You be the judge

Fred Cook was the greatest VFA player I ever played against. In the 70s and early 80s, finding an opponent for him was a nightmare for opposition coaches. Around 1994 I visited him in Pentridge Gaol. I was the independent federal member for Wills at the time and he was a convicted drug dealer. It had been a tragic fall for the VFA's most adored and charismatic footballer. When the VFA decided to strike a medal for the leading goal-kicker, it named the award the Jim 'Frosty Miller' medal, after the Dandenong champion. 'Frosty' was a legend of the VFA, but it was Cook who was the real doyen of forwards. And although the VFA said Miller's better goal-kicking percentage was the reason, everyone knew it was Cook's fall from grace that was behind the decision.

No one mentioned the Fred Cook saga when the debate raged over Gary Ablett's inclusion into the AFL Hall of Fame. Making a decision about whether someone is a fit and proper person to be in the Hall of Fame is not easy. John Nicholls went to gaol for embezzlement more than forty years ago and Leigh Matthews has an assault conviction. So misdemeanours and 'criminality' is no impediment to acquiring a place in the Hall of Fame. The difference with Ablett's case is that an infatuated young person, Alicia Horan, died in Ablett's company and the Coroner was scathing of his actions. Whatever Eddie McGuire's motives in attacking the Hall of Fame judging panel, it's a fact that a number of them have been strident in their criticism of footballers behaving badly. Like me, Caroline Wilson took a dim view of the way the football community dealt with the rape allegations in February 2004. And of course Tim Lane rather famously resigned from Channel Nine because he believed Eddie McGuire had a conflict of interest when it came to calling Collingwood matches. Not unreasonably, McGuire probably also had these facts in mind when he attacked the Hall of Fame selection panel on the Footy Show.

On the induction night, AFL commissioner Ron Evans described Ablett as a 'troubled soul', yet said nothing about the Horan family's suffering. I know how they'd have felt. My sister was murdered in 1987. When her ex-boyfriend was found guilty only of manslaughter, on the grounds that she'd provoked him to stab her to death, my family was devastated. What aggravated the pain was that no one in officialdom had ever said sorry. To admit Ablett into the Hall of Fame in the absence of an expression of sorrow is highly insensitive. Just because Gary Ablett couldn't put the word 'sorry' into his speech shouldn't mean the AFL can't say sorry for what has befallen the Horan family. After all the controversy you'd have thought someone at the AFL would have had enough imagination to advise Ron Evans to say sorry on behalf of the AFL. It's exactly what many people have demanded of John Howard when it comes to past sins committed against indigenous Australians.