Inside the Covid-free bubble

Girt by sea ... Latest from the west ... Murder-suicide and the family court "system" ... Non-reappointment for the anti-corruption commissioner ... Christian's virtues ... Mr Palmer ... Scotty from Marketing ... And others ... Sandgroper's letter from Perth 

At the outset I should say that I am not meaning to rub salt into any exposed wounds or to rejoice in the difficulties faced by other elsewhere. 

I have many friends living in other places in Australia and around the planet who are experiencing the worst of the virus and what it has thrown up on a daily basis. 

However, relatively speaking, it is very nice to be at this place on the planet at this  time.

Occasionally I venture, at least electronically and in my mind, to the edges of Western Australia's Covid-free bubble and wonder what is happening in the rest of the world. 

I become quickly dismayed, angry and depressed (not necessarily in that order) and then retreat to the community of friends at restaurants and in houses, socialisation at work and the pleasure of being able to move freely without intervention or explanation.  

Your correspondent has been doing as suggested by the government and has wandered out yonder. It seems that lots of others of similar demographic and hair-colouring are doing the same.  

Finding reasonable accommodation in smaller country towns is difficult.  Restaurants are generally busy, in a Covid-free way. Many of the rural and city hospitality services are social distancing because they are having trouble obtaining suitable staff. 

If you are getting Jobkeeper and idly waiting at home for your employer to re-open, you are supposed to be offering to moonlight by picking fruit or changing beds in a place that has nowhere to accommodate you. 

WA has been continuing to support the federal budget by continuing to do what it does best, namely dig it up and ship it out, for the moment, to China. 

I only hope that Premier Mark McGowan does not become this century's "Pig-iron Bob".  

Apart from digging and shipping, not much else is happening. With an opposition that struggles to find relevance in a town controlled by one newspaper magnate whose daily paper is largely full of advertising. 

Many of us breathed a sigh of relief when the AFL decided to move to the Gold Coast for spring. The thought of the local authorities being distracted by dealing with a bunch of entitled young men and their entourage of has-beens and wannabes, was difficult to contemplate. 

Now, however, we will have the worst of both worlds - having to deal with an influx of the worst Melbourne can offer - Collingwood and its supporters - but no grand final even if the Eagles win. 

•   •   •

On the law front, there are two matters that have slipped under the radar and are remarkable. 

The first is the refusal of the local coroner to conduct an inquest into the worst familial murder-suicide in Australia. It occurred in Margaret River in 2018 and for one of the few authoritative published summaries, see the decision of Thackray CJ. 

This is a case which exposed an attempt by the local media baron to publish an unfair account of the matter - an attempt that proved unsuccessful.

Since then, snippets occasionally leak out, usually focussed on some 60 Minutes expose of the grief of the father with veiled pointers to evidence of a breakdown in service delivery by the "Family Court system".  

Many in the "Family Court system" had been waiting and hoping for the opportunity to lay bare the causes of this tragedy and the actions by State based authorities that may warrant consideration by the Coroner.  

Instead, the matter has been avoided on the basis that the perpetrator is known. That response is a shameless derogation of duty. 

The father and his family are aggrieved by being denied the opportunity to speak freely and publicly about the events and circumstances that led up to the murder of his children. 

The Family Court was effectively mislead by the State when it contended that a coronial inquest was likely.

•   •   •

McKechnie: craved the position

The second concerns the appointment of the Commissioner of the Anti-Crime Commission. The retiring commissioner, John McKechnie, a former judge of the Supremo Court, sought re-appointment and the government actively sought to re-appoint him. 

Notwithstanding a strong campaign by the attorney general and local media, parliament refused to approve his reappointment. 

McKechnie has a career worthy of admiration. He was appointed the Director of Public Prosecutions and led that organisation - often personally leading more serious cases. 

He was also adept with the press, a rare achievement in this town. Having retired as a judge, he chaired an inquiry to find a replacement for the position of Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission. 

After searching far-and-wide no suitable candidate could be found and ultimately, and humbly, McKechnie accepted the position on the basis that he was paid the commissioner's salary in addition to his State judicial pension.  

The relevant Act says an appointment should not be made of any person aged more than 75 years. McKechnie's term expired when he was then 74. 

Shortly before retirement readers may recall him offending some politicians, with apparent assistance of the premier's office, by seizing records of Government MP's relating to a corruption investigation of a State emissary working in Japan. 

