NSW Premier Bob Carr is a well known diarist, and from the brief samples of his jottings that have made their way into the public arena, a cracking good yarn looks set to be published when the Malthus of Maroubra retires, though perhaps that won’t be until after a spell as Federal Labor leader. But he’s not the only person on the NSW Right putting pen to paper for posterity.

The following review of last week’s political events in Sodom-by-the-Sea has fallen into the hands of Crikey from the back of a proverbial truck. And while we can’t vouch for its authenticity, it does seem to reveal that a certain State Treasurer is getting a little bit bored by the lack of challenge in his portfolio.

But when I do get a problem, like last week with the embarrassing superannuation scheme numbers, what happens? Nothing! Barely a hard question asked. Once they worked out police and teachers weren’t at risk of losing their super, no one cared a fig at a billion dollars going missing. It’s like the way John Cain used to get publicity for paying for his own stamps at the same time as millions was disappearing out the back door of Tricontinental. The press never seem to notice you smell until they can actually see the brown stuff on you.

Angela Catterns tried on 2BL, but her heart wasn’t in it. I was just there to add some gravitas before she interviewed yet another unknown blues singer. As for the Parrot, he was nowhere to be seen. Let’s be honest, after hearing the Parrot’s interview about ezi-tax last week, you would have to say the Parrot probably thinks fiscal rectitude is something that jumps out of a dunny and bites you on the testicles. He probably thinks a ‘defined benefits scheme’ is the sort of contract Singo signed him up to 2GB with.

And 2UE couldn’t be bothered. There is something dark and malign eating away at the soul of Steve Price. Doesn’t care about the finances as long as he can chat to his talkback audience about a few hoons, or bash some public servant because the trains or the phones don’t work. John Laws doesn’t deign to talk state politics since he went national, and Mike Carlton still hasn’t worked through his warped view that I can’t do multiplication because I was educated by the Christian Brothers. Anyway, Carlton would rather bore his audience about rugby union than be given another mental thrashing by me. Typical Barker boy really, always go the brawn before the brain.

And the press gallery are no better, though we are probably responsible for that. We managed to find government jobs for all the old hands like Michael Gleeson, Steve Chase, Jim Maher and Daniel Blyde. We even found a novel way of getting Dave Humphries moved aside. Dave Penberthy seems to have abandoned state politics in a feeble attempt to become an essayist, an odd ambition at the Telegraph, and the Sun-Herald have become desperate enough to send Alex Mitchell back to the gallery. He’s single handidly reviving the lost art of the long boozy political lunch.

But if the gallery aren’t as strong as they used to be, they certainly made old Della Bosca look a right goose this week. It wasn’t even Quentin Dumpster asking the tough questions, just some junior radio hacks. I lose a billion dollars on Super and the gallery don’t care. WorkCover goes 200 million further into debt and they go feral at Della. Mind you, he’s a sitting target. His style is more twisting arms violently in private, not standing in front of cameras and talking. The cameras made him look like he had no idea what he was saying, but what he was actually doing was desperately restraining the urge to throttle the nearest journalist. Physical violence never helps relations with the fourth estate.

Thankfully, we can leave most of the PR work to Bob, who has the patience of a saint when it comes to fools. Especially with the Parrot. Craig Knowles is pretty good at putting the parrot in his place, but I have to be honest and admit we try and keep the rest of the cabinet out of range of his beak.

But you can tell Bob’s getting a bit bored by the job. The thing that keeps him going is the opportunity to meet visiting intellectual heavyweights. He’s been wetting himself all week at the maker of the Civil War documentary, Ken Burns, coming out for the Premier’s history award. No doubt Bob will do the Gettysberg address yet again. His obsession with American Presidents goes a bit far sometimes.

And some of Bob’s visitors are a little esoteric for my plain taste. He asked me along to meet Kinky Friedman at writers week once, and I was expecting the father of monetarism, not some weedy Jewish cowboy who writes crime novels. It was my fault really, confused by a bit of word association. I just thought Friedman, monetarism, Thatcher, UK
Conservative Party, kinky sex. An obvious mistake really.

I’m sure it’s Bob’s Protestant upbringing. He honestly thinks that Malthus is a more important 19th century thinker than Newman or several popes I could name. If he had been brought up in the One True Church, he would be a much more straightforward fellow. I’m still working on trying to get a conversion. We managed it with John Ducker and Barrie Unsworth, and while we failed with Neville Wran, he’s not getting any younger you know, and like most rational men, I’m sure we can convince Neville that a deathbed conversion is useful as an insurance policy.

