When I was a boy of about fourteen I remember asking my Dad if I could go to see Johnny Young’s Young Talent Time show down at the Westfield. He stopped to think for a moment, shook his head, and then sat me down at the kitchen table where all important talks took place. After Dad made us both a cup of cordial (red for me, green for him) we had a man-to-man.

“Son,” he said, “popular music is not quite what it seems to your young and innocent eyes.”

“How’s that, Dad?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, rock and roll is …” he trailed off and paused to gather his thoughts. “Rock and roll is the devil in the form of sound.”

“The devil!” I exclaimed, shocked. “Tell me it isn’t so!”

“Sadly, it’s true, son,” he said, giving me a big hug for safety.

“Do you mean to say, Dad,” I started to ask, close to tears, “that the devil might get inside me if I listen to popular music?”

“Not all of it, son,” he said confidently, “but a lot of it.”

By now I was terrified that my weekly tradition of watching Johnny Young might have been putting me at risk of being taken over by the devil. “Dad, please,” I wailed, “is Young Talent Time safe?

Having been asked this question, so terribly important to his son’s faith and self-image, my father closed his eyes and thought long and hard. Finally he opened his eyes and solemnly answered, “No.”

“Why not?” I managed to sob through the tears.

“Because of the girls,” said Dad.

“The girls,” I repeated, confused. “But I don’t care about the girls. The boys have much nicer voices.”

“You will one day very soon, son. And that’s when the devil gets involved.”

Ever since that day I have striven to protect me and my family from rock and roll music. My sacrifice began at the moment of the missed Young Talent Time concert and it continues to this day as we watch the TV on mute at home so as not to be caught unawares by the incidental soundtrack, Susan reading the closed captions aloud when they start to flash up too fast. The only exception has been dear Johnny Farnham who was one of my Dad’s favourites and who Dad assured me certainly didn’t have the devil in him, “Even if it looks like he’s eaten the Devil and the Devil’s pantry!” laughed Dad.

But the Devil’s rock and roll is very serious and not a laughing matter. The recent deaths of young Australians installing the government’s insulation have been used for political footballs for too long and it’s time to end the game and place the blame fairly and squarely where it belongs: rock and roll music.

The minister responsible for this debacle, Peter Garrett, is, as we all know, an ex-rock and roll singer from the band Midnight Vultures. For many years the Godless Garrett lived a Godless lifestyle of sex, drugs and loud music. If anyone is in any doubt as to whether Garrett was possessed by the Devil they need only watch a clip of him “dancing” on the Internet (sound turned down, of course) — that is not the dance of a man possessed by God. For years Peter Garrett made rock and roll music that rolled out the red carpet from Hell, through the speakers of boom boxes, and into the bedrooms of Australia’s impressionable youth. An evil, evil man.

And then Garrett, obviously responding to the Devil’s suggestion that he try to branch out so more people could get possessed, became a politician. To this job, instead of bringing the purity that we genuine politicians bring, he brought with him his Godless lifestyle and evil intentions. Putting on a suit doesn’t automatically give you values and morals and intelligence and respectability. The Devil was in Canberra.

So, Peter Garrett rode the bourbon train directly to Canberra, rock and roll heroin needles hanging out of his arm, and brought disgrace to the honourable calling of democratic representation by treating the people of Australia as his roadies, subjecting them to terrible working conditions without a ounce of care. Rock and roll music killed those poor tradesmen; you can take the devil music out of the boy but you can’t take the boy out of the devil music.

If Kevin Rudd is truly a God-fearing man then he will excommunicate Peter Garrett from Parliament immediately, and if Kevin Rudd won’t do it then the Australian voters should at this year’s election. Rock and roll music has killed already and it will kill again. The nation has been warned.

Until next time.