Christmas story No. 1:
A local primary school was rehearsing its annual Christmas Nativity play.
Roles for all the usual parts – Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the angels … were all allocated – except for the role of the inn keeper.
The student scheduled to play the part of the innkeeper took ill, so the role fell to Henry.
Henry was a special needs student. He was a kind boy, big for his age and had a loud voice. And he so wanted to be in the play.
He rehearsed his lines, ‘There’s no room! Be gone!’ over and over.
On the night of the play, all was going to according to plan – until, that is, the scene where Joseph and Mary knock on the inn keeper’s door.
‘Do you have any rooms?’ Joseph asked.
‘There’s no room! Be gone!’ boomed Henry.
Joseph implored the inn keeper, ‘We have been travelling all day. My wife is expecting a baby at any time now and she is very tired’.
‘There’s no room! Be gone!’ he replied.
The school had chosen its best actors to play the parts of Joseph and Mary.
They paused, dejected, their faces looking despondent. As they turned and began to slowly walk away, tears began to well in Henry’s eyes …
‘Wait! Come back!’ he shouted, ‘you can stay in my room!’
Despite roars of laughter, the audience got the true message of Christmas that year.
Christmas story No. 2:
Attending primary school in the 1930s, my father told me of the time he returned to school after the Christmas holidays one year and the teacher asked all the students in the class what each of them had received for Christmas.
One by one, and with great delight, the children described the wonderful presents they had received.
Until, that is, it came to my dad’s friend Maurice.
“And what did you get for Christmas, Maurice?”, asked the teacher.
“I didn’t receive anything Miss”, Maurice replied solemnly.
“What, nothing?”, quizzed the teacher gently. “So, what did you do over Christmas?”, she asked.
“Well Miss, my family is Jewish, and my father has a toy shop, so every Christmas Day we go down to the shop and hold hands and look up at all the empty shelves and sing ‘What A Friend We Have in Jesus’.”
Thus began my father’s admiration of the Jewish people. Their creativity, their intelligence, their courage and, of course, their sense of humour.
In our Newsletters this year we have covered everything from Bondi to Beersheba, from Bob Hawke to Bob Dylan, from Donald Horne to Donald Trump, from Tom Cruise to Tom Playford, from Voltaire to Voltaic cells – and a whole lot more in between.
With so many highs and lows this year, how should we end the year?
SA State election
The forthcoming SA State election took a dramatic turn a fortnight ago with the resignation of Liberal Leader Vincent Tarzia and the election of Ashton Hurn.
As it happens, Ashton Hurn is my local member. She is highly regarded.
With the Liberals in disarray since being turfed out of office at the last election, SA’s Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas has had a dream run.
He has enjoyed extremely high personal approval ratings since becoming Premier in March 2022 with a May 2025 YouGov poll showing the Premier’s net satisfaction rating at +70, a phenomenal number. Labor’s two-party preferred was also a whopping 67–33!
Malinauskas has dominated the news cycle throughout the year with his ‘bread and circuses’ strategy of big-name events such as golf tournaments, beach volleyball competitions, motor sport carnivals and Katy Perry-type concerts.
Over recent months, however, a number of more substantial policy areas have begun to chip away at the Premier’s seemingly impenetrable veneer.
A toxic algal bloom has blighted the South Australian coastline, and his government is copping much of the blame for not acting when the bloom was first reported.
His key 2022 election promise to ‘fix ambulance ramping’ has not been fulfilled – in fact, ambulance ramping is worse now than it was in 2022.
His government’s green hydrogen debacle is projected to cost state taxpayers nearly $500 million.
State debt is climbing towards $50bn and South Australia, once considered the nation’s home-ownership capital, is now ranked the 2nd least affordable in Australia!
And he has introduced legislation into the South Australian parliament enshrining an Aboriginal Voice, despite the state voting overwhelmingly ‘No’ in the Voice referendum. Every electorate in South Australia voted ‘No’.
All of these add up and eventually reach a tipping point.
Which brings us back to new Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn, who now enjoys an underdog status that politicians can only dream of.
As with the Melbourne Cup, where we line up our best horses, put the heaviest weights on them and then cheer like mad when an outsider gets up and beats them, Australians – both the public and the media – love a David and Goliath, rags to riches, wooden spoon to premiership story.
It’s been said, ‘dog bites man’ isn’t a story. ‘Man bites dog’ is also no longer a story. But man dogged by bytes – now that’s the digital story of the year!
And superstar Malinauskas falling from dizzying heights and being beaten by first-termer Ashton Hurn … that would be a headline!
Ashton Hurn could be just the breakthrough the Liberal Party has needed.
Australian Family Party
With the State election just over 12 weeks away, if you are able to assist with our campaign as either a candidate, or a volunteer letterboxing, or on election day, please let us know.
Thank you.
I will close with this wonderful insight from Max Lucado:
If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been finance, God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness, so He sent us a Saviour.
To all our members and supporters, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and thank you again for your support throughout 2025.
In a much-quoted exchange, a pollster once asked an Australian voter the following question: “Going into this election, and thinking about the average voter, what would you say is the biggest problem facing Australia today – ignorance or apathy?”
Standing Guard