WA Racing

Bob Peters:  Racing’s Success Story

Entering Bob Peters office is like entering the establishment of a leading goldsmith.

It has a sophisticated ambience to it but instead of having trays of rings and necklaces the gold is in the cups- and six Perth Cups, glitter at any visitor who enters his inner sanctum.

 The late professional punter, Don Scott, in his various Winning books always talked about putting ‘more fruit on the sideboard.’ Bob’s problem is that he hasn’t enough sideboards to carry ‘the fruit,’ he has already won.

In the 2015-16 season the cerise and white colours were carried to victory 108 times: 78 in the city and 30 times on provincial tracks; with 22 group and listed successes ensuring a twenty per cent strike rate of black type to total winners.

At the end of that season he and his wife Sandra had managed 174 Stakes winners. These included, 11 Oaks, eight Derbies, six Perth Cups, four Kingston Town Classics (appropriate for a man who claims the great black gelding as his favourite and the best he has seen), two Railway Stakes, two Goodwood Handicaps with singular successes in the Winterbottom Stakes, Australian Cup and Emirates Stakes.

Group 1 successes stand at a massive 22, with 20 at Group 2 level, 39 at Group 3 and 93 listed successes for a total of 15 per cent of black type to total winners. How much pleasure can one man endure?

This staggering black type record started with Reinella winning the Ascot Gold Cup on November 3, 1979.Reinella won 10 races -seven of them between July-November 1979,including five cup races. Good memories but destined to pale into insignificance compared to later achievements.

Despite his fairy tale racing life Bob was no silvertail, starting life humbly on a farm, in the rural area of Dalwallinu, where his father was a farmhand until war service intervened.

His early equine interest was also far removed from the pristine, manicured turf of Cameron Sutherland’s tracks, today.

He recalled working horses in the latter part of World War 2, particularly a stock horse called Charlie, in an era when there was little money for tractors. “We sold him a couple of times but he kept coming home, having been used for ploughing and harvesting. “I remember hanging on to Charlie’s mane and tail and riding him bareback. It was where I learned to balance.”

By 1946 the Peters family was ensconced in Lathlain Park, later moving to Rivervale, a place, in that era, where there was plenty of horses and stables.

He remembers a young Ray Oliver frequenting the same nearby milk bar as him while several trainers had stables behind the Rivervale Primary School.

It was a different world and one that still had a role for the horse and cart –milkman, bakers, butchers and green grocers traversing the suburbs, in that mode of transport, was not uncommon.

Bob and the Holt sisters both had a love of horses and they combined to buy a horse for nine pounds ($18). His one third share gained him possession of a biter and kicker but it didn’t stop him from riding it bare back. “I had no money to buy gear but I rode it everywhere from Fremantle to Kalamunda,” he recalled.

There was, according to that doyen of strappers, Vic Humann, no indication that his  Rivervale Primary School classmate,was going to be a veritable powerhouse when it came to breeding and owning racehorses. “He was very quiet and never said much at all,” Vic recalled.

But he was bright and gained a scholarship, while at Rivervale, to provide books for secondary school and go to Hale College, then in West Perth.

He really wanted to go to Bassendean’s trade School but ‘compromised’ with his parents and went to Kent St – a worthy public secondary school.

“I did professional studies but hadn’t any idea what I was going to do but I loved Economics and was dux in that subject.”

He chose working for National Mutual over the Commonwealth Bank but after a year he decided to do a Bachelor of Economics degree and worked nights delivering milk.

A year later with no social life to speak of and with job prospects narrowing to working in government or a financial institution,he quit his studies.

Having met Sandra, his future wife, at school his wanting a social life was understandable but not his choice of location. He travelled to the Wheatbelt for a year, water boring and sinking wells. He got back at weekends though to date his telephonist girlfriend.

Bob was to find his niche in selling cars after starting with Western Motors driving as an assistant to the General Sales Manager, driving cars to Subiaco to be licensed and supervising their delivery. He  met  a young bloke at 21, two years older them him, earning a lot more selling.

