Canberra: by our bunyip correspondent ✉️

Exactly one hundred years ago, the men and horses of the Australian Light Horse charged over open ground for more than two miles into entrenched machine gun and cannon fire. The charge was a victory for strong and brave men far from home.

And so what is going on in the country that these horseman left behind?

The President of the Australian Senate – after reading newspaper accounts of senators being expelled from Parliament for kissing a non Australian behind the school bike sheds when they were eleven years old, and seeing familiar faces disappearing from his workplace, finally remembers that his father was born in England. And perhaps he too should check his eligibility.

While Paul Keating’s charge that the Senators were “unrepresentative swill” was always seen as slightly over the top – well at least the “swill” bit – there had always been a common understanding that they read the newspapers. Or perhaps he was suffering indigestion from all of the party pies and sausage rolls on tomato sauce smeared paper plates that are the hallmark of every Australian workplace farewell.

But more likely, he thought that basic competence in a Coalition leadership position was another nice to have.

After all, the Employment Minister was all helmet hair hairspray and outrage when it was suggested that her office may have alerted the press to an unnecessary police raid on a trade union office associated with actions by the leader of the opposition ten years ago.

Even the least prudent and foolhardy politician would wonder if perhaps there was a slight chance of an over enthusiastic young male staffer wanting to impress the pretty girls with long blonde hair who stand in front of the outdoor cameras of the commercial television stations as they breathlessly record bulletin leading stories of the saving of kittens from trees by firemen with laconic Australian accents, cars crashing through suburban bedroom windows AND politically motivated police raids with flashing lights and men with masks, machine guns and parachute jump boots.

And like Washington, not all problems can be blamed on young staffers trying to make a name for themselves. Sometimes, like Washington, it is also the leader himself who sets the tone.

A leader who stands in the Parliament and announces, without doubt or worry, that the highest court in the land will decide that the words of the Australian constitution say the opposite of the plain language. Who should know the risks of slack and overreach because he daily cleans up the mess of colleagues who cannot recognise the poor sound of a story told to an unknown live microphone or the disastrous plot line of a free trip to the movies.

But then pulls out a hand gun, and shoots himself in the foot on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Even Donald Trump talks about shooting someone else on a New York street. And not himself.

And so perhaps our Senate President, and our Employment Minister and our Prime Minister, and all of our politicians should remember that today is another anniversary.

Five hundred tears ago, a German monk nailed to the door of a castle church in Wittenberg a charge against the indulgences of the most powerful political body in the world. And changed the future.

Changes are coming.

Ends.