Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, July 4, 2003
TRAPPED IN WONDERLAND
THE whole world is a theme park but Canberra is its own special place, a land where superstitions, fables and fairy tales originate. In winter, with a fine lacework of ice decorating the bare tree branches and the grass crackling under foot, I would not be surprised to see a unicorn emerging from the mist over Lake Burley Griffin. Or a ghostly Prime Minister on his morning walk. Canberra is a town where the occasion of a federal budget sells more newspapers than a football grand final; where the pre-eminent human right is the right to a white government car; and where, sadly, your status is reflected by the number of security men assigned to shadow you everywhere. The PM crossed my path recently when I was in Canberra for a social function. He was accompanied by three men in black. Others may have been hiding in the toilet. He gave one of those stirring patriotic speeches, the wily old campaigner pushing the buttons marked Brag, Flag and Brag again. Patriotism is the first refuge of the Howard. Later on, I happened to be at a cocktail party attended by all sides of politics. Kym Beazley was there, having not long failed in his bid for the Labor leadership again. He appeared to be very chipper. Very. I heard him speculating on the timing of an early federal election while presumably assessing his chances of another leadership challenge in the meantime. Fairy tales, indeed. The temporary victor Simon Crean was at the same function, at a distance, looking like a lost soul from the Land of Miserabilia. Being a Labor leader in Opposition can crumple a man.Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock was there, too, shorter and greyer than he appears on TV, and wearing his Amnesty lapel pin. He gave me a warm two-handed handshake, which I did not enjoy, and asked if we had met previously? No, definitely not, I would have remembered that velvet-fisted clamp. The choice of Canberra as our national capital was made before commuter air travel began, in an era when being fogged-in for three months of the year made no difference. Some would say it is fogged-in all year round anyway. The fog comes down in layers. At one level, governments always believe they have an innate right to impenetrable secrecy. At another, the cries for help from the outside world can no longer be heard. At the same time, the cocktail circuit is noisy with the clatter of beans being spilled. Rumours, gossip and conspiracy theories are what passes for reality here. Heaven on a stick for a politician, a journalist or a spy. I am writing this in Canberra Airport waiting for the fog to lift so I can fly home, no doubt being monitored ever more closely by a hidden camera or ten. I may have been stuck here for a few hours or for days, it's hard to tell on this side of an inversion layer. A large white rabbit carrying an oversized fobwatch just scampered by muttering, ``I'm really in a stew. No time to say goodbye, hello! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.'' Curiouser and Curiouser.
