So What Do You Reckon?

by Robert G. Barrett

  The poor bloody thing was no more than an overgrown house cat that had been declawed.

  They forced the terrified animal out of the cage. It crawled under a car and they set a pack of dogs on it. Then some ail-American hero in a cammy jacket and a baseball cap went over and shot it.

  The thing never had a chance. All this rare, beautiful animal got was five minutes of agony and terror before the Seppo jerk put a bullet in it.

  That was bad enough. But then this heroic Marlboro man got a video and photos of him sitting next to it with his gun and all his Seppo mates are going, ‘Hey, yeah, wow! Goddamn! You did it, Chuck baby. Sonofabitch!’

  And they’re all shaking hands and posing like this mort’s dock with ears had accomplished some great feat of daring.

  What do they say? Only in America?

  No wonder Australians poke shit at them all the time. It was an absolutely disgusting scene. Now I know why Derryn Hinch looks like he’s got bowel trouble all the time, having to see things like this. But good luck to old pumpkin head for bringing these outrages to the public’s attention.

  Cruelty to animals comes in all ways besides a bunch of gun-crazy Seppos. Greyhound owners use live possums to blood their dogs. Blokes seem to think it’s macho to set two dogs on each other or if their dog almost rips some poor little kid’s face off.

  Pitt Street farmers leave horses to starve on properties. Silly old sheilas think it’s just innocent fun if their moggie rips a Willie wagtail or a lorikeet to bits.

  I’m not saying I’m holier than thou or completely innocent as far as cruelty to animals goes — apart from when I used to work in the slaughteryards.

  Many’s the time I kneed Rosie in the kidneys when I’d find her on the bed, farting her head off with the electric blanket on.

  I let Achmet in one freezing cold night and he returned my hospitality by dumping in the bath. I kicked his ring that far up his arse and out the front door he was wearing it for a flea collar for the next two weeks.

  And when I was working at Ross River in Townsville we used to do some terrible things with firecrackers to cane toads.

  They used to swarm in our backyard so we fed them lighted hungers, or tied them to their backs with rubber bands and made bets to see how far they got before they blew themselves to bits. Sadistic, low bastards we were.

  And we thought it was hilarious, till a few of them hopped into the kitchen and it looked like an IRA bombing gone wrong all over the walls of the house. After that we got more humane and just shot them with air rifles.

  But who likes cane toads anyway? Especially if you follow rugby league and come from NSW.

  Circuses often come in for a bagging. People want to get them banned or something along those lines. I’m afraid I have to agree with that to a certain extent.

  Not that I’d ban circuses completely. Trapeze acts, knife-throwing clowns etc. are funny and daring acts performed by fit and skilful people. But I’ll go along with banning animal acts — apart from maybe dogs and horses.

  The circus came to Gosford last summer. I was walking across the park to catch a train and it was 40 degrees Celsius.

  And there were these lions and tigers stuck in a metal cage at noon in the middle of Summer. They were nothing more than glorified birdcages. I was 50m away and they stank.

  The best these animals can hope for is to get forced into a bigger birdcage every now and again and have some bloke looking like a cross between Jungle Jim and a Polish fireman cracking whips and making them jump through hoops of fire. Okay, Captain Schultz is game getting into a cage with a few lions and tigers, but big deal.

  Then outside I noticed these poor bloody elephants shuffling around in circles, bare chains locked around their legs. Not a very inspiring sight I thought.

  A spokesman for some circus said, ‘Yeah, but these animals don’t know any other life.’ He was only talking through his pocket.

  I reckon the animals are entitled to know a better existence than spending their life in a cage or the world’s smallest remand yard. I reckon if they pissed animal acts off from circuses and showed more clowns and acts of daring they’d get more punters anyway.

  Who wants to see a lot of tired, smelly animals doing things God never intended them to do? We might as well go back to the days of the Roman Colosseum, set the things on each other, then kill the survivors.

  That’d go over well with the kids. Like bullfights and fox and stag hunting. Marlin fishing’s starting to get a bit that way too if you ask me.

