Casino Target Australia

I had a friend who came from this town who told me all about it. It was widely considered to be an "inside job". Interesting that everyone involved has kept their lips sealed for all these years.
Forty years ago, a group of men known as the 'magnetic drill gang' broke into the Bank of NSW in the quiet town of Murwillumbah in the wee hours and stole almost $2 million.
To this day, no-one knows what happened to the cash — worth around $8.5 million in today's money.
The bank is now Westpac.
A country bank in Murwillumbah The bank is now the Westpac bank in Murwillumbah.(ABC North Coast: Donna Harper) The money — $1.7 million — and the gang, whose signature was to use an electromagnetic diamond-tipped drill, were never seen again.
The thieves broke through the bank's back door and used clever techniques to crack the safe open and lock it again, once they had stolen all the cash.
The following morning, a security guard found the back door ajar, and the vault locked from the inside. A locksmith tried to break the safe open, but failed.
Former Tweed mayor, Max Boyd, who was a councillor at the time of the infamous robbery, said a council work crew, who were repairing roads nearby, were called in to help.
"The robbers had spiked the vault door so the bank staff couldn't get inside to see how much money had been stolen, so a council work crew were called in and they had to smash a hole through the bank's thick brick wall to get access inside the vault," Mr Boyd said.
A bank official finally managed to get into the safe and told police "they got the lot".
This slogan was to become famous and was printed on T-shirts and beer glasses that were sold around Australia and the world.
Mr Boyd said many in the community thought it was an inside job.
"The crooks knew that the Murwillumbah branch of the Bank of New South Wales kept cash supplies from other banks in the area, so someone must have told them this as why would they target a country branch?" he said.
He said there were also suggestions that a new police officer in town or one of the security guards could have been involved.
A display of T-shirts and a beer glass with the slogan "They Got the Lot" and a cartoon picture of a criminal running away 'They got the lot' became a slogan for T-shirts and beer glasses, after the daring heist.(Supplied: Tweed Regional Museum) Mr Boyd said he and his brother, Jack Boyd, who was the state member for Byron at the time of the robbery, had concerns about gangsters leaving the big cities of Sydney and Melbourne to move into the Tweed Shire to start up criminal syndicates.
The Boyd brothers successfully stopped former premier Neville Wran's plans to build a casino in south Tweed Heads in the late 1970s.
"Jack was strongly opposed to the casino because he didn't want to see the underworld getting established up in this part of the world and he fought strongly against it during his time in State Parliament and I did too as a Tweed councillor," Mr Boyd said.
Mr Boyd said the famous robbery was part of the Tweed's colourful history, and he wondered if the case would ever be solved.
Police said the case was still open, and they welcomed any new information.
"Even though today marks 40 years since this robbery occurred, the NSW Police remain dedicated to arresting those responsible," NSW Police said in a statement.
"Anyone with any information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/murwillumbah-remembers-magnetic-drill-gang-bank-robbery/10519858

