The ancient story is told of Tarquinius, the last of the seven legendary Kings of Rome.
When the pagan goddess Sibyl offered to sell Tarquinius the nine books containing all the world’s wisdom for a high price, Tarquinius refused.
Sibyl then promptly burnt three of the books in front of Tarquinius and offered to sell the remaining six books for the same price.
Refusing to bow to Sibyl’s demands, Tarquinius once again said ‘no’, so Sibyl promptly burnt another three of the books.
Rather than be left with no wisdom to guide him, Tarquinius relented and paid the full price for the remaining three books.
As we know, there are those who continually reject what is on offer and end up with nothing – Palestinian leaders, some Aboriginal groups, the Greens in 2009.
There’s an old business principle that says you can’t grow a business out of trouble – I know, I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. If a business is in trouble, you have to shrink to viability and re-grow from there. You salvage what you can and build up from there. But you do need something to work with. No books, no wisdom, no future.
As we await the results of the Senate election and survey the battleground, what can we salvage? What are the three remaining books of wisdom we can draw on to re-build?
First, as we said last week, ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’. The world is polarising like never before. It was once the case that each side would acknowledge that the other side wanted the same outcome, it was only the means of getting there that was debatable.
A good example of this was an initiative called ‘Common Ground’, a housing-the-homeless program.
I was invited to the 2006 Adelaide launch of Common Ground which was initiated by then ‘Thinker in Residence’ Rosanne Haggerty and chaired by Social Inclusion Board Member Monsignor David Cappo.
I argued that the solution to the emerging housing crisis – it is a lot worse now than it was then – was releasing more cheap land on the urban fringe and building low-cost, low-density housing. Yes, there were some downsides – public transport infrastructure etc, but at least it’s a start. Low-income people – even those on unemployment benefits – would be able to own their own homes meeting Common Ground’s central aim – ‘housing first’.
Others at the meeting, however, said that government-sponsored, higher density social housing in and near the CBD was the solution.
They didn’t take up my suggestion, but no-one doubted the others’ motives. I didn’t question their genuine attempts to solve the problem and they didn’t question mine. (I still think I’m right but that’s another matter, see ‘Going … Going … Almost Gone’.)
Today, however, if you disagree with the other side’s solution, it means you either don’t care about the problem, or worse, you are complicit. You are part of the problem.
The centre is disappearing. Public policy is becoming like a gym barbell with weights on each end and a long bar between them.
There’s an old Yiddish proverb, “If God lived on earth, we would break his windows”.
It means people would be offended by their Creator’s presence among them. His actual presence would not, as you might imagine, cause them to repent and obey. Human beings might be capable of great charity but they’re also capable of great malevolence.
There’s another saying, “Where’s there’s light, there’s bugs”.
It seems you can’t have one without the other.
UK writer Hugh Rifkind once referred to politics as the only kind of fame which, once it’s over, is a relief. It’s the only form of fame that isn’t accompanied by adulation, he posited.
The most conspicuous feature of this election was the presence of the powerful ‘Baptists & Bootleggers’ phenomenon.
A number of years ago I was building a house at Magill in Adelaide’s east when one of our bricklayers arrived on site with his bull terrier dog. Bricklayers always preferred bull terriers as pets because if a brick accidently fell on the dog’s head, the dog didn’t feel it and in fact thought it was a game and waited for more bricks to be dropped.
This incident came back to me last Saturday afternoon when I was asked to look after a voter’s bull terrier dog while its owner went in to vote at the Munno Para early voting centre in Adelaide’s north. Long-standing Family Party member and volunteer Roger Potger snapped the accompanying photo and dubbed it ‘Dog Day Afternoon’.
There’s a scene in the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ where the sergeant yells to one of his soldiers, ‘Get in the truck and drive!’ ‘But I’ve been shot’, the soldier replies. ‘We’ve all been shot, now get in and drive’.
A political candidate was asked where he stood on the issue of duck shooting.
At the recent State election we drew box J, the 10th letter of the alphabet. Readers may recall the reference to the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet ‘Yud’ in a recent 
Consider for a moment the humble postage stamp. Its usefulness lies in its ability to stick to one thing until it gets to where it has to go.
As most members would know, last year the major parties increased the minimum number of members a party needs in order to gain federal registration from 500 to 1,500 – a threefold increase (what did Adam Smith say about ‘industry incumbents banding together to keep out new entrants’?) This ruled out the Australian Family Party running in the forthcoming Federal election.
In the aftermath of the election, it looks likely that Labor will govern with an absolute majority of at least 7 seats in the House of Assembly and will gain an extra seat in the 22-seat Legislative Council, taking its tally to 9, the Liberals 8, Greens 2, SA Best (who were not up for re-election) 2, and One Nation 1. The government should have little trouble getting its agenda through the parliament with that composition.
In his excellent book Blink! Malcolm Gladwell describes how it is possible to weigh up situations in the ‘blink’ of an eye.
Voters can choose whether to vote above or below the line – but not both. Voters can also choose whether to number just one box above the line, all 19 boxes above the line or any number in between. If voting below the line, a voter must number a minimum of 12 boxes.