Howard, AC
Howard was awarded an AC in the Queens Birthday Weekend Honours and Awards and I’m pleased for two reasons.
For a start I believe he deserves an award. He was part of a team that brought us out of the financial abyss the ALP left us in; set us up to gain the benefits of the commodity boom; enhanced our international reputation (with governments and people who matter) and generally steered the ship in the manner and direction I would prefer. There were any amount of matters that I disagreed with over the years but I was happy with the general direction.
However, the main reason I am happy he has been so honoured is that it winds up the Left as witnessed by this comment at LP
Doubt very much that Rudd is going to be arraigned for war crimes at the Internatuional Crimimal Court, the way Howard will be. So he won’t have to hand any gongs back, the way Howard will. Apart from which, apart from his forthcoming war crimes trial, the sad, publicity-hungry little fart is irrelevant. With a little bit of luck and even more courage rhan I think he’s actually got,, Rudd might get rid of everything bad and evil the little pr*ck did over the past 11 years. Though I doubt it.Does Paul Burns, the author of this strange alignment and sequence of words, actually believe what he writes? One can only wonder. Mark Bahnisch seems to think the fact that Paul Keating didn’t get an award is relevant and maybe he suggests that Howard shouldn’t have accepted his AC because Keating didn’t. Doesn’t compute with me. Keating is one-off weirdo who actually did the country considerable damage and he was possibly concerned that an image of the medal may have been impressed on his forehead by all those voters with baseball bats in hand looking to get at him. While Keating refused his, Kelty didn’t and I for one don’t deny him the honour and recognition but then I never managed to develop ‘hatred’ into such an art form as did the left. Howard, AC…has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
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I don’t begrudge little Johhny his gong. I hope it compensates somewhat for losing both the election and Bennelong.
There were many other deserving recipients, amongst them Di Thorley (ex Lord Mayor of Toowoomba).
Di (who now is mine host at a pub in Franklin, Tasmania) is one of the gutsiest and most down-to-earth local pollies I’ve encountered. I’ve met a few, having lived and worked in various places in the South East corner as well as Roma, Townsville and Mount Isa.
It took a lot of guts to take on the Toowoomba blue-rinse establishment – which she did – and run a reformist agenda through the council which sent a breath of fresh air through corridors previously occupied by vested real estate interests and those with a deep sense of entitlement.
She dragged Toowoomba kicking and screaming into the twenty first century, but got rolled on the recycled water issue by a combination of big money and small minds. The citizens of Toowoomba will be feeling that loss in the hip pocket for a long time.
The delicious irony of course, is that said citizens will be drinking recycled water now that the South-East Water grid is being developed, despite howls of rage from CADS (Citizens Against Drinking Sewerage).
Di used to visit my school accompanied by a minder whose chief task was to make sure that didn’t swear in front of the kids – something that she was known to do when confronted with something she felt strongly about. She had strong feelings about kids with disabilities, so she did a bit of swearing at the school. There were also tears – again genuine, when encountering our kids.
She was a regular visitor, and after a while the kids got used to her language, and she did a better job of containing it, so it was never an issue. It used to offend the blue-rinse set more than somewhat, however. She never missed a sports day or an end-of-year function. Before her time, no Mayor had ever darkened the door.
She did more in a practical sense for these kids and their families than any civic leader in this town before or since.
Perhaps that’s why (amongst many other reasons) she got the gong.
Yes, spot on, he did deserve one, served the country very well for a long time. To paraphrase a former UK politician, the words ‘you’ve never had it so good’ will seem all the more appropriate by the time Rudd and Co get through with us.
Dear Kev
Not suprised that Shifty got a gong – I am sure he is sad that he could be knighted by the Queen.
How about the abuse of Human rights as highlighted by Amnesty International, and I suspect once a proper investigation of AWB occurs he will be found to have directly funded Saddam. He deserves no award.