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The GG: from chinless lords to local folk
Volume 28 #34
February 4, 2014
The last lifeboat Imagine a liner which crashes into an iceberg and sinks. Only one lifeboat is left floating after the disaster. Imagine the distress and anger of some of the passengers in the lifeboat when others start cutting up the vessel in order to make a fire which will, temporarily, make them warm and comfortable. It’s a simple analogy but true enough for our situation on Earth, even though a cosmic über-liner never existed. You don’t need to be an ardent tree-hugger, or even like the outdoors, to realise that if we don’t have an intact biosphere we are all royally screwed. However, in the short time humans have been on our 4.5 billion-year-old planet, a whole lot of lifeboat-burning has been going on. Some of those with a vested interest in lifeboat-burning actively encourage others to do so and even attempt to obscure the fact that the lifeboat is now leaking. Take for example the infamous American profiteers the Koch Brothers, Charles and David, who have spent millions muddying the waters over the impact and causes of climate change. Both these gentlemen have children, but seem optimistically unconcerned about their children’s children’s futures. Other optimists include the bright engineers and scientists who hope to move us to another planet or stick an umbrella in front of the sun. Neither of these things is likely to happen any time soon, and the promised imaginary afterlifes of various death cults aren’t much help either in our current predicament. So it’s down to each of us to try to keep the lifeboat afloat. Only the very pure or the very poor are truly respectful of resources but we all can do the obvious things to make a smaller impact on Earth. I will be gone by 2050 when the excrement will be well and truly impacting upon the airconditioning, but I still feel a responsibility to behave in a way favourable to a beautiful planet and its gorgeous wildlife – and yes, even its crazy monkeys with guns. But the way ahead, I suspect, is like sex with an echidna – difficult, painful and with a small chance of success. Michael McDonald
The Byron Shire Echo Established 1986 General Manager Simon Haslam Editor Hans Lovejoy Photographer Jeff Dawson Advertising Manager Stuart Amos Production Manager Ziggi Browning
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onservative commentators have nodded approvingly at Tony Abbott’s choice of General Peter Cosgrove as the country’s next governor-general. The prime minister, they say, is taking the traditional approach. But in fact he isn’t; Australia has no tradition of appointing a soldier as its head of state. While many of our past viceroys have seen military service at some time in their lives, there has only ever been one who was a full time member of the forces, and he was only the one before last. No, the traditional approach would have been to appoint not a soldier, but either a lawyer or a politician. And even that tradition only goes back to 1965. In the early days, when our G-G was actually chosen by the English monarch (who now simply rubber-stamps the prime minister’s nomination) the post was reserved for junior nobility with too much time on their hands; most of them could fairly be described as aristocratic remittance men, shipped out in the hope that a spell in the colonies might give them something useful to do rather than frittering away what was left of the family fortune. Few were men of any kind of distinction and many looked as though they had lost their chins in unfortunate breeding accidents. They were seldom any problem for the government of the day, and thus it was something of a shock when, in 1931, the Labor prime minister James Scullin demanded that the job go to an Australian – the highly distinguished politician and jurist (see, traditional) Sir Isaac Isaacs. King George V protested; he had never even heard of the
man. And besides, he had prepared a list of his own. Surely, he added sarcastically, all the previous palace appointments as heads of the Commonwealth and the states had not been total failures? But Scullin would not budge, and eventually, the King surrendered: ‘I have been for 20 years a monarch, and I hope I have always been a constitutional one, so as a constitutional monarch I must, Mr Scullin, accept your advice.’ But Isaacs was an aberration; the conservatives brought back the chinless lords, and it was not until 1947 that another