Cabinet isn’t the fun it used to be either these days. Old Jeff Shaw used to be good value in keeping some sense of logic in the law and order debate, provided it was before lunch. I also miss the withering disdain Michael Knight used to heap on some of our dimmer colleagues, usually without them even knowing. I wonder if he learnt to do that being a BLF organiser, growing up at Doonside, or while he was a scholarship boy at Cranbrook? Given what I’ve heard out of the One.Tel inquiry, I’d guess he picked it up at Cranbrook. It’s more a Tory behaviour pattern than that of a hero of the working class.

Mind you, it was probably just as well that Michael resigned after the Olympics. He would have been insufferable after the success of the games. I also think he had learnt a few unpleasant tricks off Juan Antonio Samaranch. Those Spanish fascists make the NSW Catholic Right look like a bunch of amateurs. I suppose it’s the legacy of the inquisition.

Cabinet meetings also take forever these days, even when we don’t make many decisions. It seems we have to stop at every item of new business while Eddie Obeid tries to work out if he has a conflict of interest. I’m sure Bob gave him Fisheries and Mining because it was the only two portfolios where he didn’t have any business interests. Thank heavens we didn’t give him planning or emergency services!

It’s always tough putting together a state cabinet. There’s only one of them that can be made Minister for Sport, and that has to be the most photogenic of the lot. We did well in making John Watkins Minister for Education. When Aquilina was in charge, Bob used to spend most of his time telling John what to do. But watching question time in the
Assembly recently, I’d have to say some of the ministers have grown into the job. I’m amazed to see Richard Amery up at the dispatch box delivering gags. Now I can’t see him making a career out of stand-up comedy, but if old Constable Plod can look light on his feet, then we can turn almost anyone into a minister.

My only regret is that I’m stuck up in the red morgue of the Legislative Council, rather than down there mixing it in the Assembly. They invite me once a year to deliver the budget, but it was more fun when I was MP for Cronulla, and Neville Wran used to be there on the floor putting the lance through yet another Liberal leader. Ah, the good old days.

Instead, there I am with the flotsam and jetsam of the political parties. I’m still amazed to see the Honourable Meredith Burgmann peering down at me from the President’s Chair. Lord help, ‘honourable’ and ‘Meredith Burgmann’ in the same sentence. I have to be nice to her though, as she’s in charge of the anti-smoking police, and they are constantly watching to make sure I don’t light up the gaspers. And she can be fierce herself as well. The NSW Police taught her some powerful wrestling holds when they used to arrest her at anti-Springbok rallies.

But the opposition is just pathetic. Duncan Gay’s an obliging old card, but the Liberals are an odd lot. Michael Gallagher is living proof why cops should not be allowed in Parliament. Patricia Forsythe means well, but where does that get you in politics. And when will someone in the Liberal Party explain to John Ryan that no one is going to take
seriously a politician with blonde tips.

Della thankfully deals with all the hard work of negotiating with the crossbenchers. There are so many of them, and most of them have egos far in excess of their mental capacity to understand legislation. Like backbenchers really, but less willing to vote as they are told. After seven years in government, we’ve learnt to control the cross benchers
by tossing the odd innocuous amendment to bills, and setting up the odd special purpose inquiry to occupy themselves. But the negotiations usually mean the numbers are all set before the Council meets, which has removed that little frisson of excitement that comes with not knowing how the numbers will fall.

But they are an odd lot at the end of the chamber. Peter Wong from Unity still can’t work out why he gets less publicity than Pauline Hanson. Perhaps he should try cross dressing. John Tingle is usually a pussy on everything except law and order, where we have to throw him the odd morsel. Alan Corbett from A Better Future for our Children has
this spanking obsession. Peter Breen asks some curly questions and pursues some worthwhile issues, but Arthur Chesterfield-Evans is living proof as to why the Democrats should fold up their tent and disappear into the desert. I am also still trying to work exactly what Malcolm Jones from the Outdoor Recreation Party spends his time doing. Recruiting new political parties is one of the more common rumours.

We all regret Elaine Nile’s departure, as trying to work out if she had had a mind of her own apart from what Fred used to tell her helped us occupy the time in light night sittings. Now the Reverend Fred has a new colleague in the Reverend Gordon Moyes. Along with John Tingle, that makes three former talkback hosts. Thank the Lord that Alan Jones gets paid too much to run for Parliament. And what ever happened to the separation of church and state? With Nile and Moyes in there, I can see a prospective schism in the Christian Democrats.

