The Governor General speaks at an ACM lunch — but David Flint doesn’t write a word about it…what is going on, asks Barry Everingham.
On Tuesday last, the following item appeared in the list of the Governor General’s appointments:
“Later, at the Four Seasons Hotel, the Governor General and Mr Bryce, as guests of the National Convenor, Professor David Flint AM, attended a lunch for Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, at which the Governor General gave an address.”
Nothing unusual about that, with one notable exception — not a word on Flint’s personal website, not a mention.
And not a word written about what Her Excellency was wearing (Flint as rule is huge on the fashion side of things), not a mention of the food consumed, not a word about the reaction of the Blue Rinse set and the young fogeys who make up the numbers at Flint’s functions.
He even decided not to big note himself by boring us with what he said in welcoming Australia’s First Citizen.
So what is going on?
Flint got all excited and, as usual, beside himself that day and wrote some tendentious – dare I say – “crap” about the new Governor General of New Zealand, Sir Jerry Matepare. Not a word about our own Governor General at the lunch.
Now, Flint, as our readers will recall, is a rather slippery character and he skirts around issues by dropping in the phrase we at ACM do not have an opinion of that issue and then he lets fly.
This week he has excelled himself.
Under two separate headings, he almost dares the Governor General to sack the Gillard Government.
‘Dismissal and double dissolution’: Written by Professor David Flint AM.
‘An early election?’: Written by Professor David Flint AM.
He trawls through the results of the last election and says, excelling himself in pomposity even more pronounced than usual:
“The Governor General, Ms Quentin Bryce swore in the Second Gillard Ministry on 14 September 2010. According to established constitutional convention, the government [and here’s one of this bloke’s better pearlers] or one headed by another Labor MP will stay in power until 20 November 2013, the last possible date for a general election until one of two things happen.”
He then states the bleeding obvious about a by-election or an independent voting with the government.
Needless to say, he then drags up the Kerr 1975 situation and gratuitously says the Governor General could, on the advice of the prime minister, (as if) call an election and says Her Excellency is not bound to accept that advice but cannot constitutionally act alone.
Ms Bryce doesn’t have a compliant Sir Garfield Barwick to go to — she’d be shown the door if she went anywhere near the Attorney General, so there’s only Flint left to help her out!
Now in typical Flinty fashion, he goes for the jugular — the jugular of the hapless Craig Thomson.
Again stating the obvious — and Flint must have been in a state of uncontrolled excitement when he wrote this:
“Mr Thomson is of course innocent until proven guilty, but were he convicted at a trial he might appeal and argue that section 44 not operate until the conclusion of the appeal which could be after the next election.”
Flint then tippy toes back in history and reminds us of Jack Lang and Philip Game; this is a monarchist’s dream story — a NSW Governor sacking an ALP Premier.
Singing from an obvious Tony Abbott song sheet, Flint is obsessed by the spectre of a double dissolution and the election of an Abbott government.
For a man who claims his organisation does not hold views on politics, he’s reduced to blatant lying just like his great mate Alan Jones.
Now, I ask Professor Flint to come clean and tell us what it is he has against the Governor General and who is driving his obvious vendetta.