  I’m not saying all sport to do with animals is cruel, like horseracing, trotting etc.

  And I definitely don’t think rodeos are cruel. The other way around if anything. Any man or woman that’s game enough to get on a bull like Chainsaw or Freddie Krueger and risk getting stomped on or having half a lung ripped out has got a heart as big as a football.

  In fact, I wouldn’t mind coming back as a rodeo bull in the afterlife. All you do is roam around a big paddock in the sun rooting yourself silly and eating your head off.

  And to earn your keep you just go out and belt the shit out of some bloke in a big hat and a belt buckle that’s really given you the shits for getting up on your back when you could be at home porking, eating and getting into a bit of James Blundell on your Walkman.

  I have to give it to rodeo riders though. Jesus, they’re good styles of blokes and they must get some sheilas — plus they’ve got a terrific attitude towards life. No LA Gear tracksuits or $300 Reebok cross-trainers needed for these blokes to keep fit.

  No, I figure it’s about time we started doing the animals a favour for a change. If we don’t start getting our shit together there’ll be none left at all.

  Overpopulation is what’s stuffing the planet: we could do with more wildlife and less people. But try telling that to the Pope. Which is why I get involved with saving animals rather than starving people.

  Okay, those films coming out of Ethiopia and Bangladesh are horrifying. But how do governments equate those scenes with the French sitting on food mountains in Europe and Australians shooting and burying 100 million sides of lamb?

  I was talking with some like-minded punters and we came up with what I thought wasn’t a bad idea.

  What have we got in Australia? One of the biggest national parks in the world — Kakadu. Guarded by the spirit of Bulla.

  And who is the greatest PM this country or the world has ever seen? Robert James Lee Hawke. Bob to his mates.

  What are some of the animals most in danger at present? Elephants, rhinos and hippos.

  Poachers kill them so the rotten Japanese can make ivory-combs. The silly bloody Chinese are convinced eating ground-up rhino horn will give you a bigger dick. And the Arabs like hippo teeth for dagger handles. The list goes on and on.

  What would be wrong with letting, say, 50 of each animal roam around in a part of Kakadu away from the crocodiles? They couldn’t do any more damage than all the buffalo up there. And have the Kooris look after them.

  Toss in a few orang-outangs and pandas too. This wouldn’t be just the world’s greatest national park, it could be the new Garden of Eden — protected by Bulla and looked after by our indigenous people with the white’s help.

  Okay, so we’re introducing an alien species — but the animals would soon sort out what and what not to eat and if it didn’t work we could move them onto reserves.

  Money? Christ. If we can afford to give the Abos on Arukun $30 million a year to get pissed and find $72 million to arrest a few old war criminals we could give this a go.

  The thing is, if it worked it could turn out to be the biggest tourist attraction in the world and net billions. Forget about stuffing up our coastline for silly bloody resorts. We’re talking big bikkies here.

  And what would we call this modern-day wonder that would exist in perpetuity like Mount Rushmore and the Pyramids? The Robert James Lee Hawke Heritage National Park. The greatest Prime Minister Australia’s ever seen. The man who did it all
for Bulla.

  I reckon Bonzer’ll go for it. A lot of people out there will say I’m just pandering to the PM’s ego. I don’t reckon Bob Hawke’s got an ego. But what’s the betting 10 years from now there are more elephants and endangered species roaming around Kakadu than you can poke an Instamatic at.

  A Garden of Eden created by Bob. Why shouldn’t he give us the national park we deserve? It couldn’t be worse than the recession we had to have.

  It’s on, and I mean on! Is we is or is we ain’t gonna be a republic?

  The tanks are rumbling in the village square. The banana growers are getting ready to cash in. The battle lines are drawn.

  The Bruce Ruxtons etc. on one side and the eminent people on the other, like Mark Day — you know him, from the Melbourne Truth.

  Even Wavenous Won Casey and Stormin’ Normie Rowe slugged it out on prime-time TV. What’s the next event? Thomas Keneally v John Howard? What a shitfight this is turning into already, and we’ve hardly even started debating whether or not Australia should become a republic.

