Racing

POP CULTURE READY FOR LAST CAMPAIGN

Part-owner Russell Clarke is confident that his mare Pop Culture will acquit herself well in her last campaign, before going to stud.

Prepared in WA by Colin Webster the quality mare is now in Rob Blacker’s Mornington stables and makes her debut at Caulfield on May 2 in the LU Simon Handicap (1600m).

With earnings of almost $643,000, Pop Culture has won 10 times from 37 starts in WA, including the Oaks, St Leger, two Ascot Gold Cups, and the Detonator and ATA Handicaps. The now six year old was ridden in all her victories by Troy Turner.

Blacker has reported that she has trialled well and is keen in her work. “Her workload and environment is varied and interesting. The cooler climate, increased moisture in her working surfaces, plus swimming has decreased the concussion load on her legs.”

Blacker said it was difficult to assess her chances this Saturday with no recent form behind her having last raced in early January. “Her last win was 10 weeks into her racing campaign, so about 20 weeks into her preparation.” Blacker said the 1600m circuit at Caulfield is a bit tricky.

The trainer said he expected her to win one heat of the upcoming Banjo Paterson Series and then the final. “She’s a Group class stayer, fit and sound and will be better than the horses she meets in that series.”

“She will earn plenty and double her value. There are plenty of 1800m+ feature races for her. Before Pop Culture arrived we expected an older mare with a ‘lot of miles on the clock.’  What we got was a sound keen racehorse loaded with class.”

Whether Blacker is a beneficiary of Webster’s training remains to be seen but champion trainer Bart Cummings has never forgotten Webster’s work with the 1999 Perth Cup runner-up Rogan Josh. That galloper went on to win the Melbourne Cup of the same year for the Cups King.

Cummings paid tribute to the veteran WA trainer, in his book, and deservedly so.

Time will tell whether Blacker will be singing from the same praise sheet but the onus is on him to follow a hard act.

As for Russell Clarke, he said he was excited at the prospects of the mare’s Victorian campaign. “When she won the WA Oaks she provided a family trip to the Mediterranean Sea and Italy for seven of us, so we owe her plenty.”

Media

THEIR ABC

Central casting would cast Gerard Henderson as a latter day Ignatiuus Loyola.

Just as Loyola was the Catholic Church’s supposed antidote to the Reformation so too is Henderson in combatting the culture vultures of today.

Henderson is unsmiling, severe of countenance, possibly unlikeable - and usually right.

As the bête noire of post modernist lefties, who despise anything that smacks of a Christian world view, Henderson certainly harpooned the ABC’s 7.30 Report anchor woman, Leigh Sales most effectively last week.

 Sales and political reporter Sabra Lane had both blatantly misrepresented Premier Colin Barnett. Sales by implying that the WA Premier would ensure that his State “might be a bit slower to help with bushfire and flood relief”; Lane by saying that the Barnett had suggested that in future WA “won’t be so willing to help other States in their hour of need.”  Both are false.

The WA Premier was quite rightly outraged at the lousy deal WA was getting over GST money but he did not threaten contributing to other States emergencies. Barnett said specifically that during emergencies in Victoria (fires) and Queensland (floods) it was WA that was the first state to respond. Barnett concluded that not only had his State done that but “that we’d do it again.”

Instead of doing a hatchet job on Barnett, on what he did not say, the pair of ABC enfant terribles would do well to report on the appalling situation WA is in regarding the GST payments.

Alannah MacTiernan, the federal Labor member for Perth, is hardly a supporter of Colin Barnett, but her article on the subject, ‘Geography Gone Mad in GST Carve Up,’ was superb.

One might wonder why Sales and Lane didn’t find it worthwhile to explore similarly but it was probably easier to misinterpret Barnett’s words than do the research MacTiernan did.

It didn’t stop there either.

In what Henderson describes, rightly, as Sales ‘gotcha moment’ he takes her to task for her interview with Defence Minister Kevin Andrews.

Andrews ‘sin’ was not remembering the name of the Islamist thug who heads up the Death Cult causing havoc in the Middle East at the moment.

Frankly, no-one much cares about who is in charge of Scumbags Incorporated. Middle Australia simply subscribes to the bullet-in-the-head theory for terrorists, both at home and abroad.

Better them than us - and it is them and us- as the Anzac Day terrorist plot proved. Our security agencies are currently investigating 400 possible plots by followers of the Religion of Peace and these problems have everything to do with Islam.  

However, Sales kept on pursuing the Minister and while he should have said “his name escapes me for now,” Sales went on and on, like a pork chop, seeking to simply embarrass him rather than ask substantive questions.

