That noise you heard on Saturday evening was not just an electrical storm, it was the collective and gi-normous sigh of relief from the voters of Bennelong that their by-election was over and the hordes of unwanted and uninvited pollies would soon be gone. As everyone would now know, the by-election was won by the taciturn John Alexander, a former top Australian tennis player with unexpected British citizenship, over the considerably more charismatic Kristina Keneally who was born in the USA. John’s win salvages the Coalition government’s slim majority and, whatever your politics, it does help give a measure of stability to government in general. A win for Kristina would have resulted in a minority governement, a precarious Prime Minister, and an unsettled Australia. So the result was probably for the best for the country, pending a full general election.
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As a politician, John Alexander appears to be a very good tennis player. He is low profile, reserved, and gives every impression of being personable, polite and reasonably intelligent. These are desirable qualities not always obvious in all politicians whether here or overseas, but he does need to brush up on his jokes. Never-the-less, despite his latent qualities, one suspects he may be largely ineffectual in the Canberra political pit of pantomimic performers.
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As expected, the report of the Royal Commission into institutional abuse of children has hit the table with a loud thud, with a multitude of recommendations aimed at preventing these sorts of atrocities ever again. The two most controversial recommendations concern celibacy and the confessional, and directly affect the Catholic church which was responsible for fully one-third of the complaints reviewed by the Commission. It was remarkable but not entirely surprising that the Catholic Archbishops of Sydney and Melbourne were quickly before the cameras rejecting these particular recommendations as a breach of their sacred duty to their god. To this Feather Duster, this in disingenuous rubbish. Whatever the intent or claimed inspiration, the Catholic church’s rules regarding celibacy and the confessional have been devised by men and can be changed by men (hopefully with the assistance of women). It makes one wonder that if these rules are so sacred and inviolate, where did the church’s duty to protect vulnerable children rate? One of the few Sunday School quotations that your scribe remembers with any clarity is: “Suffer little children to come unto me.” I don’t think the author of this text meant the word “suffer” to be interpreted in the way it was by the many despicable church-employed paedophiles who have preyed unchecked. The response from the Vatican was much more reasonable and considerate, that the recommendations “deserve to be studied seriously.” Let’s hope they do just that, and more. So this week’s dedication is to the Archbishops of Sydney and Melbourne (and their confreres) and is the old Bobby Fuller song, “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.”
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Possibly to the great relief of some, this will be the last column of Pollie Crackers for this year. The column is meant to inform and provoke, and feedback to the editor indicates that some readers find it useful. Some might think your scribe has political ambitions, but by his own standards he would be a poor politician. The things that are important to this Feather Duster are integrity, principles, honour and doing the right thing. These aspirational qualities may not always be attained but the wishful thinker would be a fish out of water in the wheeling and dealing that makes a politician successful in today’s climate. His adopted mantra is drawn from the Don Chipp school of elementary politics: “Keep the Bastards Honest!”
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Now is probably the time to turn towards 2018 and prepare the list of Christmas wishes for the New Year. The Feather Duster’s list includes the following: *the banning of political donations except for personal amounts capped at, say, $10,000 and reported in real time, *the end of rich and powerful interests being able to buy influence with governments for projects and undertakings which may or may not be in the public interest, *the creation of a federal anti-corruption investigative body, *the restoration of full funding for the NSW ICAC and *the compulsory release of all documents and reports relied upon by federal and state governments to justify capital expenditures of over, say, $100M. Not a long list, but one that might take a long time to achieve. Never-the-less, if you care, you try.
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Which brings us to Christmas and the New Year. The compliments of the season to all my readers, few or many. And hopefully we can all look forward to a more mature, productive 2018.
T Lobb -
Feather Duster No 3