Latest news with #PortArthur
ABC News
12 hours ago
- Automotive
- ABC News
Australia resisted America's gun culture — but couldn't help importing its obsession with oversized cars - ABC Religion & Ethics
Australia is rightly proud of having stood firm against one of America's deadliest exports — gun culture. After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, our leaders acted with moral clarity and urgency. It was a bipartisan moment that has saved countless lives. While the United States doubled down on its right to bear arms, we said no. But there's another American export which we couldn't resist. In fact, we embraced it. It didn't come with bullets. It came with torque. Today, the vehicles dominating Australian roads are those dreamed up in Detroit and built to American scale. America has long held individual freedom as its highest virtue — often, it's placed above collective safety and social cohesion. Their idea of freedom is shaped less by care for others, and more by the logic of competition: survival of the fittest, the richest, and now, the biggest. Why Australia? The rise of oversized SUVs and utes in Australia is no accident. It's the result of a decades-long campaign by American car manufacturers to sell not just vehicles, but a story and a culture: that bigger is better; that personal dominance matters more than collective comfort; and that power is something to display. American car makers have exported more than vehicles — they've exported a value system. They've invested heavily in the Australian market and spent billions on advertising over the past decade to reshape what it means to 'drive'. They're turning it from an act of mobility into an assertion of identity. Their ads drip with masculinity, entitlement and conquest. Cars are no longer tools; they're statements. This American culture is embedded in the physical form of these cars: long, unapologetically flat hoods; lifted bodies; oversized ground clearance. And we bought it — not just the vehicles, but the idea behind them too. Australia resisted the guns; but we bought the trucks. When resistance to US-style excess emerged in Europe or Japan where space is tight and fuel expensive, car makers adapted. In Australia, with its car-loving culture and softer emissions rules, the American model found fertile ground. The marketing blitz followed — touting their 'utility' or 'sport' appeal (whatever that means), even though most people never tow a trailer or leave the suburbs. Ford spends over USD $2.5 billion annually on global advertising. RAM has flooded YouTube and sports broadcasts with testosterone-drenched imagery. Their campaigns lean heavily on rural imagery, regardless of whether the vehicle is driven by a tradie or an urban dad doing the school drop-off. Who bears the cost? The rise of massive vehicles on Australian roads is often framed as consumer preference. But that framing ignores the external costs borne not by the driver, but by everyone else, especially vulnerable road users: pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists. The evidence is unambiguous: large SUVs and utes are more likely to kill vulnerable road users. The pedestrian fatality crisis in the United States is the biggest testament to this. Pedestrian deaths were steadily declining for over two decades until 2009, when large vehicles began to dominate US roads. By 2022, annual pedestrian deaths had surged from around 4,100 to over 7,500 — a jump of nearly 80 per cent. This surge in pedestrian deaths has been directly linked to the growing popularity of these giant cars. And Australia is now on a similar path. We're trailing this trend. Pedestrians and motorcyclists are the only road users in Australia showing a consistent rise in fatalities for four years straight. No such pattern exists for drivers or passengers. And most vulnerable of all are children. In the United States, around 110 children are hit by vehicles each week in parking lots and driveways. The numbers have been climbing for years. Car hoods were once designed to slope downwards, giving drivers a clearer field of view. But today's boxy SUVs jut straight out before dropping off, creating large blind zones where small children simply disappear. You could line up a dozen children sitting in front of some of these vehicles, and the driver wouldn't see the first eight or nine. With certain models, you'd need more than twelve children in a row before one even appears in your view. Why car size is a moral issue We barely talk about car size as a moral issue. But maybe we should. The thing is, for many of us this is a subconscious choice. Nobody walks into a dealership and says, 'I'd like to endanger others.' But when you see enough of the same vehicle on the road it stops feeling like a choice. It starts feeling like self-defence. Especially when you're told that you need one of these to protect your family from all the other giant cars already out there. This imposes real — if marginal — risk on those who can't, or choose not to, participate in the vehicle size race: children walking to school or pedestrians crossing the road. And let's not forget all of us are pedestrians, at least some of the time. Driving tank-sized vehicles through residential streets, with bonnets at eye-level for most adults and towering above children, is a cultural export. And it's unmistakably American in posture — in-your-face, unapologetic, and indifferent to who gets left out. And this means, we're caught in a cycle of reactive consumerism: we buy big because others are big. We tell ourselves it's a personal choice, but how much of it was ever really ours to begin with? Milad Haghani is an Associate Professor of Urban Mobility at the University of Melbourne.