Despite being initially deemed too young to sell he gained a start selling used cars at Fremantle for a company that had the franchise for Volkswagen, quickly building up sales figures.

He obviously impressed Dave Golding, of Premier Motors, who employed him to join that firm. A car that had sat unsold for two years, was sold by Bob on his first day.

In July 1963, aged 20, he married Sandra and the couple honeymooned in Sydney.

Thinking he may lose his young salesman, Golding flew to Sydney, to make Bob ‘an offer he couldn’t refuse’ – to run his dealership in Fremantle with three new car franchises.

At the age of 22 he started his own business. Between 1964 -72 he developed  eight car yards under Autoways, plus two GMH Holden franchises. In 1972 Autoways was sold and Bob concentrated on building the business by adding numerous new car and truck franchises. At its peak this busness was selling over 10,000 vehicles per year and employing over 500 people.

Bob’s niche in being a successful car man allowed him to develop his equine interests. Indeed, the Peters’ raison d’etre was to be successful in business to pursue his equine passions.

From the boy who had nothing to spend on riding gear he became Master of the WA Hunt Club, then a WATC member in 1973. In 1975, aged 33, he was the youngest committeeman elected and eventually served as chairman.

As an owner he had early success with Cagney and Baltusroi but after a while he wanted his horses stabled in a more rural environ and trainer Roy Edwards at Forrestfield (how times change) fitted the bill. Bob even had his hunter with this ‘meticulous trainer’ and was able to ride through bushland.

Victorian George Hanlon was another favourite trainer and the pair regularly conversed on the phone and after reporting on the horses the pair would engage in politics, sport and world news. “George was a great conversationalist,” he recalled.

The WA owner-breeder was Hanlon’s major client although other state notables included Jeremy Hayes and Robert Holmes a’ Court.

The owner and the trainer thought they had won the 1988 Caulfield Cup with Congressman but the judge’s third print gave it to Imposera by a flared nostril. Bob described standing in the second stall “as the loneliest place in the world.”

Old Spice is clearly his favourite horse but it was at stud rather than on the track where he shone. At one stage he had sired eight of Peters, then 13, Group 1 winners.

The Peters first Group 1 success was with one of his daughters- Natasha the duel WA Oaks and Derby winner (now Group 2 races).

Old Comrade and Rogan Josh added further lustre to their sire’s name; the former with some epic clashes with Northerly with honours even, 2-2; the latter by winning the 1999 Melbourne Cup.

Old Nick,Old Money, Field Officer,Foreman and Spectrum were other Old Spice success stories on the track and the sire was noted for producing both good sprinters and stayers that were tough and thrived on hard work. Rogan Josh who  won the MacKinnon Stakes four days before his Melbourne Cup triumph exemplified that quality.

From a breeding viewpoint, Bob particularly liked putting well bred mares, particularly Alycidon and Grey Sovereign lines, to the stallion.

Some of his current gallopers go back to his early days and he becomes effusive when talking breeding stock.

“Disposition goes back five generations. I had Traguardo in the early 1980s and she threw Tanoa, (by Ksar). We then put her to Old Spice and got Spectrum (1998 Goodwood Handicap winner). Tanoa was then mated with Testa Rosa and we got Test Case, the dam of Disposition.”

That Belgravia &Fairetha Stakes winner was one of five runners in the 2016 Railway Stakes to wear the cerise and white colours. Perfect Reflection (a Kingston Town Classic & Lee Steere Stakes winner) and Ideal Image (La Trice and Jungle Dawn classics) came from his 1999 WA Oaks winner, Reflected Image.

However, in recent times it was Delicacy, now retired, that captured the racing public’s heart, despite being under appreciated, early by Peters and his champion jockey, William Pike.

In 19 starts she won a dozen races and was placed five times and Peter Hall was aboard in six of those races, Pike five times and Chris Parnham for her first win.

Two of those wins came in Group 1 races in SA when Pike was injured and Hall became the beneficiary. On other occasions Pike as the number 1 rider for Peters preferred other runners wearing the cerise and white, notably Neverland.

