A veteran of 24 territory and national budgets dating back to 1989, he agrees we are now too quick to label even modest cutbacks and reforms as draconian, immoderate and unnecessarily cruel.

''We live in an age when people believe they are on an endlessly upward trajectory,'' he said. ''Historically that hasn't always been the case.''

The senator's allegiance to the conservative side of politics does not prevent him from expressing admiration for the work of Joseph Scullin, Australia's ninth prime minister, who held office from October 1929 to January 1932.

''Scullin was the unlucky Labor prime minister who presided over the greatest financial crisis to befall the nation; the Great Depression,'' he told Gang Gang.

Senator Humphries said while Australia had been at least partially insulated from the full impact of the current global financial crisis, that had not been the case in the early 1930s. ''The 1931 budget was one of the most difficult budgets ever for Canberra's public servants,'' he said. ''The idea of actually cutting people's wages would be anathema to many today.''

Senator Humphries has forwarded Gang Gang some Hansard extracts that would even make a contemporary Cypriot, Greek or Italian voter wince. For example in 1930: ''It is proposed to impose a special taxation on the allowances of Ministers and Members of Parliament and also on those salaries of government employees that exceed 725 pounds per annum. This will be done by a super tax (ranging from 10 to 15 per cent).''

And, in the 1931-32 budget: ''The salaries and wages of Commonwealth employees are to be reduced on a graduated scale so designed that the total reductions will represent 20 per cent on the whole salary bill. All adult male officers will be subject to a reduction of 34 pounds to cover the fall in the cost of living.''

Scullin practiced what he preached, choosing not to occupy the Lodge on assuming office on the grounds it was a needless expense. He had campaigned against the expense of the Lodge during the election which cost Stanley Bruce his seat in a Labor landslide that saw the workers' party take 46 of a possible 75 seats.

Things were already crook with national unemployment running at 13 per cent and the economy already in depression. Then, on October 24, 1929, Wall Street crashed on what has come to be known as black Thursday. By 1932 unemployment had peaked at 30 per cent, second only to Germany.

Tough times called for tough medicine and Scullin was willing to deliver it. And, unlike in Europe then and now, the Australia of the day accepted short-term austerity as the price of future prosperity.

Gang Gang asked Senator Humphries if those now complaining about the relatively benign cutbacks announced in the budget would be well advised to take a teaspoon of cement and harden up. ''I wouldn't disagree with that sentiment,'' he replied. ''You've got to keep a sense of perspective. Our forebears were made of sterner stuff.''

I have, until now, remained mute on the Skywhale on the grounds it is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to speak up and to prove it.

With the effluxion of time my initial sense of ''wtf?'' has given way to a grudging acceptance and, finally, ''lol'' at the increasingly absurd and over-the-top protests of the diehard critics.

Skywhale has been a journey. I suspect I am not the only one who has travelled from denial to acceptance.

Whimsy is a wonderful thing and this flying sculpture, so obviously benign and nurturing, has added a much needed touch of surrealism to the Canberra landscape. Why else the rush by Canberrans of all sexes, ages and cultural backgrounds to capture our airborne vision on phone cameras and camcorders every time she appears?

In a more patrician time a wealthy aristocrat may have commissioned Skywhale as a public-spirited folly to divert and amuse. Lacking such a benefactor, the ACT government has taken it upon itself to rise to the occasion. Bravo.