Its seems to be the greatest fear in this modern neoliberal society – Questions. Once, it was not only considered to be a privilege to be asked a question but it was pretty much a necessity. How else does one get on and learn? in fact when I was young something was thought to be ‘not quite right’ with a youngster who didn’t ask questions. Teachers and parents used to goad one into asking questions. That’s not to say that eyes didn’t roll when the question was a doozy, that an answer may have had to be quickly made up – given off the cuff as they say … An answer that came somewhere close to an answer … Somewhere close.

Is this only neoliberalism, or is it just an assumption of privilege? This, well, I don’t know, this inability to recognise a question has been asked. Is it perhaps sheer contempt, or s it just discretionary? Must we only recognise a question when we feel that we know the answer, or when the answer that we feel we can or should give, suits us as the answerer? Perhaps, in this age, we only answer questions when we are under threat of a punishment – and I mean punishment, not pain or discomfort.

“This is true Liberty when free born men
Having to advise the public may speak free,
Which he who can, and will, deserv’s high praise,
Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace;
What can be juster in a State than this?” – Euripides, from John Milton’s Areopagetica.

Its rife through our society, it’s as though everyone of us takes the lead from our paid representatives who, lets face it, behave almost as though there are prizes given for not answering questions; I suppose that’s the first prize, and I suppose that second is to give an answer that completely avoids both the fact that a question was asked, and then has nothing to do with the question – the discretionary privilege of obfuscation; beneath contempt. Its a burning subject, a steep and slippery slope indeed. How can we solve this question? I mean, how can we solve this issue without asking questions? By answering them?

His Disgrace, Dirty Dutton says, Ms Keneally talks too much, he says, “Kristina Keneally’s words don’t mean much because she just doesn’t stop talking. While she loves the sound of her own voice, I’m not sure other people do. … All of this cheap chatter in the background is more about Kristina Keneally and the need to be heard.”

I wonder if this Minister of State Security has ever considered that he’s bound to give us answers? If he was to answer a couple of Ms Keneally’s questions then perhaps they wouldn’t build up to the point that he’s overwhelmed by them. After all, this is supposed to be a democracy – sort of – I mean, even the King likes to sell it to the rest of the world under that banner … Perhaps not to Our Don around the coal-fire, sure, but to the free thinking democracies of the world of social conscience he does. Our King and god likes to pretend that this lucky country of his is fair and true and has a noble character … Does he not?

And we do, as Pistol Pete says, “need to be serious, particularly in these portfolios.” We actually need to be honest. In all the portfolios. Just because His Disgrace, Pistol Pete, is content to ‘demean his own office’, and therefore our Democracy, perhaps we should remind him that us ‘people see through it’, and it’s a duty to ‘respond to all of the garbage that he puts out.’ Ms Keneally’s actually doing the job we pay her to do – she’s asking for clarification, she’s asking for facts, she’s asking to be informed and she does this on our behalf because its in our interest to be informed. How else can we make good choices? Surely were not expected to allow men with Pistol Pete’s character to make our choices for us and for our children?

True, Ms Keneally probably does want to keep her job, keep her public dosh flowing in freely. Do you think Pete and the rest of the Merry Men have ever considered this? Far better to be honest than to keep ‘spruiking fear’ and draconian punishment in support of this King’s government’s attempt to weaken Australia’s already fragile and corrupted democracy. Wouldn’t you say?

“You fear the dismemberment of your being in all the piecework of human wishing and knowing, and fail to notice that you can not achieve wholeness if you reject such large and essential parts of that which has been allotted to mankind. You seek the indivisibility of mans being, and yet assent to its being torn apart.” – Paul Natorp, talking to a disallusioned youth in 1913.