A fork in the road - an Australian coup d'état No sooner had I posted yesterday's edition of
Fremantlebiz than the news came through that Kim Beazley had officially been given the shove by his Labor caucus colleagues. Kevin Rudd is now the next wannabe PM.
One has to feel sorry for Mr Beazley, but in the past he has participated in similar coup d'états against others. It is the same old Machiavellian principal at play. In a cruel twist, minutes after the decision Mr Beazley was told that his younger brother David had died unexpectedly in Perth of a heart attack. That pretty well knocked the stuffing out of him completely. He now needs a holiday.
It's difficult to imagine Mr Beazley continuing in parliament much longer. The media are regarding this dismissal as his swan song. He will retire on what will be an enormous pension with all the perks.
Interestingly I've been at close quarters and photographed all of the last half dozen prime ministers, and several opposition leaders, but I don't think I have ever seen Mr Beazley in the flesh. As for his running mate in the recent leadership stakes, I haven't a clue on the identity except that the person was female. There must be some kind of a political message there.
But I sure know who Mr Rudd has beside him. Who could forget the smouldering
Ms Julia Gillard. Like the staff at
Australian Woman's Weekly, I'll be keenly watching her fashion choices from now on.
I viewed Mr Rudd being interviewed on TV by the ABC's Kerry O'Brien last night. The ABC schemers had obviously set out to give Kev a hard time on his first day as opposition leader but he answered all the carefully contrived questions with an intellectual competency long absent in Australian TV politics. He may well be the most intelligent person in the federal parliament. On the other hand...
In his earlier acceptance speech yesterday he several times used the cliche, "Fork in the road." Meaning a political change of direction for the Labor party and the Australian peoples.
Cliches are a mistake because they set the cartoonists to work. There will be all sorts of unfortunate variations in the coming years: Fork in the toad. Toad on the fork. Fork in the woad. Toad in the woad. Fork in the pork. There will also be cartoon drawings of forked roads with one direction going over a cliff. Mr Rudd should have picked another cliche because this one will come back to haunt him whenever things get tough. If that's not enough, reflect on the fact that
his personal website has been built by an operation called
ToadShow. That's spooky! A toad on the road.
But for now there will be a honeymoon period for Labor and the working class. Champagne and caviar by the bucketful - it's too close to Christmas for anything else.
Mr Rudd has cited a German theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer as one of his importance sources of inspiration. I suspect that left most Australians scratching their heads. I cured my own ignorance by going to
Wikipedia.Dr Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who opposed Nazism. He was linked to the "20 July Plot" to assassinate Hitler - an attempted coup d'état, or political fork in the road. The Nazis hanged him in 1945.
Of course we all have our forks in the road - difficult choices of one form or another. Being civilised in Australia, we also call them parliamentary elections.
© MMVI Paul R. Weaver.
About the writerCheck out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.
Technorati ProfileWho links to me? 
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
fremantlebiz's journal