From what has been revealed to us by Mr Stokes and attributed to McKechnie, some of the information seized reveals WA (Liberal) politicians using government allowances for hookers. 

When McKechnie's term expired, we then had the spectre of the attorney general, John Quigley, stamping his foot in parliament as to why someone who was almost past his statutory use-by date was being given another term and in circumstances where it is obvious he craved the position.  

Usually the fact of the craving disentitles the appointment

I suppose we can now expect another long inquiry to find out there is nobody suitable ... 

The Christian

Well, his home is inside the bubble, but really he is a bit of an outsider at the moment. One thing you can say about The Christian is that he is a persistent little thing who seems to survive on little nourishment. We had hoped to get rid of him last time, but he re-appeared and bloomed everywhere.  

He has managed to avoid ratification by the Commonwealth of legislation which would allow the "splitting" of superannuation entitlements between de facto couples in Western Australia. 

With a referral in his hands supported by him as State attorney, The Christian has taken it to Canberra and managed to bury it. 

Your correspondent has heard those who deal in these arcane matters of legislation make observation that even the Office of Parliamentary Counsel cannot be so incompetent or over-burdened as to be unable to produce a settled draft in circumstances where precedent exists. 

Those who dabble in political conspiracy theories observe that a number of Perthonalities, who have or are involved in litigation concerning de facto relationships, where they would prefer the Family Court in WA not be able to intervene in adjusting their very significant superannuation entitlements, all of which no doubt accumulated in a very lawful and tax-effective manner, and affords them a very pleasant lifestyle. 

Personally I don't know what to believe. But expressing it in that way probably gives a clue. After all, we are talking about The Christian and belief needs to be suspended and conduct examined. 

You can't believe anything The Christian says. 

Scotty from Marketing

Morrison: praise be

This is one with which I really struggle. He is the Prime Minister of Australia in circumstances where the power to deal with quarantine is a Commonwealth head of power. 

The Commonwealth has control of numerous facilities around Australia, most of which have an airstrip of sorts nearby. All of which are capable of accommodating family groups or simply a group of 20-100 people despatched from the last bus or flight, all of who would be quarantined for the same period of time and separated as and when tested positive.  

And when he got the opportunity he encouraged Clive Palmer's action (or at least Mathias Cormann did) on testing s.92 of the Constitution. 

When he realises that the move is not popular in WA, Morrison then gets The Christian to walk away from the Commonwealth's support for Palmer's High Court action and simply abandons what is probably one of the most important interpretations of s.92.

Around the country the Commonwealth has control of ports and navigation, border entries, airports, quarantine and all of the resources of Border Farce and the ADF, both active and reservist.  

And the PM closes Australia's entry points to the rest of the world and criticises the States for stifling "business" when they close their borders. Meanwhile, 25,000 Australians are struggling to come home and business needs a work force.

I would have thought that we should be arranging a form of Dunkirk and sending idle tourist boats to Bali, Phuket, India, so that citizens can make their way to our gleaming shores. 

Morrison would have trouble turning those boats back.

Clive Palmer

I have been struggling to understand what Clive Palmer's problem is.  

According to the multiple full-page advertisements he has been taking out in the only Western Australian daily newspaper, his address is 2 The Esplanade, Perth.  

When I visited recently to say "hello" to Clive, apparently he was not in. I searched and scoured the notice board by the lifts and nowhere could I find Mr Clive Palmer, the Hon. Palmer C. or any derivative of his known aliases.  

The bit that I found the funniest was five days of headlines of the local newspaper owned and operated by that well-known supporter of State capitalism, K. Stokes, that had various ugly representations of Mr Palmer on its front page, and which carried within it at least two and sometimes four, full-pages of advertising for Mr Palmer's position in his well-recognised colours.  

Personally, I think we should treat Clive Palmer in the same way we treat Kerry Stokes. He can come to WA on his private jet and self-quarantine at Stokes' house for 14-days.

They are bound to have a lovely time together. 

Donald Trump

This really is a dilemma. I fear for what is left of American democracy noting that in terms of the base concepts of a free and fair vote and of each vote being of equal value, America fails dismally.  

The spectre of a sitting President challenging the validity of the vote before it is counted, is alarming. 

It seems the choices are between a civil war in December when Trump supporters refuse to accept the results of postal vote counting or a civil war in May 2021 when Congress again impeaches Trump.