Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

G'day. Icarus Joyce's very, very early fall to earth - note a Lib MP and a Nat MP will abstain from votng for sale in the House of Representatives - is dealt with in in today's Crikey sealed section (subscription recommended). But read the Malcom Farr piece I've linked to and deconstruct. Barnaby is fighting competing urges in a passinate and very public way, like Latham did, remember?

He has harnessed people power to stop the sale by convincing very cynical voters that he was different. Then he proved to be the same, almost in an INSTANT! Re-read his maiden speech just two days ago, the day after he was supposed to have been just about won over by the big boys in the Coalition.) 

The Telstra story isn't over yet, folks. Senator Barnaby Joyce will get so many emails from pissed off Ozzies - and irate contact in other forms - he'll either change his mind or collapse as a centred human being. Seventy percent of Australians want the politicians they elected to keep majority ownership of Telstra. They are not convinced of the merits of selling the rest. People power is a strange and unpredictable force when roused by a politician. Just ask Pauline. Or Mark.

For more on Icarus see thanasis, and for its adoption by a bi-polar support group, see theicarusproject.

Tony Windsor today chose the icon I used in Tuesday's Webdiary headline to describe the National Party Senators who voted to sell Telstra in 1998. From Joyce a 'Judas goat' over Telstra:

He came down here as the Messiah of the nation. He is going home as the Judas goat of Queensland if he actually reflects on his decision-making processes. He knows full well the the best thing for the nation is to not sell this.

From Wikipedia:

Judas is mentioned only in the gospels and at the beginning of Acts. According to the account given in the gospels, he carried the disciples' money box and betrayed Jesus for a bribe of "thirty pieces of silver" by identifying him with a kiss—the "kiss of Judas"— to arresting Roman soldiers.

And where does that leave Barnaby's desire to prove himself a "a man" in the Kipling sense? Re-read Malcolm Farr. And stay tuned.

Finally, an idea. No political party whose representatives were elected by the Australian people except the Liberal Party wants the people to lose control of Telstra. So how about all that lot - the Nats, Labor, The Greens, The Dems and Family First - get together and thrash out an options paper for the people to consider which would keep Telstra ours and get it working for all of us again.

I quote Barnaby Joyce's very personal conclusion, in true Latham style, to his maiden speech as a Senator elected by the people of Queensland on October 10, 2004:

In summary to my purpose I reflect on that of my Grandmother Troy Roche who left me with this piece from Kipling and I conclude by leaving all here with the same. And hope that it may serve all of us in some fashion in the aspirations it lays out.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated , don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them “hold on!”

If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that is in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a man my son.

Here's Crikey:

The bizarre world of Barnaby Joyce

It's hard not to feel sorry for Barnaby Joyce. He's a political Icarus who flew in from the bush to shake up the Big City establishment. He wanted the Big Pond more fairly shared around. He aimed high but flew too low in the end and landed in the drink with a resounding splash.

The result of all the theatrics is what politics specialises in: a compromise that satisfies no-one. Joyce and the Nationals get their telecommunications slush fund, which they will now be expected to sell furiously in their electorates. John Howard gets Telstra off his plate, providing the stock market holds up and can absorb it without burning investors' fingers. And Telstra contemplates life as a busted monopoly.

But Joyce's problem now is managing expectations in his constituency. During the past few weeks he has been flooded with emails and calls of support from rural folk with the message: "We're with you, Barnaby. Don't let them sell Telstra."

Which is not what he was about. Realising that, John Howard was determined to steamroll through the sale and Joyce took the decision to fold early rather than endure the continued attention of Howard's attack dogs. The sight of Bill Heffernan chasing him through a corridor after Joyce left yesterday's joint party meeting was enough to confirm that.

Joyce's crime was that he didn't want to be captured by the media cameras associating himself with the decision to sell Telstra. Well, you can't blame him, can you, particularly given his fleeting friends in Labor are now leading the charge to crucify "backdown Barnaby."

Another independent-minded country representative, <a href="http://www.tonywindsor.com.au/releases.html">Tony Windsor</a>, showed yesterday what this Government likes to do to politicians with the guts to stand up and buck the party line. Windsor, the Independent MP for New England, was thrown out of the House for 24 hours for saying this about the Telstra deal: <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Deputy-PM-named-as-bribe-row-flares/2004/11/17/1100574540528.html">"The National Party is not only prepared to offer bribes, but to accept them."</a>

The deputy speaker who threw him out was the National Party's Ian Causley. Later, Windsor recalled that on May 22 1996, Causley himself told the Parliament that the Labor Party had bribed maritime unions over the sale of ANL. He was allowed to stay in the chamber.

Windsor himself is far from happy with Joyce, who he says has gone from "the Messiah of the bush" to the "Judas Iscariot of Queensland." But he must understand the pressure Barnaby has come under. This past fortnight the government has shown independent-spirited MPs once more that it will ridicule you, bully you, throw you out of Parliament – do whatever is necessary to force you to toe the line.

Barnaby, of course, has courted the media as part of a whirlwind campaign that has resulted in countless glowing headlines and gushing stories about the bold maverick from Queensland. Now he's won a kind of victory, but it's too early to say if his constituents will thank him for it.

On Tuesday, just before his maiden speech, Joyce held a picfac for the cameras with his family in a Senate courtyard. I asked his wife, Natalie, how she felt about the media blitz surrounding her husband. She blinked and pondered a moment, then uttered one word: "Bizarre." That's the best political analysis we've had from Canberra all week.

<em>Disclosure: I own shares in Telstra.</em>

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