OPINION
We Australians really have become a nation of nasty, bitter wowsers, haven’t we?
Once upon a time we either turned a blind eye to, bemusedly tolerated or even celebrated politicians who didn’t mind a beer or two. Fourth prime minister George Reid famously referred to his ample frame as “all piss and vinegar”. Late-night drinking sessions in the Old Parliament House would put Bacchus to shame. Bob Hawke entered the Guinness Book of Records for downing a yard of beer in 11 seconds.
The nexus between politics and drunkenness was established firmly even in Greek times, when Dionysus was the patron god of both wine and political discourse.
That’s all long gone. When National’s Senator Barnaby Joyce unwisely mixed alcohol and prescription meds and fell off a planter box in the middle of Canberra, pearl-clutching wowsers had an instant attack of the vapours.
Wowserism is back after the former deputy prime minister was filmed in a state of advanced refreshment while taking a stroll from the parliament to his digs in Braddon late last Friday evening.
Now he is being encouraged by his senior colleagues to take a period of personal leave to get his affairs in order. Naturally, the media leapt on the episode and, with lips smacking at the thought of all those clicks, posted the amusing footage of Joyce looking like an upturned snapping turtle barking expletives into his phone […]
In years gone by this story would be of little moment but the Rechabites are thick on the ground now, tut-tutting abstemiously and furrowing their brows at occasional moments of excess. The question is not whether Joyce can do his job effectively but whether his drunken tumble may make them all look bad.
Long gone are the days when Labor’s John Solomon “Sol” Rosevear, speaker of the house during the Chifley government, ran an SP bookmaking operation out of his office and nobody batted an eyelid. When the hard-drinking Rosevear died in 1953, the reverend presiding at his funeral waxed sombre about “the dreadful loss to the nation of a great Australian now gone, a man who rose above the internecine feuds of politics to place himself in service of the country’s most vulnerable”, prompting fellow Labor politician Fred Daly to interject, “By God, we’re burying the wrong man.”
Joyce can be seen as continuing that tradition of thirsty Australian politicians, albeit a man with a face made more for colour television than black and white in what is a rare display of all of the colours on the visible light spectrum lying between his receding hairline and his jaw.
The Australian
It’s not as if Barnaby is bad at his job. As opposition Veterans’ Affairs spokesman, he’s done an excellent job on holding the government’s feet to the fire on a shamefully neglected portfolio, with successive governments short-changing veterans badly.
Frankly, find out what brand of whisky he drinks and give it to all the politicians.
And there’s one veteran who’s firmly in Barnaby’s corner.
Dennis Callaghan, 77, told The Australian he was not previously a supporter of the former Nationals leader but his opinion changed in February last year when he experienced a bad fall in Canberra, after drinking one night, and knocked his head heavily on the pavement.
Mr Callaghan, a former Vietnam War veteran who was conscripted in 1967 and served as a rifleman in 3RAR, told The Australian Mr Joyce – wearing a dinner suit – came to his aid, with another man helped carry him home, put him in bed then rang twice to check on his welfare […]
Mr Joyce, who did not contact The Australian to reveal the incident, confirmed the story and said Mr Callaghan was “lying in the gutter” and bleeding from the head while people were walking past him.
Unfortunately, not many Canberrans are of Barnaby’s calibre. Instead, denizens of the notorious woke Bubble only paused to film someone lying on the ground and post it to social media before swanning off.
But Mr Callaghan – who previously worked at the Defence Department – expressed disappointment no one came to the Mr Joyce’s aid.
“He probably had a few drinks and he was sitting on a plant box or something, talking to his wife, and fell off. And instead of getting up he was lying there talking on the phone. That seemed OK to me. But it would have been nice for somebody to help him, wouldn’t it?”
The Australian
Come on… this Canberra we’re talking about. A territory almost entirely composed of public servants and Labor-Greens voters.
And at least, unlike Lidia Thorpe, Barnaby didn’t use his inebriated state as an excuse to scream racist abuse at people.