The error of his ways
Yesterday was such a bad day for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten that Australia’s savvier vendors of lukewarm pies may well have bolted shop doors in expectation of a small, angry, frustrated man expanding their exposure to the saltier manifestations of the Australian argot. Cabbies might also have been well advised to take precautions. First, there was Shorten’s bitter disappointment at learning that Tony Abbott would remain Prime Minister, a further reminder that, while ABC narratives and predictions can offer great comfort to the true believer, they are very often at variance with fact.
No Malcolm Turnbull PM? What a huge disappointment — and such an inconvenience!
Shorten had a speech prepared that attacked Turnbull, and that ill-conceived choice of targets presented a dilemma. Should he file the text of his no-confidence motion in the rubbish bin or affirm environmental credentials by having it shredded and sent to Sarah Hanson-Young as nesting material?
None of that. Brave Bill, who’s not for turning, stuck resolutely to the game plan and assailed Turnbull anyway, providing a visibly more energetic PM with an opportunity to smack him around with a litany of the Labor era’s profligacy, turmoil and betrayals.
Now, courtesy of Hal G.P. Colebatch, a further reminder that, while ABC careers can blossom by virtue of audience stacking and simply making stuff up, the lot of a politician is somewhat more demanding. In reading Shorten’s eulogy to Tom Uren, the Quadrant contributor and prize-winning historian took exception to the Opposition Leader’s assertion that British prisoners of war, unlike Australian captives of the Japanese, were a nasty lot whose class divisions prompted much higher mortality rates. Here is what he asserted:
“When Tom looked at the British prisoners: the officers taking first choice of the food and accommodation– he saw the ‘law of the jungle’.
Yet, in the Australian camp – as Tom would often say, including in his maiden speech in the old chamber down the hill: The fit looked after the sick. The young looked after the old. The rich looked after the poor. For him, that was the difference.”
Writes Colebatch:
The September 2024 issue of our magazine is now available! […]
Oct 02 2024
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The September 2024 issue of our magazine is now available via our website and in newsagents. You can click here to view the contents. Digital subscribers can enjoy the PDF and online articles now, and print subscribers will receive their hardcopies in the mail.
Sep 02 2024
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The Society of Jesus mourns the death of Father Gerald (“Gerry”) O’Collins SJ AC. Fr O’Collins died in Melbourne on Thursday 22 August at the age of 93. He had been a Jesuit for 74 years and a priest for 61 years.
Aug 31 2024
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