The Warning of Gareth Jones: Who Owns Our Land, Our Water, Our Future?

When we speak of Ukraine and Russia in the 1930s, we are speaking of lands under Stalin’s Soviet regime - not the independent nations they are today.

It was this regime that forced millions of peasants into collectivisation from 1929 onwards, stripping them of land, property and independence. This was not simply a natural disaster. Government policy -  including forced collectivisation, crushing grain requisitions and confiscation of food -  helped create the conditions for catastrophe and was used to break resistance to Soviet rule.

In Soviet Ukraine, around four million people died during the famine of 1932–34, according to demographic estimates cited by the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Millions more died in other parts of the Soviet Union, particularly Kazakhstan and parts of Soviet Russia.

By 1932 and 1933, grain requisitioning and confiscation had become relentless. In Ukraine, Soviet authorities intensified searches for food, confiscated grain and other foodstuffs, and eventually restricted the movement of starving peasants attempting to escape the famine. The result was mass starvation on a horrifying scale.

Albert Facey’s A Fortunate Life is more than a memoir.

It is the voice of a man who endured almost unimaginable hardship and yet found gratitude where others might have only found despair.

His story is woven into the broader tapestry of Australia’s history....from the harsh bushlands of Western Australia to the blood-soaked cliffs of Gallipoli, through the Depression and the building of a family and a nation.

Facey’s life is not just his own - it is a story we can all see reflected in our national character: the courage, resilience, and quiet determination that built modern Australia.

The Magic of Dusty McFookit

I have a confession to make about Dusty Gulch.

It was always political.

Not party political, necessarily, although there has been plenty of that wandering around in the undergrowth.

But from the beginning, the stories have been my way of looking at what is happening in the real world and then turning it into a fable.

A rather odd fable, admittedly.

I take something happening in Australia, or elsewhere, put it through the Dusty Gulch machine, add a rat, several cats, an emu, a camel, a wallaby with titanium knees, a rolling pin and an alarming amount of gold, and see what comes out the other end.

When I was a kid, I used to go to the movies on a Saturday morning. Or, as my late Uncle ( Mum's brother )  used to call it, The Flicks. Others called it “ The Pictures “ or “ The cinema” … no matter, we went to see a movie and it cost a shilling. In fact, I had friends who called  it the Flea House, though I never really understood why. 

We would all sit down in our seats, the lights would dim and a movie of a Lady on a horse would appear.  We would stand up for the Lady on the horse and sing about saving the Queen. Only after we had sung about how wonderful she was and how important it was that we love our country, only then, could we sit down again and wait for the lady with the ice creams to come around.

It was magical. The crowded theatre; the Lady on the horse, the lady with the ice creams and the lady with the torch that led latecomers to their seats.

THE CAMEL, THE TOOTH AND THE EMERGENCY DIESEL

Ratty News Special Report

A follow-up to “There’s Gold in Them Thair Hills”

By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Chief Investigative Correspondent
Dusty Gulch Gazette

There are mornings when a reporter knows, before breakfast, that the day is going to be troublesome.

This was one of them.

I was sitting in the Dusty Gulch Gazette office, scratching at my whiskers, when I developed a toothache.

Not a little toothache.

A proper one.