Katoomba Railway Goods Yard Revived Again

The first timber platform was up in 1881 and a waiting area, ladies waiting area, office and toilets were also built.

(from the report by Ray Christison of High Grounds Consulting, Lithgow, June 2000)



I must admit that I gasped with excitement as I read about Katoomba’s latest urban design advance in the Blue Mountains Gazette. No, it is not more parking meters. The Railway Goods Yard is a site of vital heritage significance and there are now plans to recognise this status and put the space to an appropriate current day use.

IT IS ABOUT TIME.

The project also introduced modern amenities to the building, including electrical fittings, fire detection, and stormwater drainage with new guttering.

Blue Mountains Gazette 9th October 2024


Katoomba Railway Goods Yard 1906

Will something actually happen this time? Will it be worthy of the importance of this space? Why am I asking? There is a history of false starts in returning it to the prominence it deserves while incorporating appropriate design sensitivity.

The construction of the station, together with the development of guest houses and in particular the Great Western Hotel [today the Carrington] gave a huge push to Katoomba as a tourist venue, and the goods yard and station were the hub of the town, with so much produce of all kinds coming via rail and being distributed by horse transport to the town and surrounds.

P3 Ray Christison Report 2000



Council Wanted a Car Park. We Wanted a Plan for Our Town

Any history of official planning for this site that leaves out descriptions such as shabby and brainless is far too generous. Let me take you back to December 1994. The NSW Department of Transport commissioned TEC Consulting to conduct a study of the Railway Goods Yard as a potential site for a transport interchange. TEC warned that “ingress” and “egress” from the site were too difficult and even dangerous.

In particular, the report pointed to the way Old Bathurst Road (Main Street) bends towards the western bridge concealing oncoming traffic and making “egress” a perilous experience (it also makes it devilishly difficult for Islamic terrorists to get up the speed they need to destroy community festivals but that is a story discussed elsewhere).


This TEC Consulting rejection was a great disappointment to certain Council staff. So great was this disappointment that they decided to ignore it two years later.

In July 1996, Deputy Mayor, Jim Angel, sent out an invitation to members of the public to join a car parking committee. Peter Nicol, Ian McMillan and I joined. It comprised Councillors, small business representatives and ourselves as selected community representatives.

Once again, the Council vision was for a car park on the Goods Yard site. At the first meeting, we pointed out that smart towns develop a plan for their town first and then decide where to place car parks. As there appeared to be no plan for Katoomba, we proposed the development of one.

The Sydney Olympics Presents an Opportunity

We recognised the opportunity that the coming 2000 Olympics in Sydney offered for enlivening our town. The NSW Government had already announced its plans to make iconic sites such as Manly, Bondi and Echo Point major urban redesign focuses. It seemed impossible to consider revamping Echo Point without including the town up the road.

In a subsequent meeting, we drew on Peter’s daughter’s talents as a landscape architect to sketch a prospective plan for the town. This followed our forensic examination of community aspirations and proposed plans recorded in public documents over many years.

For example, the front lawn of the Carrington Hotel had long been a de facto public meeting and picnic space. The highway side of the railway line appeared a more appropriate site for a car park. This would free up the Goods Yard for a welcoming park / garden and information centre visible as people arrived at Katoomba Station.

Our plan included a community arts and information centre on the current Cultural Centre site which would have strong links to Echo Point in order to broaden the visitor experience and bring benefits to local employment and businesses. It also proposed to brighten laneways and the streetscape. We had no idea how much money was available so our vision was appropriately modest.

We have all grown dizzy watching the succession of consultantancy reports.

Member for the Blue Mountains, Bob Debus, commenting on wasted money on various government reports with little action coming from them.
Blue Mountains Gazette 5th February 1997

By March 1997, this plan had the support of state member, Bob Debus, Deputy Mayor Angel and much of the community. This was during a period of Katoomba’s revival. Winter Magic was in its fourth year and the Blue Mountains Folk Festival (now Music Festival) was in its third. In 1995, at a celebration I attended, Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, announced the Blue Mountains would be the state’s inaugural “City of the Arts”. Our future was looking very bright.

