON
pretty annoying one day
illumanatti psychic torture the next.
''throw another shrimp on the barby was part of tourist campaign aimed at getting Americans to visit the Australian out back and makes absolutely no reference at all to the time Col Jon Alexander spent working in the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital near Saigon with Dr Loyd H Cutter or in any other secret black budget mind control labs he has been involved with subsequently''
After the commercial success of the crocodile Dundee films there was a rumor Mr Hogan had a fall out with Mr Gullipilil over the lucrative royalties that kept flowing in after the movie left the box office.
i bet that Gullipilil threatened to sing Hogan black magic over not getting paid enough or get one of his uncles to.
In fact he would from time to time boast of his ability to sing up 'gins'.
So Hogan, being fearful surrounds himself with cia black magic.
Perhaps Hogan was scared of a traditional lore man coming down from the northern territory or something.
Perhaps it was just part of his big tourism campaign and the influence of his new rich powerful american mates.
''There was a crocodile in the Lismore River known as Hector (though the crocodile was actually female). A small Johnston's River crocodile, she escaped from a traveling reptile show at the Lismore Showgrounds in 1966 or 1967. She spent about seven years living freely in the Wilsons River, becoming a beloved and locally famous part of North Coast folklore. Hector was occasionally spotted sunning herself on the muddy banks of the Wilsons River or even near the old Fredericks Meat Works in South Gundurimba. The local townspeople embraced her presence, often leaving food like sandwiches for her when she floated on the tide She mysteriously vanished following the devastating Lismore floods of 1974. Her disappearance sparked a wave of local concern and conspiracy theories, with the captain of the local tugboat (MV Florrie) famously speculating that she may have been murdered by vandals''.
Gets Col Jon Alexander and his illuminati world police to blast a few of their non lethal new world order frequencies around his mansion to keep the riff raff away.
But the kind of agents that showed up would seem to indicate he was hanging out with some pretty hardcore republican reptiles after the Crocodile Dundee movies and those big tourism contracts.
And council becomes seriously infiltrated by CIA agents, up until that time was still the descendents of the pioneer COLON-izers: the red neck masons who were already more than bad enough.
Mr Hogan employs Col John Alexander(men who stare at goats movie, non violent weapons, black budget government psychic programs, area 51, rambo, seriously he's done so much horrific shit, appeared in too many places simultaneously, either greys or the CIA must have made a clone out of him) to prepare the way for his new mansion.
Just note the honest joy and care free enthusiasm expressed by the colonel frolicking in those Vietnamese rice fields back in the early 1970's On his ''Holiday in Cambodia'' with his little rocket launcher pressed up against his heart a genuine joy that is not depicted in any of the other images of the august colonel
They come down from cia spy schools on the Gold Coast Sea world Fishermans wharf. the casinos Yatala . They establish some of their infamous 'Scott Jones's' around Cairns and far north Queensland.
Detesable contingents of trained agents going to some mansion at Wategoes.
Daas chain of trained "CIA clairvoyant cunts" agents like a psychic wall of doom control and oppression.
They watch and destablise. They have powerful military psychics watching over the globe that have told them some threat to their program might be coming from byron bay.
Some of these preparations seemed to include selling or even giving hard drugs to the homeless people. Imagine that; the CIA dude from "men who stare at goats" dressed up all new age wearing a ty died t shirt and sun glasses: selling meth amphetamine in the Byron main park in the nineties and no one really seems to notice.
In fact, the council and police seem to be complicit.
They even get homeless people addicted to amphetamine around their spy scools in the gold coast and bring them to byron with specific intent to spread the virus.
Trained army government cia psychics sit in cars in the parking lot whilst the desperate and addicted do their work for them.
This was before men who stare at goats was released I suppose.
And its kind of reckless and egotistical for an agent like that to go and make a big hollywood movie.
Especaily considering some of the criminal acts him and his illumanatti cia world agent police go around committing.
But this was before men who stares at goats came out and I read that he was doing the same shit over in Vietnam when he was giving orders as part of operation phoenix.
Even worse.
When the American's went back to Vietnam in secret and took Saigon and no one knew.
Amphetamines being an effective non lethal weapon they had had success with against the Vietnamese.
Getting the next generation of Vietcong soldiers on meth was an effective long term tactic.
it was easy and cheap to make and people became addicted and it fucked them up.
Made them go crazy do stupid shit, but best of all many would turn violent, do cruel things to those around them.
Others would rave on for days and send those around them crazy.
Even Jello Biafra sings of this phenomenon in the dead Kennedie's song 'Holiday in Cambodia' =' where the little kids ask for crack'
Because the American soldiers were giving it to them and intentionally getting them addicted to it.
One of their tactics
Not only that he has whole spy schools of the worst agents all around him.
Starts spy schools and cia hubs where ever he goes.
Conclusion: we must be absolutely surrounded
'' American influence and military intervention were primary catalysts for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. He detailed how secret U.S. bombings in the late 1960s and 1970s devastated Cambodia, subsequently enabling Pol Pot’s forces to seize power.'' '' a massive U.S. bombing campaign under President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger dropped over 100,000 tons of ordnance on the country. Kissinger infamously ordered "anything that flies on everything that moves". According to Pilger, this unprecedented aerial savagery destroyed the Cambodian countryside, pushing civilians toward a medievalist sect—the Khmer Rouge—and creating a desperate, war-torn apocalypse.'' ''The United States, alongside the United Nations and other Western allies, secretly funded and supplied Pol Pot's exiled forces in camps along the Thai border. Pilger claimed that this covert backing essentially facilitated the survival of the Khmer Rouge and created conditions where the "previously unthinkable" return of the regime was that was feared.''
Col Alexander(penguin alien lizard) shows up in the Byron main park one night in the 90's in a big chauffer driven silver CIA mobile with two facing back seats and call girls and some other agents after dinner at a fancy restaurant "poor people up that end of the beach" He calls out the back window, pointing to Belongil "you people are like animals" He then drives up to Wategos to celebrate some heinous real estate rort on sacred stolen land with horrific terrible lizards at one of those Wategos mansions.
{Id say he'd murdered at five six hundred people by his own hands by this time. Not including the mind control and torture jobs.}
[Nice work boys. No cadavers left in cars near Lithgow with bullets holes in their heads that no one wants to explain...anyway we still got the golf club over there and mostly everything else]
Masonic CIA builders construct Raes cafe from some very questionable recourses seems to include selling methamphetamine to the disadvantaged, human trafficking.
Sort of like Nugen Hand and Ocean Shores(open sores)
where did all those big expense marble slabs come from!
Mr Mustaka
I love u Australia
Professional clairvoyant sell out cia lizards congregate around there then go out into the shire watch and fuck with people.
Reptile conventions.
Infiltrate
They watch the big festivals and famous people and movie industry.
Money and mind control.
The illumanatti international police with agents visiting from all over the world(perhaps the universe) , remote viewing, hypnosis and psychic training.
And other agents watching.
You wouldn't recognize them.
And if you do they send out other agents you dont while your noticing the first ones
Systematic cia funded high tech black magic and non violent weapons.
Many people in the area start to have disturbing visions of grey aliens, things start to schism out, deplorable oblong headed edifices to lizard sky gods of doom (with loathsome agents peering out the darkened windows) burst up from the ground faster than psilocybes after a storm.
Where once a community used to be.
Property boom of doom sponsored by cia bush money.
Herds of capitalist agents invade like an organized mass migration.
The illumantti send them.
Someone should really take a good look at some of the money coming into the Byron shire council at this time (in the mid-nineties around the time Mr. Hogan gets his Wategos mansion)
Gurenbaa or the pass is located just below the lighthouse, this sheltered area was a major gathering place and special home base for Bunjalung people. It features an ancient shell midden (a mound of cooked shells and archaeological debris) and campsite that is estimated to be over 1,000 to 1,500 years old.
''For thousands of years prior, The Pass was an important, sacred campsite for the local Bunjalung people. Early white accounts and diaries primarily document the rugged nature of the coast. Surveyor Robert Dixon, the first documented white visitor to reach the Cape by land in June 1840, recorded Bunjalung men fishing with nets. Cedar-getters later established tent camps in the area around 1869''
Best café near me. Beach Byron Bay Kiosk - Best Australian cafés as voted by locals - Love My Cafe
In the context of UFO conventions and lore, "The Aviary" refers to a covert, informal network of intelligence agents, military officers, scientists, and researchers who met starting in the 1980s to leak and discuss classified government information about extraterrestrial contact
Many historians and paranormal researchers suggest The Aviary was an intentional counterintelligence operation designed to spread disinformation to civilian researchers. People working in the air force, army, navy are ordered not to speak of their ufo alien experiences
Notable "Aviary" Members:
Falcon: C.B. Scott Jones (former Office of Naval Intelligence)
Owl: Dr. Hal Puthoff (physicist and parapsychology researcher)
Pelican: Ron Pandolfi (CIA scientist)
Penguin: Col. John B. Alexander (US Army intelligence officer)
Bluejay: Dr. Christopher Green (CIA/defense intelligence analyst)
Raven: Jack Verona (Defense Intelligence Agency)
The Penguin (Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, primarily as an adversary of the superheroBatman. The character made his first appearance in Detective Comics #58 (December 1941) and was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.
''Unlike many of Batman’s deeply chaotic or psychotic rogues (like the Joker), the Penguin relies on intelligence, financial strategy, and underworld networking. He is the kingpin behind Gotham's illicit weapons trading, smuggling, and racketeering. He famously runs a high-society nightclub known as the Iceberg Lounge. He rarely engages in direct fisticuffs, relying instead on a deadly arsenal of customized umbrellas that fire bullets, shoot flames, release gas, or act as swords''
The Penguin utilizes an assortment of umbrellas, particularly the Bulgarian umbrella. These usually contain weapons such as machine guns, sword blades, knife blades, rocket launchers, laser blasters, flamethrowers, and acid or poison gas spraying devices fired from the ferrule (however, the Penguin is able to weaponize his umbrellas in an almost unlimited variety of ways). Depending on the writer, some of his umbrellas can carry multiple weapons at once. He often carries an umbrella that can transform its canopy into a series of spinning blades: this can be used as a miniature helicopter or as an offensive weapon; he often uses this to escape a threatening situation. The canopy of the umbrella is sometimes depicted as being a bullet resistant shield, and some are patterned in different ways from a spiral capable of hypnotizing opponents to flashy signs. He can also call upon his flying birds to attack and confuse his enemies in battle
CAPITALISM
Rum arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788. The colony was founded by navy men, so it’s not surprising that the new settlement was awash with the traditional navy drink. In a society where barter was the common form of trade, rum became the favoured currency. The marines of the New South Wales Corps, who controlled the rum trade, became known as the Rum Corps.
In those early days, rum was imported from the West Indies and, more commonly, from India. Jamaican Rum, made from molasses – a by-product of cane sugar – was highly prized, but most imports were Bengal Rum. This was often made not from cane sugar but palm sugar. Better described as arrack, the most that could be said for it was that it still got you drunk.
The wages of laborers were set down as so many gallons of rum, rewards were paid in it, and it is actually on record that a wife was purchased from her husband for four gallons of the red and ardent spirit. When Governor King took over command in 1800 he was startled to learn how varying and exorbitant was the value of this commodity — he found that spirit which had been imported for 10/ a gallon was being retailed for £2. Everybody traded in it. Even the construction of the church was partly paid for in rum, and admission to the first theatre established in Sydney could be obtained for a “nobbler.” Ten years or so later the most historic instance of the employment of rum as currency was connected with the erection of the hospital founded by Macquarie, the contractors for which were reimbursed with a monopoly of the spirit trade for four years.
The Rum Corps: The military officers of the NSW Corps seized a complete monopoly over the alcohol trade, driving up prices and essentially running the colony like a private, heavily intoxicated business cartel.
The Rum Era (1792–1808): Due to a severe shortage of coins in early colonial Australia, rum became the de facto currency. The New South Wales Corps monopolized the trade, paying workers and bartering goods for alcohol—even funding the construction of early roads and hospitals with spirits
Rum, as all spirits were then called in Australia, was commonly used in barter. Barter had already been the means of transacting with aboriginal people but as settlers found that coins were too scarce, even they resorted to barter soon after arriving. In 1796, admission to a theater in Sydney cost one shilling or an equivalent value in flour, meat, or spirits. The government even offered rum as reward for capturing escaped convicts. Officers of the New South Wales Corps hoarded incoming shipments of rum, controlling the colony’s wealth.The Rum Rebellion: When the strict Governor William Bligh attempted to ban the use of spirits as payment in 1808, the Rum Corps mutinied and overthrew him in the only armed takeover of government in Australian history. The Rum Rebellion (1808) was Australia’s first and only military coup. In early Sydney, officers of the New South Wales Corps (the "Rum Corps") controlled a lucrative, illicit trade where rum acted as currency. When Governor William Bligh attempted to halt this monopoly, the military and wealthy merchants overthrew him. The military elite used rum to essentially pay for labor and manipulate the colonial economy. Bligh outlawed this to stabilize the colony's finances. The Catalyst: Tensions peaked when Bligh arrested Macarthur for alleged port regulation breaches. Johnston’s officers refused to recognize the court and instead arrested the Governor. On January 26, 1808 (exactly 20 years after the First Fleet landed), 400 soldiers marched on Government House.The military placed Bligh under arrest (famously rumored to be hiding under his bed) and took control of the colony for two years.The British government in London was furious. In 1810, they sent Governor Lachlan Macquarie to re-establish order, disband the rebellious military corps, and restore Bligh's authority before eventually bringing the rebels to trial. ''When Governor Lachlan Macquarie arrived to restore order, he couldn't get funding from London to build a proper hospital. To get around this, he cut a deal with three private businessmen in 1810. In exchange for building the hospital, Macquarie gave them a three-year monopoly on importing rum. As Hunt notes, they built a massive hospital (which now serves as the NSW Parliament House) but famously forgot to include toilets but he did not tell them he was introducing the holey dollar just afterwards
Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, created a new money in 1813. After importing £10,000 worth of Spanish dollars, Macquarie had their centers punched out, creating two coins, a larger ring-shaped coin and the smaller center piece. The former, called the ‘holey dollar’, was assigned a value of five shillings. The smaller core, called a ‘dump’, was worth one-fourth that or one shilling and three pence. Exporting the coin was outlawed but they remained scarce.
