Patriot Realm

30 minutes of truth bombs’ is how one Twitter user described Liberal Democrat John Ruddick’s maiden speech to the New South Wales (NSW) Parliament, last Wednesday 28 June. 

Indeed, Ruddick, who left the Liberal Party in 2021 after public disagreements over the Party’s handling of the pandemic response, said out loud in parliament what many Australians have been saying for some time now – at first privately, around dinner tables, but increasingly more publicly, over workplace water coolers or at the pub, as saying the obvious becomes more socially acceptable. 

It was about 30 years ago when I was living in a tiny town in the Channel Country. It was a Sunday morning and I got a phone call from a hospital about 14 hours away. My daughter was in their care and suffering from a particularly nasty viral infection in her lungs. Could I perhaps come as soon as possible? She had  Meningococcal pneumonia. 

She was a young Nurse. A kind and caring young 18-year-old. In training. 

Alone, so far from home. 

As a Mum. I needed to be with her. 

So I started my journey to do what I had to do: be with my daughter. Because that is what mothers do. 

Up in the far north of Australia, at the pointy end, there are crocodiles. Little crocodiles, bigger crocodiles and bloody monster crocodiles, some reaching near thirty feet in length.  I have seen them at all these sizes, in their environment, from Red Island Point up near the pointy bit of the Cape, down to Cairns, and of course, they are further south too, but my area of interest in those days, long ago, was from the pointy bit of the Cape to just south of Cairns

.Once upon a time, long, long ago, PP worked for a government department, in a job that required PP to visit and remain in indigenous communities for one week, back to the office for one week, then live in another indigenous community for one week, continuously, for well over a decade.

Humour is as old as humanity itself. I am not sure if our ancient ancestors, clad in loincloths and whipping up another batch of ochre for their cave paintings, found amusement in the absurdity of life. But they must, sure as faith, be having a laugh at us now as we launch from one accusation of racism to another. They must think it very amusing that we now rate our value as humans on how long we have lived in a country when, back in the day, no such thing as a country even existed. 

We were all part of the same brew, just painted with a different dye. 

But back to humour, the point of today's ramblings.