There remained obstacles. One of them was the fact the plan did not come from the Council hierarchy. By mid-1997, Council had developed a competing vision called the Katoomba Town Entry Study. Fortunately, that was laughed out of town at a public meeting.

At the time, it was described as the Town Entry Study that didn’t enter the town. The plan included a fast food outlet where the new medical centre is, redevelopment of the Alpine Motor Inn and a cafe at the top of Station Street so staff didn’t need to make the arduous trip to the south side of the rail line. Its almost complete erasure from the Council records accords with its hostile reception.

Blue Mountains, NSW Inaugural
City of the Arts

Who’s Ready for the Charrette?

Having their plan rejected only made Council staff even more determined which presented Messrs Debus and Angel with a problem. Whom should they support? What they did was ingenious. They listened to advice from local architect, Nigel Bell, who recommended the concept of a Charrette.

The Charrette is an intense planning process where experts are drawn from a range of appropriate disciplines to engage with community in discerning public aspirations, needs and concerns. They take this input and develop a workable plan.

The project did not have strong support in some sections of Council. The preliminary public consultation that traditionally runs in the months leading up to the event was poorly supported. At the time, the Gazette had an office in town and a local journalist, Morgan Beck, who was a strong supporter of the car parking committee’s plan which he helped to promote.

Over five days in late October 1998, the Charrette consultation finally took place. The end result was magical. The completed plan was presented by consultants, ESD, in the evening of the fifth day to around 400 ecstatic community members at the Katoomba RSL. I have a cassette recording of that event to support my claim.

Our earnest efforts as part of the carparking committee were rewarded as ESD expanded on our work, improved it and gave it authority. We had by then been upgraded to the Katoomba and Echo Point Planning Advisory Committee. Our work and that of other key players is acknowledged here:

State Cabinet, was able to establish the Katoomba/Echo Point Planning Advisory Committee and the focus and imperative for the revitalisation of both Katoomba and Echo Point. This committee provided the vital link between the Council and the community during the process and has been seeking the means to allow Katoomba to reach its full potential for anumber of years.

p iv Wendy Morris, Charrette Leader and Chip Kaufman, Lead Urban Designer principals at ESD in Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report

So what did they propose for the Railway Goods Yard? They devoted considerable thought to this space as recorded under section 9.1 of the report (see pages 68 to 71). Anyone interested in the detail should go to these pages of the final report.

In summary, the consultants called for the protecting of the heritage values of the site. Views to Main St should be protected from the station and the Goods Yard along with views from the station into the Goods Yard. The site was “not efficient at all for car parking; its north-south dimension is too
small, especially at its western end as it tapers to only a few metres in width”.

STAKEHOLDER INPUT
Many at the Charrette expressed the desire for this space to be come a public square complemented by the historic rail buildings, while others wanted the buildings removed and for the space to be devoted to car parking for nearby shops (and possibly commuters). The SRA wanted to see significant development recommended on the site, to increase its land value at the time of its sale by SRA.

p69 Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report

Key Elements of the Plan

* Part of the site should be a small north-facing public open space, where week-end markets and other possibly train and heritage related events could take place, and where people could sit and have lunch enjoying the sunshine, and towards which the adjoining cafes to the east could orient outdoor dining;

* Shops and open-air stalls should line the southern edge of the site against its vertical edge to Main Street;

* The historic fabric on the site should be retained and possibly re-used for other purposes, but only the small railway building adjoining the railway needs to stay in its exact original location. This recommendation should be subject to an assessment of heritage prior to finalisation of designs for this site;

* The design and lighting of the site should support its passive surveillance and safety, including after dark.



And some further images of what we were to expect:

Could We Outlast the White Ants? Council Still Wants Its Car Park

So that’s the happy story. The consultants also warned us to watch out for WHITE ANTS.


