Australia Day come and gone. I had a ‘gig’ at Terang, a beautiful city in Victoria’s Western district.

People of all kinds sang. The band played. The flag was raised. Local high achievers were presented with awards.

I made a speech. I joined a whole gang of people spread across the State speaking about “Australian values” and congratulating the locals for enshrining those values in their local community’s life and work.

It’s a good day out for me. Three hours there, three hours back, driving myself. Alone at last! Time to listen to music. Time to let the eyes feed off distance. Inner city eyes are horizon starved. Humans need to know there’s something out there bigger than themselves – and it’s friendly.

So, I’m back now. I’ve had a satisfying feed of good old Aussie values. Can’t remember what was on the menu. But, I feel good, so it must have been good for me.

Maybe Aussie values need to be EXPERIENCED more and talked about less. I think that’s what I liked about Terang. Felt good.

That’s what I’d like to feel about every place I visit. I can help make it happen or help prevent it not happening here where I live and work in South Melbourne.

People are entitled to feel at home wherever they lob. That’s the great human global ethic. Feel at home and make others feel at home.

Hospitality is the go, global hospitality, but that starts with LOCAL and local starts with me, personally.

Key performance indicators can be applied to local. Local toxins can be identified and dealt with.

I mean, down the road from me there’s lots of vacant land. God knows who owns/manages it. (Maybe God does!)

They want to open a 24/7 drinking, singing and dancing place there. Good luck to them BUT they should have to compensate the neighbourhood for the toxic waste, the flashy hedonism that will be in the ‘locals’ face.

Give them permission, provided they help create a 24/7 drop in centre for local public housing people in the spot best for locals, with facilities chosen by locals.

That’s what I’m all about, by the way, and why I’ve founded my own Foundation to ensure projects, like the 24/7 drop in centre, get a chance, at least, to see the light of day.

Blokes like me, pains in the ass, have been around Catholicism from year one.

Below is the obituary of one of my earliest mentor “pains in the ass”, Abbe Pierre of Paris.

ABBE PIERRE
Priest
5.8.1912 – 22.1.2007

France’s equivalent of Mother Teresa, a priest known as Abbe Pierre who was a member of the French Resistance during World War II and who became famous for his campaign against homelessness, will be buried with national honours after his death yesterday at 94.

Abbe Pierre’s death was announced by President Jacques Chirac who said France had lost “an immense figure, a conscience, a man who personified goodness”, RTE Ireland reports.

AdKronos International adds that tributes from across the political and religious spectrum poured in on Monday for the controversial veteran French campaigner for the homeless and downtrodden.

Born in 1912, the fifth child of a Lyon silk merchant, Henri-Antoine Groues gave up his family wealth to become a monk.

He took the nickname Abbe Pierre during World War II when he was a resistance chaplain and forged ID papers to smuggle Jewish refugees out of France.

He founded his first Emmaus community in 1949, an anti-poverty, self-help project where homeless people could collect, repair and resell second-hand furniture.

In the icy winter of 1953-54, he set up soup kitchens and persuaded authorities to open Metro stations for thousands of homeless people who risked freezing to death.

His actions that winter made him a household name.

In a 2005 book, Abbe Pierre admitted that he had broken his vow of celibacy “on rare occasions” and called for married and female priests in the Catholic Church.

“We have lost an immense figure, who showed the boundlessness of the human heart. France will not be the same without him,” President Chirac said in a statement.

Paris mosque rector Dalil Boubakeur expressing “deep respect” described Abbe Pierre as “a man of God who was devoted to defending the humble.”

“We join the national mourning for a great voice who so strongly expressed the revolt of the world’s poor,” Boubakeur added.

Paris’s Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, described the priest as “one of the giants of contemporary France.”

“His message and his legacy compels us to put the fight against homelessness at the heart of society, Delanoe added.

Homelessness has in recent months become a pressing issue in France, brought into stark focus by the protests of the “sans papier” or immigrants without documents, many of whom are homeless and who have occupied offices and public building to protest their plight.

In 2004, Abbe Pierre was named the most popular person in France in a poll conducted for the weekly Journal du Dimanche.

He campaigned tirelessly against homelessness for decades but in 1992, he turned down a Legion of Honour medal to protest at the government’s refusal to make empty flats available to the homeless.