Remembering the days of hecklers

I am old enough to remember the days when politicians addressed public meetings and how the great ones such as Robert Menzies thrived on dealing with the hecklers from the crowd. Alas these days politicians largely confine themselves to controlled appearances where they don’t have to confront anybody although clearly something went wrong this morning:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s address to students at the University of Queensland on climate change was disrupted by protesting students and no doubt it will be the ejection of one of them and the chanting by many others that will feature on tonight’s news. Her actual words, which she steadfastly kept on uttering during all the fuss, will be lucky to get an airing. Which probably does not matter much for she really didn’t have anything to say.