PAUL MC DERMOTT

Thankyou. All's fair in love and war. Well, lets just dissect the sentence now. What does fair mean? Well, it means just, honest, truthful, but it also means blonde. Light, fair, pale and pretty...and on stage today, the only person who fits that description is Lynn Ferguson. But, and correct me if I'm wrong here...I reckon that looks like a peroxide job! (Lynn - "I object!") In which case, ladies and gentlemen... that is a fake fair. And one day if you're making love to Lynn because she was fair, which is unfair because Lynn has a lot more attributes than fake fair hair...but, if you were making love to Lynn because she was fair, and you got down there, and she wasn't fair there, surely that'd be unfair.

Look, at them go down, look at the arguments go. All's fair in love and war? No. Love, love the feelings of warmth we have for each other. Universal care, understanding, war, violence, destruction...bordering on insanity, often provoked by politics, the senseless slaughter of innocence. Lets make a new sentence now using these concepts and see if it makes any sense...All's blonde in the feeling of warmth we have for each other and the senseless slaughter of innocence. No. All's pretty in the universal care bordering on insanity. Everything's flaxen in sexual expression, and killing it doesn't make sense...and it doesn't make sense because it's senseless.

Love and war are opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. They're like up and down, Ying and Yang, zig and zag...ooop, sorry Melbourne. Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I strayed there. Sorry about that. They will never be back together. So, lets look at them separately. War. War and unfairness are mutually dependant. Think about this. If wars were fair, no one would ever win them. War is based on the unequal distribution of power. So, the whole motivational force of war is unfairness. "They've got more guns than us, that's so unfair!"..."There's more of them then us, that's unfair!"..."Oh, they've got stealth bombers...didn't see it coming...that's unfair!"

War is as senseless as this sentence that we're debating today. We only have to witness the tragedy in the Balkans to understand that. When I see those images of Kosavo, it makes me wonder how on earth the Beach Boys ever wrote a song about that place. (sings) Christina and Belgrave, goin' to the border of Albania, Romania, come on pretty mum...here comes Nato, Get out quick but we're movin' slow...

I don't want to dwell on war today because, in the words of Micheal Jackson, "I'm a lover, not a fighter." The best way to understand love is from personal experience. I've never been very honest about my feelings, but perhaps in these little intimate tales of my life, you will begin to understand the unfairness of love. I love my grandmother, but she died. But she died in a very painful way. I remember her last words to me were..."Don't worry, it's not loaded." I love my mother as well. Loved her, but it was very difficult for us, because at an early age she said, "Unless you know the answer, don't ask the question." Very wise, but it made learning very difficult for me. And my father, I loved my father, but as Australian males you would know this, it's difficult to express your feelings. It's very difficult to say you love someone, and I remember my father once said...or tried to say that he loved me, but because of the tension, because of the nervousness, it came out sort of gargled. He turned to me and he said..."YOU BLOODY IDIOT! That's a bandsaw! It's not used for cutting your little sisters hair. Go put it back on the peg board in the garage...wherever it belongs, you stupid idiot!"...one of the most beautiful days of my life. I think that's about as close as dad and I ever got.

So, I learnt a little bit about love from my family, a little bit. But I didn't really understand love, or really know the complexity of love until I had a family of my own...and, it was then that I realise how BLOODY UNFAIR it could be. I mean, she ripped my heart out of my chest and poured a gallon of elephant spit into the cavity. She'd walk into bars crowded with my friends and say, "God I need a good root." Is that fair? No.

All is not fair in love and war ladies and gentlemen. All is not fair in love and war, and why should it be fair, when nothing else in life is fair? The conflict in Kosarvo fair? No. The deaths in Timor or Burma. Are they fair? The everyday battles all around the globe? The everyday squabbles that we have in our homes? Whale bone corsets, are they fair? Jeff Kennet, is he fair? Gherkins? The two dollar shop? Cancer? Prostate cancer? Trivial Pursuit? Pine funiture? Anal warts on the inside of your mouth? Is any of it fair?...yes, she did leave me one thing...Is anything in life fair? What about death? Is death fair? Yes, death's fair. That's why peope are always trying to cheat death. Because death is fair.

We can now be born into a test tube. We can be farted into existence from the back end of a cow, but when it's over ladies and gentlemen, it's over. Just like to leave you with these final thoughts...(Margaret rings the bell and Paul gives her the finger)...ring it again, and I'll break your little wrist...(Phil Kay runs over to Margaret and rings the bell again)...Just like to leave you with this final thought. The only people that ever talk about fairness are cheats. The only people who talk about peace are those at war...and the only people who talk about love are the ugly and the stupid. All is not fair in love and war.

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And I was very impressed with the opposition tonight, Rich Hall, starting out...then of course with a lot of talk about America and war, which is what they always do of course. Lynn making some very beautiful statements, and then of course there was Phil Kay, and I was feelin' bad cause I actually missed out on Woodstock. Anyway look, honestly I actually believe that over the course of the discussion, I would give it to the affirmative if I had a choice to make. Because I think they had the whole world to make their team up from. They got to choose from all over the world. We had a pissant tv quiz show.

Really, I think they've done better, and what we're going to do now is something that we do...we tend to do every time this happens, because as Australians we are constantly losing...so over the past five years of these debates, whenever it's got to this crux, what we have...always had some flashy gimmick that has entertained the audience, distracted them slightly from the debate topic, which is...unfair...but, it has managed to sway the audience to give us the debate every year when they vote for us. And, I know this is wrong ladies and gentlemen, but it is about love, and it is a battle. So, I think it's about time now that we, as Australians once again proudly cheat (lots of scantily clad cheerleaders run up onto the stage and Paul starts singing to the tune of Advance Australia Fair)

Australians all lets cheat againIt's the only way we'll winThe Scots and Yanks have been damn goodThey've covered everythingBut in this debate stand by your matesAustralians are unfairUnfair, unfair, unfair, unfair, unfair, unfair, unfair

Thankyou, thankyou ladies and gentlemen. In that wonderful spirit of Australian fairness, can you please make welcome to the stage...for his rebuttal...Rich Hall.