Roy "Sarge" Jovanovic lounged in his pilot's chair scrolling through ship designs, trying to find the one that would make the most tempting target. A screen to his left listed all of the transponder codes in the ship's database and the fleets with which they were associated, a screen to his right held a dizzying array of maps, graphs, news searches, and other information about shipjackings in the local sector over the past year, and the front screen showed a live feed from a scout drone's camera, floating about a klick off the port bow to give him a good view of the ship's current appearance.
Roy was the executive officer of one of the many small, unaffiliated fleets that plied the spacelanes in Human territory. Once humanity finally got around to colonizing other solar systems, seemingly everyone on Earth wanted their own slice of the interstellar pie, but not everyone had the resources for it. Where many governments and international corporations commissioned their own fleets, and the largest governments and megacorps were even able to build multiple fleets for their various departments and business units, a lot of the smaller nations and domestic companies simply didn't have the funds for more than one or two ground-to-orbit transports, if that. So dozens of independent fleets started popping up to service those needs; these fleets often came with range limitations, exorbitant fees, slow jump drives, low cargo capacities, and other annoyances, but their clients couldn't exactly afford to be picky.
He eyed a particular scatter plot to his right for a moment, pondering, then tapped a name on his left. "Hello Alibaba," he called, "Set ship identity to FENL." The ship's virtual assistant acknowledged the request with a cheerful chime. Within moments the front screen showed that the ship's hull now bore the bright and blocky red-and-green-with-yellow-highlights pattern of the Frota Estrela Nacional de Lisbon, the Portuguese starfleet, and the ship's bland flattened-oblong shape now boasted the sweeping curves associated with products of the Lisbon shipyards, thanks to some incredibly illegal nanofabricators placed strategically throughout the hull; actual physical modifications would hold up much better to EMPs and invasive sensor scans than the standard holographic emitters that freelancers generally used.
Independent fleets were hired for all sorts of tasks of all degrees of legality, depending on their individual capabilities. Sometimes they were glorified delivery drones, sometimes pirates asset acquisition specialists, sometimes scouts for colony fleets, sometimes covert assets for larger organizations who wanted to keep their hands clean. Roy's fleet, Charlie's Chameleons, was a well-equipped and experienced mercenary fleet and one of the few trusted to play the deniable-asset role, as they were doing now. While humanity was nearly a decade into the process of officially integrating with the larger galactic society and it would probably be a decade more before their laws, technology, and such were fully integrated with the other species', unsavory types had already set up shop near the borders of Human territory years before and had started to make a nuisance of themselves, and now several Human colonies were quietly starting to take steps to deal with them.
The Chameleons' current target was one Rit!tkatp, an unpronounceably-named and incredibly cunning member of a major T!ka!irtk gang that had steamrolled the other criminal organizations in several systems a few years back and was now running basically every illegal enterprise in the sector from black marketeering to smuggling to things best left unmentioned. If that gang was the Italian Mafia in Space--and they did try to cultivate that impression, to the extent that a bunch of ugly pseudo-insectoids could pull off the "gentleman criminal" look, anyway--then Rit!tkatp was their Godfather, and he had a particular penchant for shipjacking that had led the colonies of Abydos Prime, Malcor III, and Newer Zealand to hire the Chameleons to do something about it, before the gang scared away all shipping from their respective solar systems and left them cut off from the wider sector.
The virtual assistant chimed again. "Ship designation?" it asked in a dispassionate, slightly Chinese-accented voice. Roy tapped his chin and stared at his right screen, not responding. "Ship designation?" the ship asked again after a brief pause, and Roy waved a hand in irritation. "Bah, that won't work. He goes after eighty-three percent of FENL shipping in this region, but we still don't know what makes the bastard pick one ship over another and we can't afford to guess wrong."
"That's a bit long for a name, boss, and it's not Portuguese," the ship remarked, this time in a much more human-like voice and one tinged heavily with sarcasm.
Roy glared briefly in the general direction of the front viewport, trusting that the ship's ex-military AI, Karma, would have no trouble seeing his expression through one of its many cameras scattered throughout the bridge. (Having an AI on a non-military vessel was just as illegal as the transponder database and the nanofabricators. Something of a running theme with the Chameleons, really.)
"What did I say about breaking character?" he asked mildly.
"Hey, I have to play dumb when clients are around, so I have to get my snark on when I can," Karma replied. "Plus, Charlie decided on this personality when you know I like playing Siri better, so you can just deal with disappointment. And before you ask, no, I wasn't able to find any good correlations in the FENL data either, so if you haven't had any brilliant ideas in the past ten seconds you might as well try another one."
"Fine," Roy grumbled. A bit more scrolling and pondering, then: "Hello Alibaba--" "Still right here, boss." "Hello Alibaba, set ship identity to IDF." As the cheery yellow-and-blue-circles pattern of the Ikea Delivery Fleet rapidly painted itself across the hull, Karma asked, "You're thinking he might go for quantity over quality, then, boss?"
Roy glared again, then sighed, giving in. "Maybe. We know he likes the bigger consumer goods shipments, for whatever reason, but none have come through here in a while so he might go for a smaller cargo."
"Makes sense. Designation?"
"Hmm. The IDF Some Assembly Required."
"Good one, boss."
"Nobody asked you."
(The first generation of Earth starships bore exactly the kinds of names one would expect. Every country had so many ships named for historical and pop culture references--the most popular in America being Serenity, Millennium Falcon, and Enterprise among the civilian fleets and Washington, Midway, and also Enterprise among the military fleets--that even prepending ship designations wasn't enough to tell them apart. That, plus several fleets being sued into bankruptcy by Disney's intellectual property division, made most everyone change naming conventions. After First Contact, when it was discovered that a short-irreverent-phrases scheme was both unique among known spacefaring species and also incredibly irritating to quite a few of them, even the most humorless bureaucrat was happy to go along with the trend; the first few years even saw informal contests for the most innuendo-laden ship names until the diplomatic corps begged for it to stop so they wouldn't have to keep explaining the jokes to other species' fleet registrars.)
Within seconds the ship's new name was added to the hull and the ship's transponder was switched to broadcast the new identity, but Roy still wasn't satisfied. "That won't work either. They never send high-tech stuff in their midrange transports, so there's no way he wouldn't pick up the signature of the bombs or the trackers, or both."
"I think maybe you're being too paranoid, boss. T!ka!irtk scanners aren't that advanced compared to Human ones. We can probably risk it."
"Easy for you to say; if he blows us out of the sky, you can just reload from backup. Let's see. Give me SAF colors, designation Not All That Glitters. No, cancel that, same problem...."
Their wannabe Space Don Corleone was one of the best in the business. His organization operated in eighty sectors falling under at least fifteen different species' legal jurisdictions, and not once had any court managed to get any allegations to stick. Rit!tkatp worked through shell companies of shell companies, always had bullet- and plasma-proof alibis, employed legions of lawyers to ensure he never saw the inside of a law enforcement vehicle (much less a jail cell), never put his name on anything if he could help it, and never left witnesses in any state to testify against him. At least three Earth-based governments and several colonial fleets had task forces waiting on hot standby at all times to jump in, arrest the gangster, and seize his assets the moment he gave them the slightest excuse...but he never gave them that excuse, and so their ships were continually restrained by leashes of red tape and impotent fury.
The Chameleons' employers were well aware that they weren't exactly squeaky clean themselves--very few of the transponder codes they used were obtained through legal freelance work, and "aftermarket modifications" didn't begin to cover what had been done to the jump cores and shield generators of the five ships in their small but heavily-armed fleet--but figured, hey, the legitimate government forces can't do squat without evidence and it takes a thief to catch a thief, so here they were.
The next hour or so passed slowly as Roy thought up and discarded dozens of possible fake identities that might tempt Rit!tkatp into a trap, accompanied by Karma's ever-so-helpful running commentary, from the APF Free Two-Jump Shipping ("You know we don't have enough ships to fake an Amazon convoy") to the RSN Duke Duke Duke Duke of Oil ("Nah, he hasn't jacked any Saudi ships since that new petroleum refinery started up on Epsilon Eridani 3") to the RKF Package Delivers You ("He has friends in the Russian Federation and you don't speak Russian, you'd give the game away if he has native speakers in any of his picket ships") to the NSWS Beware of Drop Bears ("Come on, boss, Newer Zealand would never allow a Newer South Wales ship in their territory after that last incident").
Finally, Roy slammed a fist on his armrest, cutting off Karma's latest comment. "This isn't going to work. We're not the first ones to try something like this, and no one's ever pulled the wool over that bastard's compound eyes before. We have to try something new, but how can you possibly catch a gangster who's thought of everything!?" He dropped his head into his hands and gave a muffled order through his fingers to recall the drone and reset everything to defaults.
"You sure, boss? For what they're paying us, you really want to just let Space Tony Soprano off the hook like that?" Karma asked as the drone headed back toward its hangar and the ship's outlines flattened out into blandness. "You tell Charlie you're out of ideas and she's not going to be happy, and after all the wining-and-dining she had to do for the bigwigs on that New Phobos gig, neither is her bank account."
For a long moment, Roy just sat there, thinking, as a smile slowly grew on his face. "Bank account, huh," he murmured to himself, then lifted his head and spoke with renewed enthusiasm. "Karma, change of plans. Load up the Skreaming Skulls paint jobs on all the ships, and then I'll need to talk to the captain."
A burst of static blasted from the speakers before Karma responded, "Sorry, boss, had to do a systems check on my hearing. I could've sworn you just said the Skreaming Skulls."
"You heard me."
"The ridiculously-over-the-top space pirate getup you use when clients just want tons of property damage and for us to scare the bejesus out of whoever the target is? The one that would make me bluescreen with embarrassment if it were possible for my personality template to have gone through a goth phase in its youth? The one with absolutely zero capability for stealth or discretion whatsoever? That Skreaming Skulls?"
"That's the one."
"Are you insane? What happened to being subtle?
"Probably. And fuck 'subtle'."
"Well...you're the boss. Just don't mind me if I take a fresh backup and sync it back to base before we go."
"You do that. Now, give me a minute to write up a proposal and then ring up the captain."
