The Details Matter

 

Note one chrome mirror - one black plastic.

Australian politics and international affairs have recently become something resembling a failing soap opera.

So, gentle reader, I'll post something less disagreeable.

My project to convert a Japanese domestic market Toyota Hiace into a camper is just about complete, so I'll outline the journey, and where I've ended up. 

The vehicle is a 2014 Hiace Commuter which was used as a dry cleaner's vehicle in Japan. Clothes aren't heavy, so I assumed that it hadn't had a hard life. It was showing about 140000 kms when I bought it from a Brisbane importer who furnished all the necessary documentation, including the auction report from its sale prior to import.

As I bought it with dry cleaner's clothes racks.

A mechanical inspection confirmed that the vehicle was in good condition, and had a number of useful features including an aftermarket audio installation with Apple Carplay. More about that later.

It also had a slightly upgraded trim and features list which included push button start, climate control AC which has an extra unit cooling the rear of the cabin. It is also 180mm wider than the local market vehicles. Again, that's a mixed blessing. More about that later.

Fitout side unit installed across the cabin. Note modem and fire alarm.

Tyres have plenty of tread, albeit a little older than ideal, and the van features chrome trim not seen on the local market. There was also a three person bench seat installed which I removed. I reckon the business was family owned, and that seat was used to drop family members/employees off each day before the vehicle went on daily delivery runs.

First step was to install a plywood floor, which was fairly straightforward. Then I used pre-glued vinyl planking to dress it. This also was cheap, as we had sufficient planking left over when we refloored our home a few years ago.

Initially, to construct a bed, I bought a door from Bunnings, attached legs to it, and attached it to the floor using metal brackets. I located an unused single bed mattress on Facebook and installed it on the bed. This provided accommodation for about a year, until I spent $1990 on a slide out bed from Boxed Fitouts. I'd also used a second hand baby change table (found at Vinnies) as a frame for storage until I replaced it with another Side box from Boxed Fitout ($990). 

Can be converted to a double.

To provide off-grid power, I bought a Bluetti AC70P, ($745) and had a inverter/charger installed so that it automatically charged as the vehicle is driven. For connection to mains power I spent $500 on an external plug.

Despite appearances, it's securely anchored.

What I've finished up with is a van that remains fairly light, is easy to drive, and comfortable both for road trips and extended stays off grid. The Bluetti is good for about three days to keep the Kings 75 lit fridge running, but requires only about 50 kms of driving to be fully charged. I've also bought a small folding Rovin solar kit ($250) for extended stays. I haven't had an opportunity to personally trial it off grid yet, although my daughter has at a four day outdoor festival. It works OK to maintain charge for light use (fridge and charging devices).

Senior's handle & camping sink. The sink is not a total success - unwieldy.

As mentioned above, the van came with a CarKit_blink Japanese audio kit, which is fine, except it's designed for use in metropolitan Japan, and is next to useless in the Australian bush, where streaming through Apple Carplay works providing you're within coverage.

The van's extra width is handy in providing living space, but can be a challenge when parking in narrow bays at shopping centres. It is not too wide to be unwieldy, but a great deal of care is needed if you want to avoid inconveniencing fellow parkers. Having said that, it takes up a lot less space than a Dodge Ram, or a Chevrolet Silverado, and people park them in supermarket car parks. The van is 2280mm tall, so that precludes using most underground parks which average between 2100mm and 2200mm.

Slide out storage. Porta-Potti for contingencies. Not used so far.

In summary, the vehicle cost $24000, and I've added about $5000 worth of kit to make it habitable across twelve months of ownership. 

At that outlay, it's a totally competent camper, and the chassis is sound and looks like being reliable and cheap to maintain. It's not exactly fun to drive, especially in comparison with my previously owned Mazda MX5s. It's a bit like driving a block of flats. 

It is, however, quiet and comfortable when cruising, and the elevated seating position means you have a great view of traffic and surroundings.

The Fourth of July

The pool is stained. (Pic courtesy the Guardian)

 

Yesterday was the fourth of July, gentle reader, so we're bombarded via the media with stories about the 250th Anniversary of the adoption of the USA's declaration of Independence.

It can also be called a semiquincentennial, if you're keen to impress with your vocabulary.

To be frank, the celebrations leave me more than a little unimpressed, as they're characterised by vulgar expressions of American exceptionalism.

