For a moment, the pond was startled and shocked … dinkum Oz clean coal lovers, oi, oi, oi, stumped? How could it be? Luckily the Canavan caravan rolled by with the good news …
But the pond decided that it didn't need to jump on board the Canavan caravan this day.
The good news was sufficient, even more so as developing nations are likely to suffer more from the effects of climate change, and Canavan's good news …
The good news was sufficient, even more so as developing nations are likely to suffer more from the effects of climate change, and Canavan's good news …
No, the pond was in the mood for a good table-thumping, a howling at clouds, a voice echoing in stentorian style in the wilderness, and luckily there came nattering "Ned" to feed the pond…
Now some might think that the truly bizarre collection consists of the motley crew of reptiles that scribble furiously for the lizard Oz, but that is much too cruel, and might distract from the fun of nattering "Ned" shouting at the cross bench to get off his lawn …
Since Federation in 1901? What, not even the grand days of Joh and French furniture polisher Albert Field?
Oh they were grand and corrupt days, no doubt about it, and it gave the land the original head prefect Malware, but the pond will stand by the dismissal as a time of upheaval against the current follies, and with the Senate at the heart of the games …
But enough of the pond reminiscing, the point here is to listen to "Ned" rail at the clouds ...
But enough of the pond reminiscing, the point here is to listen to "Ned" rail at the clouds ...
Indeed, indeed, you despicable Senators. There was the onion muncher, winning Newspoll after Newspoll, and full of bright policy initiatives, knighthoods and suchlike, and damn it, you had to bring him down, and somehow poor old Malware copped the blame …
Own up, you fiends, confess your crimes against the onion muncher.
It's these ineluctable mysteries that the pond relies on "Ned" to explain …
In cases like this, the pond always recommends sundry forms of medication designed to relieve blood pressure, and at the least an aspirin a day to reduce clotting of the brain …and a good walk in the noon day sun also helps (though this might not work in Melbourne)…
Reading this sort of jeremiad from a latter-day Jeremiah always gives the pond a taste for a quote from the bible ...
And so to the naughtiness for the day.
Almost anyone else on the planet would say, after a full course of nattering "Ned", enough already and push away the plate.
But look, this is usually Dame Slap day, and instead the reptiles have offered a treat as tempting as an after-dinner mint in a Python comedy sketch...
The pond might well explode - an Oreo for lunch! - but please allow the indulgence, because it's a rare chance to go fox-hunting in theAdelaide hills with the Oreo ...
Oh dear, the Oreo attempting to be a reporter and do a bit of colour. No wonder the pond was regretting the decision to snack, but once you're half way into the biccie, what can you do but finish it?
And it was there, in that reference to South Australia's Scots-Irish culture, that the pond realised that the Oreo, besides being barking mad, didn't have a clue …
For its sins, the pond was once transported to the land of the crow eaters, and lived amongst them, aware all the time that it could never fit in, that it was an alien eastern stater, whose only entitlement was to be resented.
In the land of the Adelaide club, the culture was English to its fox-hunting bootstraps, and Lord Downer's family was typical …
Who were our forebears before embarking for the infant colony of South Australia? My father, Sir John, used to say that they were yeoman farmers in the south of England. My cousin, Marion Downer, thought so too, believing they came from Wiltshire … (Wakefield Press pdf here).
Lord Downer is just the latest in a long line of Downers - Greg Hunters start here - and even as late as the 2016 census, the ABS was reporting 28.5% with an English ancestry (639,350) against 6.3% for Scottish and 6.0% for Irish. Even the other strand - the Colin Thiele strand if you will - managed only 5.8%, though certain towns in the hills and the Barossa still remind the pond of its German blut (ABS data here).
Why get picky about this? Well, it's part of the general Oreo dissembling that wanders through the piece in service of the Downer family's nepotic desire to continue the line … the English line.
The pond is long gone from the Adelaide Hills, where it once almost purchased property and which it visited regularly, and it really doesn't give a toss about who wins the by-election, because the main game will be the general election, and then there'll be a view halloo and a tally-ho …
But to downgrade the English component in crow eater land, is damned un-British and un-sporting, and made the pond suspect in the usual way that eating Oreos might be bad not just for weight, but for sanity …
This after all is the free of convicts colony of London-born Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and dammit it all, there should be respect for the heritage of Lord Downer and his tribe, born as they were to rule the riffraff and lick them into shape ...
How did that song go that the pond used to sing on its trips to McLaren Vale, to visit the good doctor at Coriole and to down a nice Kay Brothers red, and admire the view of the vineyards from the outdoor toilet?
Lord Downer loves us, this we know
For the Bible tells us so ...
Apparently there are variations of the song all over the world ...
Neddles: "...whether Malcolm Turnbull's 2016 double dissolution, as opposed to a normal Reps and half-Senate election was really the best option"
ReplyDeleteIt maybe wasn't the best option ? The insuperably wise and wonderful Malfeasance might have got it wrong ? Hucoodanode.
You are much closer to SA's ethnic origins than Orio. Scots-Irish was never a big feature, despite one of the legendary Premiers Tom Playford having Scottish ancestry, and another, Charles Kingston, of Irish descent. It was, as you correctly pointed out, of purely English origins in its first stages, trying unsuccessfully to implement Wakefield's ambitious plan for a class-structured society.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the German Lutheran migration, and this was most important given that they were very hardworking and skilled farmers, who also turned their hands to winemaking, notably in the Barossa Valley but in various parts of the state.
But I'm surprised you overlooked the Cornish migrations, which went ahead in droves after the discovery of copper. Most had a tin mining background which they easily adapted to copper. The northern York Peninsula area of Moonta-Wallaroo-Kadina became known as "Australia's Little Cornwall".
With them came the skill in making pasties, which are quite distinct from elsewhere in Australia, apart from Launceston, which also had a Cornish influx. The 3rd great Premier of SA, Don Dunstan was of Cornish descent.
They have disbursed and integrated into the community so that it is harder to measure their ethnic percentage today. But an interesting indication is given in old census data. Before WWII, on census figures of Religion, the percentage of Methodists then was 36, quite disproportionate to the other states and greatly exceeding Catholics, which they would almost certainly not today. A large part of that can be put down to the Cornish migrants, albeit many West Country English were also Wesleyans.
It's probably to that we owe our incongruous mix of snobbish class structure and egalitarian opportunity. Well that's my story on it anyway!