A little while later, Roy leaned back comfortably as the face of Captain Charlotte "Charlie" van den Heuvel filled the screen in front of him. The pair of welding goggles perched on her forehead indicated that he'd caught her in the middle of fixing something, probably the dodgy recirculator on Chameleon One that kept breaking because they hadn't had the time or money to give the life support systems the full overhaul they needed.
"Sarge! I was beginning to think I wasn't going to hear from you today."
"I keep telling you, I hate that nickname."
"Well, tough. Captain's orders. I take it you've figured out a decoy job that'll fool every last one of those bugs?"
"Nope, not a clue!" Roy said with a cheery grin, causing the captain to lose her own grin. "Complete change of plans, and I think you'll like the new plan. I think it's time we called in the big guns."
Charlie raised an eyebrow. "We don't have big guns, Sarge. The Chameleon Base retrofit got delayed, remember?"
"Not those big guns," Roy shook his head as he sent his proposal over to her. "Those big guns."
The captain read it over, as did the instances of Karma on both Roy's ship and hers, then whistled softly. "Gutsy, and stupid, but he'll never see it coming. Gold star, Roy. I'll tell Ace, Tiny, and Eagle to prep for departure. Briefing in twenty, jets up in forty."
A space station floated in the void, far off the established spacelanes and nowhere near anything resembling a planet, or even a large asteroid. Its only company was a fleet of ships and a handful of smaller defense stations, ranging in quality from the finest models that laundered money could buy to lightly used models that had been repurposed after what was left of their prior owners had been rinsed off of the bulkheads. The former sort had been built with the sorts of odd angles and strange proportions that their T!ka!irtk owners found aesthetically appealing and other species found headache-inducing, while the latter sort had been retrofitted to that design as best as possible, and in both cases they were all decorated in a manner that appeared to be boring sheets of uniform whiteness to those inferior species whose visual organs were limited to sensing what they laughably termed the "visible" spectrum of light.
This gathering of vessels was not hidden nor kept secret in any way, despite its remoteness. On the contrary, its master Rit!tkatp delighted in welcoming all comers to enjoy the creature comforts of his station, whether their tastes lay with gambling, racing, mind-altering substances, negotiable affections, or even more exotic pursuits. All beings, from the poorest sight-seer to the most inquisitive government investigator, were invited to partake in its pleasures--provided, of course, that they did not stick their olfactory organs where they didn't belong.
On this particular occasion, Rit!tkatp, patriarch of his extended family and clutch-master of the station, reclined regally in something that only a member of his species would recognize as a chair, as two of his employees filed his dorsal phalanges and several more polished his forearm plates. The T!ka!irtk species was semi-insectoid and covered with something that wasn't quite an exoskeleton, from which protruded many bony outgrowth that served both as defensive spines and as sensory apparatus. They had four bulbous eyes, two compound eyes for seeing motion and two simple eyes for distance vision; four arms and four legs, all multi-jointed and bone-plated; and a mouth both filled with sharp teeth and ringed by pedipalps.
The memoirs of the Human diplomat who had first made contact with the T!ka!irtk famously described her first impression of them being "the result of a drunken orgy between a praying mantis, a wolf spider, and the ugliest porcupine on Earth," and if anything she was being too kind.
Rit!tkatp enjoyed surveying his domain from the control center that was the heart and brain of the station. The clatter of dice rolling in the gambling hall, the rustling of smuggled goods passing through hangars not depicted on the station blueprints, the pathetic wails of those who required encouragement to repay their loans in a timely fashion...these sounds were music to his aural receptors, the rhythm by which he lived his life.
Alas, a flashing light on the proximity sensor board informed him that the intricate symphony of station operations was shortly to be interrupted by an unplanned intermission.
"Look alive, people," the captain's voice sounded in everyone's earpiece, "we have reversion in two minutes. Remember, don't take any unnecessary risks, don't worry about picking good targets, just keep firing at anything and everything in weapons range until you get the signal, then stall as long as you can." Acknowledgements came from Chameleon One through Chameleon Five, and each ship's crew performed a few last-minute equipment checks.
"Cortana, status summary for all ship systems," Roy called. "All systems green," came the cool synthesized voice of the virtual assistant, followed by Karma's voice adding, "Except the long-range transmitters, which are...blue, I guess, since someone decided that pirates like Cortana for whatever reason. Or whatever other color you'd give a system that I'm giving extra-special attention to, so that I can transmit myself out of the mess you meatbags are about to get yourselves into."
The bridge crew laughed, one calling out, "We love you too, Karma!" as the timer ticked down toward zero. The navigator started counting down with it: "Reversion in three...two...one...now!"
Right on cue, the HMS Dead To Rights, Seasons Don't Fear The..., No Kill Like Overkill, Gallows Humor, and Do Unto Others, Repeat As Necessary of the infamous Skreaming Skulls Skwadron popped into existence in a spasm of warped spacetime and hilariously bad graffiti. Each ship immediately unloaded every railgun, missile tube, plasma launcher, and drone fighter on board at the nearest target. They'd chosen their approach vector very carefully to ensure that no civilian ships were in the line of fire, just Rit!tkatp's goons. There were likely to be few civilians around in any case, as station security didn't like having too many ships arriving or departing at any given time.
The ensuing three minutes or so were the highlight of Roy's career thus far. Nothing like blowing up bad guys with no concern for ammo limits or mission objectives to relieve some stress.
But far too soon, the party was over.
"Bad news, boss," Karma called urgently, "we've got a frigate at our two o'clock. Make that three. Make that six. Um. Make that a six and two drone carriers." Roy glanced to the tactical display, disbelieving, but the AI was right: somehow, a mere gentleman crime boss had not one, not two, but eight capital ships at his disposal--and that's just what he had within jump distance on short notice. That would certainly explain how he'd managed some of the more impossible-sounding feats attributed to him, and why most local pirate crews would refuse to cross him for any reason and also refuse to say why. Must have bribed a shipyard or something...or, hell, maybe they were a present from some species that wasn't a big fan of humanity and would love to see someone meddle with their affairs.
Vastly increased danger aside, though, it didn't change the Chameleons' mission profile. The frigates had almost reached firing distance when Ace made his move: in the most hectic region of the battle, two T!ka!irtk gunboats went charging for the No Kill Like Overkill, both sides firing volley after volley of missiles and countermeasures at each other, and only two ships came out the other side of the expanding field of shrapnel and debris that resulted from the skirmish.
On sensors, the two surviving ships were the two T!ka!irtk gunboats, one heavily damaged and one mostly fine, and the expanding hull fragments of Chameleon Three were all that was left of the fake Skreaming Skulls ship; in reality, however, one of the gunboats had been destroyed and, in the sensor-scrambling confusion, Chameleon Three had swiftly scanned its profile and transponder and taken its place. The "damaged gunboat" turned tail and limped back to "its" hangar, immediately forgotten by its fellows.
The plan at that point had been to keep blowing things up while Ace worked to keep the attention on the other four ships, but the frigates changed things. It was all the Skulls could do to avoid the capital ships' guns, and despite some amazing piloting from Tiny and crack shooting from all the Chameleon gunners they shortly found themselves captured by tractor beams and dragged helplessly within range of the station's even larger guns. The crews' former high spirits were understandably shaken, but Roy reassured the crew of Chameleon Two that if they hadn't been reduced to atoms yet they'd probably come out of this alive so just sit tight and wait and everything would be fine, and he was sure the other officers on the other Chameleon ships were telling their crews basically the same thing.
The speakers crackled to life unbidden. "You know, I was having such a good day." Rit!tkatp's smooth baritone echoed throughout the bridge--or, rather, the voice of his translator; T!ka!irtk couldn't make the appropriate sounds for any human tongue, and vice versa for humans. (Unless they were fluent in one of those African clicking languages, from what Roy had heard, but even then apparently they sounded like a dog trying to speak French.) So both species used translation devices to communicate, and fortunately he'd hooked his up directly to the comm system so they only heard the translated voice. Roy had dealt with them in person before, and the way all those conversations would go was that they'd first hear one of the bugs say something in his own language that would sound like someone firing a machine gun at a xylophone, then the translator would speak in a Human tongue, then the Humans would speak, then their own translator would fire yowling cats back at the bugs, and they'd alternate like that for the duration; it was enough to give anyone migraines.
"I slept so well, my breakfast was wriggling, my customers were happy...and now, you jump into my system, the system of a law-abiding citizen, and you commit property damage the likes of which I have never seen. I am well within my rights to confiscate your ships in recompense and send your crew back to T!ka!ir to pay off the damages with hard labor. But I am a generous and honorable being. Tell me who hired you to do this, and I may be willing to let you go. I may not even inform the authorities that you did this, so that you may remain free to continue your detestable activities elsewhere."
Roy had to hand it to him, the man was smooth. Perfect "incensed businessman" tone with a bit of "agreeable neighbor" thrown in, and only a barely-noticeable dash of "unrepentant murderer" in the mix to show he wasn't to be trifled with. He acted just as if he were talking into yet another journalist's holorecorder; he had to, since for all he knew the Skreaming Skulls were live-streaming this conversation back to their mysterious employers in the hopes of catching him admitting to something illegal. That, too, had been tried a few times before.
Before he could think of something to say Charlie responded first in the most insultingly casual tone she could manage. "No one hired us. We decided that you were scum, and your ships didn't have nearly enough holes in them, and it's a weekend, and we were bored, so why not pop in and say hi?"
Rit!tkatp didn't believe that for a moment, of course--mercenaries, do something for free?--so he and the captain traded polite, velvet-coated barbs for a bit while the newer crewmembers waited on the edge of their seats for the moment when the alien gangster tired of it and ordered them vaporized. Roy had stopped paying attention, though. He only had eyes for one tiny corner of his screens, where he waited for a message from Chameleon Three.
As soon as it came through, he grinned fiercely and accepted the data transfer attached to the message, and several minutes later--it was a pretty huge transfer--he gave the crew a thumbs up, waited for them to quiet down, and hit the transmit button while the alien gangster was still speaking.
