By Darryl Mason
Tony "What? No Com Car?" Abbott takes time out from his busy schedule of political irrelevancy, charity work and visiting sick friends to complain about the youth of today.
It reads very much like the kind of "Another Complaining Old Geezer" letter to the editor I used to toss aside, daily, when I worked at a suburban newspaper. Tony Abbott, however, gets his Cranky Old Bugger ramblings published as 'opinion' in the Daily Telegraph :
There was a constant flow of boys and girls up and down the train, most smoking, some drinking, and nearly all using language that would make a brickie blush.
Tony doesn't get out much, these days.
It is, of course, illegal to smoke or to drink alcohol on a train.
One young man even attempted to urinate in the carriage.
Drinking, smoking, swearing and attempted urination.....Tony Abbott doesn't spend much time at night on public transport, does he? Has he never been on a late night train and heard someone down the other end of the carriage shout, "Bloody Hell! Throw me some newspaper down here, can you mate?"
If the transport police had put the first person who lit a cigarette or who swigged from a bottle off the train, there would not have been a problem. The police, though, were all on the platforms where there was no trouble, not on the train where the behavior approximated to a very rough pub at closing time.
The outnumbered police were showing how smart they are, or perhaps they saw the wide-eyed Tony Abbott trembling in that train carriage and thought, 'You know what? Let's stay here, this could be interesting....'
I wonder if any of the drunk kids shouted at the former health minister, "Fuck You, Grandpa!""If there’d been a police squad on the train and arrests had been made, people would have been let off with a caution at most.
Alcohol-related violence in Melbourne right now is terrible, it's almost back to 1950s' levels. But Tony Abbott sounds terrifically like a right sour old git. It's his best work yet.
And Abbott's hilarious ruminations on how kids today are ruining society also show why politicians don't like to spend too much time on public transport. They come across the Real People and it freaks them out.
