As you know, we are always happy to report on appointments conferred on the former statesmen who have been so instrumental in helping Victoria along on its descent into bankruptcy. We are therefore happy to note the appointment of our ex-premier Daniel Andrews to the position of Chairman of Orygen, an organisation designed to rectify and cure the mental health problems of the young. And when you come to think about it, there could be no person more qualified than Andrews to solve these problems, seeing that he was responsible for causing them. After all, it was his draconian lockdowns of homes, schools, businesses and sporting venues during the hysterically alarmist response to Covid that gave rise to the stresses and strains on the young which are now in such need of alleviation. No wonder they feel isolated and alienated from society and are now in such desperate need of Orygen’s ‘preventative reform to deliver real-world practical solutions’ for their afflictions. No doubt it is due purely to the exigencies of space that its annual report does not reveal what if any salary comes with the Chair’s position. Orygen certainly has no shortage of money and over 50 per cent of its income comes from the federal and Victorian governments, making it yet another private cause transformed into a public expense. In any event, it seems a monumental public relations disaster to link the work of this organisation with the utterly discredited Daniel Andrews.

On the political front in Victoria, things might be taking a turn for the better, if the results of the municipal elections are any guide. Overall, the results favoured right-wing candidates. I have long thought that the public standing of the Greens is fading, and this has been confirmed by some of the results just in. In my area, Port Phillip, they previously had three councillors, stood in nine wards this time and won none. In the home of the Greens, Yarra, they went in with five seats and came out with two. In Ballarat, they have no councillors after an election that produced a decidedly right-wing result. The Greens’ local decline is reflected in the fall in its national vote in the latest poll, its ‘likeability’ which is at 3 per cent, its leader Adam Bandt’s becoming the third-most unlikeable federal politician and its increasingly bizarre policies on tax, Palestine and banning new fossil-fuel projects, which are proving to be a real turn-off among voters. But the prize goes to the Greens’ housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather, whose extremist policies would guarantee that no houses would be built at all. You can sense it in the Greens’ stronghold in Melbourne where the young, so far as I can tell, have come to realise that if they want prosperity for themselves and stability for their country, the Greens are not the answer. The young also seem to be less pessimistic and depressed; perhaps they have all been cured by Orygen. Peter Dutton would be wise to follow Donald Trump’s approach and aim for policies that appeal to the broad middle class, especially the young.

Speaking of Donald Trump, I naturally went to the local media to get some moral guidance as to how I should react to the US election result. It started off with the proposition that the result was ‘worrying’; then I found that we were actually ‘on edge’ about Trump’s win; then, we were apparently ‘shocked’; Trump was also ‘a sinkhole of grievance’ who presided over a ‘really stupid’ result from which the Americans were ‘reeling’. But the most ridiculous assertion of all was that Trump’s victory was a defeat for democracy. None of the commentariat seemed prepared to accept that the result was actually a victory for democracy and that it was on any test exactly what the people wanted. I do wish more of the media would take hold of themselves and get over their confected grief.

It is a pity that the heat has gone out of the scandal around the Qantas Chairman’s lounge,  probably because so many politicians were and are still involved in it and are only too happy to keep sucking on the Qantas teat. There was a lot more in the scandal than the morsels we were given. It is true that a major fault in having this facility is that it enables Qantas to get favourable treatment from government, especially when it is trying to stifle the competition, and then for its elite membership to go easy on it when the airline gets into trouble. It is also true that MPs and senior public servants hold onto their membership only as long as they hold office; when they leave, and Qantas has no further need for their influence, they get the boot. I learned this the hard way as a member of the predecessor of the Chairman’s Lounge, the Flightdeck. When my illustrious parliamentary career came to an end, I received a tasteless letter telling me that I was no longer a member and that I should not ‘access’ its facilities. In other words, I was no longer of any use to the airline, so I could leave. But far worse than the attempted bribery that Qantas engages in through the club, its real evil has little to do with Qantas itself. Rather, it provides a secret lobbying place where business executives and directors are cheek by jowl with public servants and ministers who will be making decisions that affect the commercial interests of their fellow club members. It is all secret, based on a wink and a nod, no records are kept and nothing is in writing. This opportunity for secret lobbying is rotten to the core and should be stopped in the interests of clean or comparatively clean government, where decisions are made on their merits and where allcomers have an equal chance to present their case without any privileges available only to members of the club. All MPs and public servants should be banned from using it.