Indeed, Delicacy’s last three races were something special to behold with two wins and a second.

The second placing came in a thriller, beaten by stablemate Perfect Reflection in the 2015 Kingston Town Classic. With Delicacy flooding home faster than a Japanese Tsunami, from 14^th on the home turn, Perfect Reflection fell in by the proverbial pouted lip.  

One over heated Eastern States scribe, at the time, said that Perfect Reflection had supplanted Delicacy as Peters’ best horse.

Not quite. For a start there was a 6.5kg weight advantage for the filly, while the stewards’ report, stating that Delicacy had been held up in the home straight, indicated just how unlucky the four year old mare had been.

Pike must have thought in those desperate, driving final few metres that once again he had made the wrong call, in deciding against Delicacy, but this time he got it right-just.

Two weeks later, on December 19, 2015, Pike was back on her for the CB Cox Stakes and they combined to run down the pacemaker Black Heart Bart to win going away.

However, for the Perth Cup on New Year’s Day 2016 Pike, as he had done before elected to ride Neverland, in preference to Delicacy. He had made such a call earlier in 2015, being runner up to Delicacy in the 1000 Guineas and then third to her in the Natasha Stakes.

Once again Peter Hall was to be delighted with Pike’s decision, and with him aboard the great mare, she swept past her rival, after being ninth on the turn, to record a three quarter length victory, despite her 5kg weight disadvantage.

On that day the Bob and Sandra’s  colours were carried to victory in four races while in the Perth Cup they filled the trifecta (Real Love, who had won the previous  year’s Cup, was third)- a singular achievement, or so it seemed then.

Ever the breeder, Bob’s comment was, “the real enjoyment was that we had bred all four winners that day from mares that we had also bred and raced and that also applied to our three Perth Cup place getters.”

Unfortunately the great mare was injured in that Perth Cup triumph and it was announced her career was over, a few days later. Her record: nine stakes wins among her 12 victories, including a Group 1 SAJC Australasian Oaks –Derby double, a Group 2 WATC Oaks-Derby double plus the Perth Cup, two Group 3 and two Listed races.

It wasn’t the first time his horses were involved in high drama. Twelve months earlier Elite Belle, the dual Railway Stakes and CB Cox Stakes winner, died en route to Melbourne, after a heart attack during the plane trip.

Triumph to tragedy is never far away on racetracks.

When Elite Belle won the CB Cox Stakes she was one of four Stakes winners on the day that carried the Peters’ colours. “I was so proud of her it and was the first time we had won four feature races at a single meeting.”

His other winners on that day, in December 2014, were Real Love (St Leger), Shining Knight (Crawford Stakes) and Real Charm (Starstruck Stakes).

In the weekend before Christmas 2016 another remarkable day unfolded for Team Peters.

In the Listed Starstruck Classic (1600m) it was once again a case of the cerise and white colours being 1-2-3 across the line. Cosmic Storm (Pike) and Silverstream (Glenn Smith), both trained by Grant and Alana Williams, took the quinella while Antique Dream (Chris Parnham) from Geoff Durrant and Jason Miller’s stable, was third.

Two races later, in one of the most remarkable feature races seen at Ascot the inaugural  $250,000 Group 2 Ted van Heemst  Stakes, (formerly CB Cox Stakes), resulted in the cerise and white juggernaut jockey again celebrating with Perfect Reflection. However, they had to withstand a most daring ride by the Frenchman, Matthieu Autier, on Fathoms of Gold, a $61 chance, in the 2100m race.

At one stage Autier had the field strung out behind him, with a 15 length lead, and it was only in the last five strides that Pike thought he was going to get there on the $1.80 favourite. Perfect Reflection’s margin was three quarters of a length.

As for Team Williams, not to be outdone by their main client, they also picked up another win, in between these two dramatic features, with Tommy Who. It was a great winning hat-trick for them in another dramatic day.

Even at this stage of the season the Williams pair appear to have a stranglehold on the metropolitan trainers premiership. Thus, December 21 was a timely reminder of Bob’s ability to select well in all phases of racing.

