Exposing our flights of fancy
THERE’S a lot of stuff I have long wanted to get off my chest.
But River City town and Dodge smaller.
So, I have nursed little grievances and let them fester until, as with a neglected public patient in the Tasmanian health system, big infections grow from small cuts.
I am now able to lance the wound because I have discovered a brilliant new journalistic device. It is called anonymity.
It is not me who will write most of this week’s column nor am I telling you who is.
I got this brilliant idea from the leading Australian philosopher Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton, the prestigious American university.
The prof and some philosopher pals are sick of being beaten up for their non-PC positions, so they are going underground to launch the Journal of Controversial Ideas, an academic publication in which contributors can remain anonymous.
“Clearly there has been an increase in various forms of behaviour that can intimidate people from writing on controversial topics,” Professor Singer told the Australian newspaper this week.
“We’ve all had personal experiences with harassment,’ he added without naming the harassers.
But we all know who they are, the legions of anonymous is a City small even cowards on social media.
I am not sure taking freedom of speech underground is such a great blow for liberty but I’m going to give it a go today. This is my last word.
From here on this column is written not by me but by The Masked Man.
PEOPLE OVER POLLIES G’day. The first thing to observe is that the media, including this column, have been such wusses during this election. You should be encouraged NOT to return a majority government in the present unnecessary farce.
The major parties should not get away with threatening you with the idea that you will be repeatedly sent back to the voting booth, like naughty children, until you get it right and vote the way they tell you.
If they cannot work with your verdict Gutwein and White should take their bats and balls and go home. Let a real leader emerge who understands the literal meaning of democracy: the rule of the people.
Remember this mob works for you. Not the other way round.
You mightn’t have noticed lately but Tassie is no longer a convict colony.
After the election result is in, if there is no clear majority the Governor Kate Warner might be called upon this time to ‘woman-up’ and instruct the party leaders to test for support on the floor of the Lower House. That’s how it’s done in the Westminster system.
It means our politicians have to play with the cards the people have dealt. Even if that causes some choking on the canapes and champagne up in the Castle on the Domain.
But if there was ever a reason to have a remote vice-regal figure representing an even more remote monarch in England, this is it.
If the Gov’ isn’t up for the job she might whistle up the Palace to send Charlie down to knock some heads together.
If he could do that, all of Tasmania would invite him to stay on.
So much for the republic Wooley bangs on about in this column.
BURSTING OUR BUBBLE What’s all this nonsense about a ‘New Zealand Travel Bubble’?
A bubble is a globule of air in a spirit-level. Appropriate really given that within a day of floating the bubble, the spirit level tilted a bit and now we are all left holding our breath.
Tasmanians are months if not much longer away from effective community vaccination. We have the nation’s worst hospital system and are completely unprepared for a return of the pandemic.
Courageous decision Premier. Especially during an election campaign.
The travel industry is the tail wagging the dog on this one. And the real bubble is the one its spokespeople are living in.
If they were not so obsessed with their own self-interest they might have noticed the pandemic is not over.
Far from it.
This week the world passed a grim milestone and recorded the highest ever infection rate. The ‘Covidometer’ has just ticked over at 5.2 million new infections for the past seven days.
The most popular premier in Australia, Western Australia’s Mark McGowan has branded calls from the travel industry and others to open our borders to international travel as, “Mad”.
He asks, “Haven’t they seen what’s happening in India? Haven’t they seen what’s happening in Britain? In France? In Brazil?”
Rhetorical question Mr. McGowan. Clearly, they have not.
The moot point here is why ever would Kiwis want to visit Tasmania, other than for family connections?
New Zealand is Tasmania on steroids. The mountains are twice as high, the scenery much grander and more dramatic.
The fishing is so much better. And they’ve got cable cars.
What Kiwis lack are big cities. Wellington and Auckland feel a lot like Hobart. Kiwis really long for the big smoke, especially Sydney, even though there are more than enough of them there already.
Kiwis want warm weather plus metropolitan and cosmopolitan sophistication.
They want to toss the beanie and are sick of eating ‘fush and chups’.
Queenstown NZ or Queenstown Tas? Milford Sound or the Sound of Chainsaws? Seriously?
I can see why Tasmanians would go to New Zealand. But the other way round? C’mon.
SHELTS’ BALD AMBITION Like Wooley, I live down what he calls ‘Dodge City way’. We don’t too much like that kind of talk but as long as he agrees to shut up about the charms of the Southern Beaches, we won’t run him out of town. But we do have enough people here already.
Though you would hardly know that from our lack of political representation down the dag-end of the sprawling Lyons electorate.
The electoral bumf presently coming through the letter box reminds us that apart from Bec White most of our Lyons politicians, especially the Libs seem to live in another country called ‘The North’.
And so, on a lighter parting note I want to talk about just one of those out-of-towners whose posters are the talk of Dodges Ferry.
Mark Shelton is reputedly ‘a really nice bloke’ from the Northern Midlands. The few people in the deep south who have met him all agree on his affability.
They also agree that he is “a bloke who seems to have trouble making up his mind.”
That’s a point beautifully illustrated by Mark Shelton’s election posters. Good branding is to choose a look and stick to it. But not for Mark. He has two different posters suggesting he is of two minds about who he really is.
In one, the mustachioed Mark is wearing an Australian bush hat. A genuine Akubra or a Chinese ripoff?
In the unlikely event I ever see him down my way I will ask.
In the other poster Mark has doffed his hat and looks for all the world like a country fairground magician. Though without the hat who knows where he keeps his rabbit?
The local consensus on the choice of posters is that Mark needs to be told his shiny dome looks better under the broad brim hat.
“Tear the other one down, Mark.”
There is so much more to be said anonymously. But sorry to say normal transmission on this column will be resumed next week. Farewell.
The Masked Writer.