David Oldfield has become quite tame as well since getting married. We used to keep amused by watching for the buxom blondes that used to sit in the gallery pouting at him while he was making speeches. And Richard Jones has managed to get a new young wife. He must have something going for him, and I don’t mean that weird new haircut. It looks like something Spanish widows wear to funerals.

Thankfully the Greens keep me going. Ian Cohen means well, and prefers to stick to the environment rather than wander off into the fields his Trot colleague, Lee Rhiannon, likes to pursue. Honestly, there are days when I sit waiting in anticipation of the next left-field rant I’m about to get from Lee. It’s as if the Berlin Wall had never fallen.

But I do wonder sometimes if I am being a bit self-indulgent with Lee. When I see her standing up to ask a question, there’s this little voice going off in my head, back from the days of my first confession, when the priests first warned me of the sins of self-abuse. “You haven’t been pleasuring yourself” they used to warn, and frankly, I’d have to admit there is a degree to which questions from Lee Rhiannon pamper to that darker side of the human soul.

But that’s enough for this week. A quick rosary and pleasant Labour day weekend, and lets see if next week bring me something more challenging.

Michael Egan’s diaries – 9 March 2003

The whisper I hear from the lower floors is that the debate was his idea, but Bryce Osmond had kittens when he heard about it. Bryce is a good operator for the Nationals, keeping a sharp political mind even when going drink for drink with Peter Black in the non-members bar. Even legless he would have known that George stood no chance against
me. All I ever have to say is Luna Park and George goes white as a ghost.

My life has been made more difficult by my staff recently, who have been a bit slack so far in the campaign. Twice they
have given me figures that did not add up. Neither event mattered, as the state’s finances are in such a magnificent position thanks to my prudent financial management. But still, I gave Jim Maher and thrashing and sent Pigs-Trotter off for another drug test.

Hopefully it won’t happen again. It gave that half-wit Fatty O’Barrell the opportunity to score points off moi. The press gallery wet themselves because O’Barrell demonstrated the ability to use a whiteboard with two different coloured pens. As Grahame Morris said, too many modern Liberals are pot-plants with lips. Though in Barry’s case, he’s more a topiary with lips.

I have been thinking of adopting Michael Knight’s tactic to disarm journalists who have been difficult at press conferences. He used to saunter up to them afterwards and politely ask if they knew how painful it was to have the round end of a bollard rammed up their date, and this could be arranged if they didn’t behave themselves. I think he
got the idea from one of Fred Nile’s more graphic anti-pornography newsletters.

I did get another offer to debate the state’s finances, specifically to talk to the Parrot about land-tax, but he pulled out at the last minute and interviewed some visiting boy-band instead. They were probably more his intellectual level, though I suspect they lacked his knowledge of old show tunes, and no doubt didn’t understand the question about gladiators.

Or perhaps he was just afraid. He’s heard me wipe the floor before with Mike Carlton, and wasn’t prepared to take the risk of a verbal thrashing. I think Bob has handled the Parrot beautifully throughout the campaign, but we are not getting much joy from the Parrot’s morning sermon at the moment. Perhaps it is time we pulled in a few favours with Singo.

Poor Mike Carlton is having a struggle though. He’s making the crucial error for a talk back host of talking facts to his
audience instead of reinforcing their prejudices. I think it’s all part of his continuing mid-life crisis. I caught sight of his bleached blonde hair recently. It was one of those things you pretend not to see, though it certainly wasn’t as off putting as the Honourable Don Harwin in his gym gear

Carlton took a dreadful dive in the last ratings. Now he is only just above the quota for election to the Legislative Council. I was glad when the nominations were released and he hadn’t put his hand up to run. We already have enough former talk show hosts in the red morgue, and I don’t think I could cope with Carlton doing his impressions from the cross-benches.

Nor do I understand Carlton’s rugby union obsession. Sally Loane I understand. As a former Tenterfield Beef Week Queen, she was almost destined to take an interest in Rugby, and she did marry Mark Loane, so you can understand why she gets her jollies off on the subject. But what is Carlton’s obsession?

And then there is this obsession in the media about Eddie Obeid. Day in, day out, they are pursuing him. They seem to have this view that just because a bloke has made a quid or two, he has no right to be a member of the Labor Party. Look, even Marx seemed to have nothing against Labor people profiting during the capitalist phase. Why pick on Eddie! What’s he ever done?

[Note for desk diary next week. Get Jim to find out what Eddie has ever done.]

