About 25 years ago I wrote a best-selling book called The Derryn Hinch Diet book.
It was a soup and wine diet. Dinner consisted of soup, a bread roll and white wine. We joked that you’d heard of the Fit for Life diet? This was the Pissed for Life diet. Sounded really witty before I needed a liver transplant to stay alive.
The diet worked, and it got a healthy heart tick. The book climbed to No.1 on the Sydney Daily Telegraph bestseller list — even ahead of Naomi Wolf and The Beauty Myth.
Soup, alphabet soup, was on my mind this week as we headed back into Canberra for the final three weeks of Senate sittings for 2016.
As I said to Prime Minister Turnbull at a green tea and chat meeting this week, I was consumed by a soup of letters and numbers: ABCC, PPL, 18C.
In the next three weeks, I’m going to have to vote on all of them (unless ABCC is again put in the too-hard basket). A couple of us crossbenchers have already flagged amendments to the first two, which the beleaguered government seems amenable to. The “hate speech” bill, with apparent prime ministerial blessing, is headed for a joint committee scrutiny. Removal of “offend” and “insult” is my fallback position, but I’d scrap 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act completely if I had my “druthers”, as the Americans would say .
(Trivial Pursuit question: What does “druthers” mean? It’s a slangy truncation of “I would rather”. See, the stuff you learn here …)
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When the Senate decided to send the fates of senators Bob Day and Rod Culleton off to the High Court (sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns), I decided it was an opportunity to raise an issue that should never be an election issue: the exclusion from our Senate or House of Representatives of any person who carries dual citizenship at the time of their election.
It is clearly stated in the constitution that failure to renounce allegiance to another country, another power, makes a person ineligible to hold office.
I realise that even by raising the issue I risk re-igniting the so-called “Australian Birther Movement” surrounding the eligibility of former prime minister Tony Abbott and when he officially renounced his British citizenship. So be it. My Notice of Motion is aimed at all members of Parliament, current and future.
The Member for Warringah could have killed that issue — and headed off that 40,000-strong petition — by pulling his renunciation document out of his bottom drawer (where I store my revocation certificate from New Zealand) rather than having the PM’s office seal the document with a confidentiality stamp.
It surprised me that any dual citizen was not required to produce that cancellation proof before nominations closed. One of the Justice Party candidates renounced both British and Swiss citizenship before that deadline.
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The Queensland student prosecution was a disgrace. The sanctioned persecution of Bill Leak is only surpassed by the milquetoasts who signed letters and ads of support for his official tormentors.
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Imagine if I’d voted in favour of the same-sex marriage plebiscite?
This letter from a disgruntled constituent:
“Mr. Hinch. I hope you’re happy with your decision about this subject. You’re a poor excuse of a human being and I hope the karma train comes in and most of your kids and grandkids become gay. Do the world a favour and bugger off. I hope you end up in an aged care facility and a gay person takes care of you. My daughter and nephew are gay and I could not be more proud of them. Carmen.”
My response:
“Carmen. And proud you should be. I am shocked and mystified by your vile email. I voted against the plebiscite with the support of so many gay and lesbian and bisexual groups who feared a hateful plebiscite campaign. Just today, a group of gay people and their parents awarded me a poster on the Senate lawn as a Thank You for opposing the plebiscite. My hope, like other Senators who voted it down last night, is that we get a free vote and — as I said in the Senate last night — we could have legal gay marriages by Xmas.
“And if your prediction comes true, and I do end up in a nursing home, I would be thrilled to have a gay aide look after me. DH”
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Did I say that? In question time, Senator George Brandis leaves out a word: “The people of Australia expect nothing of us.” He meant to say, “expect nothing less”.
Why does Crikey imagine that the ramblings of a 1.9% Senator would be of interest to subscribers. I frankly don’t care what his constituents have to say about him, nor that he now wants to distract from very real issues facing us by his birther bs.
It’s not the first time you’ve given space to this dope, hopefully it’s the last; it’s certainly not what I pay for
Someone’s been having a little drinkie with “Boris” Whittaker again…
(the alternative explanation is that you haven’t bothered reading 18D – a list of all the FSW excuses you could ever want – but surely you wouldn’t be THAT careless and inattentive with something you deem so crucial?)
I for one find a weekly article by a senator of tremendous interest. Not sure about the hostility of others here.
I agree, Joe. I’m no fan of Senator Hinch’s – au contraire – but I do find his comments and reactions to a very unique position to be interesting and worth a read.
Reading the Senator’s contribution left me not one jot wiser about “why”. Is that because he himself cannot give good reasons but merely ‘beliefs’ that 18C is somehow inimical to good civic order? I remain unconvinced that he is convinced for good reason, just for personal reasons. (and if 18C should go, what of protections against sexual harassment?)
Yes, it would have been useful to know why he’s voting for more freedom for rich white blokes. If it’s under the general heading “Free Speech” then the next commentator has nailed it: start with the egregious violations like defamation, not the piddling ones like 18C/D.
Great irony in the Aus the other day, trumpeting the possibility of a defamation suit against Gillian Triggs!
I missed the highly ironic but totally predictable defamation threats, because I avoid the Murdoch yellow press like the plague it has become.
But it is clear that the ‘right to free speech’ really means ‘free speech for the right’. That is, for the right only.
I am concerned for your name. ‘Decorum’ is so last century like a lot of things such as principles and respect for the truth and facts. It doesn’t get you to be PM of Australia, like Abbott or President of the USA, like Trump. Or a gig as a radio shock jock either.
If you or your fellow travelers actually cared about free speech you’d consign our defamation laws to history. That you aren’t says all I need to know.