HEEEE’S BAAACK!

Great to be back. Glad it was a quiet news period while I was away. Not. What a fortnight for news. Another gangland murder. Ute-gate. The sensational arrest of that old crone Judy Moran. And the sudden death of Michael Jackson.

Thanks to Tom Elliott for filling in for me on 3AW. Glad it was him and not his father. What an arrogant, ignorant, insensitive, pig that man is. And you can’t just put it down to the stupid ramblings of an old drunk. I can just hear him. ‘What’s the big deal. A few sheilas complain they’ve been raped by the boys. Just slip ‘em a few quid to hush it up and get on with the footy’.

And Tuppence Moran. He wasn’t a kingpin in the underworld but don’t
dismiss him as some harmless old poof. (The same way George Williams
 should not be dismissed as a bit player who somehow got roped in with his
 villainous son Carl. George was up to his neck in it. He’s lucky to be
out of prison.)

In the old days Des ‘Tuppence’ Moran and his brother Lewis were standover men and debt collectors. They’d break people’s bones with baseball bats before they moved into the lucrative drug manufacturing business. Tuppence had Victoria’s first mobile amphetamines laboratory.

One comment though on the attacks on the Herald Sun for running a photo of Tuppence Moran’s body. Well, a picture of his feet. Didn’t hear such protests when papers ran pictures of Bobby Kennedy sprawled on a hotel kitchen floor oozing life. Or the Zapruder film of his brother, President John Kennedy, having parts of his head blown off.

 And Judy Moran. Let’s leave that for the courts. But if you want a hollow laugh go back to some of the recent newspaper and magazines articles about the moll turned matriarch who said her great wish in life was to retire to Queensland and raise her grandchildren in a world of love and honesty and decency. Guess those plans are on hold.

And then Utegate. Stupid name for a grubby story. Yep, Malcolm Turnbull got egg on his face when an e-mail turned out to be a fake in a reckless attack on Kevin Rudd. But, as somebody once told me, ‘to get egg on your face you have to at least sit at the table’. And Turnbull was right, and they are still right, to go after the Treasurer Wayne Swan. He did mislead Parliament. At least lied by omission.  And his pathetic and dogged appearance on radio when he refused to say how many car dealers he had personally talked to. Explained his refusal by saying ‘You haven’t asked the right question’. It reminded me of Watergate when Nixon’s press secretary declared all previous answers ‘inoperable’.

And all of this overshadowed at weeksend by the shock news that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was dead. His body apparently fuller than a medicine cabinet. And it collapsed. The worldwide outpouring of shock and grief was genuine. But for many, the Wacko Jacko legend overpowered the musical genius.

The sick jokes started within minutes.  Jackson’s personal life drowned out the music. The paedophile allegations were just too strong. His own fault. After all, any normal, innocent person would not pay $20 million to stop an alleged sexual assault victim testifying in court. You would spend every cent of it defending your reputation and your claimed innocence.

Jackson fans should weep for what might have been. Not for the twisted, drugged, grotesque apparition their moonwalker became.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009