Page 4497 - Week 14 - Thursday, 28 November 2013

A few weeks until Christmas, and all through the building

Every member was stirring, to holidays yielding.

The greeting cards had all been written out by hand

And distributed magically throughout our wide land.

The backbenchers jockeyed and jostled and climbed

While visions of ministries danced in their minds.

The Chief Minister and the Greens were ready to snooze

And had told themselves they could never lose.

When out on the lawns of Kingston was a clatter

They sprang from their chairs to see what was the matter.

No sooner was the grass settled when along came a review

Of the pricing structure for our troubled ACTEW.

The federal challenge to the Equal Marriage Act

Was another hurdle to the Greens-Labor pact.

Then what to our wandering eyes should appear

But a large-scale solar farm, to the residents’ fear.

But with a town full of protestors lively and quick

I knew in a moment it wouldn’t stick.

More rapid than light rail, the problems they came,

And I can write them and list them and call them by name.

Now hospital data, next tripling of rates

Oh, executive contracts, too many jail inmates.

Such a long list, the Chief Minister called,

Just get away, get away, go away, all.

Like the documents that come from a good FOI

When they are requested, piled up so high

Or uncollected recycling, the issues come through

The Cotter Dam overspend, the GDE too.

It seems only a minute since the opportunity arose

To join the Assembly, a path that I chose.

I nodded my head, and with eight vital votes,

I was confident, bold, ready, or so said my notes.

Mr Hanson, our leader, impeccably dressed head to foot,

His clothes no longer from a uniform put.

A bundle of policies was flung on his back

And he looked very gleeful just opening his pack.

His eyes how they twinkled, his face all aglow

From his mornings at boot camp, he is not just for show.

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow

And the hair on his chin was clean-shaven as though

Peter Jean was waiting to take the best shot

With Mr Coe or maybe Doszpot.