Mr Ettridge is suing federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for damages of more than $1.5 million.

He has accused Mr Abbott of acting unlawfully in 1998 by assisting and encouraging litigation against One Nation in the Queensland courts.

Mr Ettridge alleges the court action was false and malicious and the resulting damage affected him greatly.

He also accuses Mr Abbott of attempting to pervert the course of justice by providing lawyers “to propel those false claims through the courts”.

Mr Ettridge’s lawyers served legal papers on Mr Abbott for damages on the weekend.

A spokesman for Mr Abbott told AAP the papers had been received, but declined to comment further.

A directions hearing is set for the Brisbane Supreme Court on May 9 and Mr Abbott has received a summons to attend.

“Before Tony Abbott can become prime minister of Australia he needs to be judged on his suitability to hold the highest office in Australia,” Mr Ettridge told AAP in a statement.

“For his role in this disgraceful period of Australian political history, Tony Abbott has never been brought to account.”

Train journeys used to be rather benign affairs. The clicking of knitting needles, the opening of The Herald or the racking cough of a cozily smoking sheet metal worker in Hard Yakka Overalls gave comfort and familiarity to most fellow travelers. This has all changed now with advent of the Smart Phone and MP players with G. force capability.

Some weeks ago and on the way to Central Railway I sat next to two women who looked alike but with different ages.  I assumed a mother and daughter. Both were shackled to ear phones with cords trailing down to small objects held in their laps. The younger one was gently rocking her head sideways and I could hear something crackling coming from the direction of her ear phones. The older lady previously assumed to be her mother and sitting directly next to me had similar sounds coming from her head. Out of the blue and suddenly, tears were rolling down and she was heaving. She was clearly sad and distressed.

The rocking sideways daughter was now noticing this as well and pulled mum’s earphones out of her ears. “I told you to stop listening to bloody funeral music”, she told her. I pricked up my ears and upped the sound intake on both my hearing aids. Something was clearly brewing next to me.  Be it far from me to dismiss tears from music but I thought that in train journeys one usually would be given over to boredom or yawning ennui at best. Since the advent of most train-travelers ears being taken up by bits of machinery and cables, it doesn’t exactly encourage social intercourse let alone share tears of grief. (Or tears of joy for the optimists here)But sadness overwhelms.

What was the cause of those tears streaming down my neighbor’s face? These sudden expressions of sadness, how were they coming through those cabled conduits between the ears, the lap and directly into this poor woman’s soul?

“I am sorry”, she said to me, noticing my concern.” I am on my way to pick up my late husband’s urn”.   “Oh, I see”, I answered. My brain was now in a flurry, quickly transforming and combining an urn into a funeral with a husband’s final journey. “I do understand your loss”, I said.  She said; “Oh, that’s alright, he suffered during those last few weeks”.” My daughter is a great help and so are my three sons”. I like listening to the music that was played during the service, it was my husband’s favorite”, she added with a renewal of her tears and sniffle.

I was curious what her husband’s favorite piece of music was that brought on her tears so copiously. I imagine it would perhaps be something of a popular genre, something a bit ethnic as well. She had a dark complexion and some traces of a southern European accent. It might well be; Oh, Sole mio.

“Where are you picking up the urn,” I asked, glad that at least I might guide and transform concern into something more practical. I mean, I was just a stranger sitting next to her and not her son. “It’s at La Perouse crematorium, we are taking a bus from Central Station”, she added, drying her tears. It took a couple of weeks because they had run out of the urn that I chose for Mario. “Mario is my husband” .” I mean he was”, she added so sadly. “We have picked a nice spot around his veggie garden and tomatoes at the backyard in Marrickville”.  “We were going to sprinkle some of Mario’s ashes this afternoon if we get back in time”.

She seemed happy to have found a listener. She took out a brochure and showed me a catalogue of items of a somewhat funereal nature. There were lots of glossy photos of caskets with shiny handles, flower pieces with prices for fresh and artificial. There were also different cortèges including a choice of horse drawn hearses or long-bodied cars. I thought it combined funerals and weddings as it all seemed rather glorious and somewhat ceremonial. The next page had a long arrangement of urns for the departed and cremated, which she was keen to show me.

