Captain Cook had nothing to do with the colony. He died in 1779 - years before the settlers arrived. While agreeing with the sentiment that the arrival of Europeans is not cause for celebration, Cook had always been a dumb target for protesting Jan 26.
Southbank had residential high-rise buildings that were at least 60% empty ten years ago - and that's being generous. It seemed like they were nearly empty. From the outside at 8 pm, there were barely any lights on to indicate the presence of people in there.
They were owned by people overseas and kept in pristine condition to maintain a higher value. Is that still going on?
Insert "That's bait" meme here.
It'll be interesting to see what comes of this. Whoever sent this has clearly never been to a WOMAD festival, because that crowd is not likely to appreciate someone trying to influence the lineup.
I can't think of anything the better the writers of this letter could have done to Streisand Effect that crowd into seeking out some DJ that might otherwise have been one act among several.
I absolutely recommend seeing a burlesque show. But once you have, then yeah, they get pretty same-y. I've been to a few, the first one was absolutely the most fun.
That drum & bass show looks like loads of fun! I'd much prefer kicking on to that over yet another burlesque show.
I'm a tightarse, I get the RushTix emails and on the odd occasion we're free I look at what's on that day that looks good.
That said, a quick squiz at the program, the following shows look good: Boomers vs Zoomers, Tonight's Guest with Rove McManus, Embarrassed Naked Female, Sammy J - Hero Complex, Hot 6 Brass Band, Greatest Magic Show
I only got to page 13 of 43. The moral is there are loads of acts that will probably be great. I'm unlikely to get to more than about 3-4 shows the whole festival. Not helped that I'll be out of town for half of it.
'Hi. I'm an influencer who wants to come to Australia, eat at lots of your restaurants and then tell my followers what I think of them. I want you to pay for the flights, accommodation and meals. I also want to be paid for my time to do all this. It should come to about $10 Million. In return, you'll gets lots of exposure!'
I somehow missed this and thought that Lord of the Rings was coming out of copyright about now. It seems not.
I could probably be swayed by that, for examples like Pine Gap, Exmouth and any permanent US bases on Australian soil.
That's not really what HMAS Stirling is, though. It's an Australian naval base. Remove the US, the base would still be there.
I don't know why but this comes across as such a bitch complaint to me, like living next to a live music venue and complaining about the noise
That's an apt comparison. The naval base has been there since the 70s. And before that, HMAS Leeuwin was 20km north at Fremantle from 1940.
HMAS Stirling has been there for 50 years. I lived/went to school down that way. I remember in the Cold War days saying that we'd never know about World War 3, as a nuke would take out the Naval Base on day 1.
So it's a bit rich for anyone to be saying that the base is making them feel less safe today. It's been a legitimate military target my whole life.

His mission was to observe the transit of Venus. The expedition was scientific in nature first and foremost.
You're speaking of the secret instructions issued to him by the Admiralty to locate the fabled southern continent and hopefully claim it for England. Tasman by this stage had found NZ and I think Van Diemans Land. Yes he found the east coast of Australia and "claimed" it for England. It was all in vain though, the distances were way too far for anything to come of it. To Cook at the time, it was a side trip.
There were two parliamentary inquiries submitted to the British parliament in 1779 and 1785 recommending colonisation of New Holland, but even then: well after Cook's death, such an expedition was seen as too expensive.
Then the English learned that the French were preparing to colonise and it was suddenly a British priority to get to Australia.
I don't see how anything to do with the colonisation had anything to do with Captain Cook. You could swap Cook out for any other ship's captain who was taking the scientists to see Venus and the rest of the expedition plays out much the same. Cook didn't colonise Australia. He encountered the Guugu Yimithirr people in Northern Queensland and tried to treat with the peacefully - mostly succeeding. He certainly didn't set about killing them all.
Arthur Philip should be the person people direct their ire at. But he doesn't have a statue in Melbourne. King George III would be another candidate that made sense. Only George III also doesn't have a statue in Melbourne.