Readers of the national broadsheet The Weekend Australian may have noticed that its stable of 379 political commentators has been joined in recent weeks by former Queensland premier Peter Beattie.
Mr Beattie’s latest column at the weekend was devoted to his view, whatever that’s worth, on the tit-for-tat leaking within the federal Labor Government that has seemingly stalled PM Julia Gillard’s campaign for the election of her government. On that point, let me be detour for just a moment. You see, since calling the election Ms Gillard and others in the Labor camp have been talking about the need to “re-elect” the Gillard government.
Well, call me pedantic, but to my mind the Gillard government has never been elected, so how can it be re-elected? Now that’s off my chest, let me continue.
Mr Beattie saw fit to hold forth on the problems of leaking in politics. He should know all about leaking, one of his former staffers remarked to me over drinks at a ladies lunch on Sunday.
Well, yes, it did occur to me that when in the premier’s office, as a backbench MP, and as state secretary of the Queensland branch of the Labor Party, Mr Beattie did have somewhat of a reputation as a leaker. In fact some who knew him and his modus operandi well used to say that rather than leaker, he was a running tap.
It is actually a tad sad to see so much space in The Australian and its weekend edition handed over to so many commentators. There are just so any of them. The 379 number quoted at the top of the previous item is probably a little exaggerated. It may be closer to 320 or so.
Nevertheless, from my reading of them, not many have anything new or insightful to say. Most a fairly predictable or, like Mr Beattie, fairly pedestrian. So few of them have ever caused me to sit bolt upright and say, “I never thought of it like that”, or “That puts things in a whole new light”.
And as for The Australian's longtime commentator Paul Kelly, the sooner he hangs up his shingle the sooner we can start cutting our greenhouse gas emissions by saving all those trees that are felled and processed to make the paper used to print his lengthy think pieces.
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Here’s a quick two-part quiz for you. Check out the Brisbane City Council parking sign (pictured above) snapped in Brunswick Street at New Farm. Now imagine you are driving your car on a Saturday or Sunday down the street some time between 4pm and 6pm.
OK, so here is the first part of the quiz. Are you allowed to park to the left of the sign for a few minutes just to pop into a nearby shop, or will you be running the risk of being fined and towed away? Now, for the second part of the quiz. As a ratepayer can you work out why it seems so difficult to get a simple bloody parking sign right?
We wish we could bring you the answers but sadly, just like you, we don’t know them either.
Donal’s Go Card gripe rings true
I got this thoughtful email from Donal O’Sullivan of New Farm that’s worth sharing with you.
“In your column, you have written about how visitors to Brisbane will have difficulty getting on our buses without a Go card. I have previously written to the minister several times about the inadequacies of the go card, but to no effect.
“I attach a copy of my recent letter to the minister dated 19 March for your information, in which I mention among other things the difficulty I will have when my grandchildren from NSW come to visit, and I cannot take them anywhere on the bus because there will no longer be any paper ticket that I can buy.
"But both the minister and Translink do not seem to care about little unimportant seniors like me and my grandchildren on holidays.
"We have got to keep hounding our politicians until they provide an appropriate and satisfactory ticketing service on public transport to the community, instead of ripping us off left right and centre.”
