NOSTRADAMUS
As the editor would no doubt be pleased to tell anyone inquiring, I want to write nice things about Tasmania. You see I believe in the place and when you finally get back after being away, you can get positively poetic about the beautiful views and the natural wonders of what we used to describe as “Tasmania – Treasure Island.” I decided not to write anything about politics because it appears to be a hopeless cause but I was intending to write something hopeful about the future and after all, we were supposed to be doing it better than the mainland in terms of weathering the economic storm. Of course I don’t have a great deal of time for economists en masse. Those I know personally would be people that I would happily share a meal and a decent bottle of wine. But I’m afraid to say that nothing much has happened to change my mind about economics as a quasi-academic discipline. I am still inclined to the view that it fits in the niche with astrology, alchemy and voodoo and when you consider that astrology uses computers these days, it raises that particular activity to the same level as economics.
Coming home
I HAVE been away for a while, consulting with friends and academic colleagues with the objective of writing an article on what it means to be an Australian or even a Tasmanian. Cruising back into Hobart in the dark, looking at the lights and the clear air and waiting for the pleasant thump of the undercarriage as we touched down, I felt mildly exhilarated to be at home once again. It was one of those last flights where the plane doesn’t turn round and go back to Melbourne but is readied for the redeye special next morning. I won’t criticize Virgin; my preferred airline because their hard and minimally adjustable seats are no different from any other airline travelling to and from the big island to the North. It’s a fairly short flight and if you’re lucky, the crew can be quite funny and time passes easily without having to fork up to watch TV on the little screen in front of you. The one thing you can’t do is get comfortable and sleep. At least this time, I was spared the indignity of having someone’s little darling sitting behind me kicking the seat back.
The door opened and we stepped into the night air, clean, cool and crisp and once again the feelings of returning to home and its familiarity swept over me. Well, that was the good part. I soon found out what the funny smell was when I started looking at the newspapers that had been collected for me. I’d read the Mercury online every day while away but somehow hard copy really drives the nails home, hard.
As the editor would no doubt be pleased to tell anyone inquiring, I want to write nice things about Tasmania. You see I believe in the place and when you finally get back after being away, you can get positively poetic about the beautiful views and the natural wonders of what we used to describe as “Tasmania – Treasure Island.” I decided not to write anything about politics because it appears to be a hopeless cause but I was intending to write something hopeful about the future and after all, we were supposed to be doing it better than the mainland in terms of weathering the economic storm. Of course I don’t have a great deal of time for economists en masse. Those I know personally would be people that I would happily share a meal and a decent bottle of wine. But I’m afraid to say that nothing much has happened to change my mind about economics as a quasi-academic discipline. I am still inclined to the view that it fits in the niche with astrology, alchemy and voodoo and when you consider that astrology uses computers these days, it raises that particular activity to the same level as economics. Nevertheless, I take the views of people who know what they’re talking about, such as Saul Eslake, very seriously and if he says that we are doing better, than I will accept that he knows better.
However, Tasmania is still very much the mendicant state. Our portion of revenue from the federal government is grossly disproportionate to that received by other states and do they ever let you know about it in Victoria and New South Wales. They carry on as though someone should open the sea cocks and allow Tasmania to sink. We are regarded as a basket case and yet we have so much to offer. Heaven forbid that I should ever agreed with Leo Schofield but in the Mercury of June 6, he mentioned New Zealand and how much we could learn from them about marketing this state.
I agree wholeheartedly and I’m even prepared to be Tasmania’s ambassador to the South island of New Zealand, provided I can spend the cold months in Hobart. The South Island of New Zealand is everything that we do but 10 times better. Why do we send people to Europe, Asia, North America and even Cuba to learn about selling brand Tasmania? The answer lies across the Tasman but of course that’s far too easy.
In the South island of New Zealand, apart from magnificent white wine, the beer is better and I defy anyone to tell me that an Australian beer from any brewery beats Speights Golden Ale. I’m not the world’s greatest drinker of beer but I know a good one when it hits the palate. The South Island of New Zealand markets superb cheeses, some of which outclass or at least rank with our very best, such as King Island. If you ask for a coffee it served in something resembling a soup bowl and contains roughly 2 cups. The quality is invariably superb. And getting back to the beer, the quantity you must ask for is known as a “handle:” and it appears to be just over a pint in God’s own measurements.
Without doubt, Kiwis from the South Island are the friendliest people I have ever met: open, generous, and even in motels nothing ever seemed to be too much for them. In a little town called Cromwell which is near Queenstown, the bungee jumping capital of New Zealand our little marching company rested for a while. Queenstown is for the young and the active not for crusties and Cromwell gets a bad rap in the tourist guides. But it is a charming, picturesque and extremely friendly place. Paradoxically, for a country which is held by Australians to be terribly cold, Cromwell averages 31°C in January.
