Stifling Queensland Government Rules and Regulations.

The Queensland government has a penchant for making rules and regulations without any consultation of the Queensland people. You don’t know about them until it affects you personally.

A case in point is the Cairns Amateur races, the biggest event on the racing calendar in Cairns, which they have stuffed up big time with their rules and regulations.

I have just become acquainted with another of these incongruous rules and regulations that the government regularly “invents’ and stealthily inserts them into the system. Having such an absurd majority they can do whatever they like and the opposition may just as well stay home and read the book, “How to win an election and become a better government.”

Since my wife is a regular recipient of blood, we wanted to say thank you and show appreciation to the blood donors. So I made a timber freeform stand with beautiful North Queensland timber that is not available anymore. This item is conservatively valued at $600.00; it is a one off product and cannot be replicated. Double click to enlarge pictures!

Our idea was that every blood donor gets a ticket when donating blood, and after 5 or 6 months the winner would be drawn. The idea behind this was to encourage people to spend blood more often. However, I was told that the regulations do not allow this, and the Blood Bank would not be permitted to put a note in the Cairns Post to make blood donors aware of this; nor could it be raffled.

So, unfortunately we withdrew our donation. Karola just takes this opportunity to say thank you to the altruistic and wonderful Blood Donors; without them, she would not be alive.

I love you all, Karola

Opinions by true blue Australians

When I came to this country it was like a breath of fresh air, a lot has changed since and the air is getting stale, we are over governed, over regulated and run by a virtual dictatorial government – luckily, we are still allowed to express an opinion, but who knows how long before they will muzzle us and take away this right. – Werner Schmidlin

Below are two letters; the first by I. Edgerley, which was recently published in the Cairns Post; then a response to that letter sent to me by a lady from the Gold Coast – a True Blue Australian.

I quote the first letter:

"Multiculturalism has not worked.

"MARK Corrin's (28-8-09) criticism of Werner Schmidlin by using the Aboriginal experience as proof that many cultures that are mixing together works, in fact did just the opposite. For 40,000 years many people, many cultures and many languages have lived on this continent and not once during that time did they ever manage to join together to form a nation.

He proved that all this mixing of races just does not work. There is no proof world-wide that multiculturalism is a successful nation-building exercise, and while an admirable concept in theory, in practice it has proved a dismal failure.

Zimbabwe, Kenya, Iraq, Sri Lanka, et al; all attest to the multiracial nation as a concept noted for its ineffectiveness. Even the US, for all its drumbeating about its multicultural, multi-racial and multi-language policies, is not a successful entity. Take away its strong government and it would collapse into division, dissension and internal warfare.

Werner Schmidlin was correct: the theme of one people, one culture, one language, best describes a successful nation. - I. Edgerley, Tully." Unquote.

Here is what true blue Australian wrote: I Quote.

"I agree whole heartedly - it's not working!!! The only thing that the multicultural theory has produced in this country is division. We used to be a nation that stood shoulder to shoulder, united for a common cause; but not any longer. The day they opened the floodgates to all and sundry was the beginning of the end of a 'united country'.

It would be interesting to see where allegiances and loyalty would lay if push came to shove. I deplore the fact that children in kindergartens and schools don't sing Christmas carols for fear of offending Muslims. Christmas decorations and carols in some shopping centres are banned for fear of offending Muslims.

Yet, if I go to their countries I have to live my life by their standards or suffer severe consequences. What gives them the right to demand more say in what happens here than an Australian citizen? I have thought long and hard as to where I really fit in my own country. I have fewer rights than the majority of newcomers.

Aborigines refer to themselves as the only true Australians. I am a 3rd generation Australian, born and raised here, yet, I am not considered by them to be a true Australian. They regard me as a foreigner, yet I need a passport and visa to enter the UK - the country of my earlier ancestors. I am, by Aboriginal standards, a displaced person without a homeland. My original passport used to say "Commonwealth of Australia" now it just says "Australia".

