Invest In Braces

IT REALLY is a pity young, firm women and giddy girls are not obliged to follow the fallout of the OPI's Overland leaks investigation, as it would bore the pants off all of them in no time flat. Mind you, other sections of the community, the mature and sensible bits, also face the challenge of staying securely be-trousered, but for different reasons. There is so much that is laughable about this latest Spring Street farce that convulsive contractions of the diaphragm might easily see the Fletcher Jones hit the floor. The papers are full of it this morning, black and white and dead in the head all over.

 

Should Police Minister and Deputy Premier Peter Ryan resign? Who knew what and when? Lots of end-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it quotes from the Opposition’s Rob Hulls, who is going on (and on and on) about probity, standards, ethics and violations of public trust.

 

Very low in the coverage is any mention of the twin questions that would seem to be at the nub of this ever more florid burlesque. Indeed, the second is not being put at all:

 

1/ Tapping phones, especially so many phones, is serious stuff -- so serious the suspected offence is supposed to come with the potential for a multi-year prison term.

 

Why was the OPI so quick to infest so many phone lines with bugs – ministers, reporters, political aides, union officers, even spouses -- and to do so on the strength of Simon Overland’s boo-hoo gripe that people were saying harsh things behind his back?

 

and,

 

2/ Why this case?

 

The very same Rob Hulls now presenting himself as a champion of the public’s right to know is also the former Attorney General who refused point-blank to allow his staffers to testify about the Windsor Hotel scandal. If the then-Opposition had enjoyed the same respect and affection Overland appears to command at the OPI we might now be enjoying the amusement of a voluminous chronicle of Hulls’ colleagues’ eavesdropped brainstorming about the best way to keep the Windsor facts under wraps.

 

So keep a close grip on your belts, sensible Melbournians. Further barrages of belly laughs are on the way – especially for those with a taste of for the petty, the self-righteous, the hypocritical and, most of all, the absurd.

Unfair Cop

YOUNG Master Bunyip, camping at the Billabong for the time being, ventured into the CBD on Saturday night to celebrate a friend’s birthday. One drink led to another, as it often does with today’s youth, and by midnight he was in no fit state to find his own way home. Taxis were scarce, and a pair that heeded his pleas to stop also declined to take him aboard, which may, or may not, have been illegal but is certainly understandable. Which Silvertop pilot wants to spend the remainder of his shift extracting bits of someone else’s dinner from the seams of the back seat’s upholstery? Fortunately no alcohol – well, just a little bit – had been consumed at the Waterhole, so there was no legal impediment to a doting dad's mercy dash to the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders streets, where the sozzled scamp was holding up a lamppost. That was not, however, the most disconcerting spectacle of the evening.

In 25 minutes of crosstown driving the following sights were observed:

1/ The young bloke who stepped off the footpath, approached the driver’s window and announced, “Your mum’s a slut. I [had relations] with her after the footy.”

2/ The young woman on all fours and throwing up in the gutter as her girlfriends held her hair to the side, lest it be chunked with carrots and vodka smoothies.

3/ Two gents in their twenties, one naked to the waist, trading insults and waving fists. The lights changed before it was possible to determine if blows would be exchanged, but it seems likely they were.

4/ Another young bloke urinating on a tree near the Flagstaff Gardens as a circle of friends looked on.

And finally, the most unsettling thing of all:

5/ Not a single policeman, in a car or otherwise, spotted anywhere inside the CBD.

Victoria’s Police Commissioner Simon Overland is currently embroiled in all sorts of strife, but whatever his other shortcomings the one that most condemns him is the sorry state of Central Melbourne on a Saturday night. If he cannot keep order in the CBD, he does not deserve his considerable salary.

Tomorrow's Bacon?

IT’S quite a drive back to the tent on the upper Jamieson, where the trout have been all but leaping into the Professor’s creel and demanding to be eviscerated, but there is time before losing connectivity for one last quick thought in regard to Victoria’s Police Commissioner Simon Overland. It is just a gossipy little tidbit, gleaned several months ago over a nice red with well-informed companions at a well-known Melbourne club, where the genuine shrunken heads on display in the lounge always bring to mind Wayne Swan and other members of the Gillard cabinet.

In any case – whisper, whisper – one of those present predicted that Overland’s days were numbered, and not for the obvious reason: that he is a better-looking version of former boss Christine Nixon, who wrote the book on tickling crime stats. The allegation that he has been doing more of the same may or may not serve as the catalyst for Overland’s ouster but, if you believe the small talk, a more pertinent reason will have to do with some very rash comments he is said to have made to a member of the then-Opposition some 18 months ago.

The member had been doing some research on morale and manpower allocations in the police when the phone rang in his Spring Street office. Overland was on the other end and, if you can believe the Professor’s informant, his tone was particularly stern.

“I know everyone you are talking to, how long you talk to them and what you are talking to them about,” was the way the informant quoted the chief commissioner.

That alleged comment was taken as a threat, so much so that the member of parliament is said to have gone out,  immediately purchased a throw-away mobile phone and stopped using the parliamentary email system for his more sensitive correspondence. Of course, back then John Brumby’s travesty of a government was expected to be returned. It wasn’t, and while Victorians have cause to rejoice at being rid of governance by spin and statistical sleight of hand, Overland may not be feeling quite so sanguine.

There is hope for the man, though. The supermarket here in sleepy Jamieson lacks a security guard. If Overland were to concentrate, think really hard, he might just rise to the challenge of protecting the TimTams from sugar-crazed old ladies. And if he fails he can always doctor the inventory numbers.