Last week I spent a couple of days sitting in a lighthouse in the middle of Gulf St Vincent contemplating the world and trying to make sense of the here and now. Troubridge Island is a South Australian treasure, known by few people and experienced by even fewer. Home to approximately 5,000 migratory birds, the occasional sea lion and ’Bob’ the resident ghost, you can walk the entire sand island in 15 minutes at high tide, providing a sense of being cast away and opportunity for aloneness with your thoughts.

Sitting on a bank of seaweed watching the tide ebb and flow I had an epiphany of sorts when a ladybird landed on my arm. It wasn’t how did this tiny creature make this journey so far out to sea but, are all ladybirds in fact female? Not particularly confounding I agree, but it did bring visions of carousel rides and the recent circus that is our State parliament.

There has been a lot of discussion in the media recently about the driving record of a certain ex-taxi driver, now Member of Parliament, and the suitability of his appointment as minister responsible for road safety. This has caused me to reflect on my own experience behind the wheel as both a driver, and driving instructor for many years in the 1980’s.

I remember the first time my son got behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, he was 6, and rolled the car he was driving on top of us both. We were on a dodgem car down at Glenelg when Magic Mountain was still a brown blurtle on the coastal landscape. We were enjoying a Sunday morning cruise when the son of a psychopath lined us up and ploughed into us knocking us both out of the car. Psycho Dad thought it was a hell of a joke and as I lay on the cold steel floor, upturned dodgem atop me, I remember hearing "ahh I’m gonna die, I’m gonna get run’did over, I’m gonna get elecrtissified", and my son was pretty worried too! Pretty soon there were 19 ambulances, 14 police cars, a whole flotilla of sea rescue boats, TV reporters, fire engines, Thomas the Tank Engine and, the Fat Controller - all there, to gawk at our misadventure.

It’s been a bit like that, watching the Tom Koutsantonis train wreck unfurl in slow motion, which clearly hasn’t finished grinding to a halt yet. Moreover, it has now been revealed that all but 2 of the 27 Government and Opposition ministers have at least one traffic fine on their record and have broken the very laws they preside over at least 130 times!

I felt safe on Troubridge knowing there were no politicians driving the roads, or the economy of the island. But you have to ask yourself, and I did, is this as good as it gets or do we get the politicians we deserve because of political apathy? Solution - claim independence of Troubridge Island from the state of South Australia and the nation of Australia, and declare it a Province with real representative government, and if that doesn’t garner support, perhaps the idea of a working penal colony for errant politicians may.

Gary Hatwell Executive Chairman