  But, if we do what the Yanks did and break free from the shackles of colonialism, the first thing we have to do is piss off the monarchy.

  Bring out the tumbrels, sharpen up the guillotine, off with their perfumed, sequined heads; the bludgers are 20,000km away, for a start.

  But hang on a minute. This republicanism is a lot easier said than done, and I’ve got a bit to lose here if we give old Betty Boo and her kinsfolk the lemon.

  Okay, so bleary-eyed and still hungover I got up one week to watch Sunday on Channel Nine and found out the Queen makes $3 million a day and doesn’t pay any taxes.

  This seems a bit iffy. I might own a couple of dressing-gowns and I can be a bit of a boring old fart now and again, but I’m definitely not a queen. I’ve met quite a number in the entertainment industry and they pay taxes.

  How come Liz baby doesn’t have to weigh in? She’s a billionaire with an art and jewel collection that’s incalculable in value. Yet we commoners are expected to support her, the Governor General and various Governors all over Australia. Like the late Sir John Kerr. And didn’t he need a bit of support at the 1977 Melbourne Cup?

  Then we got Bill Hayden plus a team of flunkies that kept him and them in a style that’s unimaginable.

  I’ll bet he never had it that good when he was in the Queensland wallopers.

  Is it worth all the millions of dollars to retain the monarchy and all the hangers-on? Once we go republican they’re gone forever.

  There’s no doubt the monarchy does set a standard of speech and manners that’s incomparable. Good upper-class Pommies are without peer and the way they look down their noses at commoners is exquisite. They’re almost worth keeping just for snob value.

  And poor Prince Charles. He’s such a wimp, how could you get rid of him? It’d be like putting down the family dog.

  Then there’s Ita Buttrose and the rest of the gushettes from the women’s magazines. Imagine New Idea and Woman’s Day without a royal wedding or a royal baby or a royal bowel movement to report on.

  It could mean the end of women’s magazines in Australia altogether, taking all those employees with them.

  It might be an idea to maintain the monarchy, if not just for Bruce Ruxton and the Tallangatta ladies’ auxiliary bowls club, at least for the employees of New Idea.

  Then there’s my end. As I said in a previous column, if Chilla becomes King it’s a public holiday on his birthday, same day as mine, and I promised myself I could get blind, rotten, face-down-in-the-gutter drunk with the dogs pissing on my swag on November 14 and it’d all be sweet.

  That’s out the bloody door. Become a republic maybe, but retain the monarchy just for Charlie and Bob on our birthday. The King and I.

  But what say, when it comes to the crunch, the Poms say no, you can’t have a republic and send in the RAF and the Ghurkhas, and we have to have another Eureka Stockade? Even if prominent MP and author Jeffrey Archer says we should become a republic.

  There’ll be casualties, billions of dollars worth of damage to Australia’s infrastructure. We could finish up like Iraq. Like I said, this going republican is a lot easier said than done.

  But the fighting and ruination of what little economy we’ve got left is the easy part. Because what it all boils down to is, if we dump the monarchy and go for a republic we have to change the flag.

  In other words, dump the Union Jack. What are we going to replace it with that doesn’t offend anybody? A minority group, no-one, not a single solitary soul.

  As we all know, especially if you’re a white Australian heterosexual, you can’t say anything about anyone these days without it either being racist, sexist, demeaning, patronising or offending.

  So you tell me, in this climate of multiculturalism and gay rights, what we’re going to replace the Union Jack with that doesn’t either offend or encroach on someone’s rights or sensitivities.

  Okay, we leave the Southern Cross there. No-one, not even the North Queenslanders, would have a moan about Australia being referred to as the land of the Southern Cross.

  But what goes in the corner? A kangaroo? No. That would offend environmentalists. How could you put a national symbol on the flag and then shoot four million a year for dog food?

  What about a koala? No. In 10 years the only koalas you’ll see will be in Japanese zoos. There was a small colony left in Sydney, but the Government sold the land to an Indonesian businessman and he bulldozed all the trees to build houses.

