Jetty Road Weekly Blog 19/5/25

Apologies to John Updike

The Witches of Skywick

Certitude was like a homing pigeon looking for a right wing brain in which to roost for eternity

Apologies to Rap Brown

So much wringing of the hands over the election result. So much fury at voters who just dont seem to understand; including a conservative party that did not go hard enough on the culture wars.

Read on... There was a footy program on ABC radio called The Bladder.Com with the catch cry ‘Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’ Oh ironies of delicious ironies that an ABC program captures the cut and thrust of Sky and Fox with one hundred percent accuracy! So which way will they go? When you are that far right that you are horizontal you are either going to rise up towards the centre or be buried. As unkind as it appears I struggle to get the image out of my head of Peta Credlin as Cruella and her acolytes as little spotted Dalmatians. A bone for Paul Murray anyone? Was Tony Abbott a good boy?

Image: News Thump

The Butter Knife

Willie and The Maintenance Boys

I was requested to mediate between two maintenance employees. Both male and in their forties. Both from the same town. Their ongoing rivalry had a recurring feature. Each time it was the other’s turn to cut the grass they would flick stones against each other’s car.  Things came to a head in the crib room when one took a butter knife to the other’s throat. A blunt instrument with little impact you might assume and indeed it was laughed off as just another antic in an escalating saga. I attempted to mediate before realising half way through that I had made a mistake. Wielding a butter knife, however impractical to a man’s throat, was an assault. It needed to be treated as such and the offender disciplined before mediation could proceed. Which brings me back to Willie Rioli and the AFL. He offended and should have been sanctioned in the first instance. This is not happening in a vacuum however. The threats he is accused of making are the results of being baited on the field. On top of that he is clearly struggling mentally. We have since heard the old trope: ‘What happens on the field stays on the field’ being trotted out by one AFL coach. The time honoured blanket to cover up racial abuse. The AFL simply do not handle conflict well. (See: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/may/09/afl-invite-backlash-as-they-make-it-up-as-they-go-with-willie-rioli-case). Too light or too punitive. They are in serious need of an experienced workplace mediator. Preferably one who does not mind a side serving of a decent scone with a bakelite handled butter knife.

Image: Perth Now

The Reclaimer

They were a young bunch of Scottish boilermakers. Earning good money at Mt Tom Price in the West. They were good fun but one in particular was quick to be offended.

In 1974 at Mt Tom Price the open cut firings would blanket the sky with red dust. At the end of shift in the shower you needed to wash your hair and rinse it three times before it became clean.  One wag reckoned he would take a file of dirt back with him to Perth so he could sprinkle it on his rollies so his cigarettes would taste the same. We were working for Fluor Australia. I was a boilermaker’s offsider, about as unglamorous and boring a job as you could wish for. Brodie was the elder stateman of the Scots - a man in his late thirties. Andy was another offsider with whom I spent time in the crib room attempting to decipher his brogue because the languages spoken amongst the other diners were a fair representation of the tower of Babel. Jimmy and Duncan were both tradesmen. Jimmy was easy going whereas Duncan was the touchstone and de facto leader of the group. Strapping, proud, outspoken and funny he could also be mercurial when it came to any slight perceived or unintended that he interpreted as being personally disrespectful.  And so it was. A White Hat, the  sobriquet by which Hammersley Iron bosses were known by, took a crack at Duncan whilst they were on the reclaimer. And that was it. The reclaimer was instantly black banned. With the reclaimer unable to load ore onto the conveyor belt that the fed the rail head all transportation was stalled. For the next day and a half no trains could be loaded and sent to Dampier. Ships in port could not be loaded. The Scots rallied behind each other. Other men backed their union mates.  Duncan would not be placated. Brodie asked me if I could help and I did back him up but it was Brodie who managed to talk him down and get us back to work. The cost? Astronomical. I never forgot the reclaimer episode. I was never in any doubt the union was always bigger than one man’s ego. This song is from a more modern era but still about the same place. Song: FIFO