Latest news with #NedKelly
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
I moved from the UK to Australia two years ago. Aussies tell themselves a big lie - the real, infuriating truth about this country is clear, writes MAX AITCHISON
Long before I arrived on these sun-kissed shores, I thought I had grasped the idea of the Australian soul. The tolerant, open-minded, 'she'll be right, mate', approach to life Aussies like to show to the world. It was, my reading informed me, the great land of larrikins – a proud tradition of holding a healthy disrespect for rules and order that drew its inspiration from the legendary outlaw Ned Kelly. A nation of plucky underdogs who viewed their former British overlords with contempt. A land where rugged individuals laughed in the face of authority and forged their own meritocratic identity. A people who valued common sense, who fought for their own beliefs and scorned the establishment's stuffy rules. It seemed to me that Kelly and his heroic last stand embodied what it was to be Australian. Yet, having lived in this country for over two years, I now realise how naive I was. For it is painfully – infuriatingly – obvious that a very loud minority of modern Australians have much more in common with the men who strung Kelly up, than the mythical outlaw himself. As the late, great Australian critic and journalist Clive James once observed: 'The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts, but that so many of them are descended from prison officers.' I see this slavish adherence to rules and pettifogging everywhere, at all levels of society, from the individual to the state. I see it in my multi-millionaire banker neighbour who rang the council to send out a ranger to fine me $350 for parking four inches across his driveway, rather than leaving a note, which would have achieved exactly the same thing. I see it in the council rangers who not only demanded that a family pour out the champagne they were drinking to celebrate Christmas day onto the hot sand of Bondi Beach, but also to pop and pour their unopened bottles too. I see it in the surly staff at the Avoca surf club restaurant who, on Good Friday of all days, refused a table to a young couple and their two children, both of whom were under the age of three, because the toddlers had committed the inexcusable sin of not wearing shoes inside. I see it too, more times than I care to mention, in the power-hungry bouncers staffing Sydney's pubs and clubs who seem to relish in ruining any decent night out. 'How many drinks have you had?' – the question to which there is no right answer, honest or otherwise. I see it also in the intensely passive aggressive note left on my windshield after I had the temerity to leave my car parked in the same, entirely legal, spot on the street I live on for two weeks, which read: 'Has this car been abandoned? We will call the council and have it removed – residents.' I had half a mind to flip the paper and write: 'Hi resident. Also resident. Why don't you get a life and mind your own business?' (And yes, I am starting to wonder if there is something wrong with my neighbours). Regardless, I see it everywhere: this curtain-twitching, joy-extinguishing, fun-sponging desire to pursue conformity at all costs. And it's not just confined to neighbourhood spats, officious hospitality staff of lowly council bureaucrats. This rotten, rule-making insanity runs right through the heart of state and federal governments across the country. Of course, it plumbed new depths during the pandemic. State premiers, drunk off power and acting like Communist dictators, families unable to say goodbye to loved ones and the appalling case of a pregnant woman in her pyjamas being taken from her home in handcuffs for daring to stand up to the tyranny. But it didn't end there. Take the upcoming social media ban for children under the age of 16 or the $420,000-a-year eSafety Commissioner whose job seems to entail telling social media companies to remove mean posts, sometimes made by people in foreign countries. You hear politicians praising these measures as 'world leading', as if being the first country to do something precludes any discussion over whether it's actually a good idea in the first place. Because they're not. The eSafety Commissioner is about as useful as a chocolate teapot and if anyone sincerely thinks that children aren't going to get around any ban in a matter of seconds then I have a good bridge to sell you. No, what these laws are all about is pandering to Australia's obsession with policing other people's lives. And nowhere was this more apparent than in the case of Sydney restaurateur Nahji Chu, whose Lady Chu eatery in Potts Point was visited last Friday by unsmiling council bureaucrats who were unhappy with her potted plants. In an explosive showdown, filmed by a staff member, Ms Chu unleashed on the council employees: 'This is 'f***ed up, this whole city is f***ed up! 'I'm not a f***ing naughty school kid, so don't speak to me like that. 'I'm paying f***ing taxes and I'm paying your wages, so f*** off. 'I'm trying to activate this f***ing dead city, so don't shut it down.' While a family website such as this one cannot condone Ms Chu's colourful language, I applaud her sentiment wholeheartedly. Here is an Australian hero, willing to stand up for herself and others in the face of joyless officials. This is a woman who fled the communist Pathet Lao regime as a child in 1975, only to then be thrown into a Thai jail cell with her father where she caught TB and languished for three months. Her family then bounced around Thai refugee camps for three years before they eventually became among the first Vietnamese refugees to settle in Australia. Ms Chu has worked in the varied worlds of fashion (where she once helped dress Kylie Minogue) banking and hospitality, a sector in which she has built and lost an empire before starting all again from scratch with the popular Lady Chu in 2021. She was gloriously unapologetic when she spoke to my colleague Jonica Bray earlier this week. 'There is no fun in this city, you can't do anything or you face a fine,' she said. 'No one even leaves their house anymore - they just work to make money and go and spend it overseas where they can get culture and have a good time.' And she's right. If the average Australian allows the small but powerful minority of rule-lovers to win, then the country must drop any pretense to being some kind of laidback nirvana and must face a reckoning with its true identity. I urge all proud Australians to follow Ms Chu's lead and resist loudly and openly – to stand up for the values and the spirit that makes this country so great.
