STOA Newsletter #179

Tasmania's Shittest Town

Congratulations to Bridgewater on being voted Tasmania’s Shittest Town for 2024! Bridgewater will join Port Pirie, Alice Springs, Broome and four more shit towns in the national finals later this year.

Shitwater is the third turd to take home the Tasmanian trophy, after Launceston (2019, 2023) and Queenstown (2020, 2021, 2022).

Here are the final standings:

Bridgewater: 16.5%
Queenstown: 16.1%
Burnie: 15.4%
Launceston: 12.5%
Devonport: 10.6%
Zeehan: 9.7%
Hobart: 8.6%
Glenorchy: 3.9%
Branxholm: 3.8%
Brighton: 2.9%

Don’t miss next week’s STOA newsletter to vote for Victoria’s Shittest Town! If you know any Shit-torians who will want in on this vote, get them to subscribe at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe

---

Shit Town: Hobart

Founded as a human shit pit for Britain’s surplus riffraff, Hobart soon grew into a town after becoming a major centre for the murder of endangered sea creatures. Today, Tasmania’s capital is populated by 200,000 seal clubbers, ‘chiggers’ (bogans, but more inbred) and pseudo-hipsters who think they’re cosmopolitan because they live in their island’s biggest city even though they have never left Tasmania. The main industries in Hobart are freeloading off the mainland, poisoning the water with zinc, clear-felling primeval rainforests, whinging about mainlanders, and crying about not having an AFL team.

Hobart’s proudest feature is its historic buildings, built using convict slave labour. The main tourist attraction is the Museum of Old and New Art, which is lucky because most Tasmanians can’t read. Another feature is the ruins of the Hobart Zoo, complete with suicidal-looking cartoon animals adorning its dilapidated gate. For unknown reasons, fleets of norovirus-afflicted cruise ships choose to dock in Hobart for the saddest stop of their journey.

Hobart is a ‘fusion city’, in that it marries big city problems with small town facilities. Despite being completely shit, it’s the only place in Tasmania with any jobs and has thus been inundated by hordes of Tasmaniacs, causing a rental crisis that has forced despos to live in tents at the showgrounds. ‘Slowbart’ also has a horrendous traffic problem, with no public transport beyond buses and somehow more cars than people. The turd-filled Derwent River is massively polluted by heavy metals from the zinc works, meaning it’s unsafe to eat certain fish. Zinc leaching has also contaminated the groundwater, making homegrown vegetables poisonous in some suburbs, disproving the claim by millions of mums that broccoli can’t hurt you. Clearly, the only good thing to do in the toxic joint is leave.

From our book Shit Towns of Australia, available in stores and online.

---

Shit Town Power Rankings

1. Cairns, QLD — French tourist hospitalised after alleged rock attack by feral kids aged 11-15

2. Adelaide, SA — Lunatic allegedly crashes car into bowser before threatening to burn down servo

3. Penguin, TAS — Tasmaniac jailed for firing arrow at cops

4. Nar Nar Goon, VIC — Fuckwit ram raids and robs volunteer firefighting station

5. Brisbane, QLD — Driver blows 9 times alcohol limit; trainee surgeon busted ridiculing patients in private chat, including one who stuck a deodorant can up their arse

6. Sydney, NSW — Stolen car bursts into flames after smashing into unit block; drongo charged after allegedly letting off fire extinguisher in pub; resident sets up homemade sprinkler to stop drunk grubs pissing on his property

7. Myrtleford, VIC — Gronk allegedly drives stolen front-end loader into car, then nicks beer from supermarket, while on bail for police pursuit

8. Goondiwindi, QLD — Grumpy git allegedly threatens kids with homemade machete for walking past his house

9. Dalby, QLD — Pair of drongos busted after wheeling stolen e-bike past police station

10. Port Pirie, SA — Still shit