Lunatic at large

In the Aussie political arena, there's a recently-elected Queenslander who's bonkers: Big Bad Jimmy Bidgood. He's got kangaroos hopping all around in his head.

You'll see that the fiery background in this portrait (borrowed from the ABC and slightly retouched) is perfect. A few days ago, outside parliament house, a 28-year-old Latvian fellow doused himself in petrol with the intention of committing suicide by fire, to protest against the fact that his parents—who have been settled in Australia for 11 years—cannot obtain a permanent visa. At the moment the poor fellow was fumbling around trying to set himself on fire, Bidgood happened to be passing by. What did he do? Did he rush in to save the life of the desperate protester? No, Big Bad Jimmy dragged out his camera and took a photo of the guy. Later, when police and journalists arrived on the scene, Bidgood attempted to sell his photo to the press! Not surprisingly, Bidgood was sternly reprimanded by the prime minister Kevin Rudd himself, and ordered to apologize both to his parliamentary colleagues and to the family of the protester.

Taking advantage of his sudden notoriety, Big Bad Bidgood then decided to speak out his mind about the worldwide financial crisis. His words were startling, somewhat crazy: "I believe there is God's justice in action in what is going on here. We haven't seen the end of it. The ultimate conclusion is like I say, we look at Bible prophecy, we are going towards a one world bank and a one world monetary system. And if you believe the word of God and you read Revelations... you will see clearly what is being spelt out. We are in the end times."

I've always believed that, in my native land, there's something fundamentally wrong with many politicians. They often seem to look upon their vocation, not as a service towards the good of the nation and the well-being of their compatriots, but as a platform upon which they can elevate their personal status, particularly from a financial viewpoint. So, Bidgood's trying to cash in on the suicide attempt doesn't surprise me greatly. But the idea of exploiting the visions of St John of Patmos as guidelines for solving international monetary problems is a novel aspect of Down Under statesmanship.

Australia apparently absent in Beijing

Last weekend, a major economic get-together took place in Beijing: the 7th ASEM [Asia-Europe Meeting]. This summit—which might be seen as a prelude to the forthcoming G20 meeting organized by George W Bush in Washington on November 15—drew together representatives from the 27 member nations of the European Union and the 10 members of ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], along with China, Japan, South Korea, India and Pakistan.

ASEM, embracing most of Asia and Europe, now represents almost 60% of the world’s population and 60% of global trade.

In this morning's The Australian, I learned that, according to a recent poll, "Kevin Rudd's stewardship of the Australian economy amid the global financial crisis has been endorsed by voters". But there seems to be no mention whatsoever of this weekend's 7th ASEM in Beijing. Weirdly [informed readers of my blog will correct me if I'm mistaken], Australia and our Mandarin-speaking prime minister do not appear to have been present in Beijing.