The white ants didn’t wait long. They were nibbling away at the site within a few years. This was equally true of much of the grand vision of the Charrette. And now we have true inheritors of that white ant tradition in key positions of power within our Council. By 2001, there were plans for a multi-storey carpark on the Goods Yard site.

This was part of an expanded vision that included concreting over the entire Goods Yard and placing shops on the top. Here is local artist, John Ellison’s, depiction of the new vision.

Above article from Blue Mountains Gazette, August 2001. The Ellison cartoon also appeared as part of this article.

A timeline of our battle to preserve the space between 1994 to 2006 is provided here. This included a march on the site in August 2001 by a large local posse and reported by the Gazette.

We learned the site had been sold to Council by State Rail (as it was then known) in mid-May 2003 for a dollar. This was contradicted by a former Blue Mountains City Council property manager who advised me in January 2004 that there was a dispute over moving the crane and who would pay for it.

A call to Council this afternoon confirmed to me that it is still part of the rail corridor and in City Rail’s keep. Well done to all involved.

The Katoomba Station Goods Shed, next to the rail line, had been steadily degrading due to decades of disuse

Blue Mountains Gazette 9th October 2024

Today the Railway Goods Yard is a Car Park

So what is the situation today? Anyone reading this week’s Gazette article could easily be misled into believing the Goods Yard site has been transformed into a Renaissance Revivalist marvel mirroring the accomplishments of 15th century Florence. No, the space is now a car park.

By huddling up the western end of site, it was possible to give the impression of an open, useful public space. Most of that space belongs to cars. As it has done for years, the site has been a parking space for City Rail staff and other lucky parkers. Free from parking meters, you can stay there as long as you like. It also seems to be a strong source of income for the GoGet hire car company as a surprising number of their vehicles share the space.

Towards the end of the Gazette celebration, Lyndal Punch of Transport Asset Holding Entity (TAHE), exulted:

“The transformation is quite phenomenal from what it was nine months ago”.

Looking at events over 30 years, I find it phenomenal just how little has been achieved.

I am sorry Trish and Lyndall but I might not be able to get up for this latest revival. A bit of paint, electrical fittings and stormwater drainage are all very exciting but I was hoping for just a little bit more. I have been for a long, long time.

For many years, there has been debate locally about promoting rail travel as opposed to car and coach which are favoured today. It has its advantages. Sitting high on the ridge, once you pass Emu Plains, the train traveller has spectacular views that those down on the highway cannot imagine. Sadly, the experience is destroyed by constant trackwork at the most inopportune tourism periods. For example, a tortuous interchange of bus, train, bus faces school holiday train travellers this very day as I write this article.

The plans for the Railway Goods Yard were meant to be part of an enticing experience of Katoomba even before people stepped off the train. Yet, what are the plans now? Might we achieve something to match the ladies’ waiting room and museum of 143 years ago or will Council and the state government continue to manipulate and ignore public opinion.

As the Mayor Celebrates His Electoral Triumph

You want to understand the sorry state of our town today? You might start by looking at the series of lost opportunities described here. More recently, we had some maddening reports from Council staff as they continue their futile attempts to lassoo the tourist coach operators.

In my research for this article, I came across one piece of correspondence I sent to a Gazette journalist in 2006 regarding the ongoing coach battle. I also found a summary of the Charrette’s plans for dealing with coaches. I make them both available here in order to assist Council staff in their future plans and struggles.

Finally, we can see who is responsible for success but who is responsible for the failures?

So simple, isn’t it. Things just happen. There is no cause. People have heart attacks. Community members fight with each other. Towns fall apart. Buildings fall apart. Communities fall apart. Families fall apart. And it is nobody’s fault. Things just happen.

Enail: katwlr@protonmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatoombaReview/

Twitter: @KatoombaReview1

Fauci Faces Ferguson

Two nights ago, the ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Commission) ace reporter, Sarah Ferguson, interviewed one of the great criminals of the last two thousand years. There is no hyperbole in this and if you found any then your ignorance is now on full display.

