By Situation Theatre 16/4/2019
One of the world’s greatest architectural treasures may not survive. One of the world’s greatest political abominations may not die.
Australians have been shocked by footage of a massive fire engulfing a gothic institution known for its many gargoyles and then deeply saddened to find out the victim is a beautiful Parisian landmark rather than the Liberal Party.
John Howard famously described his party as a broad church that married the conservative tradition of Irish writer Edmund Burke with the liberalism of John Stuart Mill, yet another example of Howard’s hypocrisy on the issue of gay marriage.
So when voters heard this morning that on the eve of a federal election a broad church was burning, they got excited. Devastatingly, while Parisian observers say there is “no hope for the building”, somehow there is some hope for the Liberals at the next election.
By way of history, though the French cathedral was pillaged during the French Revolution of the 1790s, the Australian conservative party has never undergone such improvements.
There is also a stark contrast between the accidental destruction of invaluable heritage in Paris and the purposeful destruction of invaluable heritage by the Liberal Party.