The Big Sugar Election

By Mark Barkley

“It looks like it’s official. I think the Chief’s finished.” In the near future, within the changing face of North Queensland, new cities have been formed. Callard City lies in this opulent “Big Sugar” region.

Three of the Councillors of the Callard City Council, Mayor Arthur Pauley, Councillors Milton Pauley and Lance Tapp, seek the removal of a chief public servant, John Hennessy. Hennessy has crossed swords with the politicians out of his loyalty to his charges, Kevin Fitch, James McLaren, and Vince Tomasi.

To repay this loyalty, Kevin, James and Vince, three lowly public servants, band together to save their Chief’s job. A Council election is about to occur. If the corrupt Councillors win, their boss is gone. So what action is required? “Gentlemen. Let’s not get upset. Let’s get even.”

                                       

Interview with the Author

Q - What inspired you to write The Big Sugar Election?

A – I originally wrote this book back in 1990 and it had the most unusual title, “Tea for the Headless Horseman.” It mainly pertained to a workplace at the time when there was a loyalty of workers to a boss and a loyalty of a boss back to the workers. I rewrote the book in 2007 and now I’ve found the entire workplace has changed. In my opinion, modern management really couldn’t care less about the staff anymore. So it’s funny, it’s set in a future city, but it’s almost a historical novel.

Q - Tell us about the book?

A - I think it’s a good book. It’s an adventure. There’s conflict and betrayal, government corruption, revenge against politicians with their snouts in the trough and the banding together of friends all in good humour. I was actually a public servant myself. Although the events in this book are completely made up, you do get to see things and hear things. There’s a lot of material there for a book. And this is it.      

Q - So, why should readers give this book a try?

A – I have had people read this book who didn’t work where I work but they could identify with the office surrounds and the usual office politics. People should read it because they might see themselves and their friends. Once again, I’m immensely grateful that anyone is reading my books. I just hope they like it.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Barkley
• Release date: May 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386044147

Book preview

THE BIG SUGAR ELECTION

By

MARK BARKLEY

Copyright © 1990, 2007

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

All characters and situations portrayed within this book are entirely fictional and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Table of Contents

Part I (Getting Upset)

Part II (Getting Even)

Epilogue

PART I

12.10 pm Thursday, February 12th, 2026

Christ! That wasn’t there before. I’m sure.

James McLaren buried his head in his hands as the KEEP LEFT sign buckled under the front bull-bar. Without missing a beat, Colin Bell spun the wheel of the land cruiser, disentangling his twisted trophy and kept talking as if he’d swatted a fly.

We can’t be too far off his trail. I’d hate to think we lost him.

Not after that trip.

James pushed his dark hair back as he thought of their cross-country trek across Callard Park. As he made a mental note of all of Colin’s trophies, sick welled in his throat. And he wondered if the Chief would see the joke in all this.

Eleven bushes and shrubs, six flower beds, four fence posts to the emu enclosure: replace. One bird: provide stress therapy. Three eucalypts: cosmetic tree surgery. Three picnicking pensioners: reimburse for mashed food items, crushed thermos and heart attack medication.

He shook his head. He’d never seen an old man use that finger gesture. It was creative to say the least.

Kerb and channeling: reconcrete. Two KEEP LEFT signs: replace.

All for the pursuit of a lousy stray Alsatian.

Could we just pull over? I’ll get my bearings.

Colin’s wide white smile beamed beneath the brim of his battered akubra.

I can see your hamburger trying to poke its head back up. I told you to eat light.

James opened the glove box and removed a street directory.

There’s the lookout. See if I can spot him there.

He opened the door and stepped out but found no support in his legs. To his surprise, he staggered and fell flat on his backside.

You right? Colin beamed out the cabin. He held up an apple for James to survey in all its half-eaten glory.

Yeah I know. Picking himself up, James stretched his lanky frame and brushed down the grass wet patches from his trousers. Eat light.

