Change was and remains the one true certainty in life. But one thing that rarely changed was the New Year's Eve celebrations in Sydney. This year, Rhoda Roberts was Creative Director. The theme on the night, 'Awakening the Spirit', appeared true to her heart. It was little wonder she was able to 'sell' the night so effectively on TV in the days leading up to the big event.
5,000kg of explosive devices, 6 barges, 11,000 shells and 25,000 shooting comets. The night was guaranteed to 'awaken the spirit', and more besides.
Small children may well have been lucky enough to be allowed to stay awake to watch the 9 o'clock fireworks, but their spirit was more likely to be heightened by their parents reading them a new book soon to be published.
'Jasper & Abby and The Great Australia Day Kerfuffle', had been written by none other than Kevin Rudd. Former US President Jimmy Carter, better known to some of us as a peanut farmer and known to others not at all, had also had a children's book published, so Rudd would be in fine company.
With assistance from his friend Rhys Muldoon, a children's TV host, the book would surely make the voters see Rudd had a softer side, and they would love him all the more for it. Wouldn't they?
At the time of the announcement that publication was imminent, Prue McSween, social commentator extraodinaire, said, in her inimitable style, that the pictures in the book better be "bloody good" as the words, if Rudd's, were bound to cure any child suffering from insomnia.
In all honesty though, publishing a children's book seemed sweet enough, and to criticise Kevin for the work he and Muldoon had put into the publication would be unfair and unwise. This could well be why his political opponents remained silent on the subject. The reviews would soon be out, the enjoyment a surety for many.
Whilst the Prime Minister was planning his children’s book in the New Year, the first week or so seemed to be taken up with media pronouncements of government waste and mismanagement. There had been an article prior to the Copenhagen summit about the Australian delegation numbering as many as 114, including the Prime Minister’s official photographer and baggage handler. A blog on the Herald Sun’s website included comments expressing the situation as "Rudd’s Copenhagen Circus," "a farce," a "waste of money," an example of "snouts in the trough," a glorification of their (the Government’s) own self-importance, and "hypocrisy."
The summit itself had catered for 15,000 delegates but registered 45,000. Temperatures in Copenhagen were freezing. Were the 30,000 delegates registered but not catered for to be left out in the cold?
All this gave Tony Abbott an early Christmas present. His line that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (the ETS by another name) was "a great big new tax on everything" was being aired daily through all channels of the media. Now he was also able to air concern at the impending increase in the size of Kevin Rudd’s carbon footprint, not to mention the other 113 delegates to be flown over to save the world from itself.
If this was not enough, the New Year saw things only get worse. The first week of the New Year saw an article about the H1N1 vaccine, ordered by the Rudd Government the year before at the height of the alleged swine flu ‘pandemic.'
only 5.1 million of the 21 million vaccines ordered had been used at that time and Australia in summer was not likely to see a high preponderance of the flu nor have any ongoing need for its use, at least not the 16 million that remained. The order had cost $120 million in all. It seemed the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory (CSL) was making a pretty penny from the deal. Mind you, the taxpayer would always be liable for funding government expenditure. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last where obvious government failings hit the taxpayers’ back pocket.
A month or so in and swine flu was back on the evening news. A night before the first annual commemoration of the Victorian ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires, the evening news reported, with great alarm and concern, that there was likely to be another swine flu epidemic as school had now gone back and winter was just around the corner... well, only 4 months away, to be sure. It was hard not to feel that the alert had come from the Federal Government’s Department of Health, as a way of reducing the number of unused strains of the vaccine and ensuring taxpayers were made to feel their hard-earned taxable income had been used for the greater good of the community after all.
Was this view somewhat cynical? You be the judge. From the land of the 'working family,' a term we will re-visit later, it seemed like Kevin had a kerfuffle of his own to deal with that was in no way related to children's books.
Welcome to the New Year.
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