Retired or retiring or retired on the job Labor- Liberal politicians like to look back on their group-think self-serving careerism within a caucus conformism as a time of great personal contribution to the welfare of their constituents, the interests of their home State, and heaven help us, the nation.
There is no need for any particular sense of anticipation of anything different as preparation for reading retiring Labor Denison MHR Duncan Kerr’s speech about reforming forestry governance in Tasmania: Levelling the playing field: reforming forestry governance in Tasmania: HERE … where you can also download the report
To the contrary. But what Kerr’s speech demonstrates, more flatulantly and hilariously than most other pre-or- post-retirement public ego-tripping gigs delivered by past political time-servers, is that other characteristically cynical performance of the retired caucus yes-man, the attempt at revisionism of subservience to party discipline without conscience or qualm.
That is what really makes Kerr’s speech nauseating and profoundly obnoxious and worthy of utter rejection.
It is not simply that Kerr’s “disclaimer” at the end that he will be actively campaigning for the re-election of the thoroughly inept Bartlett government which obviates much of the substance of his speech, as obvious as all of that may be.
Rather, it is the transparency of his arrogant assumption that people will not be able to see past the innate and inane contradictions in what he has to say, let alone the laughable detachment from the major realities of the forestry issues.
It would have been much better for Kerr if he had simply decided to forego this opportunity for self-affirmation, for all his comments about reconciliation of oppositional forces in the forestry conflict ring hollow in the light of his long-term silence as a long-term senior federal Labor MHR from Tasmania.
Very inappropriately, Kerr puts himself in the same frame as the Gunns 20 and Richard Flanagan – “good people who like me… were too often vilified, harassed and sued”. And then, as if he starting to actually believe in the value of meaningful discussion about important areas of policy in Tasmania, he says of the forestry debate – but deftly avoiding mention of the pulp mill – that Tasmanian “political leadership failed to respect the right to dissent and to agitate”.
This is truly political profanity at its best.
Just to cap it all off Kerr thinks it useful to express sympathy for “an industry which now needs to grapple with achieving FSC international accreditation”. Well, presumably Kerr is seeking ways and means of making that onerous process more palatable for the job-shedding bonus-seeking bosses of the corporate woodchipping world which he is so familiar with.
In conclusion, in my view it’s not a bad idea to read through Kerr’s speech a couple of times, just to get some feel for the superficiality of careerist politicians’ understanding of really long-standing political issues within and adjacent to their local constituencies. And if you like, to also get some insight into how these careerists skate the surface as a means of self-gratification, ego and self-justification, without showing any capacity – beyond the lie to feed “them” cake – which even attempts to hide their contempt for the intelligence of their constituents.
