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The Good Ship Oz?

In a week in which the PM "announced" [all very convenient....!] an imminent terror threat and the Government introduced into the Federal Parliament its new IR and anti-terrorism laws [both the subject of considerable "complaint" and criticism from informed quarters] the over-riding [no pun intended!] news of the week has been the Melbourne Cup and The Oaks. Is it really important or so newsworthy that a horse has won the Cup 3 times? Frivolity and the like have seemingly found favour with the media as newspapers have devoted pages of newsprint to photos of horses and the dress [?] of those at Flemington.

This all makes it ever so more timely to re-visit the playwright David Williamson's recent lecture on Cruise Ship Australia - as reported in The Bulletin. In his lecture Williamson questiobed what really matters to Australians - the material things of life and the banal or that which is truly important. Needless to say, he has been criticised for his views. Williamson, has in my view, hit the nail on the head!

Just reflect on the cost to the community of this Cup Week to see how our priorities in Oz in 2005 seem askew - and what an opportunity it afforded the Government to "slip" in its new proposed legislation. More importantly, who is listening out there? And who is still in a stupor from the week's horse-racing events? She'll be right? Maybe not for too much longer.

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