"Have you heard of an old Earth gangster named Al Capone?" he interrupted, to an uncertain pause from Rit!tkatp. "This is your second who barges into our conversation?" he asked. At Charlie's nod he adjusted something offscreen and now appeared to be looking directly at Roy. "No, I have not. This is relevant because...?"
"Well, I was thinking you might have, since he bears a striking similarity to a Mr. Zhanpeng Lee, a bureaucrat in the office of the Minister of Finance on Xin Beijing. Also a Ms. Beatriz Gonzales, a sales director with Lockheed-Grumman Industries. And oh, I believe also Mr. Dan O'Neill, Mr. Lubo Denisov, and Ms. Sweta Chandragiri. Need I go on?"
No response from Rit!tkatp except a twitching of his pedipalps. The mentioned names were either false identities he used to do business in Human space or bribed and/or blackmailed intermediaries between real companies and his shell companies, discovered in the complete copy of the gangster's financial records taken by Chameleon Three's instance of Karma, and the twitching indicated frantic thought on the gangster's part as to how that information could have been retrieved.
Rit!tkatp wasn't stupid enough to keep his personal records on the station-wide network for any two-bit hacker to find if he or she rooted an information kiosk or gambling machine; everything was in an armored server room directly below his office, hard-linked to his office terminal and shielded from any sort of wireless access, which only he and his most trusted associates could access and in which he could withstand an assault for several hours at least. And of course there was plenty of surveillance and security teams between his enemies and his data, such that anyone trying to dash to the vault would surely be cut down before they got even one floor up from the casinos. He'd taken every reasonable precaution against every reasonable form of attack.
What his security policies did not take into account, however, was an illegally-enhanced military-grade AI gaining root access to the repair bay computers several dozen floors below his office, taking over the station's maintenance robots (glorified ten-foot-tall alien Roombas, basically, and not particularly difficult to co-opt), marking all the corridors between the hangar and his office as closed for cleaning to clear out any civilians, quietly intercepting the camera feeds from the empty hallways, and then using Chameleon Three's boarding lasers to drill straight up through all those floors and into the server room itself, at which point Karma had physical dataport access and the game was up. "Crazy flying AI with frikkin' laser beams" isn't the sort of thing usually covered by standard security policies, so Rit!tkatp could be forgiven for not anticipating that.
"You think to threaten me? In your decidedly helpless position?" Rit!tkatp demanded, still maintaining his innocent businessman air with some effort. "You think that I will be afraid of images of extracted endoskeletons and oxygen-bearing fluids on your ships? No, your Human superstitions do not apply to the T!ka!irtk. We know that death is certain, and because of this we do not fear it."
"Funny you say that," Roy continued, "since we superstitious humans have a slightly different saying. 'Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.' And that's the striking similarity: None of those individuals pay their taxes."
Now the alien looked honestly confused. "See, I know that a businessman such as yourself would scrupulously pay your taxes, and so would any of your cover identities. Excuse me, your business associates. But you forgot one little thing. There's one backwards little country on good old Earth that's always behind the times and out of step with the rest of the civilized world called America, you might have heard of it. Those crazy Americans have all sorts of crazy policies; for god's sake, it's twenty-one-forty-fucking-seven and they still haven't switched everything to the metric system. And one of their quaint little rules involves taxes."
Charlie chimed in from Chameleon One: "You're damn right it does. See, I'm an American citizen thanks to my mother. Doesn't matter that I've never set foot on Earth in my life, or any American colonies, or hell, even an American-built space station, they take their 'citizens living abroad' thing very seriously, and every year I have to file my taxes with Uncle Sam. Every damn year. Eritrea used to require that too, but they gave up that nonsense almost a century ago. And I complain about it to my XO here every damn year, too...which worked out nicely this time, I guess."
Rit!tkatp had reached both left arms offscreen and appeared to be quietly yet frantically tapping away at a terminal, paying attention to Roy with his right eyes and his computer with his left; it was a somewhat disconcerting sight. Roy glanced over at his tactical display where he was getting a jump proximity notification, probably the same one that had the gangster all upset. Unless he was looking up Al Capone in whatever Human historical records he had access to, which was also possible. "And seeing as no fewer than one-third of your false identities have American citizenship and many of your shell corporations are registered in American colonies, well, that brings us back to Al Capone. When the government managed to show he hadn't been paying his taxes back in nineteen...whenever it was, well, that was a federal crime."
"Yes yes yes, I see your point," Rit!tkatp said hurriedly, chest plates clicking in alarm and dorsal phalanges folding outwards in frustration. "You have uncovered blackmail material on me, and now you will wish something in exchange for not alerting the Human governments, I am sure. So--"
"Nope, too late for that, sonny," Ace interrupted from Chameleon Three, his voice coming from Rit!tkatp's side of the connection since he was patched into the station's comms. "Already sent it all over. Would even have gift-wrapped it, if they had a tri-D printer in their office somewhere. Got a thank-you note back, too, ain't that sweet. Now, normally these things take something on the order of a hundred eighty business days, but I think in your case they'll make an exception. Right...about...."
Silence.
"...about...oh, come on, they said twenty minutes! Damn government bureaucracy, where's a dramatic entrance when you need one?"
More silence.
Then, flashes of light. Four unmarked ships in plain gray jumped into the system in escort formation, heading for the station. They definitely had the highly-functional-with-a-hint-of-muscle aesthetic of American ships, to Roy's eye; he thought the design was a bit boring compared to, say, the Brazilian or Italian fleets, but at least they'd stopped putting red, white, and blue stars and stripes on everything with an engine and a flat surface.
Rit!tkatp hesitated for long moments, all plates and phalanges going utterly still. "You're not thinking of resisting arrest, are you?" Roy asked mockingly. The alien glared at him with all four eyes, then spat, "If that is all the fleet your Bureau of Federal Investigators can muster, I don't see why not." The frigates dropped their tractor locks on the Chameleon ships to go engage the new Human vessels, leaving only the carriers and drone fighters (and of course the station itself) to keep them under guard.
Roy looked on with concern. Surely they didn't send just four ships? When even without the capital ships the region always swarmed with drones and the station itself could withstand a siege for days?
"That's not the FBI, buddy. They only have sub-orbital ships and no off-planet jurisdiction. Check the IFFs," Ace said smugly, and both Rit!tkatp and the Chameleons checked their tactical screens. "IRS? Io Rescue Service?" the alien said with bemused contempt. "Close, you're thinking IIRS, Io Interstellar Rescue Service. Nope, that there's the Internal Revenue Service."
On the far side of the fleet, the frigates were engaging the new arrivals. The front two ships turned out to be torpedo boats, the IRS In Triplicate and the IRS Red Tape, and they were unloading missile volleys on the frigates at a staggering pace while the support ships IRS Credit Freeze and IRS Wage Garnishment raised jamming fields and fired off the occasional EMP burst. The T!ka!irtk frigates, confident in their superior numbers, didn't even slow down as they approached the quartet of smaller ships, and so they were caught completely by surprise when three new ships jumped in right above the others, the destroyers Rapid Depreciation, Asset Liquidation, and Maximum Deductions.
"Your mere tax collectors have capital ships?" Rit!tkatp asked incredulously. Roy wasn't sure if the gangster had forgotten the Chameleons were still on the line or if he just didn't care at this point, but with glee he replied "Well, your mere civilian 'casino owners' have capital ships, so fair's fair."
The carriers were ordered to the station's defense next without even giving them time to collect all their fighters, as were the few smaller stations capable of independent movement. As soon as they were out of range of the main station's protection, though, they were ambushed by yet more ships jumping in. These ships, three frigates and five cruisers, were large enough that both Humans and T!ka!irtk could see that they weren't plain gray at all; they were actually white with thousands of tiny black boxes and tiny black text criss-crossing their hulls. Of course, thought Roy, forms and spreadsheets. Should've known.
The frigates Thorough Audit, Double Entry, and Mandatory Compliance made short work of the carriers without their drone screens to protect them, and the cruisers Let's Get Fiscal, Weighed in the Balance Sheets, Nine-Tenths of the Law, Accrual Intentions, and I've Got 1099 Problems made short work of the defense stations, both mobile and immobile.
Roy didn't know exactly what a crazed T!ka!irtk looked like right before it decided to do something incredibly reckless, but whatever expression was on Rit!tkatp's face probably qualified. The main station began firing every last weapon in the IRS fleet's direction to prevent them from approaching as its long-dormant engines slowly came to life and began propelling it far enough away from the other ships to make a jump; a few foolhardy civilian ships darted out of various hangars and began angling for jump vectors so as not to end up who-knows-where in the hands of an angry mob boss, but most decided that they'd rather not risk entering the crossfire of a major fleet engagement, thank you very much.
He may have lost his fleet, many of his henchbeings, and his untouchable status, but the alien might still escape to fight another day. Roy could hear Charlie swearing up a storm over the comms at the prospect, and he felt the same way, but they were powerless to do anything about it. The Chameleons were still close enough to the station that it had but to pivot a single gun away from bombarding the other fleet to turn them to ash, so all they could do was float there and watch it inch away to freedom.
Until, that is, one last ship jumped its way into the system right in the fleeing station's path, arriving with enough force that Roy swore he could feel the gravity waves rippling through Chameleon Two. It was a dreadnought, and the writing on its bow proudly proclaimed it to be the IRS 3949-A
On screen, Rit!tkatp stared at the dreadnought for a long moment, then drooped like a wilting leaf, all of his plates opening wide in a sign of submission. The station's guns fell silent and its engines spun down before they'd even had a chance to reach full power. Roy almost felt sorry for the bastard.
Almost.
As the dreadnought and cruisers sent out boarding shuttles and his crew started talking excitedly about sending the battle recordings to everyone they know, Roy put on a mock conciliatory tone. "Hey, buddy, don't worry." The soon-to-be-ex-gangster looked up at him with his right eyes. "Sure, you might have been involved in wire fraud, embezzlement, smuggling, theft, grand theft, bribery, robbery, burglary, murder, assassination, illegal gambling, illegal prostitution, drug running, and who knows what else on top of the major tax fraud, but at least you avoided one thing."
He leaned forward and lowered his voice, and Rit!tkatp leaned in as well.
"Count yourself lucky that you never, ever committed mail fraud, because US postal inspectors...well, those fuckers don't mess around."

