Many years ago when I was a school girl, I participated in Youth Parliament.
I’m not quite sure why, because the median participant was a loathsome, pompous, overly talkative jerk.
My guess is that my real motivation was to mix with boys – I attended an all-girls school. They might have been dud boys, but at least they were boys.
Anyway, one night, my girlfriend and I were attending a session of Youth Parliament at one of the large Catholic boys’ schools. While we were members of the government, we were mere backbenchers ( I guess because we were girls) … which was pretty boring, to say the least.
I still have a vision of the “Prime Minister” – quite tall, incredibly loud and boorish and completely full of himself.
Having sat through the parliamentary proceedings for a while, my friend and I decided to take our leave of the ‘chamber’ and take a stroll through the school grounds. How were we to know that a division would be called and the bells would be rung.
Needless to say, we didn’t make it back to the chamber in time and the ‘government’ fell.
By this stage, the (former) ‘Prime Minister’ was apoplectic with rage – I can still recall his deep pink facial hue – and spent five minutes yelling and screaming at us. I should find out his name and sue him after all these years. Did he not realise that we were just helpless females lost in the grounds of a large and foreign school campus?
After a little while of being berated by the faux PM, I hit back. In today’s patois, I said something like: “Suck it up, Princess. Shit happens. And by the way, you were not really the PM.”
Get over it, everyone. Things that were done and said during our formative years are completely irrelevant to the present, although I am still wondering whether I should sue that faux PM for pain and suffering. I could get my friend to verify the events. Only joking.
reducto absurdum
The reason that I have never tried to be PM is that in early primary school I punched somone in the belly, plus a few other minor assaults. If that ever got out I would be toast!
Biota
16 Sep 12 at 8:56 am
I liked “chairthing”. This could be a new fashion. I look forward to seeing the Government’s spokesthing when he, her or it comes out to explain their next disaster.
And expect a full conga line of spokesthings for when the ALP has to explain the budget blowouts this month.
Bruce
16 Sep 12 at 9:06 am
My sordid past stopped me from running for local council. Wanted to be the dog catcher. I just got this feeling about the past of some labor front benchers. Ms Gillards attack dogs in particular.
face ache
16 Sep 12 at 9:07 am
One of my ancestors was given a free, all expenses paid trip to Van Diemen’s Land four generations ago. Once this got out, my budding political career was over.
Keith
16 Sep 12 at 9:12 am
That’s a lovely tale, Judith. A great introduction for you to ‘boys’. Wish I’d gone to an all-girls school. I might have retained my mental innocence much longer.
But this little kerfuffle has given us ‘chairthing’. A linguistic treasure, as Biota elaborates for us. Useful for all thingkind.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
16 Sep 12 at 9:19 am
Pilbersek just said on “Insiders” that Abbott is always saying what a strong character he has. Of course she wasn’t challenged on that statement. I might be wrong but I have never heard Abbott say anything like that. Just because Pilbersek knows he is a strong character doesn’t mean she got the news from him. I watch Abbott take nearly all the crap thrown at him with silent dignity and formed my own opinion about his character a long time ago. I didn’t need Tony’s help, just his example.
face ache
16 Sep 12 at 9:29 am
Not sure that you would have Lizzie – from my conversations with the fairer sex, those all girl schools were horrible places.
Bob Sewell
16 Sep 12 at 9:37 am
Oh you poor righty! Punching a wall twice close to a face in order to intimidate a successful woman candidate would be an act of indensible violence. I’ll leave it to you righties to defend such an action as you have been doing all week. That illustrates your characters.
hammygar
16 Sep 12 at 10:24 am
It is ironic that Mr Abbott is part of the current One Punch awareness program to reduce young male violence.
hammygar, I think the issue that Tony Abbott says he never did it.
Julian O'Dea
16 Sep 12 at 10:30 am
Bruce, perhaps we could copy the Icelanders and call our Parliament the ‘all-thing’.
All I know is that there are a lot of ‘things’ in our Parliament that aren’t particularly human – especially on the Labor Government side.
