Friday, January 14, 2011

Speak No Dribble, Hear No Dribble!



I refer you to an insightful piece by the brilliant News Limited columnist, Piers Akerman.

I was relieved to read this because I was starting to think that I was the only one who noticed the massive gap in crisis leadership skills that has been displayed in the last few days between Queensland's Premier, Anna Bligh and the PM, Julia Gillard. Fortunately Piers and a few other brilliant members of the commentariat (independent Talk Back presenters I mean) have also commented today on this glaring personality flaw displayed by our PM.

I am not a fan of Bligh or her Government, in fact it is likely that she we receive the same voter "get out of town" card at her next election as most certainly the New South Wales ALP government will also receive. BUT, during this tough time for this proud Queensland woman, we have seen her provide just the sort of leadership that you would expect from a PM.

Constant updates, in the middle of the fight always and showing a real and human side of her nature whilst co-ordinating a brilliant recovery plan. Only the opposite can be said for PM Gillard.

At best this was just another photo opportunity and her media tone and poor commitment to charity at home was enough to make this little cynical black duck wince. Wayne Swan, Peter Garret, Penny Wong and Bob Brown especially are as usual missing in action and not available for comment. "Still handing out the NO DAMS stickers Bob?"

I do think that the PM deliberately stood back from the issue so as to give Premier Bligh the chance to lift her personal poll ratings (and it will) and as far as the Labor Party line is concerned I can see why she would do that -- but still this would have been a great opportunity for her also to lift her approval figures.

Alas it appears that Miss Gillard has not learnt the lesson that former PM Rudd had to learn and that is to never take the Australian people for granted or for mugs.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Laughing in the face of Death



The Queensland floods: I am not making fun of this tragedy, let's get that straight. This natural disaster is a major concern for all Australians and any of us who are not directly effected by these floods should get down on our knees and thank the Lord above for such mercy as well as pray for those affected. Whether it is this terrible event in Queensland and Northern New South Wales or the Victorian Bush Fires or Cyclone Tracey or any one of the many, many ways that nature has shown us just how small we really are and remind us that we can not control the weather or prevent such fury from being unleashed on the land, we will prevail in the end.

After saying that and feeling most humble I am will now pump out my chest and state that in all of the above mentioned human disasters there has always been one thing that mother nature can not take from us, no matter how hard she tries and that is our spirit of human survival: That in-built human desire to overcome adversity and to help our fellow man and woman and child to find their feet again and get back to the job of living.

One way that Aussies do that very well is via their sense of humour. Be it war or acts of God, our ability to laugh in the face of a fight has always been a huge part of out human soul and the Australian psyche and that is what makes us different from all other living beings on this great planet.

We can ague until the cows come home about how many political leaders throughout our short history have neglected to look far enough into the future to prevent this regular event in Queensland from touching so many lives and we can hope that just maybe this time one of them will be motivated enough to put into place infrastructural designs that will protect human lives and property in the future? but until then we do what we do best, we survive and just get on with living.