In between bottle washing and filtering., I've been reading the latest novel by JK Rowling, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. When the novel, The Cuckoo Calling, was released, it was an immediate success and some of the critics suspected that the author wasn't really a first-timer. Sure enough, JK put her hand up and accepted the acclaim. It real is good.
Tomorrow is a day catching up with commitments to Giant Steps. There's a ceremony in the morning to open a new playground. Somebody has invited Eric Abetz to attend. Not my favourite polly by any means. The year before I started at Giant Steps, the school had a financial crisis and went to their local federal member (Eric) for some assistance. They were given $25000, a paltry sum which wasn't even enough to pay the staff's back wages. The school only survived because staff took pay cuts, reduced their hours or took voluntary redundancy.
I arrived in March and Eric was one of the local worthies who came to see me. Unlike the others he had no good wishes for me; he simply wanted to tell me that it was no use asking him for any further financial help. He had done all he could and would do no more. $25000! It was just a fraction of what he spent on self-promotion every year. Clearly, disabled children didn't matter in his world.
The only other contact I had with him was when he wanted to show off one of my staff who had completed a Work For the Dole scheme and actually got a job out of it (one of the very few). He invited Peter and me to the Liberal Party Conference which happened to be occurring in Deloraine. When I arrived, I found I had to pay for my dinner!! Money not wisely spent. The only two politicians who have ever been seriously supportive of Giant Steps have been John Beswick, the State Liberal Minister for Education who went against the advice of his advisors to offer Giant Steps annual funding, and Bill Shorten who has done more for disabled people than any other politician, before or since.
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