Dear Jeff

Hag

JEFF Kennett must have rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He must have clapped his hands in disbelieving joy. For there, marching towards him, head humbly bowed, hands in supplicatory position was Paul Lennon.

But it wasn’t the obeiscent position of the Lennon body which so warmed the Hawks President. It was the $15 million … oh let’s call it $20 mill when yuh chuck in the gate receipts and paraphernalia sales … carried by Tasmania’s Great Throwback Leader, intent on the nation’s smallest, poorest state becoming the nation’s biggest sports sponsor … of an out of state team, of course.

Have you got a deal for me, intoned, begged, pleaded The Great Throwback. Please, please, take my taxpayers’ money and spend, spend, spend it on your footy team. Oh, they so deserve it. Far more than our hospitals. Far more than our schools. For you are Can-Do Royalty … you are my inspiration, He on whom I have modelled myself.

And it will be good for The New Tasmania. Here is an an instant Bread and Circus to keep the Northern masses distracted from my other great Throwback project … the world’s cleanest, greenest pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. I’m just like you Jeff. I Can Do! You watch me build that mill.
And all of this was accompanied by the Great Sell. Most recently as a coupla of months ago, the Mercury led its back page with a eulogistic essay on the benefits to Tasmania of the “Tassie Hawks”.

But, now, the truth is trickling out … as anyone familiar with the Throwback strategy of spin at the expense of truth … knew it would.

Today the Mercury leads its back page with the revelation that the $15 million, five year deal isn’t all that it seems. Oh shock, horror,! Really! You mean the Great Throwback wasn’t telling the whole truth?

Says the Mercury’s Brett Stubbs: “Despite promises last year by Premier Paul Lennon that the four matches in 2008 would involve two Melbourne-based clubs, the AFL allocated Adelaide (round four), Port Adelaide (round eight), the Western Bulldogs (round 10) and Brisbane (round 19) as Hawthorn’s four opponents at Aurora Stadium next year.

…

“When Mr Lennon announced the Tasmanian Government’s $15 million five-year, four-roster-games-a-season deal with Hawthorn in September 2006, he said: “This will involve at least two roster matches per year between the Hawks and Melbourne-based AFL sides.”

Now this is where it gets really rich. God, they must think we’ve got no heads at all, let alone two: For the AFL’s Patrick Keane is then quoted as saying no promises have been broken because South Melbourne relocated to Sydney and Brisbane was a merger between the Bears and Fitzroy. “The contract says they have got to play any two of the 11 original Victorian based clubs. Sydney and Brisbane count in that!”

Ohhh, plllllease!

They sure saw Paulie coming. He’s not very good with finer detail. After all as he was squired by PBL in the six-star Crown ready to sign on to Betfair, he eschewed the champagne for the beer, mate!

And it gets worse than that. The Man Who Came Down in The Last Shower last December spruiked the benefits of having four AFL games in Launceston each year: “The average estimated interstate visitor attendance for the three games surveyed against non-Victorian clubs was just over 3000. The average for the two games surveyed against Melbourne-based clubs was just under 4800.” So what now, Great Leader?

And it gets even worse. The Libs’ Jeremy Rockliff points out that only one rostered Aurora game will be broadcast free to air, “denying many potential viewers around the nation the opportunity to see the Hawks playing at their Tasmanian home ground.”

But our Jeffrey Kennett sure is in clover. Well Clover Hill actually. And would you like some Tasmanian smoked salmon with that? Oh, take the whole bloody state!