At least I did get out on the campaign trail last week. I accompanied Peter Black around parts of his electorate. Jeez that man can drink. We haven’t seen anyone like him round Parliament since George Neilly retired. But he is popular with the voters. Perhaps it’s because he stops to collect his car’s road kill while travelling the electorate, and cooks it up for the locals at his next port of call.

I’m glad to get rid of Dickie Face though. The Finance Department were sick of him coming to them all the time thinking he ran racing and gaming policy. Then they gave his portfolio responsibility to me, and I keep getting invites for dinner with overweight no-necked men in the gaudy gin palaces they’ve built on the back of poker machine revenues. What I have never understood is why poker machine rooms always have to have patterned carpet that looks like someone has been finger painting in vomit. It’s the worst thing about legalised gambling. So much money floating around, but all in the hands of people with no taste.

At the moment we are all feeling sorry for Carl Scully. The Waterfall accident has really hurt him. Previously he used to get Michael Gleeson to front up for all the death press conferences, but after Waterfall he has had to do them all himself. He’s looked pale and washed out ever since the accident.

He also got confused by one question the only time he stuck his head up last week. He was asked about the bus way contract, and whether his department assessing the tenders was in fact a conflict of interest. All he seemed to have heard was the words conflict of interest and suggested that this was Minister Obeid’s area of responsibility. Thankfully everyone thought he was just pulling their legs.

We haven’t seen Carl look so pale since he first defected from the left. He was OK till we had him round to meet the tribe for the first time. Admittedly, Tom Domican trying to break his fingers while shaking his hand was a bit unnecessary, but it was only a prank. After a week or two, he got his colour back when he realised the gravy trained he had climbed on by joining the right.

Penberthy’s stunt in the Telegraph last week was totally unnecessary though. Where does he get these life size cut outs of Ministers? Totally unfair to target Carl in that way. I’d hate to see what sort of coverage we’d get out of the Telegraph if they were actually anti the government.

I am now a bit worried about the upper house election though. There is good news in that Lisa Oldfield didn’t nominate, but we have that Hanson woman with a chance of getting in, and a second Green along with Ian Cohen. The thought of both Hanson and Lee Rhiannon in the upper house is staggering. I just hope that Pauline adopts the same attitude as Rhiannon and requests special dispensation that she not be called ‘the honourable’. It is the only honourable thing Rhiannon has done since she first came to haunt our chamber.

Anyway, costings next week, and I reckon we might be able come up with a huge figure to bludgeon the Liberals with. We did start to do some costings on the Greens promises, but half way through their platform, the cost was already greater than gross state product, so we gave up at that point.

It will be sad to bucket Brogden though, as he is a good Catholic boy. The Catholic Weekly gave him a great write up for not wanting to put his wife through IVF, but I think that august journal is misplaced. I’d like to know how often he has been to confession lately. I’d also like to know if the One True Church has a ruling on what sort of sin lying about costings is classed as. Surely an organisation as political as the Catholic Church has a ruling on that. Perhaps I should
talk to Bishop Pell.

Enough anyway. Hopefully next week will be more engaging. Two weeks to go. Someone has to find something for me to do before election day.

Michael Egan’s diaries – 12 August 2003

This may seem an odd way to describe a Michael Costa press conference, but I think there are similarities. Most of the greatest operatic rolls usually involve a young lead performer, a whole career ahead of them, but blighted in their prime by a legacy of the past. In Opera, it’s usually tuberculosis or syphilis. In politics, I reckon the Millennium
Train is up there on the same level, and Michael is producing press conferences of such emotional nuance that observers are walking away amazed at his personal strength in standing up to this potentially death-sentence malady.

I know I walked away from his last press conference appalled at the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune that have
pierced Michael’s side. After baring his stigmata in this way, you just feel the terrible injustice of the Millennium Train being inflicted upon him through past misdeeds he had no part in.

I mean, I got all the way back to my office still feeling his sense of injustice against the last government. It was only when I saw the words ‘Michael Egan – Treasurer’ emblazoned on my office door that I began to have doubts. Blaming everything on the government in office prior to 22 March this year is quite a high risk strategy.

But at least Michael has the Parrot on his side. Not a squawk, not an editorial, not a tough question yet. Nothing like the rubbishing poor old Carl Scully had to put up with. Carl came back to the ministerial wing after one interview, pale and visibly shaking. We gently scraped the guano and stray feathers off his suit, wrapped him in a blanket and told him we still loved him for half an hour till he stopped shaking, but Carl was never the same again.

