INTERNECINE WARFARE

It may come as a surprise that I do not intend to get involved in any internecine warfare with my so-called colleagues both on radio and in print over the Graham Kennedy saga.

I had my say at the start of yesterday’s programme on 3AW. Which led to today’s Page One headline in the Herald Sun: Radio War, Stars brand Hinch apology pathetic.

I will say one thing. There is a savage column about me in The Australian today by Phillip Adams. The most hurtful thing in it is that he depicts me as being homophobic. Anybody who knows me knows I am not. And I too Phillip, have had dear friends who have died of AIDS.

Moving on.

The story that will have radio talkback callers going all over Australia today is the news that our federal politicians are to get a $4000 a year pay rise. I’m not sure why it is making headlines today because the Government announced it last Friday. It will take a federal MP’s base salary to around $111,000 a year.

The Herald Sun had a strange paragraph that the pay rise was announced “without fanfare on the same day that Schapelle Corby was sentenced”. Why an announcement about a salary increase for politicians has anything to do with the conviction of a drug smuggler is beyond me.

Also, the pay rise was recommended by the independent Remuneration Tribunal. It’s not exactly a case of politicians putting their own hands in the trough. As they have on other perks. I’ll concede that.

Many people, me included, have said many times about politicians that “if you pay peanuts you get monkeys”. And I believe that. Only last week I said I though the Prime Minister of Australia – be he Labor or Liberal – should get paid half a million dollars a year. Hawke, Keating, Howard, could make much more money in the corporate world. And Hawke and Keating have.

Prime Minister Howard said: “We have had a veritable parade of populism from those who sit opposite at a time when it is in the national interest to attract people of ability into Parliament on both sides.”

And he is right. It’s all about peanuts and monkeys. It will be interesting to see how many Labor MPs knock it back.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005