In fact, down through the years, much of what happens on the other side of the Pacific has left me unimpressed, but unfortunately it can't be ignored. Decisions made in Washington, and the vicissitudes of American culture and history have affected my life and experience.

I remember being shaken awake by my father on 22nd November 1963 to tell me of John Kennedy's assassination. He was succeeded by Lyndon Johnson, whose cynical use of the Gulf of Tonkin incident on 4th August 1964 to gain congressional approval to wage war in Vietnam had a major influence on my future.

Australia's commitment to send troops to Vietnam in April1965 was largely triggered by American policy, and it was only one month later that our defence act was amended to allow conscripts to be deployed overseas.

Then in 1967 my birthdate was drawn in the national service ballot, and after deferment for eighteen months whilst I graduated as a teacher and worked for twelve months to discharge my bond, I was enlisted in January 1969.

Vietnam followed in 1970, and it was then that I had my first encounter with American GIs. They also left me unimpressed. They were very poor soldiers, and our unit gave them a wide berth, as they attracted unwanted attention from the VC.

There were also two occasions when they went very close to causing us real harm. The first was when we encountered a bunker system in April, and USAF F105s dropped napalm closer to our position than the bunkers. The second was a few months later when an American artillery detachment based at the Horsehoe lobbed a couple of salvoes of 155mm rounds on a track junction we were ambushing because they neglected to check for friendlies prior to the fire mission

We discovered that the reason for their carelessness was their practice of using marijuana during fire missions to escape their apparent boredom.

We had a couple of phrases describing the Yanks. The first was "They draw the crabs" and the second "You can tell them anything; sell them anything".

The second aphorism helps to explain the "election" of Donald Trump. I put "election" in quotes, because you look at the turnout figures in the 2024 presidential election, and examine his slim majority, you understand that he was supported by about one third of American voters. Trump's 77.2 million votes  equate to roughly one-third of all eligible American adults. 

When the financial crisis arrived in 2008, like many other Australians I lost a large chunk of my superannuation balance because of regularity failure across the Pacific, and most recently, American foreign policy pushed fuel prices higher and contributed to inflation in Australia.

Today I read a post by an American on social media telling Australians how grateful we should be because they saved us from the Japanese in World War Two. 

This same American is no doubt ignorant of a number of salient facts of history. The first is that the US didn't enter hostilities until two years after the rest of the free world, and only then after their Pacific feet was blown out of the water on December 7th 1941.

The second is that Australian troops were the first to stop the Japanese on land in New Guinea.

And the third was that they supported us out of pure self interest. Australia was, after all, an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

You'll just have to forgive me for remaining unimpressed with the USA after the impacts it has had on my life since 1970. They continue to tell us how wonderfull their republican experiment is.

Frankly, it's still very much a work in progress.

Trump in Drag

Pic courtesy The Australian

Last Wednesday we saw Pauline Hanson front the Press Club.

She was given a free pass to talk for almost twice as long as most speakers, and we were exposed to all the ugliness of her grievance politics.

She abused journalists, trotted out a range of the same cliches that she's been whining about for over thirty years, and continues to be unable to pronounce the name of our country. That ought to tell you something.

But to me, the most alarming feature of her address was its resemblance to the style and delivery of Donald Trump.

First of all, like Trump, her style is incoherent and aggressive. Her delivery was peppered with half-truths, insinuations, and condemnations.

It was an appeal to the darker sides of our national characteristics, those of xenophobia, arrogance and paranoia. The Australian values of tolerance, a fair go, and generosity didn't get a guernsey.

And her speech was replete with figures which, when subject to analysis, are largely confected.

She said - 

Again, the 2021 census showed that 1 in 4 people, 23% speak a language other than English at home, the most common being, Mandarin and Arabic.

Then -

How can you generate social cohesion if people can’t speak the language? In that same census, 872,000 people self-reported, as speaking English “not well” or “not at all.”

When this is examined, there is a clear inference that 23% of people who speak a language other than English at home are a problem. She tries to conflate bilingual Australians with non-English speaking Australians. Whilst she doesn't explicitly state it, her followers will conflate the two sets of statistics. It's not what she said that's the problem, it's what her followers heard. That's classic dog-whistling.

Then there was this -

Forty-three per cent of low-income renters were experiencing rental stress. Up to 3.2 million people in Australia were at risk of losing their home, and we know that around 130,000 Australians are sleeping rough every night.

She provided no definition of "low-income renters", nor did she reference her figures. Then she said - 

According to official data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics  7,600 people sleep rough on any given night across Australia. 

