Dezi Freeman found by Victorian Police and shot dead in standoff

[onetrack]

Victorian police have announced they found Dezi Freeman hiding/living in a "container-style" structure, near Walwa, about 200kms from where he was last sighted 200 days ago.

 

They sent in a sizeable force to negotiate with him, but Freeman refused to disarm and came out of the structure carrying a weapon, so the police shot him dead.

 

It seems obvious that Freeman has had assistance in hiding from the authorities for the last 200 days, so I expect there will be arrests for hiding a fugitive.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/live-blog-dezi-freeman-porepunkah-shooting/105719456

 

[red750]

OT, you must have been typing as I posted.

[randomx]

Haaa yeah, saw the other one but l suppose we may as well pick just one eh.

No doubt he prob did have some help but eh there's plenty of dead empty farms and properties about in country areas , wouldn't need rocket science in finding one of 100s so who knows.

l thought he'd be 1000s of k away long ago myself, interstate somewhere.

[red750]

1 minute ago, randomx said:

we may as well pick just one eh.

Yeah, I'll delete mine.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

1 hour ago, randomx said:

there's plenty of dead empty farms and properties about in country areas

Courtesy of Lab/Lib governments who set aside billions for the major cities, and none for Rural Australia. Except if they're chasing a criminal, and that's about it. 

[onetrack]

Rural population decline has been happening since after WW2. The number of rural towns that have become virtually ghost towns numbers in multiples of hundreds.

 

The reasons weren't anything to do with Govt money allocation, it was economic reasons. Farms were regularly bought up by local or adjoining landowners, and the families bought out generally left the area.

The boys, and the girls in particular, couldn't find much local work, so they left to go to the cities where the work was. The boys often left the rural areas to find a girl, because the male-female balance in rural areas was often 2 boys for every girl.

 

In the era from the end of WW2 to the early 1970's, the rural lobby was powerful, and plenty of money was spent in rural areas. The old saying "Australia rides on the sheep's back" was very true. 

You'll find all your rural roads and arterial roads in the country were upgraded and widened and sealed in the 1950's to the 1970's, and ongoing upgrades continue.

 

The economics of rural production have varied substantially over the decades, and led to large numbers of farming families leaving farming, for other, more profitable pursuits.

In the era between the end of WW2 and up until about 15 years ago, rural pursuits paid poorly, and wages were also poor, in comparison to city jobs.

It's only about the last 15 years that rural activities have been more rewarding - but they still have to deal with fires, floods and droughts, which can set back rural areas for many years.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

It's a topic for a new thread. What you've just posted is only half of the more recent history of Rural Australia. The other half is much more disturbing and treacherous to Australia.

 

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Grumpy Old Nasho

[onetrack]

What do you want? Gold-plated major infrastructure built in tiny, dying country towns, with only 20 or 30 people? The Govt expends money where the population is, and where it can be paid for by those residents, on an affordable basis.

[old man emu]

One thing I notice is that the parents of the Baby Boomers are mostly all dead, and the Baby Boomers who inheirited to family farm are retiring and selling off their farms to younger neighbours who are consolidating smaller farms into large acreage units which can be farmed more effectively with modern machinery. The improvement in roads means that a trip to a larger centre for shopping can be done in a shorter time than 50 to 70 years ago. Therefore the independent shopkeepers in small towns do not have to customer base to remain viable. I guess that the most common "small town" businesses in my town are the hairdressers, followed by motels. Motor mechanics are disappearing, mainly due to retirement. There is very little industry, and what there is, is servicing agribusiness in various way. I'm not including the service stations because they are there to service highway traffic.

[red750]

At least today's occurrence put one small locality, there's no township, on the map - Thologolong. I'd never heard of it.

 

The location of Thologolong.

 

 

A street view of the buildings in Thologolong.

 

 

Dezi's camp.