A Lurker
16 Sep 12 at 10:32 am
hammygar it’s more ‘defend a non action’
what Abbott says is ‘the punch never happened’
or as you would put it ‘the non punch happened’
now can we get back to that ‘slush fund’
val majkus
16 Sep 12 at 10:34 am
Oh there he is (is it a he?), the trolly thingy, seeking attention, didnt things go your way last night luvvie?
I love that chairthing, a new addition. Love the photos of the young Tony, he could have come up close and personal any time. Mmmmm have a wonderful Sunday folks, off to a champagne brunch in the tropics.
delfino
16 Sep 12 at 10:36 am
The question for me out of all this is, what is he so constantly angry about? Any insight, Judith?
m0nty
16 Sep 12 at 10:40 am
I could never be PM. I’ve never set up a slush fund for my married boyfriend, never had a married boyfriend, haven’t slept around with married men who had young children, never stabbed my boss in the back, never told lies of magnificent magnitude, have taken responsibility for my own actions instead of saying ‘I knew nothing about my boss’ sacking’ for example, when I make a promise I keep it, I don’t lie like it’s second nature for me. So, all that rules me out. *sigh*
Gab
16 Sep 12 at 10:49 am
Oh another reason I could never be PM: I don’t spend money like there’s a never-ending supply of other peoples money. When the credit card is full, I don’t borrow more money.
Gab
16 Sep 12 at 10:55 am
Oh – plus you’re needed too much here on the Cat, Gab, to even consider any other offers.
I am also unavailable, but because I am too dangerous. Given free access to another’s money I have been on a steep but exciting learning curve in how to spend it, to the extent that my better self is telling me to curb my enthusiasm. My better half is too indulgent, I think. I will redirect his (our) funds to more worthy purposes. God knows, there are enough of those in this Gillarded economy.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
16 Sep 12 at 11:14 am
I’m not a candidate either. When the bank manager tells me I can’t borrow more money I don’t go home and announce to the household we need to spend more in order to get out of financial trouble.
Megan
16 Sep 12 at 11:17 am
hammygar, if the allegations were true, they would have been made a long-time ago. Abbott has been a public figure for at least 20 years.
there is no contemporaneous record of the occasion – not even in the student press. they would loved to paint the young Libs as thugs.
Jim Rose
16 Sep 12 at 11:39 am
My best friend had a real Tony Abbott moment and relates it thus:
When the Health Minister in the Howard government, Tony was in Victoria. Our local MP somehow managed to nab him for a flying visit to my W Vic city.
There was an afternoon being held at my friend’s farm(she has been a LIb Party member a long time)and the teens from a local mentally disabled school were hosting(technically she did) the afternoon for their teachers,as they had all taken turns to come “work” an hour out there over the term and it is a lovely spot .Tony Abbott came and spent the afternoon there, coat off playing soccer with the boys and getting hugged by every girl, taking tea with the adults while still getting attention from the teens, giving every appearance of endless patience and enjoyment –and his request when he agreed to attend?
“No media” He flew in and out and no media attended as he wouldn’t subject the teens to that circus.
People may wonder if he will be a good PM–I hope he will and I have faith his wife is sensible enough to guide and counsel him gently too– but Tony Abbott is one very decent gentleman!
Jazza
16 Sep 12 at 11:42 am
p.s. see http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/media-watch-dog/ for two letters which Barbara Ramjan wrote to Honi Soit. They were printed on 13 September 1977 and 3 October 1977 respectively.
Neither made any reference to any incident where Tony Abbott punched a wall behind Ramjan’s head at Sydney University on the evening of 7 September 1977. both letters are highly critical of the behaviour of Abbott and his supporters during the 1977 SRC election.
Jim Rose
16 Sep 12 at 11:43 am
Chairthing, you make my heart zing.
Actually Barbara Ramjet was obviously ill-educated because the derivation of Chairman is the Latin, manus, meaning hand.
I have never had any problem being called Chairman. Indeed, I insist on it and I have been Chairman quite a few times.