Hi all, Wondering if anyone has any information on these they can share? Am trying to collate a list of these - so the club name, name of rewards and a link and any info on when they introduced them or added pokies integration with this (e.g. card readers on pokies).
It has cropped up in a recent suicide that a club had a frequent loser reward system
Seems some have just rolled it into an automatic membership thing. Given how sneaky they are about pokies/gambling in general - it won't be well advertised.
Context: I remember a lot of resistance to the idea of pokies having mandatory pre-commitment because it would be too burdensome to modify pokies machines - yet all these machines in all the clubs have rolled out membership card integration without somehow going bust. I guess when it allows them to tally up who are the problem gamblers to target them to maximise losses per addict - they find the time to replace/upgrade the machines.
Examples:

• Dee why RSL - "Ambassador" rewards: https://www.deewhyrsl.com.au/membership/
  
• Manly leagues club - "Eagles": https://manlyleagues.com.au/membership/
  
• Merrylands RSL - "lucky rewards" or with a bunch of 8s in it: http://www.mrsl.com.au/lucky-rewards-program/
  
• Penrith RSL - "Aspire": http://www.penrithrsl.com.au/aspire-rewards/
  
• RSL Victoria - "RSL rewards" http://www.rslvic.com.au/membership/rsl-rewards/
  
• Hornsby RSL - "Hornsby RSL rewards program" - https://www.hornsbyrsl.com.au/membership/hornsby-rewards-program
  
• chatswood RSL - just part of their membership: https://www.chatswoodrsl.com.au/membership/
  
• East's - "East's rewards": https://eastleaguesclub.com.au/membership/rewards/
  
• Brothers Cairns, "star rewards" - note they only give a 1 to $6 pokies turnover ratio. Even mention this on their website which is rather sloppy for the typical stealth casino: https://www.brotherscairns.com.au/membership/star-rewards
  
• Canterbury leagues club - "engage" rewards program: https://canterbury.com.au/engage/
  
• A company "Gobsmacked Loyalty Pty Ltd" seems to be the tie in with the EFTPOS cards - a look for staff finds they describe themselves as being part of the gambing & casino industry. Finally some honesty. Guess it was named after the amounts of money available per pokies machine?
  
• st George leagues club: "golden dragon rewards" - includes a golden dragon EFTPOS card option to cash in those points - a service from Gobsmacked https://stgeorge.org.au/membership-benefits/
  

Edits below from others (thanks!):

• The tradies in Canberra - https://thetradies.com.au/events/use-your-card-to-earn-win

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Date: 2012-11-09
Link to submission (Has self-text)
Link to my post

