.. on the highway at speeds so slow that they could be confused with reverse why break the habit of a lifetime? We were quite young and so the intrepid band of fisherfolk set off from the west bank of the lake and some considerable time later reached the east side trout free and sunburnt. We disembarked the boat and there was the Prime Minister (Sir) Keith Holyoake* leaving a telephone box. At the time when technology was intermittent and haphazard it was probably because it was the only working telephone in the township. No security details, no communication teams or minders obscured the PM and his lakeside cottage. In these more salacious times we would automatically assume that he was liaising with one of team of robust, raw-boned New Zealand mistresses redolent of the woolshed and hockey team perspiration. Or a prize merino.
Being a small country the Prime Minister knew our grandfather so pleasantries were exchanged, we were introduced and then we got back into the dinghy and putt-putted slowly back without catching a fish. The only positive thing from the trip was that I learnt that toe-nail clippers are good for cutting fishing line.
This positive view of politicians - tall, considerate and possessed of change for telephone boxes - somehow survived my student days of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and general anarchistic leanings. And all anarchists lean severely to the left and steer simultaneously, but futilely, to all points of the compass. This directional uncertainty meant that I arrived in the land of Oz and was very soon was immersed in the Whitlam era and the relatively short-lived artists for Labor movement that gave me the chance to talk to Margaret Whitlam's chin and Gough's shirtfront. They were both preternaturally tall and I have no idea what deep and philosophical bon mots were exchanged as the room was as noisy as a jet engine testing facility.
The metaphorical morning after brought a long-lasting hangover of disillusion which was not improved by meeting, many years later, John Howard and his cabinet as part of a large presentation celebrating 100 years of wireless communication which I somehow ended up organising with Telstra, Optus and News Corp. A great deal of money was spent, one-off satellite links established, and exotic infrastructure placed all over this wide brown land. Experts were summoned, medical examinations were done at a distance and pop music down-loaded from the USA. A triumph of the times in terms of then contemporary technology. What was immediately obvious was the complete lack of interest by the assembled politicians exemplified by John Howard, whose legs didn't touch the floor grinning inanely like either Tweedle-Dum or Tweedle-Dee and talking to the then Attorney General Philip Ruddock - one of the few people whom I thought so odious that if they he were hanging by his fingers on a cliff-edge, I would happily jump on them.
So, obviously, my view of politicians has been on steep downward spiral for many years and the latest series of governments, here and overseas have done nothing to improve my opinion.
If you think about what people want from society it is not all that complicated. In no particular order it could be a good accessible public health system; a comprehensive, free education system; an accessible legal system that impartially and fairly dispenses justice and allows freedom from arbitrary arrest and persecution. People want safe food, good transport and a clean environment. You can add others to this rather short list like being able to find employment, good drainage and necessities.
Too easy? Well if we say that it is paid for by people according to their ability it would seem so.
So if politicians have a purpose it would be to get this in place as expeditiously as possible, and then - apart from some minor tweaking here and there - leave well enough alone. What do politicians want? Just power and then remaining in power. Once upon a time we can imagine government being the result of a sense, perhaps, of noblesse oblige or a higher moral or ethical calling to better the lot of one's fellow men. Now it is just another job with its own career trajectory or even worse the need to inflict outlandish flat earth policies on an unsuspecting world.
In Australia this may seem like low comedy but in other countries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia or the Sudan it is tragedy of the most awful kind.

*An addendum from the editor (that's me) re' the Holyoake encounter Dick mentions, which I'd actually forgotten. My first band, The Chants, or Chants R&B as we were known by then, was at the Christchurch airport in late 1966 having made the decision to move its operation to Melbourne. We'd been confined to the one venue in Christchurch (The Stagedoor) for nearly two years and so it was only when we announced that we were leaving for good that we got an inkling of just how popular we were. To our surprise there was quite a crowd of fans, maybe as many as a couple of hundred mostly semi-hysterical girls at the airport to send us off.
Anyway, we were raucously on the move through the terminal when we met the prime minister and his entourage coming the other way. The two groups came to a standstill. The right honourable Keith Holyoake looked at me and my band and the excited throng of young fans and said, 'Hullo girls' and marched off.