The framed flyer enticed me to partake in the splendour of “new season lamb with brioche parsley crumb, buttered peas and mash” and all for $34. I must say as a venue for an advertisement it had a captive audience as there being no graffiti on the back of the toilet cubicle door. It was unerringly incongruous though. The two products linked by a rather circuitous form that required a lot of forgiving latitude from the observer to entice purchase.

 

Like the lavatory door advertisement for dinner, when I see Julia Gillard unveiling a statue of Curtin and Chifley, a rendition of Sesame Street's "One of these things is not like the others" starts ringing in my ears.

 

Curtin and Chifley gathered the reins in the darkest hour and saw Australia through its greatest crisis, the impending Japanese invasion during World War II. Curtin and Chifley were loyal to one another and their stature also carried the respect of their colleagues on the other side of the political fence. If Curtin and Chifley had failed in what was a real global crisis then Australia was finished.

 

Now we have this shambolic Australian war against the temperature orchestrated by a person who was suppose to be the former Prime Minister's most loyal lieutenant, prior to her walking to his office and informing him, in the most brutal form, of quite something else. Ms Gillard's actions, unfortunately on virtually all fronts, have bedevilled all attempts to breathe authenticity into any belief that she could guide us through watering the roses let alone running the country.

 

Election Julia "ruled out" sending asylum seekers to a country that had not signed the UN Refugee Convention. PM Julia Gillard, however, accuses the Opposition of "bleating today about human rights issues" because they do not want to send refugees to a country where striking people with the rattan is on the statute books for illegal immigration.   

 

The unerringly termed Malaysian Solution, something I spoke of in this column almost immediately after it was announced, was quite bizarre. Why do we have to accept anything that the Labor Party suggests by reason of the Executive says so, so there? If the next step of lunacy is The Antarctic Solution to stop the boats, is it plausible just because Labor says so. The return of Labor as the new age form of complicit convict flogger was for so many the final straw.

 

The Government now complains that the Parliament is not giving the Executive the powers it demands, but the Parliament has never been the writer of blank cheques. There is a time-honoured way for the Executive to resolve disputes between it and the Parliament. A very good mechanism to achieve consensus is the mechanism called an election.

 

The Malaysian solution is an alternate manifestation that closer observation is seen in the financial management of this country.

 

The Australian governments, both Federal and State, have gathered massive debts in a resource boom. In a world out of money and Australia relying on credit and an imported standard of living for a workforce employed predominantly in services, is a very dire mix.

In the coming weeks we hope that Europe sorts its problems out but if Europe does not then I have concerns about Wayne Swan’s authority to handle a global liquidity meltdown. We stayed out of the last recession because of Asian demand for our resources not manic programmes such as the ceiling insulation debacle, $900 cheques and school halls. Mr Swan should not claim authority for geography and Asian economic growth.

 

Surely Labor has someone vaguely competent that could show some sense of consistency. Does Australia have to trudge like lemmings into two further years of abyss because we cannot rely on the honourable pulling of the pin by someone who, although they may not like the Coalition, does know that we cannot go on like this?

 

So, do not sell dinner at your restaurant on the back of a public lavatory door, it is the dilemma of nation’s political incongruence. Minority government and authoritative government, Wayne Swan and financial management, Labor and policy, fish and bicycles and if statues could walk then I would have seen two remarkable men of metal politically walking assiduously away from a struggling lady and her incompetent sidekick.