Tuning the forks of the current slate of Australian endeavour, the classic ring of asking questions behind and around closed doors in full public view. Making no less than a course from a trilogy; a black hole, a dead soul and a dust bowl.
Beaconsfield miners Brant Webb and Todd Russell, down a hole for a fortnight - or two weeks for the more Americanised synapses - and up again with an inquiry into the collapse and a lucratively taxed round of talks to exclusivity. Chasing the dirty white rabbit down the mining hole, the truth will be found at least four months away from now.
Dropping through the end of a scandalous $90 million meal into a hole of another, a wheat contract between Iraq and Australia. Currently churning through the mills with an inquiry of its own, there's hope for salvation in the deal. Contracts, lines of phrase and the glimmer of cleaner hands making for the light at the end of the tunnel of love, indubitably.
Chasing the dead and keeping an eye on the pea underneath the shells appears to be the new game of the military and the coroners. Private Jacob Kovco, mysteriously shot by his own gun and still without solid confirmation on the trigger finger pulls a might round to outshine all. Misplacing the body, left back in Kuwait, Private Kovco's wandering corpse triggered an inquiry. Boredom at Melbourne Airport saw that report emulate the spirit of the body bag to end up as fodder in the grimy hands of radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch.
Now, a report on the inquiry into the inquiry of the initial bungle will make this shell game the one to place bets on.
Written on Tuesday, 23 May 2006