Questions	Answers
What is the craziest/funniest story you have about your students?	Wow lots to answer! I'll start with... 2.you really need to be aware of cultural and religious differences in the classroom. It is sometimes really difficult when you realize something you assume is "general knowledge" is way outside their experience - teaching myths and legends for example: they know the story of the rainbow serpent and aboriginal dreaming, or how the gods gave fire to the Tongan man, but they might have no clue who the three little pigs are. Oh the other hand, because we have a 40% pacific islander population, they are really free and open with creativity, music and dance in particular. The most popular performance in the entire year has been the Cook Island girls doing traditional dance!
Do you take into account the multiculturalism of your class when designing your lesson plan?	I decided to go into teaching for several reasons - firstly because I believe kids need someone who is passionate and wanted to help them to succeed. It didn't hurt that my mum teaches too, so I knew what I was getting into! I also was lucky and got a scholarship to cover my entire university costs if I agreed to work in a "difficulty staffing area" for 3 years minimum. I was a "targeted graduate".
How does such a diverse student population affect the learning climate?	Honestly, though, I really feel that there is no such thing as a "bad" kid. Crazy, yes, but not evil. Even the worst one has some good in them. I did work experience in juvenile justice system and thought that most of these kids come from such horrific experiences, how could they get out of the pattern without people working to preventing them falling further down the same path?
What made you decide to get into teaching?	As for crazy, do you mean funny, weird, confrontational, violent, insane...? Because I have a few, both from personal experience and stories from others...
That's awesome! Sounds like a very exciting place to live.	I really love it. We have Tongan, Cook Islander, Samoan, P&G, phillipines, Turkish, afghanis, Sudanese, Indian, Fijian, Italian, Anglo, aboriginal, Chinese, among others, but there is ever any racial divides!
Have you ever seen the movie Fortress? Don't they have a song about the piggies?	Never seen it, sorry!
Are there any Jonah Takaluas?	I don't think so. Ive never heard of Jonah Takaluas.
How about one weird, one funny, and one violent?	Alright!
	Weird: I had a boy aged about 14 who had mental health problems. He barricaded himself into the middle of the classroom during class using chairs and stayed in there for an hour, pretending to be a cat. He also refused to take the DET funded laptop because the government could track his thoughts.
	Funny- an aboriginal girl in yr 7, let's call her Teraha (not her name, hers is weirder) stole a whole bundle of white foundation makeup from drama and smeared it all over herself. Went around screeching "Look Miss! Now I'm a white fella like you!" at every class. She kept going until a boy started calling her Michael Jackson and she punched him in the face. I thought it was clever, she got a long suspension...
Where abouts? How do you manage to manage a class of 500?	The whole school population is roughly 500, with a teaching staff of 53. The largest individual class I teach is 29 students, but I am also a year adviser for yr 8, which is 84 students aged about 12 to 13 years old.
Oh ok, whereabouts is your school?	We are a small area so I won't give you the exact name or region, but it is roughly 8 hours inland from sydney, and is rural, not urban development.
Is it Parkes...I bet it's Parkes.	I only know two things about parkes: it's where the dish is and that the poet Peter skryznecki lived there in a migrant hostel as a kid. Not parkes.
Dubbo.	Not dubbo. Oh thank god, it is not dubbo.
Having just finished my HSC and the Advanced English course, I was really hoping I'd never have to see, hear or read Skrzynecki (pronounced Sheh-Nes-key just to stuff with us) ever again. Not that his work is inherently bad or anything, just that I'm so very, very tired of HSC English.	I know him personally. A nice man, but very forward!
I lived in Australia for a year (I'm from Canada) and found the racism to be overt compared to Canada (we are still racist but keep it mostly hidden). Is that your experience? Also can you post some scenery photos - I miss there.	I think the overt racism is cultural, we are a blunt people! I'd love to post some, but I'm using an iPad without any home pics. Anyone else got some?
Do you receive any extra pay compare to teachers in cities like Sydney? How is a teacher's salary set in Australia? Is it payed by the federal government, regional authority or the municipality?	In some areas, you get paid extra or receive subsides for housing etc. unfortunately, where I am does not qualify for these! It is too bad, a friend of mine in the far west pays less than $50 rent on her house and gets an extra week off because of the temperature and geographic isolation... As for who pays me, I am in public education system, so am technically a governmental employee! I am employed by the NSW (State) Department of Education and Community Services. If I was private sector, it would be a different story. Wages are decent, and they increase over time. I started as a 4 year trained graduate (I have 2 bachelor degrees, not a BA and a diploma) and the starting salary was about $54,000. Currently, I'm sitting on about $64,000 annually.
	This is the pay agreement if you'd like to look, but it is currently being renegotiated with the union. Link to www.det.nsw.edu.au
How do you feel about the divide on "my child is bad, therefore - I must parent" vs. "my child is bad, therefore - it is the teachers fault that my child misbehaves, as it's not my job to teach them morals, values and ethics" ?	I straddle the line. Yes, I as a teacher must teach and model appropriate behaviour and ethics, but we cannot do it alone. We see them 6 hours out of 24. What they get outside of school makes a far longer lasting impression and while I do my best to show your child what they should be doing, home is far more effective as they model from what is shown to them as appropriate!
In the case of the drop-outs and gang members: Do you think that these kids truly wanted to learn? As in, did they really want to succeed, but just gave in to gang pressures or lack of academic success?	It comes back to the difference between a learning difficulty and a learning impairment. Many kids honestly want to learn and please you, but are so anxious -as in psychologically/clinically phobic - that they will do anything, including acting out violently, to escape the situation. I have had kids in tears because they are so scared of reading a sentence they are literally crippled by it.
My girlfriend and I are moving over to Australia from Scotland in a little over a month, and she is a Home Economics teacher and will be looking for a job in that field before long. Do smaller, regional schools offer such programs? What would you say the main difficulties associated with regional living are?	A good question. Yes, we teach Food Technology, Textiles, Design &Technology... Basically, if it comes under the TAS description, it gets taught. See, the junior school (aged 11-16) in the public system get taught a basic taster course of most subjects and then elect their subjects in their final senior years. Your best bet is to sign up with the Department of Education and get a casual teaching number so she can get a feel for our system before applying for a temporary block or a permanent position.
	Main difficulties? Distance and isolation are the big ones. You are a long way from anywhere and it takes ages to get places. This means that access to opportunities and resources are limited to what is available locally. There is sometimes a very insular community who have trouble going outside of their town- I teach 18 year olds who have never been more than a two hour drive from home, never been on a plane or been to a capital city, who have no desire to ever do so.
Because Canberra is so nice?	Canberra is lovely, but so artificial!
30 different nationalities. Why? What is in your town/city? Casino? Mines?	We have a large itinerant population, lots of unskilled labour positions. This includes fruit and farming mainly. Also lots of refugees flooded into the areas for a better life, more opportunities in regional areas than in the cities.
Dingos ever eat any of your kids? Just kidding, but what creepy or dangerous insects or snakes do you have to be aware of by your school?	Do termites count? Joking. No, we have redback, whitetail and funnelweb spiders on premises, personally, I'd take the redback over whitetails, ( a whitetail is tiny and it's bite causes necrosis) brown snakes, tiger snakes, red bellied black snakes... Worst thing is when someone finds a baby brown snake. They're small, fast and venomous, but brown snakes never lay just one egg, so even if you catch it there is probably 4-8 other little brown evil snakes hiding under the building somewhere...
Yikes. Beautiful country..lots of nasty things.	Yeah, but they are usually more scared of you or are highly visible if you know what to look for. Whitetails are awful because they love to get into bedrooms and bedding in your sleep. If you miss the bite, it can be pretty nasty, google whitetail spider bite if you need some more reasons to avoid Australia!
How do the less privileged children that you teach deal with being upside down?	Well, from our perspective, it would seem that you must struggle with being upside down. For us, upside down is rightside up!
Ah. So they deal with it quite well then. Thank you for answering my question.	It was either that or invest in magnetized boots. And you are welcome.
an awesome gravity machine. but low socio-economic areas can not generally afford such machines.	Sadly true. We rely on thumbtacks and staples mostly, and tie ourselves down with double sided tape if we are feeling extravagant!