The Peters celebrations for the festive season got even better on Christmas Eve after Glenn Smith piloted Star Exhibit to a convincing last-to-first victory in the ATA Stakes on Christmas Eve-the only listed race in Australia on that day.

Smith almost helped himself to a great double a week later but instead it was Jarrad Noske who picked up the ride on Star Exhibit in the Cup while Smith was swung onto the luckless Neverland who again had to settle for second.

In a thrilling head-bobber Smith had it won a stride before and a stride after the post –but Noske prevailed on the line, in desperately staving off the challenge, to give trainers Geoff Durrant and Jason Miller the training triumph over Team Williams.

It was the second time Noske had won the Perth Cup,ironically his first being on a Peters reject, Talent Show, trained by Graeme Ballantyne.

For Bob and Sandra they finished 2016 as they started it with a Perth cup win. This time though it was a quinella, (not the trifecta) plus fourth and fifth placing with Perfect Reflection and Dark Alert. (Tradesman was third).

That effort saw Peters equal the long standing record of seven wins by an owner, established by Paddy Connolly in 1922.

Bob and Sandra also had another great day overall, winning a total of four races, on Perth Cup day with Dezzies Dream (Pike), followed by a quinella in the La Trice Classic with Cosmic Storm  Pike) and  Silverstream (Smith); and in the  last race, where Smith finally won a tight one, on Point, in a keen duel with Pat Carbery on Indi Pacific.

Three of the Peter’s’ winners were from the Williams stable.

So a new Perth Cup record is now beckoning – and if Bob and Sandra succeed in 2018 it would mean four consecutive victories in the great race, (Connolly won five straight, of his seven wins).

Clearly Bob Peters is at short odds to ultimately be the most successful WA owner of Perth Cup winners of all time.

Already, as a breeder, he has no peer in WA.

FAREWELL TO CAPTAIN DECENT

When stumps were drawn at the Wanderers on January 26th, 1965 the Springbok captain, Trevor Goddard, was 11 runs shy of his long awaited Test century in the battle against England.

On three other occasions Goddard had made it into the nineties, including being given out, on 99, at the Oval, in 1960, when Colin Cowdrey held a controversial, disputed slips catch.

So South Africans held their breath that their much respected skipper would finally prevail. ‘You can, you must, you will’ was the message on the SA Rugby telegram.

He did.

The next day he moved to 112 before being dismissed and it would be his only century in 41 Tests, (13 as captain), from 1955-70.

Having made 18 half centuries in Tests and 26 centuries in first class cricket (222 being his highest score) it was perhaps puzzling why this fine opening batsman did not get more Test centuries, particularly as he had 18 half centuries, or better, scores. One possibility is that he suffered from sinusitis that produced a nagging pain behind his eyes which sapped his mental energy and steely concentration. He also had more to his bow than just being a batsman. He was also a fine medium pace bowler and close-to- the wicket fielder, notably in gully and short leg.

In the 1966-67, having come out of temporary retirement, he was the best bowler on either side in a series that saw South Africa beat Australia for the first time 3-1, with one draw.

In the fifth and final Test that clinched the rubber for the Springboks his 74 and 59 was the foundation stone of that third historic victory.

Under the captaincy of Peter van der Merwe, his successor and the first Afrikaner to lead the national side, Goddard recorded his best ever series performance as a bowler, claiming 26 wickets at 16.23 runs per wicket – the best of any bowler in his own side, including, Mike Proctor, Peter Pollock, Eddie Barlow etc and also superior to Australia’s best, Graham McKenzie. After the First test he was carried from the ground, by the crowd, after what would be a career best of 6/53…..and bowling the Boks to their first Test match win on home soil against the Aussies.

 Goddard’s career effort of 123 Test wickets came at the rate of 1.64 runs per over, making him the most economical bowler of all, among those with 75 wickets or more.

With keeper-batsman, Denis Lindsay, the dynamo of the series with the bat (606 runs at 86.57) the dynamic duo were the heroes of that summer.