In fact, it’s been all downhill for Carl since the Waterfall train crash. Up until then, he had this brilliant media strategy. Whenever there was any good news, like new carriages, station upgrades and building the Parramatta to Chatswood rail link, Carl did the press conference. For all the bad stories, like deaths, accident and delays in building the Parramatta to Chatswood rail link, we used to wheel out Michael Gleeson to spin the gallery. But at Waterfall, Carl had to front up, and he did not cope well. He’s got a smaller portfolio now, and new roads aren’t nearly as controversial as public transport, so hopefully he’ll be back to his old self before the year is out.

But I am now worried that the Parrot has decided that Costa should be the next Premier. With Bob overseas at the moment, you can see a few of the contenders starting to re-shape their image. For ages, while hirsute Scully and jolly John Watkins were his main opponents, Craig Knowles seemed to be cultivating a shaved head look. Now suddenly, he’s sprouting some faint tufts of hair on top. Is he trying to show he’s not as follicularly challenged as Costa?

If I were Knowlesy, I’d be worried about what Rozencrantz and the boys are doing down at Party headquarters in Sussex Street. Already I hear they are looking at strategies to sell Costa in the top job. Three ad lines are rating well they say. “It’s an ugly job but someone’s got to do it” is pretty obvious, but I find “Four eyes good, two eyes bad” a bit Orwellian, and “Yo looken at me!” completely passes me by. I thought “He’s good value” until someone pointed out that was Barrie Unsworth’s slogan. Better not go there again I think.

What Costa needs is a wife as good as Helena Carr to improve his image. Wasn’t she magnificent in the campaign, with the Women’s Weekly supplement making Bob look just the sort of man’s man every woman would want to marry. Ever since Bob got his Marcus Auralieus obsession, he’s got this desire to become the state’s gladiator Premier. Hopefully, he’ll come back from his European art gallery tour with a slightly toned down view of what to do next. It’s alright to spar with Peter Beattie about the Sate of Origin, but there’s no need to keep thinking of it in Punic War terms!

The finest moment of the campaign was that wonderful TV ad of Helena and Bob in the kitchen. They made it all look so
glamorous. Anyone who has seen the Carr ancestral home knows that when they did the renovations, all the money went on the library, not the kitchen. You go there for dinner, and while Bob entertains guests with his impersonations of American Presidents, or showing round his original print run edition of the Reverend Malthus’s “Essay on Population”, Helena’s slaving away in that pokey old kitchen.

She’s had even less kitchen space since all those loose stacked copies of Bob’s book ‘Thoughtlines’ appeared in the corner. Bob say they were provided by the publisher for distribution to struggling Socialist Parties in the third world, but personally I think that Bob and his staff were visiting bookshops and buying copies. That might explain how it made the best seller lists.

At least the new cabinet is working well without all the distractions of Eddie Obeid’s pecuniary interest register and Richard Amery’s bad jokes. We also don’t miss Aquilina intoning “Yes sir” every time Bob says something.

Some of the new ministers are also making a good impression. John Hatzistergos is so humourless and colourless that he is perfect in Corrective Services. Tony Kelly is doing well in local government encouraging councils to talk about mergers. He’s got a tough job, as arranging council mergers is almost as difficult as breeding elephants. You have to introduce the beasts first, and then get out of the way before the heavy action starts.

New Agriculture Minister Ian MacDonald apparently made a huge impression at his first agricultural show. As a left winger, the cockies were wary of him until he demonstrated his ability to castrate lambs with his teeth. Little did they realise it was a skill he learnt years ago from Meredith Burgmann, who used it successfully to drive the right out of the Glebe branch of the ALP in the 1970s.

But my budget measure on poker machine tax has upset Rosencrantz and the Sussex Street machine. Losing donations they whinge. Bugger them! I joined the Labor Party because I was interested in social redistribution to the needy. I don’t see the registered clubs movement as part of that, robbing from the pensioners to provide services that get more of them in putting more money in the poker machines. I think I can hold the troops on this one.

The churches were upset when the first thing we did after the election was equalise the gay age of consent. It caught them by surprise, and they found it hard to argue for the laws to remain in place when it is apparent the same churches spent the last few decades failing to report priests committing exactly these acts with altar boys. Churches don’t like being caught out engaging in hypocrisy.

But boy, didn’t silly old Charlie Lynn go off on the bill. All through the debate, he kept yelling out something about old
English poets. ‘What about Wordsworth’, What about Keats’, What about Byron’. Stark raving mad. Reckon he’s caught something odd on one of his trips up the Kokoda Trail. Then he claimed some outrageous calumny by an unnamed Minister against an underage boy. Lynn had his arm in plaster through the whole debate, so I reckon Senator Heffernan might have impressed him into doing it.

