OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics Australia's Current State !

Dunno about that - but it's only the very short shelf life of raw milk that will prevent it!
It wouldn't be possible to produce such items here by the traditional methods now, due to the loss of essential skills, as you say. It would only be possible to do it by state-of-the-art automated/robotic methods - CNC machining, 3D printing, robotic welding and assembly...
While I agree that the pendulum has swung too far one way, there's another side to the 'Elfin Safety' coin too, you know. A very dark one - the current resurgence of 'black lung' [aka coal miners' pneumoconiosis] in Queensland is a good example. The old occupational diseases are still lying in wait; all too ready to bite us in the arse, with big dark teeth.
Well, the major brands of toothpaste may have gone offshore, but I just checked the bathroom cupboard, and the Aldi house brands are still made here! So is their bath soap.

Sadly accurate, that.
But in the global view, large scale mass production of non-food goods is going down the high-automation route, and that will catch up with even the likes of the Chinese and Koreans etc before very long.

I do see some growth opportunities for artisanal and specialist niche products, but our politicans' strategy of becoming a 'service economy' is just crazy.

I'm irresistibly reminded of the tale of a legendary island off the coast of Britain, whose inhabitants eked out a precarious living by taking in each others' washing!

And putting our bets on tourism? Even crazier! It's been shown time and time again, that this is the least stable of industries, and extremely subject to events like economic crashes and even minor natural disasters...

Hi Norm,

I've got some photos of them which my lad who lives in Melbourne took. He says they are far quieter than the F/A-18's on approach, but like every new aircraft that comes onto the scene it takes me quite some time to gell to them just like it took me to warm to the 18's over the Mirages. Still love the delta winged Mirages though, sadly we'll never ever see one fly again even in historical form. Just way too expensive to fly those jets with all their outdated avionics that's required.

Cheers,
BB.

BB I remember as a young kid living on a farm down in Gippsland and a Sabre jet screamed across the sky so low I think I could see the pilot. I still remember where I was standing at the time down by the old windmill. Something I will never forget

Hi Norm,

Well the Sabre CAC-86 still has very limited avionics thus there are a couple of flying examples of them that appear at various air shows, much the same for the Canberra bomber, but once we got to the Dessault Mirage the whole trailer package had to be run out to the aircraft to fire it up and those electronics are just so outdated it would cost millions to keep one only as a flying example. I Was privileged to see the very last one A3-2 (dual seater) do a flat out run over the Edinburgh base right above the ARDU Hangar and then do a totally vertical climb up to 20,000 feet and disappear for good. We've never seen one fly again after it landed in Woomera to be mothballed until the sale of all of the remaining units to Pakistan. Well at least that was a better outcome than what happened to most decommissioned aircraft in this country, either flown remotely and blown out the sky at Woomera or melted down as scrap as what was the case with most Ex RAAF aircraft.

One of those Sabres has now been grounded for the moment, the one operated by the Temora Aviation Museum, that's on long term loan from the RAAF.

That's because Martin Baker in the UK have discontinued all support, including consumables, for their 'historical' ejector seats.

RAAF policy is, that jet aircraft in their fleet which have ejector seats as original equipment, must retain those seats in operational condition to remain flyable. Temora have been looking at options for fitting a more modern bang seat to the Sabre since 2015, but haven't announced any progress with this issue.

The other airworthy CAC Sabre I'm aware of, is based locally to me, and doesn't run a live bang seat. Jeff Trappett owns, and restored, that one. He's a bit of a historic warbird buff, and also has a CAC Mustang and a DC-3 in airworthy status; he's an ex RAAF and airline pilot.

Temora run live bang seats in several of their other historic jet warbirds [De Havilland Vampire, Gloster Meteor, Canberra], but they have a good enough supply of the Martin Baker consumables for those ones to get them through for quite some time. They don't run live bang seats in their pair of Cessna A-37B Dragonflys.

The closest jet low pass I've been under was a Flying Pig [F-111] at the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow in NZ in 2006. Bloody impressive!