Steeling himself against the side of the dog van, he viewed its lone occupant. A border-collie lay shaking with front paws over both eyes. One paw lifted to view James with a whimper and he could feel his fellow traveller’s pain.

Sorry mate. This is where I leave.

Since being appointed as the senior environmental health officer in charge of animal control, James often wondered in what way he had offended the Chief. Especially when it was insisted that on certain occasions, he was to accompany the officers on their rounds.

After gaining his composure, James began to walk to the highest point of Callard Park, terraced off into a lookout from where one could get a good vantage of the city of Callard.

A statue of its founder, Terence Callard, looked out from atop a pedestal over the fastest growing city in Australia.

It had achieved this in only a relatively short time, having grown from a collective of towns known as the Callard Shire. This shire was formed in the carve up when North Queensland seceded from South; its southern border forming a portion of the new state line; its northern border lying a few hundred kilometres south of Townsville, Australia’s newest state capital.

Any sign? shouted Colin, leaving the van’s cabin to inspect the wreckage he caused.

From the lookout, James surveyed the distant mountains that bounded the city on all sides. With the distant lush greens and yellows of tropical vegetation and the closer bustling reds and oranges of the city, it seemed more like a huge salad bowl in the noon day sun.

Or more appropriately, not a salad bowl, it could be more likened to a teacup.

It was a teacup for the storms it brewed.

Being February and summer in the tropics, cyclones were prevalent. They formed in the Coral Sea, whipping themselves into a frenzy and moved towards the mainland. By the time they’d crossed the coastline usually anywhere from Cooktown to Mackay, their movement inland would cause them to weaken into a heavy blanket of rain cover.

Callard City, being inland and bounded by mountains, rarely felt the destructive wind gusts of the cyclones but frequently had to deal with the damaging floods that ensued.

Rivers and streams would swell and roads and bridges would often become awash, cutting off road routes and stranding traffic.

From the lookout, James turned his gaze to the city centre for the second reason Callard was likened to a teacup; for its china.

Or more precisely, Little China.

From where he stood, he could see the two white ceramic lions guarding the entrance to Crescent Street, recently designated a mall and the official centre of Callard’s Chinatown.

The city had people from every land and a rich mix of language and custom. Most arrived with Callard’s industrial boom which required an influx of laboratory technicians and with them the doctors, the solicitors and assorted professionals.

James loved the city. Crescent Street with its red facade restaurants bustled with colour and crackers at New Year. He relished its eclectic and electric tastes, smells and accents.

What ‘re you doing up there?

Colin neatly placed the KEEP LEFT sign by the van, as fussy as a flower arranger with the buckled metal tubing.

James ignored him and cast his eyes past the sprawl of suburbia. He looked to the distant green field for the third and most important reason why Callard was a teacup.

For its sugar.

In North Queensland, no industry has been so fraught with ups and downs, heartache and bankruptcy, pain and eventually triumph, as the sugar industry.

And its resuscitation was largely due to the breath of the man whose statue stood beside him. Terence Callard saw the future of the sugar industry in the production of alcohol as a biofuel.

It was through his tireless effort rallying government support and his all-in brawls with cane-growers that put the pulse back into the industry. He made cane-based alcohol the country’s life-blood.

After only a decade of production, Australia had become one of the largest world producers, second only to Brazil.

And this is where it all began.

Callard was The Big Sugar.

Ask anyone down south that you were going north, they’d say Oh you’re going to The Big Sugar. Lucky you.

From where he stood, he could see the distant stacks of the four mills which Terence Callard, an avid car nut, had named the Daimler, the Mercedes, the Stag and the Jaguar mills.

And the statue of the industry’s founding father pointed out over thousands of hectares of lush green cane fields.

James smirked at the irony which was obvious to everyone but statue builders and civic leaders. What an unbelievably cruel gesture for someone who died a crippled diabetic.

Talk to me, Jim! Colin cried from below.