Peter Cosgrove, with a distinguished record of service both military and civilian, should prove to be a popular choice. by Mungo MacCallum Labor prime minster, Ben Chifley, repeated the performance with another monarch, George VI. This time the appointment was an unashamedly political one: the former New South Wales Labor premier, Sir William McKell. When McKell’s second term expired in 1953 Robert Menzies took the easy way out and a couple more footloose viscounts occupied Yarralumla before Menzies realised that the post could have its uses, one of which would be to dispose of a political rival, Richard Casey. Casey had all the paper qualifications; he actually held a seat in the British House of Lords. His full title was: His Excellency the Right Honourable the Lord Casey, KG, GCMG, CH, DSO, MC, KStJ, PC – not exactly one of the boys. But he proved the perfect bridge to the modern practice of automati-
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cally appointing an Australian to the top job. Even when Prince Charles was briefly mooted as an occupant, there was no going back. But with a couple of exceptions, the appointments have been almost as predictable. Casey was succeeded by another politician, Sir Paul Hasluck. Gough Whitlam would have kept him on, but when Hasluck insisted on leaving, Whitlam approached the prominent Melbourne businessman, Kenneth Meyer. Meyer refused and Whitlam toyed briefly with the idea of someone radical: the
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Cape Byron, Overlooking Julian rocks and Little Wategos Beach. Photo Ziggi Browning
Outlaw billy cart gangs infiltrate the Bangalow Billy Cart Derby. Photo Jeff Dawson
A beautiful part of the world – worth protecting. Photo Eve Jeffery
Icecream as facepaint experimentation. Photo Jeff Dawson
Woman’s aura becomes visible in Byron Bay sunset. Photo Ziggi Browning
The inaugural Boomerang Festival was a flaming success. Photo Eve Jeffery
Beau Young and his board check the break. Photo Eve Jeffery
Arrrr! The pirates have landed at the Brunswick Heads Rod Run. Photo Ziggi Browning
‘The Flycycle’ by Roundabout Theatre (www.roundabout.net.au) getting ready for the Mullum Music Festival. Photo Jeff Dawson
Michael Franti’s hokey-pokey gets out of hand at the Bluesfest. Photo Jeff Dawson
Even pink is permissible at the Living Earth Festival, Mullumbimby. Photo Jeff Dawson
Crop circle aliens overshoot the paddocks at Byron Bay. Photo Jeff Dawson
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Selected slices of local life by The Echo’s photographers. Easy to read and write on Monday to Sunday format. All Byron Shire festivals, events and markets listed plus school holidays, schoolies dates, moon phases and more!
poet Judith Wright was mentioned. But in the end he was talked into following a more conventional course and appointed a judge – the wrong judge, Sir John Kerr. To aid the healing process Malcolm Fraser recruited another lawyer, albeit an academic one – Sir Zelman Cowan, who was followed by a judge, Sir Ninian Stephen. Bob Hawke used the posting to pay back his rival Bill Hayden before going to yet another judge, Sir William Deane. John Howard tried to break the pattern with the highly controversial archbishop of Sydney, Peter Hollingworth; when that ended in tears, he turned to the army for Major-General Sir Michael Jeffrey, whom he ruthlessly upstaged for his entire term. And then Kevin Rudd gave us our first woman, Quentin Bryce – who was also a lawyer. Change,
apparently, is to be gradual. Peter Cosgrove, with a distinguished record of service both military and civilian, and a down-to-earth attitude, should prove to be a popular choice; the worst anyone seems to know about him is that he served on the board of Qantas and did TV advertisements for Victoria Bitter – neither exactly hanging offences. There has also been the suggestion that he may exacerbate tensions with Indonesia because he was the commander of the INTERFET forces in East Timor following the independence referendum of 1999, but it would appear that Jakarta has plenty of better reasons to be miffed at Canberra than the appointment of a ceremonial head of state. There is little to complain about; but there isn’t much to get excited about either. Cosgrove’s appointment was predictable (and widely predicted) and unimaginative. Oddly enough the states have done better; just from memory, in recent times we have had as state governors several businessmen, a number of women, two diplomats, a couple of athletes, a scientist, a medico, a philosopher, and an Aboriginal pastor. There are doubtless others and it would be nice if Canberra could be so inclusive. Of course, it would be nicer still if we could dispense with the need to have a stand-in for the British monarch altogether and appoint our own head of state. And it must be said that if we ever do, someone with the wide appeal and acceptance of Peter Cosgrove would make a pretty good first president. Q See Mungo’s video at
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10 February 4, 2014 The Byron Shire Echo
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au