. Private notes, in the form of I.O.U.s made by individuals, also circulated as money. It was not unheard of for just about anyone to pay for a drink at a pub by writing an I.O.U. that, unlike a bank check, would then go on to circulate as currency.
Some early issuers of these notes were the ‘squatters’. Australian squatters began the 19th century as illegal occupiers of land, often raising sheep in sparsely populated parts of the continent. Recognizing their economic contribution, the government eventually gave these squatters leases over the land they occupied and many became very wealthy, forming a kind of Outback aristocracy.
Their notes were variously called ‘shinplasters’ or ‘calabashes’, with perhaps the only difference between them being their quality. The name of the former was a reference to paper soaked in vinegar used as a dressing for bruises. Shinplasters were printed on poor quality paper, usually in denominations of no more than £1, and were accepted only close to the original place of issue. Calabashes were better-quality notes with broader acceptance.
To further stabilize the economy, Macquarie also championed the establishment of Australia's first official bank, the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac), in 1817.
the ultimate irony of Australian banking history: Westpac—one of the country’s biggest financial institutions—owes its entire existence to a visionary governor with a history of financial rule-bending, trying to clean up an economy run by drunk convicts and corrupt military officers trading in illicit rum.
''With Governor Macquarie’s backing, 39 citizens resolved to establish a bank with twin purposes - to provide banking services and to issue currency, thereby providing security and certainty on which to create a prosperous future for their families and the country.
Macquarie encouraged its growth: “Persevere Gentlemen, in time not too far distant the bank will gradually flourish, to the benefit of the country at large...”
From its opening day in 1817 until 1822 the Bank of New South Wales leased a house from Mary Reibey in Macquarie Place, which was the main town square and geographic centre of the colony. An emancipated convict and business-woman Reibey’s involvement marks the beginning of our long history working with women in finance and banking. She was one of our first female customers.
Founding proprietors included Margaret Campbell, who purchased shares in 1817, and Elizabeth Macquarie, who became a proprietor in 1819.''
They started out by writing dodgy cheques.
And hired a convicted forger to make their currency.
WILLIAM HENSHALL
'' Henshall first came under suspicion for illicit liquor trading in late 1804. The police raid found some partialy completed dollar (= five Shilling) pieces. These were ignored by the plod, but raised the interest of the Bank of England. The Bank raised a major operation to infiltrate the organisation run by our three forgers. A month after the earlier raid, another raid uncovered coin dies and equipment, and forged coins and banknotes. Henshall and an employee Thomas Ashford were sentenced to seven years transportation, and the two Clarksons received fourteen. The fact that Henshall was convicted of forging and possession, and the Clarksons of posession, but the Clarksons received the longer sentence suggests that the Clarksons might have been regarded as the organisers of the operation. After conviction the prisoners set about reducing the impact of their sentences. They started from the optimistic request for pardons in return for cooperation but retreated to the requesting that their families be allowed to accompany them. Their cooperation included (1) handing over plates for £1, £2, £5 and £10 notes (2) Henshall provided the bank with advice on anti-forgery design in its coins and notes (3) informing on over 130 criminals and their haunts. The best deal they could get was that their wives and younger children would accompany them to Botany Bay. Nancy Henshall elected to stay in England because all of her seven children could not go. Richard's wife Lucy elected to stay in England with her infant child. Catherine reluctantly went leaving one child behind. The bank provided £10 to the wives for immediate provisions, and also £10 for 'sea stock' for the prisoners, William Hensall in 1814 organised the manufacturing operation for Macquarie of nearly 80,000 Holey Dollars and Dumps.''
INVASION OF THE ALCOHOLICS
Rum quickly became the colony's primary currency due to severe shortages of British coin and practical tools. Officers within the New South Wales Marine Corps (later dubbed the "Rum Corps") held a monopoly on the alcohol trade. They used it to control the convicts, purchase agricultural goods, and pay for labor, directly contributing to severe exploitation and alcoholism in the struggling settlement.
First Fleet brought sufficient rum for seven years for each marine on board – but only enough food for two years. Rum was packed into the holds of those tall ships at the expense of tools, clothing and food supplies that the penal settlement would need in its early years.
When the women were finally permitted to disembark on February 6, 1788, sailors on the fleet requested an extra ration of rum "to make merry with upon the women quitting the ship". According to the journal of surgeon Arthur Bowes Smyth, the result was immediate chaos. Intoxicated sailors and convicts flooded the newly established shoreline, drinking the harsh Brazilian aguardiente, singing, swearing, and fighting through a violent thunderstorm. Bowes Smyth described the evening as a massive "scene of debauchery and riot," marking one of the rowdiest and most sexually charged events in early colonial history.
Court and trial records from the time show that rum was the root cause of much of the crime and punishment. The first sitting of the Criminal Court in February 1788 heard the case of a convict named Barsby, who, while heavily intoxicated, went on a drunken rampage. He had received the better part of a bottle of rum from seamen desperate to find the women's camp, and subsequently thumped a fellow convict and threatened a drum major who attempted to intervene.
THE FOUNDATIONAL ORGY
The main evidence for the 'Foundational Orgy' is an entry in the journal of the Lady Penrhyn's surgeon, Arthur Bowes-Smyth for the 6th of February.
6th. At 5 o'Clock this morng. all things were got in order for landing the whole of the women & 3 of the Ships Long Boats came alongside us to receive them: previous to their quitting the Ship a strict search was made to try if any of the many things wh. they had stolen on board cd. be found, but their Artifice eluded the most strict search & abt. 6 O'Clock p.m. we had the long wish'd for pleasure of seeing the last of them leave the Ship -- They were dress'd in general very clean & some few amongst them might be sd. to be well dress'd. The Men Convicts got to them very soon after they landed, & it is beyond my abilities to give a just discription of the Scene of Debauchery & Riot that ensued during the night --
They had not been landed more than an hour before they had all got their Tents pitched or anything in order to receive them, but there came on the most violent storm of thunder, lighteng. & rain I ever saw. The lighteng. was incessant during the whole night & I never heard it rain faster -- Abt. 12 o'Clock in the night one severe flash of Lightg. struck a very large tree in the centre of the Camp under wh. some places were constructed to keep the Sheep & Hogs in: it split the tree from top to bottom; kill'd 5 Sheep belonging to Major Ross & a pig of one of the Lieuts. -- The severity of the Lighteng. this & the 2 preceeding nights leaves no room to doubt but many of the trees wh. appear burnt up to the tops of them were the Effect of Lightening --
The Sailors in our Ship requested to have some Grog to make merry wt. upon the Women quitting the Ship indeed the Capt. himself had no small reason to rejoice upon their being all safely landed & given into the Care of the Governor, as he was under the penalty of 40£ for every Convict that was missing -- for wh. reason he comply'd wt. the Sailor's request, & abt. the time they began to be elevated, the Tempest came on -- The Scene wh. presented itself at this time & during the greater part of the night, beggars every discription; some swearing, others quarrelling others singing, not in the least regarding the Tempest, tho' so violent that the thunder shook the Ship exceeded anything I ever before had a conception of. I never before experienced so uncomfortable a night expectg. every moment the Ship wd. be struck wt. the Lighteng. -- The Sailors almost all drunk & incapable of rendering much assistance had an accident happen'd & the heat was almost suffocating.
The women of the First Fleet had arrived in Sydney Cove on February 6, 1788, sparking uproarious celebrations. With admirable foresight, the judge advocate, David Collins, read the Act and Letters Patent establishing the courts the following day.
THE NAMING OF SYDNEY
For thousands of years, the deep-water cove was called Warrane by the Gadigal people. This was their ancestral home, which they called Gadi.
Governor Philip initially gave the settlement the name of “New Albion”.
Albion was the Ancient Greek name for Britain.
Well, for unknown reasons, the British settlement was later changed to ‘Sydney’ after Thomas Townshend (1732-1800).
The British politician was then Britain’s Home Secretary and served in a few Cabinet posts in the 18th century.
He was given the title of Lord Sydney or Viscount Sydney in 1789 (the same year the French Revolution started!)
A viscount is a member of the nobility, ranking just below an earl (or count) and above a baron. In the British peerage, it represents the fourth highest rank of the aristocracy.
The system of ranks from highest to lowest is Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, and Baron.
The word ''VISCOUNT'' originates from Old French, combining the Latin prefix vice- (meaning "deputy") and comes (meaning "companion" or "count"). Historically, viscounts in medieval Europe served as the deputies or lieutenants of counts, exercising administrative or judicial powers on their behalf.
Sydney, Australia, was not the only city in the British Empire to be called after Lord Sydney.
Indeed, Sydney in Nova Scotia, Canada, was the first settlement to be named as such in 1785.
John de Sydenie’s ancestors (note the alteration in the spelling!) emigrated from a village in Normandy during the reign of William the Conqueror.
The name of the village was called Saint-Denis. The peaceful village between Cherbourg and Bayeux is famous for its dairy products and another eminent personality derived from there: the great Walt Disney himself.
The Disneys were the descendants of Hughes and his son Robert d’Isigny (from Isigny), who immigrated to Britain with William the Conqueror – and the Sydenies!
When ‘Saint-Denis’ contracted into ‘Sydenie’ and then ‘Sydney’, ‘D’Isigny’ was anglicised as ‘Disney’.
Sydney was a prevalent name as it honoured the French Patron Saint, Saint-Denis.
Saint-Denis was the first bishop of Paris and has been remembered throughout the centuries for his martyrdom in 270 AD.
Saint-Denis was sent from Italy with his inseparable companions Rusticus and Eleutherius to convert Gaul in the third century.
They settled on the Ile de la Cité, where Notre Dame now stands.
Denis, having irritated the tempers of heathen priests for his many conversions, was executed by beheading with a sword on the highest hill near the centre of Paris, which was likely to have been a druidic holy place.
Non-Christian priests and Roman officials (likely under the anti-Christian Emperor Decius) feared his growing influence, leading to his arrest, torture, and death sentence for refusing to recant his faith.
Denis and his companions were beheaded by the Romans on the highest hill in Paris, an area that became known as Montmartre (literally meaning "Mountain of the Martyrs")
The location where he collapsed and died was later marked by a shrine that grew into the famous Basilica of Saint-Denis, which became the traditional burial site for the kings of France.
According to the legend, after his execution, the body of Denis picked its head up and started to walk while the mouth was delivering a complete sermon.
The body had to stop its stroll somehow, and at the site where he fell utterly dead was later erected a small shrine.
It was named after the holy man Saint-Denis. The name Denis itself is derived from the Greco-Roman ‘Dionysius’, the servant of Dionysus.
the first courts
The day after, Barsby, still drunk and carrying a broken cooper's tool, thumped a fellow convict, threatened a drum major who tried to stop him and whacked a drummer who tried to come to the officer's assistance.
''Did the prisoner appear to be in liquor?'' the court asked when it sat for the first time on February 11.
''He did,'' a witness replied.
For his part, Barsby explained he ''was in such a state of insensibility'' that he did not recall ever seeing any of the witnesses before. But he recalled how he had managed to get so very insensible.
''He met some seamen who wanted to find the women's camp,'' the minutes of proceedings recorded. ''On his telling them where it was, they gave him more than three parts of a bottle of rum. He drank the greatest part of it.
Barsby got 150 lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails and promised good behaviour in future.
, ....save for the occasional case involving wife sale or a jury of matrons, the subject matter would have sounded eerily familiar: drunken brawlers with fuzzy memories, petty thieves, inventive excuses and, increasingly, Aboriginal defendants.
In the first capital punishment case, on February 27, the colony had its first law and order debate. Lashes given out to thieves on February 11 had ''encouraged rather than deterred others'', Collins wrote, and convict James Barrett bore the brunt. After executing a raid on the public store, a crime deemed ''big with evil to our little community'', he was sentenced to hang.
the court sentenced James Freeman to death for stealing flour. But realising that the colony needed a permanent hangman, the governor pardoned him on the condition he become the public executioner. His first gig was to hang Barrett, a responsibility he had to be forced to undertake.
The first woman sentenced to death, for stealing some clothes and linen, was Ann Davis - also known as Judith Jones - in November 1789. She claimed she was pregnant to escape the noose, but a ''jury of 12 matrons'' was called to ''try if the prisoner is quick with child'' and decided she was not.
the first rape case a soldier, Henry Wright, was sentenced to death but then pardoned and sent to Norfolk Island for assaulting an eight-year-old girl called Elizabeth Chapman at Lane Cove - or, as the minutes put it ''for not having the fear of God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil''. The girl had to show she knew her catechism and recite the Lord's Prayer before she gave evidence at the trial.
The first Aborigine convicted was Daniel Mow-Watty, who was hung in 1816 for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Parramatta.
Four years later a convict, John Kirby, became probably the first European sentenced to death for killing an Aborigine after he stabbed a co-operative chief called Burragong, or King Jack, who had captured him after he escaped and attempted to bring him in. (Several men were acquitted in a similar trial in 1799.)
As late as 1827 white defendants were arguing, although unsuccessfully, that they could not be tried for killing Aborigines because the victim was not a subject of the Crown.