I cannot claim objectivity about Trevor. I first remember him in a match at the WACA between South Africa and WA in the summer of 1963 when I was an impressionable schoolboy. He made a distinct impression because of his calmness, decency and quiet authority as the leader and senior player in what was the start of Springbok power over the next seven years.

I was not alone in that opinion as Sir Donald Bradman described him thus: ‘His qualities of sincerity and integrity are part of his very being and of his play as well.’

Describing him as one of the best-loved and most respected captains to come to Australia, Bradman said, ‘‘I did not hear a single derogatory word spoken about him by anyone right throughout the tour” and further, “he enriched the game.”

The five Test series produced a 1-1 result with SA having the best of the three drawn matches. He averaged in the mid sixties in that series, with the bat, and had a six debutants to develop.

That series and the subsequent one in South Africa (1966-7) were followed closely by this writer and in 1970 I decided to see the Springboks, again at home, do battle with Australia in the first three Tests.

It would prove to be the last series SA would play for over 20 years. For Goddard  it was always going to be his ‘last hurrah’ as he advanced on his 39^th year.

The day after the second Test concluded at Durban, where SA had crushed Australia again, after an avalanche of runs from Graeme Pollock (274) and Barry Richards (140), I decided to seek out the elder statesman of the side.

He was the Sports Director at Natal University and I simply went there hoping he was in and to talk to him for a few minutes. The talk lasted half a day and included taking in the sights of Pietermaritzburg with his wife, Jean, also in our company.

Goddard didn’t have to do that –he had been a major international player for 15 years and at that twilight stage of an illustrious career. It was ample demonstration of his decency and humility towards a young stranger from the other side of the Indian Ocean.

In the third Test Goddard took the final three wickets to fall which meant, of course he bowed out of cricket claiming a wicket with his last ball when Australia’s Alan Connolly was caught in the deep by Barry Richards.

While another crushing would await Australia in the fourth and final Test at Port Elizabeth the SA selectors decided to pull stumps, with the series in the bag, on Trevor’s career. They thought it was appropriate to ‘blood’ another player for what they thought would be the forthcoming tour of England.

The next day The Rand Daily Mail, with a banner back page headline, summed it up: ‘Goddard’s Great Exit.’

So Goddard’s Cinderellas, of 1963, were now, seven years later, the powerhouse of world cricket with Ali Bacher, at the helm, enjoying the fruits of Goddard’s early labours as captain.

A few days later he played for Natal v Australia – and he scored 70 and 36. As he left the crease after being dismissed, Australian captain Bill Lawry called his team together and they, and the small crowd, gave Trevor a standing ovation, until he disappeared from sight. A month later in his last first class match, against Rhodesia in Salisbury, in the Currie Cup competition, he claimed a hat-trick and led Natal to victory.

Fourteen years later I read in The West Australian where Pastor Trevor Goddard was coming to Australia for the South Australian Cricket Association’s Centenary celebrations. He was one of many great captains to be invited but the only living South African that had led a side to success on the Adelaide Oval.  

Determined to repay him for his kindness to me I wrote to him and invited Jean and he to stay with my wife, Georgie, and myself in our York home, in WA’s oldest inland town. He accepted.

His visit to Australia this time was clearly different. He came as a committed Christian and was accompanied by his second wife Lesley (since December 27^th, 1978) –Jean having died of cancer on September 8^th, 1975.

He brought to his faith the same quiet intensity of his cricket. Nothing flashy or pushy just a desire to do his best and encourage others.

He mentioned this in his book, Caught in the Deep (1988), his enjoyment in having the opportunity, on a warm November night, to enjoy the hospitality of people in York in 1984.

The title is a great one because his last wicket in a Test match, as described, ended the match by having the last Australian batsman caught in the deep, but more importantly because he was ‘deep in the mire,’ with concerns about life and meaning.

He had lost a brother before leading the Springboks to Australia in 1963, the last time a South African side would be seen here for 31 years. He also, as captain, had to tell Peter Carlstein, (who later moved to Perth), during the NZ leg of the tour that his wife and three young children had been killed in a car crash back in RSA. The pair walked and talked for hours.

