Hu could not hide his amazement at Forrest never having met the Governor-General of Australia. "You must have killed an Englishman in a former life", said Hu, in his usual inscrutable way. (Their wasn't much point to being Middlekingdomian if you weren't inscrutable.) The interpreter added, "it is just a Middlekingdomian expression" when he had seen the puzzled look on Forrest's face.

Face. That was the key to everything, in the Middle Kingdom.

Forrest's consultancy was sought after because Hu, and the vast majority of the Middle Committee, recognised that he, Forrest, had a rare grasp of the intricacies of the appointment of Governor-General, and the enormous potentialities for the creative exercise of power in unexpected and, indeed, face-saving ways, that it offerred.

(Power was what this thread was all about, right? Forrest was determined the thread was not going to go belly-up just because of a dearth of ideas in places that were supposed to count. If there was to be a helpful spin-off from his chats with Hu, Forrest wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It beat talking to oneself!)

"Free Tibet" asserted countless unauthorised graffiti-like advertisments across the world. It was a source of profound embarrassment to the Middle Kingdom, an embarrassment only compounded by the increasingly frequent graffitic responses, "where do you get this free Tibet?". The Middlekingdomians knew better than anyone that there was no such thing as something for nothing, and their inability to satisfy this pent-up demand and expectation had been causing loss of face.

Forrest's explanation of how, by appointing the Dalai Lama as governor-general of the GG of SWA, the Middle Kingdom would be seen to be addressing Tibetans in the terms of "Most Honourable Opponent", was well received. With this status accorded, in circumstances where every extra policeman posted to the occupation forces in the GG of SWA may well have meant one less in Tibet, an honourable face-saving withdrawal could be achieved in the face of a common external threat.

Orchestrating a coup in Australia was not going to be easy. There were a number of obvious hurdles that would need to be overcome if it was to be achieved.

First, and most obvious, was the fact that Spanish was not the native language. There was no real English word for 'Junta' (pronounced like 'Udson, wiv a haitch). 'Dictator' just wouldn't do: the English had tried that briefly after the events of 1642; it just wasn't a word you could use in polite society, and in any case did not imply plurality. And, as everybody knew, you couldn't seriously be regarded as having had a proper coup unless you ended up with a Junta, a plurality of power holders. Like a power board! We're talking electricity here, right?

Secondly, in time of peace, there was hardly significant 'military' in Australia from which to get your 'Junta', even if you did find an English word for it. Juntas always came from the 'military', didn't they? And in any case, such pitifully little military as Australia ever had in peacetime was nearly always on full rotation to the various overseas live-firing training grounds where they kept up with the state of the art. No pool of generals from which any could be spared for a Junta, in contradistinction to the situation commonly prevailing in Spanish-speaking countries where the generally more relatively numerous military hardly ever saw an overseas live-firing training ground. Apart from all of which, there was a profound and historic reluctance on the part of Australian senior defence force officers to have any involvement with politics whatsoever.

Indeed, it was precisely because of this aloofness from politics that recently retired senior officers had been so acceptable in the appointments of Governor, and Governor-General, over the years, in Australia. That, and the fact that such military service almost inevitably meant that any given Vice-Regal appointee had been prepared to put his life on the line for Australia at some point without having the option of resignation in the face of difficulty.

Forrest looked out across Botany Bay to the Kurnell Peninsula from his conservatory style penthouse' southern balcony. The desalinator was a distinctive ugly scar in the distance. It was good being able to make this power play on the 'NSW Power without pride' thread, Forrest thought, as if there was to be any trouble over plotting a coup it would be Belly that would get the blame for it. It was his thread, after all. Belly was responsible for anything that started here.

Forrest finished his long black cafe arabica, and returned to the task at hand: plotting a coup in Gert-by-Sea.

After pondering the two obstacles described in the previous post Forrest realised there was, of course, the further obstacle of the deep-seated Australian revulsion at openly autocratic rule, which would logically be expected as the likely consequence of a coup.

Although there was seemingly an unspoken consensus that various elected bodies were performing less than satisfactorily, Ozzians were very leery of anything that threatened to take away, or negate, their democratic institutions. Whilst the vast majority absolutely loved it when there was that very rare event, a dismissal, most also knew that it was soon to be 'more of the same' with essentially no effective choice possible that would give them a fresh, yet workable, electable alternative to the Liblabs or Lablibs.

It was all profoundly frustrating.

As usual, the solution was right under everybody's nose.

