I (together with the UN and Malcolm Turnbull) had birthdays last Sunday, 24th October. I drove through Tenterfield, on my way to the NSW north coast. I belatedly discovered that on that same day, 125 years earlier, Sir Henry Parkes, one-time NSW Premier, delivered what has become known as the Tenterfield Oration, a general ‘call to arms’ for the peoples of the seven Australasian colonies (the seventh being NZ) to unite and form the one Federation!
Travellers approaching Tenterfield from the west first notice the Henry Parkes motel on the left. Looking further along Rouse Street, a large sign heralds the Peter Allen motel, the town’s other famous son. Two hundred metres further, on the right (extreme?), is the office of Barnaby Joyce MHR, soon-to-be former leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister. I hesitate to call him the 3rd famous son.
The juxtaposition of these three pieces of real estate struck me immediately. Referencing the father of Federation, the man joyously heralding Australia as his home and the man who leads a party doing its darndest to split Australia asunder – “the weatherboard and iron “battler” versus the “woke inner city raving lunatics” – all cheek by jowl, on the main street of Tenterfield. What karma is at work?
I might ask a savvy journo to consider this situation further.