Columnist HUGH SELBY again finds his political imagination eavesdropping: he’s observing the Civic meeting room of the Officers of the Perpetual Opposition, where its members have gathered for morning tea and sticky buns.

The takeaway coffees are steaming and that good coffee smell wafts around the room. On the walls of the meeting room of the Officers of the Perpetual Opposition are pictures of past leaders.

There’s Trevor Kaine, Kate Carnell and Gary Humphries, the last has a vicious slash mark that seems to run down his back.

Then there are the ones that failed to make Chief Minister: Brendan, Bill, Jeremy, Elizabeth and, most interestingly, a Zorro-like Zed that sits atop a small, flickering shrine.

It’s been 24 years since they held power, that’s longer than the Liberals hold on Federal power from 1949 to 1972, the baby boomers’ growing up time.

But there’s a significant difference between our Perpetual Opposition and the image projected by Gough Whitlam in the lead up to the “It’s time” election of 1972. Gough’s Labor was energised, bubbling with policy ideas, making a claim to lead.

For Our Perpetual Opposition the only light is coming intermittently from Zed’s shrine. The terms “traction”, “engagement”, “relevance”, “drive” are neither heard nor seen. 

The rumours at the last federal election were that they had to bus in party faithful from NSW to get adequate polling booth coverage. It would be nice to know that next month they will have no such problem. Nice because a vibrant opposition is vital to a democracy in which policies are debated and assessed on their merits.

Hard work is an alien concept to the bun munchers

It’s not as if our city state is so well governed that there is no need for such debate. How services are funded, an explicit statement of priorities for projects, along with implementation timelines, across health, education, housing and community services, and transport would be a useful start.

Extracting that information from the Forever Government requires some hard work, making the opposition members a team with specific tasks to achieve. Alas, work, especially hard work, is an alien concept to those munching on the buns.

The bottom line is “Why worry? Everything’s sweet enough”.

Barr by none (for as long as he chooses to stay) is on a tad under $400K, while the Perpetual Opposition leader is on $321K. 

For the $80K difference it’s not worth the chase for power. 

Who wants to worry about being taken apart in the media, blamed for this, that and the other? It’s so much more comfortable to be able to set a time for coffee and buns knowing that there’ll be no urgent, urgent, something to interrupt the sipping and chewing.

The ministers get the same pay as the Perpetual Opposition Leader and for that money they endure endless criticism and whining about the hospital, schools, pollution, corruption in corrections, that tram, even non-voter safety when crossing Canberra Avenue to get to and from non-government schools.

Base salary to have a comfortable office, staff to churn out the babble, and various perks is a whisker under $189K.

Who do you think is working harder, longer?

Nice money, guaranteed for four years until the next election. To lose it one has to do something terribly incorrect. For comparison, a registered nurse, also known as a clinical nurse, who has had a lot of training, delivers direct and comprehensive nursing care to a group of patients/clients, along with mentoring a range of more junior nursing staff and being involved in quality assurance will get around $2000 a week (when not doing shifts that attract extra money) which is a salary of $104K.

Here’s another comparison, looking at our high school teachers who have the challenging task of engaging young teenagers day after day, month after month. Teachers with experience will earn between $105K and $125K. For that money they will come home tired.

A top ACT school principal in a public school is paid $215K to manage staff, students, a budget, crises, and parents. That’s a gap of $106K to the leader of the Perpetual Opposition.

Avoiding the politics of envy

As between the two, who do you think is working harder, longer, is more stressed and is more accountable for what they do?

Careful, we must all avoid the politics of envy.

To give the Perpetual Opposition its due there might be a crafty method in their seeming indifference, albeit that it is taking much longer than anyone anticipated.

The plan, so rumour has it, is that they will wait for as long as it takes for the financial blight of Canberra to be so obvious to everyone that they will walk into government in a landslide and have the feds bail them out so that they start with a clean slate.

Come that ACT November election, be it in three, seven, or 11 years time, they will run on the slogan, “We’ll make Canberra great again”.

Jumping into the fray too early would be disastrous. They would be expected to fix the financial mess. That’s impossible, so they would be a one-term government. Best to wait until post-Barr Labor is on its deathbed and be assured of two terms.

More buns, anyone?

Author Hugh Selby is CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.

What about the lost revenue from the speed vans, you idiot?