Sales got her ‘gotcha moment’ but, to quote Henderson, “at the expense of her viewers/listeners who learnt nothing from the exchange except that the 7.30 presenter researched Baghdadi’s name before the program went to air and the Defence Minister may have temporarily forgotten it on air.”

This sort of self indulgence by ABC interviewers is par for the course.

Who can forget Geraldine Doogue’s infamous Compass show where her idea of a debate was to have five people in favour of gay marriage, versus Anglican Bishop Rob Forsyth, the lone defender of traditional marriage.

That may be the ABC and Doogue’s idea of a balanced debate but not to anyone else. However, the ABC always wants to portray traditionalists and conservatives as a minority.

Tony Jones, on Q&A, can be relied on to have a leftist majority of panellists every week and ditto for his audience who clap any so-called ‘progressive’ statement-regressive in reality.

It would only be worse if his wife, Sarah Ferguson, another over-paid, offensive ABC ‘interviewer’ was running the show. Ferguson possesses all the sensitivity of a sabre-toothed tiger and her obnoxious interview with the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, was typical of her lack of style.

She thinks she is tough but comes across as just rude and pathetic to most viewers.

If people like Senators Joe Bullock (Labor WA) and Cory Bernardi (Liberal SA) are going to have the epithets of  ‘arch conservative’ and ‘reactionary,’  appended to the names by the lamestream media then there should be some procedural fairness.

What about ‘radical’ and ‘left wing’ being attached to people like Scott Ludlum and Sarah Hanson-Young plus others of a green hue.

Perhaps we should tag homosexual advocates as homophiles in the same way mainstream people, like social commentator Bill Muehlenberg, are labelled ‘homophobic’ for simply championing mainstream views on marriage.

As the late Peter Walsh (1935-2015), a former Labor senator and Australia’s best federal finance minister, might say, expect nothing from the ‘trendoids’ apart from the pushing of their own barrows at public expense.

Their ABC does that constantly for them.

Horse Racing

WEBSTER SMILING AFTER PROPERANTES VICTORY

Veteran trainer Colin Webster did not fancy Properantes prospects with 200m to go in the Jamie’s Italian Perth Handicap (1600m).

However, with apprentice Jordan Turner riding hard, and with the advantage of a 3kg weight claim, it was enough to help the three year old gelding to victory, wearing down Tiger Red (Brad Parnham) in the concluding stages.

Webster conceded that Tiger Red met Properantes on far worse weight terms than when the former horse had convincingly won on April 4.

In addition it was a case, this time, of father being replaced by son. Troy Turner elected to ride Webster’s other runner Liberty Rise (sixth) and his son took over on Properantes.

“He has a really good future and will go over more ground probably 1800-2000m,” Webster said.

Webster who was the master to both of the Turners said the son was really coming of age of age as a rider in the last seven months.

Tiger Red’s defeat prevented a winning hat-trick and also a back to back racing double for Shane Quilty who had won the previous race, the Cater Care Care Handicap (1500m) with Infathuated ( Alan Kennedy).

Infathuated, second early, worked to the lead on the turn and held off the field to score by half a length from King of Wu (Jake Casey) who worked home nicely and in process edged out Long Overdue (Shaun O’Donnell) for second place.

“Infathuated  is a lovely big raw horse who hasn’t put it all together yet. In the small field we were always going to go forward early,” Quilty said.

Part owner Ben Duncan said it was satisfying to have a mare from his father’s stud,  Paris Heart, as the dam of this winner and also half sister to a galloper that Quilty used to ride in his jockey days.

Apprentice Jerry Noske continues to impress. Given the Trainers Association Encouragement Award for March, Noske has continued in good form this month, winning on Zester, yesterday.

Although out of the winners circle for 1071 days, Zester, a consistent placegetter, just nailed Temporise (Joseph Azzopardi), on the post, in the Peter Kerr’s 40^th Birthday Handicap (1400m).

Once again Noske, was seen ‘doing a Pike,’ in pushing  her horse’s head down on the line, something she also successfully did a week ago  aboard Surpark, beating ‘the Wizard’ on Roman Knows by a nose.

Senior jockey Peter Knuckey completed a double at the meeting with Steel Spur and First Among Equals, the latter in the City of Belmont Community Cup (1000m).

Pat Carbery also rode a double, bookending the meeting with Glitterbell and the brilliant Sheidel.

Politics

REMEMBERING ‘WALSHIE’

On the same day Richie Benaud passed away, April 10, so too did a former Australian federal finance minister, Senator Peter Walsh.

Benaud, as a former Australian Test cricket captain and long serving commentator, got far more accolades –and Peter Walsh would have agreed.

