Original Impulses

Artist: Angus McKie


"When the fury passes, what will they have left? They will look at their core principles for guidance, only to find that they, rather than their conservative opponents, have battered them to the point of destruction. If they talk about the urgent task of combating terror by spreading the freedoms they enjoy, the audience they taught to sneer at others will sneer at them. If they provide evidence of a totalitarian menace, the accusation of lying they have thrown so freely at others, will be thrown back in their faces."
Nick Cohen.


Been up to the farm and back all in a couple of days. It's a minimum six hour drive. Left my old car up there. It's run out of rego and has gone to live another life as a farm ute. There's no petrol stations around there but it has a three quarters full tank, enough to do several hundred kilometres. That's a lot of bails of hay, or whatever, around a small acreage. There are stories that interlope back on each other; a gorgeous city which long ago lost its soul. For some reason, perhaps because they were offering a 40 per cent discount as part of some promotion, I caught first class back after Phillip drove me to the Gunnedah station.

Before long there were a number of refugees making their way back from the Moree carriage. "The language!" some of the old ladies exclaimed of the aboriginal mob in the front carriage. "It's always like that from Moree, you get used to it," the conductor said. The woman behind me never shut up; not for a moment; and wore out everbody around her on the day long journey. There had been a derailment and it took longer than normal. Seeking sanity from the constant yabber behind me, I looked forward to see a large woman in a nightie with died red hair and sun glasses clutching a small teddy. When she spoke she had an incredibly high pitched voice; and I despaired.

There were original impulses that cycle through my brain every day; when I was up at dawn and I could feel every cat that stirred in the cold morning for a mile around; every stretch, every muffled good morning I love you; every bit of despair. I put together collections of short stories and novellas which hang around still; Fragment Me Quick, Blue Queen; Boys In Glass Castles; A Shortage of Vision. The latter about Queensland descending into a totalitarian state. "From the banning of street marches to the banning of strikes it had only been a few logical steps through a period of political instability after the death of Bjelke Peterson, combined with economic chaos in the rest of the country, that had led to seccession from Australia and the arrival of a military dictatorship." Which led to that ultimately world weary claim: "So much have I written, so little have I gained."

Half finished manuscripts lie in boxes everywhere; some impossible to decipher or put back together after so many moves. These broken children, broken projects, never finished as one bit of madness overtook another; as my left fell apart with convincing regularity into chaos and drink and addiction; the great struggle burnt out. All he wanted now was the quiet life on the farm; peace; and in those winding days of fortune other things lay. He could bring it all together, he would bring it all together, the unfinished projects and the uncompleted dreams; in the years that lay ahead. Today; the plane will sweep low along the old explorer routes; finding a mystery still left in the Blue Mountains. Great story about an 81 year old woman who owns a silver mining ghost town surrounded by the Blue Mountains National Park. There is much to be done. Pluck up my son. Life takes many courses.

THE BIGGER STORY:


NSW Police Chief Ken Moroney is finally retiring. He was never one to knock back an increase in surveillance techniques; ever more powerful and intrusive ways of monitoring the population. Sydney is a bent town to the core; and these people are like strange white caterpillars feeding off the host. You've never belonged, you never will, wailed the lost voice of the body populace; let me be free.


The Age:


It's normally just a tradition for recruits, but NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney also threw his hat into the air before he strode off the Goulburn police academy parade ground for the last time.

In one of his final official duties before retiring on Friday, Mr Moroney welcomed 225 new recruits into the force, urging them to maintain a thirst for knowledge and to "apply that knowledge in service of the people of NSW".

But much of the focus of the day was on Mr Moroney and his 42 years of service with NSW police, which he joined when he was 19.

With his wife Bev watching, and his three police officer sons nearby, Mr Moroney said he hoped history would paint him as a man who did his best.

"To my wife Beverly, my family friends and colleagues, both serving and retired, thank you for the love, loyalty and support that you have shown me, not only over the past five years as commissioner of police, but equally as a member of the NSW Police Force," he said.

"I also wish to thank the community of NSW for their trust and support whilst I have been commissioner.

"When this period of police history is finally written, and however history records my service as a police officer, I trust that all that is said is that `he did the job to the best of his ability'."