Sometimes the ABC produces programs so exquisitely designed to get on my nerves that I fear NSW Health has handed on my DNA from one of those foolishly taken local PCR-tests and Yuval Harari already has me hacked.

Every sentence, every stupid question, every simpering appeal to this monster appeared carefully crafted to jangle my nerves. I normally leave the room week nights when this Hillary Clinton groupie turns up but I was intrigued to hear what she might contrive with this rat. He was cornered. For God’s sake, Sarah, snap the trap. Nothing, NOTHING. In seconds I went from homicidal to suicidal, due to the absence of an appropriate victim. After a mere three minutes, I ran from the room to save my life.

I wonder why the comments were turned off. In fact, I have just checked another couple of ABC videos related to Fauci and all comments are tuned off. What are they afraid of?
Read more

Rachel Schraer “Lies Suddenly”

Open letter to the to Rachel Schaer,
the BBC’s Disinformation Officer

Thanks, Rachel, for your review of the film “Died Suddenly. May I congratulate you on the speed of this hit job. I note you are employed as a dis / mis information officer at the BBC. I am aware that the BBC is the centre of The Trusted News Initiative set up in the middle of 2019 just in time to control the Covid-19 mainstream media narrative.

This is the work you are continuing. You and others have sought to conceal the murder and maiming of an enormous numbers of people around the world.

I have watched the film and found much of its evidence and narrative compelling. There may have been errors and I look forward to people pointing them out. In the meantime, I urge people to make up their own minds after watching.

The purpose of your review was, obviously, to dissuade people from watching it. Such criminality is not what we need at present. We need curiosity, understanding and action. Amnesty can wait and I fear there will be little for people like you.

Below I take the key elements of your article which will stand as an exemplar of mainstream media deceit and the pathologising of journalism. Your review of the film is puerile at best. I will leave it to others to offer a less objective perspective:

Read more

Let’s go for a little walk…don’t ask where. We’ll tell you later

Be careful of offering advice because someone might take it. This is something these 12 experts referred to below might have considered before they decided the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna offerings were safe, effective and needed.

Australia’s very own misinformation 12 have now co-authored a paper that will provide:
Key lessons from the COVID-19 public health response in Australia – The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific.

I will first introduce you to the authors through links to their articles and comments and then discuss each of their 10 key lessons. All contributors appear to be strongly behind the official Covid-19 response.

My comments are those of an ignorant observer. I can’t claim clinical qualifications or special insights but I have watched as only one side of a story has been told. I have also listened to some of the smartest people in the world who have made me suspect that something is wrong. That suspicion prompts me to write now.

I am not sure many in this group are the right people to be offering further advice. They live in a world where masks, lockdowns and distancing are effective, PCR tests are perfectly accurate, the injections work beautifully and adverse events are rare, if they happen at all.

The authors have been carny barkers for Big Pharma bioweapons? Shot one, failed then shot two but they continued to call: “Step right up”. Sadly, many people have.

Apologies to Tom Waits
Read more

How did I get Covid-19 right and a world famous cardiologist get it so wrong?

A humble man’s story.

That title isn’t reflecting my assessment but that of Dr Aseem Malhotra. How could someone working in a small aged care facility 100 kilometres from Sydney read things right while someone with his expertise and training read things so poorly? And this is no ego trip. Many others with no medical background read the signs. They, too, chose not to be injected and paid a price for this decision.

The media was a big help to me. A key message was repeated regardless of which mainstream media, government website, politician, celebrity medic or journalist you listened to. It was obvious a large corporate rat was in the building somewhere even if you couldn’t smell him.

“These vaccines are safe and effective”,

supported by:

“If you care about your family, your community and your job, you’ll go and get one or four vaccines.”