Goddard had to go through that pain when his own wife lay dying five years after they both became committed Christians.

On that occasion, distraught, he rang Mike Attlee a long time friend and church minister. At one stage Attlee asked him how many Tests he had played. Goddard, not unnaturally, said he wasn’t bothered about talking cricket at that stage. Attlee persisted and got the answer –“41.”

“Well 42 is going to be your greatest. You see Trevor you have testified all round the country that Jesus is the answer and they will watch you to see if he really is,” Attlee said.

Within three years he was a Christian minister (as is his son, Chris) and he re-married, to Lesley, a widow. She had lost her first husband and also an infant daughter, Lindy, ironically the name of Trevor’s daughter.

On December 3^rd, 1985 he was lucky to survive a car crash when he left the road at Graaff-Reinet on a long drive from his home, on church business.

In February 1986 I stayed with Trevor and Lesley, in East London RSA, and he was recovering from injuries sustained in that accident. He was still on crutches and so it was a period for reflection and book writing.

Reading his book, was like having a conversation with him. The sincerity is obvious in relating the pains, uncertainty and pleasure in his commitment to his faith. He loved schools and roaming evangelism work in general.

He had the ability to be able to communicate with all ages. I remember him, in February 1994, coaching my nine year old son in the appropriate batting grip.(Ironically I did the same, a month later, with a young Afrikaner boy at a resort  called The Shoe in Ohrigstad, Transvaal).

When he left our home he inscribed my book, The Trevor Goddard Story (by Graham Short), with the words ‘In His Grip.’

Trevor had the ability of not offending people while delivering a message. He planted a seed with ex-teammate Peter Pollock and the fast bowler too eventually became a minister. He also gave great comfort, at a church service in York WA, to a cancer sufferer, Les Allen, when he spoke about the Valley of Baca, from the Book of Psalms.

My experience, before that message, was of the ‘Valley of Bacher,’ because of an earlier talk, on the 4^th March 1986, with Ali Bacher, (the former Springbok captain and by then, a leading cricket administrator), about the plight of South African cricket. At that stage SA cricket was experiencing its own ‘Valley of Baca’ depression, with only rebel tours being experienced and little hope of a return to Test cricket. Yet, exactly eight years later, to the day, Australia returned to play the Proteas, in South Africa.
I didn't speak to Bacher on that 4th March 1994 but I saw him from a distance where he was as happy and as animated as a bee in a hive.

In his last couple of years Trevor’s illness led him to retreat to his daughter’s beautiful holiday farm stay, in the Free State.

He passed away quietly on Friday night, November 25th, 2016, aged 85, the last member of the 1955 'Boks side.

When I heard the news I wondered whether his reception ‘on the other side’ would have been so quiet.

There may well have been another standing ovation for the man with God in his name and heart.

Politics/Society

Telling it like it is

Queensland doctor, David van Gend, speaks up for the values of  traditional marriage in his important book Stealing From A Child, by correctly identifying marriage as a vehicle, primarily, for the  development of the child.

The state, until recently, had no interest in a person’s ‘love.’ However, the reproductive nature of marriage and the family unit has been the bedrock of a society and hence the state has always been interested in that foundational pillar of a cohesive state.

The recent callous disregard for the rights of children has been amply demonstrated in recent times by some politicians and commentators, caving in to the strident demands of social activists.

Even so-called conservative television commentators, are quick to placate the rainbow crowd by declaring they will vote for gay marriage.

Dr van Gend exposes them for the sham conservatives they are, simply by using facts, in this well researched book warning of the inherent dangers in redefining marriage.

Indeed, he has had experience of intolerant bigots who seek to deny his democrat rights.

The doctor’s office has been trashed,as have those of  principled, moderate conservative politicians like Senator Cory Bernardi and Kevin Andrews MP, simply for expressing opinions, while the doctor’s original printer was intimidated from publishing this important book.