Please tell me you staple the children's bodies and not the clothes. Clothes tend to get expensive. Question B! How do you deal fight of dingos trying to steal the children, as well as the 9000 other creatures there trying to kill them?	Easy, packs of dingoes are easily warded off when you release the crocodiles with mouths full of deadly snakes.
Man, I does this make me want to visit your great land.	Hey, ask nice and I might even regale you with tales of childhood horrors! In the meantime, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEeq5qGh8I if you're still keen on Australia after that, look me up!
What's the attendance rate on an average day like?	Well, that depends. We have a lot of "partial attendance" where students truant a lesson or two, go down the street or hang out in the school grounds, but are technically at school. The majority of our kids have decent attendance, but the 15-16 year olds are bucking the curve- every class except year 10, I might be missing one or two, but today, my year 10 class of potentially 20+ students was actually a class of 7. (It was period one, some turned up later in the day). But every school has some problems. It becomes a major concern if a student's attendance rate drips below 85%. As a year advisor, I have to contact home and enquire about this before it gets sent on to the welfare team, but when you get someone who has been in school for roughly one week in ten altogether, then it gets passed on to the department of community services and the home-school liaison officer steps up.
Are you also sick of your students not tying up their kangaroos after arriving at school? I for one am sick of finding kangaroo shit in my staff room.	Yeah, it was really frustrating, but now we keep them on the back oval until the kids have to ride them home again. Once they fight off the swarms of deadly snakes and have a friendly boxing match or two, the Roos usually settle pretty quiet until we send off our boomerangs to get the latest beer advertising. that stirs them up like a bucket of prawns on a hot day!
As a rural school do you feel your students are disadvantaged in anyway in regards to funding, resources, teachers etc? I go to a school near Penrith which is not anywhere close to rural but I felt that my school either had terrible funds management or was less well off as schools closer to the city. Also if you don't mind me asking, whats the average ATAR score of your school?	This is hard to answer because my school is currently receiving special grants from the government to boost our funding. At the moment, we have two more teaching positions and an extra deputy that our number of students wouldn't usually support. When this runs out at the end of the year, we will be having some serious restructuring, losing a deputy, several members of the support/office staff (including groundskeeper) and between 2-4 teaching staff. This means the load for teachers will go up and our classes will increase in size. A big problem for us is our parents and families, being low-socioeconomic groups, cannot often afford uniforms, shoes, workbooks or other equipment, or school fees. We as a school subsidize a lot for our kids, and I personally keep a supply of books and equipment in my classroom that comes out of my own money. Many students arrive in inappropriate clothing, without a bag, food, solid shoes, books or a pen, and we have to do what we can for them. We are better off than some, but compared to those "best" Sydney schools? Not a competition.
This is hard to answer because my school is currently receiving special grants from the government to boost our funding. At the moment, we have two more teaching positions and an extra deputy that our number of students wouldn't usually support. When this runs out at the end of the year, we will be having some serious restructuring, losing a deputy, several members of the support/office staff (including groundskeeper) and between 2-4 teaching staff. This means the load for teachers will go up and our classes will increase in size. A big problem for us is our parents and families, being low-socioeconomic groups, cannot often afford uniforms, shoes, workbooks or other equipment, or school fees. We as a school subsidize a lot for our kids, and I personally keep a supply of books and equipment in my classroom that comes out of my own money. Many students arrive in inappropriate clothing, without a bag, food, solid shoes, books or a pen, and we have to do what we can for them. We are better off than some, but compared to those "best" Sydney schools? Not a competition.	As for our results, I honestly cannot remember the average ATAR from last year. I do know that in the NAPLAN testing, we are below state averages in literacy and comprehension, but we do more "value adding" than state average - meaning our students make more significant improvement in their result between yr 7 and yr 9 than is the state average, but they are starting at a lower point so are still not meeting the goal.
Wow thanks for the replies :) Honestly from how I perceive it, teaching deserves much more appreciation than it gets at the moment. I'm really glad your students got such a fantastic teacher like you and speaking from experience, is very hard to come by. Also, HSC english is poopy.	Ooooh yeah. HSC is the delight of everyone. I say this as an English teacher, HSC English, in my humble opinion, should not be mandatory. Scaled up to reward people who take it, yes. Like the maths syllabus. But mandatory, for everyone? It just makes you hate us and it.
FINALLY A TEACHER WHO (openly) AGREES! Compulsory HSC English left me so bitter and jaded after what would otherwise have been a very enjoyable final year of high school. Three years later and I can still feel the hatred welling up inside as I read those words.	It sounds like your teacher did not do the course justice. Mild disdain is expected, but welling hatred is ... Not a good sign.
One of my closest friend's parents are both rural school principals in NSW, one Primary over ~40 students, one highschool over a larger school. Out of interest, did you choose to work in the bush, or were you posted during teacher training? What was the biggest "culture-shock" moment for you when you started working out past woop-woop? Did you train in one of the capitals?	I chose to be rural because I felt I could do more good here. But not a culture shock. I grew up in a tiny, semi-arid, "rural-and-isolated" dairy farming town in the riverina and went to a rural university, (wagga), which meant I had more trouble adjusting to seeing hills than to the lifestyle!
I can see how that would be awesome! But by God, you're amazing for dealing with all that stuff, every single day. Amazing. I was a teacher too, so I know you don't get told that enough. ANd here's the government, come to yank your funding. And how about some more paper work for the Institute? Does it get lonely out there? I've been West, but only on business.	It does get lonely, particularly as I'm not married. Meeting new people out here is hard, especially once you weed out the ex students!
That's gotta be tough. I know convincing a fella who 1. will move out there and 2. understands your passion is a tall order, because I went through something similar while living not too far from the city. Is the job good enough to keep you there long term?	I have trouble because most people don't like to try long distance relationships. My job is a permanent position which is important. This means that I can be guaranteed a job from now until I retire, even if my school numbers drop and they don't need me, the government is obliged to find me another position in the state. This is called a "forced transfer" because I am technically a government employee, not employed by my specific school.
Do your students experience racism because they live in a mostly white country?	It is not as big a problem here as it is in some places where I have taught. Because we are very culturally dirvese, students are fairly tolerant of each other. They are more likely to be offensive to people of the same racial background than others! We do get some racism out in the community -one man I know refers to it as "the black school" and we have had visiting schools afraid to enter our school because of fears that they might get "bashed" by the aboriginal or islander students. When they do come in, they are usually pleasantly surprised that we don't react to newcomers with violence!
I taught out your way not all that long ago. I know you didn't say where but we both know there aren't many schools that far out with 500+ students! Nonetheless, our schools could still have been hundreds of kms apart anyway. It's a ridiculously big state. I just wanted to send this your way... Hands down, the best kids I ever taught came from that little town out west. I still keep in contact with many of them. They astound me with their growing lives and I genuinely miss them. It was tough out there, I saw things that Australians should be devastated by - kids living in 'buildings' that didn't have doors (you lift one of the walls out), sleeping in caravans with torn off roofing, travelling for an hour along dirt roads just to get to school - and yet those same kids rarely bitched and moaned like their city counterparts. I also received my best training out west - training which made me the teacher I am today. I'd like to think I'm the teacher reddit wishes it had! Or at least the one I wished I had! Enjoy your time out there - the good and the bad! How far away is the nearest movie theatre? It was 4ish hours for me.	I am lucky that way, we are only a couple of hours from a regional hub, with a cinema no less! I can get to see a movie in a little under an hour drive there and another back. It is hard, I think, for people who don't live out this way to truly understand what the distance is like. How many people out there can drive for several hours without seeing any sign of human society other than the road or occasional power lines?
