10 February 2006

Bollards bollocks up pollie arrivals

| Kerces
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There was much amusement among observers at Parliament House this morning as the newly-installed bollards on the Senate entrance got stuck just as important people were arriving.

The ABC is now running the story along with some observations from Greens senator Bob Brown.

The first person to discover the stuck bollards was Senate president Paul Calvert. I arrived some time after all this excitement, but eyewitnesses say the Senator’s car and all the others lined up behind it had to back down the Senate driveway and around Parliament Drive before their occupants disembarked and tramped up the driveway.

Senator Brown later put out a press release calling for the bollards to be used only in times of high security alerts, although I’m sure he took some time to chuckle at the misfortune of those stuck outside before composing this.

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Chrisinthecapital6:42 pm 11 Feb 06

Never mind the bollards …

I still think for $4mil they got rolled, no matter how good they are.

well it all depends on your safesearch settings

Thanks JB, pic number 5 is particularly helpful! :p

i got attacked on stairs in moresby once, walking down from a nightclub on a second floor.

wheres the bow and arrow man when you need him.

i note that the brand new dimea building in belco has had bollards installed recently. cleverly, they now block a small carpark with disabled carparks in it.

those hydraulic bollards are pretty cool. i have seen automatic ones that activate as you leave a complex.

in terms of aesthetic anti-terrorist measures theyre better than those big steel things that rise up out of the ground like dozer blades or concrete barricades.

pictures of bollards

dictionary.com says:

One of a series of posts preventing vehicles from entering an area.

Jeebus, at $4 million we’ll be lucky if the bollards themselves don’t become a terrorist target.

If I had $4 million dollars, I’d set up bollards at the top of my driveway. The neighbours would be sooo jealous.

I think ‘the story’ hyperlink ain’t working

what’s a bollard???

When you make one Mael.

JB, CTAFJ (can’t take a fucking joke)

Lighten up man, not all the world is out to get you…

Stairs are going to kill you?

Those bollards are so annoying to people who work at PH and want to be picked up. Boo hoo that the pres had to walk out of his way once – what about the thousands of us plebs who work there?

well, that’d make sense.

“The first person to discover the stuck bollards was Senate president Paul Calvert.”

A is for Article.

that’d be precedent

Yeah, i was wondering that – read the fucking a?
(antecedent?)

Aren’t the point of most terrorist attacks to create terror by setting up the possibility that you could be killed anytime anywhere?

Not sure how that makes PH much of a target. Even the Sept.11 guys were aiming their 4th plane at the Whitehouse rather than Congress.

what’s RTFA?

The bollards are there due to a risk analysis carried out by the experts. What’s the point in having them (at a cost of $4 mill). Furthermore; how sheltered must Bob be to believe that PH isn’t susceptible to attack in times of general alert. IMHO Bob Brown hasn’t had anything to say for a while so he’s just making noise.

Besides, a bit of excercise probably woudn’t do the Senators any harm. I also suspect that it may not have been a malfuntion, but rather some security staff having a giggle watching the CCTV footage.

The President of the Senate

who had to walk up on foot.

RTFA at least if you can’t be bothered knowing the basics of our parliament.

If terrorists were attacking our president…

You a republican JB ? (or have you watched patriot games recently) ?

Unfortunately we can’t have it both ways, either the nation is kept in a high state of tension re: terrorists in order to allow the Government to get away with blue murder, and the bollards respectively stay up, or the Government lowers it’s stance by saying that the terrorists aren’t such a danger anymore and the bollards come down.

Whilst we have troops in Iraq, and on any other American-inspired combat forays into sovereign nations, my guess it’s going to remain the first option for a while yet…

It’s scary. If terrorists were attacking then blocking the car and getting the President out on foot would be a good way to start.

Idiots should have driven him to another entrance.

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