Judith Sloan
16 Sep 12 at 12:02 pm
from Online Etymology Dictionary
Chair c.1225, from O.Fr. chaire, from L. cathedra “seat” (see cathedral).
Figurative sense of “authority” was in M.E., of bishops and professors. Meaning “office of a professor” (1816) is extended from the seat from which a professor lectures (c.1449). Meaning “seat of a person presiding at meeting” is from 1647.
Chairman is first attested 1654; chairwoman 1699; chairperson 1971.
Jim Rose
16 Sep 12 at 1:01 pm
Jim – I was at SU from the following year and though I was a totally apolitical science kid Honi Soit was a byword for seedy mad stuff even then. The only way they got anyone to read it was to hand it out free…free in as much as we had to pay compulsory student union fees to pay for its production. HS and the UniSyd student union maniacs were contributing cause in me being put off unions for life, even then.
That Ms Ramjan wrote for it at that time is not a point in her favour, IMO.
Bruce
16 Sep 12 at 1:10 pm
What the fuck are you talking about? Please tell me you made that up as a try-on. Zombies like you live in an alternate universe. Wayne Swan, on the other hand: there’s your “constantly angry”. Compared with Swan, Abbott is the Dalai Lama.
In any case, Abbott won’t let us see him as anything but the opposition leader. He would be crucified by the living dead at Fairfax and the ABC if he tried. Unfortunately, he has to go to work with armour on because the media is occupied by hostile ferals.
You think the opposition leader should be a lefty-friendly cabaret act like Dave Hughes … or Malcolm Turnbull?
Tom
16 Sep 12 at 2:53 pm
Abbott appears to be one of the most decent, thoughtful and genuine politicians in a very long time. The abuse thrown at him by Pilbersek, Gratton and Marr reflects more on their on appalling character than Abbotts. I hope they get their just desserts. A very very very long Abbott Prime Ministership which knows it owes scum like them nothing.
johno
16 Sep 12 at 3:43 pm
michelle gratton as a experienced journo should have asked more questions as to why it took 35 years for this allegation to surface.
Jim Rose
16 Sep 12 at 4:42 pm
You make the mistake of assuming Michelle Grattan is a journalist.
She isn’t of course.
She’s a leftist activist and propagandist on behalf of the ALP masquerading as a journalist.
The best that can be said for her is that she’s partisan in her leftism being more ALP than Green in her bias.
JamesK
16 Sep 12 at 4:56 pm
Jim Rose
Stop it with the oppositional crap. Grattan is an ALP witch and always has been.. Has been also carries the double meaning. She is exhibit A why Fairfax is fucked. Marr was another example how they turned the broadsheets into unreadable sludge.
JC
16 Sep 12 at 5:02 pm
Jazza @ 11.42
That is a lovely story, and rings true as it gels with what we hear about his work in remote Aboriginal communities, and his volunteer life saving and firefighting.
I remember about a year ago reading an article about Abbot working on some housing in a remote community. There was a news crew there, and the reporter was most impressed that Abbot continued working on the buildings after the cameras left, until the work was finished.
No doubt his Catholic faith inspires him to live what appears to be a life of integrity and service.
I wonder what inspires David Marr’s work?
Eddystone
16 Sep 12 at 5:38 pm
journalists have been replaced with reporters who do not refect upon and filter the information they pass on.
Jim Rose
16 Sep 12 at 8:36 pm
Same for me, face ache.
One punch should be all you need to reduce the other guy’s violence to zero v. quickly. If you take more than that you should have some lessons.
I agree completely johno.
I am the Walrus, koo koo k'choo
16 Sep 12 at 9:26 pm
I am no fan of Abbott but this 2000 yo story is extremely stupid, and will do Labor no favors. I can understand why the dirt squad are trying so hard (they do need to show results for their money), but that there are some people like hammigar that try to defend this absurd shows how desperate they are.
Boris
17 Sep 12 at 2:58 am
PM’s rating always goes up when she’s not in the country or on leave. She also gets a sympathy boost this time.
Keith
17 Sep 12 at 6:49 am