Friday, December 21, 2007
GARRETT UNKNOWN
Traceeee Hutchison once defended Peter Garrett’s “pragmatic resolve to be part of a political process that is all about compromise.” After all, as she pointed out, Garrett is hardly “the only person who has ever modified a point of view as a trade-off for the bigger picture”. A Midnight Oil fan for decades, Traceeee wasn’t impressed by “former friends” who “condemned a man who once dared speak his youthful idealistic mind”. Cutting Garrett down, she warned, “does the pragmatic idealist in us all a massive disservice.”
But now - this is so beautiful - Environment Minister Garrett has approved the dredging of Traceeee’s beloved Port Phillip Bay shipping channels. Time for Traceeee to cut him down:
I don’t think I know you any more ...
I’m just not sure where to start. Given you’ve just approved an environmental bloodbath in my bay right on Christmas and you didn’t have the decency to come and look at what you’re destroying I’ve been floundering around like a dolphin that’s been blasted by a series of underwater sonic shock waves.
Hey - not fair making fun of Pete’s dancing.
I didn’t ever imagine I’d be the one to remind you that dolphins are also part of the whale family, minister. That’s why I’m floundering. I just don’t know who you are any more.
Dolphins, whale, flounder ... anyone else feel like getting some fish and chips?
We could have swum in the pristine water and marvelled at the gannets and the colony of Australian fur seals ... you’d have seen the extensive beds of giant kelp and leathery kelp that create an underwater garden bed for the algae, the molluscs ... It’s the kind of thing the old Peter would have loved.
Traceeee previously railed against people racing “to expose the views formerly held by the man formerly known as the lead singer of Midnight Oil.” Now she does the same:
I’d have found a moment to reminisce about the first time I saw your band, back in 1981 at the Caulfield Town Hall, and how it changed my life. We might have talked about the songs and the marches and all that conviction. And, if you’d let me, I’d have looked you in the eye and tried to find where you had gone.
He’s gone dredgin’, baby! This new Environment Minister is working out rather well.
UPDATE. Traceeee’s fellow anti-dredgers oppose deeepening:
