Yes Minister or Yes Mate?

Two telling pieces from the this week's news. First to the Parliament House in Canberra, where I spent much of last week, the flagpole of which you can see here. I've noted before that it's a very informal place, where Ministers expect to be called by their first names when they drop into the staff canteen, so it came as a surprise when security staff were told in a memo that they should no longer use the word "mate" as a form of address. Even a newcomer like me was shocked. The word is ubiquitous, a form of male bonding and the last thing that anyone would take offence to.

Predictably, the media denounced it as "un-Australian", which is the most damning indictment you could possibly use here; the Prime Minister, no less, said it was absurd and looked disgusted; and mate-ship was resumed at the security desks within 24 hours.

The other item has a less happy ending. Further north, in Queensland, the state that is home to all things crawly and poisonous and vicious, a husband and wife were fishing from a boat in one of their favourite water-holes when he was taken by a crocodile. She made it to the shore and raised the alarm but there was no sign of her husband. That's horrific, but what was interesting was the reaction.

It's been illegal to shot wild crocodiles since 1972 and there were calls for culling to be restarted. I thought this was ridiculous. There are parts of this wonderful country where very wild animals live and humans really shouldn't venture, unless, to put it bluntly, they want to become part of the food chain. If you do venture into that territory, then I reckon you go at your own risk.

And that is exactly what the man's widow said. She objected to the shooting of the crocodile thought to have taken her husband and said no others should be killed. That was not what her husband would have wanted, she said. Clearly a woman of some character.