Not until 1829 did the courts impose English law upon cases where one indigenous person had killed another
THE LAWS THAT BROUGHT THE BOAT PEOPLE FROM EUROPUE
The "Bloody Code" was a series of laws in England, Wales and Ireland in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which imposed the death penalty for a wide range of crimes, many of which would be considered minor by later standards. Between 1688 and 1820, the total number of capital crimes in England and Wales grew from about 50 to over 200.Most of the new statutes focused on the protection of property. the Black Act, or the Waltham Black Act, and sometimes called the Black Act 1722, the Black Act 1723, the Waltham Black Act 1722, the Criminal Law Act 1722, or the Criminal Law Act passed in 1723 in response to a series of raids against landowners by two groups of poachers, known as the Blacks from their habit of blacking their faces when they undertook the raids. The act was expanded over the years and greatly strengthened the criminal law by specifying over 200 capital crimes, many with intensified punishment. Arson, for example, had its definition expanded to include the new crime of burning (or threatening to burn) haystacks. The legal rights of suspects and defendants under the act were strictly limited. For example, suspects who did not surrender within 40 days could be summarily judged guilty and sentenced to execution, so that if they were apprehended at a later date they could be executed without delay. Villages were punished if they failed to find, prosecute and convict alleged criminals
'The British in the late 18th century believed that they were in the midst of an overwhelming crime wave, and over the next 70 years attempted to address this by expelling what was seen as a 'criminal class'. More than 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia and Tasmania. A sentence of transportation meant that criminals paid a huge price for their crimes - they suffered the loss of everything and everyone they had ever known, endured a perilous sea journey in often unimaginably harsh conditions, and struggled to survive in a terrifyingly strange and forbidding landscape. Yet many found that life on the far side of the world offered possibilities not available at home.
The need for transported British criminals to work on American plantations became less pressing as the transatlantic slave trade took slave labour over the oceans in the millions. American independence in 1783 also effectively ended the shipment of British convicts to North America. The shutting off of this avenue for disposing of criminals lead to a real problem for the British Authorities. Rising population and crime levels in Britain across the 18th century meant that such prisons as there were became full.
THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE
James Hardy Vaux’s 1819 collection of ‘criminal slang and other impolite terms’ is recognised as Australia’s first dictionary.
During the early colonial era, transported convicts relied on a secret dialect of British slang known as Flash or "cant". This vocabulary allowed prisoners to conspire in front of guards, hide their crimes, and establish a distinct cultural identity.
Flash was so pervasive that magistrates often struggled to understand testimonies and required interpreters in trials.
Speaking Flash to authorities could result in re-incarceration or whippings, as police viewed it as open defiance.
Common terms included chiv (a knife), quod (jail), cracksman (a house-breaker), and bum traps (police officers)
Bum traps
A sheriff’s officer or his follower
A sheriff’s officer, more commonly termed a bailiff, was notorious for following closely at a sheriff’s bum. For this reason, bailiffs were called bum-bailiffs and members of the “catch club” (because they were said to “catch” farts.) But they were also known as bull-dogs, hawks, lurchers and, from the manner in which they escorted debtors, shoulder clappers. Bailiffs were unpopular; colonists attacked them with knives, swords and pistols. In 1853 a South Australian, John Bevis, was fined £1 for kicking a “bum bailiff” and pelting him with stones.
Spoony
Foolish, half-witted, nonsensical; a man who has been drinking till he becomes disgusting by his very ridiculous behaviour, is said to be “spoony” drunk; and, from hence it is usual to call a very prating shallow fellow “a rank spoon”
Foolish people may have been called spoony because, like the bowl of a spoon, they are shallow and lack depth. When, in 1857, William Graham was robbed in a Melbourne brothel, he ran through the streets calling for police assistance. But police dismissed his complaint because he was a “spooney” and was “too drunk to know what he was doing”. Graham, however, made his way to a police station where he persuaded a constable to assist him in recovering his property. Graham’s purse and cash were discovered wedged in a stack of five mattresses in the bedroom of a sex worker, Mary Jane Reily. Reily was arrested and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment.
To bridge the massive communication gap, James Hardy Vaux, an English convict transported to New South Wales, compiled a manuscript of thieves' cant. Published in 1819 as A Vocabulary of the Flash Language, it was highly sought after by lawyers, judges, and police who needed to understand the criminal underword
When “cat and kitten stealer” William Dixon fronted court, a police officer politely informed the magistrate that Dixon had not abducted a family of felines but had been caught pinching valuable pewter mugs, so named for the resemblance their bulbous shapes and curved handles bore to cats’ bodies and tails.
THE MEDIUM IS MANIPULATION
When Europeans first arrived in Australia, a vast network of hundreds of unique languages and dialects was actively spoken across the continent.
When colonisation began, it’s estimated that there were over 250 distinct languages plus around 600-800 overlapping, connecting Aboriginal language varieties
Linguists estimate that more than half of the 250 Aboriginal languages in Australia are already extinct and many besides have only a few speakers left. In NSW about 20 out of 70 remain.
Given that most settlers weren’t that keen to learn our languages, Aboriginal people adapted English to enable communication.
When arriving in Sydney, Governor Arthur Phillip used a wordlist collected years earlier by Joseph Banks in Far North Queensland (Guugu Yimidhirr)
. The most famous historical example of miscommunication is the word "kangaroo". As the story goes, when British explorers pointed at the animal and asked its name, a Guugu Yimidhirr speaker said "gangurru", which translates to "I don't understand" or simply refers to a specific type of male kangaroo. The British took this as the animal's name, cementing a foundational misunderstanding into the English lexicon.
the word "kangaroo", was recorded in Cape York during Captain James Cook's first expedition to Australia's east coast in 1770, the transcription began in earnest after Sydney was founded in 1788.
Eventually, indigenous the people of sydney area adopted the phrase thinking it was just the English word for an "edible animal"
European settlers frequently mistook spoken agreements (like "yes") for legal consent to land grabs. No, it wasn't just a misinterpretation; it was active exploitation where Indigenous people were punished for speaking their mother tongues and denied fair legal translation.
Did translators know the meaning of place names such as Dunedoo (small feet), Mudgee (sharpening stone), Dubbo (ground grub), Coonabarabran (inquisitive person) and Gunnedah (motherless). Coogee has a very different connotation today to 'smelly place' [its Aboriginal meaning]."
The most devastating language barrier existed between colonial courts and First Nations peoples.
Indigenous Australians lacked context for British legal terminology. Concepts like "guilty" or "not guilty" were largely untranslatable and held no meaning in their cultural context, frequently leading to wrongful convictions.
Indigenous defendants were regularly unable to defend themselves adequately, and witnesses were frequently misunderstood due to a complete lack of linguistic and cultural alignment
During early colonization, German missionaries translating the Bible into the Arranda (Aranda) language of Central Australia struggled to find a direct equivalent for the Christian concept of God.
Missionaries adopted the word Altjira, which originally referred to a mythological "eternal" being from the Dreamtime who had no beginning or end. By translating Altjira to mean "God," missionaries fundamentally shifted the word's traditional meaning, imposing Eurocentric religious frameworks onto deeply held Indigenous spiritual beliefs
Early British observers mistakenly believed that the language spoken around Sydney was called "Eora". However, Eora (or Iyora) simply translates to "person" or "the people" in the local dialect. The true name of the language was never documented, though it is commonly referred to by its clan names (e.g., Gadigal in the inner Sydney area). Patyegarang, a young Gamaraigal woman who spoke the Gadigal language, would prove crucial to the survival of her Sydney-based native tongue. William Dawes, an English Lieutenant and astronomer, recorded the pair's conversations, in what remains today the only known first-hand accounts of the Gadigal language. Dawes set up an observatory at Point Maskelyne, now known as Dawes Point, where the southern pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge now stand. It is here, a 15-year-old Patyegarang and Dawes likely developed their bond. "She not only shared the Sydney language with Dawes in context but she learned English in a way that influenced Dawes in his dealing with authority and his refusal to participate in punitive actions taken against Aboriginal people and family groups. "This definitely led to his recall to England even though he wanted to stay." Patyegarang taught him words such as Putuwa, which means "to warm one's hand by the fire and then to gently squeeze the fingers of another person". Other notable phrases include: Tariadyaou ("I made a mistake in speaking"); Minyin bial naadyimi? ("Why don't you sleep?"); and Minyin bial widadyemi ("Why did you not drink?"). 'Tyerabarrbowaryaou', meaning 'I shall not become white', when Dawes suggested that she could become white if she washed herself more." Dawes's notebooks make reference to the fact that Aboriginal people disapproved of the colonisation of their land and were afraid of the colonists' guns.
In the 19th century, European surveyors like Sir Thomas Mitchell recorded various Indigenous place names. Mitchell insisted on simplifying and anglicizing the phonetics of Aboriginal languages to make them easier for white settlers to pronounce, stripping words of their nuanced, original regional meanings.
Standard Australian English (AusE) is the language used in law, media, politics, and education in Australia, holding vast power. Over the years, many Indigenous people have been forced to speak AusE at the expense of ancestral language, Kriol, or Aboriginal English (AbE). Language bias, although largely implicit, is just as powerful and forces Aboriginal people to navigate linguistic imperialism daily.
Historically, policies of assimilation actively suppressed Indigenous languages. Rather than being simple communication errors, these barriers were compounded by institutional ignorance. For example, in 1999, the Northern Territory Chief Minister likened providing Aboriginal language interpreters to "giving a wheelchair to someone who should be walking." This systemic failure meant that Indigenous Australians were regularly convicted in courts without truly understanding the charges against them.
As Europeans expanded inland and across the continent, communication relied heavily on contact languages or pidgins. These were makeshift hybrid languages combining English vocabulary with traditional Aboriginal grammar and pronunciation
As pastoral expansion and government policies forced Aboriginal populations onto reserves and missions, the use of ancestral languages was strictly forbidden. Children were removed from their families and punished for speaking their mother tongues. Despite this, traditional languages left a lasting mark on Standard Australian English, which adopted dozens of everyday words from local languages (e.g., kangaroo, koala, boomerang, billabong, and kookaburra).
Generations of Indigenous Australians adapted English, making it their own. This gave rise to recognized dialects known collectively as Aboriginal English. It is a fully fledged, rule-governed dialect rather than "broken English," with its own unique vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure
In northern regions of Australia, these pidgins evolved into Kriol—a recognized creole language that is now the largest language spoken exclusively in Indigenous communities in the country
While many traditional languages have been lost, roughly 120 are still spoken, and some, like Warlpiri, are actively being taught to the youngest generations.
the second fleet
Australia’s Second Fleet – the Neptune, the Scarborough and the Surprize – was a ‘coffin fleet’, with an average convict mortality in excess of 40 percent (including deaths prior to sailing and in the four months after landing). For the Neptune, the de facto ‘commodore’ of the fleet, it was around 50 percent, the worst in the 80-year history of transportation to Australia
The state of the convicts who arrived on these ships in late June 1790 was profoundly shocking to the residents of the small penal colony which had been established only two and a half years before. Shortly after the Surprize came to anchor in the cove, the chaplain, Richard Johnson, visited the ship and went down into the prison:
'I beheld a sight truly shocking to the feelings of humanity, a great number of them laying, some half and others nearly quite naked, without either bed or bedding, unable to turn or help themselves. Spoke to them as I passed along, but the smell was so offensive I could scarcely bear it.'
David Collins, the Governor’s official secretary, wrote that ‘both the living and the dead [exhibited] more horrid spectacles than had ever been witnessed in this country’. A female convict from the Lady Juliana, which had arrived three weeks earlier, compared them to the women on her ship:
'Oh! If you had seen the shocking sight of the poor creatures that came out in the three ships, it would make your heart bleed; they were almost dead; very few could stand, and they were obliged to sling them as you would goods, and hoist them out of the ship they were so feeble; and they died ten or twelve a day when they first landed. . .'
byron 1990s property boom
Someone should- Look into some of the CIA front companies connected to Col John Alexander, Mr Hogan even those illumanatti Searles(and their masonic bricks) and how their crime money sponsored workers connected to council to do deplorable manipulative things to people and places that the cia would perceive as radical(not obedient capitalist) and a danger to the CIA mission of control.
It even looks like someone was doing a cia sponsored rewritting of local history.
Particularly some of the surviving people indigenous to the area who were displaced by national parks(infiltrated by cia) when cape byron marrine park was established.
Activist Aunty Lorraine mafi Williams who knew more stories and history than anyone and was starting a cultural center on a historical womans site at suffolk but was opposed by council and arawkwal and fataly assaulted by agents, or thugs paid by agents.
She was stolen generation, meaning she was taken from her family at a young age by government services and forced to go live with another family.
She had come back to live on her ancestral lands
She was putting together a book of indigenous myth, folk stories of the Bunjalung area and was very well respected by many for her spiritual inspiration and her knowledge.
She was descended from the Githabul peoples of the Ballina area
Then there was another attempt to start a cultural center in ocean shores which was also opposed by council.
It is very disappointing as these places (which probably would have just happened without the council interference) had a lot to offer both indigenous and non indigenous communities in terms of knowledge of cultural history, land, flora and fauna.
[And as I paste these links I think that since covid a lot of stuff has been vanishing off the internet, I m sure there where more stories Aunty Lorraine collected about 6 yrs ago. More on the Boogerum brothers mythology on east coast of Australia lots of essays by students on sites like research gate and academia others too. But they seem to have disappeared. I think its cause he cia tightening their control of the internet.}
There was a people who went by the name Doorungbool(the English spelling of the word was debated, white people couldn't pronounce the word properly and the meaning had something to do with the shape of the hills in the area) who's land stretched along the coast from Broken Head to the Potsville river west to Bangalow and just over the Mt Jerusalem range almost to Uki.
Their ancestral lands fit on the map with Githabul(The Ballina area peoples including the NgArawakwal coming from Cabbage tree) to the south and Midjumbool to the north.
They were all part of the Bungjalung nation people linked together by common language and a story about three brothers that land at Evans head in a boat forty thousand years ago.
And a Goanna that chased a naughty snake out into the ocean.
Probably one of the first stories of boat people migrating to Australia.
Though not so long on the continent as some peoples in the north west.
