It certainly is a busy life we all lead, and politicians are probably ridiculously busy both work wise and socially.

Take John Howard, for instance; socially he agreed to be involved in an eBay auction to have dinner at the Lodge and go to the cricket, all in the name of charity.

It is all for a good cause and probably a bit of fun, although not my cup of tea – I will come back to that later.

Work wise, the PM was that busy last week he didn’t know whether he would be able to fit the Dalai Lama into his very busy schedule.

A lot of people were saying that it had more to do with one of our biggest business partners, China, not wanting him to have any part of one of the world’s most popular spiritual leaders.

But it is amazing what public opinion can do leading up to a federal election.
Of course, his supporters would disagree with me saying that Mr Howard didn’t say he wouldn’t meet, just said he was having trouble finding a spot in his diary, and lo and behold, in the face of a tsunami-size wave of public opinion indicating he should meet, there it was, the spot in the diary.

I imagine it would have nothing to do with the fact that there is an election coming up, the government is slightly behind on the polling and certainly do not want to look like they are become another province of China.

Now these are only my thoughts and I am sure there will be plenty who disagree, but my reasoning is this.

When all this was going on last week I Googled the Tibetan leader’s last visit to Australia, in May 2002.

Did he get a meeting with Mr Howard? Sadly, no, he was in China endeavouring to sign us up for a lucrative gas contract.

Was it all a huge coincidence? Now call me cynical, but the difference in the 2002 visit and last week’s could all be in the timing.

Last time the election had fallen in November of 2001 and I would reckon popular opinion was of no consequence, which sort of fits into why the elusive spot turned up in our fearless leader’s diary this time around.

Of course, our state premier couldn’t meet with the Dalai Lama as he had an appointment with Kiwi prime minister Helen Clark and to quote our fearless leader, “New Zealand has jobs on offer, I don’t know how many Tibet has.”

Apparently humanity has gone out the window.

But getting back to the auction on eBay, John Howard at the Lodge and then cricket the next day, or Kevin Rudd at Parliament House with a “mystery” front-bencher How exciting would that be, drinking Penfolds Grange with the PM and then going to the cricket hoping he didn’t have to bowl the opening over like his pitiful attempt in Iraq.

Even more riveting, a night out with Kevin, probably looking over his old report card from Nambour High with the only hope for a bit of excitement being he might turn up with Wayne Swan as the mystery guest.

I suppose, good on them, doing something for charity and I imagine they will get plenty of generous offers from people wanting to spend time with them.
Not me, though. If I had money to spare I still couldn’t get too excited with those, with the exception of Wayne.

If I had to pick a politician, judging by his comments about his own party last week, I would have to go with Paul Keating’s dry sense of humour.

But to be balanced, I reckon I would have enjoyed dinner with the late Jim Killen as well, as he too had a great dry wit.

But, of course, the person writing this did pay money to have dinner with Ronald Biggs, which may tell you something.

But with the utmost respect to all, I think if I had the bank balance of Bill Gates, the person that would be most interesting to share dinner with would be the Dalai Lama, but I doubt very much whether he would let his time be auctioned.

I am guessing, but I think he would think that somehow he has time for everyone, which is a far cry from most of our political leaders.

If he would agree we could have it at the Govinda’s Pure Vegetarian Cafe at Maroochydore and I might even invite Mr Beattie. We both might learn something.