This figure represents roughly 6.2% of the total homeless population, which exceeds 122,000 individuals. It looks as if she's done some more dodgy conflation, inferring that all people classified as "homeless" always sleep rough. Again, she talks about two separate sets of statistics, and uses the breakdown of one set, then applies them to both. She doesn't do this explicitly, but the inference is enough for many of her followers who can't see past the confected outrage, to wrap them up together. 

Again, her statistics are dodgy, as is the notion that there is a direct connection between the homeless crisis and immigration. It simply doesn't add up. She confuses common sense with ignorant assumption, and encourages her followers to do the same.

She talks about the Salvation Army's Red Shield report, and lists a series of figures from the respondents to that survey. Again, she neglects to mention who those respondents were. The survey pool was a total 4400 respondents across the country. The respondents were vulnerable community members who had accessed the charity's Emergency Relief services (such as Doorways services) within the prior 12 months. So again, she's referencing 4400 people from a population of 28 million.

She then goes on the quote percentages from this group of 4400 people, and pretends to apply it to the total population. Again, she doesn't explicitly do this, but leaves it to her supporters to join the dots, even though what they will come up has only a casual relationship with the truth. This is textbook Trump.

 Food insecurity is unacceptable in a country like Australia, but with a population of 28 million, it's nowhere near the crisis that her dodgy statistics imply. Most of what she says is skillfully designed to generate outrage, and outrage plays well with semi-literates on social media. It feeds the algorithms, puts money in the pockets of big tech, and contributed in no small measure to the popularity of Trump. 

Trump's relationship with Musk puts the social media-populist politician relationship in stark relief. Hanson's relationship with Rinehart is a horse of a similar colour. Many billionaires are quick to chum up with politicians that can get into a position of power, and legislate to enhance their portfolios. Besides, Rinehart's father was renowned for his answer to what he called the Aboriginal problem, He advocated that indigenous Australians should be bred out by doping their water supply to make them sterile.

Much of what I see in Hanson resonates with my lived experience in the sixties and seventies. The injection of fear into our political culture at that time had me sent to a futile war as a conscript. The fear was communism, used by a lazy Coalition government. The political manipulation of that fear went close to costing me my life, and it killed a couple of my mates. 

Hanson sells fear of Muslims, Asians, and Aborigines. Selling fear to gain power is often catastrophic. A quick scan of twentieth century history reveals this solid truth. 

Australian voters woke up by 1972, but much harm had been done by then. Let's hope they wake up to Hanson a bit sooner.

She resembles, after all, Donald Trump in drag.

Abusers, Predators, or Exploiters?

Pic courtesy Med CPD

I am not sure, gentle reader, of the best title for this post.

Read it, and take your pick.

Many years ago, I was the principal of a small special school in the Northern suburbs of Brisbane.  Just up the road from the school was a corner store, which amongst other things, sold sweets.

Occasionally, parents would give their children pocket money, and because it was safe traffic wise, we'd let the physically able kids go to the shop to buy sweets at lunch time.

I began to get visits and phone calls from parents who were complaining because they'd give their child a small note - five or ten dollars to spend, and at the end of the day when they arrived home, there was no change. 

The majority of those children involved had Down Syndrome, and it was obvious that they had an intellectual impairment.

It didn't take too long to work out what the shopkeeper was doing. Because the children never questioned him, he would take their money and offer no change. 

I challenged him, and he became abusive and told me to mind my own business. The shop was declared "out of bounds" and what had been a useful chance for the children to practice living skills evaporated.

Today I read about NDIS providers defrauding clients. While the majority of providers operate honestly, the scheme has been exploited by predatory operators and organized crime syndicates. Instances of fraud cost taxpayers and vulnerable participants millions of dollars annually through false claims and overcharging.

On social media I see the word "retard" used as a form of insult.

These two examples reflect the attitude of a few people in the community who are users and abusers. 

They reflect it both in their language and behaviour. It's pretty sad, as it provides a barrier to best quality of life for people with disabilities, and defrauds both this cohort of our community and the Australian taxpayer.

 

A Conference

 

Melbourne always looks black and white.

Last weekend, gentle reader, I attended a conference in Melbourne, looking in hindsight at the war in Vietnam.

It was attended by delegates from all over the country, and the keynote speaker was a Yank. His address was comprehensive and well researched.

The Saturday proceedings are listed below, and full transcripts will be posted soon. 