Western Australia's Kimberley region holds one of the world's most extraordinary cultural treasures, with ancient rock art dating back as fa
''Bundjalung oral literature tells of a fight between Dirawong and the Rainbow Serpent, which created the Bungawalbin River, the Evans River, Pelican Island, Snake Island, other islands in the Evans River, and also an island at an unknown location in the Pacific Ocean. In the Bundjalung story, a weeum ("cleverman", "man of high degree of initiation" or "man with great powers") named Nyimbunji from the area known as Bungawalbin calls on Dirawong to help protect a yabbra (bird) from the Rainbow Serpent.'' ''The conflict began when the Rainbow Snake started terrorizing the local birds and people. A clever Bundjalung man called on the goanna spirit, the Dirawong, to stop the snake. A fierce chase ensued, taking them across the land of northern New South Wales''
The Bundjalung nation occupies land from north-east NSW to south-east Queensland; i.e. from Grafton in the south, to Tenterfield in the west, and to Beaudesert and Beenleigh in the north. The Bundjalung nation is a large federation of clans. The clan associated with Ballina is the Nyangbul people.
According to oral traditions this area was first settled by the Three Brothers and their descendants. They arrived by sea and landed at Goanna Headland (about 45km south of Ballina, just south of Evans Head) which is one of the most easterly points on mainland Australia. Goanna Headland has been the mythological place of origin of the Bundjalung Nation, for thousands of years. It is believed that Bundjalung Nation Aboriginal people have lived on and visited Goanna Headland for at least 12,000 years.
The Headland is believed to be the body of the mythical 'Dirawong'. An aerial view shows the headland has a rough outline showing the shape of a goanna, within which the spirit creature is believed to exist even today.
Mythology says the 'Dirawong', an unseen spiritual creature also known as the goanna spirit, is one of the Creator Beings of the Bundjalung, that protects, guards, battles the Rainbow Snake, and helps the people.
In 1985 a 16 hectare of the southern part of Goanna Headland became the first aboriginal land grant in New South Wales. The major part of Goanna Headland is now a reserve with objectives to conserve aboriginal culture and heritage, preserve the native flora and fauna and provide recreational activities to the public. It is managed for the wider community by the Dirawong Trust. A number of archeological sites are located on Goanna Headland and within the Broadwater National Park (north of Evans Head).
BUNDJALUNG NATION DREAMTIME STORIES
RAINBOW SNAKE AND THE DREAMTIME
The Rainbow Snake is a creature from Aboriginal mythology. This mythology says that in the beginning the earth was flat, featureless and grey. Then came the Dreamtime when giant creatures rose up from the plains. They looked like animals or plants or insects but behaved just like humans. The greatest of all these beings took the form of the Rainbow Snake. The movement of his huge multicolored body across the land formed the mountains and the rivers that flow to the ocean. By lifting his tail he makes rainbows. The Bundjalung people tell us that Rainbow Snake and Goanna worked together to create this area. Douglas Cook, a Bundjalung man, told the following story about Rainbow Snake to Jolanda Nayutah before he died. Jolanda worked in the Aboriginal Institute in Lismore. A LOCAL RAINBOW SNAKE STORY Rainbow Snake had been very bad. What he did is a secret, and cannot be told here, but it was so bad that a local clever man called on Goanna to chase Rainbow Snake away. Only Goanna was powerful enough to deal with Rainbow Snake. Goanna chased Rainbow Snake down towards the coast and as they went they formed parts of the Richmond River. At Woodburn they left the Richmond River and kept on going. Half-way down the Evans River, Goanna caught Rainbow Snake. Snake turned around and bit him. Goanna then stopped to eat some herbs to heal himself. When he felt better he resumed his chase. Meanwhile, Snake had reached Evans Head. He looked around. Goanna was nowhere to be seen, so he decided to go back. As he turned his body made a small island in the river, now known as Pelican Island. When he spotted Goanna heading towards him, he quickly turned, and this time he kept going until he reached the ocean, and made himself into an island so Goanna wouldn't recognise him. Goanna reached the coast. He lay down facing the sea, waiting for Rainbow Snake to come back. And you can still hear''
ANOTHER VERSION:
''Dirawong chases the Rainbow Serpent from inland eastward towards the coast, forming parts of the Richmond River as they go. At Maniworkan (or the town of Woodburn, New South Wales) they leave the Richmond River and kept on going east. Halfway down the Evans River, Dirawong catches the Rainbow Serpent. The Rainbow Serpent turns around and bites Dirawong on the head. Dirawong then withdraws from the battle in order to eat some herbs to recover from the snakebite. A deposit of red ochre at Goanna Headland is said to originate from the wound where the Rainbow Serpent bit Dirawong. Meanwhile, Rainbow Serpent reaches Evans Head. Dirawong is nowhere to be seen, so Rainbow Serpent decides to go back west. He then goes into the Evans River and coils himself around, creating Snake Island. As he turns, his body makes a larger island in the river, now known as Pelican Island. When Rainbow Serpent spots Dirawong heading towards him, he quickly turns, and this time keeps going until he reaches Burraga (the Tasman Sea), Here he transforms himself into an island so Dirawong cannot recognise him. When Dirawong reaches the coast at Evans Head, he lies down next to the coast, facing the Burraga, waiting for Rainbow Serpent to come back.''
I always thought the serpent represented the people that were already here and the goanna Dirawong represented the migration of the Bunjalung peoples.
PREHISTORIC GOANNAS
More than 50,000 years ago, an enormous meat-eating lizard ruled the plains of Australia. Bigger than a modern cow, the giant goanna is thought to have been the largest lizard to ever share its territory with humans. Some believe that this huge creature-which is often referred to by its scientific name, Megalania—is still lurking Down Under today.
Megalania had a powerful jaw and long, sharp, serrated teeth. These were used to rip huge chunks off its massive prey.
Megalania prisca, the largest terrestrial lizard known, was a giant goanna (monitor lizard). First described from the Darling Downs in Queensland by Sir Richard Owen in 1859, Megalania lived in a variety of eastern Australian Pleistocene habitats - open forests, woodlands and perhaps grasslands. Megalania would have been a formidable reptilian predator like its relative the Komodo Dragon of Indonesia, and may have eaten large mammals, snakes, other reptiles and birds.
Megalania: Comes from the Greek word ēlainō (ἠλαίνω), meaning "I roam".
Prisca: Derived from the Latin for "ancient" or "venerable"
As an apex predator, it fed on megafauna like the giant marsupial Diprotodon, ultimately disappearing around 40,000 years ago
Much like the modern Komodo dragon, the giant goanna might have had toxic bacteria in its saliva. This would have meant certain death even for prey that managed to survive a direct attack.
Though experts agree that the giant goanna became extinct during the last ice age (which ended about 10,000 years ago), some people believe that it is alive and well, and still living in Australia. In the summer of 1979, giant lizard footprints were found that looked like they could belong to Megalania. That same year, a herpetologist (a scientist who studies reptiles and amphibians) saw what he thought was a log laying in the road. When the "log" ran away, he realized that he had actually seen a lizard that was some 30 feet long!
Megalania was widely distributed across much of eastern Australia although complete fossils are rare. In Queensland, Megalania has been found at Bluff Downs and Wyandotte in the north, Marmor Quarry near Rockhampton on the south coast, and the Darling Downs in the southeastern of the state. In New South Wales, Megalania has been found at Cuddie Springs in north central NSW and at Wellington Caves, central NSW. Victorian Megalania fossils come from the southern coastal region. In South Australia, Megalania has been found in the arid Lake Eyre region (Warburton River, Cooper Creek and Lake Kanunka) and at Naracoorte Caves near the South Australian coast. Megalania is not yet known from Tasmania, Western Australia or New Guinea.
Megalania is no longer a valid genus. It has been merged into Varanus, the genus all other monitor lizards belong to, making the goanna Varanus prisca. "Megalania" arguably remains its common name, though.
Megalania is not only the largest lizard that has ever existed, but it's also believed to be the largest venomous creature of all time.
Megalania is the biggest reptile to walk the Earth since the dinosaurs.
Related to: The closest relatives of Megalania are other goannas or monitor lizards (Varanidae). Although the Komodo Dragon or ora of Indonesia (Varanus komodoensis) is the largest living goanna, Megalania may be more closely related to the Australian perentie (Varanus giganteus). Proposed relationships between Megalania and the ora are probably based primarily on size. However, Megalania fossils are rare and incomplete, and relationship hypotheses may change with discovery of new fossil material. Remains of Megalania have often been found with fossils of large animals like kangaroos, suggesting that Megalania may have taken large prey, like the ora or Komodo Dragon. Like other varanids, Megalania may have been an ambush predator/scavenger whose toxic saliva would have caused infection and death to its victims. In spite of its large size, Megalania would have needed much less to eat than a mammalian predator of comparable size. Lizards have formed a large part of the vertebrate fauna of Australia since at least the Miocene. Megalania, a huge varanid lizard, was part of a suite of large Australian Pleistocene reptiles that included giant horned turtles, crocodiles like Pallimnarchus and large snakes like Wonambi naracoortensis. It would have been a top predator, most likely feeding on large vertebrates, during the Australian Pleistocene. However, skeletal remains of Megalania are fragmentary, and much is unknown about its life history. No complete skeletons or intact skulls of Megalania are known, and the limited amount of skull material found to date was not associated with postcranial material. Vertebrae and isolated teeth are the most common fossils, and lower jaws and limb bones have also been found. A humerus (upper arm bone) of a very large varanid, probably that of a juvenile Megalania, was found at Naracoorte Caves in South Australia. The skeleton of Megalania was reconstructed by Victorian palaeontologist Dr Tom Rich and is on display at the Museum of Victoria. There may be a second species of Megalania, from the Pliocene of the Darling Downs, south east Queensland. Varanids are more closely related to snakes rather than to other lizards. Molecular evidence suggests that varanids evolved during the Early Cretaceous (between 140-100 million years ago) although there is no fossil evidence yet for this. Varanids would have arrived in Australia from Asia across 'micro-continents' , which have been in existence between Australia and Asia since the Early Cretaceous.
ANCIENT BOAT PEOPLE
''Aboriginal Australians are the world’s oldest continuous seafaring cultures, settling the continent by boat at least 65,000 years ago. Contrary to the idea of walking via land bridges, deep water crossings were necessary. The history includes sophisticated voyaging, ancient migrations along the Australian east coast, and regional mythology about ocean origins'' During the Pleistocene Ice Age, falling sea levels exposed the Sahul Shelf, physically merging mainland Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Tasmania into one continuous supercontinent known as Sahul. This landmass enabled ancient humans to walk directly between Papua and eastern Australia. During the Pleistocene Ice Age, falling sea levels exposed the Sahul Shelf, physically merging mainland Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Tasmania into one continuous supercontinent known as Sahul. This landmass enabled ancient humans to walk directly between Papua and eastern Australia. : As the last ice age ended roughly 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, melting continental ice sheets caused global oceans to rise, reclaiming the low-lying shelves and isolating Australia from its northern neighbors
''During the last Ice Age, Tasmania, mainland Australia, and New Guinea were connected by a massive land bridge.The Bassian Plain: This ancient land bridge allowed humans to walk to Tasmania by foot. As the ice melted around 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, rising sea levels drowned these plains, isolating Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islands.''
'' Ancient Aboriginal groups regularly used the sea, sailing double outrigger canoes thousands of kilometers for coastal and overseas trade.''
''Lizard Island (Dingyii) sits off the Queensland coast and holds evidence of 2,800-year-old Lapita pottery. This indicates widespread maritime interaction between mainland Australia, the Torres Strait, and Near Oceania.''
''According to Bundjalung oral history, the story of the Three Brothers—Mamoonh, Yarbirri, and Birrung—explains the origins of the region's tribes and dialects. The brothers landed at Gummingarr (now Chinamens Beach at Evans Head) in canoes made from Moreton Bay Pine. After they accidentally left their mother behind, she struck the ocean with a stick in a fit of rage. This act created the first big ocean waves, which sank the brothers' canoe on a reef at the mouth of the Richmond River.'' "The coastal areas of New South Wales and southern Queensland were associated with the legend of the THREE BROTHERS the ancestors of the Aboriginal people who came from the sea and landed on the east coast. The details of the legend vary from one part of the coast to another, each Aboriginal language area claiming that the brothers landed in their territory. In the Northern Rivers area the legend states that the three brothers made their first landing at Yamba or illuka, and after three subsequent landings further north, one at Evans Head, then Ballina and the last at the Lennox boat channel area at Lennox Head, two of the brothers then occupied the coast, while the third moved inland and occupied the Lismore district. Evans Head was known as Gummingarr, a name derived from gummi, meaning father's mother. This recalls an incident in the legend where the grandmother of the three brothers went into the bush to gather fern roots; she could not be found when the three brothers prepared to paddle northward, and was therefore was left behind. Arriving back at the beach the grandmother grew very angry at being left behind and used her magic to summon up a storm making the first waves on what up till that point had been a waveless ocean. This forced the brothers ashore at Ballina and they went overland back to retrieve the grandmother. The next landing was at Lennox Head in the boat channel area (bream hole/moat) of the beach. One of the brothers, named Yarbirri (his beard was a dark red colour), thrust his hunting spear into the sand, and fresh water gushed out. Before the swampy area in the southern corner was filled and drained a ti-tree coloured stain was often seen that resembled a red beard. After Lennox the brothers continued north to their final landing at Brunswick Heads, where they are said to have made the first wandaral or bora ring. Be that as it may, there is a well preserved bora ring in Lennox. It is situated ninety metres west of Gibbon Street and is also adjacent to the Megan Crescent cricket field. It is fenced and maintained by the National Parks and Wildlife Service of NSW and is open to visitors. The Bora Ring was used mainly for male initiation ceremonies. After the first Wandaral ceremony at Brunswick, The eldest brother, Yarbirri, made the laws. The brothers decided to separate and to populate the earth, Yarbirri went north, Mamoon to the west and Birrung to the south. The name Birin (Birrung) was widely used to mean "southerners"; the people north of the Brisbane River regarded all of the Bunjalung people as Birin: to the people of the Byron Bay area Birin referred to the people of the Clarence."
