Well, well, well. T'would appear I spake too soon...callow knave, unrighteous Untrue Unbeliever that I am.

Yesterday over in the DA section, 'Big Doc' Russell Darroch issued a democratic clarion call to us all here at NHJ!, to take up our Mighty Pens and WRITE to the ALP on the FTA. And I - fool! craven cynical fool! that I am - showed no heart for the fight, saying it was all too late to save us from the FTA.

And then doesn't the Pretender-King Latham go and blindside us all yet again...it now looks like what we have on our hands is a Battle of Democratic Free Wills, boys and girls. So let those among us who would be there to show our scars on St Goughkin's Day this year take up our pens after all, and fire off our Citizens' missives to stiffen Our Hero's spine for the Glorious Fight:

And may the other Will forgive me for my clunking plagiarism here...

For the ALP circa August 2004, from a Puckish Greens heckler...with long-unrequited love.

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Bomber 'No More Flipflops' Beazley?
No my fair cousin.
If we are marked to fold, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to stand firm,
The fewer men, the greater share of honor.

Gough's will! I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous of Murdoch's Kiss,
Nor care I who doth feed upon their ANZUS scraps;
It grieves me not, if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to dream Grand New Dreamtime Dreams,
I am the most offending Australian alive.

No, faith my cousin, wish not a Queen from England, nor a smaller Bush.
Curtin's peace! I would not lose so great an honor
As one more Labor man methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. Do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Chifley, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight
Let him depart; his Mates' Job At the Embassy in London shall be made,
And full Super for convoy put into his purse;
We would not lose the election in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to lose it fair with us.

This day is (also) called the Boomer Feast of Goughkin (and we upstart ex-Colonials mean no disrespect to you inspiring Pommy diggers in claiming this, may you RIP):
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home (with a comfortable swing),
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Gough.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors
And say, 'Tomorrow is Saint Goughkin.'

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, 'These wounds I had on Gough's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with added luster, what democratic feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words- Mad Mark the King, Macklin & Bomber Beazley, Conroy & McLelland, Gillard & Lawrence, Tanner & Faulkner -
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Goughkin Gough shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of our new Government's first sitting,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters, and persons of ambiguous gender);
For he (or she) today that sheds his (or her) blood with me
Shall be my brother (and sist....oh look, it just buggers up the metre, Emily, OK?)...be he ne'er so lowly,
This day shall enoble his rank.
And gentlemen in The Mighty Oz, now in their political retirement,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us the Battle of the FTA, upon (metaphorically, anyway) Saint Goughkin's day.

Write now, Free Citizens All - if you do oppose the FTA as offered by JWH's 'mob', that is - or forever hold your democratically-unrepresented peace. This is a Democratic Free (Will) Country. And we The People get the leadership - and the policy choices - that we deserve, after all. Right? WRITE!!!