All I can say is that I am glad I am entering the final years of my life, because I believe my grandchildren and their children are in for a very torrid time living in this multicultural environment. God forbid that any future wars are fought on our shores, because your neighbour next door could be plotting your demise with no loyalty whatsoever to this country. It's all a bit scary."

Signed: True blue Australian
(Name withheld)

A thought for today:
We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. Konrad Adenauer

An Australian Migrant Story.

This is the first time this story is published. I have asked our local daily "The Cairns Post" many times over the years to publish this or other stories from me, (Mind you I didn't want money for it) but they just were not interested.


The Mossman Rifle Club.
By Werner Schmidlin

The year: 1958. I formed some wonderful friendships with Australians in this club and, I experienced the true blue Australian spirit over and over again as many times before. There was no malice shown towards me, considering that only a few short years before I would have been considered their enemy. And, amazingly, as a “former enemy” I was able to bring about a change in a longstanding Army directive that existed since the colonial days when the British were in charge here.

When we first arrived in Australia the government under Prime Minister Robert Menzies, asked “New Australians,” as we were called then, to assimilate with Australians and integrate into the Australian way of life - and that was exactly what we set out to do. We never sought out German migrants, but mixed with Australians at every opportunity. I joined the Mossman Rifle Club, which was located halfway between Mossman and Port Douglas, (See map at the bottom) and there I formed some wonderful friendships. People from all walks of life belonged to the rifle club, including Neville Rex, whose father lent his name to the Rex Highway, and from the four policemen stationed at Mossman; three were members of the club. After the shoot we had a few beers together and discussed shooting or other subjects and I had a wonderful rapport with everyone. The club visited other rifle clubs on a regular basis, in Cairns, Mareeba, Atherton, and Ravenshoe. To drive the entire length of the Rex Highway to Mareeba was an absolute nightmare; it was a narrow and dusty road, stretches of which had a high ridge in the middle, and made overtaking very precarious.

All rifle clubs in Australia were under the jurisdiction and control of the Australian Army, and membership lists had to be submitted to the Army headquarters and kept on file there. What nobody knew, was that an Army regulation existed; stipulating that only Australians or British subjects were allowed to be members of rifle clubs and own a rifle. When my application to become a member of the rifle club finally arrived in the army headquarters in Brisbane, my name and other relevant information came to the notice of the Australian Army, and alarm bells rang. The name, Werner Schmidlin, just didn’t look too British or Australian to the top army brass. It was clear to them that I fell into the category of ‘foreigner’. The Army informed the club about the situation, and as I learned later, the club executive mulled over it for quite some time. However, they were not sure how to solve the situation or break the news to me. Apparently, no club had been confronted with such dilemma before. This certainly caused a predicament for them and they didn’t have the heart to tell me about it, nor did they want to lose me as a member. So it was decided to do nothing about it, or mention anything about it to anyone; let alone to me and they just let me carry on as usual and as a normal member of the club.

All went well until we were practicing for an up-coming prize shooting event at Atherton in which I achieved an extremely good score. It suddenly occurred to somebody that the club could be in a bit of a predicament should I win a prize or prizes, and alarm bells started to ring. The Club executive had an “emergency” executive meeting in the clubhouse while I was lying on the rifle mount firing at the target. They finally had to own up and tell me about the Army regulation. To make a long story short, it was decided that, should I be successful in winning a prize or prizes, I will forfeit them to the shooter with the next best score, as the Army always had to be informed who the winners were in the shooting competitions. I was not upset about this situation; I realised that rules are rules, and was happy that the other members stood by me. The camaraderie was excellent; I was considered one of them, despite being on the other side of the fence during the war, then, only few years back.

On the way home to Miallo however, I gave this matter a bit more thought and it started to rankle me. “Hang on a minute, I said to myself, "The Australian Government, since the day they accepted my application to migrate to Australia, back in Germany, had drummed into us migrants that we should make an effort to assimilate and integrate into the community of our new country and the Australian way of life.