While writing for an overseas journal, and gazing out the window of the motel at faraway hills and glaciated mountains, I realized that it was very much like Tasmania because on the mainland, the land is older and has been eroded by wind and rain and scorched by hot summer sun. From where I sat I could be forgiven for thinking I was looking at Cradle mountain and for an old rock hound like me, the evidence of glaciation was everywhere from the sharp arêtes on the skyline to the drumlins and moraine of the lower lands, the power of nature could be seen everywhere.
Like now, as I was musing instead of writing, there was a little knock on the door and the motel owner’s wife appeared with a plate of freshly-baked cheese scones. I think at that moment I could’ve dropped dead and been very happy to do so – idyllic doesn’t get anywhere near the description. And for anyone travelling to New Zealand, I recommend the South Island for its people and products and the ability to sell themselves and their generosity of spirit. There was not one joke about Australians and on a guided tour; we were told that just over the horizon was the West Island of New Zealand – “they call it Australia.” No sneering; no rancour and the only thing that could be described as in poor taste was the All Blacks duty-free shop at Christchurch airport. That’s taking rugby a little too far for my liking.
Along the highways and byways, I had asked many people who stopped to talk about links with Tasmania because it seemed to me that we have so much in common. I lost count the number of times I was told that Tasmania was not interested In NZ and that made me very sad. It made me sadder still when I got home to learn that Hobart was supposed to be a twin city with Christchurch but the HCC wasn’t interested. I couldn’t help thinking that Australians might not be interested but Tasmanians could or should be. And if Hobart is not interested, then the City of Clarence certainly should be: we have so much in common being afflicted by tyranny from the big island to the North and across the river. It took some while to settle down after this trip because I had papers to write for websites and journals and I think it’s fair to say that it took some weeks before the wheels actually hit the tarmac in the sense of being jerked back to reality. I certainly wasn’t going to write a tourist’s guide to the land of the long gray shroud as some would have it, because it would be spoiled and I want to go back again. So now I’m home and the calluses on my backside and elbows prove it quite conclusively. But I’m going back and will ride on their trains – that almost extinct species in Tasmania.
I have always believed that Tasmanians are at their best when things are at their worst. The reaction to the Victorian bushfires was typical – from sending Tasmanian firemen (not “firies” in my presence please) to donations of clothing and food and other necessities of life. By the living powers, I felt proud to be Tasmanian for a few weeks after that because once again we had given beyond our means (I hate using the term “punching above our weight” because it reminds me of the Department of Foreign Affairs and that is something I’d sooner forget).
It didn’t take too long for the rot to set in and one story in particular, I found particularly heartbreaking. I wondered what sort of person would plunder a graveyard and steal monuments to children. The perpetrators will never be caught because the Tasmanian police have a far higher calling and that is to raise more money for the government and that is something I will return to in depth but not necessarily in this piece. I profess to be a Christian and sometimes I am plagued with doubts but I hope those who stole the monuments receive their due, preferably while still on earth. What goes on in the mind of petty criminals who would do such a thing?
Under normal circumstances, I have nothing but praise for Tasmania Police. Long ago, I met a few in a professional capacity (and that doesn’t make me a criminal) and was most impressed because some could even read and write. I have a great deal of sympathy for those who are forced to take up traffic duty over holidays because of the appalling driving and here we are, thinking about taxation returns and the death toll on the roads as of June 6 was just a few short of the total for last year and as of Saturday June 6, 35 to 23 for the same period from January.
In years long past, when sufficiently engaged and involved, I become enraged to the point of channeling my anger into campaigns. I had intended (yes I still do) to write on the evils of gambling and the way that the Rudd governments payments to the populace has by and large vanished down the gawping maw of poker machines. Has that stimulated the economy? I’m grateful for what I got but it did not go to waste on that most futile of pursuits – gambling. For quite a while, I fought a lone hand or I thought it was a lone hand against gambling, casinos, the extension of poker machines to poor suburbs and then I made the acquaintance of Bishop Chris Jones of the Anglican Church. When it became beyond me to do anything further, I knew the campaign against moronic gambling was in good hands.
Another of my quixotic campaigns involved driving or more specifically the way the politicians and police forces had been gulled into believing that speed was the sole cause of death on the roads. My academic studies led me to conclude quite conclusively that the primary cause of accidents was in fact inattentiveness. How easy it is to become distracted when driving; whether it’s changing a radio station or CD, adjusting the air conditioning or chatting to a passenger, you only have to take your eyes off the road for an instant. In my long and somewhat peculiar career path I have heard a number of distinctive sounds: that is a sound like no other that you always remember. For example, the wet smack of a bullet into flesh; the “whoomph” of two cars colliding or the terrible groan made by a tree being cut down when felled by hand. They leave an indelible mark in the brain.