The falsehoods and angry polemics of the Left are repudiated by van Gend by interviewing many people who grew to maturity in the homes of homosexual unions. The common thread is, not the denigration of those that raised them, but rather the regret of a missing role model.

These people have every right to express disappointment in not having a mother or father, always a distressing feature, but even more so if it becomes state policy to deliberately downgrade the importance of such roles. Gay marriage doesn’t just redefine that institution but also alters the family structure by denying children of their birthright –a mother and father.

The ‘fruits’ of the intolerance industry are already being sighted on their withered vine in other areas; from the obnoxious persecutions under 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act, encouraged by zealots such as Tim Soutphommasane who called for people to lodge complaints against cartoonists, like Bill Leak, for daring to criticise the lack of parental attention by some some fathers in Aboriginal communities.

This ‘touting for business’ should have seen Soutphommasane sacked from his $330,000 job.

Instead group identities have become the sacred cow of the Left and star chamber inquisitors.

However, in contrast, when the mild mannered director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Shelton, is offensively referred to as a ‘nauseating piece of filth,’ by a member of the lamestream media nothing is said by that same media. Neither was anyone ‘encouraged’ to protest on that occasion.  Apparently all attacks on Christians are fair game.

Far easier to bring Queensland  university ‘recalcitrants’ to heel for their temerity to object to  the blatant discrimination against them because they dared to use a computer lab reserved for indigenous students.

One of the students was facing a $250,000 penalty under the ‘new enlightenment,’ until a Federal Court judge threw this piece of madness out of court, while, so called, political leaders, Turnbull and Shorten, simply pass by on the other side.

As Senator Eric Abetz ( Liberal, Tas.) said that while the students eventually won they have had their names trashed for three years by the Human Rights Commission and endured great stress.

Thus, in the Orwellian state we have had the ridiculous situation of those protesting against discrimination being discriminated against under a legal process that has descended down the corridors of madness into something that belongs in Dante’s Inferno.

Similarly, those who defend true marriage are derided as bigots and homophobes and the author details the multi-pronged attacks on society, faith and free speech.

The plethora of US examples where bakers, florists, photographers have been sued by activists simply because they have not wanted to officiate at a homosexual wedding gives ample warning to Australians.

Dr van Gend rightly nails Senator Penny Wong (Labor SA), on that point, for her disingenuous words to the National Press Club, while debating Senator Bernardi (Liberal SA), that nothing will really change with same-sex marriage.

Is a fine of up to $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding an example of nothing changing? Why should cake makers be forced to bake a cake for a function they find conflicts with their faith? Why should people be forced to cater for an event they feel uncomfortable about?

Apparently Wong thinks that people being financially crippled, driven out of business and humiliated, for not supporting other people’s causes, is an example of nothing changing!

The Safe Schools program is dealt with as for what it is-a dangerous piece of social manipulation. The mood of ‘if you feel you are, then you are’ is debunked for the ideological nonsense it is. The author reveals, clearly, it is no anti bullying campaign but rather an exercise in gender bending by activists.

Like John Howard, the author clearly believes such a program should be consigned to the garbage bin. In contrast, the Andrews Government in Victoria embraces it while the Federal Government has just tinkered with reforms.

Dr van Gend makes it clear that asking 11 year olds to imagine that they are 16 year olds and going out with a person of the same sex, that you are ‘really into’ is inappropriate education. So too is directing them to a site advertising sado-masochistic workshops; to areas that are clearly LGBT pornographic sites; to advise them of hiding such sites from parents; whose associated sites encourage chest binding and penis tucking to disguise unwanted sexual characteristics; that frowns on the terms ‘boys’ and ‘girls,’ instead teaching that gender is fluid and to be explored along a rainbow spectrum (p90).

All this is of course part of the Marxist milieu that the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) yearned for–to smash the traditional family unit that is based on Judaeo-Christian traditions, (and others), popular culture and folklore.

Gramsci's Australian disciples are happy to attempt to emulate him.

In challenging them, Dr van Gend, like a latter day Martin Luther, has nailed his thesis to their doors and challenged society to walk in a better direction.