CBC
13-06-2025
- Sport
- CBC
Ballpark food hits a homerun
There's nothing like grabbing a hot dog on a summer night and catching a few innings. The CBC's Jonathan Pinto went to watch the Thunder Bay Border Cats game at the Port Arthur Stadium, and also find out what's so special about the tasty traditions people love at the ballpark.
Globe and Mail
11-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Quebec-based Davie Shipbuilding announces plans to buy Texas shipyards
A Canadian shipbuilder is ready to attempt a major foray into the United States, despite ongoing tensions between the two countries, including around military procurement. Davie Shipbuilding announced on Wednesday that it plans to purchase shipyards in the Texas cities of Galveston and Port Arthur from Gulf Copper and Manufacturing Corp., a U.S. company. Davie's aim is to the use the sites to build icebreaker ships, most likely for sale to the U.S. government for use in the Arctic, in addition to its manufacturing of icebreakers for Canada's navy and coastguard at its existing shipyard in Levi, Quebec. It intends to invest up to $1-billion to expand and upgrade the Texas facilities, which are currently used primarily for ship repair. The announcement, which was made jointly by the two companies, did not include any financial details of the proposed deal. Negotiations have not yet concluded, but Davie said that it expects the acquisition to be finalized by the end of this summer. Paul Barrett, Davie's chief communications officer, told The Globe and Mail that they decided to announce the plans now in the interest of transparency, because the negotiations have become widely known locally around the sites. Mr. Barrett said that broader geopolitical dynamics - which include U.S. President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on Canadian exports, and Canada considering shifting some of its military procurement away from the U.S. as it ramps up defence spending - did not play a role in the timing. Nor, seemingly, did a fraught G7 summit scheduled to begin this Sunday in Kananaskis, Alberta. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether Mr. Trump's volatile views toward foreign companies, and toward Canada in particular, could affect Davie's prospects of getting U.S. contracts, or even regulatory approvals. While Mr. Trump has said he wants to build as many as 40 new icebreakers in the U.S. - which would far exceed its existing ship-making capacity - he has also spoken disparagingly if vaguely about Canada wanting to land some of that work. That may have reflected a mistaken impression that companies were seeking to make icebreakers in Canada and then sell them to the U.S., as opposed to doing the manufacturing stateside, but there has been little clarification since. To some extent, Davie's choice of which U.S. facilities to purchase may insulate it from that uncertainty. Mr. Barrett said that, after considering multiple sites, the company was drawn to Galveston and Port Arthur partly by strong logistical fundamentals, ample room to expand, and a skilled local workforce. But he also noted that Davie settled on the Gulf Copper sites partly because of the profitable ship-repair work (largely for the oil-and-gas industry) that's currently done there, and which Davie intends to maintain. Nevertheless, the impetus for the deal is Davie's ambitions to establish itself as a major international player in the making of icebreakers - in high demand among Western countries, amid fears that larger and more modern fleets possessed by China and Russia are jeopardizing Arctic sovereignty. Those aims predate Mr. Trump's current presidency. Last year, on the sidelines of a NATO summit, an agreement branded the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE Pact) was announced between Canada, the U.S. and Finland, the country that has produced the majority of the world's heavy icebreakers. It subsequently became clear that the pact - billed as a way of jointly addressing an intersection of national-security, economic and climate-change circumstances, including from melting ice caps open up shipping lanes and access to critical minerals - revolved largely around Davie's acquisition of Finland's top icebreaker-maker, which was up for grabs because of sanctions against its Russian owners. Davie is initially drawing off the Finnish know-how acquired through that deal to fill contracts it has been awarded under Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy. That includes $3.25-billion for a polar icebreaker to be built between the company's Helsinki and Quebec facilities by 2030, as well as vessels to subsequently be built in Quebec. However, Davie signaled from the outset that its ambitions also included drawing off those capabilities to make icebreakers in the U.S., although it was initially non-committal about when it would attempt to do so. Both Davie and the governments that signed the ICE Pact also previously talked up a longer-term ambition to position the three countries as suppliers for partners for other allies' shipbuilding needs, competing against the likes of China and Russia. While it's not known how Mr. Trump's impact on diplomatic relationships may affect that hope, Davie's planned acquisition from Gulf Copper is still being framed in line with the ICE Pact's objectives. 'Adding an American yard would make Davie uniquely positioned in the trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort to deliver advanced icebreakers at speed, scale, and competitive cost,' Wednesday's announcement said, 'countering adversaries' heavily subsidized programs,'
News.com.au
09-06-2025