My Mario was one of the best ceramic tile cutters, she said proudly. He could tell if a tile could be cut by a normal cutter or by water driven diamond blade cutter, she said. How, I enquired? (I knew at least two weeks had passed since the funeral and felt she might venture away from her urgent and immediate grief).

The daughter seemed relieved that her mother’s tears had subsided, we were on safer grounds. “Oh, he knew alright, dad was a master tiler,” the daughter added.  “My Mario knew by just tapping the tile and holding it to his ear”, the mother said. “He could hear the difference between the softer glazed ceramic and the much harder porcelain ceramic.”  “He was one of the best, she reiterated.” “He could just tap and listen to them all day!”

“But, just have a look at the urn I am getting for Mario. He would be happy in this, she added.”  “We have chosen the porcelain version of ‘Ocean Sunset’. It includes a little brooch in brushed gold in which I can keep a bit of my Mario close by.

It was a toss-up for ‘The Golf’ or the ‘Tear-drop’ urn, which we finally all thought was a bit sentimental. The ‘Double Rainbow’ was nice too though, except my Mario hated anything with rain.” Suddenly, it was all over.

The train had arrived at Central Station.  The mother and daughter got off.

You can never be sure of how society will move forward but I am glad that I most likely won’t be around to find out how the grandchildren will fare in a world that now seems to connect mainly by pushing little buttons on a  plastic-metal box with a small coloured screen.

We are facing a friendless world with ‘face-book’ friends but with the chances of meeting in the real flesh diminishing as years go by. When did you last actually go outside to shop for a dress or box of veggies or was that done with the help of those little buttons as well?

I remember my parents were quick of the mark with being one of the first to have a telephone back in 1946 or so. It was a large black glimmering device bolted onto the floral wallpapered wall of our lounge room.  This telephone would give off a loud ring and when telephoning someone it was done by a rotating disc with the numbers being large and clearly written on them. It was a gadget that would reassure us in its reliable functionality and simplicity. It was clearly a telephone.

The telephone book of Rotterdam then was very thin. Most just used to walk across the road or around the block to visit friends and family. We lived close by to family and friends. If not we would send a letter.

Now, the phone as a telephone has just about disappeared. I am driven beyond sanity when trying to have just a phone. The land-line is prohibitively expensive and now includes all sorts of extras that I don’t want. We now pay line rentals and GST (vat) plus options for complicated ‘menus of retrievals and voice banking.’ I just want what my parents had; a normal phone that has a reassuring ring.  It was life affirming and did not give attacks of anxiety as phone calls seem to do now. They now seem to have a sense of dread and foreboding of possible grief and immense sadness.

I now just want a device that is called ‘mobile phone’ (or cell phone in the US). It is far from mobile as it seems to imprison more than liberate. Just look at the anxiety written all over those hapless souls on street corners or shopping malls, trains and busses. All tapping away or glued to this mobile phone. ‘I am going shopping to Aldi” I overheard one of those tappers saying.

I was so desperately pleading with one of those cell-phone franchises; “please can I just have a cell phone that is a phone”. Incredibility staring back at me with total incomprehension as an extra. “What do you mean?”  “I mean a phone as a phone.” “I don’t normally have an urge to take a photo when I want to just telephone someone, nor do I have a burning need to listen to a radio or save messages, bank voice mail or retrieve last week’s riveting event at the shopping mall.” I also don’t normally play games such as chess, monopoly or want a weather report on the phone.”

“I sometimes just want to make a simple telephone call to my friend who is in hospital with a knee replacement.” “I don’t want messages of missed calls or reminders about credit,” nor send e-mail or want face-bookings with Russian sex Goddesses.

“Can’t you just sell me a phone that I can carry around?”