Walking into the conference resembled having a close encounter with my bookshelf. The authors of a large proportion of my books about the war were present.

The reason for attending was to develop a network of military historians, amateur and professional, who can help me with my doctorate looking at the subject of national servicemen between 1965 and 1972 who served in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Malaysia.

Obviously, this conference was about Vietnam, but when you consider that during that seven year period, the whole raison d'etre for the size and deployment of the army was Vietnam, it was well worth attending.

The only downside was its location. Melbourne is my least favourite Australian city, and nothing during my sojourn there, has altered that opinion.

Now that I've been accepted as a doctoral candidate, the hard work starts. 

Another Country

 

The phrase "the past is another country" is often quoted, but it is actually a corruption of "the past is a foreign country" from the opening lines of L.P.Hartley's 1953 novel The Go-Between.   

I won't pretend to have read it, gentle reader, but the work deals with loss of innocence, the nature of memory, and the ripple effect of a single event.

Yesterday, with a group of men about my age, I visited what used to be called the Canungra Jungle Training Centre after an absence of fifty seven years.

I went through Canungra in October 1969 as a member of 5 platoon B Coy 7 RAR. We did the battle efficiency course, and I recall 5 platoon actually winning the battalion prize for the best score on that course, which was a surprise, as none of us were individually brilliant. We were, however, a good team, with good leadership.

After being refused a vote at the federal election (held on 25th October), we headed South towards Wiangaree where we completed a post course exercise, characterised by rain and mud, and lots of slippery slopes.

The base has completely changed, although there were relics of the original confidence course still visible. These days, they're museum pieces, as most of us are. Back in 1969, the accommodation was mostly tentage. These days, there are some very fancy buildings, including an officers' mess built in neo-colonial style.

Photography was prohibited on the actual base, but we were allowed to take pictures at the Vietnam memorial just outside the barrier fence.

The photo shows a plaque commemorating those lost in Vietnam, and was written by a veteran. It reflects very well what many of us returning from Vietnam feel about the men who did not return.

A Welcoming Commemoration?

Pic courtesy Wikipedia

Since Anzac Day, gentle reader, we've been inundated, in both social and legacy media, with stories about people booing at dawn ceremonies.

The targets of the misbehaviour (because that's simply what it is) have been the welcome to country ceremonies delivered by a local indigenous person.

Almost without exception, people responding to the issue take opposing sides, and often become very aggressive about it.

For me, there are three aspects.

The first is about how we should behave at public commemorations. I was brought up in the tradition of respectfully observing these commemorations, and that booing (for example) is very bad behaviour. To me, it matters not form what the piece of public ritual takes, the mere fact that it is publicly symbolic means it should be publicly respected. 

If you object to it, you take it up with the organisers. You don't publicly abuse the presenter. I'm a lifelong republican, but I don't boo "God Save the King".

Then there is the nature of the ritual. In the case of Welcome to Country, it's a gesture of welcome. It can be seen as a measure of reconciliation. There is a ritual involved which has been appropriated from indigenous culture, and its intent in that ancient culture was to avoid conflict.

On that ancient traditional level, it's about peace. On another level, especially since the failed referendum, it's about reconciliation. How it can be seen as offensive on either of these two levels is beyond me.

Finally, there's the context of the significance and solemnity of the Anzac commemoration. My attitude to this has been coloured by personal experience. I was conscripted to fight in Vietnam in 1970, and finished up in a rifle section. Two of my companions in that section were Murris. One was from Alice Springs in Central Australia, an Eastern Arrernte man.  The other was a Bundjalung man from Kyogle. 

The digger from Alice Springs was seriously wounded when we hit bunkers in April 1970, and ended up on a  medevac flight back to Australia. He never completely recovered and died in 1996 at age 49. Both these men were respected members of our unit, but were not well treated on return to Australia. As far as I'm concerned, any misbehaviour directed at a Welcome to Country ceremony is a personal affront to every indigenous veteran.

The fact that some politicians have jumped on the outrage bandwagon (on the one hand outraged that there is a Welcome to Country at the dawn service, and on the other outraged at the booing) is sad.

We ended up in Vietnam on the back of a political exercise, and that did not work out well for us or the Vietnamese. It was particularly tragic for the five hundred plus Australians who died there, and the thirteen hundred plus wounded.  

Let's keep grubby politics out of the issue.

It dishonours all of those who served, especially the scores of indigenous men who defied regulations prohibiting their eligibility to serve and signed up anyway.