Un-Australian

(26 January, 2016)

When you start a thing, who knows where it ends?

Throw a party, prepare to make new friends.

Make a nation, make your nation state

From plasticine, so to shape its fate.

I watch TV and see this once great land

Has changed and absolutely nothing’s planned

For me: I’m persona non grata;

I’m packing, and leaving, to foreign laughter.

I feel a stranger, right here, right now,

I’m going, I’m gone, if you’ll allow.

[Note, It is instructive to track the Australian of the Year Award, which has become an Australia Day feature since its inception in 1960. The first four scientists to receive the award were world-recognised and acknowledged in their fields.  The fifth (2007) is a global warming activist.  An activist first got the gong in 1978 and there have been several since.  Sport Stars and Artists are the greatest number, of course, plus a few doctors, the odd Judge, Economist and Historian, and a handful of politicians (mostly un-contentious ones) as well.

Of the four folks from Defence to get the nod, Alan Stretton (1975) helped deal with the aftermath of disastrous Cyclone Tracy in Darwin, Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop (1976) was a heroic military surgeon in WWII, Peter Cosgrove (2001) led the peace-keeping mission to East Timor, and this year, David Morrison was honoured, for his ‘You Tube’ style bake against sexists in the armed services, and embrace of sundry fashionable causes.  How heroic.]