Morris Iemma followed Bob Carr’s well-worn
photo-op path for feeding the chooks on Monday, paying 50 police to play cops
and rioters, theoretically demonstrating that Morrie is an action man, Laura
Norder, etc.

It worked a treat, as usual, but one cheeky
chook dared question the circus. Unfortunately the hen house in general ignored
the question – maybe another case of not-discovered-here.

After the police played crowd control games
and Morrie was trying to boast about his new riot squad and deny he was soft on
Lebanese gangs in his electorate, a reporter reminded the Premier that they had
been called to pretty much the same photo op two years ago, so what had
changed? Morrie waved the impertinence away with
something about not dealing with history, but it was a nice point.

Channel 7 ran the exchange, complete with
the relevant footage from 2004. I can’t claim Rehame-like media monitoring, but
a check of the ABC 7pm news, SMH, Daily Terror, The Oz and Google failed to
find any record of it. Thus the cynical and successful use of
police for political stunts continues and Morrie and his minders can just
recycle a job lot of Bob Carr’s tricks.

I feel a new train time table coming on,
along with the same new hospital beds being announced five times, something
about more police on the beat, another photo op with Peter Beattie come State
of Origin, and a pot hole being filled somewhere…