A recent walkabout which included the vain search for service down a mock imitation Melbourne lane in the tropics with the once Honourable Member for Casey, ALP, in the House of Representives , Pete Steedman , resulted in some great anecdotes, nearly all of which cannot be printed because of defamation laws . Steedman , with a bundle of political reading matter , had come north from Melbourne to Magnetic Island to thaw out.
From its files, this blog showed Steedman a rare bound in volume of Broadside , which he had edited in 1969, that contained Australia's most audacious political comic strip , Fabula , the whip wielding , skimpily attired secretary , whose boss is the leader of an unnamed southern continent (wink ,wink) , which some beady-eyed monarchists identified as Orstralia and Canberra the place where much of the outrageous hijinks took place .
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The first warning that Fabula is coming to lash parliament where the form of government is Operation Panic !, the modus operandi now followed by the Canberra regime .
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Little Darwin was shocked and mortified by Steedman when he declared the prized collection of Broadside did not contain two editions "pulped" by the nervous newspaper management .
Edition number two , it seems , was axed because lawyers felt that Fabula , God forbid , might be seen as Prime Minister John Gorton's principal private secretary, Ainsley Gotto .
Edition number two , it seems , was axed because lawyers felt that Fabula , God forbid , might be seen as Prime Minister John Gorton's principal private secretary, Ainsley Gotto .
As a result, a well- clad, buttoned up woman was inserted in the strip as another secretary close to the leader , although Fabula continued to romp about in next to nothing thereafter .
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Modest secretary with bun on top, informs Prime Minister, in yoga position with bottle of Grange or Barossa Pearl and a cut lunch , that the Treasurer, affectionally addressed as Treasure , with nothing much to do except cover up the state of the economy, wants to see him ; they decide to cancel the Fiasco 111 (F-111?) contract with America . In other frames, the secretary is shown wearing a neck to ankle black dress, which would bring Fabula out in prickly heat . The Prime Minister is shown to be widely read -volumes with revealing titles such as Farces, Boo-Boos, The Lucky Country and Noddy are visible . A book end appears to be Sir Robert Menzies attired as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports .
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Steedman said the second pulping was justified by management on the grounds that an anti-war drawing of a man sitting on a bench brandishing an old cannon like his genitalia would shock sensitive members of the Melbourne Club . In reality, he claimed it was because the Broadside edition backed the ALP in an election campaign .
Not all our conversation was about secretarial staff , especially the curvaceous ones. Knowing Steedman loved British motorbikes and once owned a 1949 Vincent Series B Rapide , now worth a fortune , a rare Vincent recently selling for US$418,940 , another desirable one only in Australia said to be in Canberra , we pulled out some old photographs of motorbikes in our collection.
One of our pix (above ) , from South Australia , he immediately said looked like a Vincent because of its high headlight and forks . This prompted him to raise and praise the part Australian engineer and author Philip Edward Irving (1903-1992) played in motorbike and racing car design. In 1966 , Australian Jack Brabham won the Formula 1 driver's championship and the manufacturers' championship with an engine designed by Irving.
Steedman recalled how in the House of Representatives in the l980s he and Liberal member Tony Street , another motorbike fan , had paid tribute to Irving's skill and influence on global motorcycle design. After jointly running a motorcycle workshop in Ballarat ,Victoria , between 1926 to 1929 , Irving had gone to Britain as a pillion passenger and mechanic to Scottish engineer John Gill on the return leg of Gill's world motorcycle and sidecar journey from the UK to Australia , using a 600cc side valve engine Vincent HRD.
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After being employed as a highly regarded designer and production engineer for Velocette in England , he was invited to work for Philip Vincent.
When the Vincent motorcycle company went into receivership in 1949, Irving, seen left , returned to Australia . Living at Warrandyte on the outskirts of Melbourne , he had a small workshop and kept up his involvement with engines, especially Vincent motorcycles. He was awarded the MBE in the Queen's 1976 New Year Honours List for services to automotive engineering .
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Road Runners
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Over the years, Steedman also threw a leg over a variety of two wheel thrill machines including ones bearing the names Triumph, Norton, BSA, Royal Enfield, Ariel Square 4 and Matchless.
The photograph at the right is another from the Little Darwin transport collection and also came from South Australia.
After having thawed out in the tropics , Steedman got into top gear, went for a stroll through the Townsville CBD and bought a book on the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) from The Speckled Hen antiques and bookshop as he had many dealings with ASIO when he was a university magazine editor in Melbourne opposing the Vietnam War and conscription, the government seriously considering bringing in special legislation to charge him with subversion.
After having thawed out in the tropics , Steedman got into top gear, went for a stroll through the Townsville CBD and bought a book on the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) from The Speckled Hen antiques and bookshop as he had many dealings with ASIO when he was a university magazine editor in Melbourne opposing the Vietnam War and conscription, the government seriously considering bringing in special legislation to charge him with subversion.
Again, when editing Broadside , he gave ASIO a tickle , the Fabula comic strip featuring a character from Intelligence who spent a lot of time peeping through keyholes , keen to get a knighthood . It also ran a two page Leunig cartoon headed WHO WATCHES ASIO WHEN ASIO WATCHES YOU which used the ASIO secret codename , Scorpion . Fabula also suggested an organisation with a name similar to the KGB was watching the nation. In light of the recent claim by a retired ASIO female spy that there was a Russian mole in ASIO, Fabula's comment in jest could have been spot on in 1969.
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