Turning from the view, James returned to the vehicle.

I think he’s given us the slip.

Shit! Colin whacked the bonnet with his akubra. We were so close.

Was it the one or not. The one that’s worrying the kids.

I’m sure of it, Colin blew hard and put his hands to his hips. I’m sure.

It’s no problem if..

I know what I saw.

Colin’s tone left James thinking twice about burring up the big man. He already had a pretty good go at attempting to kill him without trying. He didn’t want to give him a motive to finish the job.

OK.

Look, jump in. I’ll take you back to the office.

The office? Feeling his sphincter tweak, James baulked as Colin jumped back in. Look you go.

What?

You go. One of the blokes is picking me up.

He pulled out his mobile and started fiddling with the dial keys.

Who?

Just .. You go.

Colin looked back and a watermelon smile flashed across his face. He reached into a bag nearby and pulled out another apple which he tossed through the window to James. As he caught it, he surveyed the fruit and pulled off three dog hairs.

Beautiful.

No worries, Colin rubbed his muscular paunch, Hope things settle.

He started the engine and moved from the kerb giving a short blast of the horn. James grinned and gave a little wave.

A hundred metres on, he could still see his suntanned features in the side rear vision mirror. He gave another reassuring lift of the hand.

With his teeth on high beam, Colin returned the gesture, jumped the gutter, turned the corner and was gone.

With the vehicle out of sight, James waited a few seconds.

He looked left and right and took a deep breath to steel his nerves, pocketed his mobile and began the four kilometre hike through the park and city streets to the office.

12.25 pm

Having shaken his pursuing menace, the Alsatian waited in the undergrowth near the park road. Lifting his head clear of the leaves, he pin-pricked his ears. With his dark brown eyes set in his thick black fur, he carefully surveyed his surrounds.

Once satisfied that the coast was clear, he bounded from the cover and started an easy lope homeward, only stopping to sniff and wet the occasional tree on the journey.

His sleek muscular limbs moved easily. His wet black muzzle pointed and sought out the shortest route home.

Home to the Alsatian was in a normal suburban street called Leggett Street and the closer he came to it, the more he felt assured of safety and less exposed to these yellow land-cruisers that always wanted to chase him.

The house he drew to was a grey fibro shack set on short concrete stumps. The stormwater downpiping, disconnected at the roof, dripped water onto the muddy black puddled yard covered in mounds of muck and dog dung.

As he entered through the wide open gates, he found his master, as usual, shovelling mud in the back yard. It was a mystery but it always seemed like he was digging up holes and filling them up again.

In the rear yard his two mates were snarling and wrestling with one another in the mud in front of the kennels.

King and Khan were almost identical tan black-backed bad-tempered Alsatians who were quick to snap and quick to snarl. They feared no living thing except the man with the shovel and the large sullen black beast making its way through the front yard.

They stiffened and quietened and rolled over in front of their kennels, with tongues lolling with obsequious fervour.

The man with the shovel turned his head towards the approaching beast.

Where‘ve you been, Percy?

The black Alsatian growled and snapped and was given a sharp whack across the head with the shovel. He made a craven retreat to his kennel and a thought ran through the dog’s mind.

Why couldn’t I have a tougher name like King or Khan?

King and Khan quivered by their kennels. They knew that if either of them broke into a snicker or a smile, they would be reduced to a throatless mass of red fur.

Percy left no doubt in his peers’ minds that his name was short for Percy-Cution.

Alex Pauley looked at his dogs and went back shovelling his mud. Every time he looked at them, he heard a cash register Ching! in his head. They were going to be his ticket out of this slop.

Once his business takes off of siring guard dogs for the rich and wealthy, he’d be able to say goodbye to this muck-hole and quit burying their manure he was constantly standing in.

Resting a while, he leaned on his shovel and dreamed.

He was going to be a success like the rest of his brothers.

