Flashback from the 1990s

Memories of the 1990s. A political highlight of a quick visit to Melbourne this week was to listen to some old friends speculating about the forthcoming Victorian election and reminding me that John Brumby in a former life was replaced as leader of the parliamentary Labor Party because his colleagues believed he was not a winner. A largely unknown Steve Bracks was given the job in 1999 and pulled off that unexpected defeat of Jeff Kennett. Now Brumby is going to have a second go at proving he can be a vote winner after all (his first as Opposition leader in 1993 was something of a disaster), this time as Premier.  But, these normally politically savvy friends of mine mused, nothing about Brumby really has changed. His manner is not naturally appealing to many people and they see it as no accident that as the election gets closer the gap between Labor and Liberal is narrowing. We will see.

Why oh why oh why oh! That political operatives find it necessary to write down details of their clever schemes never ceases to amaze me. Absolutely no good can ever come of leaving a record of dirty tricks, which is why I was unable to help the custodians of the Bob Hawke Library when they requested that I pass over to them my diaries and notes from election campaigns long gone. There never were any such records.

The latest victims of the stupid practice of putting something down on paper are the staff of Victorian planning minister Simon Madden, who accidentally sent an email to the ABC outlining plans to use the cover of a public consultation to knock back plans to build a massive 25-storey tower as part of the Windsor Hotel’s re-build. The Herald Sun reports this morning that the spin doctor’s cheat sheet also included plans for  Madden to set-up a misleading association with Essendon Football Club to promote the government’s much-trumpeted respect agenda.

The authors should be dismissed immediately and not for their plans but for ever putting them on the record.

Surely not the PM’s staff too. As I search for an explanation of Kevin Rudd’s fulsome mea culpa, the thought does occur to me that perhaps there is a bit of paper somewhere that someone is afraid may turn up in the wrong hands showing that the PM was indeed deeply involved in the insulation policy decision making. Bettter to be open and honest before disclosure than after. Just a thought.

Real affirmative action. The Government of India is on the verge of taking some real action to boldly increase the number of women in the nation’s federal and state parliaments. It is preparing a constitutional amendment, for which the Times of India believes it has the two-thirds parliamentary majority to enact, providing that one third of all MPs be women.

Nick Cave a winner. I notice that Nick Cave achieved the distinction of being on the short-list for the Bad S-x in Fiction Awards of 2009 run  by that wonderful journal the Literary Review. Cave’s book The Death of Bunny Monroe (Canongate) contains these memorable lines:

Bunny lies on his back on the sofa. He is n-ked and his clothes sit in sad, little heaps on the living room floor. River, also n-ked, straddles him and with enormous verve moves piston-like over his unresponsive body. Bunny’s considerable member retains a certain curiosity — it must be said — but the rest of him feels wholly disembodied, as if he attaches no intrinsic value to the matter at hand. He feels like the flenched blubber a butcher may trim from a choice fillet of English beef and, as the song says, he has never felt this way before …

The winning description goes on a  bit from there but would require too many Xs to pass those email security checks but you can get the flavour from the bit above. It is always good to see another Australian pseud  making good.

Thailand’s decision day. A striking front page this morning in Bangkok’s daily The Nation previewing the decision due this afternoon at 4.30 our time by the Thai Supreme Court on whether the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will keep or lose his fortune.