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THE BALD, BLAIR FACTS
I hope, over the past couple of years that I have been back
at 3AW, that I have been transparent with listeners about
my thoughts and beliefs and opinions. And often you don’t
like them.
For the past couple of weeks I have had a moral problem.
It concerns the visit to Australia by Cherie Blair, wife of
the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
She is a very clever woman. A writer, a lawyer, a human rights
advocate. She has managed to handle a busy successful professional
life with her family life as a mother over forty.
As I said the other day she will appear in Perth, Adelaide,
Brisbane and Sydney and will be in Melbourne on Thursday night.
Kieran Perkins is the MC and there’ll be entertainment
from comedian Vince Sorrento.
The dinners are to raise money for a worthy charity. The
Children’s Cancer Institute Australia. The tickets are
$195 each and a generous Bruce Mathieson paid $2000 the other
day when I auctioned a table of ten for the charity. And I
said that I would be going to the function -- if my Dancing
With The Stars partner --
That’s the good news. And then I read, in a story out
of London, that perturbed me. Cherie Blair is being paid something
like $250,000 for her visit. It may be only $200,000. But
it makes me feel uneasy.
I have no qualms about Cherie Blair, or any other guest speaker,
getting a free airfare and a hotel suite and a car and meals
and other reasonable expenses.
But I baulk at a fee. Especially one that would choke a horse.
I have seen people wrap themselves in worthy charities in
the past and make personal money out of them. I know of famous
Australian actors being paid $20,000 to go to starving villages
in Africa, and cuddle malnourished scrawny children and plead
for your money.
On a personal note: Last year I went to Shepparton for a
Make A Wish Foundation fundraiser. I went in a hire car. I
paid for it myself. No big deal. A lot of sports [personalities
and celebrities would have done the same.
It’s called giving something back. The Cherie Blair
deal makes me feel uncomfortable. And I have had e-mails from
listeners who feel the same.
I’ve decided not to go. It’s the right thing
not to do.
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
©Copyright
Derryn Hinch 2005
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