THE BULLETIN CLOSES

They came of bold and roving stock that would not fixed abide;
They were the sons of field and flock since e'er they learnt to ride,
We may not hope to see such men in these degenerate years

Banjo Patterson (Contributor Bulletin Magazine)


It is with a sad heart that the Stump must report the passing of an old friend, fallen afoul of those miserable vultures more commonly known as private equity funds managers.
This week marks the last edition of The Bulletin Magazine after 128 years of publishing in Australia.

The Bulletin started life as a magazine for the workers and Outback Australians struggling on rural sometimes marginal rural selects. The Bulletin played a large role in creating the healthy cynical disrespect for authority figures and elected scumbags that Australians have today. A Bulletin claim to fame was its close to the bone reporting during the shearers strike of 1891. This strike set the foundations of the labour movement in Australia well before the Union Movement was hijacked by disgruntled thugs and layabouts cast out of Britain. The reporting and support for the bush lodged the Bulletin as the “bushmans bible” in her early years.

Reflecting its position and readers, the magazine proudly proclaimed its dedication to a White Australia and up until the 1950’s carried the banner ‘Australia for the White Man’ on every front cover (Note to the morally outraged..go and check your Pri Bumi regulations and suck a fish, the Stump does not belong to the black arm band view of Australian History).

Rather than racism, this was more of a mirror of the feelings of the vast majority of Australians, particularly after World War 2. A direct result in response to the horrors perpetrated throughout Asia by the Japanese was the on going support for the White Australia Policy...(“In accepting your surrender we do not honour you, for you are the scum of the earth” ah but that’s another post closer to ANZAC DAY).

Prior to WW2, the working class and upper society people feared the influx of Chinese Gold Miners would ruin the emerging nation’s primarily British Culture and the Bulletin reflected and played upon these working class fears.

As Australia embraced the leftist dream and the great disaster of “Multi-Culturalism" in the late 70s and early 80's. Many saw but few commented that the country was flirting with cultural suicide and our grand dame of rage had been beaten into submission. Of course, Multi Culturalism is and always has been absolute nonsense based on the fundamentally flawed theory that all cultures are equal and are equally deserving of respect. Unfortunately, political correctness and a succession of testicle challenged editors (Donald Horne for one) prevented the Bulletin from raging at the night as she had in years gone by. As a consequence the working class readership and bush base was lost forever.


A magazine for workers and poor outback Australian not the sad little chardonnay socialists who abound and who would not recognise a hard days work if it reared up and bite them on the arse. It was brutal to watch the fiesty working class, slightly rude tart's sad decline at the hands of the new age toffs as they tried to transform her into a poltically correct but boringly cheap copy of TIME.

Savaged in her later years, in particular for her racist (?) past, the bulletin’s readership fell dramatically. The Grand Dame was kept hacking along albiet on a dollar by dollar drip by the Packer Family who had at least some since of history until old man Packer passed away. Unfortunately as is so often the case, the spoilt brat rarely matches the greatness of the father and the young knobble headed Packer sold out the business (and the country) to gain entry into the sleazy world of gambling and casinos. Some would suggest this heralded the sad transformation of nation building family into another bunch of parasites, after years of enjoying tax payer funded infrastructure. Fair Dinkum you would think the family name was QANTAS).

As an aside, when first posted to the jungles, I tried to buy access for the online bulletin magazine. As is so often the case with Indonesian and Malaysia being the credit card fraud epi-centre of the SE Asia, my card was refused. I wrote to the subscriptions department and requested another form of payment. The reply, “here is a password and key for free, just promise to buy the magazine when you are back in Australia” They did that every year for three years, kind of sums up the Magazine, help out a mate and your word is good enough for us.

Once the private equity group got its hands on the magazine its days were numbered. An American chief executive working for a Scottish boss who represents a Hong Kong private equity fund closed the Australian institution with a 128-year-old publishing history.

RIP old friend, the nation dumbs down even more to sound bites and ten second news grabs.


So to the American chief executive, the Scottish boss and the Hong Kong private equity fund here’s something else from Australia, see if the description feels comfortable to wear, it was used to describe some others of dubious social worth but it still seems fitting to me.

“A parcel of big ugly fat necked wombat headed big bellied, magpie legged narrow hipped, splawfooted sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords”
The Jerilderie Letter

Or simply BASTARDS