She, the franchise lady, smiled. “You are an old man and grump around that fact”. She could have said, but she didn’t. “Your parents despaired when the ball-point was invented and people started slurping Coke”. Did it ruin you, she continued? No, but that was different. We still did our tables and could write and spell. Now it is all “C U in 2 mnts, r u ok?” and the supermarket girl can’t figure out the cost of butter of $2. -, and give the change from $20. – without checking the electronic screen.

“You are still a curmudgeon and at the end of your miserable life”, she could also have added. (but didn’t)

It is true; I had some sad and unfortunate life changing experiences that you will experience as well. That is if you don’t get hit by a truck while sending text messages to your ring-nosed boyfriend in the meantime, I added smugly.

By now, the franchise girl became agitated and called the manager. He comes up; looks me over while rocking on his heels. “You sound as if you want one of our new models for the hard of hearing and blind”.  “It also has a handy Velcro strap to put on your walking frame and a clip-on for the outside rim of a commode, (just in case of a bout of intestinal hurry).  It comes with Galaxy Apps for the aged, he added with a smile. Gt fkd, C U at the Crmtrium, ashes to ashes. (I so wished…)

I just want a phone.

Cyprus needs a break

For Pete’s sake can’t someone bail out Cyprus? A lousy 10 billion Euro’s is now holding the world at gun-point. Banks in Cyprus have now been closed for 10 days and cash machines have dwindling supplies. Banks shares all over the world are being hit and their managers are nervous

You would have thought that there must even be local Cypriots that have that sort of money in spare cash splashing around their golf buggy. There are over a 109 billionaires that have more than 10 billion. According the Forbes richest, there are also over 250 people that have over 5 billion in their piggy banks. Just think that without our generosity they would not exist.  The world now supports 1426 billionaires. Isn’t it about time we support a few more?

It does seem strange that the Joe Blow people that have given so much wealth to many billionaires are now expected to give away their scant savings in Cyprus. Surely a 10% levy on the world’s rich would be fairer?  In fact, a levy on the world’s billionaires would probably save Spain, Greece, Italy and Cyprus together from bankruptcies.

I am not sure if I am a world’s first with this idea but I reckon if enough of you make similar suggestions we would prevent millions if not billions sinking in dismal poverty with even the chance to queue at a soup-kitchen fairly small.

The 1426 billionaires’ total wealth is estimated to be 5.4 trillion or 5.4.000.000.000.000.-dollars. Now a 10 % levy on that would not make one iota of significant difference to the well-being of those billionaires. They would still be able to support a decent meal, good wine and plenty of golf. Ten % of 5.4 trillion is a modest 540000.000.000. – Or expressed in letters “fifty-four thousand billion. This is a bit more than half a trillion. Now would it not make a lot of sense to urge The World Bank considering that option rather than impose poverty on hundreds of millions of real people. I mean we are only talking of peanuts amongst those billionaires.

I’ll consider putting up a petition to try and make a dent into a world problem that is really small compared with the wealth that is swirling around. Please sign and support my petition and send in onto your twitter and face-book contacts as well. http://www.change.org/petitions/president-of-the-world-bank-to-levy-10-on-world-s-1426-billionaires-instead-of-the-people-of-cyprus

Thank you,

Gerard Oosterman.

The plight of democracy for dogs. (Milo will be calling you).

My, how time flies. Just now, while taking our Jack Russell ‘Milo’ for his constitutional, I saw and heard the first of the season’s leaf-blower at full throttle. No, it’s not a kind of rare bird or marsupial. It’s a petrol machine dreaded by some but mainly revered by many suburbanites whose life long aim seem to be to keep errant leaves at bay. This is going to be a noisy period and I dread it.

As it was, while walking past this lady with the strap on leaf blower, Milo decided he would let go of a couple of brownies of his own as well, right in front of her gloriously flowering pink Myrtle tree. They blended in well and were almost indiscernible from those golden shimmering autumnal leaves.  I always carry a bag to bare hand scoop the poop in but decided the lady’s’ blower might do that job just as well.

