Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono:

James Burke writes: I have been kept up past my bedtime watching the speech of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to the Australian Parliament. I must admit that I have been fond of SBY ever since stumbling across him browsing in the Sydney branch of Kinokuniya, during the ludicrous APEC episode, when he was one of the few Leaders of the Free World to risk mingling with the peons.

His speech yesterday impressed me for its facility in a foreign language, its good humour and keen observations, but most of all for its essential honesty. SBY never shied at the problem at the core of the bilateral relationship — the mutual suspicion of the Australian and Indonesian peoples. SBY is the leader (for now) of a young democracy, a vital democracy, and he has not yet absorbed the lessons of the spin doctors and professional cynics who are eating Australian democracy alive.

The official record will tell you that Tony Abbott made a speech welcoming SBY to Parliament. Actually, he made a wobbly, vague, stupid and demeaning (to everyone forced to hear it, but especially to the Liberal Party which he purports to lead) effort which was mostly about the minor issue of boat people. Kevin Rudd spoke about something or other, which will be revealed once the tapes are unfrozen at the Hour of Judgement. (To read them unwitting is to risk death through extreme tedium, or so speaketh the legend).

SBY’s statements were wide-ranging, and not a few of his opinions (on fisheries, for example) will bring justified Australian opposition. But he did it with a refreshing degree of honesty. Never did he say “I’m not going to get into a running commentary” or “let me just say this” or “great big new tax” or “stand shoulder to shoulder” (Et tu, Kevin?). It is tempting to conclude that SBY has a better grasp of conversational English than either our current Prime Minister or Opposition Leader, and a better sense of personal honour.

It looks to me as if SBY is the creature of a real democracy, however flawed. He has the authority of a human being who has risked death for his opinions, instead of mere scorn at the annual student conference of Young Wankers. As someone who is facing both State and Federal elections in the next couple of years, I wish I had someone like him on the ballot instead of the wretched cowards and cardboard demagogues who infest the Labor, Liberal and National Parties.

NSW:

Colin Gellatly writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (yesterday, item 8). I noticed in your tips and rumours section yesterday, you said I was returning to head NSW Dept Premier & Cabinet. This is totally wrong. Brendan O’Reilly is doing a great job and the right person for the job. I have to go now, heading to the golf course.

Mike Rann:

Vincent Burke writes:  Re. “SA Part 1: raining votes but trust looks like an also-Rann” (yesterday, item 12). The reason why the question of trust remains in relation to Mike Rann is because journalists like Hendrik Gout refuse to entertain the possibility that he might be telling the truth.

Gout’s article in last Friday’s Independent Weekly was so cheap and lopsided, it was clearly intended to discredit Mike Rann, and you have to wonder if it was payback for some previous slight.

Gout relies for his information on statements made by Michelle Chantelois (“for the sake of her family”, we were told at the time), for which she was paid several thousand dollars by Channel Seven, and by Rick Phillips who is understandably bitter, having been publicly portrayed as a cuckold by his estranged wife.  In his article, Gout suggests that Phillips was merely acting like a real man would, when physically assaulting the Premier, and clearly exonerates him for this brutality.

I suggest we give Mike Rann a break and, yes, the benefit of the doubt, and that supposedly responsible journalists like Gout focus on the issues that really matter in the SA election.

The RBA:

Les Heimann writes: Re. “Warning: RBA to crunch housing boom to save economy from overheating” (yesterday, item 22). What a bloody stupid thing to do. Were the RBA to hike interest rates so as to burst the housing price bubble we would end up just like the 1980’s disaster.

Interest rates at 20% plus will kill economic activity. Releasing more and more land around capital cities to allow the urban sprawl to octopus its way to who knows where is also stupid — the infrastructure costs are simply unsustainable.

If, and one has to say “if”, this country wants to gallop to a 50 million plus population, then capital cities will have to accept compressed living.  Forget the white picket fence and grass yards, we are not the USA with huge tracts of fertile land. This is a desert country and we cluster around part of its coastline — so the entire eastern seaboard — and say 30kms inland –will look like Surfers Paradise.

Where will we raise our sporting types then? What of the bronzed Aussie shrimp on the barbie look? Pallid, drab, unhealthy and flabbish diabetics will instead populate the concrete canyons.

Well, so be it. Otherwise let’s start talking about population levels and quality of life and get with some real planning for our country.

Hospital waiting lists:

Gavin R. Putland writes: Re. “Patient facing three years of pain in surgery wait while states quibble” (yesterday, item 4). If this patient has ever bought a new (not used) car or other vehicle in Australia, and consequently paid stamp duty to a State or Territory, then, according to the definition accepted by the High Court in Ha vs. NSW (1997), that duty was an “excise” and was therefore unconstitutional.

If he can get back all his stamp duty, it might be enough to pay for his operation in a private hospital.