Welcome to Matt Brown the new Minister for Housing

DH is so disgusted by the spectacle of hundreds and thousands of Aussies falling over themselves to cast the first stone in Howard's Brave New Australia, or what she would like to call Staussieland, that she has decided to withdraw her earlier ungenerous and carping comments about Matt Brown, the new housing minister, and give they man a fair go in what has to be an incredibly difficult portfolio.

She apologises for allowing herself to succumb to the miserable, malicious, dog-eat-dog zeitgeist engendered by 10 years of Howard and Co's merciless trashing of this nation's store of trust and goodwill, in which families are not given enough money to survive in the name of a chimerical economy, and are shamed and branded when they try to bend the rules to pay the bills, put food on the table, and get the kid's teeth fixed. Oh yes, above board, the national accounts look balanced, but under the table, the poor are paying bigtime, and this time there are no colonies left to dump 'em in. Although there is always Christmas Island, Woomera, Villawood, etc which might make handy holding tanks.

But to get back on track to Matt Brown, in his maiden speech he states that he "wants above all to make life a dignified experience, with values of fairness, justice and compassion the prime motivators rather than hatred, greed and the attitude that, "If I’m all right, then who cares?"

All power to him to succeed in his mission. God knows this nation is bleeding for it.