In trying to understand a Parnell Palme McGuinness column, my approach is to imagine her pretty little mind facing the entrance to one of those English estate garden mazes.
It’s conjecture as to whether that mind has formed any concrete thoughts on a possible topic for a Herald column at that point, but it lurches nevertheless into that labyrinth with, one would hope, good intent.
It scurries down one pathway, forming views on what it sees until it hits a dead end. Undaunted, it retraces its steps, bravely charging in a new direction, collecting so many fresh ideas over the next hour or two so that the mind become a discombobulated mishmash of mindless theories that mere mortal minds can’t even begin to fathom.
The mind of PPMcG finally finds the maze exit, exalts in both its freedom and new-found wisdom and rushes to a word processor where all those thoughts and ideas so collected pour out into a column much like the one in today’s Sun Herald.
What we end up reading, of course, are ideas formed along one path that are totally at odds with those collected on the next path travelled, with none of the pathways converging to form a coherent whole. A McGuiness world record, in fact, for cobbled together gobbledegook that when read as a complete column can lead to dizziness, hearty gaffaws near one end of the body and uncontrollable flatulence at the other.
Look, to spare you BUGers developing the full symptoms I suffer regularly from reading her columns – and I only do it because it’s my unpaid job – here’s just some paragraphs to explain her thinking as to why Julian Leeser has done the Liberals and Peter Dutton a big favour by resigning his shadow Cabinet posts.
Regardless of the outcome of the Voice referendum, history will look kindly on those who have engaged with the proposal in good faith and condemn those who choose to politicise the debate. (Hint: it’s pretty clear McGuinness sees Peter Dutton falling into the former category]
The window for engagement is rapidly closing [making] Julian Leeser’s resignation from shadow cabinet last Tuesday particularly urgent.
The press gallery and various commentators have almost unanimously decreed that Leeser’s resignation is a political disaster for opposition leader. This is hysterical partisan thinking. Leeser’s move is nothing of the sort. In fact, it may be the salvation of the Voice referendum, of Peter Dutton, and of the Liberal Party.
By taking a principled stand, Julian Leeser has put the focus back where it should be: on creating a Voice that transcends politics.
He has given himself, and by extension the Liberal Party, a shot at making it right.
Far from splitting the Liberal Party, this puts it back in its strongest territory: examining ideas rationally and on merit. Far from destroying Peter Dutton, he has curtailed a referendum on his leader’s popularity. He has also saved the Labor Party from deploying a partisan strategy that will tarnish the outcome of the Voice referendum.
Whatever the ‘‘right side of history’’ turns out to be, history will be kind to those who act with principle.
Phew! I truly think today’s column is Parnell Palme McGuiness at the peak of her powers of collecting irrational thought as she scurries about that maze like a hungry rat looking for cheese.
Only the convoluted contortions of a clown of a columnist could argue that Leeser’s resignation could possibly trigger so many great results, especially for the rightwing of Australian politics. The entire column is a truly frightening look into her a-maze-ing mind and how it works.
I thought the best part was the idea that Leeser’s resignation had put the Liberal Party firmly back in its strongest territory – examining ideas rationally and on merit.
Now that’s a truly amazing statement, given that the first five years work of the looming National Anti-Corruption Commission could be spent solely on activities of the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments that had absolutely nothing to do with examining ideas rationally and on merit.
Only a rusted-on far-right Liberal who clearly did not watch the near decade of Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison governments in action could come up with that absolute howler! Any journalists I’ve ever known would have blushed typing it.
Don Gordon-Brown
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