Gerard Henderson, and an indulgent banging on about Henderson, billionaires and Barnaby Joyce ...

(Above: Mr. Dour himself, or as Hamlet might have said:

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.)

Is it possible to spend an entire column banging on about meaningless, useless advice of the kind a prattling Polonius once delivered to Hamlet?

Sure thing, and yet again Gerard Henderson demonstrates the art in Swan's indulgent essay sidesteps the important questions.

To save time and tedium - I am in verbiage stepped so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er - let's cut to the chase and Henderson's final par:

Australia's world-class mining industry is a major revenue stream and a source of employment. Presently it is under attack from the green movement. For Swan to be banging on about the likes of Forrest, Rinehart and Palmer is an indulgence - especially since this trio have not prevented the implementation of Gillard Labor's policy agenda.

You see, according to Henderson, Swan shouldn't have taken the time out to pen a few thoughts on uppity billionaires, because it's just a form of class hatred, like the class hatred practised by FRD (and in the process Henderson shows he's swallowed the worst of the FDR hate peddled by the right wing ratbags of America. Hate, it turns out, is a two way street).

It also turns out that Swan, according to Henderson, should simply stick to his day job, and never - what never? no never! - pen a thought or word for the evil multimillionaire property developer Morry Schwartz (speaking of class hatred, did we mention that Morry Schwartz is an evil multimillionaire, and clearly a class traitor of the worst rich kind, leading Labor party politicians like Swan and Rudd down the garden path, away from the sage advice of prattling Polonius Henderson).

Truly Henderson is always full of the vapours, but this is surely the weakest effort in a long time.

The notion that politicians shouldn't scribble their thoughts for a magazine because the thoughts offend Henderson is probably the most vacuous, repressive, anti-debating line anyone could take, no matter that it's dressed up with the finery of FDR bashing, and the implicit notion that the billionaires can babble on as much as they like about anything they like, and all politicians should do in response is head off to the nearest bunker and attend to budget papers.

It's possible to think Kevin Rudd made a contradictory goose of himself penning his thoughts for The Monthly, but the notion that politicians should live like Trappist monks and go about their business in silence is a risible absurdity.

In the end it amounts to a hollow 'there, there pets, did diddums hurt you with his vicious attack' offering to the billionaires.

Still, if they fling a little the way of the Sydney Institute, well where's the harm. Not that we'll ever know, since as with all institutes that blather on about freedom and transparency, the books of the Sydney Institute are closely guarded ...

Next thing you know the pollies will have to sit in silence and listen to yet another ramble from Hardly Normal about the suffering being endured by the retail trade.

Meanwhile, if Swan taking time out to write a homily about a few uppity billionaires is such a travesty, an indulgence, a banging on, what on earth does Henderson make of Barnaby Joyce taking time out to pen emails to the Gina Rinehart brood?

Is this a useless indulgence or what? Banging on about domestic harmony and doing what big momma wants?

Poor old Barners, off in the wars again. The plucky lad has been all over the ABC this morning trying to explain why he got involved in the family stoush, without much luck or conviction, but he did deliver up one great line:

"Tony Windsor would think I'm the second gunman on the grassy knoll. I mean it's absurd." the senator said. (And as an aside, just as we're listening to Barners on AM right at this minute, let's take time to note that we took that quote from The Age, here, which put up the absurd note that any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring of the story is prohibited, when they filched the story from the ABC. Guys, get your lawyers to take a lunch break, or go off and listen to AM's Barnaby Joyce: Why I intervened in Rinehart family feud).

Oops, for a minute there we got distracted.

Surely the news that Barners might have been the second gunman on the grassy knoll will attract conspiracy theorists like flies to the honey pot (to use a sound Dad and Dave phrase).

We keed, we keed, but we do look forward to a column from Gerard Henderson berating Barners for getting involved in a family feud without realising that the TV game show stopped running in Australia in its original version back in 1996 - ah Family Feud, what a splendid alternative to reading the likes of The Monthly).

Unless of course Barners should feel free to write advice to the children of billionaires, because what the heck, advice can sometimes be free. The children might be dunces to take Barners' advice, but apart from that, where's the harm?

If Wayne Swan penning a few words about billionaires - a bunch of losers, the lot of them, according to Henderson, completely impotent, completely without power or effect, no capacity at all to influence the ship of state ...

Hang on, hang on, is calling them losers and perhaps even tossers, the best way to secure a donation for a worthy cause? With the Sydney Institute always in need of wise and understanding donors?

Never mind, if Wayne Swan penning a few words about uppity bolshie billionaires is an indulgent essay sidestepping the important questions, then surely Barners is beyond indulgence, and we look forward to his public whipping by the bravely prattling, always even-handed, never ideologically blinkered - hate FDR hate hate, he might have helped win the second world war, but he ruined the United States during the depression - Gerard Henderson ...

What a long, sorry, woeful and doleful contribution Henderson makes to the history and the culture wars ... you might even be tempted to call it indulgent ...

(Below: oh goody goody gumdrops, a chance to run a few snaps of Barners. Please Barners, whatever your grassy knoll, billionaire counselling bureau duties entail, don't be a stranger to these pages. We do so love seeing you out and about with representatives of a homophobic party).