12 August 2005

PM statues proposed

| Kerces
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Jon Stanhope wants to commemorate Australia’s former Prime Ministers with statues, starting with Robert Menzies and John Curtin.

In his press release he says the idea came about during a meeting with Mr Menzies’s daughter Heather Henderson and that Mr Menzies is an ideal choice for a statue because of his dedication to Canberra (and also he didn’t want a suburb named after him).

“Sir Robert Menzies had a deep and sustained commitment to the development of Canberra as a national capital and his legacy is one of which all Australians can be proud,” Mr Stanhope said. “Of all Australia’s prime ministers, he was the most dedicated to this city and the most conscious of its importance. He made the Lodge his family home between 1939 and 1941, during his first period as prime minister, and again for an unbroken 16 years from 1949 to 1966. Both he and Dame Pattie Menzies were deeply attached to Canberra, Dame Pattie even returning to the capital for the last years of her life, during the 1990s.”

Mr Stanhope also notes that many other countries have monuments and statues to great leaders, including Washington’s Jefferson and Lincoln memorials and London’s statues of Richard the Lionheart, St George and the Duke of Wellington (although perhaps the press release writer should have mentioned Cromwell and Churchill as statuary recipients in London, rather than Richard the Lionheart and St George since the former two were actually PMs).

To balance a Menzies statue out nicely, one of John Curtin has also been proposed, although the reason given is that he was also a wartime leader, not that he’s a Labor fellow.

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Maybe we could have a statue of John Howard in Garema PL, enabling folk to spit on it, stick their chewing gum on it, spray paint it swastika’s on it, throw bottles at it, plaster flyers to it etc. Tourists (if utterly boggered and could be bothered coming to canberra) would have something exciting to come and see. The ever changing state of the statue of Hitler Howard. Maybe even get their photo taken infront of it.

A statue of Hayley Jensen…my god are you smoking something I don’t know about ?

And after a statue of King Stanhope, how about one of Hayley Jensen?

not to mention fodder for the anu annual scav hunt
K

I’m all for this; get a statue of every prime minister in and around the ACT and it will be every drunken yahoo’s ambition to collect a full set of PM Heads.

I know I’d be playing.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart1:02 pm 12 Aug 05

Hollow statues would be perfect for the comrade’s head…I doubt that he even bothers to put rocks in it.

Thumper, if you can get those comrade pullstring dolls produced, I’ll buy twenty of them.

I’m suprised he hasn’t demanded that 2CC stop using the comrade soundbytes in their 30 years of broadcasting promos. “I knew there was a serious fire…you know, I made a mistake.” (Words not exact)

Samuel

I do hope these will be funded by the Feds – with artsACT funding the statues may be no larger than the average garden gnome. Hollow, too.
Come to think of it…

Samuel Gordon-Stewart12:16 pm 12 Aug 05

The comrade statue would have to look angry…paint it red or something, it would probably be best if it looked like he was in angry grave concern mode.

We could have a Howard statue too, might have to make it larger than life so people don’t trip on it.

There could be a range of Stanhope action toys as well, stripped down to the undies and ready to leap from a toy helicopter (sold seperately).

for the Comrade, I suggest a statue at the bottom of LBG, alongside the real deal.

I propose that we get twin statues of the Comrade and place them on the corner of Northbourne and Mouat. They can welcome visitors to our Principality and show them just how important and loved Stanhope is by his serfs.

I demand that the first statue be of the beloved Comrade himself. Larger than lifesize, natch.

You forgetting the one outside the building where you used to work Thumper ?

Ahh how quickly you forgot us.

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