News.com.au
26-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Forensic pathologist makes claim about Ned Kelly tattoos
A forensic pathologist has shared the bizarre trend he has noticed about those who have a popular Australian tattoo. Roger Byard, an Emeritus Professor at The University of Adelaide who is nicknamed Dr Death by his colleagues, specialises in the study of death and injuries. His profession not only helps solve crimes, but can also help prevent future deaths in cases such as the research his autopsies provided on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to help lower early childhood deaths. Recently, Mr Byard appeared on I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin, where he revealed an anecdotal trend about a tattoo he has noticed during his 30 year career. After getting involved with Foxtel series Lawless, which looked at figures such as Ned Kelly and the Kenneth Brothers, Mr Byard said he kept looking into Bushrangers. 'We were basically trying to see what evidence there was for the historical stories. You look at Ben Hall — the popular theory is that police snuck up on him and shot him in his swag,' Mr Byard said on the podcast. 'The police version is a bit different.' It led him to notice, anecdotally, a piece of information about people who had ink of Australia's most well known bushranger Ned Kelly, who was executed for killing Constable Thomas Lonigan in 1880. 'I just noticed that a lot of the people coming into the mortuary with Ned Kelly tattoos had died violent deaths,' he said. I did a retrospective study and then I did a 10-year prospective study. Sure enough like 80 per cent of them had died of accidents or suicides or homicides. All sorts of strange things.' Mr Byard clarified that this was in a forensic context and just because you had a tattoo of Ned Kelly it didn't mean you were 'marked' for a violent death. He said he thought it was because the tattoo was a mark of 'drug associated' lifestyles or other forms of risk taking. Social media users claimed the tattoo represented a certain kind of lifestyle. 'I think it's also the demographic within society that idolises Ned is mostly those who live reckless and/or dangerous lives,' one said. Another said: 'Wow that feels energetic. They say tattooing names on you also transfers a similar energy.' It's not the first time Mr Byard has discussed this topic, in 2023 he and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart had a paper published in Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology journal. The paper explained that the tattoos often depicted Kelly in his armour or his alleged last words 'Such is life'. Their study ran from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2020, at Forensic Science South Australia. Over this period, 38 people ended up in the morgue with Ned Kelly inspired tattoos. Ten of these were natural deaths, while 15 were suicide, nine were accidents and four were homicides.
News.com.au
10-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Bushranger Ned Kelly, The Block's Danny Wallis in Melbourne auction action
Victoria is on its way to a post-election auction bump, with a second-chance auction for a piece of Ned Kelly history and serial The Block buyer Danny Wallis among the sales action. PropTrack Data shows the state's clearance rate today came in at 69 per cent, from 629 recorded results. Danny Wallis sold his 6 Gray Lane, Albert Park, property for $2.15m, decently above the $1.8m-$1.95m he had been seeking when Whitefox's Peter Servas sent it under the hammer — and a solid uptick from the $1.8m he paid in 2020. Records show Mr Wallis owned the three-bedroom property through his firm DSAH Holdings. It is the latest in a series of homes he has sold off in response to state government changes to rules around investment properties and landlord requirements in Victoria — including 38A Grey St, St Kilda, which he bought off the hit Channel 9 renovation reality show in 2019. It became the first home the entrepreneur and businessman sold in response to the government's changes including increased land tax to recoup Covid-era losses. Meanwhile, a Benalla property known as the Bootmaker's Shop, which bushranger Ned Kelly fled to before a violent struggle after escaping from the courthouse over the street in 1877. It was sold under the hammer for $360,000 after it tested the market for the second time this year. The shop at 64A Arundel St had initially gone under the hammer on April 11, but only attracted one bidder and passed in at $250,000. A second attempt by Ray White to sell it a month and a federal election later ended with the $360,000 sale of the property to a buyer who indicated they were part of Ned Kelly's lineage. Kelly was 16 when he took refuge in the shop, which today has a plaque installed in it to commemorate the bushranger's visit during which he threatened to shoot constable Thomas Longin after the cop grabbed the criminal's genitalia. Kelly later killed the constable in a gunfight known as the Stringybark Incident. Ray White's Shayne McKean handled the listing, while Jeremy Tyrrell called the online auction which attracted three bidders and a result that was 'off and running at a price that no one was expecting'. While the original auction might have fallen victim to the typical election 'handbrake' on the market, as well as school and public hollidays, the prospect of an interest-rate cut within the fortnight had Mr Tyrrell convinced strong underlying demand from buyers will quickly boost the auction market. 'I think it will only accelerate from here,' he said. Real Estate Institute of Victoria president Jacob Caine backed the call, indicating that after recent weaker clearance rates today's 69 per cent figutre showed 'it's back on in Melbourne'. 'And I would expected that we will start to see that clearance rate really strengthen over the weeks and months ahead,' he said.