Historical indigenous borders are very different to real estate and council borders.
Indigenous peoples were very pagan peoples with seasonal camps which they would visit each cycle.
Australian aboriginal people were quite unique with how obsessed they were with going certain places at certain times of year and doing certain ceremonies.
Borders overlap
There were meeting places cavanbah (like byron bay)
there were ancient pathways and songlines.
.....just a fictitious example to try give an example of indigenous historical borders:
at a certain time of year when the wattles flower or the swallows come or some sign of the change of seasons; all the men of one tribe go up one hill do ceremony, all men of neighboring tribe go up other hill do ceremony come down do business
News and business like neighbouring grievances would be discussed
maybe you marry my sister and not look after her properly get speared or something
Business.
swap ochres and tools and medicines etc
Then all the men of one tribe go up other hill and all the woman go up different hill and they come down and meet for marriages.
etc.
This is just an example to give an idea of indigenous traditional boarders as opposed to white European borders where someone buys land with money and amasses wealth builds fences and gets agents to patrol the borders to protect their personal wealth, like Paul Hogan.
To protect their wealth from the rest of the community.
Apparently the Doorungbull people were very nearly exterminated after a fight at a mill in the tweed when a couple of workers were speared.
The fight could have been over the cedar or rum or a woman
It was most probably started by a man
No one really knows
But the town formed a big posse and chased many of the Doorungbool peoples up to one of their traditional places Boogerum falls,
and pushed them off.
Local historian Frank Mills who passed recently writes about them in his book From Farm to Forest.
They traveled up and down the ridge that leads down to the pass.
And numerous sites were located along that ridge seasonal camps with artifacts which were taken along with a cave which was desecrated and precious artefacts were taken.
If anyone went back to their ancestral lands today I very doubt they could afford any of the multi million dollar properties along that ridge and would probably be fined if the went back to camp on their old ancestral places.
Arrested and locked up if they made a fuss.
There was the Mullumbimby creek and the Mullumbimby grass; a big open grassy area (around where the town is situated today)that had been cleared by fire stick farming for hunting and other things, which the European cattle farmers loved so much.
Apparently there were some famous standing stones engraved with certain petroglyphs which have been found engraved at numerous other sites across Australia, which later became dubbed as the aboriginal stone henge.
Up on a hill on a farm along the kings creek.
It was a famous meeting place with people being documented to have travelled there for meetings and ceremony up until the 1930s.
The stones were taken away by government agents and documentation of the standing stones confiscated.
An Indigenous ceremonial stone site close to Uncle Tom’s at the Mullumbimby turnoff has been confirmed by the NSW Office of Heritage and Env
''Small ceremonies, or rituals, are still practiced in some remote parts of Australia, such as in Arnhem Land and Central Australia, in order to ensure a supply of plant and animal foods. These take the form of chanting, singing, dancing or ritual action to invoke the Ancestral Beings to ensure a good supply of food or rain.''
There were stories of the earliest cedar getters and squatters swapping rum with local indigenous peoples for directions to the cedar groves.
And perhaps the initial impact was not so terrible as it had been at botany bay and Tasmania.
THE CEDAR GETTERS
Discovery: Red cedar was identified shortly after the 1788 First Fleet arrived, and by 1798, it was the colony's third-largest export.Geographical Sweep: Harvesting began in the Sydney and Hunter regions, moved south to the Illawarra (e.g., Kiama in the 1820s), and then pushed rapidly north into the Northern Rivers and Mid-North Coast (the Big Scrub) as supplies dwindled
Along the coast, bullock teams hauled logs through the surf, where they were rafted or winched onto ships. In Byron Bay, ships were anchored close to beaches like The Pass and Cosy Corner.
Getters were notoriously rugged, living off the grid with little government interference. Their camps were known for rough living and drunken brawls.
Environmental & Social Change: Their relentless pursuit of timber heavily deforested coastal valleys. They were also the first Europeans to have deep (and often devastating) contact with local Aboriginal populations, severely disrupting their traditional communities and health.
Richmond River was part of the district under the jurisdiction of Commissioner Oakes he didn’t visit the area. His successor, Commissioner appointed in 1841 did not make a full tour of his territory until April 1844. Between the 1st and 7th of that month, he visited some of the sawyers camps on the lower Richmond River but there is no mention of travelling up the network of creeks to check on other cedar camps.
The first cedar camp on the Richmond River was set up on the river bank opposite Pelican Creek where Jimmy Pearce, Tommy Chilcott, Cooper and others started work on a patch of cedar on the north arm of the river, this site was later known as the ’Old Camp’. At the height of the drought in 1843, the camp had to be shifted as the river became salty and the sawyers and their families were forced to move further up the river for freshwater. Having found a well-grassed plain where Aboriginals were camped they gave the place the aboriginal name ‘Gunurimbi’. Several other sawyer camps were made along the network of creeks that flowed into the Richmond River system. Some of the places along these creeks were named after the cedar getters and their families who lived there such as Steve King’s Plain and Chilcotts Grass.
The cedar getters on the Richmond River and their families were a law unto themselves with no interference from any government officials seeking licenses or attempting to confiscate their hard-won timber. Although there must have been many drunken brawls and fights, nothing of a too serious a nature happen until 1848 when a charge of murder was brought against a cedar getter named Francis Gilloghly. He was believed to have murdered his partner, Ike, on the river in June 1848.
The Tweed River was more thickly covered by thick brush , than the Clarence and Richmond Rivers which didn’t allow the easy use of bullocks and there were little in the way of grasslands for near-by forage. The most essential equipment was the long or whale boat for the carrying of equipment and provisions. It was used as the means of transport when the men had to move up river, once the more accessible area around the camp had been exhausted. By the following year, the men had to move further up the river and creeks to gain the cedar. They came more frequently in contact with the Aboriginals. In the main it was a peaceful coexistence for the first year or so, although there were incidents, which began to sour the relationships It would appear that the more influential head men of the Tul-gi-gin Tribe wished to acquire the prized equipment of the sawyers such as axes, iron mallets and most importantly the whale boats. Stores such as flour, and the bags it came in, as well as ‘clothing’ in all manner was becoming a status symbol within the tribes. Many sawyers took stealing as a huge affront and thought the Aboriginals should be punished the same way as any sawyer caught stealing from another sawyer, would be punished. Some sawyers employed Aboriginals to help haul their logs into the creeks to float them down to a main camp or to manhandle the squared log to a better site for collection. Payment was made with ’gifts’ of whatever the sawyer could spare in the way of clothes, stores and equipment. Some sawyers, believed that this arrangement could lead to problems over the value of payment when stores were low, and wouldn’t employ the Aboriginals. Some Aboriginals took this as a slur against them and plotted mischief. Other Aboriginals believed they could help themselves to the sawyers possessions under-cover of darkness or when the sawyers were away from camp. One sawyer, by the name of Jack Marcomb, a mate of Hugh Feeney and Jack Collin’s party took exception to the theft of goods and took matters into his own hands, and set out to find, and deal with the culprits. He later fell out with Feeney and Collins, as they felt he had taken matters too far, and ill-treated the Aboriginals, without due cause. Marcomb is thought to have then left the Tweed.
''In 1845 Edward (Ned) Harper arrived at the Tweed from Nerang Creek to enter into the cedar- getting game. He was a loner and was one of the sawyers who employed aboriginal to find the cedar trees, carry water to his camp as well a other jobs he could not do on his own. In fact, he later lived with some of the tribe and learned many facets of their culture. Many years later as an elderly man he was interviewed by a journalist from the Courier Mail. This interview is probably the most complete record we have of events on the Tweed in the early days of cedar- getting.''
''' In 1846 Hugh Feeney and his mate Jack Collins were killed by Aboriginals, although they had always been kind and friendly towards them. Ned Harper although not present at the time, heard the story from Aboriginals, who were involved. At the above mentioned interview records what he knew about the matter.'''
'' but it wasn’t until 1849 that cedar was shipped from the Brunswick River. Although it was known from 1840 that there was cedar on the Brunswick River the experience of Surveyor James Warner’s party showed the river bar, like all the north coast rivers, was shallow and very treacherous and so there appeared to be no reason to move to the Brunswick River.
However by 1849, the boom on the Richmond River was beginning to wane, and the river was being settled by an increasing number of people not interested in cedar, and with the arrival of government officials, the free unrestricted days were coming to an end.''
This is what was reported in the Moreton Bay Courier, “Intelligence reached the settlement yesterday that Hugh Pheeny and a man named Collins, who were employed by Mr John Burgess in sawing timber on the Tweed, had been treacherously murdered by the natives about a month ago, for the sake of their rations. It appears that they were attacked while at work in the creek which connects the north and south arms of the river. The bodies were discovered by Thomas Gorsill, who immediately gave information to Mr Dollman, Mr Burgess’ superintendent. Mr Dollman and some of the sawyers subsequently went to the spot, and buried them. This dreadful transaction had created much confusion on the river. The blacks in this locality have been long known as the most ferocious wretches in the district, and it is deeply to be regretted that there is no means of bringing them to justice. The unfortunate men who have become their victims, were well known to many in Brisbane, as hard working peaceable individuals.''
For more than 30 years until the late 1870s the cedar industry coloured the whole character of life on the Richmond giving it the reputation of being the roughest, toughest river in Australia. It all began in 1842 when a group of cedar-cutting farmers from the Clarence tramped northwards to discover rich falls of cedar in the region of modern Coraki.
Soon hundreds of pairs of sawyers were on their way from the quickly worked out forests of the Macleay, the Bellinger and the Nambucca to camp permanently on the Richmond. By 1845 two-thirds of the colony’s exports of cedar came from there. The sawyers were a race apart. Mostly former convicts who had either served their time or escaped from penal settlements like Morten Bay, they lived alone deep in the heart of the north coast cedar brushes. Almost their only contact with civilisation was when the schooners of the timber fleet arrived to load their cedar and bring them supplies.
All night the sinewy, pale-faced sawyers and their lubra mistresses drank and sang round the rum keg. All day they lay on the ground dead drunk, recovering just in time for the following night’s orgy. Rarely did the drinkers bother to tap the keg. The quickest way to get at the contents was to smash a hole in the side with an axe and use a bucket to catch the rum as it gushed out. Casualties tended to be higher during those two weeks of hectic celebration than during the months of dangerous cutting. Men wandered into the river and drowned or even loosed of guns at all and sundry, sometimes with fatal results.
Early Australian red cedar was primarily sold to cabinetmakers and builders in Sydney and other growing colonial settlements, but it was also widely exported internationally. Major overseas markets included England, India, China, New Zealand, South Africa, and Mauritius.
Locally, the timber was highly prized as a substitute for imported mahogany and was used extensively for high-end furniture, government offices, hotels, and bank fit-outs.
HISTORY OF FOREST PROTESTS
In the late 1970s, the Forestry Commission announced plans to log the pristine subtropical rainforests of Terania Creek, near Lismore.
Facing heavy machinery, locals and environmentalists physically blockaded the logging operations and formed human shields, marking the first time in Australian history that a natural resource was physically defended from logging.
: The protests triggered the NSW Government to end all rainforest logging in the state and led to the creation of Nightcap National Park in 1983.
In the 1990s, logging expanded into the old-growth eucalypt forests of the Chaelundi State Forest, west of Coffs Harbour/Dorrigo.
The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) set up major blockades. Over 200 people were arrested in a 10-day standoff with police, making it one of the largest mass arrests in Australian history at the time.
The protests led to groundbreaking legal victories. The NSW Land and Environment Court ruled that the Forestry Commission’s logging practices were illegal due to inadequate environmental impact assessments, setting major legal precedents for protecting threatened species.
THE WILSONS
Scottish pioneers William and Jane Wilson sailed from Sydney on the schooner Westmoreland in 1844, crossing the treacherous Ballina bar on February 9. After a period in Ballina, they constructed a raft in January 1845 to navigate the upper Richmond River. They sailed and rafted up the river, eventually establishing the 'Lismore' run.
After arriving in Ballina in February 1844, William Wilson spent nearly a year exploring the waterways. In January 1845, William and Jane, along with their family, loaded their belongings onto a raft and navigated the winding upper reaches of the Richmond River. They eventually dropped anchor near the junction of Leycester and Wilsons Creeks (now Wilsons River).
After arriving in Ballina in February 1844, William Wilson spent nearly a year exploring the waterways. In January 1845, William and Jane, along with their family, loaded their belongings onto a raft and navigated the winding upper reaches of the Richmond River. They eventually dropped anchor near the junction of Leycester and Wilsons Creeks (now Wilsons River).
Before the river was properly charted, traversing the Richmond was fraught with danger. William Wilson's schooner was grounded on a sandbar in 1844 and required a team of bullocks to drag it free. Later, Wilsons River (then the North Arm of the Richmond) became a bustling highway for cedar-cutters, timber schooners, and droghers, opening the way for massive 1,000-tonne ships to reach Lismore
Before the river was properly charted, traversing the Richmond was fraught with danger. William Wilson's schooner was grounded on a sandbar in 1844 and required a team of bullocks to drag it free. Later, Wilsons River (then the North Arm of the Richmond) became a bustling highway for cedar-cutters, timber schooners, and droghers, opening the way for massive 1,000-tonne ships to reach Lismore
Alongside the Wilson family, is the headstone of the local Bundjalung chief at the time, Charley Queybaum. Queybaum became friends with Wilson, which is said to have ensured the white settler had good relations with the local tribes.
William Wilson’s grandson Marquis del Moral, organised Queybaum's headstone as recognition for saving his grandfather’s life on more than four occasions.
Alongside the Wilson family, is the headstone of the local Bundjalung chief at the time, Charley Queybaum. Queybaum became friends with Wilson, which is said to have ensured the white settler had good relations with the local tribes.
