And hats off to the lot of them
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday September 12, 2009
THE hat is back. The fashion-conscious will grumble that this piece of news is sooooo last week, but they grumble about most things. This week's news, darlings, goes much deeper. It concerns those who have gained hats or lost hats.Graham Richardson has gained a few, notably as a lobbyist for a handful of developers. How we've missed Richo. Once the underbelly and overbelly of the Labor Party, he has been sadly quiet in recent years.Richo emerged on Sunday night, wearing his lobbyist hat, on Channel Nine news. He came out to bury Michael McGurk, not to praise him. And he came to bury the significance of a tape made by McGurk before he was shot dead at his Cremorne home on Thursday last week.Richo said he had heard the tape, which contained the voices of his client, the developer Ron Medich, and McGurk. But Richo dismissed it as a ham-fisted attempt to extort Medich of $8 million, and he reckoned the supposed juicy bits on the recording €“ said to expose corruption in Labor ranks €“ were inaudible. Much ado about nothing. It was good of Richo to relieve the investigators of so much work.McGurk, of course, wore many hats. He was the 45-year-old developer and lender of resort; he was the success story from a Glasgow slum, real name Mick Rushford, real age 51; he was the director of 28 failed or deregistered companies; he was a standover man, fixer and debt collector; he was, according to friends and his priest, a generous man and doting father.It recalls what Mark Antony said of another assassination victim, Julius Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones."NOT A HAPPY DELLAFrom underbelly to innerbelly, the Herald's Good Food Guide awards on Monday night dispensed hats to NSW's top nosheries, and confiscated hats from those that slipped a nosh. John Della Bosca, who's slipped quite a few notches, blew his top that day when he arrived at his old ministerial office to collect his belongings. Security guards were blocking his path and that of staff who've lost their jobs now that he's quit as health minister, forced out by the two-hatted 26-year-old who exposed their affair. She was Kate Neill to Della, Harmony O'Neal to others.FLAMING WITCHESWitches, hatted or not, should be on guard. Pastor Danny Nalliah, from the Catch the Fire Ministries, is convinced that witchcraft covens are cursing Federal Parliament, "the heartbeat of Australia where decisions are being made that affect the whole nation".A recent school excursion to the national capital's Mount Ainslie found blood splattered on a concrete slab.Nalliah has accepted this as evidence of a witchly ritual. He alludes to the sacrifice of babies in his newsletter."I believe God has given us a strategic spiritual warfare assignment to take back the high places in our nation," he writes.To this end, he has summoned Christians to the mountain €“ or any other immoral high ground €“ on Saturday, October 17, to help vanquish the witches. "Will there be burnings?" a contributor to the Riot ACT web forum asks. "Could be fun €“ do you bring your own marshmallows for toasting?"IT'S ON THE HOUSEApparently without the pastor's help, the Parliament drove out a demon on Tuesday. Since 1992, Australia has been sending refugees a bill to cover the cost of their mandatory detention. Massoud Shams's bill was $268,000, which can't have helped the Iranian refugee's depression after four years in detention. Judith Troeth wore two hats that day: that of Liberal senator and that of elected human with a conscience. She crossed the floor to vote with the Government as it abolished the wretched billing system. Malcolm Turnbull, reportedly, was not unhappy about the vote. Like-minded Libs arranged to be absent or abstained. This led to a snide suggestion, from within their ranks, that they were not so much two-hatted as two-faced.Massoud Shams, in any case, was relieved. "I live in a country which is fair," he said. It would be fairer if the major parties allowed more conscience votes.Family First's Steve Fielding, who voted with the Government on this matter, took a braver stand on the same day. After repeatedly referring to "physical" rather than fiscal policy, Fielding revealed why he was a serial mangler of the language. He had childhood learning difficulties that haunted him to this day. Fielding has risen above them. Some people, like Kyle Sandilands, never learn.MOUTH WIDE OPEN2DAY FM threw Sandilands off air, again, on Wednesday. The serial boofhead had suggested Magda Szubanski, daughter of a Polish freedom fighter, could be "skinny" if only she was put in a concentration camp.Renee Geyer explained how unfunny it was. The singer's grandparents died in Nazi gas chambers. Her mother was in concentration camps for about two years. "And, yes, everybody was very skinny," she told 3AW. "They were like skeletons."UNBEKNOWN KNOWNSThe NSW Parliament was a better source of comedy. The National Party member for Murray Darling, John Williams, reckoned he saw a man €“ who may or may not have been Michael McGurk €“ enter Parliament two days before the murder.This man had said he had information that could bring down two ministers. Security staff could not recall the visit and there was no CCTV footage to support it. Mr Williams said: "If that cop says he doesn't remember it, he's a bloody wanker."Nathan Rees reckoned the push for an upper house inquiry into the McGurk affair was "absurd" until the Opposition got the numbers, with the help of the Shooters Party, and Labor thought it was a good idea. The Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally, couldn't wait. "I hope the committee asks me to give evidence about a man I've never heard of, allegedly extorting people I've never met with, about land the Government didn't rezone."The Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly noted the joke doing the rounds. It can't have been a government job €“ because it happened. This reminded us of Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, when he said: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the ones we don't know we don't know."In a US poll this week, on the worst examples of the mangling of English, Rumsfeld's effort was rated in third place. He was robbed. George Bush finished in first place with his relatively eloquent: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."Steve Fielding can take heart.RAY OF NO-HOPERSBob Ellis is a master of plain English, even while reduced to scribbling for Nathan Rees. The author came to mind this week with the death of the Australian actor Ray Barrett. Ellis penned the 1983 film Goodbye Paradise, starring Barrett. Back then, Ellis attended a Q&A session after a screening, when an eager young film student asked him why Australia could not promote its films as well as America; after all, Dustin Hoffman's role in Tootsie was big news before they even started shooting.Ellis responded with words to the effect: "What are we going to do, kid? Tantalise audiences with the news that Ray Barrett will play a drunk."Barrett played an excellent drunk. And much more. Hats off to him.Who can ever forget the declaration of another plain speaker, Richo, in his book Whatever it Takes, on being a politician in the Westminster system? "You have to lie to keep your job," he wrote. "If you have to lie, it is probably a good system."Richo, you can leave your (lobbyist's) hat on.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald