While
the Prime Minister presided over his Muslim summit, it’s been a jolly
week for the rest of the Government. Peter Costello, Sophie Panopoulos and Michael Ronaldson
have all joined in the fun. But the best intervention has come from the
government’s most shameless opportunist, Education Minister Brendan
Nelson.

He’s said that we should teach Australian values, which
is fair enough. But his case study is a beauty. “Responsibility, care
for one another, tolerance, understanding, fair go, doing your best –
the whole range of values, and over the top of it, I’ve superimposed
Simpson and his donkey as an example of what’s at the heart of our
national sense of emerging identity,” he said on ABC Radio on Wednesday.

Let’s
forget that Simpson was fighting Johnny Turk and look at the bloke
himself. Plenty of writers have had fun with the yarn – altogether too
many “ass” gags – but today’s Age editorial has the most detail:

“Jack Kirkpatrick earned fame for his exploits as ‘John
Simpson’ the man with the donkey in the early weeks of the Gallipoli
campaign. As well-informed students know, much of the story of Simpson
was myth. It owes its life in large measure to the Reverend Sir Irving
Benson, a Melbourne clergyman and acolyte of Liberal Party founder Sir
Robert Menzies. Irving’s 1965 biography left out as much of
Kirkpatrick’s story as it told. His hero emerged as a figure of
sacrifice, a six-foot Anzac toiling interminably across Gallipoli’s
slopes rescuing injured diggers. In fact, John Simpson Kirkpatrick was
a Geordie who stood five foot eight-and-a-half. He was sometimes a hard
drinker and a staunch trade unionist who came to Australia as a stoker
in 1910 and jumped ship. Kirkpatrick worked as an itinerant labourer
and a miner before enlisting, using a false name, with the 3rd Field
Ambulance. In part it was a means of getting a free ticket back to
England. He lasted just 24 days at Gallipoli before he was killed by
machine-gun fire.”

Er… yes. That’s a very potted biography of Simpson. The same paper also reports
on how “A silhouetted image of Simpson, accompanied by nine ‘values for
Australian schooling’, appears on a poster that schools must display
prominently to receive a share of $33 billion in federal funding.”

Which
sorta begs some questions along these lines for the ambitious Dr
Nelson: Minister, you think students should reflect the values of
Simpson and his donkey? Does that mean:

  • You are in favour of people illegally entering Australia?
  • You support trade unionism and the need to have a strong trade union movement?
  • You are in favour of a revolution in Britain?
  • You think it is OK for someone to adopt a false identity to join the Australian military?
  • You think students should be encouraged to admire such activities?
  • You think Australian students should learn about myths rather than facts?

Presumably
all the ministerial minions and myrmidons were too scared to tell the
full story to Nelson. Oh dear. If he wants to be prime minister, he’ll
have to do better than that.