Some dog walkers carry the plastic bag ostentatiously in their hand or have it tied to the dog lead.  It is as if they want to say; look at me, I am brave enough to pick up the still warm and steaming turds of my dog. Look at me, look at me! I don’t suffer from this habit because I am a bit rebellious by nature and do not wish to conform in the poop scooping traditions of the neighbourhood at all times. I carry a bag in my pocket next to my hanky and this leaves many guessing if I belong to the brigade of callous dog poop on the footpath abandoners.

Milo and I have an unspoken understanding that, at times, he is allowed to do it spontaneously without his efforts being scooped away insensitively within seconds. We all know that dogs like to mark their territories by leaving calling cards. Who am I, as an intransigent dog lover to deny him those instinctive urgings?  It would be cruel, and I am merely heeding good dog etiquette. How would you like it if someone’s strange hand underneath deprived you of the same in such callous manner?

Some years ago, when dogs were free to roam and do their business at call and with reckless abandonment, you could not walk around Amsterdam without risking slipping and sliding around the Damrak or Prinsengracht as a result of the unfettered democratic freedom rights of dogs and their calling cards. Some wit decided to exploit this natural phenomenon by sticking the world’s national flags into the dog poop and taking close-up photographs, producing souvenir Post cards for tourists to send home to.  He called those cards “Tulips of Amsterdam”. He made a fortune and is now whooping it up in the Bahamas stretched out on a deckchair while in deep contemplation of his deposit savings book.

A fair reward for laying flat out on the pavement taking those close-up shots within centimeters of dog s…t in Amsterdam before their free roaming days were outlawed and strict toilet habits for dogs introduced and made law…Amsterdam is now clean but many dogs are nervous and usually wait till they are back in the department and deposit it under strained conditions in a special box with vermiculite.

Milo is so lucky able to decorate the Myrtle tree amongst the autumn leaves. Good boy Milo, good boy.

The illustrious career of Rex (Bucket) Jackson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I8QiBsnhSk

With the latest finger pointing at Obeid and his antics in front of Icac I wonder if some of you still remember Rex Jackson. There is a world of difference between the two!

Rex (bucket) Jackson was really the epitome of a charming effervescent man. He was also  minister for Youth and Community services, of Corrective services and a little later minister for Transport in the NSW Labor Government during the mid seventies and early eighties after which he suffered his spectacular fall from grace.

His love of dogs is what is supposed to have led him to his downfall.  He was a regular fixture at Dapto dogs and Wentworth Park.  It must have been unfairly tempting when he started to make nice little earnings from allowing prisoners out before their time was up for a bit of handy cash. He wasn’t minister for Corrective services for nothing!  One of the things he fought hard for was rehabilitation for prisoners. What could be more re-habilitating than giving prisoners a chance to start afresh, letting them out of prison before the sentence was fully served? Of course, a bit of cash in return would be appreciated. There were monthly waves of prisoners being led out on parole which gave rise to suspicion all wasn’t on the level!

Who can forget the video footage of Rex in a car casually accepting a bundle of notes which later on included him having a boot-full of cash at the back of his car?

He was born at Wagga Wagga, the son of a railway fettler. He knew poverty but despite or because of this he grew up an irascible optimist and larrikin with more than a streak of compassion and strong sense of reform for the needy and the underdog when running the tough portfolio of Youth and Community services.  In other words, he was a good bloke, a decent man with strong words for those opposing him. That’s how he got the tag “Bucket Jackson.” He lost both his parents when in his teens and was then separated from his siblings. He was taken up by a family and soon he started work at week-ends at their shop selling lollies and ice cream.

His career included having won 16 out of 17 boxing matches as a professional light welterweight with one fight ending in a draw. At twenty six he won the seat of Bulli against 14 other candidates. When minister he fought to improve condition in jails and was successful in raising the budget for his department from 44 million to 78 million dollars within two years. He was acutely aware of the plight of deserted wives and fought hard to improve their lot and felt that child support was of a ‘Dickensian. ‘age

It was his dogs gambling addiction and hopeless debts that got him in the end. It was the sentencing judge who ‘looked at the quality of the man’ and sentenced him seven and a half years, showing some compassion. This was appealed against by the Crown and Rex was given an increased sentence of ten years with non parole of five years. He felt condition at jail were atrocious! Good behaviour got him out after serving three years and three months.