As a young bloke this writer worked for the WA Labor Senator from July 1976 until February 1978.

That had come about because I had had a bit to do with him in the period from 1971-5 in the Wheatbelt area of WA. Walsh was a wheat and sheep farmer at Doodlakine and I was a Commonwealth Employment officer at Merredin. 

In 1974 ‘Walshie’ got himself elected from the Labor senate ticket at the double dissolution.

Two years later, back in the city, I began working in his office on loan from the Public Service.

It was a dreadful period to be working for the ALP. Labor had been smashed in the December 1975 election, after Prime Minister Gough Whitlam had been sacked by a cur called Kerr, a drunken lecherous Governor-General who debauched his office shamefully.(Any conservative who thinks that sacking was warranted is a disgrace to the word  conservative- see my less than affectionate article on Malcolm Fraser, Without Affection, 23/3/15).

Gough may have forgiven ‘Malicious’ but both Walsh and myself never did. He and Kerr had done too much damage to the bodypolitik.

The female that followed me, as a Walsh staffer, ended up throwing an egg at Kerr. He was lucky, if Walshie had got anywhere near him it would have been a hand grenade! Although come to think of it ‘Walshie’ threw a few of those as a Senator and later as a minister.

There was more to Walsh than despising Kerr and his cur, however, and he was not frightened to assail some of the idiots in the ALP who wanted to push special interests.

During my stay with him, during the Dark Ages, I requested the official photo of the former PM for our Fremantle office. With the change of government, that photo was then gathering dust in some cupboard at the Department of Administrative Services.

The pinguid Government Senate leader, Reg Withers (Liberal WA) had taken over that portfolio, previously held by the loveable former Labor Leader of the House, Fred Daly (Grayndler NSW).

Daly was everything Withers was not, helpful, kind, considerate, witty –and was appreciated by all sides in the Parliament, particularly his old Liberal mate, Jim Killen.

What should have been a straightforward reply to a minor matter suddenly became an example of the need for financial prudency.

Withers wrote that if our office wanted a photo of Gough we would have to pay for this –and Withers sneeringly added, ‘though why anyone would want the photo is beyond me.’ Don’t you just love gracious winners!

Withers got a second letter –and this time I put it in my own name, not Senator Walsh’s- and I did not spare him.

‘Piggy,’ (Withers nickname), was aghast that a mere Opposition junior staffer should upbraid him and wrote in complaint about this to Senator Walsh, pointing to the ‘attached’ offending letter.

Only problem was there was no offending letter attached. ‘Walshie’ had a field day in his reply, railing against Liberal incompetence to even be able to attach something to a letter. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and even more so when Fraser sacked Withers a short time later. Talk about thieves falling out –and Withers received another letter from me, this time written with sheer delight!

Withers made it clear to political journalist, Laurie Oakes, that, as early as April 1973, the Liberal Party decided to destabilise the Whitlam Government by Senate action (see Oakes 1974 book, Grab for Power).

The ink had hardly dried on the Labor ministers commission when Withers admitted to that some four months after the first Labor government for 23 years had been formed.The Liberals, of that period, really had a born-to-rule mentality.

But Walsh also had high regard for some Liberals too notably John Hyde (Moore) and a very Modest Member, Bert Kelly (Wakefield SA). Kelly wrote a regular newspaper column under the heading a Modest Member.

Hyde was also a farmer elected in 1974, and in fact had a neighbouring property to Walsh. Hyde had  knocked off the Country Party MP, Don Maisey, something Walsh had tried to do on two earlier occasions in Moore. The veteran Kelly was impressed with both of these clear thinking boys from WA and indeed all three of them were ahead of their time in the 1970s, in being in favour of free markets, in a protectionist era.

Walsh was opposed to the Vietnam War and went after Fraser for his involvement in supporting the conscription of young men during an earlier period when he was Army minister. If Walsh had been around in the Great War he would have gone after Billy Hughes on the same issue.

He also didn’t think much of our alliance with the US and on that I disagreed with him-then and now.

‘Walshie’ had a good antenna in summing up individuals. He was a Hayden loyalist through and through being very disappointed in February 1983 when Hawke replaced that decent man as Opposition leader on the very day Fraser called an early election. A month later Hawke was PM, despite Fraser boasting about knocking off two Labor leaders in the one election campaign.

Instead it was the snivelling sook, Fraser, who was crushed, and then blubbed, for himself of course, on television. It was pathetic, and in contrast with Whitlam’s dignified concession speeches in 1975 and 1977.

