Sounds of silence

Apologies again for the hiatus in posting, but in a sense this reflects the strange hush that has fallen over the Australian political scene. The AWB enquiry, set to run longer than The Mousetrap, has dwindled to a background hum, and the sale of Australian uranium to China, which would once have set the streets ablaze, passes with barely a murmur. The Age was reduced to running a 'where are they now?' story on the old faces of uranium protesting, and the fresh, new young faces in this exciting lifetime career.

Similarly, the prompt granting of visas to the Papuan refugees has been a great disappointment to the media, because it deprives them of one of their favourite memes. Still, on the age old principle that there's no good side to a John Howard story, they are concentrating on the problems this has created with our 'relationship' with Indonesia. If Howard, on one of his morning walks around Lake Burley Griffin, spotted a drowning man and dived in to save him, the Press Gallery would no doubt find that he'd broken some by-law.