That wasn’t just because he was the youngest of a very large family. It was because he was regarded by his elders and siblings as the one who was least likely to succeed at anything he put his mind to.

The one regarded least likely to succeed, he thought to himself.

Boy, my sisters could talk. They all became dole-bludging dope-hazed earth mothers. Queens of a tree-house in the scrub of northern New South Wales. Yeah, they succeeded! Every year dropping a baby like a feral vegetable.

But it was his brothers who all became very successful that he put the gauge to.

He smiled a toothless grin and continued to rest his short thin frame on his shovel. Filth stained his blue singlet and tattooed arms. Sweat fogged his steel framed spectacles and glistened off the earring in his left lobe.

There’s nothing going to stop me now, he thought.

Although he was starting to get a few drive-bys from some annoying Council vans regarding alleged complaints relating to his dogs.

Still, they’re only alleged complaints and alleged is always a word he stresses when he conveys the messages to his father, the Mayor, Arthur Pauley and his brother Milton, the self-made millionaire and local Councillor, whenever they enquire about his progress.

Alex smiled again and went back to shovelling more mud.

1.35 pm

In the centre of the central business district, there stood the concrete, timber and glass Taj Mahal of the City Council offices.

Set amidst sunken gardens with ornate fountains, it rose in three levels to dominate the landscaping and surrounds.

Under the burning sun of early afternoon, James walked through the staff car parking area to the main entrance. His short-sleeve business shirt was drenched in sweat and his throat was parched.

Once through the wide doors, he paused in the foyer as he’d done on many an occasion, admiring the high set ceiling which gave an air of palatial grandeur. The upper levels opened out into the foyer area, their balconies tressed with ferns and manicured garden boxes.

Within the building, the main complement of the Council’s workers, its officers and clerical staff, were housed on the first two levels. From where James stood, the three compartments of administration fanned out before him and in James’s simple way of looking at things, their list of duties were as follows.

To his far left was housed the Financial Services Department, accoutred to the task of gathering money off people, through Council rates and general registration fees.

The central compartment before him held the Engineering Services Department, entrusted with the administering of public works such as water supply, sewerage and traffic management in the city.

To his far right was the section to which James belonged, the Community Services Department or as it was more commonly known in the city, the Health Department. Its duties comprised of, in James’s view, anything and everything that didn’t fit in with the latter two categories.

It was primarily given the task of upholding community hygiene and James’s role as one of its environmental health officers was to go forth into the city and make it a healthier place to live in. He and his colleagues audited its restaurants and hostels to name but a few to ensure cleanliness was observed. Other duties, on the broader level, involved environmental protection such as oil spill prevention and the control of rat and mosquito infestation. And on the more local level such residential problems as dog complaints and noise issues which often cause neighbours to erupt into fisticuffs.

In the centre of the foyer stood a stylised display of fibreglass sugarcane stalks wrapped around a picture of a pair of very overexcited male and female models beckoning you inwards.

Welcome To Callard City, read the caption, Get A Taste For The Big Sugar.

A smaller sign underneath, printed on A3 paper, caught his eye. Council Elections Are Only 38 Days Away. Are You Enrolled?

James read the message and lifted his gaze to the upper levels of the foyer before him. These levels contained the offices of the Mayor and the eleven Councillors of the city elected by the citizens for a three year term.

On these levels were also the committee rooms and Council chambers where the democratic process of local government took place.

The Councillors, who formed committees concerning finances, health and public works, would sit down and meet the senior officers of each department and other officials who were better connected than James at getting a window desk. They would discuss various proposals, consider recommendations and make decisions on how the city should be run. These decisions were then ratified in a full Council meeting and the proposals would be brought into effect.

Or so was the theory.

In thirty-eight days time, the people of Callard would go to the polls to elect a new Council.

Thirty-eight days, he lifted his eye to the ceiling. Give me strength.

He turned and walked through a side doorway to his office and made his way to his desk.

Hey hey, came a voice from behind, "It’s James ‘Cross