- News.com.au
Port Arthur gunman Martin Bryant's motive revealed in unearthed psychiatrist report
Australian mass murderer Martin Bryant's motivation for the horrific Port Arthur attack has been revealed in unearthed psychiatrist reports. Bryant was just 28 years old when he brutally murdered 35 people and injured 23 others during a two-day rampage around the Tasmanian tourist town in April 1996. He started his killing spree at the Seascape Cottage, owned by his first two victims David and Noelene 'Sally' Martin. The violent rampage ended there too when the psychopath set the house alight in a bid to escape waiting police who were camped outside. Now 58, Bryant is serving 35 consecutive life sentences in Risdon Prison Complex. He will never be released. News Corp Australia investigation has obtained four reports from interviews Bryant had with mental health experts after the shootings. One of those reports includes the details of an almost four-hour interview with forensic psychiatrist Paul Mullen about six days after the massacre, in which Bryant said his murder plot started with his hatred for Seascape Cottage owners David Martin, 72, and Noelene Martin, 69. The initial plan to kill the 'very mean' couple started about 12 months earlier and escalated to mass murder because he was furious people generally didn't like him, News Corp Australia revealed. The feeling of hatred toward the Martins stemmed from Bryant's father Maurice Bryant's unsuccessful attempts to buy Seascape Cottage, also called Seascape Guesthouse. Maurice died by suicide in 1993. Bryant blamed the Martins for the downfall of his family. After Bryant killed the Martins at Seascape Cottage, he ate at the Broad Arrow Cafe and then pulled a semiautomatic rifle out and began shooting. He killed 20 people in two minutes. He shot more people on the way out and escaped in his car. He then stole a BMW, killing its occupants. Bryant stopped at a petrol station, where he killed a woman and took a man hostage. He returned to Seascape Cottage with the hostage. The following morning Bryant was caught after the guesthouse went up in flames. Bryant used a range of semiautomatic weapons and the Port Arthur massacre led to significant changes in Australia's gun laws. There was a near ban on all fully automatic or semiautomatic firearms, and a gun buyback scheme was initiated. More than 640,000 firearms were handed in.
Daily Mail
07-06-2025
- Daily Mail
Australia's most notorious killer is now so overweight he needs three mattresses to sleep on - as details emerge about his pen pal girlfriend
Australia's worst mass murderer, Martin Bryant, is now so overweight he reportedly needs to sleep on three mattresses stacked on top of each other. The 58-year-old also spends his time in Risdon Prison Complex boasting to inmates about a supposed long-distance romance with a woman he calls his 'girlfriend'. Byrant is serving 35 life sentences over the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania. In new details obtained exclusively by the Daily Telegraph, it was revealed Bryant is considered 'lower than zero' on the food chain by his fellow inmates. Former inmate Jackson, who was cell neighbours with Bryant, gave a bleak account of his condition behind bars, describing him as untidy, dirty and suffering from acne. The mass murderer is reportedly now so large he sleeps on three 10cm thick mattresses stacked on top of each other in his tiny cell bed, which he rarely leaves. Most bizarrely, Jackson revealed Bryant had a reputation for previously giving sexual favours, in return for chocolates and sweets. 'He's had a few sexual experiences in jail so someone will tease him and go "How about you swap me a head job for a Mars Bar" with such and such,' he said. Jackson recalled the moment he finally summoned the courage to ask Bryant about the Port Arthur massacre, saying the killer's face immediately shifted. He added that he wasn't sure Bryant's mother still visited him but that the killer would speak frequently about a woman he claimed to be in a relationship with. The woman, said to own a horse property in Victoria, was one of 10 people approved by the jail service to have phone calls with Bryant. Jackson said he wasn't sure if the woman ever visited Bryant in jail but that he had once been shown a photo of her by the notorious killer. Former prison guard Tony Burley told the Daily Telegraph he had caught the murderer fixating on himself and other guards with an intense stare. He said this only added to his reputation as an odd and isolated figure. 'In terms of the food chain, he's lower than zero,' Mr Burley said. 'It's not that people don't like him, he just doesn't exist.' 'No one would know who he was, he's not a concern to anybody. He's not targeted, he's nobody.' The Port Arthur massacre remains one of the darkest days in Australia's history. At the time, it was considered the world's worst massacre, with 35 people killed and 23 injured by Martin Byrant, who is serving 35 life sentences and more than a thousand additional years' jail without parole. Bryant has never explained his actions but investigators have speculated the murders were sparked out of retribution for grievances. Others were collateral damage. The shooting prompted significant gun reform under then-prime minister John Howard via the 1996 National Firearms Agreement. The laws banned rapid-fire guns from civilian ownership except under certain, restricted licences. It also tightened requirements for firearms licensing, registration and safe storage and established a government buyback of semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns.
