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WATTLE IT TAKE TO GET RID OF HIM?

I want to tell you a story about wattle. That quintessential Australian acacia tree of bright colours and supple branches that ironically is seen as a sign of bad luck if displayed in the house across the Tasman in New Zealand.

Long an Aussie symbol, it became even more so in recent days when adopted as a sign of respect, and national honour and national unity, in the wake of the Bali disaster.

There was even talk of having it emblazoned on a medal of honour for those who risked their lives to save others in the Indonesian carnage.

And it was a good choice. Brightly coloured and supple –like the clothes and the limbs of so many young Aussies whose lives and futures were blown away on a tropical holiday.

It is not indelicate to put it in the same category as the red poppy from Anzac Day and the rosemary from the Day of Remembrance –especially after so many thousands of Australians wore sprigs of wattle to services all over this country in recent days.

Wattle has become a flower of mourning. Our Governor General personally snipped some wattle from his own garden and took it the scene of tragedy and suffering and in a gesture lost on no Australians scattered it at the death scene like a wreath.

But, unfortunately that was not the action of the current Governor General Peter Hollingworth.

That is what his predecessor, Sir William Dean, did three years ago. He took wattle from his garden all the way to Interlaken in Switzerland in 1999 to lead a memorial service for the 13 young Australians killed while canyoning there in a ravine.

Dean, a calming and comforting leader was no stranger at places of tragedy and it was not thought unusual that this kindly man would go halfway around the world to be with grieving relatives.

His successor, the Rev. Hollingworth, did not get to Bali (on our doorstep) for more than a week.

And the already controversial and, by many, disliked GG is paying for that.

I have been a consistent and trenchant critic of Hollingworth GG since his appointment.

I have commented in this space before that when Peter Hollingworth was named as our new Governor General I was appalled and said so on radio and in print. I thought it was a disgusting and insulting, even dangerous, appointment by Prime Minister Howard.

That belief came from years of living in the United States and being a stickler for the separation of church and state.

My belief that an Anglican Archbishop should not hold the office was strengthened when THIS Archbishop was revealed as a man lacking in judgement and moral principle when it came to flushing out child-abusing clerics in his flock.

And his attempts on television to blame victims and save his own thick

Hide did nothing to change my opinion.

So it may surprise some people that I thought the Governor General was being castigated unfairly for his decision to fly off to the Middle East on the very day the news came through of the slaughter of the innocents by bombers in Bali.

Hollingworth has said the enormity of what had happened in Bali was not obvious when he left for Egypt on that Sunday afternoon. And I accept that.

Maybe the argument could be put that the Governor General SHOULD have known the enormity of what had happened before he left for Egypt. But remember he was going there to represent this country at the solemn 60th anniversary of the battle of El Alamein.

He was going there to pay tribute to a lot of other young Australians who died – by the thousand -- in tragic circumstances. Brave young soldiers fighting another form of terrorism. And there may have been criticism if Hollingworth had turned back at say Singapore and snubbed the memory of the other young Aussies who died there.

(There is the supplementary argument that Prime Minister Howard is so embarrassed by the man he picked as our GG that he wants him as far away from the action and the TV news cameras as possible. Remember who went to the Queen Mother’s funeral and the virtually invisible role Hollingworth had at the service for the last Gallipoli veteran?)

Look – I don’t think this man should be governor general. Don’t think he should ever have been appointed and then his actions –or lack of them last year – over child molesting accusations to me made his resignation a matter of some urgency although he found a hide thick enough to ride that one out.

By his own belated admission Hollingworth put money before morality in the Toowoomba Preparatory School paedophile sex scandal which was covered up for ten years by the Anglican Church headed by -- Archbishop Hollingworth.

By his own admission he was belatedly sorry that “ legal and insurance considerations to some extent inhibited our taking a more active role and more overtly expressing the church’s concern for the physical, emotional and spiritual welfare” of those affected by the actions of child-molesting housemaster Kevin Guy.

People should not forget that. Nor the way he tried to claim on national television that a 14-year-old student at a church hostel who was sexually assaulted by her 27-year-old married minister was actually the seducer.

What did Hollingworth say on TV: “ Remember, it wasn’t sexual abuse or anything like that. Far from it”.

Hollingworth has now belatedly been to Bali and brushed off critical questions. What happens next will be crucial to his future standing in this country.

The timing is interesting. We are heading into Melbourne Cup Week. I believe Peter Hollingworth is rapidly running the risk of being the biggest liability at Yarralumla since the Tippler in the Top Hat, Sir John Kerr, became a figure of mockery and disrespect at that very event in 1977.

Sunday Herald Sun

October 27, 2002

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002