So, er, where’s MY apology ...?

GIVEN the world economy is just one Chinese sharemarket crisis away from disaster, doesn’t the Treasurer have other things to worry about?

PIRATE: JANUARY, 2006 : Journalist James Morrow, editor of monthly magazine Investigate, who has joined News Limited's The Weekend Australian as a feature writer, 01/06. P/

TREASURERS who are in control are like conductors of great symphonies: confident and inspiring, they know exactly what’s coming next even as they appear to be making it happen all by their own design.

Treasurers who have lost their way, on the other hand, are like dodgy kids’ birthday party magicians. They show up and collect your money but everyone keeps a close eye on things because they’re just a bit nervous about what’s coming out of that hat.

With Wednesday’s announcement — made by no less of a friend of the Abbott government than Peter Fitz­Simons — that Joe Hockey is starting a “Parliamentary Friendship Group” to renew a push for an Australian Republic, we can see pretty clearly into which camp the member for North Sydney falls. And it doesn’t involve white tie and tails, either.

About the only thing that can be said for Hockey’s proposal is that it won’t hit the bottom line of ordinary Australians in the way some of his other, daffier, economic proposals might (online sales tax, anyone?).

But given the world economy is just one Chinese sharemarket or European currency zone crisis away from disaster, doesn’t the Treasurer have other things to worry about? Note that this is also coming from a government that just kicked a plebiscite on gay marriage way down the field because it did not want the distraction of a “second-order” issue in the current climate.

James Morrow.

It’s a bit like that early episode of The Simpsons when Homer, hit with a sexual harassment allegation by the babysitter, decides he’s going to chuck it all in to go live under the sea (“There’ll be no accusations, just friendly crustaceans, under the sea!”).

Aside from indulging a juvenile anti-British chippiness, there is very little in the way of good argument for becoming a republic. The notion that Australian children should be able to aspire to a well-remunerated, high-profile job with lots of travel but little real authority bespeaks a shocking lack of ambition. It’s like saying, “Kids, in this country, anyone who works hard and pulls the right strings has the chance to be Tony Burke. Make me proud.”

And if we’re changing our head of state, why not the constitution as well? The Recognise movement to write Aboriginals into our original terms and conditions will be just the start if federal MP Ian Goodenough has his way.

“We’ve got the first settlers, Chinese migrants on the goldfields in the 1800s, the Afghans, the Japanese pearl divers in Broome ...” Mr Goodenough told the ABC this week. “These migrants want to be recognised in the constitution in some form as being Australian.”

Well, er, perhaps — though there is an easier way for migrants to be recognised as being Australian. I did it seven or eight years ago, and it involved an online application, a nominal fee and swearing an oath at the immigration department.

Still, if we are going to go down this road, as a migrant from the US not only do I want recognition, I want action. I demand a formal apology and avenue for legal redress against everyone who’s ever called me a “seppo” in a pub as well as compensation for all the inner-Sydney hipsters who think a trucker’s cap and a ZZ Top beard is qualification enough to call their “authentic barbecue” joints American. Failing that, I’ll settle for some stable government that cuts my taxes, gets out of my way and stays out of the headlines.