The resumption of activities at the Kangaroo Flat mine, if the Labor state government approves the transfer of mining and exploration licences from Unity Mining to GBM Gold, would be a disgrace and certainly something the premier may regret with the next election.

Do we need this disruptive and dangerous process of retrieving gold from piles of crushed ore on site and tailing dumps around our city?

Where are our three Lockwood ward councillors’ voices? Where is the voice of our Member for Bendigo West? They should be loud and strident in their opposition to the premier. How can trust be built with the community after the failings of the mining industry in Bendigo?

Our history is built on gold, yes, but at what cost in the past to miners and public health and the destruction of the environment?

The failings of this endeavour are made plain by Ian Magee of how we citizens were hoodwinked into having mining in our residential area which never produced the jobs or the wealth promised, except it did build for our edification Mt Burger.

This whole scheme is about Unity Mining passing its responsibility of cleaning up the site to a $1 company and escaping the approximate $20 million clean-up bill. This $1 company doesn’t have the finance for a $6 million clean-up, let alone $20 million.  

The acting Prime Minister (Barnaby Joyce) is dangerously deluded in his inference that he has the capability to detonate nuclear weapons. 

Otherwise he is a buffoon who should be retired to presenting classical music on the ABC where Bach will improve his mind and Pepe Romero delight his senses.  

The precondition for the Chinese in dealing with the red-haired barbarians when first they had contact was an acceptance of the name South China Sea. So the Chinese claim is irrefutable.

Gun boat diplomacy was based on the premise that it was only yours if you actively protected it with war ships. An analogy would be that it is only your back yard if you have a guard dog to protect it.

Long live the victory of the people’s war.

On Sunday morning I was equally appalled and amused to witness a pathetic display of homophobia attended by half a dozen whiners.

They initially seemed intent on harassing visitors to the Art Gallery. It was all a bit awkward until they shuffled back up the hill to the Capitol Theatre, where they refocused their minimal efforts on attendees at the Queer Film Festival breakfast already underway inside.

Their whimpers of “let kids be kids” had little relevance to the breakfast, but it was their mishandling of the many Australian national flags they juggled - on the eve of Anzac Day no less - that I found bizarre.

Australian government protocols for handling the national flag are clear about not letting it “fall or lie on the ground”.

I witnessed multiple flags dragged through dirt and gravel, supposedly in the name of some vague “Australian values”.

To use rhetoric familiar to the ignorant nationalists attending such actions – my grandfather didn’t defend our shores in New Guinea so that you could drag our national flag and his memory through the mud, just to illustrate your vile hatred.

That flag has nothing to do with whatever paranoid disillusions you nurture. Stop mistreating it.