Article: Sydney Morning Herald, December 22nd, 2007
Beef sangers welcome where the people gather to give thanks
William McInnes
I spent an afternoon in Old Parliament House not so long ago and even though Canberra is one of those towns many love to roll their eyes at, I came away feeling vaguely uplifted.
The first time I visited Old Parliament House was after a week on a bus. It was during an educational school trip from Queensland to the Snowy Mountains.
We were supposed to meet our local member, a large, jolly chemist called Big John. My parents never voted for him as he was a Liberal, but they liked him all the same for he was large and jolly.
Big John the jolly chemist couldn't meet us for he had politician work to pursue. In his place was an immense tray of sandwiches. After a week on a bus we were slightly demented and to say that the tray was attacked was an understatement. A girl I was in love with went at it hardest.
She ate like a mad raptor. Seeing her at work on a rather angry-looking beef sandwich, I remembered how her mother's arms would wobble while on tuckshop duty. I put this out of my head and stole furtive looks as she burped her way around the Parliament on a guided tour.
At the end, as we stood by the doors, she staggered down the steps and across to the lawn and up-ended herself and the contents of her stomach across the grass. Democracy can be a heady thing.
On this recent trip I thought of that girl and wondered if she still liked beef sandwiches.
I drifted about looking at the portraits of the prime ministers and overheard some of the tour groups' efforts at understanding our history.
"Can you tell me who this might be?" asked a guide, pausing by a bust of Harold Holt.
"Sir Donald Bradman," came a voice from a little group of people old enough to have voted for Holt.
"No, not the Don," said the guide. "Although it might have been interesting on the Chinese sub if it had been him."
Billy McMahon looked almost sensible in his bronze form, so the sculptor had worked a minor miracle. Menzies looked suitably wise and owlish. Paul Keating was elegant in a grey suit, but his pale hands were clasped in a childlike way. He appeared surprisingly devoid of a chin and looking slightly embarrassed.
Mal Fraser's portrait showed him with his trousers hitched high - "a real choko Charlie", as my father would have said.
As high as they were hitched, they still ended up around his ankles in Memphis, and there has to be metaphor about a fall from power there that we can all appreciate.
I thought of my father as I walked about. He adored elections and politicians. He loved a fight and a debate. He would often say that Parliament was "the people's church" and "never take democracy for granted - never. Too many good people died giving it to you." Then he would invariably add: "And never vote for a bastard with a beard. They're hiding something." Well, obviously the founding fathers were up to something, for they nearly all had beards to a man, save for Edmund Barton.
I stood behind a couple who gazed up at Andrew Fisher in his morning coat. After a long while the woman said to her companion: "Another Queenslander."
"Hmm," the man intoned and then, "His hair is the same colour as Rudd's."
The woman nodded. "Queenslanders," she said.
Around the pillar was the man one of those Queenslanders had replaced. "Oh dear, look at him," said the woman as we all looked at John and Janette Howard. She said it with a tone one uses on seeing some poor half-silly cousin at a large family Christmas.
The Howards were dressed as if they were going to such a reunion and this provoked a shaking of the woman's head.
"Trust him. Everyone else is formal and he has to go 'neat casual'. It's like they're off at a buffet."
"Well, you voted for him."
"I don't care. Neat casual is inappropriate."
Eleven-and-a-half years as PM and your era is deemed Inappropriate Neat and Casual. And that's by people who voted for you.
I walked off and stood on the steps where Gough Whitlam spoke his famous words in 1975. Tea towels are sold with Whitlam and a bubble speaking those words. History on a tea towel. I looked down at the Aboriginal tent embassy and remembered seeing it the first time I came here, as the girl I loved hurled on the grass. A teacher told us why he thought indigenous people felt they must protest. Most of us pretended to listen and then the teacher said he wished they didn't have to protest, but at least it was sort of good that they could.
"Never take democracy for granted - too many good people died to give it to you," my father used to say.
Australia isn't perfect. It doesn't have to be, for it is the sum total of its people. We are all good and bad, eager and indifferent. Some of us don't care, some care too much, most of us go about our lives. Places such as Old Parliament House crystallise all of us as a nation. It is the people's church and I hope we long maintain the faith.