It was contained within a little-known work that had first been published in July 1900 in the United Kingdom. Anyone with whom the name Muir Mackenzie rang a bell probably had a copy of it, although almost certainly not a first edition thereof. Whether, being in possession of it, they had ever read it with understanding, was another matter. Few had.

It was, essentially, a handbook for a coup d'etat.

It bore the facsimile of a circular seal showing the Crown of St Edward above stellar backgrounded doublecrossed Mace and Rod.

Its title was "The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia", ISBN 0 644 06322 X.

While I have enjoyed your posts FG I am a bit of a rough diamond and tend to look at recent events in a different way, nearly.
Yesterday the ALP got a boot in the bottom, oh yes a very big boot.
Mostly earned by rodents now leaving the ship, and a few welded on of little use but hard to remove.
We will still see our power sold.
In small steps.
Because I come from that party forgive me for thinking we got of lightly.
And for understanding we will be better for the kicking, after all we could not be worse could we?
Nathan ,bloke I note you once handled rubbish bins, a skill you may still need.
I had better not put into print what 9 tenths of my party is saying but if JT gets near a half full bin tip him in mate please.

The Constitution was an inspired document. The first twenty one words of its Preamble explained how.

Getting the Constitution had been, for the people of Oz, very much like the borrowing of money. Provided you didn't really need the money, you could always borrow pretty well as much as you liked. So it had been with the Constitution. Drafted and debated by the best in the business at the time, many of whom were far from convinced of the real need for the Federation for which it was to become the ground-rules, it was a Constitution money could not buy. Rock solid.

Those that wanted Federation got more than they were asking for. They got the Constitution. They deserved it.

Forrest loved reading the Constitution, line upon line.

Even the seemingly dullest bits sometimes yielded absolute gems of insight. Forrest also liked reading between its lines, where some of its most exciting possibilities, lying hidden in plain sight, yielded themselves up to the discerning and inquiring mind. Necessary implications were such fascinating things!

Politicians in Oz, by and large, hated having the Constitution read to them.

Row upon row of them, year upon year, had revealed nought but the dullest appreciation of its content. They saw it not as the infallible guide to the discharge of their public trust, but rather as something to be 'got around', it seemed. Even when in opposition from time to time, they had failed to notice how unconstitutional some of the things were that had been done; yea, indeed, how at least one purported alteration to the Constitution had not even secured the necessary 'double majority' required by Section 128!

Australia, it seemed, both needed, and was ready for, a sabbatical from such *discerning* politicians, be they Lablib or Liblab.

The coup Forrest was advocating, and that the Constitution permitted, could bring that political sabbatical about.

GrahamY, and Belly, breathed deep sighs of relief. The shadow of the Commonwealth Crimes Act that had seemed to be hanging over OLO as a facilitating agency in the plotting of a coup had moved away.

Forrest looked out from his penthouse to the east, over the electoral Division of Wentworth. It was a grey, overcast day in Sydney. Forrest was guessing it was a grey, overcast day, figuratively speaking, over all of Gert-by-Sea. Yesterday there had been a power-grab. The names Hindenburg, Eckener, and ..... Godwin came to mind. It had been a bit of a battle to remember the last name in time.

Not to worry. This thread was about power without pride. First, the lablibs had embraced Iemma (who had his own power agenda) and duly imploded. Now the liblabs, hell bent on imitating the lablibs, had embraced a new Leader, who was on record as standing for much the same thing. Soon there would be no power for Ozzians (perhaps not in any sense or at any price), so that pretty much took care of the pride aspect of things, didn't it! Forrest felt, all in all, somewhat vindicated in his views on OLO expressed, re Malcolm B Turnbull.

Veni, vidi, vindi. (I came, I saw, I used vindimills.)

Neither Forrest, nor any of his 'vindimills', was any fan of Le Grand Mal.

To Forrest, Le Grand Mal was a bit of a constitutional epileptic. Not a good fit. Not in a fit.

Better not come on the Forum. Might get stabbed in the portico!

The more he thought about it, the more Forrest reckoned that the grand plan went something like this:

First, create a National Energy Market (with fencing wire and mirrors) in a way that is in effective violation of the Constitution;

Second, strip and scramble all the erstwhile public assets of the States into a NEMMCO, or NEMMCO acolyte;

Third, have all State governments run dead and get really on the nose with the public;

Fourth, arrange for Le Grand Mal to become Leader of the liblabs;

Fifth, arrange for the leader of the lablibs, Federally, to 'elevate' the discussion to that of 'a republic' and also get on the nose with the public;

Sixth, have an election and destroy the Constitution.

Mal's your uncle!