Survival Room

Old ‘Ironbar’ – Wilson Tuckey, MP, disgraced
himself again today; when asked to stand and
face the Stolen Generation in Australia-wide
apology said he wouldn’t and he wasn’t sorry
in the least! Wasn’t wishy-washy bi-partisan,
contrite or gave a damn about their plight.

The Federal Member for O’Connor (WA) is a
hard act to swallow – indeed, representing
callowness and the reddest of redneck ideas
ever seen in a long-serving politician. Yet he
is the last of the Mohicans, a dour survivor
of a soured and grimly chequered past.

Still, it makes a nice change from inveterate
liars who populate his party. Ironbar earned
his laurels with a piece of steel cable and an
assault on an Aborigine. Convicted but not
mortified, free to symbolize reprehensible
behaviour – representation larger than life.

Wilson’s views may be too extreme and anti
indigene for some but at least you know what
you get. Although it does suggest O’Connor
might not be all that nice a place to live in.
There wouldn’t be survival room enough for
all of him and the least Liberal part of me.
© 13 February 2008, I. D. Carswell