William Wilson’s grandson Marquis del Moral, organised Queybaum's headstone as recognition for saving his grandfather’s life on more than four occasions.
Edwin James Wilson (1942–2022) was a prolific Australian poet, painter, author, and scientist, widely celebrated for his memoirs and poetry chronicling his formative years in Mullumbimby. Born in Lismore, NSW, he spent his foundational childhood decade (1948–1958) in Mullumbimby, an upbringing that deeply inspired his art and literature.
31-year-old Gage Wilson was last seen alive around 5:00 AM on Saturday, May 18, 2024, leaving a home on Hakea Court in Mullumbimby, NSW.
Shortly after his final sighting, his partner's white utility vehicle was found crashed into a tree and abandoned near Teales Lookout on Koonyum Range Road
SW Police and local volunteers immediately conducted massive ground and aerial search efforts using drones through the steep rainforest, but found no trace of him at the time
On August 4, 2024, after a 10-week exhaustive search, volunteer search parties alongside authorities uncovered his remains. A subsequent autopsy officially confirmed the identity as Gage. While the exact physical circumstances of his death have not been publicly finalized by the police, his family firmly rejects theories of misadventure or a simple hiking accident. Gage's father and sister have publicly stated they believe he was murdered, submitting detailed personal evidence to the NSW Coroner's office ahead of a formal coronial inquest.
His mother, Ida Wilson, has publicly stated that Gage was "savely murdered" and died a "violent death, the result of brutal homicide"
The family has expressed immense frustration with early police efforts, noting that authorities suspended the official search after just three days despite finding a piece of Gage's clothing. It was the family's independently organized 10-week community drone and foot search that ultimately recovered his remains
Dailan Pugh: [Environmental activist and artist]
DIRECT LESSONS FROM TERANIA CREEK
''The Terania Creek protest was the precedent for taking direct non-violent action to protect forests. the political effect of the blockade was inspirational for a range of future environmental confrontations around Australia.
Equally important was the personal empowerment of many people associated with that campaign. The inspiration of Terania Creek led to people taking up campaigns elsewhere in the region, other states, and even internationally, for forests.
It is not just the small stand of oldgrowth Brushbox at the head of Terania Creek which still survives today because of the Terania Creek protests, but many, many thousands of hectares of rainforest, oldgrowth forest and wilderness scattered around the globe.
Personally, it was a catalyst to my devotion to forest protection, starting first with rainforests further west, expanding to include the fight for oldgrowth eucalypt forests, and culminating with the establishment of the North East Forest Alliance ten years ago
The North East Forest Alliance have used every avenue available in its fight to protect rainforest, oldgrowth, wilderness, and threatened species. this has included extensive use of non-violent direct action. From our experience, it is evident that direct action is still essential to help create the political will to protect forests.
This emphasises that the lessons that Terania Creek taught many of us 20 years ago are just as relevant today as they were then. Direct action saves forests.
Hon. Neville Wran AC QC: [former Premier of New South Wales, Australia]
Many thanks for your generous invitation to officiate at the opening of the Anniversary Exhibition on Saturday 14th August. Regrettably, I have been otherwise committed that weekend for some time, hence I can't attend.
I regret this because Terania Creek and the men and women who fought for it, played a critical role in shaping my views and the views of the Government of the day in reLation to conservation. Indeed, there is no doubt that Terania Creek was a milestone in the history of conservation in Australia.
When I retired from politics, I was asked what I regarded as the Government's greatest achievement. I had no hesitation in responding that it was saving the rainforests on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.
Whilst I am proud of what we did, my only regret is that we did not do more.
Hazel Hawke:[Chair, Heritage Council of New South Wales, Australia]
I am pleased to add my voice to your celebration of the 20th anniversary of the historic Terania protest movement.
The 1970s began with the Greens Bans movement in the historic areas of Sydney, Australia. As a result of this unique collaboration between property owners, residents, middle-class activists, and the trade union movement, we can still appreciate and Enjoy Millers Point, Glebe, Woolloomooloo, and The Rocks. These places contribute enormously to our understanding of the development of Sydney as a 19th century maritime city.
At the end of the decade it was the turn of the old growth forests. Because of the incredible determination of the Terania protest movement and the support of the Wran government, we are now able to enjoy the last remnants of the Big Scrub. World Heritage listing has confirmed the immense significance and beauty of these natural areas.
These citizens' movements proved the power of the people. They showed how much ordinary people care about our extraordinary heritage.
I salute all you who are meeting again to celebrate the important anniversary of your success. I trust you all pass on to your children love and respect for our special heritage places.
These places matter because we care about them.
Congratulations to you all.
Professor Len Webb AO:[Professor of Rainforest Ecology and Officer of the General Order of Australia]
SIGNIFICANCE OF TERANIA PROTEST
It is clear now, although only dimly realised at the time, that the popular struggle to protect the Terania rainforests in their natural habitat had deep, inner personal motives, as well as the social, political and judicial ramifications of commercial forestry, and that the issue was of much more than local significance.
Physical confrontation to defend land, in which people have a deep emotional and special religious roots, is of course not new in Australia. The rights of European exploitative settlement have been regularly challenged by Aboriginal tribes, and are still being negotiated.
Similarly, but less tangibly, the defence of the Terania forests could not have been so passionate, so genuine, if it did not rely on what Nan Nicholson has called "the simplicity of myth". This we must continue to explore.
The Terania protest brought together concerned people from many walks of life, and reflected a new, inner reality of Australian consciousness of forested landscapes. Poets such as Judith Wright have already led the way towards this confident, cultural maturity. Thus "we must be at peace" with our landscapes before we can live in harmony among ourselves.
Ecological science, conservation biology, and related sciences are now able to buttress the intuition and conviction of the protestors twenty years ago!
Thus these rare, complex rainforests and their wildlife relationships have an intrinsic value in themselves, "beyond the forest": in the Lismore region, in New South Wales, and nationally, that are are of unique value for the world.
WOODENBONG
A meteorite which, legend says, looked like a strange animal from outer space gave Woodenbong Aboriginal Station its name. Warriors of the ancient Githebul tribe who watched from a distance the meteorite’s swift passage to earth could never find where it landed. It disappeared without trace and the “ animal ” left no tracks. From that day Githebul folk lore has retained the story of “Wootenbotem ” the tribe’s name for “ dis-appearing animal”. Because of the white man’s difficulty in pronouncing the aboriginal word it became corrupted to Woodenbong.
It was first called Williams Town by the white settlers because members of the Williams family were the original inhabitants.
Ornamental bong maker Paul Pearson has been making the devices from wood since he moved to the town of Woodenbong in northern NSW. Building bongs from dolls, plastic lobsters, vases, and exhaust pipes in the past, Pearson said he hadn’t previously thought to make one out of wood due to water rot. “But as soon as I heard Woodenbong, I envisioned a wooden bong,” “share [his] dream” of building a wooden bong “taller than the big merino” for his hometown of Woodenbong. Pearson has started a petition to garner public support for his vision, which features a giant wooden bong atop a tourist information centre. “It’s an innovative idea, but I think it’s totally inconsistent with the culture and values of the local community,” Woodenbong-based Kyogle Shire councillor Lindsay Passfield told the ABC.
The town’s name is is adapted from the local Indigenous word Ngandgung-bunj, Woodenbong local and Githabul elder Gloria Williams told the ABC. “The name Woodenbong has nothing to do with a bong,” she said. Ms Williams was told the name in fact means “place of the platypus”.
YOWIES
GARY Opit was working as a ranger in Lamington National Park in the early 1970s when what he believes was a Yowie attacked his house one night, banging on the walls and destroying a large woodpile outside.
A few years later, a Yowie roared at him during the daytime in a remote forest east of Springbrook National Park.
“I heard another individual vocalising, five minutes of continuous bellowing roars, on Tamborine Mountain at night in 1978, quite unlike the bellows of a koala or of cattle and much more powerful,” he said.
These experiences inspired the Wooyung resident to become a cryptozoologist. Over the ensuing decades, he has studied and investigated animals whose existence remains unconfirmed, gathering eyewitness accounts and searching for physical evidence.
“I heard another individual vocalising, five minutes of continuous barks in groups of three between extremely unusual gurgles at Upper Main Arm in 1996 at night,” he said. “The calls were extremely powerful and unlike any known animal vocalisation and the calls did not sound like that of a person or a great ape like a chimp.”
"There were many testimonies given to explorers, missionaries and settlers in the 1820s and 1830s by Aboriginal tribespeople who had seen 'hairy men' which they knew by many different names," he said.
The Githabul people — the original inhabitants of the Woodenbong area — tell the story of "hairy men" living in the Mount Lindesay area that were feared yet respected man-like beings.
But these accounts had been consigned to Aboriginal folklore due to a lack of physical evidence, Mr Healy said.
"Yowie reports have been constant since the colonial era all along the Border Ranges,
"In 1928 at Palen Creek, a Bob Mitchell said he and a mate were riding through that area at about 10:00am when they saw a yowie."
"It was about seven feet tall with a black human face and a gorilla-like body covered in thick brownish hair.
"It showed no aggression, just looked at us for a moment then turned and disappeared into the bush.
"It had really big feet and could move fast."
Woodenbong resident Thelma Crewe said she saw two of the creatures in her Richmond Street yard in late 1976.
Her story was reported in the local Northern Star newspaper:
"I didn't turn on the kitchen light straight away because it was such a moonlit night. I stood at the open window looking at the view. "This creature walked onto our lawn from the next door vacant lot and stood there for two or three minutes looking towards me. "He was sort of flexing his arms in a circular movement in front of his face. The creature then moved from the side towards the bedroom where my husband was sleeping. "There was another creature of exactly the same height and appearance standing under our bedroom window. "They were about five feet tall and covered in tan-coloured hair. Their heads seemed to be sunk low into their shoulders. "I couldn't see the facial features properly. They had a shuffling kind of walk. I was much too close to mistake it."
Mrs Maloney told the newspaper that her Australian terrier had been attacked by a yowie.
She said she was woken by her dog barking and ran into her backyard.
"I suddenly saw the creature directly in front of me. I was within six feet of the jolly thing and I think I stopped breathing for a moment because of the fright. "It was sitting on its haunches and had the dog completely crushed against its chest. It was as if it was trying to crush the life out of the little dog. "The creature stood up, looked straight at me and dropped the dog, which I thought was dead."
Mrs Maloney described the yowie as more than six feet (183cm) tall with an almost hairless face, ape-like, with a heavy brow, no chin or neck, and ginger-coloured hair hanging from its arms and legs.
She also said the yowie was male and that its genitals were quite apparent.
It allegedly ran away leaving the dog with wounds to its chest and neck. The dog died a short time later.
Deep in the Nightcap National Park (near Nimbin), this area has a notorious history of strange lights descending into the valley and hovering over the dense forest canopy.
The coastal strip between Byron Bay and Ballina is frequently cited by researchers for unexplained lights pacing cars along the Pacific Highway and anomalous fast-moving objects emerging from or diving into the ocean.
The deep wilderness bridging NSW and Queensland boasts centuries of Indigenous legends and consistent modern-day camper reports regarding massive, foul-smelling hominids and unsettling vocalizations echoing through the valleys.
The father of yowie research, Rex "The Yowie Man" Gilroy, will be leading the investigation in Lismore.
Mr Gilroy and his wife, Heather, are directors of the Australian Yowie Research Centre, which they set up in 1976 in an effort to gather evidence of yowies for scientific assessment.
There was a bush ranger by the name George Browne from ceylon who had escaped from the penal colony at Stradebroke and traveled through the area on his way to the colony at new England and spent much of his time absconding with the natives
''George Brown (sometimes referred to as George "Black" Brown) was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) around 1800. As a sailor and servant, he arrived in England, where he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years' transportation at just 15 years old.
''Early Convict Years: Brown arrived in New South Wales aboard the ship Ocean on February 5, 1816. He was sent to Liverpool for assignment, and in 1817, he was transferred to Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania) aboard the Pilot.By August 1824, Brown had returned to New South Wales and was granted a Certificate of Freedom. However, he reoffended and was sentenced to transportation at the harsh Moreton Bay penal station for stealing clothes. During his time at Moreton Bay, Brown became one of a small group of South Asian and African convicts who escaped into the bush. He lived with the district's Indigenous peoples, gaining a deep understanding of culture Following his release, he returned to Sydney but was subsequently convicted of stealing a watch, seal, and key in October 1828. [1]their languages, customs, and laws''
''Both men were repeat absconders from the Moreton Bay penal settlement who managed to survive by embedding themselves within Aboriginal groups. Because they spent years at large, they gained a working knowledge of local customs, laws, and languages, acting as intermediaries''
In May 1837, Commandant Foster Fyans of the Moreton Bay settlement was approached by Aboriginal leaders from Bribie Island. The Indigenous leaders explicitly requested that the authorities remove four convict runaways, including Brown and Browne. The local groups had become frustrated with the bushrangers' presence, specifically because the escapees were treating Indigenous women and girls poorly.
Sheik Browne: After being captured and returned to Moreton Bay, Browne survived the convict era and worked in the Pine Rivers area, north of Brisbane. He was eventually killed by the local Indigenous people there, possibly in retribution for past conflicts
When the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was in the process of closing down around 1839, George Brown elected to stay in the region. Because of his language skills and bushcraft, colonial authorities appointed him as a "Bush Constable". His mandate was to befriend, liaise with, and oversee the local Indigenous populations.
Brown's dual role as both an agent of the Crown and an insider within Indigenous communities proved highly controversial. His knowledge of the local landscape and people ultimately led colonial authorities to suspect him of inciting Indigenous raids on European pastoral stations. Following a violent raid at George Mocatta's Grantham station in 1841—during which sheep were stolen and a hut-keeper was murdered—settlers blamed Brown's return for stirring up the local people
After a second period of exile, (george)Brown returned to the Moreton Bay region in 1841 and chose to live with the Yuggera people near Grantham. Later that year, he was accused by European settlers of inciting an Indigenous raid on a local sheep station. While European pastoralists led retaliatory violence against the Aboriginal camp, Brown was sent back to Sydney to be tried. He was released without charge in 1842, and all historical records of him disappear after he received a pass in 1843.
