I’m back. Did anybody miss me? No matter: I need to record words. Scribo ergo sum.
It’s been unbearably hot in the shack out the back. We have had a series of visitors from overseas. There seems to have been little time for words. But now I’m back.
This piece is about a visit to Parliament House. But more so. It’s about coincidence – one of the main devices used by Anthony Powell in his novels. And I suppose it’s about the extent to which I am connected to my surroundings and the people in them – connectedness being one of those characteristics of human life which contributes to health and well-being.
I appear to be well-off for connectivity. So I guess I’m fortunate.
Whenever we have visitors from overseas we like to take them on a trip to Parliament House. We explain the chronological theme in the building’s design from pre-settlement at the front in the public area – a red continent surrounded by water – through 60,000 years of Indigenous occupation represented in the tiled mosaic (a meeting of Elders at a central place), through the Marble Hall evoking rainforest and early settlement, then through the Great Hall to the Cabinet room and ministerial wing at the rear in which the issues of the present and future are considered.
So I took Ron and John. We admired the tapestry in the Great Hall. (Arthur Boyd was so impressed with its execution in two and a half years by a team of 13 weavers from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop that he knelt and kissed it, likening his painting to a black and white photograph compared to the tapestry as a colour print).
We looked down at the well-preserved 345 million year old penaeid in the marble at the foot of the stairs leading to the public café (Goons joke: “Happy birthday to you”).
Ron and, in particular, John enjoyed the Lego model of the building on display in the schools’ meeting room just inside from the Queen’s Terrace and John Dowie’s statue of the monarch.
So far this visit was pretty much like many before it. But then things started getting a bit weird.
When we first arrived in the Senate public gallery we were on our own. The chamber was empty. At the same level as us but off to the side, in another public gallery, there was a small knot of people clearly engaged in a media interview. I recognised Senator John ‘Wacka’ Williams and, a little later, Laura Tingle. They were engaged in a relaxed chat-cum-interview, with camera operator and sound person doing their thing.
When Senators received an increase in their travel allowance six or eight years ago, John Williams committed $6000-$7000 to a scholarship to help someone from regional New South Wales to undertake an undergraduate degree in dentistry. From the beginning this was managed for him by the National Rural health Alliance for which I used to work. My contact with the Senator had therefore been regular if not deep. I thought to call out across the short distance between us and the media-busy group but at that moment a small group led by a parliamentary security officer entered our gallery.
When John Williams and his interlocutors moved off, I did as well, indicating to my John that I was intending to cut them off. I made the intersection successfully and the Senator and I had a chat. He asked where I had worked; I reminded him that I had Parkinson’s. “So we have something in common”, he said. He told me that he was using infra-red light therapy each morning and proudly displayed his two hands, neither of which had detectable tremor. He asked if I intended to have deep brain stimulation, saying that a friend of his had done so with good results. He said he might try it in 4 to 5 years’ time; I said not likely! He asked my age and how long I had been diagnosed and then said that it had appeared in both of us at the same age. I mistakenly thought he meant we were the same age now. He didn’t seem to mind having 10 years added to his real age. We wished each other well and parted.
John, Ron and I then made our way to the Reps. Apart from the Deputy Speaker, the two clerks and one on duty from both Government and Opposition, the chamber was peopled only by five independents. (Grist for the mill of those who believe that the major Parties are not usefully engaged?)
Adam Bandt was talking about his Private Member’s Bill to restrict activities in relation to thermal coal (‘the Quit Coal Bill’). Then Rebecca Sharkie, the Member for Mayo, spoke to her Bill intended to protect farmers from some of the predations of the banks.
I wouldn’t say he was officious but the security guard on duty in our gallery was nothing if not conscientious. John leaned forward and touched the back of the seat in front; the guard lent in immediately, past me, to inform John that it was not permitted to touch the back of the seat in front. A woman in the front row of the gallery must have closed her eyes; the guard sidewaysed in towards her: “Sorry madam but you’re not allowed to sleep in the public gallery”.
Next my attention was drawn to Cathy McGowan in the chamber below introducing her Private Member’s Bill for the establishment of an Office of Regional Australia. The phrases tumbled into the heavily-recorded but apparently vacant air and into my head like a sequence of old friends rediscovered from the boxes of papers in the shack at home:
"continue my call for the need for an overarching, comprehensive, long-term and non-partisan approach to dealing with regional Australia through a White and Green Paper process - - good regional policy is absolutely needed for our nation - - the government's inadequate response to the Regions at the Ready report - - .a year of analysis, 14 public hearings and more than 200 written submissions - - to give the community greater input to policy implementation and a means to investigate negative impacts of regulation - - advice to the Minister about matters relating to regional deals and regional planning - - lack of government understanding of how rural and regional Australia is different to the cities—how one size doesn't fit all—and how the market conditions in rural and regional Australia are different to those in the cities - -"
I looked expectantly (and of course silently) at John’s face, for some reason hoping that this agronomic researcher from Manitoba was appreciating the consonance between the Member for Indi’s concerns and my own. John’s view of the matter wasn’t clear and the duty of care of the security officer prohibited me from asking him more directly.
The three of us then moved to the Tom Roberts.
We saw that the Estimates Committee hearing in the Main Committee Room (with its large, vibrant painting by Mandy Martin) was open to the public. For 10 minutes we were party to discussions about the AFP and Home Affairs Department’s involvement with the Interpol red notice and subsequent events relating to Hakeem al-Araibi and his detention in Thailand.
I was scarcely able to control my enthusiasm for the political and contemporary nature of this matter. But John and Ron could not be expected to share these in equal proportion so, with half an eye on one of the 2700 clocks in the building, we made our way to the Queen’s Terrace and the reverse view of Mount Ainslie and then made our way back to the car.
That was all on the Monday. Watching the 7:30 report on ABC television on the Thursday I saw Laura Tingle present her package on the valedictories of Julie Bishop, Wayne Swan, Kelly O’Dwyer, Jenny Macklin, Cathy McGowan and (naturally) John Williams. Across in the public gallery we were very nearly in shot.
Then on the Friday, Parkinson’s ACT welcomed Simon Lewis to a meeting at which he discussed the current approach to research aimed at slowing or halting progression of the condition. One of the last questions to him was about red light therapy for Parkinson’s. Simon Lewis credited Senator John Williams with the popularisation or wider knowledge of the device, but said there was no evidence that it was efficacious.
Extraordinary. So many circles within circles, wheels within wheels.