Hi Gadge, I'm sorry to harp on about this Sabre but it is so vivid in my memory. This jet came screaming up the valley at very low altitude, I didn't even hear it coming till it was above me, then I think he saw me and flicked it up sideways so I was looking into the cockpit and then he was gone, so were all the cows in every direction. I always figured he was probably an ex Korea pilot possibly on his last flight and back in those days they couldn't track them like today, so I guess he told the boss he had just taken it out for final spin around the block. I guess it came out of the Sale airforce base

Mate, we all have some formative experiences in our lives, that we'll never forget.

I know I've sure had a few - and they do make great yarns to relate to a good audience, too!

BTW, dunno if the CAC Sabres served in Korea, offhand. I do know that the RAAF's DH Vampires [quad 20mm Hispano cannon armament] did serve there. So did their Gloster Meteors; identical gun armament.

Temora Museum's Meteor wears the RAAF squadron number and 'Halestorm' livery of the late George Hale, who flew an RAAF Gloster Meteor F8 in Korea.

In light of this discussion I thought I would share my own recent experiences with a trucking freight company that I will not name here.

I was to take ownership of a vintage mower that I wanted for spare parts from NSW. Believe it or not, the trucking company refused to carry it. The poor bloke who was sending it had phoned the company for a quote and they told him they could send it strapped to a shipping pallet. So he drives the 30 minutes to the depot only to get some smart young bugger telling him they can't carry it because it is "a liability". Believe it or not he got told that the mower could "explode"! Yes, explode! Has anyone ever heard anything so stupid?

They told him that the mower could still have oil or petrol in it and that makes it a "hazard" because it could self-combust at any moment. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never heard of any old mower suddenly self-combusting when it is not even running! There are a few yards around town here that have piles of old mowers and car bodies and I tend to think the greatest risk would be from a grass fire, due to the amount of rubbish that tends to grow around these wrecks. Perhaps the engine blocks could explode if subject to sufficient heat and sealed up, but really the entire freight truck would be a complete write off by that time anyway and I very much doubt that the mower would be the cause of any such fire.

Anyway, the bloke told them that this mower hadn't run in over 10 years due to a seized valve and the fuel and oil had been drained around the same time and all the fuel had evaporated, and what if he removes the fuel cap, spark plug and sump plug? They just shook their head.

So he asks them if they would take a brand new mower or one that has been reconditioned. "No problem" they replied. Then he argued with them that reconditioned mowers have all had oil and fuel through them. Still they wouldn't budge. There is also the irony that their own trucks have engines and need fuel and oil to run. Perhaps so many of them are catching fire and exploding that they are afraid of the mere sight of an engine?

My guess is they didn't like the look of the rust and bits of caked oil and dirt that you always get on old relic mowers. They were probably scared they might get it on their hands and clean uniforms. Also the mower has a couple of cracked wheels and they were probably worried I might come back on them for "damages". But if that was the case, why didn't they say that instead of beating around the bush with tales of old engines spontaneously exploding?

Anyway, the next day he takes the whole thing back in a sealed up box and tells them it is just a box full of old Mack truck parts. No problem. They didn't even want to look inside!

He also got a quote from another company and they said "no worries" to carrying it strapped to a wooden pallet, but they were twice the price.

I wonder, what is the world coming to when a "nationwide" express trucking company will not even carry a lawnmower? And as for an old pile of rusty metal exploding, well that is just plain stupid.

I worry for the world our kids and grandkids will have to live in. Will everybody in the future be too afraid to do anything? "Oh I'd better not mow the lawn today, I might hit a wasp nest and die from anaphylactic shock! Or the mower might explode suddenly and kill me. Better leave that one to a professional wearing full body armour!" It really has got that stupid.

Hi VM,

Well any used internal combustion engine that has been run and is not fully stripped and cleaned is classed as DG in the transport game (Dangerous Goods). There are huge penalties for carrying such items in a normal freight consignment. Try shipping a litre of paint interstate as it sends shivers down any truck drivers spine if it's not on the manifest and listed as DG and him then not displaying DG signage on both the front and rear of the truck. Also he must also have a DG license.

there are plenty of cowboys on the long haul runs that will take the chance, but if they get checked by the "Scalies" and they discover it then he's out of a job due to loss of his license and that means no food on the table.

