The cause identified by Adam Piggott for the spike in Australia’s road toll could also be attributed to the spike in drownings in Australia this summer. We know that tourists have always had a torrid time in Australian waters.
From the Courier Mail 5/1/2019:
“December was a bad month for tourists, with two Chinese nationals drowning in a residential pool in Brendale, north of Brisbane, and a Japanese boy drowning in the popular Cairns Lagoon.
“Those drownings followed the deaths of a Chinese father and son at the Airlie Beach Lagoon in October.
“Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said providing safety advice to tourists when they were issued with their electronic visa was the optimal time.”
It would be very interesting to get a breakdown of the statistics on drowning by race. We at least have some regarding last summer.
From the Guardian on 2/1/2019 with the headline:
“Drownings in Australia up 51% on last summer after five men die on New Year’s Day.”
The key point:
“While 27% of those who drowned in Australia in the past 10 years were born overseas, more than half of those people had lived in Australia for a decade or more.”
Australia has had very proactive swimming lesson programs for its citizens for decades, and training starts practically from birth. Some kids are better batsmen than bowlers, some kick the footy with their left rather than their right, others prefer chess, but pretty much every kid in Australia should at least know how to doggy paddle.
I remember Laurie Larwence got in trouble a couple of decades ago for dishing out some tough love in his swimming lessons for tots. The imagery of him throwing babies into swimming pools and insisting that it was ‘the only way they’ll learn’ has stayed with me since. I have scoured the internet for footage this morning but to no avail. It happened.
He was harassed in the same era that men such as Bruce Ruxton were copping it so badly that he was chased from public life.
From the Age, 28/6/2002 on news of Ruxton’s retirement from his leadership of the Victorian RSL:
Mr Ruxton himself has been reviled in strong terms, too – often in response to hurtful things he said. He took aim at all the progressive causes: “republican nonsense” promoted by “over-educated opportunists, grant-funded bludgers, pseudo-academics and professional ethnics”; homosexuality; feminism; immigration and multiculturalism; native title; and anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a “witch-doctor” associated with “terrorists”.
Good man. Remember this next time someone complains that Adam Goodes was ‘booed into retirement”. That didn’t come from nowhere.
Australia has lost its balls. The old guard have been replaced with soys who flat out deny that Victoria has a problem with #AfricanGangs and hags who sack Polynesians who express their Christian faith in public.
It is because men like Bruce Ruxton were chased from the limelight and men like Laurie or Sam Newman are notable exceptions, that all of a sudden dimwitted bureaucrats are realising that somebody will need to have an uncomfortable discussion about water safety with all of the foreigners who now live here. I think it is a cultural difference or something.
This is why we have to talk about race.
It’s your XYZ.