Read more

A Pharmacist Sets Me Straight

During the working week, I’m spending time in one of Sydney’s smallest suburbs. It is so small it doesn’t have a bank or a teller machine. Locals rely on a 7-11 where you are stung $2.50 for every cash withdrawal.

This suburb doesn’t have a general store and even shares a postcode. Yet, there are two pharmacies and I was outside one of them last Monday morning waiting for it to open. It was 10 minutes past the advertised opening time as I waited with a fellow who turned out to be a pharmacist there to do relief work. He explained, the head pharmacist needed to kick-start this operation had been delayed in traffic.

So my new friend and I filled in the time discussing our Covid-19 experiences. He advised that this pharmacy had been so busy that management needed to put someone on just to answer the phone.

I shared that I was not vaccinated and my family had relied on Ivermectin to pass safely through the Covid crisis to this point. It was then that the discussion took an uncertain turn. This is as faithful a record of our discussion as my memory allows.

Read more

Julian, the Queen & Covid-19

Assange in Context

Last Saturday, my friends in the Blue Mountains held a protest at Echo Point in support of Julian Assange. Indigenous Elder Aunty Carol Cooper welcomed us to this sacred women’s space. The plan from there was for self-nominated speakers to mount an empty chair next to three locals wearing masks representing Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. Each speaker took a couple of minutes to make their case. United in purpose, all was going splendidly until Snowden leapt from his chair to assail a newly arrived protester.

Snowden, Assange and Manning at Echo Point

The new arrival was distributing little Australian flags to hesitant members of the crowd. People accepted them with the alacrity of someone handed an undefused bomb. Brave Snowden snatched those he could wrestle free from the flag-bearer and demanded an end to this insult.

The flag-bearer replied: “This is the Australian flag”. Threats followed back and forth with each promising to flatten the other. Thus our efforts to free Julian were delayed until the flag-bearer retreated and Snowden remounted his chair.

Read more

Changes to Reserve Bank and Banking Acts

Proposed changes to the acts noted in the heading are astounding in their breadth and likely impact. They also represent a massive lost opportunity. The sort of opportunity we might take if we had a Labor Government working in the public interest as a Curtin / Chifley government had once done. Men like this ran a Labor Party that protected the public against financial overreach. Today, Labor sees its responsibilities quite differently.

Contact Your Local Member

After reading my submission, I hope you will take action and contact your local member. If you live in the Blue Mountains, your local representative is Susan Templeman.
Phone: (02) 4573 8222
Email: Susan.Templeman.MP@aph.gov.au

What follows is my submission to Susan Templeman, expressing my opposition to changes to the Reserve Bank Act (1959) and the Banking Act (1959). These are the result of a Reserve Bank review. You can find the original document here.

My Submission:

22nd November 2023

ATTENTION: Federal Member for Macquarie, Ms Susan Templeman
I am writing to express my unequivocal opposition to Recommendation 1 and its sub-clauses recorded in the document titled:
RBA Review – An RBA Fit for the Future (see p17).

My reasons follow:

Read more

Klaus Schwab, WHO and my local representative

My local political representative finds Klaus Schwab in her office

An open letter to my Federal representative

A couple of months ago, I wrote to my local Federal Parliamentary representative on the issue of proposed amendments to International Health Regulations (2005). I believe these amendments are an attempt to strip us of our individual rights. They are designed to rob us of national sovereignty and hand control of national health policy to unelected technocrats housed within international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations (UN) and even the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Over the past couple of years. I have written to Susan Templeman, the member for Macquarie, regularly to raise my concerns over what I perceived as the dangers of allowing large pharmaceutical interests and their local servants to guide Australia’s approach to Covid-19 pandemic management. Though out of government for the first two years of the Covid crisis, her party preferred to seek political advantage rather than challenge or question state and national policies that were chaotic at best.

Her party, the Australian Labor Party, called for more rigorous implementation of these failed policies such as perennial vaxxing, even harsher lockdowns and ubiquitous masking. They even made these demands centrepieces of their election campaigns at the Federal, State and local levels. Unsurprisingly, my challenges received the usual “I trust the science” pat response

Are you a good person?