Fellow registered teacher here. I've never taught in Australia though aside from my teacher training. What's the best way to go about getting your foot in the door into teaching? Is it generally accepted that you need to go out west and teach in a country school? Is it possible to get into some schools in the major cities in more permanent positions?	The staffing system is changing, but if you want to build experience, then going west helps. You can also work casually in a school and hope a position you are suited to opens up. Permanency is a major goal and it can take years of working temporary blocks of 6 months or a year to find a school wwhich can offer it. It's about being visible and writing applications well.
What do you think life would be like in that community, for a gay student?	It is difficult. Very difficult. admittedly, it is easier on the few we have here than other places I have been, we even have a few transgender students who are fairly accepted and moderately popular. Some of this is the acceptance in some pacific islander cultures, such as Tongan. From my school, the policy seems to be if you don't broadcast, they will not judge.
It has been about 2 years since I finished my teacher training. I've been teaching English In Japan since then. I don't think that experience is going to help me too much when it comes to looking for a job when I get home. Is there one particular skill or thing in demand outside teaching experience that I could develop to help me get a job?	Schools like people who bring more than their job description - if you have any specialities that could help, for example, I run a lot of extra curriculars for our school including the public speaking competitions. Think about what skills or willingness you have and how these could help the community.
With limited funds, do you believe you are still able to teach the fundamentals well enough to be considered successful?	I believe we do a pretty damn good job. All evidence we collect with statewide and national testing shows we are value adding to educational standard at above average for the lower ability students and we consistently get some of the best results for seniors in the region. We struggle to extend the mid range ability students as much as other schools may, but this is a situation where good teaching practise is more important than anything else we have to work with.
I am also studying teaching (high school - English and history major) and am also Australian. I was wondering, how is it teaching in a rural area? I have some friends who found the adaption hard due to suburban life.	Adjusting to rural life can be hard, I have friends who grew up in cities who find it grating, too quiet, dull and too far away from friends and family. But they tend to appreciate things I forget, like being able to walk out late at night and see the entire sky filled with stars and complete silence.
When I visited my friend 6 hours south from Sydney, the night sky was the beauty of it all... I still have a year to go thankfully, so when the time comes, ill hopefully be able to decide. Also is the pay better for rural? I've heard it is.	You get the same pay no matter where you are. But the further west you go, the better you concessions are. They need teachers and are happ to make offers to get them!
Are the Polynesian boys really the best break dancers in the whole suburb? PS - "Awww, Miss, you farted!"	Mainly the Polynesian, but the aboriginal and aboriginal/islander boys are pretty darn talented too!
How does your access to resources compare to that of a rural school in a place like, say Southwestern Virginia?	I have no idea, the only place I have been outside of Australia is China, which is very very different to australia educationally! We have access to the net, obviously, we have a decent amount of tech such as computers and smartboards in school rooms, and thanks to the dept of education, all students in years 9-12 have a school mini laptop. But we are a big, empty country, meaning it takes hours to get anywhere. Teachers struggle to get approval for professional development because it takes at least a 3 days worth of casual coverage - a days travel up, a day at the course and a days travel back...we just can not afford that.
Ay miss, is Jonah truly the sickest break dancer in school or are there new breakers out there we need to know about?	My boys are amazing. They have real talent. You watch out!
What do you listen to when you want to " jam the fuck out"? Genre, artists?	I love my old school classics, rolling stones especially, but i also have Pink, Marlyin Manson, Ramstien, Elvis, jazz, broadway musicals and 90s pop in the mix. When working with kids, teenybopper stuff tends to bleed into your consciousness. I unfortunately am now fluent in teenage girl and can discuss One Direction or the like almost painlessly!
I'm gonna say Griffith or Riverina area? Sounds like it.	Not Griffith. Further west.
Yes hi madam international drainage commission here; which way does the water in your toilet run?	If you want me to go check my neighbours, you could end up with an insanely high phone bill that causes an international incident.
How often you get called 'fucking white cunt'? A good friend of mine is a teacher and needs it to start her day, as well as strong black coffee.	I think that the best one I've ever been called is a "fucking white racist pig" by a parent. I don't think she saw any irony in calling me that.
Any moments where your work felt really fulfilling?	I remember being in my first year out teaching, working with a really low ability group, studying a poetry unit. We were 3 weeks in and they were really struggling with it. One day, I was working with a girl and you could see it just click - it was as if a switch had literally been flipped in her head and she looked at me with absolute wonder in her eyes - she said "Miss! There's so much more to poetry than just words, isn't there?! "
	They are rare but worth it!
Do dingos eat babies?	Actually, yes. Dingoes are untrustworthy feral animals, and have been known to maul small children or attack tourists. As for the Azaria Chamberlain story, I think the baby died, but I still don't know how the "dingo" got into a tent without causing any damage or disturbance...
Does "rise up lights" still sound like "razor blades" when an Australian says it?	No. Rys up lihts, versus rayzuh blahdez.
What is the gifted/talented programming like at your school (if any)? I know that multicultural schools, particularly rural ones have a very hard time developing and implementing programs for the gifted, but Australia has broken a lot of ground with that research. You said somewhere that PD is hard to come by, since you're so far away from everything, but are there resources available at your school (like a gifted resource teacher)?	We run gifted and talented programs in art and music, we also have dance students participate in school spectacular, but video conference training sessions. Our drama students just finished a joint drama production with our sister school in the western suburbs, where they used video chat, fb and internet to bond and build an entirely original play based on joint experiences as Australian youth.We also run a Targeted Sports program to identify those talented at athletics and sport, who get extra training and experience. It is working really well with the junior boys.
What does your AEO do? The official description appears to have been written by a committee, can you please explain using more concrete examples?	An AEO is employed at schools that have a significant number of indigenous students.Basically, they work in the school to get indigenous student the best possible educational opportunities and work within the indigenous community to promote the school and education.our AEO works with individuals who are recognised "at risk", helps create multicultural programs and resources, liaises with community members and aboriginal elders, and generally seeks out opportunities for our indigenous youth while being a visible, successful role model for the students.
Do you have Bogans? I keep seeing videos with them. They seem to be a combo of rednecks and pikers...	Trust me, everywhere has bogans. They are often racist, slow thinkers and lovers of real "ocker" cultural touchstones, such as utes with thousands of aerials, spotlights and a roo bar, B&S balls and bundy rum.
Do you actually work with Torres Strait Islanders?	Some yes, but the majority of indigenous students here are aboriginal.
I can't help but think of tommorrow when the war began. Have you ever read it to any students? Do any of your students resemble any of the characters?	I teach that book to my kids, in year 9. they love it, but don't really resemble the characters. Twtwb is a very blue mountains, mainly white population, farming town setting. Some of the landscape rings true but the people are not much like mine!
I don't know if you're still answering, but I'll ask. I live in a low socio-economic urban area in WA, where we have MAJOR problems with Aboriginal children being actively discouraged from attempting to study and improve their lot in life by parents who would rather they live off benefits. Many either feel that they are owed by the white man, or that there is no chance so why bother.. generally a mix of the two. Is this a problem in rural areas?	We don't have students being actively discouraged, but our parents often don't place much value on education, and often our kids have to work to help support the family. When you are working for 6-8 hours and not getting much sleep, school is not that important.
Are sports teams a big part of your school? Does it have a rugby/aussie rules team?	Sport is life in our school. If there is a competition out there, we have a team - we even have lawn bowls team!
Is the area anything like the movie "The Snowtown Murders"?	No, that was mountains and in a different state, I think.
Have you seen Wake in Fright?	Why do people keep asking me that?

Last updated: 2012-11-14 03:06 UTC
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