Yes it's all gone very OH&S hasn't it.

Cheers,
BB.

Gadge, economies of scale are all out of whack these days. For a long time throughout the 90s and 00s, fish being caught in New Zealand were sent to China to be put in packets and then sent back to New Zealand for re-distribution to places like Australia. In more recent years the trend is to distribute the fish packaged directly from China, thus cutting out the need for double shipping. I once joked at the kitchen table that some of these fish were more widely traveled than myself and it's a wonder they don't all have their own passports. I suspect that as transport costs continue to increase we will eventually start to see Australian and New Zealand caught and packaged fish products on our shelves once again, thus cutting out the Chinese "middle men".

Re the short shelf life of milk, the same situation applies. You may not realize that post-deregulation of the dairy industry, a huge amount of milk from Queensland was sent to far SE Qld, NSW and even to Victoria for processing due to the huge loss of local milk processors such as the Unity factory in Toowoomba. In fact I know many farmers faced the dilemma of having milk in their vats but could not find any companies willing to pick up their milk. Turn the clock on to 2014 and the reverse is true. Milk collected from dairy farms in Victoria is making a journey of nearly 2,000 kilometres for processing to Queensland and northern New South Wales to meet demand. Companies can still make money from the milk, because not enough is being produced up north.

Queensland has lost 100 million litres of milk in the five years prior to 2014. In the same period NSW probably lost another 30 million litres over that period.

The big trend now is for the Chinese to buy up the largest dairy farms to supply their own markets with powdered milk product. I am sure this will soon create a shortfall of processed milk in Australia which will have to be found somewhere, and if more Australian farmers continue to leave the industry I am not sure where this milk can come from. I guess New Zealand is closer to us than China, so that would be one likely source, but that depends on whether the Chinese can produce "long life" milk products at far cheaper cost. But ultimately the Chinese may price themselves out of the market due to rapidly increasing transport costs. I would hate to be a dairy farmer in modern Australia. The red tape is horrendous and it costs far more to feed cattle than what you ever get back from the milk produced. Add droughts to the equation and it is pretty hopeless. I guess this is something this new wave of Chinese dairy farmers may eventually discover!

Very true what you say BB. But the thing is they did not mention the DG declaration to him when he asked for a quote to freight the old mower, nor did they mention this to him when he arrived with the mower at their depot. He would have gladly filed out the declaration, but no, they just refused to accept it. And yet they would have accepted a reconditioned mower, no questions asked.

I am reminded of the time I bought an old camera and had a hell of a job getting it shipped to me. The camera contained a tiny Lithium battery which was classed as a Dangerous Good. No shipping company would touch it. Eventually I just got it sent through Australia Post and it had to come by road. The funny thing is I bought a new Lithium battery for it a few weeks later. Bought it on eBay from China and it arrived by Air Mail in a small nondescript envelope three days later, with Lithium battery clearly marked on the Customs Declaration. I nearly fell over laughing.

Hi VM,

It's not just the declaration it's the DG License that's required that many guys just don't have.

As far as "reconditioned" is concerned they mean one that is totally fresh and hasn't been filled with oil and not been run, thus no fuel has been in it at all. (yeah sure)

Like I said it's all a bit over the top but these are the rules we have to live with because so many dummies will continue to break the rules and that's when stupid things go horribly wrong and someone has to die due to it all.

Cheers,
BB.

BB, I could not imagine the number of motorbikes that are in transit at this very moment around Australia, I have had heaps of them picked up and delivered to my place over the years and I can't recall ever being asked if it even had fuel in it because 90% of them would and I have never seen any DG signs on the trucks

G'day Norm,
It is in fact relatively easy to remove and drain a motorcycle fuel tank, as you know. And indeed, this should always be done, followed by airing out to evaporate the residual fuel.

On the Consignment Note, there is always a question asking whether the shipment contains any Dangerous Goods, requiring the consignor's signature - it's part of the 'boilerplate' T&C of acceptance for carriage, for every commercial carrier I've ever used. False declarations here are subject to severe penalties, too...