While incarcerated he was sharing time and space with some of those sent to jail when he was still minister of Corrective services. It would not have escaped Rex Jackson the irony of life and its unpredictable crooked path that sometimes ends up being followed. No more racing of dogs inside.

But, and this really summed up the humility and innate quality of the man. After doing his time in jail, he reared up and started a take away hamburger kiosk at the top of Stanwell Park, a popular spot for hang-gliding.

There can be no doubt that his dog gambling days were not his best but when looked at all the good things he achieved, the balance of the ledger would have to be very strong in his favour. You could never talk of Jackson and Obeid in the same breath. Could you?

Rex Jackson died on New Year’s Eve 2011.

http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=%22rex+jackson%22&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=200&rm=200&sp=adv&clsPage=1&docID=news930710_0267_9300#

A man’s work is never finished. (With pc addendum; neither is that of a woman).

Driving home yet again from a bout of grandchildren minding in Sydney we noticed a large solar lit sign heralding that Bunnings is having a ladies DIY evening next week. We all know that Bunnings stores are huge cavernous hard ware and tools emporiums. A venerable treasure trove of everything a man can possibly dream about, even more than he could ever imagine even including that which he, as yet, can’t imagine. The ‘not yet’ being able to imagine is not all that difficult for many men that visit hardware and tool stores. They tend to be of a more practical nature rather than of the creative or philosophical bend. Still, many a woman would rather have a man of the nails and hammer variety than someone moping around with Hegel or Kant. Mary knew a thing or two about that when chucking in her lot with a simple carpenter! What would we do without the cloth peg or safety pin?

We often visit Bunnings to buy punnets of blooms or bags of cow manure. I try and coincide this with a Saturday sausage sizzle that gets put on by the Lions Cub trying to raise money for good causes. I am always in awe of how many people do good for society rather than complain or ‘mecker’, they roll up sleeves and do something about society’s ills…The Saturday sausage sizzle at Bunnings sells two thin sausages with lovely fried brown onions between slices of white bread for just $2.-including a choice of different sauces and a paper napkin. I usually go for the American mustard as a kind of gesture of forgiveness or atonement for their Iraqi and Afghanistan involvement, after all, Australia did also get involved. No soul is pure when wars are waged. I hope my simple sausage, with the help of Lions Clubs, will lesson future wars.

H is not so keen on my cunningness to coincide with buying blooms and manure with two dollar Saturday sausages, no doubt considering my health and her fondness for staying beautiful and svelte. I often tell her that voluptuousness is one of the most desirable qualities I admire in a woman and especially in her. Oddly enough, it doesn’t always work and the bloom shopping is steered towards a Friday to coincide with two lean strips of fish fillet, even though we are not, strictly speaking, peoples of the cloth.

One lucky Saturday, while queuing for my sausage allocation at Bunnings a man before me had the gall to complain that his sausages were over cooked and demanded to get new ones for himself and his young son. His four sausages were nicely brown and had crispy and desirable skins as well. In short, they were the perfectly barbequed sausages that could not be faulted except by this miserable ‘meckerer’ of a man. The women running the gas fired barbeque wore head-scarves. They were very busy with many hungry ’nail and hammer men’ lining up. For some reason it reminded me back of my war Rotterdam soup kitchen days long ago when I lost temporarily the touch of my mother’s hand.  I was imprinted for life never to waste food. The man complaining about his sausages almost made me lose the will to go on. Quick as a flash I told the ladies that I would take the four sausages already bedded down within their comforting slices of white bread and garnished with the loving onion rings. I had trouble explaining to H the extravagance of the four sausages.  It had barbeque sauce instead of American mustard as well. It all looked a bit suspicious to her.

A small price to pay.