Menzies House

Indonesia bullies and Australia genuflects

D uring the 1960s and 1970s Aussies developed a rite of passage. It was a sort of walk-about, a Pied Piper compulsion to explore the world. The curious were beckoned to new horizons beyond the isolated realm of the antipodes that still suffered the stigma of exclusion from the cultures—the affectation of European superiority.

Aussie pilgrims trekking the northern hemisphere soon learned that the word “Australia” invoked admiration and respect in general. “Very brave, very good soldiers,” was the usual epithet respectfully fielded by those nations we went to visit, to observe and to further understand our heritage and that of others.

Travelling Australians were welcomed and respected by the people of other nations. They liked out friendliness, our laid-back attitude, our sense of fun and most of all, our matter of fact straightforwardness.

However, toadyism from our succession of spineless politicians soon destroyed Australia’s international reputation and taught the lesser nations that all they had to do to get their way was yell and scream. We apologise for everything, we write a few cheques, promise more and accept a steady course of abuse into the bargain.

Indonesia has not forgotten Australia’s successful military action in East Timor and many Australians have not forgotten the murdering of five Aussie journalists by Indonesian soldiers and the denials and cover-ups by both governments, disgusting as it was. Australia’s lack of support for its own sent the signal that we were weak.

Crocker's outback

Chilling out in the Australian outback is a getaway from the banality of political machinations. In the world of IT, “chilling out” is akin to deleting the mind’s hard-drive—purging the  brain of superfluous spam, returning speed and clarity of function—I think!

Enjoyment is assumed, sans permission, and like a welcomed holiday, enjoyment comes easy and right is at one. Remarkably, from the murk of urban profanity perception is aroused, simply by sitting long enough, and patient enough to observe simplicity itself. Thus interspersed with unfettered imagination and a liberal dollop of fantasy, the whole experience tastes like cold, thick, cream drizzled upon fresh strawberries that bleed their sweetness to a swirling pink that eludes the finest hue on the artist’s palette. All of it far more palatable and easier to comprehend than any polly-babble from an elected one’s muzzle.

Escaping to the “outback” for some is met within a hundred kilometres of major hubs—or less. Where coin-operated BBQs caked with cremated guck in suburban parks are remote enough—close to toilets and pizza shop. Others, I suppose the dullards of modern youth, seek the outback for hunting—to experience the difference between a manicured T-bone from the supermarket and biting on a bullet in the stringy leg of a murdered roo. These high-powered warriors from moving vehicles kill mail boxes and road signs, and too often a grazier’s livestock that meander too close to roadside boundaries.

Study rorts and Simon's revenge

There is much ado about perk-rorting politicos lately. People must have terrible memories because parliamentary “study trip” rip-offs seem more important to lazy and boring media hacks. We all know politicians from every camp are creative accountants. But study trip costs barely ripple the seismograph on megabucks scale.

Last year, about 21 Labor ministers were asked by the SMH if they had travel plans for Christmas and the summer break. More than half said they would just hang about home and baste on an Aussie beach. Patriotism with taxpayers’ dough in mind—of course?

But that inalienable rort was recently closed in lieu of a grander paycheque, even for the rank incompetent, that made up for any loss, and then some. That administrative charade was total bull designed to fool the gullible—it worked with Fairfax.

Study trips are tradition. Take good-old Craig Thomson, remember him? The Labor protector of AWU workers’ union dues now facing 174 charges before the court? He got nailed for his study trip to America and Europe, about $24,000 for two weeks—$1,700 a day. To justify such trips there is a requirement, and this is what it says, in part:

David Suzuki and Q&A—who conned who?

For a long time Q&A with Tony Jones has been seen as just another ABC production of farce at the majority of taxpayers’ expense. And no finer example was the recent waste of one hour in a person’s life was the occasion of Canada’s global warming guru Dr David Suzuki.

Skating skilfully in and out of the ABC’s editorial policy, Q&A claim to have a balanced audience in equal concoctions of Greens, Labor, and Liberals. Even a lobotomised monkey could fool the selection process about their political bent as they do resulting in a predictable majority of salivating hyenas programmed to dine on conservatives before they utter a word.

Not present that night was the customary “ABC balance” of five from the left versus two from the right as the panel was of Jones and Suzuki alone. Bill Gates was the only other guest to enjoy that importance. The subject was Suzuki’s pet income generator, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the mob that assures us that the planet is stuffed and every bastard on it will be broiled alive or drowned in rising seas.

Abbott’s new broom is a wire brush

In August last year I attended a talk by Tony Abbott in Sydney. Aside from the snappy sound bite for the evening news, Abbott settles from an evasive and indecisive stutterer to a rather smooth orator certainly on top of his game. That surprised me and prompted the column: Abbott—more than a 10-second news clip.

Abbott’s deliberation was a likely safeguard to avoid the relentless and spiteful attacks upon his character in parliament by an orchestrated chorus of shrill fishwives and other rusted-on Laborites. Even the Coalition’s resounding victory has done nothing to stop the new opposition’s dog-tired assault upon the man who caused them to haemorrhage so profusely at the polling booth.

Just a day or two after the election, Labor resumed blame upon Abbott for more illegal boat arrivals and has continued to do so confirming an inability to recognise the failed tactic that damaged them so badly. The matter that those boats were already en route during Rudd’s reign exemplifies Labor’s disconnect from reality.

Living high on the hog

Sometimes we need a respite from the madness of political confusion. Food soothes the soul and makes everything right with the world. It's good to dream. 

An often-asked question! How does one live like a king on the money of others? Become a food writer and restaurant critic, that’s how.

This is a delicious story about the famous Beaver Club in Montreal. The club is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel with its members flung the world over. They answer the call to hedonism each year in an evening of tradition and gastronomic excess. Perhaps not quite to the same excesses of its founding members.

James McGill, Thomas Frobisher and Charles Chaboillez were among those founding members of the Beaver Club in 1785. It began with 19 men of exceptional fortitude. Prerequisite was that each man had wintered in the treacherous Canadian North West and must be capable of enduring social events of bacchanalian measure.

Politicians and fishermen—their similarity

The most tedious election in history is over—an anti-climax for most and a reprieve from politics is sought by many. The following may resonate with some readers.

Let us now turn to the rites of spring; that mysterious awakening of the soil when life explodes, fertility begs in warm, sunny days, extended evenings and freedom from heavy clothing.

I look to my camper and vow to use it more. Go to the Murrumbidgee and get serious about fishing perhaps? Ha! Even as a kid I couldn’t sit still long enough to attract a fish—there were more exciting things for a boy to do—like creating mayhem.

“It’s so relaxing,” they say about sitting in a boat or lazing idly upon a riverbank contemplating…contemplating what, I ask? The bloody mosquitoes sucking life through your little finger the only flesh you dare expose, on a day of 45-degrees? Or, sitting in a tinnie over the horizon being baked alive, trying to make out it’s all good fun and hoping you don’t drown under that rogue wave, every seventh is supposed to be a possible killer wave—rock fishermen learn that—many didn’t.

Political campaigns today and tomorrow

Presumed to be of national importance to us by the ABC just days before polling was a cooking contest of sorts when Rudd and Abbott on different days cooked something in their kitchens while being surreptitiously grilled by Kitchen Cabinet host and Fairfax scribe Ms Crabb.

Slowly but surely Australian politics pursue the American presidential election style of leader adulation. The man is all—policies be damned.

The ABC cosy kitchen clutch paid for by you involved the families of our two major leaders. Why not, election 2013 has been an all-in-the-family affair?