An item in Fran Kelly's breakfast show on ABC Radio Nation contained the disturbing news that more and more children are being encouraged to take an interest in politics and watch parliament in action in Canberra . Heaven only knows what this exposure will do to their minds .
Fran revealed that one kid whose life took a dramatic turn after a school trip to parliament was none other than Joe Hockey , now our gilded ambassador in America , a former Treasurer and a sock-it-to-me friend of ousted PM Tony Abbott . Joe , we were told , said he poked his nose over the balcony, saw the politicians in action , and made the fateful decision that he wanted to become one of them .
Fran revealed that one kid whose life took a dramatic turn after a school trip to parliament was none other than Joe Hockey , now our gilded ambassador in America , a former Treasurer and a sock-it-to-me friend of ousted PM Tony Abbott . Joe , we were told , said he poked his nose over the balcony, saw the politicians in action , and made the fateful decision that he wanted to become one of them .
Hands up all those smart politically minded children who know that one of the world's last cavalry charges , in which the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade played a big part , on the Turks , at Beersheba , in 1917 , subsequently involved Joe Hockey's "mysterious " grandfather, Joseph Hokeidonian.
He was an Armenian Catholic , said to have been a "spy " sent by the Catholic Church in Jerusalem to keep a watch on Ottoman Palestine during the war .
After capture of Beersheba , the British sent in one eyed Hokeidonian as deputy town clerk to help rebuild the badly war damaged town. In 1927 he moved to Jerusalem where his Palestinian wife gave birth to a son , Richard.
According to Paul Daley's book, Beersheba * , Victory Books , Hokeidonian was a less than perfect father and disappeared after the birth of the child. Many years later, Richard , who had never met his father , was informed that he had been killed in a road accident in Egypt .
After serving with the British Army in Palestine in WWll , Richard came to Australia with his mother and a brother , where they anglicised their name to Hockey . Here they ran a successful continental deli at Bondi . Richard married an Australian and they had four children , the youngest named Joseph after the " mysterious " paternal grandfather .
On winning the safe Liberal seat of North Sydney in 1996, Joe Hockey mentioned the charge on Beersheba in his maiden speech , describing his grandfather as the deputy district commissioner .
After serving with the British Army in Palestine in WWll , Richard came to Australia with his mother and a brother , where they anglicised their name to Hockey . Here they ran a successful continental deli at Bondi . Richard married an Australian and they had four children , the youngest named Joseph after the " mysterious " paternal grandfather .
On winning the safe Liberal seat of North Sydney in 1996, Joe Hockey mentioned the charge on Beersheba in his maiden speech , describing his grandfather as the deputy district commissioner .
***Daley's book, surprisingly , does not mention Charles Aubrey " Strawberry " Abbott , who took part in the charge on Beersheba , became a politician , Administrator of the Northern Territory at the time of the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese . Abbott said he only ever fired one shot during the charge on Beersheba and almost reluctantly asked a Turkish general to hand over his sword , kept and hung on a wall of the garage he and his wife, Hilda, lived in late in life at the back of their son-in-law's house in Point Piper , Sydney .