Perth Now
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
The 89 names parents are banned from giving their babies in Australia
What's in a name? In some cases, it's enough to make it 'illegal'. Australia has a list of 89 banned names which cannot be bestowed on children born here. And while some names on the list might seem like the usual suspects, there are a few surprises. While each Australian state and territory has its own Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, the names are banned nationwide under Australian naming laws. Sunrise presenter Edwina Bartholomew dived into the list of taboo titles on Thursday. Sunrise presenter Edwina Bartholomew. Credit: Seven 'It's a tough decision for any parent: what to name her new bundle of joy,' Bartholomew said. 'Now, there's been a list of the banned baby names in Australia revealed. 'They include a whole list of official titles and ranks including Admiral, Duke, and Baron with one R. 'Marshal is also banned but I know a Marhsall with two Ls. 'Ranga. Thong. You can't have a little thong, which is a shame. You also can't have a little Cyanide. 'You also can't have a Ned Kelly. Also, no more than 50 characters long.' The list is extensive with no titles allowed. Credit: Seven Admiral Adolf Hitler Anzac Australia Baron Bishop Brigadier Bomb Bonghead Brother Cadet Captain Chief Christ Chow Tow Colonel Commander Commissioner Commodore Constable Corporal Cyanide Dalai Lama Dame Devil Dickhead Doctor Duke Emperor Facebook Father G-Bang General God Goddess Harry Potter Honour Ikea iMac Inspector Jesus Christ Judge Justice King Lady Lieutenant Lord Madam Mafia Majesty Major Marijuana Marshal Medicare Messiah Minister Mister Monkey Nazi Ned Kelly Nutella Officer Osama Bin Laden Panties Passport Pope Premier President Prime Minister Prince Princess Professor Queen Ranga Robocop Saint Satan Scrotum Seaman Sergeant S**thead Sir Sister Smelly Snort Socceroos Terrorist Thong Virgin
7NEWS
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
The 89 names parents cannot bestow on their babies in Australia
What's in a name? In some cases, it's enough to make it 'illegal'. Australia has a list of 89 banned names which cannot be bestowed on children born here. And while some names on the list might seem like the usual suspects, there are a few surprises. While each Australian state and territory has its own Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, the names are banned nationwide under Australian naming laws. Sunrise presenter Edwina Bartholomew dived into the list of taboo titles on Thursday. 'It's a tough decision for any parent: what to name her new bundle of joy,' Bartholomew said. 'Now, there's been a list of the banned baby names in Australia revealed. 'They include a whole list of official titles and ranks including Admiral, Duke, and Baron with one R. 'Marshal is also banned but I know a Marhsall with two Ls. 'Ranga. Thong. You can't have a little thong., which is a shame. You also can't have a little Cyanide. 'You also can't have a Ned Kelly. Also, no more than 50 characters long.' Banned baby names in Australia: Admiral Adolf Hitler Anzac Australia Baron Bishop Brigadier Bomb Bonghead Brother Cadet Captain Chief Christ Chow Tow Colonel Commander Commissioner Commodore Constable Corporal Cyanide Dalai Lama Dame Devil Dickhead Doctor Duke Emperor Facebook Father G-Bang General God Goddess Harry Potter Honour Ikea iMac Inspector Jesus Christ Judge Justice King Lady Lieutenant Lord Madam Mafia Majesty Major Marijuana Marshal Medicare Messiah Minister Mister Monkey Nazi Ned Kelly Nutella Officer Osama Bin Laden Panties Passport Pope Premier President Prime Minister Prince Princess Professor Queen Ranga Robocop Saint Satan Scrotum Seaman Sergeant Shithead Sir Sister Smelly Snort Socceroos Terrorist Thong Virgin
