Tony Abbott is very keen on exercise, so perhaps a sporting analogy is best. At once stage of my life, I was a fairly useful hockey player. My position was center half back. The centre half is the key playmaker. One should keep in mind that in hockey, each player is armed with a hefty lump of wood called a hockey stick. Hockey is -- or was -- a game for gentlemen. It has certain unwritten rules, like you don't tackle from the wrong side and you don't hit your oponent in the head with your stick. Not all teams observe these rules, just as not all players are gentlemen.
Perhaps it's just the memory of getting too many whacks from one of our perennial opponents, Trinity College, a Christian Brothers institution,I but can't help but see the Brothers' philosophy of taking a few shot cuts if they were necessary. Much as I admire the Brothers, their teams were just a little too intense and -- dare I say it -- weren't quite gentlemen.
Now, my family is a typical Anglo-Irish family. The Orange and the Green rub along fairly well, but that does not prevent the development of some fairly strong opinions. And according to my mother, Tony Abbott is a Catholic bigot. Tony might not be a bigot but he goes in hard.Tony admits it himself (Key principles of democratic statesmanship, News Weekly, 20 Dec. 2008). Assessing his performance after the 2007 election, he says 'Being too close to John Howard at that point in time wasn't a political advantage. But this constant message that I got was: "you're too hard line -- you turn people off."
Now, politics is a sport with rules, some written, some unwritten. Take pairs in Parliament for example. If I get a certificate saying 'medical condition' and it was Craig Thompson, I'd take it with a grain of salt. I'm not a doctor worshiper, and Craig 'has form' in regard to personal ethics. But you grant the pair. But Tony didn't until he was pushed. That's not playing the game and it's not liked.
I think he is not a gentleman for another more sordid reason. He made a big song and danace about that child he supposedly fathered as a uni student and who was adopted out - and who turned out not to be his.
ReplyDeleteThis turned the life of that woman who had been his girlfriend at Uni upside down. She was a private citizen with a life and family (four or five more kids) of her own and her privacy was violated by his antics in a very nasty and cruel way.
Whatever happened to that saying 'A Gentleman never tells'???
Tell Pauline Hanson about what a gentleman he is. He actively encouraged Lawfare against her by financing the lawsuits of malcontents, instead of trying to defeat her through, say, democracy.
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