  How about we put on a wok and crossed chopsticks to please all our Asian migrants? That would offend the Muslims. So we add the green crescent of Islam in respect to Allah — peace and blessings upon his name.

  But which Muslims? The Sunnis? The Shi’ites? The Cherokee, Blackfoot or Sioux Muslims? You’re on very shaky ground here. And this would offend the Jews. All right, we’ll shove in the Star of David.

  But this would offend all the other Arabs. Plus the neo-Nazis and the skinheads. They’re a minority group. They’ve got rights too. We’ll throw in the towel and paint the bloody thing white.

  But then we’d be accused of pandering to the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan supremacists and that would offend all the other blacks.

  Talking about blacks, what about the Kooris? They want their own flag. So the Abos are going to bellow on principle’s sake. Even if you threw in a goondie, it’s still going to mean 200 years of rape, murder and torture.

  What about all the Slavs settled here? They’ve got a bit of a say, surely. So we put in a bit of red-and-white check to keep the Croatians happy.

  But this would offend the Serbs. And what about the Slovenians? Death to the Slovenian dogs. They invaded our village in 1032AD.

  What about Transylvanians? There would have to be a lesbian vampire workshop out there being discriminated against. Plus the poofs. They’re always being discriminated against.

  But gays have got rights, so instead of a flag why not stick to the nicely embroidered quilt with the names of the dearly departed on it?

  Did I leave out the Indians and Pakistanis? But which ones? The Hindus? The Brahmans? It’s all Sikhs of one and half a dozen of the other over there. I told you, it’s not going to be easy changing the flag.

  Amongst all this madness and consternation I knew there was only one person to ask. The oracle. My mate Wally, down at Designa-Dogs, the hot-dog shop in Peppers at Terrigal.

  A lot of people are starting to wonder who this mysterious Wally is that keeps bobbing up in my column. Like me, Wally’s another carpetbagger from the eastern suburbs of Sydney who moved to the Central Coast.

  Unlike me, Wally has a small family and is therefore more responsible. Wally is also more wise in the ways of the world than myself, probably because he sees it from behind the great counter of life.

  Before he moved here, Wally was a coal-trimmer and captain and president of the Coogee-Randwick Wombats, a top junior league team in Sydney.

  The Wombats ar
e legend in Sydney and to become president and captain is no mean feat, which is why in times of trouble I always ask Wally his opinion.

  So I said to him: ‘Wally, what do you think they should put on the Australian flag where the Union Jack used to be?’

  Straightaway, Wally said: ‘What’s wrong with a wombat?’

  I was stunned. A pearl of wisdom, woven from a web of words of pure brilliance. I couldn’t think of anything more laconically lucid or sensationally simplistic. Wally had done it again.

  Put a wombat in the corner of the flag. That couldn’t possibly offend anybody. Wombats are grouse. They’re cute and cuddly and they’re a protected species. A wombat’s like a perfect boarder, just eats roots and leaves. Everybody likes wombats.

  They’re tough little bastards when it comes to the pinch! Ask anybody who’s hit a wombat.

  Plus, they have this amazing mating ritual where the male wombat has to run round in circles eight times at night, trying to bite the female on the backside in a special way to get a bit of the other.

  And if he doesn’t do it right he gets the heave for another wombat. Round and round in circles he goes, getting nowhere.

  And isn’t that typical of Australian sheilas? They run you round and round in circles till you get giddy, then they give you the lemon.

  I couldn’t think of anything more typical. Instead of a banana republic, we’d be known as a wombat republic. I couldn’t see this offending anyone.

  In fact, after watching Wampaging Won Casey slugging it out on television, I think the only ones who’d be offended would be the wombats themselves.

  I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few lurks, perks and freebies in the publishing rort, whether you’re a columnist or an author.

  Even I get to the odd turn now and again. Living up here on the Central Coast, I don’t get to heaps, and I never seem to see my head in the social pages in the Sunday kite.

  Don’t expect to find me at the Cointreau Ball or the DJ’s fashion launch doing the lambada with Amanda Urquhart or Marie-Caroline Perignon. But if there’s a turn on and they mention the magic words ‘free piss’, I’m there.