15 February 2008

Stanhope gives backyard fireworks one last chance

| Duke
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This depressing news was found tucked away on page 6 of todays Canberra Times, 15/2 – a putrid sign of the nanny-capital many people want Canberra to be.

“The ACT Government has backed away from banning backyard firecrackers, saying it will give Canberrans one last chance to behave on cracker night this year, ” says the CT.

“The Government has been considering a ban to start next year over protests about terrified pets, property damage and noise”

I agree that things can get a little out of hand, particularly as the Government can’t seem to stop the illegal crackers entering the ACT, let alone Australia, but the vast majority of people who buy crackers are young families who use them responsibly and purchase them to delight their children (and most of the legal ones are so tragically tame any hoo!).

Next to Christmas and possibly my birthday, firecracker night was the highlight of the year for me as a kid. I still get a kick our of seeing my kid relatives enjoy a fireworks show.

But now we’ll get to the crux of the argument, and i will doubtless win any friends here…….but I don’t give a hoot about your scared dog, I really don’t. Just like my two neighbours (i’m surrounded on both sides by dogs) don’t give a hoot about my right to peace and quiet when they leave their dogs tied up all day barking and howling.

And I expecially don’t give a hoot about your terrified cats, who stalk the suburbs day and night looking for birds and reptiles to slaughter.

The list of things people want to ban in Canberra just gets longer and longer……….ban GMC (banned), ban smoking, ban Summernats, ban battery hens, ban meat, ban GDE, ban cyclists, ban alcohol……and so the list goes on.

Some people need to be reminded that JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE SOMETHING, DOESN’T MEAN IT SHOULD BE BANNED!

Can you imagine the OUTRAGE that would occur if the Government told pet owners all dogs would be banned – just because a minority allowed their dogs to bark all day, maul children and other animals and soiled peoples lawn???

Hell man, firecracker night is the one night of the year i can get back at my doggy neighbours……….and I should have that right!

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you can actually still get firecrackers powerful enough to blow up letterboxes?

fireworks are fun! but they have gotten so lame and p1ss weak, they get quite boring after a few.

i had a few friends and their kids from Melbourne join in the celebration of lighting these up last cracker night. It was something that us Canberreans had the priviledge of doing that those Melbournites didnt, and boy did it feel sweet.

“vast majority of people who buy crackers are young families who use them responsibly and purchase them to delight their children” Who does this guy think he’s kidding. How many young families with children are letting off crackers into the early hours of the morning for days either side of the long weekend? Blowing up letter boxes? The vast majority of crackers in my area were being used outside the regulated days and times. Mostly by brain dead bogans who think making loud noises and bright (if ephemeral) sparks is fun, even if its waking people up at three am in the freakin’ morning. You like firecrackers? Well stick em up your butt and let em off.

Ingeegoodbee9:04 am 21 Feb 08

I’d be buying up big this June and makingthe most of this last weekend of fun, ’cause sure as night follows day there will be enought dickheads who simply cant follow a few simple rules about fireworks – they’ll be letting them off all hours, outside of the designated days and yeah some of the better ones will find their way into peoples letter boxes.

gary you haven’t been talking to roymeforever of ‘morning rush hit action bus’ fame have you?

Elvis Las Canberras11:49 pm 20 Feb 08

This is a cracker posting…but I remember a fire works night a couple of years back held out the back of a northside pub – beers, rednecks and crackers, it was all fun and games until the supervisor bloke dressed in white overalls (looked a lot like “the Doc” in back to the future) went in to grab another beer and left mayhem to reign.

It all ended with a roman candle falling over shooting great balls of fire into the assembled crowd. One old lady having her scarf scorched, a couple of shots screaming into a wood heap which caught on fire and a bag of crackers that went off like something from an A-Team episode (a kid was left in tears over a cracker night over in seconds and everyone running for their lives.

Could have ended much differently!

el ......TECortina 250 Deathtrap7:38 pm 20 Feb 08

Awesome!

I hated those fireworks at all because somebody discharged their fireworks just behine my fencing then went away and left those discharged rubbish there.

Think of the carbon being pumped into the atmosphere directly by the bonfire, and then pass that over the current Government’s track record on everything.

I’m frankly surprised they haven’t already started demonising it…

Stage 4 wood on bonfire restrictions…

I much prefer this alcohol-enjoying, Labor attacking, firebreathing incarnation of Troy to that other one who is either a candidate for Fraser or maybe for Molongolo.

