Wednesday, March 28, 2012

ECHOES OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION IN DARWIN HOT AND COLD WAR

There are warning signs that ingredients for Molotov Cocktails are being stored in Darwin in readiness for the forthcoming NT elections. This alarming statement is based on a strange exchange during the current sitting of the Legislative Assembly between the Member for Port Darwin , John Elferink, and the Leader of Government Business , Dr Chris Burns , who is retiring this year to become a Volga boatman . The Elf and Toothy Chris were firing verbal shots at each other over cognate Bills, introduced after 12 years , to protect Territorians when building companies collapse , which unexpectedly raised visions of the 1917 Russian Revolution .


Inclined to make unusual historical allusions and comparisons from time to time , Elferink raised the issue of the cost of the legislation on the price of building a house . Continuing , he made an unclear statement that he was not suggesting the Government is motivated by “ some villainous predisposition” oriented to the playing of The Internationale every time they pass legislation . What followed became confusing , but entertaining . Comrade Burns seemed to say he knew who the prominent Communists were on his side, the equivalent of Engels and Lenin . Elferink nominated himself as the Karl Marx of Port Darwin.


Elferink : I have a fridge at home called Engels ..... Wow ! What a story – and no political reporter in town picked it up , except the ever alert, subversive Little Darwin . There is a great photo story here .The Elf posing with his fridge and an inventory of its contents... German sausage , litres of vodka , schnapps ? How come a Darwin fridge came to be named after the German Socialist Friedrich Engels , a close drinking buddy and patron of Karl Marx ? Marx , it seems, upset his father when he was a teenage law student at Bonn University and joined the Trier Tavern Club , a drinking society . Philosopher Engels wrote CONDITIONS OF THE WORKING CLASS IN ENGLAND and gave the royalties to Karl , he also slipped him a quid or five when Marx was experiencing tough times . He also made many wise sayings , such as : An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory and Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal .


It became evident throughout the Legislative Assembly debate that the ALP and the CLP were manoeuvring for a bloody election similar to those that took place around the battleship Potemkin and in the Kremlin square. Dr Burns gave a Rasputin -like blessing to the recently announced ALP candidate who will stand against The Elf in Port Darwin - songwriter , lead singer and former Yothu Yindi manager , Alan James , whose election would make him the Territory equivalent of Federal minister Peter Garrett , but with much more hair.


The Member for Fong Lim, Dave Tollner , fired off a few rounds at members opposite from his CLP answer to the Katyusha rocket launcher , also known as a Stalin organ , at Dr Burns and others , some of which he withdrew on demand of Madam Speaker who joined in the dangerous game of Russian roulette , ordering two members into the Siberian sin bin . UPCOMING : Another Darwin election involving bomb throwing Russkies and a newspaper editor .