The penal colony at Redcliffe (initially named Red Cliff Point) was the very first European settlement in Queensland. Founded on September 13, 1824, it served as a strict secondary punishment destination for convicts who committed crimes after arriving in Australia. The settlement was exceptionally short-lived and was abandoned in May 1825 after just eight months. When the convicts and military personnel deserted the outpost to relocate, the local Indigenous people (the Ningy Ningy people of the Turrbal and Gubbi Gubbi nations) referred to the abandoned structures as umpi bong. This anglicized into "Humpybong" (meaning "dead houses" or "deserted shelters"). The names Redcliffe and Humpybong remained completely interchangeable for the peninsula until the late 1930s. : Humpybong Creek dried up rapidly, providing an inadequate supply of fresh water for a growing population.Disease: The low-lying swampy terrain was severely infested with mosquitoes, causing widespread illness.Conflict: The settlement was highly exposed and faced constant retaliatory resistance from the local Aboriginal populations who were defending their stolen''
I'm quite certain "Bumberbin" is an entirely ficticious named put there by American CIA military psychics{who were paid truck loads of money and paid everyone in the services who helped them truck loads of money} who knew the Lord of the Rings movie trillogy was comming and were thinking of the Byron shire as a little Hollywood, way back in the 1980's and were interested in the real estate and tourism.
Same with the Harry Bray stories: the stockman who takes the rich peoples kids to the movies and waits in the park for them.
There is something not right.
The stories are not right.
Like the American illumanatti film crew are eyeing off real eastate all the way back then, infiltrating services and rewriting history.
Illumanatti history.
And now everything''s virtual memories on the net.
Is anyone ever going to really know ?
Probably around the time the nazis from America bought ocean shores
OPERATION PHEONIX AND THE NUGEN HAND BANK
'The Nugan-Hand Bank in Australia was the scene of the largest bank fraud in history at that time (1980). The investment firm was set up in 1973 by covert intelligence assets from the US and the board staffed by prominent US admirals, generals, and colonels. Millions of dollars were used to purchase weapons and trade them for heroin in the Golden Triangle in order to finance on-going operations outside of legislative or even executive control of the elected US government. Branches of the banking front were opened on several continents to move weapons, drugs, and money between drug producers, customers, and covert wars in South Africa, Central America, Iran, and other places. Corrupt foreign leaders such as Ferdinand Marcos, as well as drug lords in the Golden Triangle, were actively courted by Nugan-Hand participants. The Stewart Royal Commission that investigated the billion-dollar fraud functioned largely to cover up the nature and intent of the crime. When the house of cards collapsed, the two owners were allowed time to flee, Michael Hand, the former Green Beret and intelligence asset (Air America) disappeared, while Frank Nugan was found murdered in what was covered up as a suicide. In 1975 CIA team leader Theodore Shackley issued an ultimatum to the Australian intelligence services that their relationship would end if the Prime Minister continued to question the CIA's influence in Australian internal affairs. Three days later, the Governor General John Kerr, a man with extensive ties to CIA front organizations (Asia Foundation) going back many years, dismissed Prime Minister Whitlam in a constitutional coup.''
The story of drug smuggling at Ocean Shores reads like a spy novel, with its U.S. Green Beret officer, CIA Air America pilot, billionaire sh
After the Vietnam war publicly ended and the American's sent back their cruelest soldiers in secret and after they took Saigon, they encouraged them to take whatever wealth they could from the country.
Turn that dodgy war crime money into American green backs.
Why not go invest in some nice property some place safe like Oz.
Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was obviously pretty enthusiastic.
I wonder whether Nugan and Hand were their real names.
Or just another kooky name for a dodgy CIA covert operation
''getting a hand from Ngyuen''
Get a hand from 'nguyen' which a red neck tongue would pronounce as nugen.
(The high up military did not teach their soldiers the Vietnamese language probably intentionaly probably in the interests of cruelty).
I read they collected many other body parts from the Vietnamese people during their secret offensive particularly ears.
An ideal situation for the american illuminati military complex to practice some of their mind control techniques on the enemy
Col Alexander was over their giving some orders.
As it was conceived, Phoenix was designed to centralize, under CIA management, the various Saigon intelligence services responsible for seeking out National Liberation Front (VietCong) agents in the civilian population. A tangle of military police and civilian officials were trained and guided by U.S. Army advisors (from the Special Forces) to penetrate the civilian population, gather information and arrest or "neutralize" suspected communist cadre. By 1969 the CIA mission in Saigon listed 19,534 Viet Cong suspects as "neutralized." there followed an outcry by the American people and by anti-war Congressional representatives who referred to the program as "mass murder." CIA officials admitted to inefficiency, corruption and abuse in the operation. Further investigation showed Saigon officials functioning as usual: self-promotion, non-cooperation and massive graft of U.S. aid appropriations headed for the Phoenix program—in short, business as usual, only worse.
''The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist? It's not like you had their address and telephone number. The normal procedure would be to go into a village and just grab someone and say, "Where's Nguyen so-and-so?" Half the time the people were so afraid they would not say anything. Then a Phoenix team would take the informant, put a sandbag over his head, poke out two holes so he could see, put commo wire around his neck like a long leash, and walk him through the village and say, "When we go by Nguyen's house scratch your head." Then that night Phoenix would come back, knock on the door, and say, "April Fool, motherfucker." Whoever answered the door would get wasted. As far as they were concerned whoever answered was a Communist, including family members. Sometimes they'd come back to camp with ears to prove that they killed people.'' The surname Nguyễn (often written without diacritics as Nguyen) is the most common family name in Vietnam, carried by an estimated 40% of the population. It primarily functions as a surname with ancient roots, Derived from Chinese characters meaning root, cause, or source. Can signify the "first," "basic," or "leading Closely related to the Vietnamese word for something that is still intact or in its original state (còn nguyên)
Veterans revealed that interrogation centers frequently utilized systematic torture What was the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and why was it so .... Many felt the program devolved into a civilian assassination campaign rather than an intelligence-gathering operation Up to 80,000 individuals were classified as "neutralized" THE CONTROVERSIAL OPERATION PHOENIX - CIA, but many veterans complained that quotas encouraged the inclusion of innocent peasants and political activists rather than authentic guerrilla operatives Veterans publicly testified to these atrocities in subsequent Congress hearings, where declassified details revealed widespread inefficiency and human rights violations''
''At Tuy Hoa, a locality of 10,000 inhabitants north of Nha Trang, policemen who had participated in Operation Phoenix (designed to destroy the infrastructure of the NFLSV (National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam) were reportedly massacred by relatives of their own victims.''
Operation Phoenix administrators established specific "neutralization" quotas for provincial offices to increase the program's effectiveness, with some internal military records indicating a target of 1,800 individuals per province in late 1969.
Because units were pressured to meet these high quotas, many victims were civilians or junior-level cadre rather than high-ranking VCI
I always wondered whether the nick name for Ocean Shores - 'Open Sores' came from some of the mind control, torture interrogation techniques the American military were employing against the Vietnamese when they were earning the dollars that bought the real estate.
SAND MINING ALTERS THE EAST COAST
Eastern Australia’s 100-year history of heavy mineral sand mining (for rutile, zircon, and ilmenite) caused severe ecological degradation. Extraction decimated coastal dunes, altered hydrological systems, polluted adjacent lakes,
Mining flattened fragile foredunes and hind dunes, removing protective native vegetation and completely destabilizing the delicate wind-blown dune structures
In the 1870s, miners discovered gold in the heavy black sand seams (placer deposits) of northern NSW beaches. Discoveries around Evans Head, Ballina, and the famous McAulay's Lead (1895) attracted hundreds of prospectors who manually scraped and sluiced the beaches to extract gold, platinum, and tin.
By the 1930s, the focus shifted to heavy minerals (rutile, zircon, and ilmenite) used for titanium production and atomic energy.
By the 1930s, the focus shifted from gold to the black sands themselves, which were rich in rutile (for titanium dioxide) and zircon and ilmenite used for titanium production and atomic energy.
Byron Bay became the birthplace of the world’s first commercial mineral sand mining industry in 1935
Mining operations completely stripped large foredunes and hind dunes. Early methods involved crude, unregulated beach scraping, which was followed by massive mechanical dredges and floating treatment plants that chewed through ancient, stable dune systems.
Removing native coastal vegetation prior to dredging left coastal dunes highly vulnerable to wind and wave erosion
Coastal sand dunes and massive shell middens (some up to 60 meters high containing thousands of years of Aboriginal cultural history) were routinely leveled by bulldozers and dredging equipment. Historic surveys, like those documented in the Aboriginal Heritage Study, detail how dunes containing rich artifact scatters and hearths were heavily compromised
Many irreplaceable stone tools, burial grounds, and ceremonial grounds were destroyed before cultural heritage laws were established.
Sand mining severely altered the coastal landscape of the Northern Rivers, making it difficult for Indigenous communities to access traditional hunting, gathering, and fishing grounds.
While large-scale heavy mineral sand mining accelerated heavily in the post-WWII era, it was built directly on the footprint of early placer and gold mining camps that first disrupted coastal Aboriginal communities in the early 1900s.
Rutile: Used primarily as a flux coating on electric welding rods. This was crucial for strengthening metal joints in heavy industry, shipping, and crucially, munitions and naval manufacturing during World War II. It was also being pioneered as a base for premium, brilliant white titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigments.
Zircon: Sold to foundries for refractory applications (making high-heat-resistant molds for molten metal castings) and to the ceramics and glazing industries. It was also used to make early non-tarnishing jewelry (as a diamond substitute)
Because the commercial extraction was pioneered by local companies like Zircon Rutile Limited, much of the high-grade raw concentrate was exported to the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe to supply growing industrial and wartime demand.
Early rehabilitation efforts relied heavily on the African Bitou bush to quickly stop sand drifts. This invasive species now smothers vast stretches of the coast and is classified as a Weed of National Significance.
Widespread dredging heavily impacted cultural sites, destroying Aboriginal middens, camp sites, and European historical structures.
The extraction process left behind concentrated heavy-mineral waste, which sometimes included the radioactive mineral monazite. This buildup can pose environmental and health hazards in some back-beach areas.
PAX AMERICANA
BCCI: Bank of Crooks and Criminals International
''Ramparts magazine called Clifford a "curious hybrid of Rasputin, Perry Como and Mr. Fix it," in an article that depicted him as an architect of U.S. States economic imperialism and linked that role to his legal work representing major multinational corporations. BCCI, meanwhile, had its own connections. The Reagan administration launched no investigation even after the CIA had sent reports to the Treasury, Commerce, and State Departments bluntly describing the bank's role in drug-money laundering and other illegal activities. BCCI catered to many of the most notorious tyrants and thugs of the late 20th century, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the heads of the Medellin cocaine cartel, and Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist. According to the CIA, it also did business with those who went on to lead al Qaeda. BCCI went beyond merely offering financial assistance to dictators and terrorists: According to Time, the operation itself was an elaborate fraud, replete with a "global intelligence operation and a Mafia- like enforcement squad." The Wall Street Journal reported in 1991, there was a "mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy since George W. Bush came on board." In 1987, Bush secured a critical $25 million-loan from a bank that was a BCCI joint venture. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden. As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." Clifford and his former law partner, Robert Altman, were indicted in July 1992 on charges of fraud and accepting $40 million in bribes from the foreign-owned Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The two had been attorneys for BCCI. They denied the charges against them and said they were duped by BCCI's Pakistani executives. BCCI pleaded guilty in January 1992 to federal racketeering charges and agreed to forfeit a record $550 million in U.S. assets. (Washington Monthly, by David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin)
PAX AMERICA
The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defense secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'. This American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars as a 'core mission'. The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'. The plan represents a blueprint for what any other country would term American hegemony, an effort to control world affairs, and what a hostile country would term an attempt to take over the world. Key to this strategy is the effort to militarize space, to place anti-satellite weapons in orbit to deny other nations satellite capabilities, and to place strategic weapons in space to attack military hardware and personnel on the earth's surface. The placing of weapons in space is expressly prohibited by international treaties, and threatens to set off an arms race in space.
THE CRIMES OF PATRIOTS
The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA by investigative journalist Jonathan Kwitny is an exhaustively researched expose. Published and celebrated for its gripping, true-crime storytelling, the book unravels how the obscure Australian-based Nugan Hand Bank became a global hub for illegal activities
Kwitny details how the institution served as a financial engine for an astonishing array of crimes, including international heroin trafficking, tax fraud, and illicit arms deals
The book heavily focuses on the bank’s executives—many of whom were retired high-ranking US military and intelligence officials. Kwitny argues that these figures operated an "extra-constitutional" syndicate that circumvented the law in pursuit of their own ideological and financial goals.
Journalistic Excellence: Critics praised Kwitny’s meticulous investigation, often highlighting his ability to synthesize complex geopolitical conspiracies into highly readable, compelling prose.
Readers and historians frequently view the book as an essential companion to understanding subsequent international intelligence scandals, such as the later Iran-Contra affair.
While generally lauded, some reviewers noted that a portion of the text relies on allegations regarding specific covert CIA directives that are difficult to definitively prove
AUSTRALIAN FEDRAL POLITICS IN THE 1970S
''Historical records show allegations and evidence of deep tension between Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and U.S. intelligence due to his Vietnam War policies, his government's raid on the Australian security agency (ASIO), and his threats to close the CIA-run spy base at Pine Gap. Key operatives Ted Shackley and figures tied to the U.S. establishment, along with a hostile press led by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, were deeply opposed to his independent foreign policies. ''
''The friction between Whitlam and U.S./Australian intelligence stemmed from several major actions:
''The US’ trouble with Australia started on December 20, 1972, 18 days into the Whitlam government, when Whitlam wrote to Nixon in protest at the heavy bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, and suggested he would try for regional governments to jointly call on the US and North Vietnam to return to the negotiating table. Kissinger privately threated to end the ANZUS Treaty. Jim Cairns, Clyde Cameron and Tom Uren publicly denounced the bombing as brutal, indiscriminate slaughter.''
