Marvellous Melbourne will give a closer focus to what is happening in that wonderful city and what we can learn from it.

First, it is my melancholy duty to inform you that the peace and tranquility of my local electorate of Prahran in the state parliament has just been shattered by the forced resignation of our MP, Sam Hibbins, a reforming Greens MP and no less a dignitary than the Deputy Leader of that highly principled party. This sad event has come about by virtue of young Sam having had what is politely referred to as a ‘relationship’ with a member of his staff. It is not known into which of the recently discovered 74 identifiable genders the staff member falls, but it may safely be assumed to be female. The allegedly not so honourable member’s affair having been exposed, he was hauled before his leader, Ellen Sandell, who sacked him on the spot. We, however, prefer to see his predicament as a momentary lapse of judgment that should be forgiven, rather than an unforgiveable sin to be punished by expulsion. After all, he is a Green! Indeed, on his first day in the parliament, Sam showed that he was so devoted to showing respect for women that he eschewed the usual ‘maiden’ speech, opting for the more inclusive ‘inaugural’ one. Moreover, it is a well-known fact that the Greens are above reproach in all matters relating to personal behaviour and rightly abhor anything that might be construed as treating women as convenient objects to be dominated and used by men, especially when they are employees of an offending male employer. Moreover, our Sam had been a tireless advocate of respect for women, safe and inclusive workplaces and good behaviour, and he had even scaled the dizzy heights of becoming the Greens’ spokesperson for LGBTIQ Equality, rightly pointing out that only his party could be trusted with promoting such high ideals. I also thought he raised three good defences to his transgression: the affair was ‘consensual’, it had finished, and he now wanted nothing more than to return to the bosom of his family and continue ‘the fight for equality’. It is a matter of profound regret that none of these submissions seemed to carry the slightest weight with his judgmental leader.

Melbourne came of age a few days ago. We may have a had a glorious colonial past with all the achievements that the new left love to hate, like stable government, industries that actually made things and employed people, a thriving arts scene (before the antisemites hijacked it) and of course the Melbourne Cup. But we had missed something, the final touch that would lift us up and rank us with the great cities of the civilised world like Detroit. However, we arrived at this pinnacle of sophistication last weekend when a 20-year-old South Sudanese rapper, Pal Bidong, was shot dead after an all-night rave in North Melbourne. No murder of a rapper would of course be complete without gang warfare, so we had that too, when rival groups let fly in the streets after the shooting, a melee described by the police as ‘horrific’. Naturally, a community leader claimed there were no gangs involved and that the protagonists were ‘just a small percentage of Africans’, which reminded me of the winner of the competition years ago for the most understated headline of all time: ‘Small earthquake in Peru; not many killed’. The murder came only a few weeks after the gruesome death by stabbing of another South Sudanese, Kioyom Athum, perpetrated by what local residents described as ‘a group’. No one should exaggerate these tragedies or use them to foment friction. I only mention them for two reasons. First, we should be doubly careful about importing foreign hatreds into Australia under the naive belief that we can alleviate racial and other horrors that exist elsewhere, simply by transferring them to Australia; the irresponsible solution of the federal government in bringing 3000 Gazans here, some of whom must have had contact with the murderous Hamas, is a good example. Secondly, and to set the record straight, Peter Dutton was right in saying that there was concern in Melbourne about just what we were creating here by our African refugee programs. I have seen the result myself in the trauma inflicted on the female staff at our local jewellery store when an African ‘group’ took to it with a sledge-hammer. But for better or worse, Melbourne has arrived.

Socialists are past masters at undermining prosperous societies by a steady trickle of so-called reforms. In Victoria, we have followed the usual pattern of crippling government debt, grandiose projects we can’t pay for, ever increasing taxes on property, a 650 per cent increase in government charges on the probate of wills, controls on rentals that are sending landlords out of the state, and ‘reforms’ in education to guarantee that kids will not learn anything outside the standard woke agenda. As is also often the case, the law is prostituted by socialists to expand the scope and power of the state. For example, we have had for a few years a mammoth scandal concerning ‘lawyer X’, where a criminal lawyer was feeding intelligence to the police that she had gleaned from her own clients, and on charges they were facing when she did it. Many lives and reputations have been ruined as a result. Naturally, the victims want to sue the government, as its prosecution establishment was responsible for this brazen transgression of their rights. It is worth noting that the only prosecution, so far, relying on evidence generated by lawyer X has been thrown out by a jury. But the government has dragooned the parliament into passing a law that prevents the victims from suing, simply to protect the almighty state from its own wrongdoing and to prevent the victims from getting a hearing on their claims for damages. It is another giant step forward in the expansion of the power of the almighty state and, as usual, monstrously unjustified.