Wasted life

In the end, it seems, nothing summarises the time in Parliament of Peter Dunne quite as much as his timing in choosing to leave.

After thirty years in office, around twenty of them as a lapdog to power, he had signalled that he might, for the first time, be able to see his way clear to effecting some sort of liberalisation of the War on Drugs -- his first move of any significance in all his time as the various politicians' poodle.

So the very moment he may have proved himself to be of some use to the wider world proved instead his complete and utter impotence.

And instead of a liberalisation that has been far too long in coming, an achievement for which he would have deservedly been remembered, he leaves the Parliament instead after thirty years without a single credible achievement to his name.

He will be able to look back back, in other words -- just like many another politician -- at a wholly and completely wasted life.
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