Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Sects and sand

I wasn't going to mention politics again for a while, but there was a real eye opening exposé on the ABC's Four Corners last night of how the Howard government has been getting support from the strange religious sect named the Exclusive Brethren. This group has been active in secretly spending large amounts of money on in attempts to manipulate voters in past elections, but the advertisements have been testing electoral laws. Apparently the sect's leaders see political parties like The Greens and Labor as a threat to their scary methods of religious inculcation.

Just as curious was the revelation that sect members are forbidden by their leaders to exercise their democratic right to vote. Like many sects they depend on tax concessions accorded to religions, and they're apparently heavier on membership donations and more demanding on group loyalty than the Mafia or al Qaeda. The Four Corners exposé revealed that the Exclusive Brethren in New Zealand and the USA have been similarly engaging in clandestine political activity. In the US their champion has been President Bush.

Media clips of Mr Howard being asked in the past about his involvement with the sect brought a very agitated response from him. He reportedly declined to comment on the very serious allegations contained in the exposé.

The Four Corners episode last night was titled "The Brethren Express" for the term the sect membership allegedly uses to describe its clandestine movements of large quantities of concealed cash, sometimes internationally, on the person of selected members. The episode is available for online viewing this morning at http://abc.net.au/4corners/ There's also a page of links to other reports about this strange, but apparently portentous group.

------

There are no creepy sects in our street as far as I know, but a demolition company has been active over the past few days reducing the two duplexes opposite us to rubble. A huge tracked 25 ton excavator machine recreated what could be taken for a Baghdad street scene. The two dwellings came down almost as fast as you could say "Smart bomb!"

Yesterday about twenty large truckloads of converted housing were carted off to landfill. This morning as I'm typing I can see through the front window that the very last load of rubble is being loaded.

We've been lucky that we live over the road, the neighbours on either side and at the rear of the block have suffered substantial noise and dust since before the last weekend. The entire block has been turned over to a depth of several feet and the scoop of the excavator has been given thousands of noisy shakes to sieve out everything. If there were any buried bodies in the backyard they would have been discovered for sure.

I was talking to a supervisor and he told me the rubble is being taken for fill on a new industrial site near Bibra Lake. For providing the rubble to the project the demolition company pays about $350 a truckload - a bargain. If they had to take it to the regular Cockburn landfill site a little further down the road they'd have to pay about $1,000 a truckload. The digging machine uses about 150 litres of fuel a day. To clear a quarter acre block like this one, the cost can easily exceed $25,000 dollars.

So here's a hint on how to get rich. Either start up a cult religion, or buy a big hole in the ground which no one wants and start charging people to dump rubble.

The demolition people will finish today, then we'll have to put up with more machinery doing the final levels and compacting the sand adequately for building. I expect the total inconvenience will continue for at least another six months. So far we haven't heard what will be going on the block, but it's likely to be at least five dwellings - hopefully single story

© MMVII Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.

Advertisement

Advertisement