JW and Rob Oakeshott

My favourite JW has just come by to give me a leaflet on this weekend's convention at the Rod Laver Arena.

The theme: How Can You Draw Close to God?

Definitely relevant and timely, especially for seekers and backsliders.

Jennifer tells me there's going to be a full-costume Bible drama on Sun afternoon, which should be fun for the kids.

"Where's your little one by the way? It's very quiet today," she observed.

There you have it - the reason I keep opening my door to JW, even if I've no wish to be drawn into a discussion or debate on whose version of The Truth is more accurate. They are certainly the only professing Christians who put themselves out there regularly, and I admire them for it.

On Election 2010, I just read an interesting offering by independent Rob Oakeshott, who is one of the individuals with the unenviable privilege of being courted by the major parties and whose vote could help form a working government in the next few weeks.

His suggestion is for a multi-party government, with (possibly) Kevin Rudd reporting to Tony Abbott, and Malcolm Turnbull serving under Julia Gillard.

How original is that! I hope all good-intentioned pollies give RO a hearing. It's time to put aside political prejudices, take a serious look at the strengths of available leaders and restore the interests of all Australians to the top of the agenda where they rightly belong. All this party bickering and finger pointing is laughable; it reminds me of squabbles between children - "It's mine." "No it's not, give it back!" "That's not nice!" "M-u-m!!"

For that reason, I think Julia Gillard has demonstrated great leadership by barring Mark Arbib from taking part in ABC's Q&A show. I haven't followed his political career, but received wisdom has it that he is one of the factional power brokers that staged the Rudd coup. In other words, he helped install Julia, and the suggestion is she is beholden to him, so it's interesting she's now turning the tables on him. For the past 2 months, she's been living in the shadow of Rudd's demise. Even though she's been holding it together pretty well with all her Moving Australia Forward exhortations, she can't be immune to the suspicion and negativity, and I don't think I'm the only one who feels she came into power the wrong way. It's refreshing to see her doing something Prime Ministerial for once.

The gardening guy's mum is (still) in hospital with shingles. She's been in there for 3 weeks, has endured a heart attack, and is being moved to another ward. I pray for her and the whole family, that she recovers from this ordeal and her family get to be with her for as long as is good for all of them.

And speaking of gardening, Melbourne has eased its water restrictions for the first time in 4 years. That's pretty much the length of time we've been in Aus. Now we can water our gardens and wash our cars when we wish. Not that I'll be hurrying to do either!