Police

The attitudes of colonialism where it was the rough wild land which needed to be tamed for the King (now Queen) are still pervasive in the Police. They still display the attitudes of bosses who enforce the will of the King rather than anyone how is protector for the people.

No better example of this can be found in the display of heartlessness and callous disregard to people in Toowoomba recently in their "freak" flood event.

I would encourage you to read the ABC news item here. Essentially the emergency phone operator berates victims of the horrific flood event and shows no compassion or displays the dispassionate non-judgmental attitudes which are needed in this circumstance.

The operator, Senior Constable Jason Wheeler in the communications centre of the Toowoomba police station, replies: "Why did you drive through floodwater?"

A distressed Ms Rice replies, "It wasn't this bad then," to which Senior Constable Wheeler replies, "Yeah, well".

Senior Constable Wheeler asks her the model of the car but her safety was not inquired after.

Well Constable Wheeler, perhaps your ill-informed opinion of the circumstances was wrong. Perhaps it was not a flooded creek which was driven though, but rather an event you could not comprehend? Perhaps you could and should be better trained to grasp that "you do not know all the facts" and "you should be professional"

Chilling and disturbing, but in light of this the police attitude is "its all ok"

But police have defended their handling of triple-0 calls made at the height of the city's flood crisis.

Sergeant Bob Coleman, who was in charge of police communications on January 10, says the switchboard was swamped with life-threatening emergency calls.

He told the inquiry he is satisfied with the way they were handled under the circumstances.

clearly there is a rotten judgmental uncaring culture which needs to be weeded out.

We are supposed to trust these people?

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PostScriptum

reading in the SMH later today I find the following reasonable sounding defense.

QPU president Ian Leavers said chaos in the Toowoomba emergency call centre on the afternoon of January 10 highlighted the dire working conditions of regional call centre operators.
"I have repeatedly said that under-resourcing and under-staffing of the police service by government is really affecting how police can do their job," he said.
"The call centre in Brisbane is brand new, but as soon as you go past Caboolture to the north, Logan to the south, and Goodna to the west, the police call centres are third world standard.

...

Senior Constable Wheeler, who took Ms Rice's call at 1.49pm, said he had no appreciation at the time that she was in major danger.
“There was no panic or distress in her voice, no,” he said.
Senior Sergeant Wheeler said minor flooding had occurred at the same intersection in the past, and her request to him to call a tow truck did not suggest a sense of urgency.
However he said he reported himself to a welfare officer a day or two after the call, expressing concern that he did not keep his frustration in check.
“You self-evaluate, 'how can I do the job better?',” he said.

but to me the general assumption by Police remains "you're guilty and or wrong"

migration pressure - knock on effects

Australia since the creation of a colony by the English has been as a bloody great place to come over to and see what you can rip up and take away. Some people started doing this back in the earliest days of the colonial period of Australia.

Recently I wrote about the effects on population created by changes in immigration



Its interesting to see that at the same spot where the population growth started to ramp up we see another trend observed by the researchers at Australian Bureau of Statistics ... that up until the 1940's Australia was increasingly populated by people born here. Then, after that point in time, ramping up the migration rate meant that less and less people who call themselves Australian are Australian born.

ABS has a very interesting page
click to read larger version

So at the moment around one in four Australians are born here ... and looking at the modern end of that curve, the trend seems to be continuing and perhaps increasing.

Now, its interesting to note that the real growth of interest in conserving and protecting (as opposed to chopping down digging up and outright exploiting) came from about the time when most Australians were born here. Its also interesting to note that there is a decrease in interest in environmental issues, and that the environmental party (the Greens) has become subverted away from the environment and become some sort of radical urban based party.

I put forward that this is caused by the increase in immigration. We have less and less people who really understand Australia and an increase in the changes to what Australia is.

By having an increasingly itinerant population is it any wonder that noone gives a rats arse that your home is being degraded?