I am concerned now that further looming encroachments, even attacks, on human rights will meet the same supine compliance or neglect. This is coupled with cynical appeals being made to our sense of social responsibility, as were clearly employed during an extraordinary campaign to have us injected with untested, experimental mRNA injections. Are you a good person? The same social engineering is being used to pressure us into acceptance of potentially calamitous proposed options in addressing climate change, transgenderism and more recently the Voice,

I am writing this open letter to encourage others to join me in challenging their local politicians. I also welcome any suggestions or observations.

Attention: Susan Templeman, Member for Macquarie, New South Wales

Dear Susan

Thank you reply for your reply, on 9th February 2023, to my original correspondence on 7th February of that month.  

This correspondence raised a number of concerns for me. Firstly, you point to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT). This is a common area of confusion. My correspondence referred to the International Health Regulations (2005) Amendments. I am not referring to the Treaty which appears to be running in parallel to the amendments push and is causing a lot of confusion. It is not clear that JSCOT will have jurisdiction or veto power over these amendments. These are not merely of concern to Australians but are causing consternation across the world.

These concerns and dangers to national sovereignty are expressed eloquently and recently by Mr Danny Kruger, Member of Parliament for Devizes in Wiltshire, UK. How remarkably polite the English are.

There is also a precedent for my reasonable concerns regarding the potential disregard of national sovereignty and unilateral overreach by the WHO. On 27th May 2022, amendments were passed by 194 unelected members of the World Health Assembly using the “silence procedure”.

Silent Consent

Along with the matters raised by Mr Kruger, I have very real concerns that the public interest will be bypassed in the approval of these amendments. A full discussion of what happened in May last year can be found by following this link to James Roguski’s valuable work.

I also note from your correspondence that: “Our position is that the Australian Government is dedicated to strengthening national and global pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response”

and that:
“The new agreement is intended to strengthen the international community’s efforts towards future pandemics. It will provide an opportunity to strengthen global health systems, disease surveillance, and enhance equity in pandemic response”.

Threats will be normalised

In support of this, you directed me to an Australian government site that linked to this document:
Strengthening global health and international pandemic response | Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care
This pointed me to: Covid-19 Make it the Last Pandemic. I quote from page 19:

“Most of the new pathogens are zoonotic in origin”.

This seems to ignore the fact that the most recent example of an outbreak – Covid-19 – was almost certainly a human creation, whether from Chapel Hill in North Carolina or Wuhan in China. Alternatively, we could also ask whoever made this virus to stop. My concern is that after viewing these documents they have plans to make more. As an aside, I have recently become aware of alarming links that the Doherty Institute may have with bioweapon research projects overseas.

Instead of looking further into the above document, I thought this complementary report: CSIRO’s strengthening Australia’s Pandemic Preparedness would provide a more relevant and valuable local slant. This report further emphasises my alarm at WHO deliberations. It appears designed to promote permanent vigilance and public anxiety that danger exists around every corner at all times. It intends to be predictive.

It calls for links between local and overseas technocrats who will respond to predefined protocols designed to trigger immediate action overwriting human rights and national sovereignty. By then, individual concerns will be long dispensed with.

Is this alarmism? I refer to the proposed change to Article 3 of the IHR (2005) Amendments referred to in earlier correspondence:

1. The implementation of these Regulations shall be

”with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons”


WILL BE REPLACED BY

based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities of the States Parties, taking into consideration their social and economic development.”

I have read this document and the changes are substantial and far-reaching in their implications. The amendments amount to more a complete rewrite rather than minor amendments.

Equity and Inclusivity are being weaponised

Yet, this is just one challenge that looms like an internationally guided missile directed at our sanity and security. There are other government initiatives that seek to curb individual rights and freedoms, supposedly, for the public good. All is coaxed in the terms of equity & inclusivity and demand we sacrifice ourselves in favour of the community.