Fireworks should be kept, if only so that we\the kids can occasionally build a human-shaped effigy of whoever our ‘leader’ is and then stuff them full of fireworks, a la Guy Fawkes.

Anyone know if the gigantic communal bonfires will still be an option under these proposed changes?

Gungahlin Al10:02 am 18 Feb 08

Mael: 😛

Minime2 has clearly not been underneath a balloon when the gas burner is triggered…nothing nice and quiet about that.

haha to Gungahlin Al, drinks skinny flat and skinny cap.

poof.

Yeah … dogs absolutely go OFF at hot-air balloons, and those things are very very quiet. Ban them. And ARSPCA expert says NOT to coddle your dog when its scared shitless during cracker night, because they think – oh, how the hell do they know what dogs think? Oh, yeah. They hate terrorists.

Fireworks can be used in acts of terrorism.

TroyWilliams10:50 pm 17 Feb 08

Al, all ships arrive at a destination. Some make it to port, others are wrecked upon rocks. It’s largely up to the Captain to determine a final resting place.

Nothing wrong with port, except I guess for the ‘left’ connotation. I do remember a scotch by the name of Starboard, but I think it may have had alternative uses as a grease remover and anti-freeze, perhaps even a fireworks ingredient (he says in a half hearted attempt to get back to the topic).

“The chattering classes” can go into the bucket with the rest of the Howard-isms. How about just saying “whinging lefties”, it’s a perfectly fine version.

Besides which, the biggest whining lefties I know live in Waniassa…

Gungahlin Al8:45 pm 17 Feb 08

Must make me a ship without a port hey Troy? 🙂

Did someone say port? mmmm

TroyWilliams4:40 pm 17 Feb 08

Cool, so we drop the tag “chardonnay sipping, latte-drinking socialists. I’m happy to use another descriptor if people can come up with one for the chattering classes consuming beverages in Manuka.

Al, a Chippocrat perhaps? I’m not a fan of chardonnay at all and being the simple soul that I am a straight-forward coffee will do.

My dog is not a fan of thunderstorms, crackers, little athletics or hot air balloons and will try to let herself in through my back door when these are close. Hence my back door looks like a large dog has scratched the crap out of it.

Leave the crackers alone. I don’t see anyone calling for the banning of hot air ballons or little A – thunderstorms are worse and more frequent than crackers.

It’s the whole penalise the masses for the actions of a few – I’m not a fan of it.

Gungahlin Al10:44 am 17 Feb 08

Now Troy, are you trying to tell us you do NOT drink chardy or coffee? Or is it only the proportion of milk one has in their coffee that governs their degree of left-leaningness? Perhaps the cab-savs and straight black espresso now represent the other end of the continuum?

(Skinny flat or cap, and either red or white, with leaning towards sweeter drops, here. Wonder where that drops my politics?)

On topic and preselection positioning aside: cracker night is embeddeed in my childhood memories of Canberra, and I love sharing it now with my children. There are prats around that blow a few night’s sleep for the rest of us, but it’s the bigger picture that’s more important here. Leave cracker night alone.

Hey Troy, I agree entirely with the second sentence of your comment, but would it be possible to ditch the glib Young Lib lines such as chardonnay sipping, latte-drinking socialists?

It’s so Howard-era.

TroyWilliams9:45 am 17 Feb 08

It’s ironic that chardonnay sipping, latte-drinking socialists want to free terrorists but ban everything else. Fireworks used responsibly rock!

I like dogs, cats and fireworks – my pets are not bothered.

swamiOFswank5:39 pm 15 Feb 08

FB, my dog LOVES fireworks!!

I say ban dogs and keep the fireworks. 😉

I read an interesting study/article once on the whole issue of dogs being frightened of fireworks. Unfortunately I can’t remember where I read it so I can’t source it.

Basically the study found that most dogs who are “scared” when fireworks are let off are not actually scared of the fireworks, rather they are picking up on their owners being scared for them. It went on to say that most people with ‘Scared’ dogs pandered to them and constantly soothed them making the dog think there was something wrong.

Now I don’t know how accurate that may be but from my experience it seems valid. I have several friends who have dogs and on fireworks night they are out the back yard running around with the kids having a good ol time. I have another friend who is convinced her dog is going to have a heart attack, so when fireworks go off she sits in the dark in the quietest corner of her house reassuring her dog who does nothing but whimper.

My dad had a farm near Bredbo & he always had dogs (at least 20 over the years) and they would have BIG fireworks nights there and invite everyone from all over. I never once saw a dog get scared.

