Department of Wildlife

SM, a friend from college days, draws my attention to this gem:

Australia's top treasury official is taking five weeks leave to look after endangered wombats.

Ken Henry, treasury secretary and animal conservationist, has warned that hairy-nosed wombats are "on death row".

But opposition politicians - and even wombat lovers - question if now is the time to be thinking about wombats.

Inflation is at a 16-year high, interest rates are up and fuel prices are rising. Mr Henry will also miss a central bank meeting.

Mr Henry will be looking after 115 hairy-nosed wombats in an isolated spot in northern Queensland, with no mobile phone coverage and two-and-a-half hours on a rough track from the nearest town.

"There are 10 times as many giant pandas in the world as there are these guys," said Mr Henry.

The opposition isn't sure this is a great idea even though, in what must be one of the lines of the year, Brendan Nelson acknowledges that "I think we all love the hairy-nosed wombat."

More details here. This strikes me as entirely admirable. Indeed, Mr Henry is setting an example other politicians public officials (edited, thanks Peter) should heed. Certainly politicians - and we - would be better off if they a) had interests outside politics and b) took longer holidays. Much longer. One suspects that Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling would appreciate five weeks off, looking after, say, the petrels and puffins on St Kilda.

Photo of a hairy-nosed Wombat by Flickr user Macinate. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Comments

[ben]

This may be the most endearing thing any politician has ever done.

To be utterly precise, this is the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat, "Lasiorhinus krefftii". It ranged across half of Australia a century ago, now it's confined to a few square kilometers in a National Park. A good treasury official knows the value of the irreplaceable.

[dearieme]

I await "Man bites wombat".

[Paul]

He's not a politician. He's a public servant.

[clarice]

Don't know why the wombat never caught on the way koalas and kangaroos have. It's much more adorable. My favorite Aussie animal.

Didn't know it was in such trouble. I wouldn't mind spending a couple weeks taking care of 'em. Good on Ken Henry.

[The Wombat]

I do believe he will be there for only 2 weeks. I was there in early 07 for 2 days. I hitched a ride with a cement truck to get there. It saved someone from coming in to get me.

It can't be a more basic camp. The toilet is either the back of the trailer or an outhouse. It is rough living especially in the summer heat.

I sent the following to the Sydney Daily Telegraph:

I was forwarded an article in the BBC News about Ken Henry, treasury secretary, taking off to go up to Epping NP to work on the restoration of the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat or Yaminon.

To be very honest, 'An editorial in the Daily Telegraph noted that "given half a chance, most of us would happily take several weeks off work to play with wombats in their native environment. But most of us aren't the Treasury Secretary." ' represents your total ignorance of what the camp in Epping NP is like.

I had the pleasure of getting out there for 2 days to help out and give Dr. Alan Horsup, the then administrator of the project, A$1000 to help with the project.

If you think living at the camp in ENP is a holiday, it is obvious none of the Daily Telegraph's staff have ever been within 1000 km of the place. I guess, living in a beat-up caravan with the toilet being an old dunny & bringing in your own food can be thought of as a 5-star resort.

It is easy to make fun from the comfort of your Sydney office, but I give the highest marks to Secretary Henry.

Maybe a few of your staffers should head off to the "resort" and give them a hand, tho the idea of some hard yakka may be foreign to them & you.