Random thoughts and observations
Reading Stewart Cockburn’s biography of Sir Thomas Playford dispelled a couple of myths. I falsely believed that Playford created the gerrymander which helped keep him in power for a Commonwealth record 26 years, and that he was responsible for merging the conservatives with the Country Party. Both of these circumstances occurred shortly before Playford began [...]
I had a schoolboy’s understanding of Sir Henry Parkes before reading his biography by Robert Travers. He’s known as the “Father of Federation” but perhaps is better remembered as a master politician and orator. His great achievements were free public education for all and reforming the colony’s governance to make it more democratic. Perhaps his [...]
Mount Gambier trucking magnate and publisher Allan Scott passed away this week, aged 85. I didn’t get to know him well enough to comment much on his extraordinary life, except to say he was a great man by any measure. Visiting Millicent today I met one of his close friends, Rocky Smith, who told me [...]
The former President of South Africa PW Botha died on October 31, 2006. He was already out of the political scene when I visited South Africa for the first time in 1990 and FW de Klerk had accelerated the reform process. Botha was seen as stubborn in the face of irresistible change but in terms [...]