Food for thought

Deadmandrinking2:44 pm 15 Feb 08

^Now that is a mindlessly violent show. Why doesn’t anyone ever complain about it?

lets just ban fun all together, actually lets become communist!

Deadmandrinking2:38 pm 15 Feb 08

I propose a further list of things to ban.

– Kitchen knives, because they’re sharp.
– Bath-tubs, because idiots might drown.
– Bicycles, because people might fall off.
– Video Games, because it is difficult to determine whether a blood-soaked marine is a violent or family-friendly image.
– Television, because you may be exposed to sex if you lose the remote.
– Sex, because it’s not family-friendly. Unless you’re a royal.
– Fast food, because Fatty McBoom-boom thinks it’s healthy.
– All food, because you can’t trust companies to tell you which food is healthy.
– Windows, because burglars may enter your house through them.
– Doors, because you may forget to lock them.
– Roofs, because they may come off in a hurricane.
– Walls, because they stop you from seeing what your neighbors are doing.
– Floors, because you could hurt your head if you fall off the bed.
– Beds, see above. May also cause sex.
– Nudity, because the human body is horrible and unnatural.
– Clothes, because they may cause rape.
– Children, because fluffy might maul them.
– People, because they may scare fluffy.

I’m losing track here…

Some people aren’t happy unless they have something to complain about. I like the idea of family and friends in the back yard or local park on cracker night. Prefer that to being down the lake with the drunken f wits gee great enviroment for the kiddies. What ever happened to give your dog a pat or spending time with it if it’s a bit stressy! Already lost bonfires what next? removing childhood memories through surgery. Maybe your grandchild will ask you one day “gran whats fun” and you’ll have to say that it was something we used to have but we gave it up because we were too softcocked to stand up for ourselves.

Oh – this has been done before, but there’s a bloke in Holt who can propel an orange about 2.5 clicks with his orange gun.

Think about that for a mo.

He’ll not be affected at all by changing the legislation, and more will attempt to replicate him in the abscence of fireworks.

Personally, I’d like to see him target something useful, like Stanhope’s house or the Legislative Assembly – just to prove that banning fireworks will not stop a booner being a booner.

I work next to our Internet Nazis, who still worry about our friend Troy.

Coke and mentos. I say no more but you’ll find a heap of nice clips on youtube.

For those with internet nazi’s, well worth a look when you get home.

The ACT government and RSPCA should put penalties on those people who lost their dogs or cats during the Queen’s Birthday long weekend for their ignorance, instead of ban fireworks. Commonsense, you know fireworks are coming every time of the year. Why would you be stupid enough to let your dogs out and whining about it afterwards?

Fireworks R Fun!

The worst aspect of the firecracker debate is that we have to see that annoying guy from the RSPCA whining all the time about the rights of dogs.
Wont someone at the RSPCA lock him up in a cage to shut him up?


& re: cats…exactly! F**k the cats. If people are so concerned about animal safety..they’d kill their cats.

Comment by justbands — 15 February, 2008 @ 12:33 pm

Yep. It’s okay to let your cat out and destroy native species.

You make some good points, and I agree with everything you said. Society has become insane. It would be stupid to ban them because of some kill-joy’s who like to live in glass houses and live a lame and boring life.

Go and live in NSW if you don’t like Fireworks. Let somewhere else become a boring shit hole.

How about a cat riding a recumbent bicycle whilst smoking a cigarette?

Well, you do have to be a pussy to ride a recumbent bicycle.

Banning idiots might be easier.

I fear to imagine how a cat riding a recumbent bicycle would be treated on the Riotact!

stereo henry1:01 pm 15 Feb 08

sparkler powder, bottles and cats would be a better combo

> nd i will doubtless win any friends here

Actually, you’ve won me. I fully agree. I own a dog…I keep him inside for a few nights each year. On no!

& re: cats…exactly! F**k the cats. If people are so concerned about animal safety..they’d kill their cats.

As someone who has put up with ACT commercial fireworks, the Territory Day celebrations in regional NT with fireworks sourced from small domestic operations and other non-local sources, the ACT bans mostly serve to tick off the fireworks producers, and further shift the profits more to the wholesale supply end than the retailer.
But an actual ban will put them out of business except for whatever annual Government bread-and-circuses Standope wantst o put on.

And I’ve also seen enough NSW and QLD people with ACT sourced fireworks months after the event to know that even the current bans aren’t working.

You can always make your own fireworks with sparkler powder and glass Coke bottles. Muahahaha!

That’s one top-notch spray!

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