Unless you're an ardent follower of Australian Politics (as i'm sure you all are, I assume all the visitors to this page are part of the intellectual alumni) you probably don't know who Peter is, but you should.
He was a great politician, he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a pilot from 1940 to 1946, got shot down, and rocked a serious Joker style scar on his face from a run in with some shrapnel in WWII.
He was the Liberal Party member for Fawkner from 1955 election until its abolition in 1969. He was then appointed Minister for Air in June 1964.
None of that is the really important stuff, I just thought i'd add a little background.
In 1967, Harold Holt's government was attacked over allegations that it had misused the VIP aircraft fleet for ministers' private purposes (Hell yeah, you bet they were joyriding in the Ministerial jet, taking it down to Tijuana for a long weekend, Ghostriding the plane down the tarmac...). When asked to table records on the fleet's movements, Holt and Howson refused and implied that they did not exist (What records...?), but Senator John Gorton (snitchin' MF) later found that the records did exist and tabled them in the Senate (isn't that exactly the plot of an Arrested Development episode? If only Peter and Harold could have had T-Bone burn down the storage locker that contained the records, they would have been fine).
So after that blew over, Peter was appointed Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts in March 1971 and was thus Australia's first minister for the environment (Much better than the sub-par Peter Garrett).
He was also Australia's first minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and has remained passionately involved with Aboriginal rights and reconciliation for the past 30 years, with many published articles and discussions to his credit. Bennelong Society president Gary Johns is quoted as saying Mr Howson was tireless in trying to help Aboriginal people.
"I think his greatest achievement was to persist in the knowledge that Aboriginal people were to become part of Australian society, [He] persisted in the view when it was not fashionable."
So yeah, R.I.P. Peter was a great guy who did more with his life than most of us could do with two, served under 4 PM's, kicked it with who knows how many presidents and dignitaries, and he rocked a sweet 'do in the 50's.
And if none of that impresses you, he had a voice like Gandalf the Grey. Seriously. If he was standing on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm and said "You cannot pass!", ain't no Balrogs getting round that.
Further required reading:
Academia's sorry obsession
A Rabbit Proof Fence full of holes
Live not by land alone
No comments:
Post a Comment