Republican royalties

When we suggested here on 18 November that Liberals politicians, in particular the Federal Deputy Leader Ms. Julie Bishop, are unwise to go on preaching about some vague undefined republic, we illustrated this with Copenhagen statue of Bishop Absalon preaching with an axe.

Such is the perspicacity of this column, it seems our reference to the axe was more than accurate.

DD McNicoll reported the following in his popular column, Strewth, in The Australian on 21 November , 2008, “Not in so many words.”

“Peter van Onselen, whose book 'Liberals & Power: The Road Ahead' ( see this column 4 November) suffered some bad publicity when it was revealed that Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop had lifted sections of her contribution from a speech by a Kiwi businessman, hadn't seen or heard from Bishop, despite writing to her, since the scandal broke.

“That was until they met in the Sky television studios in Sydney yesterday morning. Initially they didn't know the other was there as Sky kept them in separate green rooms before their on-air appearances.

“Bishop was on first, and the final question to her was about her plagiarism in van Onselen's book. She brushed aside the question, saying she didn't want to give the book ‘any more free publicity’.

" The duo briefly came face to face as Bishop was being ushered off set and van Onselen on. He gave her a big grin and she scarcely nodded.

“ Later van Onselen told Strewth he was glad he hadn't taken things further, particularly after reading about how Bishop chased her sisters with an axe as a child. ‘I don't know if I'd like her idea of burying the hatchet,’ he says."

Incidentally, if Ms. Bishop did not write the chapter published under her name, part of which belongs to someone else, who will receive the author’s royalties?

Will she receive a debit from the publishers for refusing to give the book to which she agreed to contribute a chapter ‘any more free publicity’? 

After all, her photograph appears on the cover; most of the other authors did not.

We wonder who is named as the author of the 2008 Republican Lecture which Ms Bishop, the shadow Treasurer, delivered in the middle of the world financial crisis.