Elizabeth Johnston, “The Progress Party has rhyme on its side,”
The Australian, April 17, 1979, p. 3.

Australia’s first official political party poet laureate, Mr Ken Hood, thinks politicians might get a better hearing if they burst into verse instead of campaign speeches.

Mr Hood, a Brisbane taxidriver, has been quoting Henry Lawson at length for years to his customers.

Between fares he dashes off doggerel on a variety of subjects from tattoos to taxes.

Yesterday the Progress Party in Queensland appointed him its official poet laureate and released a six verse “Ode To A Fat Cat” to celebrate the occasion.

Mr Hood said the party was the first to use poetry as a campaign weapon but it would not be the last.

“Anyone who has had to sit in front of a preacher or a politician sounding off at length will realise that the head starts to nod after a while,” he said. “But the metre of poetry can keep the eyes open and the head upright. It isn’t a bad way of getting the message across.

“You get everything else in your letterbox in political campaigns these days so why not poetry? I’m sure poetry readings by politicians would be a lot more interesting than listening to parliamentary broadcasts the way they are now.”

Mr Hood’s previous poetic successes have been limited to his cab renditions of Lawson and a published poem in People magazine on tattoos.

His appointment as the Progress Party’s poet follows some readings during a lull at the last general meeting. The party members liked them and decided to make them official.

So far the Progress Party, with 300 members in Queensland, has had little success. Its biggest win to date was gaining two seats in the recent local government elections.

The party’s national secretary, Mr Viv Forbes, said yesterday he hoped the move into poetry might penetrate the great Australian apathy, particularly about the growth of government.

With almost one in three of the workforce working for the government Ken Hood’s “Ode to a Fat Cat” seems a good place to start:

So you’re working for the Government.
Well, sir, I wish you well
In your voyage of discoverment
In a civil service cell.
But I’d live digging ditches
On the plains of Tel Aviv
Before I’d shine my britches
As a bureaucratic spiv.

Sure, the title “public servant”
Is a glider made of lead,
For the public is observant
It’s the fat cat who’s the head.
We don’t hire ’em, we can’t fire ’em,
Like the poor, they’re always nigh.
They’re a servant proud as Hiram,
And they bleed their “master” dry.

Yes, I know you’re but a small spoke
In the bureaucratic wheel.
The machin’ry needs the small bloke
To keep the thing on keel.
You are to the government jugger
What the pitch was to the ark —
Or, to use a better plugger,
As the pilot to the shark.

“But I have to live,” you splutter,
“I must have work to do.”
It’s a common truth you utter
And the fat cat has to, too.
But you’d both find more enjoyment
And be better occupied
In some honest, just employment
With the public on your side.

What of all the great and glad things
That the State provideth free?
They’re about as free, you made things,
As a rock from Tiffany.
If a thing needs doing, turn it
To some private firm to do
They will make their pay, and earn it,
And you’ll find it cheaper, too.

It’s a monstrous piece of folly
That which each turn of the screw,
The Government grabs more lolly
Just to tell us what to do.
While freedom withers yearly
At the whim of bureaucrats
We sure are paying dearly
Just to feed our old fat cats.

*****

Editorial, “Performing politics,”
The Australian, April 17, 1979, p. 6.

It is not often that the Progress Party — a little-supported and rarely-publicised political organisation — rates an accolade. But today we happily award it one for its contribution to the performing arts and the humanisation of politics. As our story tells, the Progress Party has just appointed a poet laureate — a must for any party machine in these days of humdrum, humourless politics, economic uncertainty and Budgetary strife.

Mr Ken Hood, the poet in question, has selected “Ode to a Fat Cat” as his first contribution to the political debate. The growing power of the public service and its runaway cost are subjects about which The Australian has had plenty to say in the past; not much of it complimentary. Perhaps the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, will gain inspiration from the ode as he ponders how best to make further cuts in departmental spending in the August Budget. It would be a shame if no good came from such a novel political development.

Further reading for Economics.org.au readers
L.W. Lower, “Why Not Jazz Up Elections?,” The Australian Women’s Weekly, October 23, 1937, p. 13.