WOOLEY CHARLES Silly debates over cable cars instead of education put the mania into Tas

A fter a lifetime of studying our patch close up and from afar, I have finally come to the conclusion that Tasmania is the Silly Isle and its capital is the silliest city I have ever encountered. Getting far away is necessary for perspective. Most of our people stay put and so have no idea how totally flipped out the joint really is.

Remember it wasn’t until you escaped home you realised how crazy your parents were? Get out as soon as you can kiddies or you’ll end up mad as your oldies, writing demented letters to the editor suggesting delusional solutions to traffic congestion, aquaculture, homelessness and the route of the bloody cable car.

The latter, of course, is emblematic of our madness. As far as I can see, we had no problem with our perfectly adequate mountain apart from the fact that it’s not very high and too flat on top. But I didn’t know that until I saw the Alps, the Rockies and Himalayas. You are fortunate I didn’t come home with the vision of adding a couple of thousand feet in the form of a more shapely snow-capped summit. Adrian Bold, a quite nice and polite young man who also had the good sense to leave the River City early, returned with an offthe-wall scheme in his briefcase and unfortunately he didn’t keep it to himself, and now we are involved in a civil war. Thanks, Adrian.

The point is the cable car doesn’t matter at all. It may be a silly idea, though some of you might think the opposition is at least as silly, but in the silly society that’s how things go. In Jonathan Swift’s satire Gulliver’s

Travels the islands of Lilliput and Blefescu are at war over which end of a boiled egg should be opened. Like us, they should have had bigger things to worry about. They had shrunk to one-twelfth the height of normal human beings and could be carried off by a seagull. We have shrunk our literacy and numeracy (and maybe our brains) to the point where our people are the most uneducated in the Commonwealth. In Gulliver’s Lilliput, opening the egg at the little end would put the world to rights. In our Lilliput, a cable car will fix all our problems. I know you’d rather not, but think back to the last state election. The Government scraped in with a majority of one (for now at least) with cable cars the issue, along with keeping pokies in pubs. Tell me that’s not silly and trivial when you think of our real problems.

But the silly society elects silly leadership and so silliness begets even more silliness. Next thing you know they’re burying live artists in the main street. But that’s too silly even for this column.

Our island has 29 local councils, a rort we are silly to put up with. So silly we can’t do the math, which would reveal we are the most over-governed people in Australia, and the poorest, with least capacity to pay our soaring rates bills. Get the connection?

Glenorchy doesn’t need a local council. Certainly not the one they had. Apparently within the outfit a so-called ‘loyal trio’ shamelessly promoted their own financial interests. The Integrity Commissioner Richard Bingham estimated “conflicts of interest” and “attempts to improperly gain pecuniary benefits” would reach $1 million. But apparently no charges will be laid against the trio while the poor old Glenorchy ratepayers might have to suffer a 19 per cent rate increase to pay the bill.

Now things get even sillier. Apparently bad eggs weren’t to blame. Truth was the council hadn’t been praying enough. The customary Christian prayer had failed to induce probity so now Glenorchy is spiritually hedging its bets, beefing up the power of prayer by adding the presence of a rabbi and an imam to council meetings. Really. I’m not making this up.

A priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into the Glenorchy Council. The priest asks, “Hey Rabbi, how would you deal with this shameless misbehaviour?”

“Well Father, where I come from they would be afflicted first with a plague of toads and then of boils, and if that doesn’t work perhaps the death of eldest sons might bring them to their senses.”

The priest shudders, “A bit extreme don’t you think, Rabbi? But now imam, please tell us how your faith would curtail such sinfulness?”

“The tolerance of abomination is the great weakness of democracy and will surely bring its destruction. The Koran says, ‘As to the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands, a punishment by way of example, from Allah’.” Now it is the priest’s turn. “Rabbi, Imam, yours are harsh proscriptions and while I’m sure the Glenorchy ratepayers would approve, beyond the shire these would seem cruel and unnatural punishments.”

The others demand, “Then Father what would your faith suggest?”

The priest replies, “Gentlemen, we would do what we always do with clergy who stray from the fold. We shall transfer them to a different diocese. We have 28 other local council areas to choose from and I have no qualms about dispatching them immediately to somewhere suitable.” “Where?” demands the rabbi. “Queenstown,” the priest smiles. “Brilliant,” cries the rabbi. “Forty years in the wilderness, but without the manna and quail.”

“Allah be praised, Father!” cries the imam. “And you Christians think that we are cruel!”