Origin of Species

TO DETERMINE national suitability to hold office in the Australian Parliament, should would-be politicians be compelled to submit to one of those DNA tests advertised on TV?

The current kafuffle concerning politicians’ “nationalities” caused me to recall a few lines from a poem in an old Queensland primary school reader, Love of Country, by Scottish poet/novelist Sir Walter Scott.

“Breathes there the man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

“This is my own, my native land!”

Born in Toowoomba and raised on the Darling Downs I haven’t researched my family tree in any depth; other than to satisfy my curiosity about a couple of ancestors (from various parts of Europe).

Here’s another thought; the concept of “nationality” played/plays a part in the recent/ongoing Brexit fiasco; even within Great (?) Britain “national” boundaries are observed by English, Scottish, Irish (North and South) and Welsh populations; not always with the good-natured (?) hyperbole that accompanies Cane-toad – Cockroach State of Origin contests.

Space does not permit exploration of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and other dissertations on hereditary hiccups; nor is that investigation likely to answer the child-like question, “Where do politicians come from?”

A lyric from not so long ago is worth consideration:

“We are one, but we are many

And from all the lands on earth we come

We share a dream and sing with one voice:

I am, You are, We are Australian”.

Let us (Ozzies) all sing from the same page and be Australian. — JOHN LARKIN, Toowoomba