I agree with the Walsh assessment that Hayden should have been given a second chance to lead the ALP into the March 1983 election. He had worked hard to make Labor viable again for over five years and had gone close to victory in 1980.

Hayden famously said a drover’s dog could have led Labor to victory in 1983.

Like Walsh, who famously referred to Hawke as ‘Old Jellyback,’ I could never warm to Hawke –the narcissists, narcissist. Hawke believed he had a special relationship with the Australian people but he was chiefly a legend in his own mind, not his own time.

In fact I thought he was a crass, vulgar little man having met him in his parents West Leederville home, in the winter of 1971, when he was ACTU chief. His parents were wonderful people but he was the quintessential nasty little man, made the worse for, at that time, being drunk. Paul Keating once said, “Bob could be rude’’ and he was absolutely right.  Indeed he was, more often than not.

Hawke did, however, run a disciplined, capable government, and with Keating (Treasurer) and Walsh (Finance) the government carried out reforms that a craven Fraser found impossible to do, despite having a thumping majority in the House of Representatives, and also the Senate, for five years.

It is interesting to note that one of the Liberals rising stars, Senator Mathias Cormann, has emulated Walsh in becoming both a WA senator and the current Finance Minister.

Cormann clearly respected Walsh and became a friend of the ex- Labor senator, who retired in 1993, after meeting him some 15 years ago, via a Walsh friend, Jim Laffer.

Cormann said Walsh was the benchmark for responsible Finance Ministers to follow and that his 1995 book, ‘Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister’ was a manual for them to follow. In 1986 Walsh carved savings of $6billion from the budget in a move that Cormann clearly envies as he seeks to do similarly today.

Cormann also said that former Treasury chief John Stone, later a National Party senator for Queensand, said that Walsh, rather than Keating, had been the real architect of budget savings.

(Cormann, incidentally, is also the most interesting person to come out of Belgium since Hercule Poirot. Like Walsh he had to battle to gain party selection. When he was seeking pre-selection Senator Ross Lightfoot (Liberal WA) thought he was ‘unsuitable’ as he hadn’t been in the country for long enough. However, the Liberal Party, at the time, took the sensible view that Lightfoot had been in the Senate too long!)

Howard’s Finance Minister, Senator Nick Minchin (SA), in his retirement speech in 2011, went further than Cormann, saying Walsh was the best minister in the finance portfolio ever.

None of this surprised me because I recall his love and knowledge for the dismal science (economics) when we were churning out his News Sheet. Paul Murray made reference to this on 6PR recently when interviewing Cormann. Murray referred to the news letter as both ‘scurrilous’ and ‘devastating to opponents.’

It was and some of the entries had the initial JE at the end of them as he encouraged me to contribute to the publication but not the economic material.

Perhaps it was appropriate he and Benaud died on the same day. Benaud was a no frills commentator, the master of the pause and the enigmatic smile. He expected co-commentators to be able to express their views and not just be a clone. For that Benaud earned respect.

As for Walsh, he too left his staff to do their own thing and he never dictated how they should think or act. He was helpful and supportive to me in the years I had dealings with him. I do not pretend we remained close after I left his employ. In fact after he became the Federal Resources Minister (1983-4) I never saw him again, apart from a brief meeting at a Merredin funeral, some years ago.

Not long after he became a minister I finished my involvement with the ALP, totally disillusioned, and today’s crop of Labor nonentities simply fills me with despair.

But I respected ‘Walshie’ because he earned it by performance and example, not demanding it or by abusing his position like so many of them do. He was frugal, low key and modest. He also appreciated different views. In fact when Gough was challenged for the leadership Walsh supported the challenger, Bill Hayden, who lost by two votes. Hayden eventually succeeded Whitlam, unopposed, after the second election debacle of 1977.

I supported, Gough in that 1976 ALP leadership battle, although obviously I had no vote (it is only recently that financial members of the ALP can vote for the federal parliamentary leader). However, few, if any political bosses would allow a young staffer to write in support of a candidate that they in fact were voting against.

But Walshie did. He was that sort of bloke.

As a minister from 1983-90, the last six in Finance, he was a no frills, workaholic with a manic determination to cut out waste. Keating called him Sid Vicious.  Piggy Withers had been known as the toe cutter but Walshie often wanted to excise the whole leg!

Walsh was pro-development and accordingly had no time for the Greens and their shonky arguments on anything from mining to climate change.

As Mathias Cormann noted he never left anyone wondering what he stood for and his instincts were usually good.

For those of you of faith who believe in heaven and are wondering how Peter Walsh and Malcolm Fraser could be in such a place together my answer is simple: Fraser won’t be there!

‘Walshie’ would certainly have approved of that comment.