A friend of mine took my ideas to a symposium that involved the Tasmanian police and while I’m perfectly prepared to concede that speed is an important factor in death on the roads, speed is often a product of inattentiveness and I’m pleased to see that Tas. police are increasingly recognizing that fact. It’s happened to me on a couple of occasions, looking at the road or the view and the speed has crept over the limit – all too easy. Outside Government House in Hobart and on a stretch of the South Arm Highway, bunches of flowers and other tributes were placed where people had died in a vehicle accident. This appears to have stopped and I’m rather sorry because if there was a marker for everywhere a serious accident had occurred, possibly, just possibly, people might slow down. And in that context, without being too brutal, the dead are the most fortunate. Those left behind to mourn or suffering in hospital for long periods of time are the real victims.
I said earlier I respected Tasmania Police greatly and I still do but I wasn’t terribly impressed with the pictures of an officer with a radar gun on the front of the Mercury some weeks ago. This type of photograph borders on Victorian fascism – for many years, senior Victorian police officers appeared on TV and threatened motorists. It was all too much for me and I got very annoyed. I still do when some policemen believe they are the law: they are not. To coin an old and clumsy phrase, they are there to serve and protect, as upholders of the law. And there is nothing more bent than a bent copper. That’s why they are a protected species in jail.
I’m not terribly interested in anything that Graham Sturges or other members of this government might say about reducing the road toll. It is undeniably true that the best way of keeping drivers honest is a high visible police presence but other measures need to be considered. Why let a 17 or 18-year-old learn to drive in a docile small hatchback around town and then get behind the wheel of a V-8, especially a ute, which appears to be something of a symbol of masculinity. I can remember a group of feminists referring to kids who learned to ride motorcycles in paddocks and then used bikes with engines of over 650cc on the road as having problems in terms of penile deficiency or was that “penis envy?” Those days are past and the behavior of some motorcyclists certainly entitles them to bear the nickname for their brethren in the UK – “organ donors.”
Notwithstanding the fact that some senior policemen believe that they serve in the finest traditions of the SS and they are mercifully few in number in Tasmania, I have a great deal of sympathy for them in their job. Being shot at is no fun and is trivialized on TV. Having to knock on a door and tell the householder that someone they love has been killed in one form or another is a harrowing business. Believe me, it’s just as difficult dealing with the relatives or writing a letter about someone who has died long before they should have. The days are long gone when kids were given the job to toughen them up. It was found that the effect was too much. I don’t intend to name names but I fully support the use of tasers and think that everyone out on patrol should carry them. Better a high-voltage charge than a 9 mm bullet.
And for those in the legal fraternity whom we know as the usual suspects, try talking to a copper who has had to shoot someone and the result has been death. The “eponymous one” would probably throw a book at an offender but it wouldn’t do much good against a shotgun, pistol or knife. Policemen carry guns because they have to and heaven forbid that we should ever get to the stage of being like New South Wales and Victoria where they are just trifle too trigger-happy, largely because facing a juiced-up junkie or serious criminal is no fun at all. It seems donkey’s years ago that I first learned to shoot and when it came to pistol training, I was told you never draw a weapon unless you intend/or need to use it: I hope police training hasn’t changed in the interim.
I’ve drifted over the word level yet again rabbiting away so I will press on in forthcoming pieces about Tasmania and Tasmanians and what makes us different. And I believe most strongly that we should reassert being Tasmanian means and not allow it to be subverted by immigrants from the big island.
Lastly, I thought I would share with you a masterpiece of New Zealand ingenuity. Specifically, I talk about the South Island because they are so much like us and even the guidebooks, poor as they are, mention that the average Kiwi in the South island believes they can get by with string, wire and a good pocket knife. With the editor’s indulgence, I have great pleasure in presenting the fastest Kiwi in the world – so fast in fact that people don’t believe it exists. It is of course a motorcycle and in drastic need of repair. I found it nearly overgrown in the beautiful city of Dunedin and marveled at the ingenuity.
It was surely the fastest Kiwi in the world and if you look carefully, you will see a big V twin cylinder set-up.
I’m looking forward to writing about the better things of life and finding good in people. There are others better placed than me to point out the nastiness of life and the political situation. I don’t think an election will change anything so why write about politics? Instead, let’s hope we can collectively turn a few things around, especially on the roads, by being patient and courteous and driving to the conditions. You’re a long time dead!