This was the argument used to enforce Covid compliance. It worked so well that the champions of climate catastrophe, the transgender social program and more recently THE VOICE are now giving this technique a run. The same demonisation of people who question these narratives is freely employed by our sycophantic media and our avoidant political class.

A brief note on the current Transgender push. This project is about as organic and grassroots as a Bill Gates lab meat hamburger. It is backed by an organisation called Human Rights Campaign which is funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, George Soros and Planned Parenthood. In some states of the US, this latter organisation offers adolescent girls puberty blocking medication on the first visit. It is also backed by one of the world’s largest legal firms (now in Australia) which plans to remove the parental right to “interfere” in a child’s gender choice. In the United States, gender clinics have grown from 1 in 2007 to 300 today. This is clearly a very powerful movement. This is an attack on family and society.

Similarly, the Covid project had the backing of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, the medical establishment (public and private) across the world, the US Department of Defense (who manufactured the mRNA injections) and the Trusted News Initiative that made sure all of our media told us the same lies about “safe and effective”. There was little that was organic or grassroots about this hugely coordinated campaign. I am similarly concerned very powerful interests sit behind the gender, Voice and climate change urgings.

The World Economic Forum – the elephant with its own government office

Some of this urging comes from the peripatetic and highly influential World Economic Forum (WEF). In my experience, local politicians like to pretend they know nothing of this organisation. If this ploy isn’t doesn’t work, the questioning subject is likely to be labelled a conspiracy theorist.

Yet, this article that you directed me to: “Strengthening global health and international pandemic response”, is linked from an Australian Government website, and reveals the members of the panel overseeing the world’s future response to pandemicsOver half are members of the World Economic Forum. The remaining members are linked to organisations with strong global interests such as the United Nations.

Helen Clark – World Economic Forum
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – World Economic Forum
Mauricio Cardenas – World Economic Forum
Mark Dybul – World Economic Forum
Joanne Liu – World Economic Forum
David Milliband – World Economic Forum
Ernest Zedillo – World Economic Forum
Thoraya Obaid- variety of high profile links
Malebona Precious Mastoso – UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Access to Medicines
and former Director at the World Health Organisation (WHO)
Aya Chebbi – Sustainable Development Goals Action Award Winner
Michael Kazatchine – director Global Fund to Fight Aids
worked “close and personal with Anthony Fauci
Preeti Sudan – former Secretary Health India
Zhong Nanshan – Chinese advisor on health policy

It is time we had a serious discussion about the issues I have raised. I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss them with you, personally. Better still, why not hold a public meeting which will give you the opportunity to allay the concerns of Macquarie residents. This would also save you the time of numerous local engagements.

Yours Faithfully

Warren Ross

NB: This article can also be found at Katoomba Review’s substack site

Know Your Customer

If we had truth in advertising, the central character in a bank advertisement would be a big dumb oaf with dementia.

On Monday I went to one of our fabulous banks. My purpose was to transfer ALL money from one account to another and close the empty account. It wasn’t my account. Before you call the police, I was doing this on behalf of my mother who had given me the right to act on her behalf.

The Odyssey begins

Visit One: Seems I don’t have the required authority to perform this task. I need to return with the owner of the account.

Visit 2: After waiting 45 minutes, we find my mother hasn’t brought enough information to prove who she is. This is despite being a customer of the bank for 60 years and having dealt with this branch for 30. We were battling with a new set of Federal Government rules called, ironically, “Know Your Customer”.

Visit 3: We returned with enough information to construct a family history going back to the middle ages. An abrasive member of staff with a sound knowledge of the rules explained that we had failed again. The photo-id that we brought, following the previous day’s bank advice, was invalid. Helpfully, she said go to the NSW Services office upstairs and get a photo-id. With rage mounting, I headed upstairs.