With this in mind and not being the person who lets unresolved matters stay unresolved, I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Bob Menzies. I explained the situation to him and pointed out that I wanted to practice what the Australian Government had preached to me – namely, to assimilate into the Australian community. I went on to lament the fact that, the Army regulation about "foreign" shooters was not in the best interest or spirit of assimilation and integration between Australians and New Australians, and so on. I also made it clear to the Prime Minister, that his government should practice what it preaches.

Within a very short time I had a reply from the Prime Minister, Bob Menzies, thanking me for my letter, and stating that he had noted the content of the letter and that he would look into the matter, but will also pass on the letter to the minister of the army, Mr. Kramer. After approximately two months, the Army informed the club that the ‘vexatious’ rule had been removed from the Army’s regulations. When the club captain informed me about this, and wondered what made the army to change this rule, only then did I own up and tell him that I had written to the Prime Minister. From that moment on I didn’t have to be a “secret” club member any more.

We had some real Aussie characters in our club, one these was Tom Francis; a cane farmer from Mossman comes to my mind. He was of Irish descent and had a very “short fuse” and a bad temper. When he missed the bulls-eye a few times he was likely to get up and throw his 303 rifle as far as he could into the scrub, often before he had fired off all the allocated rounds of ammunition. He blamed his rifle for getting bad scores. Tom’s son-in-law, who was our target marker for the rifle club, told us the following.

On one occasion, when Tom was trying to make two identical rings for a farm implement on his blacksmith forge, he couldn't make the second ring exactly like the first. After persevering for a short while, unsuccessfully, his short fuse reached the end and he threw the red-hot iron ring through the wall opening into the adjacent cane paddock. It resulted in nine hundred tons of sugar cane burning down. Luckily it was in the middle of the cane season and the cane could be harvested.

On another occasion, Tom was happily driving a tractor, ploughing a paddock, when the rear tyre burst. Tom was so enraged that he jumped off the tractor and bit the tyre.

And, here is another anecdote from my time in Mossman. Karola’s Brother, Walter, had migrated to Australia and lived with us in Mossman. He had only been here for a week and he didn’t speak a word of English. I took him along for the Sunday shoot at the Mossman rifle range and introduced him to the members. After the shoot we went for a beer to one of the Mossman pubs. Somebody was telling a joke, which wasn’t particularly funny, but everybody had a bit of a laugh, with the exception of Walter. “Please, tell Walter the joke so that he can also have a laugh,” Norm Downs said to me. I explained to them that this joke cannot be translated as it contains Australian idiom and vernacular and wouldn’t make any sense nor be funny in German. But they wouldn’t have any of this and kept persisting that I tell Walter this joke. Walter wanted to know what was said and I said the following to him.

“These guys want me to tell you this joke, which, by the way is not very funny nor can it be translated and make any sense, but as soon as I finish talking to you, please laugh like hell.” Walter found that very funny and burst out laughing – and everybody was happy that Walter found the joke funny.

My thought for today.

People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. - J.F. Newton

Thank you for visiting my blog!

The Cannonball Tree. - By Werner Schmidlin

The population of Cairns has considerable increased since we first came to North Queensland in 1958 and not many people know about this interesting tree in the Freshwater Valley Cairns. Publishing this story on my blog may create enough interest for newcomers to our beautiful area to go and have a look at this unusual tree. To see a picture of the wonderful blossoms and the balls on the trunk, click on the “German section” on the right side on the top of the page.

* * * * * *

It is most likely that not too many people have ever heard about, and much less seen a Cannonball Tree. Firstly, the tree is a native to South America, and secondly, there are not many to be found in Australia, with the exception of Botanical Gardens perhaps. To my knowledge there are only two trees in the Cairns area, a young insignificant one in the Cairns Botanical and the one I’m writing about. The Botanical name of this tree is: Couroupita – The Cannonball Tree. Family, Lecythidaceae. However, its old name was: “Couroupita guianensis” referring to the Guianas, where this real curiosity grows wild. Cannonball Trees can be grown easily from seed in a warm climate. Just don’t plant one in your garden.