The debate was also made memorable by the intrusion of new Labor MLC Tony Burke, who not only spotted the big loop hole in the bill, but came up with the amendment to fix it. Very embarrassing to the Attorney General’s staff, who are still rounding up faggots for a ritual witch burning I hear.

Burke seems very bright, which has surprised everyone, as we thought he was the George Pell candidate. The last Legislative Council backbencher who was that bright was Peter Baldwin, and thankfully Burke seems set to follow Baldwin’s path to Canberra. Can’t have backbenchers brighter than Ministers can we.

Archbishop Pell is causing quite a split in the right faction though. A hot line to the Pope we hear, which has got some
weaker members of the Party feeling a bit concerned.

I have to say, it is a long time since I paid much attention to doctrinal disputes, but really, the liberals in the Church
need to get a sense of proportion. If they want Pope John XXIII to head the church again, why don’t they join a religion that believes in reincarnation? Honestly, if Pope John was such a good administrator, than how did he end up allowing Vatican II to leave all those dead babies in limbo? I mean, good doctrine requires a pope that crosses
every ‘t’ and dots every ‘i’, or whatever the Latin equivalent is.

Some in the liberal wing have just gone too far. I was visiting Lismore during the election campaign, and saw one of those odd new services, trying to appeal to the greenies in the north of the state. They had some loser in a koala suit with a piano accordion playing a sea shanty version of ‘Every Sperm is Sacred’. I am sure the Pope and Archbishop Pell would have approved of the sentiment, but really, where is the dignity!

At least it was good to hear that John and Lucy Brogden are going to be parents. Now he will be able to face his confessor on the basis he was trying to procreate and not just engaging in a meaningless pursuit of pleasure. The fact he has shown such dogged determination to achieve a goal suggests he won’t be a push-over at the next election. Mind you, even John Howard would admit that sex is better than being opposition leader. Brogden won’t find the next three
years as pleasurable.

The media hasn’t improved since the election either. It was wonderful hearing Anglican Bishop Jentsen making mince meat of Sally Loane one morning. “Have you put wheels on the altar at St Andrews?” she asked, to which he replied “The Anglican Church has not had an Altar since Archbishop Cranmer banned them in the sixteenth century”. Wonderful stuff, but they must have choked on their wafers down at Christ Church St Lawrence.

And the Parrot is as bad as ever. He won’t have me on to debate land tax or pokey tax. Too afraid of being shown up I think. I suspect the Parrot thinks fiscal rectitude is a haemorrhoid treatment. Mike Carlton had me on about the pokies, but he agreed with me so the interview was hardly challenging. The great question bothering me is why has Carlton’s program suddenly become the home of adverts for impotence treatments? Does it say something about his audience? It seems that 2UE has all the anti-impotence treatments, but 2GB has cornered incontinence pads. But at least Carlton stays true to his small-l liberal roots, unlike Phillip Clark who has swung strongly to the right since going to 2GB. Trying to make sure he is re-signed by the Parrot no doubt.

But finally, I have to admit to enjoying the biography of Bob done by that nice Labor historian. It was interesting he admitted to having a colonoscopy for his 50th birthday to make sure he wasn’t about to die of bowel cancer. Clearly Bob is starting to have a sense of mortality, so maybe it’s time we tried again to get him to convert to the one true faith. We just have to impress on him that conversion is worthwhile as insurance at his age. If he retires and moves to that new property he has bought in New Zealand, he may be too far from the nearest priest for a deathbed conversion, and we can’t go having the souls of Labor leaders ending up in purgatory. Lord knows they have enough of that in life with morning talk show hosts.

When Parliament’s back, the first thing we have to decide is whether to expel Malcolm (I’m a country member) Jones. The ICAC said we should, but Legislative Councillors go a bit soft between the ears on such motions. First they couldn’t decide about sacking Justice Bruce. Then they couldn’t expel Franca Arena on those silly paedophile conspiracy allegations. Honestly, if a Supreme Court justice had been sacrificed late at night in Lane Cove National Park, someone would have noticed. Even if it was Justice Bruce!

Anyway, I could fill endless pages with the lack of challenges I face in this job. No one ever asks a serious budget question. I’m still stuck here in the Legislative Council listening to Lee Rhiannon and Gordon Moyes drone on, when the real action is in the other place. Sometimes keeping this diary is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Till next time.