One example I've come across recently, is that railways will no longer accept any petrol fuelled motorcycle or moped for carriage, if it has been run at all, or even uncrated and assembled.
They were once rather easygoing about putting your bike in the guards van of country passenger trains, as 'accompanied luggage' - I've done that several times in Vic, back in the day when a 250cc bike was my sole transport.

And airlines have long been very strict on this, as you might expect. One lurk I recall with airfreighting bikes, was to remove the fuel tank and pack it separately. That way only the fuel tank was charged at DG freight rates, rather than the entire bike!
Then too, airlines will no longer accept any small engine powered OPE equipment, unless it is 'factory new in box'. Too many instances of people shipping them with fuel in the tanks...

It's interesting Gadge, I put a BMW on the train at Wagga Wagga in the mid sixties sending it to Melb and all they wanted me to do was drain the tank. Of the bikes I have shipped out from here over the years on bike transports I can't recall any of them asking if the fuel tank was drained, and of course none of them would have been because I would have been test riding them before they left. There usually wouldn't have been much fuel in them but the certainly would not have been completely empty. Obviously the bike transport companies don't worry about it

That was my experience too, back then. They didn't check it, though!
So I always made sure I pushed the bike out of sight from the railway station before I started it.

Mate, this is a big nationwide freighting company that has been in operation for donkey's ages - probably one of the earliest in Australia in fact. They have many licensed drivers and when I searched online I found their Dangerous Good Declaration form is available for download. So why did they fail to tell this to the sender?

It seems that draining the tank is not even good enough these days. You have to also "flush it through", whatever that means. I guess they mean to use water and detergent.

As for people getting killed for not following the rules, I say again, I have yet to see an old engine block that has not had fuel or oil in it for 10 years explode when it is not even running. This law is stupid in the extreme. It is like the many other stupid laws and rules we now have in this country, e.g. many people would not know that it is illegal to pick up a beetle in a national park and put it back down again without a permit. In Western Australia it is actually illegal to break off the tiniest twig of a plant, either native or weed, or even handle one for that matter, on the roadside or on private property in order to photograph it. (I know this because a good friend of mine had to apply for a permit to do just that!) It is also technically illegal to pick up a feather off a native bird and place it in your hat, or to mow some species of native grasses that are endangered, regardless of whether or not you can identify the species. It is illegal for a farmer to pick up an Aboriginal artefact and move it off his cultivation paddock, and yet he can whack away at it with his farming implements to his heart's content, just so long as he does so ignorantly and without any mal-intent he cannot be punished.

At the end of the day, what is it they say about stupid laws that make no common sense? "People should just ignore them and get on with their lives." Most reasonable people do just that, otherwise no work in this country would ever get done. I am sure that is why so many engine parts, motorbikes and yes, even lawnmowers are still getting transported around. Most sensible people are reasonable about things and instead of following the letter f the law are willing to find some flexibility within the rules and regulations on a case by case basis. I guess I just really dislike the sticklers who are not willing to budge or compromise on the often unreasonable and illogical demands placed on us by desk jockeys and other Fat Cat bureaucrats.

I couldn't agree with you more !

It all comes down to "common sense" but sadly it's no longer common. It has to be defined with hard and fast guide lines now a days.

When I refer to some one getting killed I was referring to an incident that happened here in Adelaide about 12 months ago where a Sewage truck fully laden came down the South Eastern Freeway and ran out of brakes and ploughed through 5 cars and killed someone at the intersection of Glen Osmond Rd, Portrush Rd and Cross Roads. This all happened because one idiot decided he could fly down the freeway and use his brakes all the way down like a car can. Now all trucks have to stay in bottom gear all the way down and are not allowed to use their brakes until the very last stop where the accident happened.

The Police frequent this stretch of road with heat guns which they aim at the truck wheels and if the reading is higher than their prescribed level then a $1500 ticket applies. Also if they see your brake lights come on then again the same applies. This is all because one stupid idiot tried to run the gauntlet and try his luck. Now all have to pay the price along with the cost of 30 odd warning signs all down the freeway. This is how we end up with stupid idiotic laws.

Cheers,
BB.

Gosh you people are whingers!

I'm glad I'm not.
And another thing about common sense:

I'm off to the supermarket Jack, I want one of those packets before they are sold out