…this branch and many others no longer accept cash

Services New South Wales employee



Services NSW: Brilliant service, I put my hand out for the ID to be told by staff it will be mailed in 5 to 10 days. I also heard them say that this branch and many others no longer accept cash. A government office that does NOT accept cash? Is that legal?

Visit 4: Now desperate, we returned to the bank and asked to see someone less skilled in obeying rules and with some training in customer service. Seems this is a high level skill in a modern day bank so we were introduced to Jason, the Manager. After reviewing our case, Jason was distraught. Through sobs, he explained there was nothing he could do until we came back with proof of who the person sitting in front of him was. The customer, who has had an account at this bank prior to Jason’s birth, needed to try harder to prove her identity.

I decided against confiding to him that few people of my mother’s era were married at birth.

Further, he explained that whatever proof we had must match EXACTLY the name on the bank account. So the birth certificate we carried was a problem because it carried my mother’s maiden name. I decided against confiding to him that few people of my mother’s era were married at birth. That name stipulation also meant the Services NSW id-card will be invalid because we errantly put a middle name on the one we had just ordered.

In short, we needed 100 identification points. No-one could show us the rule book or tell us how to score in this game

Head office helps

So I rang the bank’s head office to have the rules explained. Seems I needed just two easily forged pieces of paper. Confidently, I prepared for my next battle with the local bank.

Visit 5: Jason meets me near the bank entrance :
Bank Manager: Do you have everything?
Knowing I did, I showed him my homework.
Bank Manager: Do you have the pension card?
Me: You mean the one that scored no points yesterday?
Bank Manager: Yes, that one.
Me: No.
At this point I became irrationally angry. Jason took this opportunity to ask:
“Do you want my help or not?”
It appeared to be a prelude to what he saw as a justified and principled reason to end our relationship. I accepted yet another defeat and withdrew graciously.

Visit 6:
I returned ever hopeful and after a 15 minute wait Jason addressed our problem to everyone’s satisfaction.

The system works great but I am a failure

In summary, I don’t blame Jason. He is a decent fellow as needled by the rules as I was. He was helpful, we had a pleasant chat and left friends. Under the rules of neoliberalism the system is perfect and all failure is personal. I had failed 5 times. You meet the terms of the system regardless of how arduous and silly or you fail.

Which brings me to this wonderful interview conducted by C. J. Hopkins with Catherine Austin Fitts. It explains how trillions of US dollars disappeared down a Pentagon money shaft. This was achieved through an arcane relationship with the Reserve Bank system.

In the last two years, the largest negative gearing program in history provided the VERY BIG END OF TOWN with unlimited funds to capitalise on the destruction of small business that Covid-19 policies wrought in the US, Australia and much of the western world. Was it a plan?

The plan to get rid of legacy systems. This means online education, health, shopping and more predicted in April 2020. In short, the plan was to limit the impact of the biohazard from the economy. What is that? You and me. Whitney Webb explains all to Jimmy Dore.

Our Reserve Bank Governor, Phillip Lowe, promised borrowers as late as July last year that interest rates wouldn’t rise until 2024. The enormous sums that western governments were spending undoubtedly presaged inflation. I explained this to anyone who might want to listen. So it proved to be. Was Lowe’s promise a lie or a deception? What happened to concerns about the surplus.? Did he mean to entice and trap people into unpayable mortgages?

This will be passed off as a mistake by one man. The Pentagon theft is likely to be passed off similarly as a rogue act. People make mistakes but the system is perfect. Yet, these are big mistakes that have seen huge amounts of money transferred to God knows who.

The sale of Federal Government bonds is our national debt. I once tried to find out who we owed that debt to? It is not for us to know or for us to find out. “Know Your Customer” does not operate here.

Meanwhile, in modern day Australia an elderly pensioner seeking money for an essential service from her own account is treated as one half of Bonnie and Clyde. If you’re under 40 look up who they are on that Google thing.

All the best
Clyde


This article can also be found on my Substack site

Warren Ross