Thank goodness Cannonball trees are not to be found in every garden! Dodging the head-size fruit as they come cannonading down the trunk in a rainstorm could become a real hazard, and the less is said about its decaying droppings (balls) the better. They are a sight to behold though, that every tree-lover would want to see at least once in a lifetime. What stunning botanical conversation piece! A 17 metre (50ft) tall tree which produces the flowers and the fruits (balls) on the trunk and not as usual high up on the branches. In season, the tree produces Hibiscus-sized flowers of a mixture of rich apricot pink, snow white and gold. They have a curious lop-sided mass of stamens and exude a strong fruity fragrance that can be smelt from afar.

The brown fruit hang in clusters from the top to the bottom of the tree trunk, suspended like balls on a string. They consist of a mass of seed, embedded in sickly greenish pulp, which to Westerners smells distinctly “off”. As the story goes, the South American natives, however, find the “inside” of the balls delicious, and squeeze a popular brew from it, which they drink from the hard empty outer shell.

Having introduced this interesting tree; let me tell you how I found it more than forty years ago. A friend of ours who knew that I love everything that is interesting, nice & beautiful, told me about a big unusual tree with ball-like fruit on the trunk. “It is right beside the road and close to the farmhouse of Lyon’s sugar cane farm, way back in the Redlynch Valley” (near Cairns N.Q.) he said. Being a natural stickybeak, I was dying to have a look at this tree at the first opportunity. Well, a nice sonny Sunday with blues skies presented that opportunity. “Let’s go for a drive,” I said to Karola (my wife) and the three young children. “Oh good,” was the emphatic reaction. “Where are we going?” they queried. “We’ll be going to the Redlynch Valley (about 30 kilometres away,) to see if we can find that tree, that’s where we are going,” I said.

We didn’t know exactly where Lyon’s sugar cane farm was, but the road into the Redlynch Valley was a long, but dead- end road so there was no danger of taking a wrong turn. So, we kept a good lookout on both sides of the road as we drove along. After about five Kilometres into the Redlynch Valley road, there was suddenly this towering tree on the left side in front of us, with the trunk laden with brown balls intermixed with beautiful Magnolia-size flowers. There was no doubt we had found the right tree. We stopped, went out of the car and looked with amazement at this fascinating tree in front of our eyes.

After we have had a long close look at the tree and its appendages from every angle, I walked the 20 meters to the farmhouse to ask what tree it was.
I reached the front door and with my curled index finger knocked on the door. I was ready to say, “excuse me, would you please tell me what tree that was,” but I didn’t get a chance to say that. Almost simultaneously as I knocked on the door, the door sprang open, halfway, a lady said, “it’s a Cannonball tree,” shut the door and left me standing there for a minute dumbfounded – I didn’t even have time to say thank you.

I could only assume, that this question had been asked hundreds of times, especially on a weekend, since this tree was not far from a popular swimming place, the Crystal Cascades. When I returned to the site a few weeks later to show the tree to a friend, a sign was placed nearby, saying: “This is a Cannonball Tree.”

Since that “fateful” day, when I first put eyes on this fascinating tree, I have taken countless tourists and friends to this tree – their first comments is always without exception, “absolutely amazing!” When I was active in the North Queensland Promotion in the 1970’s & 80’s, I made sure it was included in tourist literature. However, I noticed that in recent times the tree has gone missing in tourist literature, but I will continue to take every opportunity to tell people about the tree, or take them there. It gives me such a wonderful feeling to see the happy faces when they look at this tree with “open-mouthed” amazement.

PS. This story is also to be found on the internet, at “Tintota.com” and achieved, when first published in 2001 the number one spot on the search engine Yahoo from 65.000 hits for more than six months – a remarkable achievement I was told by my Web publisher. - Werner