Canberran accolades are crap and meaningless. They’re like the Logies and Oscars – quid pro quo backslapping shams.
That’s why we didn’t nominate our Jim, again this Queens Birthday long weekend. He’s not exactly part of the elitist inner circle and he’s taking the long weekend break anyway.
Last year Julia Gillard of the Building Education Revolution got an AC also by default. It’s not what you know, but who you know and the “hyperbowl” you spin in Canberra.
Now we could satirically conjecture the ‘AC’ abbreviation but it has something to do with the Companion of the Order of Australia. Gillard was PM. Canberra dishes out AC’s to former PM’s automatically. The PM’s job is to honourably serve the Australian nation and its people, so the AC is for PM services rendered, irrespectively of how good or bad. The ‘companion’ thing is perplexing. Who was PM Gillard a companion to? Lefties? Unions? Foreigners like Indonesian muslims? Old slush flame Bruce Wilson?
This year, her socialist comrade PM Kevin Rudd got one too. Rudd was PM twice, so does he get a second AC?
Kevin ’07 AC porking a bit of entitlement pudginess these days over in New York
Kev’s AC merit? Well, his back-of-an-envelope bottomless NBN rollout to fix Australia’s ADSL2 that was working just fine. His kneejerk Pink Batts for all wastage that turned deadly. Kev’s GFC kneejerk $900 stimulus to each taxpayer. Eminent services to China?
The AC may as well be redubbed the ‘PM Medallion’ – like a retirement gold watch – like…”thanks for coming, have a good life”.
At least a gold watch ought to tell the correct time and so can be hocked for cash.
But who flaunts an AC medallion around if you’re not an outlaw bikie sergeant at arms?
May be ex-PMs could be offered a tattoo instead?
Perhaps obedient types like the military in Jim Yong Un’s North Korean hermit kingdom and Xi Jingping’s Chinese hermit upper middle kingdom.
AO’s, OAM’s, AM’s, AC’s, Elephant Stamps are handed out by Canberra every Queens’s Birthday, as meaningless tokenism.
It’s a throwback to Labor’s ritual republican legacy of the short-lived Gough Revolution (1972-1975). Canberra’s annual Queens Birthday Honours List is judged by secretive Australian Honours and Awards Secretariat. The whole shennanigan was extremist PM Whitlam’s persona; pet project to snub Britain, simply because he despised Australia’s British heritage and hated knighthoods. Gough was always happiest in communist China.
The system claims that Australian honours system is free of patronage or political influence, which is crap. Undeserving Gillard and Rudd got the top gong.
Canberran Inner Circle Medallion – completely meaningless
The award rankings are such that combat Aussies in the military are lower than civvy Aussies. Companions like Gillard-Rudd-Gillard are supreme on the medallion food chain above Officers, Members and Medal awardees. Classism prevails. If you’re an Australian who has critically saved lives and put themselves in harm’s way in the process, Canberra treats you as just scum down the rank:
- Public Service Medal (PSM)
- Australian Police Medal (APM)
- Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM)
- Ambulance Service Medal (ASM)
- Emergency Services Medal (ESM)
- Australian Corrections Medal (ACM)
Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Award Recipient