AN OPEN LETTER TO COMMISSIONER JAMES BEST

Dear James,

On behalf of those who see no good reason for you to be here, except perhaps as a paying guest in one of our fast disappearing hostelries, I wish you luck in your endeavours to bring the unruly inhabitants of York to heel and make the shire safe for Minister Tony Simpson and his probity junkies at the DLGC.

You’re going to need it.

I hear you’ve made an excellent start by approaching persons of consequence in our town and asking them to identify the brain behind this blog.   

You could ask me instead, but I wouldn’t be able to help you any more than they can.  I have no idea who that person is, but if I did know, I would be all set to nominate the lady or gentleman concerned as our next West Australian of the Year.

My informants—they’re everywhere, trust no-one!—say that the blog has made you, the Minister, your friend Mr Jolly, and assorted walking embodiments of Parkinson’s Law angry and upset. 

That’s terrible.  I hope my posts, which are always meant to comfort and enlighten, have in no way contributed to the sum of that distress.

My informants also tell me you have said the blog should be shut down, and alarmingly, that unless it is shut down, there is no prospect of the Minister ever restoring democracy in York by putting our elected councillors back in charge of the shire.

I hope my informants have got that wrong.   I find it hard to believe that a young fellow of your intelligence, experience and education could possibly have said any such thing. 

But just in case you did say it, or something like it, here’s why you shouldn’t have done:

1.                   This blog is your truest friend in York. What you’re reading on the blog is what people really think, not what they think you want to hear. Most of its contributors prefer to remain anonymous, perhaps because after the miseries of the last few years they don’t feel safe out in the open, but what they say, they mean.  There’s nothing so bracing as our old friend Vox Populi, and the less restrained, the better.

2.                   There is no logical connection between the existence of this blog and the restoration of democracy in York.  I’m sure you understand that, but I do rather worry about the Minister.

3.                   There’s this thing called freedom of speech that folk like me go on about from time to time.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  Craven politicians of every stripe don’t seem too keen on it. They pretend to like it, but pass laws against it.  It has its problems, but it’s been the guiding light of our civilization for hundreds of years. 

Free speech means among other things that you don’t shut people up just because you don’t like what they say about you or how they say it.  It’s a jolly good thing, and I commend it to you and Minister Simpson.  Ces jours-ci, nous sommes tous Charlie.

Instead of vainly dreaming about getting the blog shut down, wouldn’t it be a lot smarter and more satisfying to remove the reason people use it to say rude, disrespectful and uncharitable things about Minister Simpson, his department and—it grieves me to acknowledge this—even you?

My informants—there I go again—are convinced that your brief includes trying to persuade the people of York to forget the horrible things that happened during the past few years and to follow you joyfully towards the ‘broad, sunlit uplands’ of an idyllic rural future.

If that’s true, I hope the Minister provided you with the Pied Piper’s flute along with your sealed orders.  

The follies, crimes, and misdemeanours chronicled in the Fitz Gerald Report can’t simply be brushed aside as though nothing bad ever happened.  People want explanations.  Where it’s deserved, they want retribution.  They don’t care about preserving the careers and reputations of politicians and bureaucrats who let them down or maybe even connived at stuffing up their lives and the shire.  Why should they? They want individuals who allegedly ripped them off to be properly investigated and if the evidence stands up, to face trial in the criminal courts.

You could begin the process of healing by getting Minister Simpson to tell us exactly why he sacked our council and appointed you.  Then encourage him to set up an inquiry into matters raised in the Fitz Gerald Report.  I’m pretty sure that once all that got going, and people felt confident that justice was being done, and saw it being done, they would stop writing to this blog, or better still, would use it to write nice things about the Minister, his department—and you.

‘The governor asked, “What can I do to keep the common folk in line?”  Confucius replied: “Set good people over bad people, and the common folk will do what you want of them.  Set bad people over good people, and the common folk will give you bloody hell”.

Now, there’s something Confucius really did say!  (More or less.)

Sincerely,

Your admiring namesake,

James