''White House tapes reveal that Nixon and Kissinger agreed to ''freeze'' Whitlam ''for a few months'' so that he would ''get the message''. Nixon insisted on no contact with the Australian ambassador, that no New Year's messages be sent to Whitlam and that all cables to Canberra be cleared through Kissinger's office. Nixon said that Whitlam was ''one of the peaceniks . . . he is certainly putting the Australians on a very, very dangerous path''.
Vietnam War: Whitlam immediately abolished conscription and withdrew Australian troops, causing U.S. intelligence to label Australia as "North Vietnamese collaborators."
The ASIO Raid: In 1973, Whitlam's attorney-general ordered federal police to raid ASIO headquarters to find out if Australian intelligence was colluding with the CIA behind the government's back.
Pine Gap: Whitlam demanded to know why a secret joint spy base was being run by the CIA, and threatened to cancel its lease.
U.S. Operations: CIA operative Ted Shackley, known for his covert operations, actively tracked Whitlam's challenge to U.S. intelligence "crown jewels."
The Murdoch Press: Media organizations owned by Rupert Murdoch intensely campaigned against the Whitlam government, weakening his public support before his ultimate dismissal by John Kerr on November 11, 1975'''
Theodore (Ted) Shackley was a top Central Intelligence Agency official who managed massive, highly controversial Cold War and shadow operations in Asia. Critics and investigative journalists have linked his tenure in Southeast Asia to operations involving unsavory proxies, political assassinations, and the facilitation of regional heroin trafficking.
Shackley was a notorious, high-ranking CIA officer known for running covert operations in Vietnam, Cuba, and Chile.
As Saigon station chief, he helped direct Operation Phoenix, an intelligence-gathering program that utilized controversial counterinsurgency
Heroin Trade: Historians and journalists allege the CIA’s reliance on tribal opium-growing militias in Laos created a logistics network that facilitated global heroin smuggling.
Following his CIA retirement, Shackley faced scrutiny for his association with former operatives running unauthorized arms and terror campaigns for Libya (the Iran-Contra and Edwin Wilson affairs).
''researchers and investigative authors often place Rupert Murdoch in the orbit of Ted Shackley. Critics, historians, and authors like John Pilger frequently reference historical investigations (including interviews with CIA insiders) claiming that the CIA used key media figures—such as Murdoch, whose newspapers eventually adopted a highly critical stance on Whitlam—to help sway public opinion and prepare the groundwork for the 1975 constitutional crisis.''
Manufacturing Consent
''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, '' Manufacturing Consent was honored with the Orwell Award for "outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse" in 1989. Before Manufacturing Consent was published in 1988, the two authors had previously collaborated on the same subject. Their book Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, a book about American foreign policy and the media, was published in 1973. The publisher for the book, a subsidiary of Warner Communications Incorporated, was deliberately put out of print after publishing 20,000 copies of the book, most of which were destroyed, so the book was not widely known. they argued, "Especially where the issues involve substantial U.S. economic and political interests and relationships with friendly or hostile states, the mass media usually function much in the manner of state propaganda agencies." The dominant mass-media are large profit-based operations, and therefore they must cater to the financial interests of the owners such as corporations and controlling investors. Since the majority of the revenue of major media outlets derives from advertising (not from sales or subscriptions), advertisers have acquired a "de facto licensing authority". Media outlets are not commercially viable without the support of advertisers. News media must therefore cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. "the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access [to the news], by their contribution to reducing the media's costs of acquiring [...] and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become 'routine' news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers." Editorial distortion is aggravated by the news media's dependence upon private and governmental news sources. If a given newspaper, television station, magazine, etc., incurs disfavor from the sources, it is subtly excluded from access to information. This filter concerns the spectre of a common enemy which can be used to marginalise dissent: "This ideology helps mobilize the populace against an enemy, and because the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten [dominant] interests". Anti-communism was included as a filter in the original 1988 edition of the book, but Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1945–91) anticommunism was replaced by the "war on terror" as the major social control mechanism.''
Noam Chomsky's "Syntactic Structures" appeared at a moment when the dominant paradigm in linguistics treated language as a collection of learned behaviors, not fundamentally different from training a rat to press a lever. The mind wasn't a blank slate to be written on through experience, but rather came pre-equipped with linguistic structures. Children didn't learn language the way they learned to tie their shoes; they grew language the way they grew arms and legs, following an internal blueprint shaped by evolution.
Noam Chomsky revolutionized both linguistics and computer science by demonstrating that natural human language and computer programming share fundamental structural properties, acting via rule-based systems in the mind. However, while programming languages require explicit, unambiguous commands, human language relies on innate cognitive principles that allow for limitless creativity.
Noam Chomsky revolutionized both linguistics and computer science by demonstrating that natural human language and computer programming share fundamental structural properties, acting via rule-based systems in the mind. However, while programming languages require explicit, unambiguous commands, human language relies on innate cognitive principles that allow for limitless creativity.
Unlike programming languages, which must be explicitly learned and strictly dictate exact outcomes, human language is innate. Chomsky theorized a universal grammar—an internal "program" in the brain that allows children to effortlessly acquire complex language despite fragmented exposure
AUSTRALIA IN THE 1970'S
''The US National Archives has just declassified a secret diplomatic telegram dated January 20, 1975 that sheds new light on Murdoch's involvement in the tumultuous events of Australia's 1975 constitutional crisis.
Entitled "Australian publisher privately turns on Prime Minister," the telegram from US Consul-General in Melbourne, Robert Brand, reported to the State Department that "Rupert Murdoch has issued [a] confidential instruction to editors of newspapers he controls to 'Kill Whitlam' ".
Describing Mr Murdoch as "the l'enfant terrible of Australian journalism," Mr Brand noted that Mr Murdoch had been "the principal publisher supporting the Whitlam election effort in 1972 Labor victory".''
Mr Brand's telegram makes it clear the words "kill Whitlam" were a political direction to News Limited newspapers and not a physical threat to the prime minister.
The consul-general's January, 1975 telegram has only been declassified this week after Fairfax Media applied for access 10 months ago. The identity of Labor Attache Labatt's confidential source of information has been redacted.
Although Murdoch believed he played "a substantial role" in Labor's 1972 election victory, his enthusiasm for Whitlam had quickly waned.
"He expects to support the opposition in the next election," Ambassador Green reported in November, 1974.
The newly released US cable reveals Mr Murdoch's political shift was quickly confirmed, at least 10 months before Kerr's dismissal of the government.
News Limited newspapers savaged Whitlam and strongly backed opposition leader Malcolm Fraser, so much so that journalists at The Australian took industrial action in protest.
“The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”
'''There is no documented evidence that Rupert Murdoch was formally a CIA operative or employee. However, prominent investigative journalists and historians have alleged that Murdoch and his media outlets cooperated with the CIA's Cold War "perception management" operations and shared intelligence connections. ''
Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s NSA, where he was briefed on the “security crisis”.
On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.
'''Investigative reporters, such as the late Robert Parry, alleged that the Reagan administration pulled Rupert Murdoch and other conservative media executives into CIA-organized "perception management" operations aimed at directing Cold War-style propaganda at domestic populations. '''
'''Rupert Murdoch’s role in a secret project jointly financed by the US government and wealthy backers in the private sector to influence public opinion demands the attention of Australian lawmakers. _
Rupert Murdoch’s rise to become the most powerful media proprietor in history was not by chance, according to documents released during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings in Washington.
His media assets were critical to the Reagan administration’s ‘public perception’ program aimed at winning support for an aggressive policy of ‘regime change’ in Central America.
This operation was led by the CIA, with a senior operative running the campaign alongside the National Security Council’s (NSC) Lt-Col Oliver North from a building not far from the White House.
North hit the headlines after it was revealed he had been involved in the illegal sale of weapons to Iran and that some of the profits were channeled to support guerilla fighters (the Contras) acting as US proxies to remove the socialist regime in Nicaragua.
Journalist Robert Parry and Peter Kornbluh, an information analyst with the National Security Archive, were among the first to reveal how Reagan created what amounted to America’s first peacetime propaganda ministry.'''
Murdoch’s role was confirmed in subsequent reports by Parry whose investigative website _Consortiumnew_s published details of meetings between Murdoch and Reagan in the White House.
The first, on 18 February 1983, was arranged by Murdoch’s lawyer Roy Cohn who counted Donald Trump among his clients. Also in attendance was America’s propaganda tsar Charles Wick, director of the US Information Agency (USIA), who was keen for the administration to invest in satellite technology to counter Soviet propaganda.
It was later revealed that Murdoch played a critical role in familiarising Wick with the possibilities of emerging satellite technology and that a collaborative agreement was reached for the introduction of America’s first live global satellite television network. The result was WorldNet, a $15 million-a-year satellite-aided TV network that revolutionised America’s ability to promote its views to the world.
Documents suggest Murdoch was singled out by Republican party stalwarts as a compliant publisher willing to advance the objectives of a first-term president well before he left Australia. As a result, with or without the knowledge of shareholders, News Corp became the vehicle for the spread of global propaganda.
Not a word about Murdoch’s role in the secretive project has appeared in the Australian media, despite Parry publishing a report on 31 December 2014 under the headline ‘Murdoch, Scaife and CIA Propaganda’.
The article explained how the Reagan administration “pulled right-wing media executives Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife into a CIA-organized “perception management” operation which aimed Cold War-style propaganda at the American people.
In the mid-2000s the UK telephone hacking scandal exposed Murdoch’s close relationship with the British establishment, including prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron.
A select parliamentary committee found reporters employed at Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid had illegally tapped the phones of hundreds of unsuspecting victims, including a Royal and dozens of celebrities.
At a televised hearing in 2012, the committee found Murdoch “exhibited willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications”. UK lawmakers also ruled that he was “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”.
The News Corp chair made a groveling apology, but apart from the closure of London’s oldest newspaper, the sacking of staff and the payment of millions in compensation, he accepted no personal accountability.''
The Invisibles
The overarching plan of the Outer Church, which is to subdue and enslave humanity using human agents, is referred to as The Conspiracy.
In the Outer Church the only ideas are binary such as Good/Bad, Yes/No, and I/You. Those same, reductivist dualities are seen early in the series at Harmony House, first in a card game played by the brainwashed boys where the cards simply read "yes" or "no", and then by Gaz who has his personality psychologically reduced to the point where he can only say "good" and "bad."
The Outer Church has a rigid structure, demanding complete submission to higher authority. Rex Mundi serves as the ultimate authority, followed by the other Archons. They have representatives on Earth, referred to as myrmidons by The Invisibles. These representative are often politicians, policemen, royalty and other representatives of control and order. Their primary human agent is Sir Miles Delacourt. They run the secret conspiracies that attempt to keep all of humanity docile and malleable. Their exact numbers are unknown.
The Archons of the Outer Church cannot easily travel to Universe Prime, and so they modify humans to use as go-betweens for the Archons and their human agents. The Outer Church's method of conversion or attack usually involves violation, both physical and psychological.
Murdoch, Shakley, Sir Peter Ables, Bob Ansett, Air America= CONTROL
PROGRAMING THE CONCENSUS PARADIGM AND The business of distribution of hard addictive narcotics to domestic problems to buy more arms to assert greater influence in Asia.
Air America was a covert passenger and cargo airline secretly owned and operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1950 to 1976. It was historically investigated and linked to the drug trade, as it was utilized to covertly transport opium and heroin across Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
They shared their areophane fleet with Ansette.
The overlapping networks of Rupert Murdoch, Ted Shackley, Sir Peter Abeles, and the CIA represent one of the most enduring, shadowy chapters in 1970s Australian political history. The convergence of these names stems from the 1975 dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the rise of the CIA-linked Nugan Hand Bank, and the strategic takeover of Ansett Airlines in 1979.
Theodore Shackley was the chief of the CIA's East Asia Division during this era. He grew increasingly hostile toward Whitlam. Just days before Whitlam was dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr on 11 November 1975, Shackley sent an infamous, threatening cable to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) stating that Whitlam's behavior was jeopardising national security.
The CIA Architecture: The nugan hand bank was saturated with high-ranking US intelligence and military figures, including former CIA Director William Colby as its legal counsel. Michael Hand had previously worked as a CIA contractor alongside Air America, the notorious CIA-proprietary airline used for covert operations during the Laos and Vietnam wars.
: Nugan Hand functioned as a massive laundry machine for global heroin syndicates (such as the "Mr Asia" ring) operating out of Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle. Profits from drug trafficking and black-market arms deals were co-mingled with funds used by Ted Shackley and the CIA to finance off-the-books anti-communist operations
In 1979, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation paired up with Peter Abeles’ TNT to mount a hostile, 50/50 joint takeover of Ansett Transport Industries, Australia's premier private domestic airline.
Abeles was a highly influential political fixer with deep ties to both major Australian political parties (especially NSW Labor) and was a known associate of the Nugan Hand Bank network. Investigative journalists and Royal Commissions noted that TNT and Ansett lines provided powerful global freight infrastructure, making the corporate marriage of Murdoch's media influence and Abeles' shipping network immensely powerful.
The elements connect to form a cohesive network:
The Logistics: Air America provided the template for covert intelligence shipping, while TNT/Ansett provided the corporate shipping infrastructure in the South Pacific.
The Finance: Nugan Hand Bank laundered drug funds under the supervision of US intelligence agents close to Ted Shackley.
The Media/Politics: Rupert Murdoch leveraged his outlets to safeguard conservative, US-friendly politics in Australia (defeating Whitlam), later partnering directly with Peter Abeles to dominate Australian aviation.










