And Kevin’s no different, it’s the same worshipping the economy songbook. He’d be shot-sacred to deviate or he’d be tarred with destroying Australian jobs. Jobs are important, we all need ‘em, some lucky people get to love theirs no matter what they do, but I would think the majority of us accept them as necessary in providing the wherewithal of life but would prefer to be playing in the park and heckling the Health and Temperance League.

BTW I am proud to admit I ranked last (out of around 500 students) in Yr11 for religion.

Allow me to repeat that, last.

And it was a catholic school.

Oh yeah, they loved me.

No, I suspect it’s a subconscious way of planning for political oblivion. If he can continue walking faster and faster he’s a good chance of representing Australian at the Veterans Games. He’d even get a GENUINE Aussie tracksuit. It doen’t sound like much of a retirement to most people but it may wean him away from polling and studying by-election swings.

Since Howard’s only knowledge of history is confined to whatever variables may explain particular election results, it is surprising how often he has hit onto some genuine historic traits and turned them to advantage. One is just that point you make: that despite our fair go belief there is an undercurrent whose aim seems to be to deprive others of pleasure. Wanting us to work harder and have less fun is part of it. The Temperance movement was a major part of it.

My youthful origins also go back fifty years to the pre-Dunstan era days of SA. Though I avoided the direct contact with Temperance or others, their influence was everywhere, not least in SA’s absurd liquor licensing laws.

Another group from that time I remember (through the Letters pages of The Advertiser) was The Lord’s Day Observance Society. The Secretary, one K F Kitto, would regularly write complaining of people he’d observed in the Adelaide parklands on a Sunday playing and enjoying themselves! I could almost picture him wandering round in a black frockcoat and one of those Pilgrims hats with the beltbuckle band assiduously taking down notes of the offenders.

The fact is, of course, that there’s always been support for sinking the boot into the less powerful and defenceless - as we saw so vividly during the Hanson era. Howard somehow knew this intuitively and cashed in on it.

Fortunately I think he has seriously overreached with Workchoices - well at least I hope so.