William McInnes
I spent an afternoon in Old Parliament House not so long ago and even though Canberra is one of those towns many love to roll their eyes at, I came away feeling vaguely uplifted.
The first time I visited Old Parliament House was after a week on a bus. It was during an educational school trip from Queensland to the Snowy Mountains.
We were supposed to meet our local member, a large, jolly chemist called Big John. My parents never voted for him as he was a Liberal, but they liked him all the same for he was large and jolly.
Big John the jolly chemist couldn't meet us for he had politician work to pursue. In his place was an immense tray of sandwiches. After a week on a bus we were slightly demented and to say that the tray was attacked was an understatement. A girl I was in love with went at it hardest.
She ate like a mad raptor. Seeing her at work on a rather angry-looking beef sandwich, I remembered how her mother's arms would wobble while on tuckshop duty. I put this out of my head and stole furtive looks as she burped her way around the Parliament on a guided tour.
At the end, as we stood by the doors, she staggered down the steps and across to the lawn and up-ended herself and the contents of her stomach across the grass. Democracy can be a heady thing.
On this recent trip I thought of that girl and wondered if she still liked beef sandwiches.
I drifted about looking at the portraits of the prime ministers and overheard some of the tour groups' efforts at understanding our history.
"Can you tell me who this might be?" asked a guide, pausing by a bust of Harold Holt.
"Sir Donald Bradman," came a voice from a little group of people old enough to have voted for Holt.
"No, not the Don," said the guide. "Although it might have been interesting on the Chinese sub if it had been him."
Billy McMahon looked almost sensible in his bronze form, so the sculptor had worked a minor miracle. Menzies looked suitably wise and owlish. Paul Keating was elegant in a grey suit, but his pale hands were clasped in a childlike way. He appeared surprisingly devoid of a chin and looking slightly embarrassed.
Mal Fraser's portrait showed him with his trousers hitched high - "a real choko Charlie", as my father would have said.
As high as they were hitched, they still ended up around his ankles in Memphis, and there has to be metaphor about a fall from power there that we can all appreciate.
I thought of my father as I walked about. He adored elections and politicians. He loved a fight and a debate. He would often say that Parliament was "the people's church" and "never take democracy for granted - never. Too many good people died giving it to you." Then he would invariably add: "And never vote for a bastard with a beard. They're hiding something." Well, obviously the founding fathers were up to something, for they nearly all had beards to a man, save for Edmund Barton.
I stood behind a couple who gazed up at Andrew Fisher in his morning coat. After a long while the woman said to her companion: "Another Queenslander."
"Hmm," the man intoned and then, "His hair is the same colour as Rudd's."
The woman nodded. "Queenslanders," she said.
Around the pillar was the man one of those Queenslanders had replaced. "Oh dear, look at him," said the woman as we all looked at John and Janette Howard. She said it with a tone one uses on seeing some poor half-silly cousin at a large family Christmas.
The Howards were dressed as if they were going to such a reunion and this provoked a shaking of the woman's head.
"Trust him. Everyone else is formal and he has to go 'neat casual'. It's like they're off at a buffet."
"Well, you voted for him."
"I don't care. Neat casual is inappropriate."
Eleven-and-a-half years as PM and your era is deemed Inappropriate Neat and Casual. And that's by people who voted for you.
I walked off and stood on the steps where Gough Whitlam spoke his famous words in 1975. Tea towels are sold with Whitlam and a bubble speaking those words. History on a tea towel. I looked down at the Aboriginal tent embassy and remembered seeing it the first time I came here, as the girl I loved hurled on the grass. A teacher told us why he thought indigenous people felt they must protest. Most of us pretended to listen and then the teacher said he wished they didn't have to protest, but at least it was sort of good that they could.
"Never take democracy for granted - too many good people died to give it to you," my father used to say.
Australia isn't perfect. It doesn't have to be, for it is the sum total of its people. We are all good and bad, eager and indifferent. Some of us don't care, some care too much, most of us go about our lives. Places such as Old Parliament House crystallise all of us as a nation. It is the people's church and I hope we long maintain the faith.
posted by WilliamWatch at 8:39 PM
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