HUGH SELBY overhears Alf and Ernie, a couple of beachside retirees who can only agree on one thing – the inalienable right to disagree.

HONESTLY, to be honest with you, it was their appearance that first caught my attention. 

Any weekday morning, right after they finished their school-crossing stints, they’d be there, outside the café, sitting together at “their” weather-beaten table.

The effects of the sun and salt could be seen on them – they were T-shirt and shorts guys, pretty much year round. From toes to crown there were no tats, just aged muscle on display (in cracked whitish skin with purple patches), suggesting energy and competitiveness some time now long gone.

But it was the shock of turning the corner on the path to the café and being confronted by the sun-browned backs of two septuagenarian heads, one wholly bald save for a well-centred, long, grey rat tail, and the other shiny bald in the centre with a plaited wreath around the outside, reminiscent of a Roman head sculpture.

The rat tail and the wreath moved in time with the forcefulness of their opinions about the topics of the day, as though their vocal energy created air currents that floated the heads, the tail and the wreath, in the space around them. So weird but so fascinating that visitors had to listen in. 

“Who are they?” I asked the cheery barrista. 

“Alf and Ernie, mate, but not the identical twins you may have read about,” he said.

“These two retired here, one from the left side, the other from the right. There’s only one thing they can agree about and that’s the inalienable right to disagree.”

The ebb and flow of their talk was easily heard above the sound of the waves. It seemed likely that either or both had hearing problems and spoke as loudly as those café and public-transport patrons who have phone chats for the benefit of everyone in sight, as well as the unseen person on the other phone.

“You remember how Scomo took all those extra ministerial portfolios, secret like, but properly done by the GG?”

“Yes, what of it?”

“Well, they got the retired judge to have a look and report that it was bad form, bad for democracy, you remember that?”

“Course I remember it, so what?”

“Well, you ever heard of there being two ministers for the same thing at the same time?”

“No, get on with it.”

“So, it’s gotta be that when Scomo got the extra gigs each of those ministers was no longer the minister for whatever, cos he’d taken over.”

“And…”

“Anything signed by those ministers while he held their portfolio must be invalid. What’s more they were being paid as ministers when they weren’t ministers. So they have to repay the salary overpayments.”

“You’re being stupid. Are you suggesting Scomo should get extra backpay for each portfolio?”

“Mate, don’t you remember when Gough and his close associates* each held a swag of portfolios at the start of the golden age? They didn’t get any extra money for that.”

“Golden age? Are you still dreaming? It ended in tears, you fool.”

“Same old, same old, back again with a slight change of fashion. You remember the campaign to replace our colonial flag with one of our own, something we could be proud of?”

“I remember. The new flag designs rose, shone, and then went out like the fireworks on any New Year’s Eve. It’s been darkness ever since, what’s that, 30 or more years ago?’

“But with one bit of brightness. There’s a First Nation’s flag. It’s got real meaning, it’s well recognised, and the colours are ours. Then there’s the acceptance of green and gold. You reckon someone could come up with our flag based on all those elements?”

“You are still dreaming. When did you last hear one of mine or one of yours talking in public about our national flag? These days they are having a Clayton’s debate about a constitutionally embedded platform for a few dozen people claiming to be true representatives of today’s descendants of those who lived here for millennia, some of whom may have enjoyed this view.”

“Leave it be. There’s still time for us to look at both sides of the argument. Did you ever watch the coronation? Like us, he’s got beyond the biblical three score years and ten.”

“Mate, I’d watch that game you call football before I’d watch that foreigner becoming our head of state. You know, when we become a republic let’s make sure that our first appointee as president is claimed by First Nations.”

I finished my coffee, checked the helmet, pulled up my gloves, revved the engine and took off, back up to the highway, looking at those bobbing heads in the rear view mirror.

*A reference to the early days of the Whitlam Labor government, late 1972.

Hugh Selby is a former barrister and his free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.